It wasn't appropriate for an aristocrat to swear. It was demeaning to belittle a fine language with uncouth words to express emotions that would better fit a mere brute. For a gentlemech wasn't supposed to feel anger either; it hardly served any purpose, and it only showed a lack of civil upbringing.
That was what Mirage's creators used to say anyway, and Mirage always took their word for it. Then again, his creators had never been in an unpleasant situation such as the one Mirage had to deal with presently. Otherwise, they would have been angry, frustrated and wishing to curse till their vocalizers broke down for sure.
Tears sprang involuntarily in Mirage's optics when he made the mistake to move his arm. Clenching his left hand into a fist, he steeled himself in order to somehow ride out his pain, and then stayed perfectly still, all the while cursing inwardly.
It had happened on the battlefield, of course. He had got caught in enemy crossfire, trying to stay alive and fight at the same time, when he had ducked behind some ruins to avoid the laserfire. Unfortunately, he had been so immersed in the battle that he didn't realise that he landed quite badly, putting all his weight on his shoulder. It didn't hurt back then but, several hours later, he realised that there was something wrong; his arm felt awkwardly heavy. That was why he had excused himself from his captain's office, where he was handing his report, and gone straight to the repair-bay. However, the medic already had his hands full with several other Autobots who needed his attention, and Mirage had to strategically retreat when the engineer with the flashing thingamajigs on either side of his helm offered to help out; he assured the particular Autobot that no, his injury wasn't that bad, and he could wait till the medic had some free time on his hands. For Mirage had heard about the engineer, and he didn't want his arm to suddenly explode.
So, Mirage now found himself in the farthest corner of the common room located in the base, feeling utterly miserable with his right arm a dead weight at his side, aching even if he so much as cycled air. To make things worse, he also had to endure the other Autobots currently in the common room, and he kept cringing as he heard them talking in loud voices, sharing jokes and laughing uproariously as though nothing was wrong whatsoever. Granted, Mirage was in his invisibility cloak since he didn't want anyone to see the pitiable state he was in, but that was beside the point. There was nothing funny or joyous about the situation all of them were in; they were in the middle of a war, for Primus's sake.
"Someone must be in a bad mood."
Mirage stiffened at the sound of that voice. He hadn't heard it all that many times, since he was still fairly new within the Autobot ranks. Even so, he was quite sure that it belonged to that green mech who must have been activated with a perpetual cheeriness on his faceplate. He turned around slowly so that his gears wouldn't make a sound, and saw that his suspicions were only too true.
Mirage bit back a groan. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that the particular mech was sent by Primus to make his life a misery. He had humiliated Mirage in front of all the other Autobots back when they were to be recruited, and now there he was again, showing off his oh so mighty scouting skills. Determined not to give the green mech that kind of satisfaction, he stayed where he was, not talking. That was bound to throw his nuisance off.
"Yup, very bad mood," the green mech declared, hardly fazed. Pulling up a chair, he sat down next to Mirage and reached out to the seemingly empty space, fingers tapping Mirage's arm. "There you are."
Mirage wanted to get out of his invisibility cloak, if only so that the green mech would see the murderous look Mirage was casting him at that moment. However, Mirage was aware that would draw too much unwanted attention on himself, so he didn't do anything. With any luck, the green mech would take the hint and finally leave him be.
Apparently, Mirage's luck was running sour today.
"Don't tell me you're upset over that assessment test, and now you're giving me the silent treatment," the green mech said. "'Cause I know that you just turn invisible, not mute."
"Go away," Mirage said, deciding it was time for a more direct approach.
"Ah, so you are talking," the green mech said, sounding irritatingly pleased. "What's eating you then?"
Mirage sighed. There was no escaping his tormentor, was there?
"And what makes you think that something is… eating me… as you put it?"
The green mech raised an optic ridge. "You're kidding me, right? You're in your invisibility cloak inside the Autobot base. If that's not a good enough clue, I don't know what is."
"Maybe I simply wanted to be alone for a while," Mirage countered testily.
He hated this. He hated to be treated so lightly when there was a time that his name meant something to the elite social circles of Iacon. He hated having to interact with mechs that he wouldn't be caught dead socializing with in the past. He hated that this mech just asked in a casual manner what was wrong, when the answer was so blatantly obvious. And, on top of all things, that stupid arm of his just had to keep throbbing as if someone was sawing it off with a very poorly-crafted, energy-depleted laser scalpel.
"Uh huh," the green mech said, obviously not believing Mirage's statement for an astrosecond. "That brings us back to where we started. What's eating you?"
"Look, I'm telling you, I'm--!"
Mirage never finished his sentence. As he spun around to tell his unwelcome companion off, he also moved his injured arm. He tried to bite back his cry of pain, but it came out nonetheless, albeit strangled.
Any image of dignity he had struggled to keep up was instantly destroyed. Utterly defeated, he simply let his head fall on the table, hiding it in his uninjured arm.
On the bright side of things, it wiped that idiotic smile off the green mech's lip components. Mirage could sense the mech's optics locked on him in a stunned expression.
"You okay?"
The mech's tone was filled with worry and concern, and it had the power to break down Mirage completely.
"Do I sound okay?!" he said angrily, though he kept his voice to a hiss. He had already made himself a spectacle to one Autobot, and the last thing he needed was to make himself a spectacle to the entire base. "I'm stuck in this Pit-hole, trembling every single day at the thought that this might actually be my lastone alive; my plating is stinking with Decepticon fluid no matter how many times I scrub myself clean; I'm associating myself with mechs who see me as a spoiled rich mech with the mental capacity of a bitlet; and my shoulder is KILLING me!"
Mirage knew somewhere in the back of his mind that his creators would have frowned upon such unrefined display, but it didn't matter. They had perished, gone along with the rest of the Towers, so they couldn't scold him anymore. A spasm of grief racked Mirage's body, but it only pained his shoulder more.
"Primus slag it…" he murmured in frustration.
He sensed the green mech shifting, and Mirage was sure that he would go away, obviously in disgust. Instead, Mirage felt a hand touching his back in a gentle manner.
"Show me where it hurts."
"What?" Mirage asked and looked up, thinking that he hadn't heard correctly.
The green mech smiled kindly. "Get out of your invisibility cloak and show me where it hurts," he said.
Mirage stared at the mech with scepticism. "Do you have medical training?"
The mech scratched his helm. "Well, no."
"Then I doubt you can fix this," Mirage replied huffily.
"I can still try," the green mech said, his cheerfulness slowly coming back. Apparently, he considered Mirage's retorts a good sign. "Besides, what's the worst thing that could happen?"
"My arm dropping out of its place, perhaps?" Mirage said wryly.
"It wouldn't hurt anymore, would it?" the mech answered teasingly. "Now come on."
Mirage pinched the bridge of his nose. He hated to admit it, but disconnecting his arm entirely, on purpose or otherwise, didn't sound like a bad idea at the moment. Nevertheless…
"Are we alone?"
"We have been for quite some time now," the mech answered, pointing with his thumb to the other tables. "It's getting late."
"Oh." Mirage could clearly see that it was indeed just the two of them. Making up his mind, he finally appeared, earning the green mech's scrutiny.
"You really are a mess."
"Are you always this observant?" Mirage replied dryly.
The mech didn't say anything this time. He simply prodded Mirage to lean forward, so that the former aristocrat could rest his forehead on the green shoulder. Mirage tensed at once, but the mech spoke calmly, almost soothingly.
"It's fine."
Mirage didn't believe that, but he tried to relax nonetheless. At the next moment, the mech's fingers started probing Mirage's injured shoulder, trying to locate the damage. Mirage had expected that that would make him scream in pain, yet nothing of the sort happened. It hurt by all means, but it was bearable at least.
"You alright?" the mech asked.
"Yeah…" Mirage answered truthfully.
"Good." The mech continued on with his probing in silence. Mirage welcomed it, finally getting the chance to gather his thoughts and think clearly once more. That is, until he realised that the silence started growing too heavy on him.
"What?" the mech asked, sensing Mirage's unease.
"I was just wondering why you aren't talking my audios off," Mirage answered.
The mech chuckled. "Funny sort of statement from someone who wanted to be left alone just kliks ago."
Okay, Mirage supposed he kind of deserved that. However, it also made him wonder why the mech sought him out in the first place. "Won't you be missed?"
"By whom?" the green mech asked, puzzled.
Mirage sighed and tried again, mustering his patience. "Your company. You couldn't have possibly been here on your own."
"Oh," the mech answered. "I told them I catch up with them later. I figured I should say 'Hello'."
"Why?" Mirage asked guardedly.
"Why not?" the mech answered, and Mirage was sure that he could detect a smile at those words. "You seem like a nice mech, if only a bit uptight and cold."
"Thanks," Mirage said in a sarcastic tone. "I guess it still beats some other names I've heard behind my back."
The mech slowed his motions momentarily; a sign of surprise if Mirage's instincts were correct. "What names?"
Mirage snorted. "Snobbish, spoilt, opportunistic, potential traitor…" He half-shrugged. "The list just goes on."
"Who says that?"
"Just about everybody," Mirage replied in an indifferent tone. "There's nothing I can do about it, so let's just leave it at that, shall we?"
"No."
Mirage looked at the mech from the corner of his optic. No?
"You know what I think?" the green mech said. "If you really wanted to do something about that situation, you would have done so already. So why don't you?"
"Maybe because they're right," Mirage answered, getting tired of this interrogation.
"Then why aren't you with the Decepticons?" the green mech insisted.
Mirage shut his optics and didn't reply; the green mech could figure out the answer to that on his own. A sigh reached the former aristocrat's audios as the mech finally decided that some things should be left unspoken, and the gentle fingers kept on with their work.
Just then, another wave of pain surged through Mirage. His body jerked violently, and a cry tore out of his vocaliser before he could help it.
"Sorry," the mech said embarrassedly. "But the good news is that I think I've found what the problem is."
"Lucky me," Mirage said, regaining his composure once more. "Well?"
"One of your motion gears got loose and got tangled on your pain sensors," the mech answered. "I think I can get it back in place, but you'll have to be patient with me."
"Okay," Mirage said quietly, and braced himself for the worst.
The green mech simply nodded, then pressed his fingers inside the spy's shoulder again. Thankfully, he was a bit more cautious this time, so Mirage didn't feel that much pain. Besides, there was something about that green mech which had set Mirage thinking.
"You said that you didn't have any medical training," he pointed out.
"I don't," the green mech replied, cheerful once more.
Mirage frowned. "You seem to know what you're doing now."
The green mech chuckled. "I had to take care of such damages before."
"Why?"
"No one would repair a mech without credits," the green mech answered. "So I had to make do with what I could find on my own."
"No credits?" Mirage echoed, the words disturbing him. Mirage had some savings even now; he had salvaged it quite hastily after the destruction of the Towers. The mere idea that someone could possibly have no money at all sounded almost incredible.
"Not all of us were born with silver sparkplugs in our mouths," the green mech answered softly. Yet Mirage didn't detect any bitterness or resentment in that tone. In fact, the green mech sounded as though he was just making a mere statement and nothing more.
"But… if you didn't have any money, surely your creator would have provided you with some," Mirage said.
The green mech sighed. "I don't know where he is. I haven't seen him or spoken to him in a long time."
To say Mirage felt at a complete loss at what to say would have been an understatement. "How come?"
"We were poor; he couldn't support me forever," the green mech answered. "So, as soon as I got my final upgrade and came of age, I left. I hoped that I'd be able to get a job somewhere, and perhaps even send money to my creator too."
"You're not from here then?" Mirage asked.
The green mech shook his head. "I'm from the district of Polyhex."
Mirage blinked. "That's practically on the other side of Cybertron!"
"Yeah, pretty much," the green mech replied as if there was nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
Mirage shuddered mentally. "You must have been really desperate," he said, but he tensed when he registered how that must have sounded. "I mean--"
"I was desperate," the green mech replied. "And by the time I arrived in Iacon, I was determined to accept any kind of job that came along my way. After all, everyone needs a pair of able hands, right?"
"But they didn't?" Mirage asked, already guessing the answer.
"No," the green mech said. "And soon I found myself in the streets, since I couldn't afford proper lodgings either."
Mirage's spark wrenched. He thought he was in a bad situation. After hearing the green mech's story, though, he couldn't help but feel slightly guilty about his selfishness.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it.
"Don't be. You had nothing to do with that," the green mech said. "And, besides, when things looked bleak, I could depend on friends willing to help out."
"That was something, I guess," Mirage murmured.
There was silence for a while, and Mirage thought that that would be the end of their talk. The former aristocrat supposed he should have expected it. There weren't all that many subjects that a noble and a pauper could discuss about together.
"It would make things easier for you too."
"What?" Mirage asked, perplexed.
"To have some friends," the green mech answered. "I bet that must have been the longest conversation you've ever had since you got here, hasn't it?"
Mirage felt his optics widening tenfold, and he was glad that he was hiding his face on the mech's shoulder.
"I'll take that as yes," the green mech answered. "Which brings us back to my question: why do you want to be alone?"
Mirage remained silent. He didn't answer before, after all, so he didn't intend to make an exception this time.
"You don't want anyone close to you, is that it?"
Mirage flinched. The green mech, however, simply kept his focus on Mirage's shoulder.
"I guess it makes sense. No one can hurt you that way," he murmured. "But no one can love or care about you either."
"The less of two evils," Mirage whispered.
"Is it?" the green mech said. "It will become lonely before you even realise it, and then you'll discover that you've become nothing more than a ghost. You'll pass by everyone and no one will notice you're there. You'll probably want to smile to someone, or even talk to them, but they'll just look through you. It will hurt, more than having your body trampled on by all the forces of the Decepticons; but no one will be there to ease that pain anymore."
Mirage felt like his vocaliser had somehow failed him. Even so, he still managed to speak. "No one wants to deal with me even now anyway."
"I'm here, aren't I?" the green mech answered. "And I can still be there for you if you want me to. That's a start, isn't it?"
Mirage couldn't really believe what he was hearing. "You… would do that for me?" he asked softly.
"I kinda already am," the mech replied in an amused tone, optics still locked on Mirage's shoulder. "So how about it?"
All kinds of thoughts crossed Mirage's mind at that point. He was still afraid and unsure as to what to do. He was always so guarded and sheltered while living in the Towers that he practically had no idea what real life was like. It was only natural that he found himself confused and lost when he was thrown into the outside world so suddenly, so violently. But… it didn't have to stay this way, did it? Perhaps he did needsomeone to show him the right way. And now that someone was finally offering him that option, he realised that he didn't want to deny that offer.
"Okay."
His voice was barely audible, but the green mech still heard it. He drew back, looking at Mirage in evident surprise. "Really?"
Mirage nodded. "I let you check my shoulder, didn't I?"
"I think that you would have let Megatron himself check your shoulder in the state you were in," the mech pointed out, chuckling.
"That's not funny!" Mirage declared, and he landed a fist on the mech's chestplate in indignation. At the next moment, however, he froze, for he realised that he had moved his right arm and, more importantly, it didn't hurt at all.
His shoulder was fixed.
Mirage's dumbfounded expression must have been evident, for the mech nodded with a grin on his features. "Yeah. It's been functioning properly for the last breem."
Mirage stared at the mech, perplexed. "And you didn't say anything?"
"Well…" the mech actually shifted his weight in an embarrassed manner, "I had to make sure you stayed here a little while longer."
"Why?" But then, everything clicked in Mirage's mind, and he instantly pushed himself away from the mech. "You son of a…!" He bit back the curse, remembering his upbringing once more. But that didn't stop him from feeling absolutely furious. "I bet you enjoyed seeing me so… so…!"
"Open?" the green mech provided. "Yeah, I did. Because I saw the real you, not the snobbish opportunistic would-be traitor that you make yourself out to be."
All emotions of anger vanished into thin air, and Mirage wanted to vanish as well. He was practically exposed to this mech, all his defences and barriers of pride torn asunder, and that left him vulnerable, at the mech's mercy.
Yet the mech placed a hand on Mirage's shoulder kindly. "My offer still stands. I don't know how your life was before, but you're one of the Autobots now. That means we look out for each other in any way we can." The mech smiled. "You don't have to be alone anymore."
Mirage bit his lower lip. That green mech had to ruin everything, didn't he? Just when Mirage had got used to the idea of being a loner, he came along and reminded him how good it was to have a friend around. Worse, Mirage didn't want to let go of that feeling again.
Of course, he didn't want to admit defeat either.
"I'll think about it," he said coolly, and he stood up to exit the room. He barely took three steps, however, when he stopped in his tracks and looked back at the mech.
"I forgot to ask. What's your name?"
The mech blinked. "It's Hound."
"Hound." Mirage let the name sink in for a moment; then nodded. "Well, Hound… I'd really like to know how you managed to track me down so quickly during our assessment test, even though I was invisible."
That made Hound positively grin. "I could tell you over a cube of energon tomorrow morning."
Mirage finally smiled. "It's a deal."
And with that he walked out, his step lighter than it had been in a long time.
The End