Angstpril 2023

Jazz watches himself.

If he really thinks, casts his mind back to some of his earliest memories, he can almost remember a time when he was unselfconscious. Way back before his third frame upgrade, before he was sent off to school, when he lived with his mentor, he can remember a time when he didn’t watch himself as closely as he watched everything else. 

There’s this one memory, so vivid he can still feel the wind on his face, of walking to the park to meet up with a few playmates he hardly remembers. He was excited, and he can remember the idea of not being conscious of himself, of not preparing an act but, well. The feeling of absence says it all. He can’t really recall it, can’t make himself feel it no matter how hard he tries. Even those memories have been recolored by who he is today. 

Who he isn’t. 

Jazz comes back late from a SpecOps meeting sporting a migraine and a processor full of ways Mirage’s next mission could go wrong. Prowl comes back later, doesn’t say where he’s been. His shift ended a joor ago. 

Jazz shakes himself from his reverie. “Hey.” 

“Mmn.” Prowl looks tired, and when Jazz makes space for him on the berth, he falls heavily into it. “Hey.” 

Jazz sets his ‘pad down and lets Prowl tuck himself into Jazz’s side. He’s running warm like he always does when the tacnet’s been going for a while, and when Jazz starts massaging the cables in his neck, he moans in achy relief. 

“Long day?” Jazz asks. 

“Always.” Prowl lets his optics offline and sinks further into Jazz’s embrace, letting himself be rearranged until they’re horizontal with Prowl sprawled out over Jazz’s bumper. “You?” 

He stretches with an exaggerated sigh as his spinal struts slip back into alignment. “Ah, not so bad. Brought the twins and Bluestreak over to the shooting range earlier and they had a good time. Nice to see them settling down a bit, making friends. Sunny didn’t even try to take anyone’s head off.”

Prowl hums, and the sound rumbles through Jazz’s chest and straight into his spark. It’s nice, really nice. “Good.” 

“Any plans for the rest of the night?” 

Prowl gives Jazz a pointed look and somehow settles further on top of him. “I was hoping for a night in…?”

Jazz laughs. “I was thinking the same thing,” he says, pinging Ironhide with a message that they’d reschedule their drinks for later in the week. “Want to find something to watch?” 

Prowl’s already fumbling for their shared datapad. 

Later, when they’ve run through two episodes of some show about organic life in deep space and Prowl’s drifting half-asleep, breathing slowly into the crook of Jazz’s neck, Jazz sets the datapad aside and turns the lights to their lowest setting, just above darkness. He rubs a hand up and down Prowl’s back, kisses the top of his helm, and murmurs, “Love you.” 

Then, he lets himself recharge.

Jazz is attractive. Of course he is. That’s more than clear, and more than one mech has suggested that he’s “out of Prowl’s league.” It’s more true than the commenters know, on more levels than physical, but for whatever reason, Jazz has chosen Prowl. Jazz trusts Prowl, and right now, that trust has Prowl straddling Jazz’s prone body, flogging his inner thighs and hips while Jazz squirms and whines and cries. 

He’s cuffed to the bed at the ankles and wrists and blindfolded with a rich blue strip of fabric damp with optic fluid. Every time Prowl hits him, his whole frame jerks and he cries out like he’s about to overload. Prowl hasn’t even touched his array yet. It’s flattering, the sort of reactions he can draw out of an unshakeable mech like Jazz. 

It’s not easy, of course. Jazz doesn’t sub often because it takes quite a bit of time and effort to get him down into a headspace deep enough to truly enjoy the experience, and it’s intense enough to have him down for the count for a day or two. This evening, the start of two days of leave time all but guaranteed to be emergency-free, is perfect. Jazz is perfect. Jazz is Prowl’s, and Prowl tells him as much. 

“Yes, yes, fuck, I’m yours,” Jazz howls as Prowl brings the flogger down on the seam just next to his array. “Prowl! Fuck, fuck, touch me, please!” 

Prowl laughs darkly and lays a second and then a third hit to the same area. Jazz’s spike, already hard and leaking transfluid, jerks against his stomach plates. Prowl swats it, careful of the force he applies, and without so much as a sound Jazz overloads. He goes rigid all over, arching up with so much force the bed frame creaks and the stasis cuffs flash pressure-warning red. It all holds, though, and Jazz holds the position as overload rips through him long and overwhelming. He sobs Prowl’s name as the last of the sparks fade from his frame. 

“Look at that.” Prowl trails the flogger up the inside of one powerful, twitching thigh and teases Jazz’s valve and node with it. “So desperate you’ll overload at anything. Needy brat.” He punctuates the last word with a slap to Jazz’s valve and Jazz keens. His vocalizer’s half static when he stammers out an agreement, hazy in that way it only gets when he drops deep. Good, Prowl thinks. Now they can get started. 

He shifts his weight, sitting back on Jazz’s thighs and watching his face carefully as he runs the flogger down his stomach, closer and closer to his array. This is the most delicate transition in the whole scene, this place between foreplay and fucking where Jazz most frequently taps out. 

Tonight, the only thing on that gorgeous face is hazy need, that post-overload desperation only Prowl gets to see. Suddenly, Prowl’s not sure if he wants to kiss Jazz or bite him, so he does both, grabbing Jazz by the horn and leaning down to kiss him. Jazz moans into Prowl’s mouth, cuffs holding fast even as he strains to touch Prowl. When Prowl pulls away, Jazz is gasping for breath and energon is smeared across both of their lips. Prowl licks it off of both of them, then takes Jazz’s throat in a loose hold and growls, “You’d better get ready.” Jazz just nods, limp and pliant. 

He settles back between Jazz’s legs and, without warning or preparation, shoves two fingers into his soaking, throbbing valve. Jazz yelps and thrashes and Prowl is about to work a third finger in when Jazz stammers out, “Red.” 

Prowl’s pulled out and hit the release for the cuffs before his conscious processor’s even caught up with the situation. Jazz rips the blindfold off and curls in on himself, burying his face in a pillow before Prowl can get a good look at him. 

“Did I hurt you?” he demands, throwing the flogger off the side of the bed. “Was that too rough? Primus, Jazz, I’m so sorry.” 

Jazz is shaking all over, and when Prowl drops down to lay facing him, he pulls his face up from the pillow and murmurs a shaky, “No.” He’s crying in earnest now, the bad sort of tears, and Prowl’s about to press for more information when Jazz continues, quiet, “Not your fault. Just dropped too fast, panicked a little. Sorry.” His visor is dim, and when Prowl lays a hand on his face, he’s warm. 

“Don’t apologize,” Prowl says firmly. “You have no reason to apologize. What do you need from me?” 

Jazz is still deep under, Prowl realizes, and that sort of question might have been too open-ended. “I… I, uh. Hold me? Please?” 

“Of course.” 

Jazz is on Prowl before he can even move. He tucks his head under Prowl’s chin and lets Prowl throw an arm and a leg over him, pulling him closer, possessive. He’s been told that’s a negative trait of his, but when Jazz’s trembling eases more the tighter Prowl holds him, he has trouble seeing it that way. 

He’s stroking Jazz’s back when Jazz whispers, “I couldn’t remember how to get out of the cuffs.” Prowl says nothing, and he continues, “I was so deep I couldn’t think, felt like I was drugged, and it was good and then… Then I thought, I’ve got to get out of here, and I couldn’t. Like a switch flipped.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Jazz laughs harshly. “Don’t be. Not your fault I’m fucked up. Can’t tell the difference between sex and a mission.” 

Prowl says nothing about the occasional intersection of those two things. “There is nothing wrong with you.” 

“Liar.” 

“There is nothing wrong with you that I can’t handle,” Prowl amends, and Jazz makes a surprised little noise. “You’re mine, and I know you.” 

“I’m yours,” he repeats, voice still thick with that senseless static. 

“Sleep,” Prowl commands. “We can try again in the morning.” 

Jazz obeys. 

It’s 0205 and Starscream can’t sleep. The insomnia’s getting worse and worse lately, rivaling how bad it was just after Skyfire’s death. It’s hard to sleep in Megatron’s bed. 

Their bed, he reminds himself. It’s their bed, and he’s staring out into the shadows of their room.  How did he get here? Not literally, he knows he followed Megatron here after evening rations just like he has almost every night for the last thousand years. He laid down and let Megatron fuck him, and then he let Megatron hold him as he fell into recharge. All of that’s simple. Even the next part, getting up and going to the washracks and staring into the mirror at his swollen, throbbing cheek was simple. Going back to bed was simple, too. Habitual. 

Would the pain become habitual, too? 

Before today, Megatron had only ever hit him once. Well, it was only one incident, though that incident had involved multiple blows. Starscream had fragged up a mission and then said some choice words to Megatron about it, and Megatron had beaten him bloody in front of half the faction. Afterward, in their quarters, in this bed, he’d patched Starscream up and cried and apologized and told him it was an accident, that he’d lost control, that they would keep their work and private lives separate from then on. Compared to that, today had been minor. Starscream had disagreed with something Megatron had said during a meeting, and Megatron had backhanded him across the face. Quick, clean, professional, and that was it. No follow-up, no apology. Like it never happened. Starscream didn’t mention it. No one else mentioned it, either, not Thundercracker or Skywarp or Soundwave or any of the dozen other bots that had been present. 

How is it, he wonders, that this is more real to him than the beatdown? How is one slap worse than the incident that had put him in the medbay? Was it the sex afterward? Was it more intense than usual? Did Megatron get off on hitting him? He probably did, the sick bastard. In that case, maybe some roleplay in the bedroom would fix things. Let him get his fill while Starscream’s still got some semblance of control. He has a feeling, though, that without an audience, it wouldn’t be the same. Some itch would remain unscratched so long as Starscream remained unhumilated.

Beside him, Megatron exvents heavily and rolls closer, throwing a huge arm over Starscream’s waist. He has to suppress the urge to scream or claw his plating off or run away. He could get up right now and leave. Megatron’s not a light sleeper, and he’s sure he could be off-base and out of range before anyone notices his absence. But then what? He’d lose everything. Sure, he’s only second in command, but he’s working on it. Whether he knows it or not, Megatron is still a part of Starscream’s long game. Soon, if he’s patient and diligent, the Decepticons will be his. 

It’s been a long day. A fun one, a productive one, sure, but long. A new ship of neutrals had arrived at the Station and Jazz and Soundwave had spent almost the whole day helping them settle in. Now, he’s almost falling asleep over his evening cube, so Soundwave’s silence doesn’t strike him as odd; Jazz is feeling frazzled himself. His tension does, though. Jazz watches him tighten up, winding higher and higher the louder the room gets, and when someone laughs, loud and sudden, Soundwave snaps. He stands so quickly he nearly knocks his chair over and practically runs out of the room. 

Cosmos gives Jazz a look of wide-eyed confusion and Jazz waves him away. “Give him some space, mech. He’s alright, just a bit overwhelmed.” 

Cosmos nods, but Jazz can tell he still wants to follow Soundwave, so he gets up and does it for him. Jazz, at least, knows how to keep a good distance. Cosmos is a great mech and all, but maybe not the one you want in your personal space after a long, hectic day. He doesn’t get it like Jazz and Soundwave do, isn’t glitched in the same way. Noise is pain, proximity is pain, and Jazz has no intention of hurting Soundwave tonight. 

He does a few laps of the halls before approaching their quarters, giving Soundwave some time to decompress. Then, after listening outside for any sounds of distress or indications he shouldn’t enter, he opens the door and steps silently into the room. 

Soundwave is sitting on their shared bed with a weighted blanket draped around his shoulders, rocking back and forth and humming a low, steady note Jazz can feel in his chest. His head snaps up at the sound of the door and his visor flares before he realizes it’s just Jazz. He still looks uneasy, though, and this is the first time he’s had a meltdown since their relationship began, so Jazz jerks his thumb towards their private washracks and indicates he’s going to take a shower, give Soundwave some space. Soundwave nods, then goes back to rocking. 

By the time Jazz emerges from the washracks, Soundwave’s laying on his side, still covered in the blanket, visor dim and EM field flat and tired. He steps into Soundwave’s line of sight and gets a brightening of the visor in response, so he risks a soft, “Hey.” Soundwave moves, but not to flinch away. Instead, he throws the blanket off and rolls onto his back, inviting Jazz to come lay on top of him. Jazz does, settling all his weight on Soundwave and getting a contented sigh for his efforts. “You doing alright?” 

Soundwave hums. “Better with Jazz.” 

Jazz presses a kiss to Soundwave’s mask. “Good. Night in?” 

“Would be appreciated.” Soundwave’s voice is soft, tired.

“Would be appreciated by me, too.” Jazz offlines his optics. “Love you.” 

“Love you, too.” Soundwave pulls the weighted blanket back over both of them. It’s quiet now, and Jazz sleeps. 

Hunter was there when Sunstreaker woke up. The kid had insisted on it, badgered Ratchet until he’d gotten a promise he’d be notified as soon as Sunstreaker was taken out of the regeneration chamber, and honestly, Ratchet didn’t have the heart to deny him. He and Sunstreaker had been through the Pit, in a way only they could understand, and there was a bond between them now deeper than Ratchet would have thought possible. A few months ago, they couldn’t stand each other. Now, Hunter’s perched on Sunstreaker’s shoulder laughing while Sideswipe and Mirage recount their latest Earth adventures. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Hunter laughs, breathless and leaning on Sunstreaker’s audial fin for support. “Why’d you even go to a drive-through in the first place? You don’t eat food.”

Sideswipe rolls his eyes with the air of someone who’s been down this road before and Mirage bristles in mock-indignation, launching into some tangent about “wanting to know what it was like” and “the authentic human experience.” Ratchet’s not really listening. As long as they’re having fun and Sunstreaker isn’t a shaking, confused mess, it’s an improvement from a week ago. That’s all he cares about. 

Hunter’s been doing a bit better in the trauma recovery department, in no small part, Ratchet suspects, because his brain simply isn’t equipped to hold onto information about what had truly happened. He still understood it on an intellectual level, but disentangled from Sunstreaker’s processor, he lacked the storage and context to grapple with the reality of being used as a living experiment, fused with an alien life form and forced to adjust to a body so foreign to him he could no longer conceive of it as a body at all. He’s still struggling, but Verity and the others have been taking good care of him, and his newly forged friendship with Sunstreaker is doing both of them a lot of good. 

Sunstreaker is another story. Ratchet’s worried about him, worried that after all this mech he’s come to think of as his own has been through, this will be the thing that breaks him. It’s changed him, that much is evident. Most likely permanently, doubtfully for the better. Sunstreaker will have to live with an understanding of what it feels like to be torn to shreds and exploited at the deepest possible level, body, processor, and spark. There are few mechs alive who can relate to him, and many of those who could are not in a position to speak to Sunstreaker about the experience. Ratchet hates to admit it, but as close as he and the rest of the medical team are, Sunstreaker is still on his own. 

Well, on his own with Hunter. Ratchet looks up from sorting files to see Sunstreaker squinting at Hunter’s tiny datapad, trying to see something Hunter apparently finds amusing. When at last he manages to read the text, he smiles, really smiles, and Ratchet looks back to his work before anyone can catch him smiling, too.

It’s not a slow realization, not a conclusion Jazz thinks his way to deliberately. It’s not even really rational. He’s totally, completely fine coming back from the mission, debriefs and visits the medbay and settles down for an evening of paperwork with no problem. He doesn’t feel strange or uneasy. He lays down to recharge, and then some time later, wakes up from a horrific nightmare with one though clear in his processor:

“I can’t do this anymore.” He sobs it into the communicator, talking to Ratchet or Prowl or Optimus, fuck, he’s not even sure who he called. Whoever would pick up. “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t, I can’t.” 

Whoever it is on the other end of the line answers him, but he’s not listening, because someone’s punching the override code into his door lock and Ratchet and Prowl are coming into the room. Prowl is holding his communicator and Jazz’s own sobs echo through it. Oh. He drops his communicator and it hits the floor with a loud clatter. 

“Jazz, Jazz, Jazz,” Prowl keeps saying, and it takes Jazz a moment to realize that’s because he’s still crying and Ratchet’s trying to get close to him. Right. Can’t get close to Jazz when he’s upset because when he’s upset he gets dangerous because this fucking job has broken him. He killed five mechs less than a day ago. 

“Jazz,” Prowl says again. “Jazz, come on, talk to me.” Prowl’s kneeling in front of him and he’s closer than he should be if Jazz was on his berth, because somehow Jazz has gotten to the floor. “What’s wrong?” 

What’s not? He tries to convey this to Prowl, but all that comes out is, “I can’t do this anymore.” 

“Ratchet—”

“He’s fine, he’s not hurt, but his vitals are all over the place.” 

Yeah, Jazz can feel that. He can also feel Prowl’s hand on his shoulder, and Prowl’s steady and Jazz hasn’t killed him yet, so he collapses against him and shakes and cries with his face buried in Prowl’s shoulder. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore.” 

“Shh, shh, it’s alright,” Prowl soothes, but it’s not and it won’t be and it can’t be because Jazz has killed more people than he ever thought he’d know and this keeps happening to him, it’s not the first time, feels like this happens every year, like—

Like a prick in the neck, a rush of cold, and then nothing. 

He wakes up in the medbay with a splitting processor ache and Ratchet in his face. “Hey, Doc,” he rasps. 

“You,” Ratchet declares. “Need a break.” 

Jazz stretches and sits up. “What do you mean? I’m fine. Always fine.” 

“You didn’t seem fine last night. You sounded like you were dying.” Ratchet presses a cube of medgrade into his hands. 

“Yuh-huh.” What’s new?

“I’m going to talk to Optimus. You need—”

::Jazz, there’s been an emergency. Report to the bridge, and be ready.::

“Duty calls, Ratch.”

“...Sincerest apologies, but you’re simply not fit for our program and we think…” 

“...The charity case, good fucking riddance…” 

“Out you go, no putting it off now.” 

Sounds swim in and out of focus in bright blues and oranges in his field of vision. He’s not sure exactly what’s happening but he knows he’s leaving, so he goes. 

He goes goes goes goes and learns there are some places he can’t go, or shouldn’t go, and he keeps walking and everything hurts and he’s tired and it doesn’t make sense to go anymore, so he sits down. He wonders if he’s separate from his surroundings at all, or if the crash and flow of everything around and through him means he’s something else now. Something else was? Something else always. He sits for a while, then gets up and walks again, then sits again. 

Mechs make noises at him and he knows from experience that means they’re talking to him, but none of the sounds resolve themselves into speech so he ignores them. His surroundings, the visual, often also fail to resolve themselves into anything understandable. This is not new, and he runs into a few things, trips a few times, but he’s used to navigating like this. There’s a trick to it, and the trick is to run your hand down the wall as you walk. 

He’s never been so far outside the academy before, certainly not on his own. Too young, too stupid, too unpredictable and too easily overwhelmed. 

Something touches his hand and the world recenters itself around the mech in front of him. He’s sitting again, and a small beastformer is nudging his hand with their nose over and over again until he turns his palm up and a rough tongue touches it. The texture and repetition brings comprehension, and sound reorganizes itself into words.

“What’s your name, kid?” The knowledge of Ravage’s own name touches him like the tongue, rough and kind.

He doesn’t want to talk, and can’t remember besides. Words or name, name or words or name. With the words has come the pain again, always with the presence of the world around him, and he covers his audials with his hands. 

“Frag,” Ravage says. “Well, guess you’re coming with me.” He takes his hand in his mouth, gentle, and with a tug brings him to his feet and guides him. Good, the guiding has always been good. There’s a mech at the academy with a map of where she is at all times, perfectly precise. He admires it. Most times he doesn’t even know which direction to start in. 

Ravage pulls him along through more streets, these ones emptier. He disables his audials, but most of the sound does not reach him that way, and the city continues to ebb and flow through him. Eventually, they come to a place where other mechs wait, live, and Ravage drops his hand. 

“Welcome home, kid. It’s not much, but we’ll take care of you.”

Fortress Maximus wakes up, as he always tries to these days, at 0600. He gets up, remakes his berth, checks his comms, and sets out for the common room, ignoring the ache in his joints and helm and the heavy exhaustion and scrambled processor all telling him to go back to recharge. It’s constant these days. If he gave in to the demands of his frame and mind, he’d never get anything done. Schedules are important, Rung had told him. Stick to them, keep moving, you’ll be alright. 

Really, it’s not such a bad morning. He’s alive, he’s awake, he’s moving, and the lingering chaos from Sentinel’s temper tantrum is dying down. He’s here, safe, with his partners and Prowl, who he’s beginning to think of as a friend. There are much worse places and times to be, and there is much worse company to keep. He’ll get some energon, spend a few minutes scrolling the news feeds, and then get to work on today’s project, which involves rewiring the entire ventilation system on level seven. Repetitive, yes, maybe even boring, but Fort Max has come to appreciate a good meditative exercise these last few vorns. Maybe he’ll catch Red Alert and Cerebros in time to have midmeal with them. That would be nice. 

Speaking of Red Alert, someone’s already in the common room. It won’t be Cerebros or Prowl, neither of them are usually up until closer to 0800, but Red Alert’s sleep schedule is a mystery to all including, Fort Max suspects, the mech himself. 

Sure enough, when Max reaches the common room, Red Alert’s there. He’s curled up on the couch with a cube, staring blankly at his datapad and looking exhausted. “Morning,” Max greets and he startles so badly he nearly spills his cube. Max sits down next to him and Red Alert puts his things down at once before leaning into Max and burying his face in his shoulder. “Nightmares?” 

Red groans. “For once, no. No nightmares because I couldn’t sleep at all. It’s the new meds, I think. Great for everything else, but Primus, I can’t sleep.” 

Fort Max makes a soft sympathetic noise. “Anything I can do?” 

“No,” Red mumbles miserably. “I’m not even tired. Or, I am, but not, at the same time. Just…?” He trails off and leans harder into Max’s side, prompting him to wrap an arm around him and stroke his helm. “Mm, thanks.” The stressed whine of his engine slowly cycles down into a purring hum as Max rubs his sensory ridges. With any luck, he’ll fall asleep like this. Primus knows he needs it. 

They’re not lucky, of course, and by the time Cerebros wakes up, Red Alert’s done nothing more than melted into Max’s side, still awake but at least relaxed. He makes a disgruntled “mmph” noise when he sits up, rubbing his eyes and leaning over to give Cerebros a quick kiss. Then, groaning, he hauls himself to his feet. “Good fucking morning, I suppose.” 

All his life, Soundwave has struggled. Nothing has come easily to him, and he’s certain the mechs who talk about base coding and hardwired knowledge are lying. He’s learned how to live slowly and consciously, pulling together a rulebook for a world he simply wasn’t made for. There was a tension between him and other mechs, one even he could pick up on and identify as uncomfortable. A permanent social language barrier, one of the psychiatrists at Jhiaxus had told him when he was very young. A shame, a real shame to be cut off from the rest of the universe. Soundwave never liked him, though, and he’s long since gotten in the habit of disregarding everything he learned at the academy. They hadn’t wanted him; clearly it wasn’t a good match. 

The universe is harsh and loud and impatient and Soundwave is in turns too slow and too much, too intense but always lagging behind. He thinks if they would just let him have a moment to collect himself, he might be able to catch up, but they never do. 

Intermechanism relationships are difficult. He doesn’t want the right number or type of friends and lovers, and when he has conversations, he seems to miss half of them or read far too deeply into inconsequential nuances. Other mechs don’t understand the words from their own mouths, but they expect Soundwave to. They don’t like him, but they also don’t like the acts he puts on to make himself more tolerable. It’s a lose-lose situation, and war has taught Soundwave to leave those alone. 

Things aren’t difficult with Jazz. He’s glitched in a similar way, though he’s such a skilled actor most mechs never catch on. Soundwave isn’t constantly pretending around him, manufacturing reactions he doesn’t feel and pretending to be someone he’s not in an attempt to please. He doesn’t have to put on a show to get Jazz to like him. He can curl up on Jazz’s couch with a datapad and some music and not speak or make an expression or shift his field, and Jazz understands that he’s content. He can stand back and watch Jazz interact with other mechs, just observe, and Jazz understands that there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, no way he’d rather participate in the conversation. 

Soundwave loves Jazz far too deeply to express in that false language, so he resorts to his own and somehow, like a hand from the surface cutting through deep water, Jazz understands. Taking Soundwave’s stiff, unpracticed hand he loves him back. Soundwave has never known intimacy like this before. He’s interfaced, plugged into other mechs, talked into the late hours of the night and kissed and hugged and laughed and shared memories, but he’s never just sat quietly and read a book side by side. He’s never been left alone when he needed it. Jazz gives him space in which to hold him close, and Soundwave loves him more truly than he thought himself capable of.

“How are they doing?”Jazz asks, dropping down into Ratchet’s visitor chair, which he’d dragged over to Ratchet’s side of the desk. He whistles and points at the ground, and Bob sits obediently, blissfully unaware of his status as a medbay trespasser. 

Ratchet glances at the camera feed for the private treatment room. The twins are out cold, tangled up in each other and the blankets as much as the equipment hooked up to Sunstreaker will allow. From this angle, he can hardly see Sunstreaker in Sideswipe’s arms. He’s always been a bit smaller than Sideswipe, but right now, with half his frame missing or awaiting repair, he looks like a sparkling again. Ratchet’s reminded of the tiny, scrappy things they were three million years ago, back when Ironhide and Jazz first dragged them out of the Pits and into his medbay. So much time has passed, and so little has changed. 

“Stable,” Ratchet tells Jazz. “Which is nothing short of a miracle, considering the state they brought Sunny to me in.” 

Jazz grimaces. “Mm. Mentally?” 

Ratchet just shakes his head. “Sunny’ll be in recharge for a while. He needs it. We’ll reassess when Sunstreaker’s ready to wake up.” Right now, Sunstreaker can’t stay conscious for more than a few minutes at a time. His exhaustion is taking a toll on Sideswipe, too. He’s been sleeping much more than usual, spending almost all his off hours curled around Sunstreaker dozing. It’s not a deep sleep, can’t be, because Sunstreaker’s up and down with nightmares every hour or so. They’re not quiet things, and Sideswipe wakes up every time to soothe him back to sleep. Well. Most of the time.

Last night, the two of them had woken up screaming bloody murder. They wouldn’t tell him what the dream had been about, but they’d cried for half an hour after. Ratchet had ended up sedating Sunny when he started hyperventilating. 

Sideswipe hasn’t been Sunstreaker’s only visitor. Hunter’s been around, too, practically inseparable from Sunstreaker since their fusion, and Ratchet can’t say he blames him. He probably would have been in there right now were it not for his appointment with one of the human specialists brought onto his and Sunstreaker’s care team. Ratchet hasn’t been able to deny Hunter and Sunstreaker their clinginess. The fusion had been extremely traumatic, and Ratchet suspects the bond, quickly formed and strong as necessity called for, was traumatic to break. He fears for their ability to readjust to life apart.

Ratchet shakes himself from his malaise. It’s only been ten days since Sunstreaker and Hunter’s return. They’ve only just begun their recovery, and there’s no sense in losing himself in what could happen. For now, there’s no reason to believe they won’t continue their recovery, both mentally and physically. 

Jazz sighs. “Don’t you miss when they were little? When we could just scoop them up and hold them and tell them everything would be alright?” 

“You mean when they were little terrors? I distinctly recall spending hours of my day entertaining a pair of bitlets who were liable to rip the place to shreds if given half a minute and half the chance.” Even as he says it, he pulls up a picture from his folder of favorites. It’s old, nearly five million years now, and shows a tiny Sunstreaker and a younger, brighter Jazz sitting at a computer terminal on the Ark. Sunstreaker’s in Jazz’s lap, hands over Jazz’s hands, learning his way around whatever system was on the lesson plan that day. Manual targeting, if Ratchet remembers correctly. Sideswipe was right outside the frame eagerly awaiting his own turn. Primus, they were so small back then. 

He shares the file with Jazz, who makes a soft, pained sound. “I don’t even remember that day,” he murmurs. “It was so… ordinary.”

“They were happy.” 

“I know.” Jazz smiles, rueful and lopsided. “I’m gonna go bring Bob in for a quick visit. He’s been moping all week, you know.”

Ratchet groans a complaint about contaminants and disturbing Sunstreaker’s rest, but ultimately allows it. He’s going soft in his old age, and he’s mature enough to admit a weakness to the way Sunstreaker’s face lights up when Bob comes to visit. 

To Jazz’s and Bob’s credit, they enter the room quietly, and Bob stays calmly seated by the bedside until Sideswipe rouses Sunstreaker. He comes online slowly, processor sluggish with damage and sedatives, rubbing his optics the way he has since sparklinghood. Ratchet knows exactly the moment he sees Bob, because he perks up all at once. Bob jumps up onto the berth, stepping all over Sideswipe but keeping off Sunstreaker, mindful of his injuries. He waits until Sunstreaker sits up and pats his lap to lay down, then rolls over and offers his thinner belly plating for petting. 

Jazz settles in the visitor’s chair and watches with a fond, reminiscent look in his eyes as the twins make soft conversation with him and play with Bob. Sunstreaker flags after a few minutes, falling gradually against his brother’s side until Sideswipe’s supporting him entirely and he’s more asleep than awake, but still he looks content. Ratchet’s keeping a close eye on his vitals, and he’s doing better now than he has since he came out of the C.R. chamber. The normalcy helps, Ratchet thinks. Sunstreaker’s a proud mech, and he wilts under any sort of treatment implying weakness. Jazz thinks it’s funny. An attention hog the rest of the time but the moment he’s injured, he retreats to nurse his wounds alone and unseen. 

Ratchet watches Sunstreaker’s vitals spike and dip as onscreen, he falls in and out of recharge against Sideswipe’s shoulder. Jazz and Sideswipe continue their quiet conversation. Bob stretches all four stubby legs, then resettles himself in Sunstreaker’s lap for a nap of his own. The humans are right, Ratchet thinks. The more things change, the more they stay the same. He takes a few pictures, then gets up to join them.

“Me and Wheeljack?” Starscream spits. “Where did you get that idea?” 

Windblade frowns, taken aback. “I—I just thought because of the way you two act around each other, maybe…”

With a dismissive flick of his hand and wings, Starscream scoffs, “Well, you thought wrong. Me and that little nobody? Unlikely. My standards, fortunately, are much higher.” 

“Oh. I… see.” 

Halfway across the bar, Wheeljack is trying very hard to disappear into his engex. Starscream does not look at him and he does not feel guilty. Wheeljack needs to learn to stay away from him and if this is the only way to do it, then so be it. Starscream doesn’t care what either of them think of him. 

The thing is, Wheeljack is too sweet for his own good. He tolerated Starscream when no one else would and Starscream is grateful for that, but slowly the tolerance had evolved into something more personal. Wheeljack liked him, Starscream realized. Not just platonically, but romantically. This wouldn’t have been an issue had Starscream just kept his own feelings in check, but no. By the time he realized Wheeljack returned his feelings, Starscream had been in love with him for some time. This had created something of a problem. 

Becoming romantically involved with Starscream is a bad idea. So was becoming involved with him at all, actually, but the problem with romance, and with Wheeljack specifically, is the returned feelings. Starscream loves Wheeljack, so he refuses to hurt him, so he can never have him. The irony of the hurt he’s doing Wheeljack right now is not lost on him, but the sting of rejection is minor in comparison to the kind of destruction Starscream brings into relationships. Wheeljack is good, vulnerable, and Starscream will not see him hurt, especially not at his hand, and in romance he has never done anything but hurt. Skyfire, Skywarp and Thundercracker, Metalhawk. Starscream is a bad luck charm with a pretty face and a willing valve.

It might have been a matter of gently rebuffing him or simply never acknowledging his advances, but Wheeljack is persistent and Starscream is weak. Eventually, he would have caved, and then Wheeljack would get hurt, so Starscream is doing them both a favor and uprooting the problem entirely. Put an end to Wheeljack’s feelings for him, and the whole thing disappears. 

Starscream is so very good at driving people away. He doesn’t flinch when Wheeljack slaps his hands on the table and stands up in a huff of tears and hurt feelings. He doesn’t react at all when he leaves their end of the bar entirely and goes to mope at Ironhide. The likelihood that Ironhide will only paint Starscream in a worse light does not matter. Windblade’s disdainful look means nothing to him. This is manipulation, this is Starscream’s forte. This is what’s best for them. 

Starscream watches him cry into his engex and knows Wheeljack would thank him if he knew what Starscream had saved him from.

Hey, Drift, I know this might be a bit sudden, but--

No. 

Drift, I want to talk about us. I’ve felt this way for a long time and I think--

No, no. 

Hey, Drift. By the way, I’m so in love with you that sometimes looking at you makes me feel physically sick. How’s your day been? 

Ratchet frowns at the tenth webpage informing him of the “10 best ways to confess your feelings!” and resists the urge to punt the datapad across the shuttle. So far, none of his searching had turned up anything relevant to his problem, which is not entirely about the confession itself. No, the problem is that Ratchet loves Drift so much it scares him and he’s waited so long that if he were to be honest in his confession, he thinks the intensity might scare Drift away. Even if he chose to stay, it’s an awful lot to dump on someone at the beginning of a relationship, and considering the aforementioned intensity of his feelings, Ratchet wants to avoid fucking this up right at the outset. 

Ratchet has been alive for twelve million years. For eleven million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, eight hundred of those, he’s had no problem declaring that true love is bullshit and that, no matter what the more sentimental members of his species might hear from the humans, there is no such thing as “The One.” Then, he’d reconnected with Drift and those old feelings had surged up again, climbing from “latent” to “background noise” to “the main concern and driving force of Ratchet’s life” with such speed and intensity that for a while, Ratchet had been genuinely worried about some sort of processor virus. He’d said nothing, and he and Drift had carried on casually flirting and growing closer and that was more than enough for him, and then Drift was just gone and Ratchet was faced with the unfortunate truth that although he could live without Drift, he very much did not want to. So he had gone and retrieved him. 

And now he and Drift were confined to this little shuttle, living in each other’s space for the duration of the rather long trip back to the Lost Light. Ratchet had not considered this when he’d left, though he fervently wishes he had. He’d woken up this morning to a bleary-eyed Drift sipping energon and reading something on his datapad and his spark had throbbed near-painfully. Then, Drift noticed him and bid him good morning and told him the other cube on the table was for him, and had he checked the news lately? and Ratchet realized his spark was getting far too old for the kind of nonsense he was putting it through lately. 

He would have to say something soon. Maybe not the truth, but then again, starting off with a lie would be worse than starting off with the overgrown mess of feeling inside him. Drift deserves the best. He’ll figure something out.

Drift bursts in the door to their habsuite twenty minutes before he’s due back from training with Rodimus with a wild grin on his face and tears in his optics. “Ratchet! Ratchet, come here,” he practically yells as if Ratchet wasn’t right there, already putting his datapad down. He can’t help it; he hasn’t felt this sort of pure energy since he was a sparkling. “Come on, get up, come hug me!” 

Drift doesn’t wait for him to respond. He runs over to the couch and pulls Ratchet into his arms. He holds him for a few seconds, relishing the feeling of Ratchet’s frame against his. It feels so right, so real in a way nothing has in a long time. Then, he pulls back a bit to hold Ratchet by the shoulders and declare, “I want to live!”

Maybe not the best starting point. Ratchet blinks at him. “I—huh? I thought you… You told me you haven’t been suicidal in a while.” He frowns at Drift like he might be having some sort of manic breakdown. 

Right, Drift remembers. Ratchet was never suicidal, not in the chronic way Drift was. He might need a little more explanation. “No, I mean, yeah, I haven’t been actively suicidal in a few years, but this is different. I don’t just not want to die, I want to live.” The enormity of it crashes over him again, the feeling of pausing his training with Roddy to laugh until they both teared up, the pure joy of existing in the world and knowing there were more moments like that ahead of him, and he starts to cry again. Ratchet looks downright alarmed now, but he keeps listening. “I want to live the rest of my life, and I know it’s worth it. I want to live, Ratch. I was sparring with Rodimus and he made a stupid joke and all of a sudden I was awake. All I could think was, ‘I could have missed this. I never want to miss a second of this. I want to live.’ ” 

Drift sees the moment Ratchet understands. His face splits into a grin and his optics light up. “Primus, Drift, that’s amazing!”

“I know, right? It’s…” Words fail him, so he pulls Ratchet into a messy, open-mouthed kiss. “I love you. I love living,” he says against Ratchet’s lips. “I love you so much. Thank you for everything.” 

Ratchet breaks the kiss to crush Drift in another hug. He’s too short to really hold Drift the way Drift holds him, but he gives it a valiant effort. Drift leans down to tuck his face into Ratchet’s shoulder; he’s so in love it hurts. “I love you, too,” Ratchet rasps, voice full of static. “I’m so proud of you.” The love-ache overwhelms him and he sobs into Ratchet’s plating. “Oh, kid, don’t cry,” Ratchet starts, sounding concerned again, but Drift cuts him off. 

“Good tears,” he chokes out. “Very good tears. I love you so much.”

“I’m sorry,” Sunstreaker sobs into Ironhide’s chestplate. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it was an accident, I didn’t mean it.” 

“Vent, kid. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” 

“—gonna die and it’s my fault, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

Ironhide hugs Sunstreaker impossibly tighter, picking him up in a hold that was much easier a frame upgrade ago and carrying him in the direction of the twins’ quarters. Really, it didn’t matter where they went so long as it was away from the medbay, where Jazz and Sideswipe were being treated. “It wasn’t your fault, kiddo,” he murmurs as they make their way through the crowded hallways filled with battle-weary, banged-up mechs. “It’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing about the ambush.”

Sunstreaker keeps trying to regulate his ventilations, but he’s not having much luck. Ironhide rubs his back in soothing circles, trying to set a rhythm for him to breathe too. “I should have known,” he cries. 

“You shouldn’t have.” And Jazz shouldn’t have taken you out on a patrol, no matter how safe it was supposed to be. “And when it happened, you did exactly the right thing. You called for help, you cleared the area, and you administered first aid. You probably saved their lives.” 

Sunstreaker shakes his little head. “‘S my fault. I should have seen them. That was my job.” 

Logic, Ironhide is beginning to see, isn’t going to get them anywhere. “Tell you what, kid. How about we go settle in your quarters and get you checked over for any damage, then we’ll watch some holovids until Ratchet tells us Jazz and Sides are ready for visitors? Sound good to you?” 

Sunstreaker nods miserably. 

“Come on, Sunstreaker,” Ratchet coaxes. “Jazz just woke up and he wants to see you.” Sunstreaker presses closer to Ironhide’s side, ducking under his arm. He’ll have to make the first steps, then.  

“Let’s go, kiddo.” Ironhide tugs Sunstreaker forward into the busy ward. Jazz and Sideswipe are in neighboring berths against the far wall. Sunstreaker gets a few quiet greetings from half-awake mechs on the walk back, none of which he responds to. His optics are fixed on Jazz, who’s propped up on one arm and waving to them. He looks fine, alert and comfortable, which matches what Ratchet told Ironhide of his condition. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Sunstreaker had thought, mostly just nasty-looking burns. Sideswipe’s condition was similar, but he’s still sleeping off the sedatives, curled up on his side looking far too small for a medbay berth. It won’t happen now, in public and in front of the kids, but later Ironhide and Jazz are going to have a talk about what the twins are and aren’t ready for. 

Sunstreaker practically launches himself into Jazz’s arms. “I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Aw, Sunny, don’t cry.” Jazz wraps him in a tight hug and presses his face to the top of Sunstreaker’s helm. “It was just a mistake. That’s all. Just a mistake.”

Sometimes, Sunstreaker has bad days, days where he’s hazy, listless, not really present enough to do anything but lay on his berth and stare at the wall. Hunter asked Ratchet about it the first time he saw it happen, worried Sunstreaker was having some sort of seizure, but Ratchet had waved it off and said it was a common issue among the frontliners. No human equivalent, but he’d tried to explain it anyway. 

“It’s like what you would call dissociation,” he’d said. “Really, it’s a glitchy defragmentation sequence, emotionally charged memory files and errors getting caught up during the night and continuing to try and resolve themselves while he’s online. Nothing to worry about, but he’ll be catatonic for a few hours.” The frontliners were all traumatized, Ratchet had explained, and that combined with repeated processor damage led to glitches like these. 

There’s nothing Hunter can do, not really. He hates feeling helpless, though, and he hates to see Sunstreaker struggling, so when it happens, he climbs up into his usual spot on Sunstreaker’s berth and curls up with a hand on Sunstreaker’s arm. Sunstreaker never reacts. Well, sometimes he cycles his optics or twitches a bit, but that’s all. Enough to show he’s aware, so Hunter strokes the warm plating of his arm and talks about whatever comes to mind until he falls asleep to the sluggish sound of Sunstreaker’s engine. 

Today’s no different. Sunstreaker gets back from his morning meal looking distracted and tired, lays down on his berth, and doesn’t move for nearly an hour. When calling his name doesn’t rouse him, Hunter lets Ratchet know Sunstreaker’s having trouble, then assumes his usual post next to Sunstreaker’s arm. Today, he rambles for a while about how much fun he, Jimmy, and Verity had at a concert the previous weekend, then about the troubles of relating to other humans once one’s been psychically bonded to an ancient, enormous robot. Finally, he runs out of things to talk about and slips into a quiet reverie at Sunstreaker’s side. He feels the thrum of powerful systems vibrate both of their bodies, feels the little shadows and half-images of Sunstreaker’s mind through their dampened bond. Sunstreaker’s exhaustion pulls at him, and he’s asleep before he even notices himself growing tired. 

He wakes to Sunstreaker’s broad, gentle hands on him, moving him up to the top of the berth so he can climb out. “Mm?”

“Hey.” Sunstreaker changes course and sits up, placing Hunter on his lap instead. “Have a good nap?” 

Hunter stretches, sighing as he cracks his back. “Yeah. You feeling better?” 

Sunstreaker brushes a strand of hair off his forehead. “Much. I needed that.” Hunter must make some doubtful expression, because Sunstreaker continues, “I know you don’t like the way it looks, but it doesn’t hurt me. It’s just a slagged-up defrag cycle.” 

Hunter sighs again, leaning back into Sunstreaker’s supporting hand. “I know. I just. I don’t know. I wish I could help.” 

Sunstreaker smiles softly. “You do.”

Drift stares into his coffee and tries not to feel pathetically dependent on his meds. It doesn’t work. There’s nothing un- pathetic about spending the day as a miserable lump on the couch because he forgot to take a pill the night before. He can’t even keep a lid on his own moods without medical help. How does he expect to—

No. He shuts that line of thought down before it can spiral into abject self-hatred. He’s awake at nine in the morning. He’s had breakfast and his morning meds and he’s made himself coffee. That’s more than he would have been able to do six months ago. He’s not helpless without his meds, either. He’s been doing plenty of therapy and he has a whole notebook full of coping mechanisms to draw on in times like these. 

But the notebook’s all the way in the living room and he’s comfortable here in his kitchen chair, and reading it would take far too much effort. It’s likely to suggest he take a walk or do some yoga or distract himself in some other difficult and involved way, and he’s just not up for it. He’s exhausted, slept terribly last night, knows he won’t sleep more even if he tries. He should get up and brush his teeth, though. Wait. After his coffee. Right. 

Great, he thinks. Here’s the brain fog. He won’t be able to think straight all day, won’t be able to get any work done. At least it’s his day off so he doesn’t have to find someone to cover his classes. That’s the most humiliating part. 

His coffee’s cold. He should have known that because the clock tells him he’s been sitting at the table for an hour and a half, but somehow the time passed him by. It doesn’t feel right, and he’s tired, and his back and hips hurt like they always do when he’s like this, so he puts the mug in the sink and drags himself to the couch. There’s a framed picture of Ratchet and some friends on the wall opposite. Ratchet has other friends, friends he’s at work with right now who don’t turn into useless husks a few days a month. He should stay with them, not come home to Drift. 

No. That’s a bad train of thought. 

Ratchet loves Drift, even if Drift’s a pathetic, jealous addict with anger issues and—

And friends and loved ones who care about him. Drift has overcome a lot in his past, and he can keep doing it. 

But why keep doing it if it’ll just keep coming back? Why fight the tide? Why not just—

Text Ratchet. Why not just text Ratchet? 

Me: hey, any chance of you making it home early today?

Ratty: I might be able to 

Ratty: Why?

Ratty: Are you alright? 

Me: yeah, just having a bit of an off day

Ratty: Okay. I’ll let Aid know I’m leaving at 3, and I’ll call you at lunch. I love you.

Ratty: Thank you for telling me. 

Me: yeah

Me: thank you

Lunch. Noon. Another hour, and he’d have a few minutes with Ratchet on the phone. 

When the phone rings, it wakes him from his faux-feverish sleep and he finds he very much does not want to answer. He doesn’t want to talk to Ratchet. He wants to sleep forever, never move again. He picks up, though. 

“Hey.” 

“You sound horrible.” 

Drift sits up a bit and clears his throat. It doesn’t help the thick stickiness in his voice. “Thanks.” 

Ratchet doesn’t bother responding to that. “Are you sick?” 

“No, just tired.” 

There’s a knowing silence on the other end of the line. “I’ll be home in a little over three hours. Call Roddy if you need someone over before then.” Drift loves Ratchet. He always seems to know when Drift doesn’t have the energy to talk. “I love you.” 

“Love you, too.” 

“See you soon.” 

“Mm.” 

Maybe it was a short call because he doesn’t want to talk to you. He doesn’t want to put up with your moping. Maybe he’s upset that you don’t want to talk to him. 

Drift buries his head under a pillow and tries his best to go back to sleep.

“Hey, kid.” 

Drift wakes from a nightmare-filled sleep to Ratchet’s cool, calloused hand on his forehead. “Ratch?” He rubs the haze from his eyes. Ratchet’s standing over him, still dressed for work, with a concerned look on his face. “Hi.” He shifts a bit, pressing into the back of the couch to make room for Ratchet next to him. 

Ratchet huffs a laugh. “Let me change first. I’ll be right back, okay?” 

“Mm.” Drift closes his eyes and though he doesn’t necessarily mean to, it’s nice to drift off again. No time for nightmares in the five minutes it takes Ratchet to change into a hoodie and sweatpants, and when he settles on the couch, Drift pulls him into a half-asleep cuddle, throwing an arm and a leg over him and pulling him close. 

Ratchet puts a hand on the back of Drift’s neck and pulls him in for a quick, soft kiss, then settles so close his nose brushes Drift’s every time he breathes. “Feeling any better?” 

Drift shrugs. “Better with you. You’re distracting.” 

“Oh? Is that all I am?” Ratchet smiles playfully. “A distraction?” 

Drift pinches his arm. “Hush. You’re a very nice distraction, how about that?” 

“Mm, I think I can live with that.” Ratchet kisses him again, and when he pulls back, Drift buries his face in his shoulder and closes his eyes, reveling in the warm darkness so different from the lonely gray light streaming in the window. Ratchet runs a hand through his hair, pulling gently, the perfect counterpoint to the current of unhappy thoughts threatening to pull him back under. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

“Always, kid. I’m there when you need me.” 

He nods into Ratchet’s shoulder, still miserable, still fragile, but steadier now.

The first time he wakes up, he’s hardly even registered it before a stern voice that pings his subprocessor as command, listen says, “No, no, go back to sleep, Jazz.” Jazz is far too deep in the mission headspace to do anything but obey. 

The second time he wakes up, he’s conscious for long enough to be hit with the full, aching brunt of a post-mission crash. He’s too tired to bring his optics online, and his vocalizer isn’t fully cooperating. He must make some sort of noise, though, because Prowl puts a hand on his helm and murmurs, “It’s alright, love.” Wow, he must have fragged himself up pretty badly for Prowl to be pulling out the pet names in medbay. “I have you. Go back to sleep.” 

The third time, he manages to online a bit more smoothly, and he’s aware enough to keep himself still and silent through the whole process. He does his best to get his bearings without onlining his optics. He’s under a blanket on a berth in a private medical room, his head’s in Prowl’s lap, he’s more tired and achy than he’s ever been in his functioning, and somewhere nearby, Optimus and Ratchet are having a whisper-argument. 

“...Understand, Ratchet, but Jazz simply can’t be spared. Not now. He’s too integral to the effort.” 

“Prime, with all due respect, if you don’t give that mech a break, you won’t have a head of SpecOps much longer.”

“Ratchet—”
“Do you even understand what you ask of him? What he does for you? You’re right, we need Jazz. He’s one of a kind. Any other mech would be a neurotic mess by now, assuming somehow they weren’t long since deactivated. Jazz is the best at what he does, but he has limits. He needs rest, Optimus. I can’t negotiate with you on this.”

Jazz has some vague notion that he should online his optics and deal with this, but Prowl’s rubbing little circles around the base of one of his sensory horns and he really can’t bring himself to care. Ratchet sounds like he has it under control. 

“...If that is what you think is best,” Prime rumbles. Maybe a few million years ago, Jazz would have been worried about being the one to put that kind of tone in Optimus’s voice.

“It is.” Ratchet’s tone is all stern finality. “Now, get out of here before you wake my patient.” There’s an amused huff and then the sound of Prime being chased out of the room at wrenchpoint. 

The door slides closed, there’s a moment of silence, and then Jazz’s proximity sensors inform him that Prowl’s leaning down close to Jazz’s face. “I know you’re awake,” he murmurs. “You’re purring.” He pairs this with a gentle squeeze of Jazz’s horn and Jazz realizes that yes, he is indeed purring, now louder than before. 

“Mm, feels good.” He shifts onto his side, gets a bit more comfortable. 

“Good. Now, go back to recharge.”

He’s already there.

It’s been two days since Jazz’s post-mission crash and Ratchet has yet to sign his return to work form. “Not a chance in the Pit” had been his exact words when Jazz asked him to, and Prowl had agreed. Jazz accepted it easily enough. It’s his first real break in a few millennia, and he seems to be making the most of it, fatigue and injuries aside. Right now, he’s curled up in a chair right next to Prowl’s. Prowl’s not sure where he got it, as it certainly didn’t come from this office. Jazz has twisted himself up to sit with his feet tucked up under him and his head on Prowl’s shoulder. It can’t be comfortable, especially considering the still-healing welds on his torso, but he seems content enough. Every so often, he’ll shift a bit or hum pieces of whatever music he’s listening to on his internal system. It’s peaceful. For several hours, the office is just Prowl’s typing, Jazz’s music, and the mingling rhythms of their ventilations. If he ignores the tempest of Jazz’s field, Prowl can almost forget the events of the day before. 

Around midmorning, Prowl has to take a call. Jazz makes an unhappy noise at the interruption, but quiets when Prowl puts a hand on one audial horn and starts massaging gently. By the time the call ends, Jazz is purring contentedly, half asleep on Prowl’s shoulder. Prowl encourages him to lie down a bit more, to put his head in Prowl’s lap and get some recharge. According to Ratchet, recharge would help. Prowl could help with recharge. 

He can’t get the mission aftermath out of his head. Whenever he offlines his optics, he sees Jazz vacant-optic’d and shaking, soaked in three different mechs’ blood and not responding to anyone. He hadn’t even managed to clean himself off before breaking down sobbing on the exam table. It’s been a long time coming, he knows, but he can’t help but feel as though the proverbial rug’s been ripped out from under his pedes. Jazz is unshakeable, always fine, always smiling, never bothered by the horrific things Prowl and Optimus ask of him. Logically, Prowl knew it was a facade. He knew Jazz was wearing thin, getting tired. He should have pulled him from the field much earlier. This could have been dangerous, much worse than it had been. Jazz could have frozen up mid-mission instead of on Ratchet’s table. He could have been captured and tortured or killed, could have—

He should have pulled Jazz out earlier, but he didn’t. He should have heeded the signs of burnout, but he didn’t. He should have treated Jazz better, but there’s nothing he can do about that now. He will take this into account moving forward, and in the present, he will do what he can to fix the mistake. If that means sitting in his office long after his shift ends, letting Jazz catch up on sleep on his lap, that’s what he’ll do.

::Hey, Ratch?::

Oh, this ought to be good. ::What?::

::Uh.:: Flashpoint hesitates. ::Did you know Jazz is in one of the private rooms?::

Ratchet did not know that. ::What? When did he get in? He’s supposed to be out in the field.::

::Well, he’s in here and he’s unresponsive. I don’t wanna approach him, ‘cause, you know.::

Ratchet does know. Jazz has a tendency to defend himself when startled, especially right after a mission, and Flashpoint of all people isn’t fit to deal with him in that state. She’s new and certainly not trained to deal with combative special agents. Jazz would be furious if he hurt someone in this state. 

Well, actually, Ratchet’s not sure what kind of state he’s in, exactly. Flashpoint had said unresponsive, which wasn’t too unusual for Jazz after a tough mission, but the fact that he hadn’t checked in with anyone before coming to medbay is bothering Ratchet. Preemptively, he pings Prowl and lets him know to make his way down to the medbay as soon as possible. 

When Ratchet reaches the private room that has become Jazz’s post-mission debrief and medical clearance room, Flashpoint is standing outside wringing her hands. “He looks bad, Ratchet,” she worries. “Not just physically, like. There’s a lot of energon, but also. He’s just sitting there staring. And shaking.” 

Ratchet puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright. You did good, kid. Go help Axle for a little while. Do me a favor, too, and let the others know not to bother us.” 

Flashpoint nods and hurries off down the hallway, leaving Ratchet alone in front of the closed and double-locked door. 

::Jazz?:: he sends out on an open, short-range frequency. ::You in there?::

For a long moment, there’s nothing but silence. Then, weak, heavily encrypted, ::Ratch?::

::Yep.::

::Come in. I… yeah, come in.::

Ratchet keys in the two sets of door codes and steps quietly into the room. Just as Flashpoint had said, Jazz is sitting in the middle of the single medical berth, dripping energon from his uninjured hands and head and a wide gash on his side. “Is all of that yours?” Ratchet asks. 

Jazz’s wide, unfocused optics track vaguely in his direction. “Yeah. Think so. Been bleeding out of, you know.” He gestures to the wound. The energon marks on his head are in the shape of his own fingers, as if he’d been sitting for a while with his head in his hands. “I cleaned up all the blood that wasn’t mine before I got in.” His voice is faint like his comms communication. 

“Are you injured anywhere else?” Ratchet’s still in the doorway, unwilling to come closer until Jazz proves himself to be a little more aware of his surroundings. 

Jazz shakes his head slowly, then, without warning, bursts into soft peals of laughter. “No, nowhere else. I just, I, I.” Very softly, meeting Ratchet’s optics for the first time, he says, “I’m tired, Ratchet. I can’t go back out there anymore.”

Red Alert’s been awake most of the night. He caught some sleep around two in the morning, light and full of half-lucid nightmares, but really, that doesn’t count. The exhaustion is starting to wear on him but try as he might, he can’t find recharge. 

A few days ago, he and Fortress Maximus had started… not dating? Not not dating? They were doing something different than what they had done before. A mutual acknowledgement of feelings, working towards something more. It was making Red Alert anxious. 

A few million years ago, he might have worried that what he was feeling was a sudden loss of affection for Fort Max. It certainly seemed that way, but the same thing had happened with Inferno when he’d first started pursuing Red Alert, and that had faded. Whenever someone he liked showed interest in him, he pulled back, feeling a nervous apprehension that almost bordered on repulsion. It had taken a long time to realize that what he was feeling was fear, not a loss of interest. Mechs returning his affection, especially mechs he really liked, terrified him. Still does, honestly, but he’s gotten better at recognizing it. 

Max wakes up, as he usually does, around 0700. He lumbers into the common room and finds Red sitting at the table staring blindly at a datapad. “Morning,” he greets. “You alright?” 

Red Alert considers telling Max he’s fine, just normal insomnia, but instead he makes space on the couch next to him and beckons Max over. Max sits, and Red Alert leans hard into his side. “Can I be really honest with you?” 

“Of course.” 

“You terrify me.” Max tenses, and Red Alert hurries to add, “Not physically! Not at all. Like… emotionally? Being close to you emotionally scares me.” Fort Max hums his acknowledgement and Red Alert offlines his optics and tries to lose himself in the sound. This is Max, who he likes and trusts. It’s alright to tell him these things. He deserves to know. “I feel really, really strongly about you and that scares me, but somehow you liking me back scares me more. I keep imagining all the ways this could go wrong and I could lose you.

“I could fuck it up, or you could fuck it up, or we could just be a bad match for each other, or any little random thing could happen and I’d lose you. I know that could happen now, but it feels like it’s safer to keep you at arm’s length.” 

Max puts an arm around Red Alert and squeezes him. “I think I… I don’t completely understand, but I know what you’re getting at.” 

“You don’t have to understand, just… be patient with me? Please?” 

“Always, Red.” 

“Thank you.” He wraps his arms around Fort Max’s waist. “I really like you.” 

Max presses a kiss to the top of his head. The warmth spreads from the point of contact all the way through Red Alert’s frame. “I really like you, too.” 

It’s the day of Springer’s first solo mission. All dozen-odd idiots currently comprising the Wreckers are gathered in the common room talking him up and giving him last-minute advice. The poor kid looks a bit overwhelmed. Kup would go and rescue him from his own social ineptitude, but he’s got other concerns at the moment because Prowl is hovering by the wall glaring into the group and looking like someone’s lubricated in his energon.

Kup lets Prowl sulk for twenty minutes before intervening. He ducks out of his conversation with Topspin and Impactor to stalk over and lean against the wall at Prowl’s side.  “What’s crawled up your aft, kid?”

Prowl doesn’t spare him so much as a glance. “I’m fine, Kup.” 

“Don’t look fine. Ya look like you’re trying to glare a hole in Springer’s helm.” Prowl grunt noncommittally, recrossing his arms higher on his bumper. “He’ll be fine, you know. He’s a tough kid and it’s an easy enough mission.” 

“I’m not worried about him.” 

“Sure.” Kup takes a long drag of his cygar and offers it to Prowl who, as always, waves him away with a wrinkled nose and a frown. “Why the sudden interest in him, anyway?” Before Springer’s adult frame upgrade, he might as well have not existed to Prowl. Kup had never had high hopes of the two bonding in any sort of mentor-mentee capacity, but he’d at least expected Prowl to have some involvement in Springer’s sparklinghood considering the rather unusual role he’d played in his creation. Then again, it’s not as though there was any sort of precedent to draw on here. The closest equivalent Kup can think of is biological reproduction, in which Prowl is somewhat analogous to Springer’s parent, but that’s a bit of a stretch and Cybertronians have none of the programming organics seemed to have surrounding care of young ones. 

Prowl reaches towards him and before Kup can ask what he’s doing, Prowl’s grabbed the cygar right out of his hand. He takes a long, clumsy drag, coughs harshly, and says, “You have to admit, this stage of development is a bit more interesting than the previous ones.” 

“Right, of course. And I suppose usefulness has something to do with it.” 

Prowl takes another drag before handing the cygar back. “Do you truly think so little of me?” 

Kup doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Fair enough, I suppose.” Prowl’s arms, he notices, are covered in finger-shaped dents, and he’s still gripping them hard enough to leave more.  “Anyway, I’m not worried for his safety, merely the success of the mission. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to send Arcee with him.”

“Don’t change the plan now,” Kup advises. “You’ll only confuse them and hurt the kid’s feelings. He looks up to you, you know.” 

Prowl scoffs. “Springer? No he doesn’t.” 

“You’re right. Thought it might make you feel better to think it, though.” 

Prowl’s laugh is short and sharp. “Thanks for that, I suppose.”

“I’m there for ya.” 

“I drove home alone last night.” 

“Oh? And how did that go?” 

“I had to use some calming strategies on the way, but I made it. Not that I had much of a choice once I started. The only way out is through, and all that.” 

Rung makes a note of something on his datapad. “And are you proud of yourself?”

“For driving home alone? No, not really. I’m just… angry, mostly. Bitter. They said the world would change after the war, that things would be better, safer. Maybe they are for other mechs, but not for me. It’s still the same. It’s still dangerous out there.” Red Alert imagines what Rung’s writing on his ‘pad now. Patient refuses to make eye contact, maybe, or patient showing frustratingly little progress. Is that projection? Rung told him projection of his own insecurities onto others would get easier to identify, but not for Red Alert. Nothing has ever come easily to him, certainly not the difference between rational and irrational. “Every time I saw another person I thought about what they could do to me, what they were thinking about me, but every time I was alone, I imagined being ambushed. It’s the same as it was before the meds, just subtler, I guess.” 

“Do you want to go back off the meds?” 

“No. Primus, no. I’d kill myself.”

“That’s a large jump.”

Red Alert laughs. “Sure.” Suicidal thoughts were never more than a few hours away, held back at best, ignored most other times. Suicidal action wasn’t far behind. A few days of the clamoring in his head telling him to get it over with and put himself out of his own misery, that’s all he can take. The war’s over, his best distraction gone, leaving him exactly where he was before, just more traumatized. What was the point of it all? Would it carry on without him, or was the world all in his head? Would it stop if he killed himself? 

He tries to imagine a world without himself as an observer, but there’s something of a bootstraps problem. He can’t imagine the world without adopting a perspective, and the whole point is to remove his own perspective. From his point of view, the world stops without him. It’s all in his head, and he’s alone. 

“--Alert. Red. Can you hear me?” 

“Huh?” 

“I lost you for a moment there. Where did you go?” 

“...Nowhere. Just thinking, I guess.” 

Rung frowns. “Have you been struggling with dissociation?”

“Primus, everything is a symptom with you. Can’t a mech just get lost in thought? I’m pretty sure that’s normal.” 

For a moment, Rung looks taken aback. Then, he collects himself and says, “You’re right, Red Alert. I apologize. Yes, getting lost in thought is normal. You just had a particularly distressed look on your face and I wondered if you were alright.” 

“I’m fine. Actually, can we be done for the day?” 

“Yes. Yes, of course, Red. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

He’s not supposed to be like this anymore. The meds were supposed to help. They were helping, he was doing well, he was making progress, but now he’s curled up on his berth sobbing, too scared to leave his room and too convinced of his own worthlessness to text Max or Cerebros for help. They’re out right now, anyway, on a date that was supposed to involve all three of them and would have, had Red not backed out, begging exhausting and a headache and feeling close to tears the whole time. It’s horrible not to be there, feels like they had never needed him in the first place, that they were better without him even though it had been him to back out, but he just couldn’t. He was, is, exhausted, weepy, waspish. Not good company. 

Not that he’s ever good company. If he isn’t depressed and paranoid and overly sarcastic, he’s clingy and overbearing. They really are better off without him. 

That’s not true, he tells himself. They love you and they like being around you. They’ve told you and showed you a thousand times, and you’ve already decided to trust them. 

Maybe it’s all an act, though. Maybe they’re pretending they still love him to protect his fragile feelings. He’s so volatile, after all, a suicide risk who spirals at the slightest hint of rejection but then disappears for days at a time. They probably feel like they can’t break up with him without being responsible for how he would spiral. He’s trapping them and he doesn’t know how to let them go because they’re right. He needs them. He always does this. He always gets too attached to one or two people, pins all his trust and stability on them and makes them support him, collapses when they try and take even the smallest bit of space for themselves. 

When he was with Inferno, he used to fantasize about fusing with him completely. Not like a combiner, but a sort of falling into him. Red Alert would just stop, completely subsumed by Inferno, existing only as a piece of him. He wouldn’t be tired or scared or unstable or lonely anymore.

Inferno had said something about Red Alert being too needy when they’d broken up. 

Stupidly, Red had hoped that when his mental health stabilized, his tendency to be… overbearing in relationships would stabilize as well. He’d agreed to be with Fort Max and Cerebros thinking they would get the best of him, the parts of him that had been growing stronger since his attempt. For a while, it had been true. He’d been doing well, recovering, and somehow he’d thought it would last forever. He thought the medication and the therapy and the support network would actually work, would fix what was broken in such a deep, fundamental part of his processor that even Ratchet couldn’t reach it. 

He was so stupid, and now he was paying the price. What a failure of a recovery. 

 Wheeljack wakes up in the middle of the night cycle to an arm tightening around his waist and Starscream mumbling nightmare nonsense into the back of his neck. He’s still wrapped around Wheeljack, holding him from behind, but his vents are running full tilt and his legs twitch violently in time with the distressed noises he’s making. 

Wheeljack taps his arm. “Starscream,” he calls. “Starscream, love, wake up.” 

With a full-frame shudder, Starscream comes online. “What?” He sounds tense, near-frantic in that way he always does waking up from a nightmare. He’d screamed once, yelled for someone to stop, and it had damn near broken Wheeljack’s spark. 

Wheeljack twists around until he’s facing Starscream. He’s crying, already or still Wheeljack isn’t sure, and he doesn’t look quite aware of his surroundings, optics unfocused and expression unsure and afraid. “Starscream,” Wheeljack repeats. “It’s just me. You were having a nightmare, that’s all.” 

Starscream shudders. “Yeah.” 

Wheeljack shifts a bit, sitting up enough to pet Starscream’s wing as he talks. “You alright?”

“Of course. It was just a nightmare,” Starscream says, then undermines his own statement by burying his face in Wheeljack’s chest. 

Wheeljack pulls him back a bit so he can still see his face, and Starscream makes a hurt sound for just a second before Wheeljack presses a kiss to his forehead. “Let me see you, you ridiculous mech. Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not particularly. It was… violent.” 

“I figured as much.” He rubs a seam near Starscream’s shoulder and gets a ticklish wing flick for his troubles. “You can still tell me, if you want to. You won’t scare me.” 

Starscream snorts. “I know I won’t scare you. I’ve seen what you get up to in that lab. You shouldn’t be scared of anything anymore, considering the amount of times you’ve blown yourself up.” 

Wheeljack tries to play at being offended, but his laughter ruins it. After a moment, he quiets down and murmurs, “I was wrong about you, you know,” Wheeljack says. He keeps petting Starscream’s wing as he talks, happy for every bit of tension that seeps out of Starscream while he does. “I always thought you were dramatic about everything, but you’re only really dramatic about the bits that don’t matter. You’re so quiet when something’s wrong.” 

Starscream snorts. “I’ve never been quiet about anything in my entire functioning. Whining is something of a special skill of mine.”

“Would you have woken me up if I hadn’t woken up just now?” Silence. “That’s what I thought. You can tell me when you’re having a nightmare, or when you’re upset, or when… I don’t know, anything. You can talk to me.” 

Starscream offlines his optics. “I know that.” 

“I know you do, but I want you to feel like you can actually act on it, you know?” Wheeljack brushes the last of the tears from Starscream’s face. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

Wheeljack dozes off with Starscream once again clinging to him. 

“Nothing lasts forever.” 

“I know that,” Red Alert scoffs, winding the fidget toy he’d taken last session around his fingers over and over again. “I just hoped this would last longer.” 

Rung sighs. “That’s understandable. To be honest with you, I also hoped this would last longer. This relapse is… concerning, to say the least. Not just this week’s but the rut you’ve been in since coming aboard. Your struggles this week make me think your condition may have progressed to something a bit more medication-resistant, which does not bode well for further recovery.” 

“Wow, thanks for making me feel good about myself.” 

“You did say you wanted me to be honest with you.” 

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Still, it feels a bit unnecessary. Obviously, Red Alert understands that his relapse into the deeper part of his paranoia is concerning. He knows he needs to be working on it. He doesn’t need Rung to tell him that, except, apparently, he does, because that’s how he ended up in Rung’s office the day before his weekly appointment. Rung had had to intervene in what he called an “altercation” between Rodimus and Red Alert. Red Alert, according to Rung and Rodimus, had been being “unreasonably paranoid.” Considering what he’s overheard in the past, Red Alert wouldn’t consider suspecting Swerve of spreading rumors about his condition to be paranoid in the slightest, nor did he consider himself in the wrong for confronting him about it directly. Swerve hadn’t even denied it, but still, because he got too emotional, “took it too far,” Red Alert was the one who took the blame. 

And now he’s the one back in Rung’s office chair, fiddling with everything in reach and trying to avoid Rung’s overly-intense gaze as he describes how he feels about his recent turn for the worse. 

“Is it paranoid to worry that this means I’ll never recover?” 

“Paranoid? Probably not. Anxious? Yes. There’s no reason to believe this rough patch is any sort of death knell for you, Red Alert. I do believe, though, that it’s time we start thinking about more sustainable options.” 

Red Alert narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?” 

“Nothing so drastic as, say, inpatient.” There it is. “But what we’ve been doing is evidently just surface-level management. Have you talked to Ratchet about the possibility of electrobalancing treatments?” 

“I already told you I don’t want to do that. It’s too risky.” 

“Let’s make a list of pros and cons, then. Pros of electrobalancing: go.” 

Red Alert meets Rung’s eyes long enough to make his displeasure evident, then looks away again. “Pros: maybe I’m a little less anxious. Cons: maybe Ratchet accidentally fries my brain. Maybe I get permanent brain fog. Maybe it doesn’t work, and I’m down for the count for two months for no reason.”

“Those are all valid concerns. Still--”

“No, no ‘still.’ I said no. Unless and until I completely lose it, I still have bodily autonomy. I’m not doing it, Rung. Good night.” 

Jazz cradles Prowl’s face in his hands. “Just stop. You don’t have to do this.” He swipes his thumbs along Prowl’s cheeks, under his eyes, then moves up to caress his chevron. 

Prowl’s optics flicker off and he leans into Jazz’s touch, engine purring softly. When he speaks, his voice is filled with static. “Yes, I do.” 

Jazz sighs sadly. “No, lover, you really don’t.” Before Prowl can retort, Jazz pulls him into a deep, open-mouthed kiss. He slips one hand down to cup the base of Prowl’s helm and keeps the other on his chevron. Prowl falls into the kiss immediately, pushing Jazz over to lay on his back with Prowl braced on his forearms over him. He’s not so much bigger than Jazz, but with his doorwings, he takes up Jazz’s entire field of vision. He’s heavier than he used to be. Even so, the way he falls against Jazz is comfortable, familiar. They’ve been doing this for four million years. 

Prowl’s always struggled with unspoken things. Jazz wonders if he should tell him this is the last time. 

Instead, he throws a leg over the back of Prowl’s knee, forcing him from his half-plank position to something a little closer to laying on him. They smack their noses together a few times getting used to the new position, but it’s worth it once Jazz gets a good hold on Prowl’s leg and starts grinding their closed panels together. It’s slow, but still too fast too soon for where they are in the evening. Prowl doesn’t seem to mind, though. He just makes a hungry noise and bites at Jazz’s lip when he goes in for the next kiss. 

“I don’t know how to make you understand,” Prowl murmurs into Jazz’s mouth. 

Jazz pulls Prowl’s chevron and uses Prowl’s moment of distracted pleasure to gather his thoughts. He kisses his way along Prowl’s jaw and pauses when he gets to the sensitive spot right next to his helm to say, “You can’t.” He slips his leg higher up Prowl’s thigh, giving himself a bit more leverage to grind against him. 

“I didn’t want it to be this way.” 

Prowl’s body isn’t his own anymore. His mind’s been broken into three times and counting. “I know.” But I can’t stay with you. 

Loving Prowl has, over the years, become something of a habit. Sure, they’d had their fights, and there was a solid fifty years back during the war where he’d been sure they were done. Through all that, though, he loved Prowl, and now he’s not sure what to do with the absence. He’s not sure how to be who he is now without that love, even if he’s spent plenty of time without Prowl.

Jazz still knows how to kiss him, how to dig his fingers into the hinges of Prowl’s doorwings and make him gasp, knows how to argue with him about a thousand and one things, but he doesn’t know how to love him anymore. 

Soundwave has hardly moved in the three hours since he’s curled up against Jazz’s side, face hidden in his stomach plating, arms around his hips. He’s not recharging, but he’s not exactly awake, either. Jazz doesn’t mind. He’s more than willing to stay in their berth reading and running his hand over Soundwave’s arm for as long as he needs to. 

The loss of Ravage hit Soundwave hard. If Jazz had to guess, he’d say Soundwave’s surprised by how hard. Sure, Soundwave’s lost mechs before, but never anyone like Ravage. From what Jazz understands, Ravage was something of a combined caretaker and ward, both Soundwave’s responsibility and the one who had brought him up before he could take care of himself. Jazz doesn’t remember much of his caretakers, and he’d never had a ward of any sort to lose, but after so long at war, he can certainly relate to the feeling of loss. 

Soundwave’s been despondent these past few days. At first, in the hours immediately following Ravage’s death, he’d been pretty much incoherent and Jazz had started making plans to run the station without him for a little while. He’d bounced back, though, and returned to his normal duties listless and silent, but functional. Others asked him if he needed more time off, but Jazz understood. Sometimes it’s easier to just stick to the schedule, keep going and try and use routine to hold yourself together until the loss isn’t quite so raw. 

In his free time, Soundwave does little other than fuel and sleep. Jazz reads out loud to him sometimes, or plays music, but mostly, he just keeps Soundwave company and lets him rest. Soundwave often processes things differently than other mechs, differently even than Jazz despite all their similarities, and it can take him a long time, so Jazz isn’t worried about his despondence. If what he needs to cope is to cuddle up to Jazz for four hours at a time, well, Jazz has nothing pressing to do on Sanctuary station. 

Soundwave hasn’t been in a talking mood, and he hasn’t reached out via comms, but that, too, is more than alright. He texts Jazz occasionally, one or two words at a time, and Jazz serves as a go-between for Soundwave and anyone who might require his input. This, too, is neither new nor unusual. Talking is difficult for Soundwave at the best of times. Jazz wonders once if he should talk about Ravage, or about grief more generally, or even just about nothing, but Soundwave pings him with a gentle, “please don’t,” and they lapse back into silence. It’s probably for the best. Jazz was never particularly familiar with Ravage, having spent little time with him off the battlefield, so he’s not even sure what he was planning on saying. 

So the days pass following Ravage’s death. Soundwave sleeps, or doesn’t sleep, or works quietly, and Jazz keeps him company and holds him close when he cries. It’s not typical, but it’s alright.

Ratchet’s worried from the moment he sees Drift get up and leave the bar in the middle of their after-battle celebration. He’s been looking overwhelmed all day, though, and Ratchet knows this kind of crowd and noise is rough on him. It’s probably just too much, too soon after the isolation and quiet of exiled life. 

That thought keeps his worry under control for about fifteen minutes, in which time Drift has not comm’d or called to update him, nor has he returned to the party. At the twenty-minute mark, Ratchet makes his excuses and heads for the habsuite that’s now theirs to share. It’s one of the bigger ones, a coming-back, “sorry I exiled you” present from Rodimus to Drift (Rodimus’s words, not Ratchet’s). He’s expecting Drift to be holed up in their berth reading or meditating, or maybe even making use of their private washracks and having a nice hot oil soak. Maybe he’d be a little upset, a little on the quiet side, but alright. 

Ratchet wasn’t expecting to find him curled up on the floor in front of the couch sobbing. 

Drift’s head snaps up the moment Ratchet opens the door. His optics are bright and purple around the edges from crying, and tear tracks streak his face. He looks like he’s been crying hard, the whole time, and Ratchet kicks himself for not following him sooner. “Drift? What’s wrong?” He goes to his knees at Drift’s side, ignoring the protestation from his knees. 

“N-nothing,” Drift chokes out, covering his face with his hands again. “Nothing, it’s fine, I’m fine. You should go back to the party.” 

“No, hey, none of that. I’m here now, so talk to me.” He wants to put an arm around Drift’s shoulders, but hesitates. Before he can make up his mind, Drift practically throws himself into Ratchet’s side, taking his extended arm as a cue to take up residence in his lap. Ratchet falls back against the couch with a soft oof and readjusts to hold Drift close. 

“Sorry,” Drift chokes out against his neck. “Sorry, just. I don’t know. I need you to hold me for a little while.” 

“Always, kid. Take as much time as you need.” Ratchet pets Drift’s finial and Drift shudders all over, tipping his head into Ratchet’s hand. Ratchet laughs. “Feel good?” 

“Mmhmm,” Drift hums. “Do it again.” 

Ratchet keeps up his petting as he talks. “Want to tell me what’s going on?” 

Drift makes a soft, frustrated sound. “Why do you have to be so considerate and determined?” he complains, and Ratchet can hear the smile in his voice. “Really, it’s nothing. Just, I don’t know, feeling a bit overwhelmed. Not with the people or the noise, just being back. Not being alone.” Ratchet doesn’t know what to say, so they sit quietly for a few minutes, Drift still crying on and off. Then, Drift whispers, “Thank you for leaving the party for me. You didn’t have to.” 

“Nah, but I wanted to.”

“You know,” Red Alert says from his spot tucked under Fortress Maximus’s arm. “I used to hope that one day all the paranoia would make sense.” 

From Max’s other side, Cerebros pauses the show they’re watching. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, like. Hmm.” Red Alert presses himself closer to Max’s side, suddenly self-conscious. “I used to think if I just looked hard enough, waited long enough, that one day I would find it out. Find out why everyone was out to get me, why I was so Pit-damned anxious all the time. I thought one day there would be an explanation for all of it.” 

Max makes a thoughtful noise. “And?” 

Red Alert laughs. “Well, there isn’t one. There never will be. I’m just… No, I shouldn’t say ‘just.’ I’m mentally ill. That’s the whole explanation. There’s no secret plot underneath it all. And I guess I… Well, it sounds stupid, but I guess it’s only recently that I really knew that. I mean, I knew it logically before, but to really understand it, that’s recent.” When Red Alert looks up, he sees Max looking down at him. Cerebros has moved to Max’s lap to see him better, and the self-conscious anxiety comes rushing back. He doesn’t try to fight it. He’s gentle with it, lets himself look back down at his hands, avoiding eye contact. He fidgets, tapping each finger to his thumb in a repeating pattern. It’s soothing. 

Cerebros makes a happy chirp-beep noise. “Red, that’s amazing!”

“We’re very proud of you,” Max agrees. “You’ve seemed a bit more settled lately.”

“I feel more settled.” Not right now, but in general. Right now, he feels a bit unsettled, sharing so much about himself, but he’s secure enough now that it’s not an overwhelming feeling. 

Cerebros completes his journey over Max’s lap and flops over to sit in Red Alert’s. He’s so small he just barely makes it to Red’s eye level even sitting in his lap. “Like Max said, I’m so proud of you. You’ve come a really long way even just since I met you.” 

Red Alert smiles softly, knocking his forehead against Cerebros’s in their version of a kiss. “Thanks. You guys have definitely helped a lot. And, you know, the meds.” 

“And you’ve been working very hard,” Max reminds him, pressing a kiss of his own to the top of Red Alert’s head. “Don’t discount your own efforts.” 

“Believe me, I’m not,” Red Alert laughs. “I’m actually… I’m really proud of myself for how far I’ve come, and even if this is temporary, it’s nice to know that I can be this clear-headed. That it’s even a possibility for me. It’s nice to not be constantly looking for a plot.” 

He knows it won’t last forever. His paranoia is a part of him, far too deeply wired to be driven out entirely. Still, he’s happy. He could live like this for the rest of his life and be happy, and that’s enough for him.