A/N: This is just another fleshed out excerpt from an RP timeline of ours that I had the random inclination to write. It's set PostMovieverse, but assumes that Megatron is revived G1-style as a homicidal, purple lunatic, causing the war and all the hardships entailed to flourish anew on Earth. Also, I'm always nervous enough posting something...but please forgo flaming if you're the type who thinks the femmes should have never existed and none of your dear boys should ever be attracted to them in any fashion. I'm equal opportunity in my pairings and like a little bit of everything. I'm hoping others might too. This story should only end up a few chapters long though. I'll try to finish soon.
His head dipped forward, optics flickering as his systems attempted to enter a forced recharge yet again. But also like every other time before, Sideswipe only snapped back awake in a dazed instant, shifting slightly against the rubble he was perched on as he looked up to see if anything had changed during his latest battle with exhaustion.
But of course nothing had. The same abandoned streets met his scanners, with the same crumbled buildings, and the same arrangement of foreign stars growing ever dimmer as the Earth's sun started to break over the horizon.
He'd been online for four days straight. But as those first rays of light came across the slanted cityscape, it now made it the fifth for him. Under normal circumstances the Cybertronian body could function, adequately at least, without a proper recharge cycle for even longer. But he was under the double strain of a self-repair network doing its best to keep him together, and a lackluster amount of energon pumping through his lines that fell well below the traditional levels of Autobot tolerance. If there was ever one good thing that could have been said about the war on Cybertron in comparison to this, it was that Prime had never let them go hungry back then.
But the lack of energon sources now was only at the bottom of their current list of crisis points. To make due, they were just internally converting whatever pittance they could from the raw, human gruel known as gasoline. Their alt modes kept that down pretty well at least. It was a strenuous diet, but they were still fueled enough to be up and fighting whenever it really mattered.
Those of them that were still here to get up at all anyway.
Sideswipe could admit to having been one of the naïve few that had really believed their war died the same day that Megatron had. But of course this wouldn't even be close to the first time that he'd been horribly wrong about something either. Though he doubted even the deeper thinkers would have pictured so many of these human cities ending up entirely reminiscent of the world they'd left behind. Who ever would have thought that there'd just be another Megatron someday? Like that slagger really couldn't die…
That seeming immortality wasn't at all fair when they couldn't say the same for themselves. It seemed like they'd lost more friends in just these first few months of the newer war than they had in years on Cybertron. And not even the reckless types like him that everyone would have expected to bite it first. No, it was the older guys. The ones he almost thought could have beaten anyone for how long they'd lasted to get this far. They'd seen and survived more battles than he probably ever would.
When a sudden burning jolt ran down through his bad arm, he knew that he'd been gripping at the wounded limb too hard again. The physical pain might make for a decent distraction from his emotions, but that kind of cowardice wasn't anything for him. He wasn't going to pretend that all those memories didn't affect him. Thinking of Prowl, Ratchet, Ironhide, and everyone else…those guys weren't going to be coming back this time. But being bitter about it, or trying to ignore how badly it hurt wasn't going to help him keep anyone else alive either.
Yet he'd still feel like less of a useless pile of scrap right now if he were actually accomplishing anything besides making a persistent dent in some rubble as he sat here on his aft. The last verified Decepticon activity in this sector had been over two Earth weeks ago. He understood that they couldn't just abandon the humans still encamped in this area, but Primus couldn't he have at least been ordered somewhere where plasma fire was still blazing? He made for one poor sentry bot, that was for sure. Patience had nothing to do with him. It was only because of his injuries that he'd been sidelined at all by now.
With things as chaotic as they were and supplies so limited, they didn't have the means to repair much of anything currently. For the most part, if you could still walk, you stayed out on patrol. Which apparently was all he was going to be doing until either they could truly patch him up, or things got even worse and even those in as bad a shape as him got ordered off back to the front lines again.
Though he did think he'd been a pretty decent actor about covering up his shortcomings this far. He could at least move his right arm around enough to show that it wasn't totally immobile. His hand was completely paralyzed, yes, but no one seemed to have noticed him carrying his weapon on the wrong side lately. He hadn't expected that they would though. Who ever noticed anything about him unless he literally demanded that attention?
Sideswipe frowned again, wondering how much these long stretches of inaction must be starting to get to him. The last thing he needed to do was begin inwardly whining at a time like this. If Sunny had been here, he surely would have reminded Sideswipe to feel doubly stupid about these petty complaints.
But with everyone being so spread out, it should have come as no surprise that they'd end up completely out of contact for so long now. Though it made it even easier to miss his brother when he hadn't really gotten to talk to him even before everything had gone to total slag in just a few Earth months.
Before they'd even gotten to this planet, his brother's whimsy had deadlocked on what was now a certain blue corvette and that'd pretty much been it. Sideswipe doubted that he held any real jealousy towards the new couple and their constant time together though. He knew how passionate Sunny could get about his newest partners. And in the past that novelty had always worn off eventually. Not that he didn't want his brother to find an actual sparkmate someday either, but it was just that a relationship like that was really nothing Sideswipe could understand. It was something they couldn't share.
Partners almost seemed to come and go in an endless procession for Sunny, but for Sideswipe they never came at all. Besides the occasional drunk on high-grade episode with his own brother, he could honestly say that he'd never come close to any of those kinds of intimacies Sunny so often liked to go on and on about in extreme, bragging detail.
Though this perpetual singlehood certainly wasn't from a lack of at least trying to find someone who could put up with him. But his tastes just ran so much differently than those of his twin. Sunstreaker could never have understood why Sideswipe was so hopeless about certain things without giving up on them and moving on. Hopeless about certain friends really.
It was true that his logic circuits had never been that great to begin with, and were probably shorting in and out now as he was about to offline from exhaustion and tumble down a hill of debris to a nice dirt nap below. But he had nothing else to do to pass the time but try and stay awake by letting his mind run in circles. He'd thought about a little bit of everything by now, even if he wasn't at all the introspective type. So there was no way he couldn't have eventually come back to thinking about exactly why he hadn't ever had that kind of luck like his brother. Why he was always alone, even if he had so many friends. Sideswipe couldn't help but consider this when he started to glance back over at her as she actually got a little rest while he was supposed to still be on watch.
Arcee wasn't half as bashed up as he was to be out here. She had more sense than to rush head long into any and every fight like him. Though her Decepticon trashing count was probably as good, if not better, than his own by the end. Really he knew she was still in acceptable enough condition that she shouldn't have been cast off so quickly to this monitoring assignment at all. But he could also understand the bias that kept her here too. Nobody liked to see a femme get torn up. Especially not the oldest mechs that still remembered the days when there'd actually been more than a handful of them. Thinking of her ever getting seriously hurt probably reminded them too much of losing their own mates. He couldn't really blame the old fogies for being protective in that case, even if it might only be a subconscious fear that kept them prejudiced against her in this way.
Of course he didn't feel too guilty about her bad luck becoming his good luck either though, since he never would have turned down the chance to go on another assignment with her. Sunstreaker could tell him that he was a pathetic fool a billion times over, and he'd probably agree every time that it was true. But Sideswipe still would never think she wasn't worth the little flux that came over his spark every time he got to pester her or spend any instance in her company at all.
Life would have been so much easier for him if this wasn't the case though. He could have just gone along with the rumors that said he and his brother were getting under each other's chest plates constantly. They could have made that true if they'd wanted to, and he'd have always had a partner and would have been content and fine with it. But that's just not the way it was. He loved Sunstreaker in a way no one else but two twins could have ever understood, but they weren't mates. Right now Sunny had Tracks, later on who knew who it would be.
For his own part, Sideswipe had come to accept that he wasn't going to have anyone by this point. Not with his preference towards the now almost non-existent femmes of their race. It was an innate attraction he just couldn't reprogram. One that so amusingly abhorred his twin even if Sideswipe doubted many others had ever realized that fact about him.
Of course Arcee knew of his leanings though. She'd turned him down enough times to almost make a running gag out of it. But even playing chase was better than nothing. He knew that no meant no, but if a flirting tease and a ruffled response on her part was about all he could hope to experience, he'd take that gladly. Even more so now when all those good times already seemed so far behind them.
Sideswipe startled slightly at a sudden hard ping off of his helm, then watching as an errant piece of concrete went skittering down the debris pile. He'd just started to lift up his good hand to reflexively check the damage as he heard a soft chuckle off to his side.
"That's what you get for staring," the pink femme spoke up tiredly, though evidently amused at gravity's continuing dislike for him.
"Good morning to you too," he answered with a feigned sulk, though of course not really caring if he now had a new dent to add to his collection or not. It should have long ceased to matter by this point. Not that Sunstreaker wouldn't have had a small fit had it been him.
Arcee didn't seem in a rush to get up just yet even as the hum of her different systems grew a little louder while she gradually came online. He thought she might only be staring out to the sunrise as she spoke again. "Did you stay awake this time?"
"Of course," he smirked coolly.
"Uh huh," came the skeptical reply.
"Check my clock if I'm lying!" Sideswipe grinned playfully, with a sudden lean forward that suggested just where that clock might be.
The femme stared at him for one long moment before giving an excellent rendition of the human sigh as she started to sit herself up, shaking her head at his predictability even as she tried to hold back a smile. "It's too early for this."
"Ain't it always?"
She contemplated tossing another piece of concrete his way, but realized that would only encourage him if anything. "Did anyone call?"
"Nope. They've decided to leave us here to rot." He leaned back on his elbows, feeling a little less responsibility in keeping alert now that he had another pair of optics to help him. He cocked his head up at her. "Though at least it's good company right?"
"Oh, unquestionably." Arcee answered, already checking her own comm. link to make sure that it hadn't gone out on her during recharge. Nothing about their systems could really be taken for granted now that their energy supplies were running as low as this. Though hers did seem to still be active, she assumed Sideswipe would know if his was as well.
They both went quiet for a while after that. He assumed she was fiddling with her system checks to find what percentage everything was now running at. He was just doing his best to stay awake again.
Arcee didn't fail to notice the flickering in his optics as he shifted further back though. "You don't have to be so tough you know. Just go to sleep," she chided, taking at least some satisfaction in the indignant look he gave her in return. "And no, I won't tell your brother that you were sleeping the whole time that he was fighting."
Ah, she had to know his sensitive pride was the weak point. Sideswipe grunted at her little jab, frowning momentarily as some jealousy snuck its way in, "That lucky jerk has no idea what city I'm even stationed in now, much less about my security duty…" Though he did continue on far less seriously, hardly ever missing the opportunity to spin something into a joke with her, "But you know it'd ruin my life if you told him that, don't you?" He tried to make the notion seem as world ending as possible, "He'd never let me live it down! You couldn't do that could you, Arcee? Not to me, huh? You'd never be that cruel! You love me!" He paused for effect. "Right?"
She never really would have considered that a Cybertronian could give the so called "puppy dog look" as human's called it. But Sideswipe was certainly trying. He got points for the effort at least. The femme lowered her shoulders, putting her hand over her face for a moment at his feigned instance of hysterics and play for sympathy. "No, I guess we couldn't have any life ruining experiences like that, could we?"
"Goes against Autobot code," Sideswipe agreed, immediately losing the pathetic expression though he wasn't done with the absurdity yet. "Rule #247: Honor thy allies and never rat them out if they need to take a nap!" His body felt so miserable, but this moment of sheer nonsense was easily lifting his spirits higher than they'd been in the last several weeks now, maybe months even.
And her helpless expression in response to his randomness made it all the more worthwhile. He doubted he'd seen her smile that genuinely in the longest time either, especially not at him. "You're…I'm calling Hound now."
"Sure thing." he "winked" at her to the best of his ability, briefly closing one still flickering optic.
"Go to sleep Sideswipe," she finally said with another exasperated look that made it seem like she didn't know whether to smile again or hit him with something heavy. She was well prepared to threaten pushing him down the rubble pile herself if he refused to heed his own body and shut himself down before he overtaxed anymore of his apparently half-fried circuits. Really, there were just some mechs they never warned you about during Autobot training.
To be continued.