Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Hasbro, and the respective artists/writers/et cetera. No infringement intended.
Continuity: Generation One (G1) Cartoon-verse
Characters: Optimus, Elita-One, (Orion Pax, Ariel)
Warnings: None.
Author's Note: Criticism encouraged, technical points preferable.
--
They had been two, in the beginning. And they had delighted in each other, in the play, the ploy, the courtship of willing and willful, though time and circumstance had not been kind to them. The quarters were too short and too narrow, and the berth was barely enough for two, forcing one to always sleep almost upon the other. Their meals were under-processed, gritty and poor, and the work had been hard. Exhausted at the end of their shifts, they would walk home, and collapse into their mutual berth – unable to afford or accommodate another, and not particularly inclined to – and gripe good-naturedly about their lot.
But they were happy, together. Fortunes would change, they would tell each other, in words too assured to be anything less than absolute truth. It would get better, if they just stuck it out.
Hands would find one another in the dark, and whispers – sweet and soft and nearly lost in the sound of silence – were told at the nape of warm throats. Secrets and plans that spun off into the darkness, grand descriptions of the home they would one day have, the places and people they would see and know. And he would inevitably say something silly – taken by the vision – and she would laugh and pat his shoulder and tell him to keep his feet on the ground.
After they tired of the stories, he would stare at the ceiling of their too-small quarters and, hoarse with something too big to understand, and too fragile to bear anything more than the barest murmur, would say, "I love you."
The idle touches that had danced so playfully across his chest would hesitate, and, loud as fingertips on wineglasses, "I love you too."
--
They had had time. More than enough time. Bonding was not to be done all at once; it was a slow, graceful affair, leaving tiny prints of self across the other's soul, and with every touch, the connection grew stronger, deeper. Thus they had savored the moments that stretched between, the little spaces that were filled with the other. She shimmered quietly in the back of his mind, an optimist who knew not to fly above the clouds, and he resided in her, trusting and kind and too giving, the dreamer who spun the tales of their eventual futures.
When they could, they would make the long journey from their home, to the capital. Hand in hand, they would pace the city streets and stand in awe of the skyline, the metropolis alive and bright with color and beauty. They would exclaim over this and that, and walk through the crystal gardens, and try to see through the windows of the Towers, where the elite lived. If they had scrounged up enough credits on the side – by dint of extra work or selling of their precious few possessions – sometimes they would buy a treat, and sit by the street together, watching the denizens of the city go by them.
"One day," He would say, squeezing her fingers just so, his optics shining like hope, "One day we will come here, and we won't have to leave again. I promise, Ariel."
And she would smile and agree with him, just to make him happy. Hand in hand, they would put their backs to the city and return to their too-small apartment, and their gritty energon and their tiring job, and dream of better days.
--
And then all the dreams were all taken away.
--
They picked up the little fragments, putting it back together as close to the original as they could, but never able to make it fit just right. They went back to their too small apartment, different and afraid, and sat in quiet and stillness on the tiny berth, and hands would not find each other in the dark. He told her things would get better, in that strange new voice. It was not so bad, to be reformatted in such large and powerful bodies, and to gain new names. If anything, it would make finding work again easier, because who did not want strong dock workers?
And she would agree, because they could pretend it made him happy.
Times grew harder, and, slowly, he stopped spinning his tales of tomorrow. He forgot what it was like to dream, became staid and stoic and his feet never once left the ground. It was so strange, they would sometimes say with a peculiar, false hopefulness, that things could change so much from one moment to the next.
Sometimes she would find him staring out into nothing, one hand idly tracing the outline of his unaccustomed mask.
She would sit next to him, and would not take his hand, and not let him squeeze her fingers just so, because now he did not know his own strength, and sometimes he hurt her without meaning to. And she didn't want to see him with that glassy sadness in his gaze when he looked at her dented fingers. She did not want to laugh off how it did not hurt her, not really, and it was so easily fixed.
"Who are we?" he'd ask. "Who are we anymore?"
"We are who we always were," she'd reply, "These are just new bodies. We're still the same, on the inside." And he would accept the lie, because it was so much better than the long silences when she said nothing.
His hand would slip away from his mask, and, hesitating, with a gentleness that was forced and awkward, would brush her smooth cheek. "I love you." He'd say.
"I know," She'd smile, and he almost could say she was the same as she had always been when she said, "I love you too."
--
Eventually, they found a use for the new bodies.
The too-small apartment and the gritty energon were gone, replaced by bunkers that were too big and rations that were too refined. When they were lucky enough to be on the same patrol, they walked the broken city, guns in hand, wondering if this was the last time they would take a mission, and if they would ever leave the metropolis again.
When they returned, he would draw her close, glad she was alive and safe, and promise it would be the last time he would send her out into that danger. She knew he couldn't stop it – and he wouldn't – but she never corrected him, and let him clutch her painful-tight, because it was so hard to let go sometimes.
And when someone wandered by, she would draw back and call him 'sir' or 'Prime' and he would nod and bid her good day, because there was no room for anything else.
--
Even after millions of years of separation, he found her again, perched on a broken bench, by the crystal gardens he once taken her to. It had not been difficult to locate her. The partial bond still existed between them, he felt it, her, shimmering in the spaces between his own mind and soul.
Both had slipped their units, leaving the two groups to intermingle without them. He was not sure what it was that they shared; what was left of her in his spark was from the past, and this new person was a different being entirely.
Somehow, somewhere, he knew he still felt the same for her, and she for him – but it was so hard to find those parts, and harder to hold onto them.
He drew to a halt, and stood before her, as tall and vast as any ideal given life, and remembered when they had been of a height, and when they had walked hand in hand. What could they say now, these two faction leaders? What could they do that would not feel perfunctory and false?
She looked up at him, with a gaze as foreign as any strangers, and smiled. "Optimus," she said, and there was a fond warmth in her voice, a friendliness that meant nothing at all. "It's been too long." She had unfolded herself from the bench, and had taken his hand without any fear of being hurt – having known pains worse than a few dents – and had set it against her cheek. It was warm, and still as smooth as he remembered, his fingertips making whisper-hisses across the delicate, malleable surface.
I've missed you, he thought, feeling that void of time between them, uncertain of how to circumvent it. Time which he had spent in nothingness, lost in stasis, and she had grown and changed and suffered without him. A separate entity. Someone else entirely. She did not need him. The war had gone on long without Prime, and longer, he thought, without Optimus.
We had time, once, he would have said, had he felt bold. So much time. Where had it all gone?
"Ariel," He called her, by mistake.
She stared at him, not understanding. "Who?" she asked, and her face for a moment forgot its set, hard lines and near-grimness. Then she remembered, and looked uncomfortable, releasing his hand. It slipped from her cheek, stopping doubtfully at her arm. "What, Prime?"
"I…" he had said, glancing away to stare over the shattered face of their home world. His gaze dragged back, and, hoarsely, "I love you, still," He said, something inside of him begging the lie.
She smiled. Sweet and soft and too quiet to be truth, "I know."
He looked into her optics, and he saw nothing there.