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Swerve knew from the knock what kind of night it was going to be.
Whirl was slumped over against the doorframe, his frame sagging. A pile of plating held up by a few haphazard tentpoles, one arm weighed down by a canister of nightmare fuel. He looked like a light breeze would send him clattering to the ground. He lifted the fuel in a claw, gave it a little wave, and all but fell through the door into Swerve’s hab. “Heyyyy, Swoivesta.”
“Hey yourself.” Swerve held out his hands and caught the fuel canister as Whirl dropped it without looking. “You look pretty rough. You want the berth?”
Whirl shook his helm. His optic was dimmed nearly offline. If Swerve wasn’t paying attention, he might mistake Whirl’s shambling for sleepwalking. “Wanna—wanna have a t-t-t—”
Swerve scrambled for the berth as Whirl swayed like a tree in a stiff wind. He yanked the cushions off and tossed them onto the floor, just in time to keep Whirl from hitting metal at full speed when he tipped over and fully collapsed. His helm bounced off a pillow and his optic flickered. There was a light hiss of static before his voice came back. “Wanna have a talk about time loops.”
Of course. Of course. “Time loops, huh?” Swerve crouched to pull a pair of glasses out from under his berth. “That’s a pretty interesting topic. You know something about Brainstorm’s projects that I don’t?”
Whirl huffed. Sometimes that line got a full-on guffaw, but considering how bad Whirl looked, any reaction was good. “Nah, s’all theoretical. Allll a mind… t’ing. Ain’t real.”
“Hypothetical time loops. I’m intrigued.” Swerve poured the nightmare fuel—obviously a homebrew, the offgassing alone made his FIM chip cringe. “I’m game.” He paused. “Are you good to drink? No holes in the fuel system? This might melt through my floor if it leaks out of you.”
“No holes. ‘M ship shape. Shhhhhipt shape.”
Swerve slid the glass over next to Whirl’s helm. His proboscis spooled out and probed at the general area in front of his helm, missing his drink by a wide margin. “You want some help with that?”
“Mm.”
Swerve caught the proboscis with one finger, carefully guiding it to the glass so Whirl could dunk it into the fuel. Whirl hummed, apparently pleased. “So, hypothetical time loops.” Swerve picked up his own glass and sat down on the floor. Whirl didn’t so much as shift when Swerve used him as a backrest. “What resets the loop? Is it a set time period, or…?”
“Set time.” Whirl wiggled a claw without lifting it off the ground. An exhausted imitation of the wide, sweeping gestures that sometimes accompanied him setting up this scenario. “You’re stuck for—for a day.”
“Just a day?”
“Ten days. A hundred days. Does it matter?”
“Maybe not to you, but I would not remember the start of a super long time loop. Anything that gets up into the years would be impossible for me to get out of.”
“You’d remember eventually.” No laugh this time. Sometimes that got a giggle. “Do it enough times and you’d have it burned into your code.”
Swerve took a sip of his nightmare fuel and winced. Poorly filtered but highly refined. It sure had a lot of taste to it. Whirl might have stolen it out of another Wrecker’s stash, but as long as Swerve didn’t ask where he got it, no one would blame him for drinking it. “Fair. So… you’re stuck in a time loop for a day.”
“Nuh-uh. You.” There was a light squeaking as Whirl dragged his claw up to tap against Swerve’s leg. It was obviously a lot of work to move his whole arm. “You’re the one in a time loop, Swoivesta.”
“I’m stuck in a time loop for a day.” Swerve had tried to start without the correction, once—just went straight into ‘so I’m stuck in a time loop’—but that wasn’t the same conversation. It had… something about doing that had upset Whirl and he’d wound up changing the topic entirely. “I assume it’s a sucky day or else I’d want to stay there forever.” He reached down and pulled Whirl’s claw up onto his lap. Some of the tapping and poking would be easier on Whirl if he was already in reach. “Not the fifteenth quartex fourth arc 234, for example. Blurr won his fourth Ibex cup that day, and I could watch that race forever. I’d just keep sneaking into the arena and getting different angles on it. That’s the closest race he was ever in, did you know that? Not counting the ones after they started putting limits on the number of transformations per lap and regulating the type of fuels the racers could use. It was the closest anyone has ever come to catching him while he was running at his best—and also possibly the greatest race of all time. If there’s still footage of that race out there I would pay so much money for it. That could be used to bribe me to do unspeakable things. What were we talking about again?”
“Tiiiiiime looooop.” Whirl’s optic was fully offline now and his glass was already half empty. “Ya stuck in a time loop, and ya gotta get out.”
“How many loops am I allowed to spend looking for footage of that race?”
That got another little huff of laughter. “Three hundred.”
Swerve rubbed his thumb against the blunt outer curve of Whirl’s claw. He was either too tired or too insensate to protest the gentle contact. “I might be able to find it with three hundred days of dedicated searching. Plus if there’s no consequences I can do all sorts of things in the pursuit that I wouldn’t normally do. Talk to ‘cons, figure out how to hack into secure databases, bribe-and-or-blackmail Rewind so he’ll teach me how to hack into secure databases… he definitely knows how to do that. He won’t admit it, but he’s an information whore.” Whirl snorted. “He is! A whore for information. I bet with a time loop I could figure out what everyone’s favorite things are. The best tools for bribery.”
“I already know all that stuff.”
Sometimes Swerve faked offense to that. “And you haven’t told me?”
“Nuh-uh.” Whirl’s field loosened enough that Swerve could feel it. He was deeply tired, beyond whatever wear his frame had seen in the time since his last visit to Kimia. Too tired to even teek smug at holding potentially useful information over Swerve’s helm. “S’classified.”
“Alright, Mr. Classified.” Swerve took another sip of his drink. “Assuming I first spend three hundred of the same day finding footage of the greatest race of all time, and now I actually want to get out of it… what else would I do…” He wondered if Whirl would drop into recharge before the end of this conversation. He’d never started it while this beat down before. He’d started it while absolutely blitzed before, but usually he was sober and just… emotional. “I think I’d do the stuff I wouldn’t normally do. Tell mechs I want to screw them or want them to go screw themselves. Tell mechs my deepest secrets to see if they react as badly as I think they will.”
“Wanna spill one of those for me?”
He wanted to. Primus, he wanted to. He’d considered it every time after the first. “Oh no, you’re not gettin’ something like that out of me that easy.” If Whirl wanted a secret, he would have to be the one to derail things. “Put that classified bribery knowledge to use if you want the good stuff.”
Whirl inflected his field into a brief pout before it smoothed back out.
“It probably wouldn’t even be the kind of secret you’d like. Probably something gross and mushy. The kind of thing I’d regret saying as soon as it was out of my mouth but it wouldn’t matter because in however long I’d be back at the beginning. The universe un-saying the words for me.”
“You nevah know if s’gon be da las’ loop on da train ride.” Whirl’s accent got thicker as his guard lowered. “Dey might rembah—no, s’ missin’ sumfin’—remememememem—mm? Might recollect.”
“Well once the loop stops I better be able to re-collect that race footage.”
Whirl let out a tipsy little giggle. He flexed his claw minutely in Swerve’s lap. “‘M low on…” he trailed off into static. Swerve reached over and refilled Whirl’s glass. There was supposed to be a whole exchange attached to the refill, but Whirl was out of it enough to accept the omission with only a slurred, “Thanks.”
“This stuff’s pretty strong for how fast you’re going through it.”
“Mngh.”
“I can temper it with some regular high grade if—”
“Nn.”
“Alright, alright. Pure, tank-rusting filth it is.” Swerve rubbed the side of Whirl’s neck. Whirl didn’t protest the tender gesture. “Drink yourself unconscious and complain to me about it in the morning.”
Whirl’s venting evened out to a steady hum. Swerve could hear the slight rattle from behind Whirl’s cockpit where something wasn’t aligned quite right. “Rmmr.”
Swerve picked the conversation back up at Whirl’s insistence. “If it is the last loop on the train ride and other mechs do remember the horrifically embarrassing things I’ve said, I don’t think that’s the worst thing ever. I say, now, not having to deal with the hypothetical consequences of my hypothetical actions. Speaking from my lofty highrise of not being trapped in an actual time loop.” He left his hand on Whirl’s neck and pulled his feet closer to his frame, turning his lap into a cradle to keep Whirl’s claw where it was. “But, to completely throw hypothetical Swerve under the bus, that guy will have probably lost his mind by the time he resorts to spilling his own deepest darkest secrets to anyone who’ll listen, so I don’t think he’s gonna care. He can handle the hypothetical consequences of his actions in exchange for getting the time stream flowing again.”
“Gotta secret.”
“You do? Wanna share?” Whirl never told him what it was, but Swerve suspected that he wanted to. The same way Swerve wanted to tell him his deepest secrets. But that wasn’t part of the conversation they were having. Were having again, specifically. If it was a new conversation, maybe, but Whirl didn’t want a new conversation. He wanted this same conversation again. He wanted to recreate it with Swerve, every few years. Even if the energy was different, the conversation had to be the same.
Swerve thought this was a consequence of Whirl’s actions. He was a Wrecker, after all. Every time he didn’t die he accumulated a little more damage, instead. Frame damage, spark damage, processor damage… Swerve wasn’t Whirl’s doctor, but it was easy to see where all that buildup would start putting holes in a mech’s memories.
And this was the hole he chose to fill in. There had to be more of them—whole decades worth of gaps in his archives, potentially—moments he wasn’t going to get back. But Whirl wanted this moment. With Swerve. Which was why he showed up at Swerve’s doorway with contraband booze and said he wanted to talk about time loops, and why he got upset when Swerve went off script. Too far off script, anyway. Swerve wasn’t cradling his claw and helping him drink his nightmare fuel the first time around.
It made Swerve’s spark ache.
Whirl mumbled something. A collection of glyphs lost to static. ‘If I tell you, it’s not a secret anymore, wise guy.’
“It can still be a secret. It’ll just be a two-person secret instead of a one-person secret. You’ve heard of co-conspirators.” Swerve looked down at Whirl. He hadn’t taken more than a sip of his drink since Swerve topped it off. “Make me your partner in crime, Whirl.”
Whirl’s claw flexed slightly in his lap.
Swerve tried to will it into Whirl’s processor through his field. Tell him. Tell him. As if Whirl would pick up on what he wanted from vibes alone and spill whatever truth he had tucked away out of reach. Was it even there anymore? Did Whirl know what the deep, dark secret was from the first version of this conversation? Or had some gap in his memory taken that, too. Crumbling off into oblivion as another chasm widened. Something he’d wanted to tell Swerve once, but couldn’t. Couldn’t then, couldn’t now.
Maybe recreating this memory would help him remember the secret. Maybe that was the point.
Whirl shifted against his back and Swerve pulled himself back to the present, out of his spiraling thoughts. He’d missed the cue for the next part. Either that or Whirl wasn’t cognizant enough to give it, and he needed to keep track of the timing on his own. “You can tell me when I figure out your best bribes.”
‘Me? I’m easy.’
“If you were easy, you’d tell me yourself.” But Whirl wasn’t easy. He was and he wasn’t. He was the same conversation four dozen times, getting his claws all the way down around Swerve’s spark every time even when the context was halfway a fight or—or whatever this was. “How about a drink? I can mix you a better one than this.” It applied just as much to this batch of nightmare fuel as it did to the half-slurry jet fuel Swerve was referring to the first time.
‘Nope! If you make one I can taste, I’ll consider it.’
He could, and he had, after that. Whirl had been delighted. He’d promised to consider letting Swerve ‘into the loop’ and then laughed until his vents choked out. “I’ll take that challenge. What else… no gifts from Brainstorm, I’m guessing?”
‘Sorry, Swoivesta, I only accept bespoke bribery.’
“Spoked bribery, got it. I’ll make you a bicycle you can ride even with your dumb long legs.” Whirl spent the next three minutes cackling loudly. The other Whirl did. First Whirl. Current-present-this Whirl didn’t react at all. Was he recharging? Or just listening?
‘Thoid time’s the charm! What are you gonna give me?’
“I only get three guesses? Unfair.”
‘Storybook rules, you know how it is.’
“Yeah, yeah…” He’d gotten so many more than three guesses. The third one was a freebie. Whirl didn’t get upset when he switched it up. Maybe he didn’t remember how it was supposed to go. How it had gone, originally. Swerve swallowed another mouthful of nightmare fuel and didn’t taste it. “Better make it a good one.”
‘Take your time.’
Swerve wanted to… to do something stupid. To throw the script out the airlock and—and to do more than gingerly rub his fingertips over Whirl’s plating. He wanted to pry Whirl open and hold his spark in his hands and ask the damn thing if this was enough, if this was what he needed—if this made Whirl happy.
“What if…” He set his drink aside, holding Whirl’s claw so it wouldn’t slide out of his lap as he scooted closer to Whirl’s helm. “What if we trade? Secret for a secret. I show you mine, you show me yours.” Whirl hadn’t drunk another drop since the last time Swerve checked. He lifted Whirl’s proboscis out of the glass with a fingertip and it automatically spooled back up into the intake slot between his pedipalps. Recharging, insensate… unable to protest, either way. Swerve felt like his spark was going to vibrate out of his chest. “That’s a good offer, right? Good enough?”
Whirl always said no. Said something…flippant or snarky because Swerve never made a good offer on the third guess. He never made a real offer because he hadn’t the first time or any of the other times and the content wasn’t as important to the script as the vital insincerity. It was a joke because that was the point. The closest Whirl came to accepting was three iterations back, when Swerve offered to tell him what Brainstorm’s latest secret project was.
‘If I can guess da secret aftah t’ree woids it don’ count.’
And of course he’d guessed, somehow, and then teased Swerve for being a bad informant. Which he was, because the only secrets he knew were definitely secrets were his own.
“I’ll go first. If you guess after three words…” Whirl’s field didn’t so much as flicker. No ripples, no flux… either he was unconscious or he was so committed to the bit it was almost the same thing. Swerve leaned in and he couldn’t—he couldn’t look Whirl in the optic, not even offline, because he wasn’t the hypothetical timeloop version of Swerve with nothing to lose, he was the regular, chained to the forward motion of the universe Swerve who was going to have a hungover Wrecker on his floor in a few hours. He rested his helm against Whirl’s neck. “There’s only four words so I guess it wouldn’t be hard.” Would Swerve’s spark explode from saying this out loud? It felt like it would. It felt like saying it and getting no response would crack him in half. It felt like saying it and getting any response would make him transform fully inside out.
Whirl’s engine maintained an even, soothing rumble. Even the tiny rattle from his ventilation system was comforting.
Was it normal to want to crawl inside the frame of someone you cared about? Was it normal to want to open your chest cavity and tuck a whole other mech inside yourself, despite the physical impossibility of compressing a full-sized flightframe into a convenient package to keep next to your spark? “I love you, Whirl.” Primus, the words weren’t enough. They felt so trite. Swerve wanted to sparknap Whirl and keep him within arm’s reach for the rest of his life. He felt unhinged, thinking about Whirl going through his life not knowing that Swerve was at every moment seconds away from offering up his own spark as cocktail seasoning.
If Whirl knew, would he still want to recreate this memory with Swerve every time it started to slip away?
Whirl didn’t move. The rumble of his engine persisted. His field remained a tired, still pool in which Swerve was submerged.
“Give me some time to think about it, then. I’ll bribe that secret out of you yet.” There was more to the conversation. More after. But if Whirl wasn’t awake to appreciate it…
No, Swerve would probably talk through it anyway. Just to keep it fresh in his mind. For the next time.