/The sun like a hammer on the sand, gunfire filling the air, a too still body laying only meters away, but the gulf was too large to reach in time, an explosion filling the air with white and fury then.../
Ratchet sat straight up on his berth, intakes noisily attempting to cool his overheated chassis, as he attempted to slow down his racing fuel pump. A black figure stirred next to him.
"Hmnf. Come back here, Doc'." Ironhide muttered, one arm reaching for the other.
Ratchet resisted, still trying to purge his memory banks of that all too real image. "Just a moment, Hide."
A snort. "What is the matter, now?" Ironhide shifted, pushing himself up on one elbow. Ratchet didn't answer for a moment, then he spoke.
"Figments of a worried processor, or to be precise, the battle in Egypt, and there was someone injured and I couldn't get to him in time."
Ironhide dropped back to the berth with a muffled clang,and snaked an arm around the medic's frame. "Come here. Quit worrying. Over now." He tugged, and Ratchet fell back to the berth. He lay there stiffly, until a mechanical sigh, and an insistent tug from the other in the berth pulled Ratchet closer. A scarred hand slowly rubbed a neon arm, with a soothing rumble coming somewhere from inside the other's chest.
"Yes. Yes it is." Ratchet said after a moment, allowing the touch to calm him. He moved closer, automatically adjusting for the varying protruding bits of armor on both their frames, and 'sighed', one hand drawing lazy circles on Hide's chestplates. Optics shuttered, he moved even closer, aftershocks of the dream making his frame shake.
A black hand swept up and down Ratchet's back, a soothing rumble coming from Hide. "Stow it." Hide's other hand came up to capture Ratchet's hand. "What.. are you doing?"
The medic shrugged, a small shifting of shoulder armor. "I told you once. It soothes me to touch you." Ironhide snorted, and shifted his medic closer still, till only the changing color told where one began and the other left off. "Now are you going back into recharge? You need your rest." He said, looking at the medic in his arms.
Ratchet though had already slipped into recharge, and his only reply was a small mechanical snore.
"Old neon fool," Hide said, affectionately, optics shuttering as he also slipped back into recharge.