Disclaimer: Transformers © Hasbro
Warnings: minor spoilers for "Shattered Glass" and angst like whoa
Notes: I got a bit of an earworm this morning without even hearing the song on the radio. And it just stayed and stayed until I started typing. This was what came about.
Yes, somehow my crack!OTP skipped 'verses and went into angst-mode O.O Maybe now I can get back to the porn!verse....
Here Without You
Sometimes, it was just so damned hard to keep going. The memories were too clear, the loneliness too great, but he kept trying.
Come online. Get out of the berth. Go to meetings. Keep morale up. Try again to contact Megatron on Cyberton and let him know that they were all still functioning. Fight the Autobots occasionally. Plan. Refuel. Recharge. Repeat everything again the next cycle.
It was all routine, and no one seemed to notice that anything was wrong, that anything had been wrong since the cycle they'd found Cliffjumper in the Rad Zone.
That was also the same cycle that his bond with Rumble had abruptly been broken, leaving him struggling just to function normally.
Bonding was--had been fairly common before Optimus Prime had begun his bid for total domination, and there had been little fanfare when they'd decided to take the step up from long-term lovers to bonded mates. To be honest, Rumble had been pushing for it long before he'd caved in to his lover's wishes, and there had never been a moment of regret. They were a perfect fit for one another, he himself serious-processored and career-focused while Rumble was easy-going yet intellectual and artistic. The minibot had composed no less than thirteen poems dedicated to how the starlight reflected off his plating.
But then the world fell into insanity, and their home had been razed to the ground because he refused to blindly follow a madmech. The only things they'd had left were Rumble's extended family and one another.
And now, because of a small error in planning, all he had left were his bonded's relatives and bittersweet memories.
"Hey, mech," a quiet voice cut into his reminiscing and he looked up to find Soundwave studying him closely. "You've been online for, like, three straight cycles. Go recharge before you drop."
He nodded slightly and pushed himself back from the console he'd been working on, allowing the communication's officer to take his place. "I managed to get a three microsecond window open about a half-joor ago," he offered as he stood back. "We might be able to strengthen that and get a communique through to home."
"Sounds sweet," Soundwave replied. "I'll see if I can boost the signal, maybe get the tapes in on it so I have a couple other sets of optics on it." He hesitated for a moment before adding just as quietly as his first words, "It does get easier over time."
"Excuse me?"
"Living without your bonded." The blue mech turned to look at the taller one, seeming to shrink inside himself for a moment. "It gets easier, but it never gets better. I know that better than most."
It took about half a breem for him to respond. "How do you do it? We lost Shockwave so early in all this slag, but you make it look easy to keep going."
"One cycle at a time, Stars. One cycle at a time."
Starscream could only nod slowly before slipping from the command center and heading for his quarters to start his routine all over again. One cycle at a time.