Title: Love Takes Hostages (pt 3)
Author: Ebony Kain (Ithilgwath)
Rating: totally worksafe (for now. Rating subject to change as the story progresses)
Disclaimer: Sadly I don't own Transformers (well, I own a couple action figures, but…). Nor do I own the Endless. Alas!
"If the city was dreaming," he told me, "then the city is asleep. And I do not fear cities sleeping, stretched out unconscious around their rivers and estuaries, like cats in the moonlight. Sleeping cities are tame and harmless things. What I fear," he said, "is that one day he cities will waken. That one day the cities will rise."
The man who got lost in the dreams of a city, in Sandman #51: "A Tale of Two Cities": World's End
Most things that Starscream said to him, Rodimus just puts out of his mind. The dead Seeker isn't a friend, after all. And the only reason the Prime doesn't consider him an enemy outright is because, well, he's dead. Though once he started possessing people Rodimus had gotten nervous. But the ex-Seeker never really did anything that had harmed the Autobots (wait, amend that—he hasn't harmed the Autobots since he died anyway. He did a Pit-damned lot of harm while he'd been alive).
But really, Rodimus figured the guy was just lonely. No one else had been able to see him, or hear him, and Starscream had only managed to move anything while throwing a temper tantrum.
It was kind of sad. And Hot Rod had always hated being alone most of anything, himself. He couldn't even imagine going through that—surrounded by people but with no one to interact with. No one to talk to. No one to just... not even hand-holding, let along hugs and recharging side by side.
So he had let Starscream know. Rodimus could see him. Hear him.
After that the Seeker had been harder to get rid of than a space-barnacle. Only real fits of rage would send the white, red and blue ghost off away from them all for a while (but really, a Decepticon crypt? That's where he went to sulk? Talk about morbid).
Of course, now Rodimus is wondering if that's where Starscream is now. He hadn't thought their conversation the other orn was going that badly. Honestly, since when does the Seeker just expect him to take what he says at face value? Usually Starscream gets pissy when Rodimus does that.
Talking with the Seeker could be likened to navigating a minefield.
...Maybe that's why he's so good at finding them before the troops did.
Rodimus sighs, playing with a stylus on his desk. He kind of wants to com. Springer. Maybe Arcee. But they're both busy, he knows, and keeping their Prime alive might be part of their jobs, but keeping him from getting lonely and depressed aren't.
It's not like they'll have any better idea about these reports coming in that cities all over Cybertron seem to be, well, changing. The ruins of Crystal City had apparently transformed into a crystal forest over the course of mega-cycle. Reports from Yuss claimed that the Acid Wastes in the Stanix region appear to be healing, somehow. The acid rains stopped, and it had been confirmed by Autobot scouts that the Neutrals weren't lying. Turbofoxes, almost extinct, had been sighted in the area. Minerals seem to be growing up from the ground in stalagmite-like formations, some growing into each other and forming arches.
Kaon, apparently, had simply moved a good hundred hics in a single orn. The magnetic pole it had once sat on appeared to be a gaping crater that even the Decepticons were too freaked out to investigate. Ultra Magnus' spies had reported that no one in the area had felt anything when it happened. No one noticed until after it was already over. Galvatron appeared to be more irrational than ever, but luckily most of that seems to be taking form as an extreme paranoia that Unicron will be returning.
Rodimus couldn't rule it out. Cybertron changing right under their feet is downright freaky.
He wishes Starscream would come back already. He wants to pick the Seeker's processor. He seems to know so much about things he shouldn't, why wouldn't he have something to say about this?
Or. Wait. Maybe.
Rodimus leans back in his seat, stylus still grasped loosely between his digits. He stares vacantly at the door to his office a moment before dropping his gaze to his own chest-plates.
I couldn't hurt, right? The Matrix is a sacred thing. Holding the collective knowledge of the Primes. Even if Starscream had been lying, and it wasn't a direct com. line to Primus... maybe some of the other Primes had lived through something similar?
It is an idea.
A crazy idea posed by crazy dead Seeker.
But what if he was right?
Cycling his vents a few times, Rodimus executes the command to open his plates, staring into the bright light of the Matrix as it is revealed.
Not knowing what else to do from there, the young Prime simply asks.
"Hello, Primus. It's me, Rodimus. ...Are you there?"
It is an idea.
A crazy idea posed by crazy dead Seeker.
But what if he was right?
