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Ficlet Name

The Light that Guided the Way

Summary

Cyclonus is sick. Tailgate helps.

Pairing

Cyclonus & Tailgate.

Warnings

Mech gore, horror scenery. It gets better.

2,624 Words

Despite the sick drunken ease of the bar, and the vivacious happiness of Swerve's theme night - Tailgate felt uneasy. He was anxious, and he was powerless to do anything about it. He was lonely in a room full of about every mech aboard and he wasn't enjoying the night in the least. You see, usually his suitemate Cyclonus would stay in their habsuite by himself during theme night, but this time Rodimus had him on a mission on the hostile semiorganic planet below them, and he had made him promise he would send him a comm message every step of the way this time. Tailgate had just gotten over his Cybercrosis, and every part of him needed to spend time with Cyclonus. He felt like they wouldn't ever get enough time together until either of their functions ended. And with the way Cyclonus followed him everywhere they went, it seemed to him like Cyclonus felt the same way.
Cyclonus kept to his word. He would send him a brief, short update every so often, sometimes with the sound of Whirl's voice in the background laughing at him for being "valvewhipped", whatever that meant. But the last comm he had gotten was when they had found an old ruin and ventured inside. The last time this happened, the universal symbol for the plague was on the front, and everyone nearly died. Many did die. He sincerely wished if someone did have to die, that it wouldn't be Cyclonus. He realized it's selfish of him to think that way, but for Primus' sake, can't anyone give them a break? It felt like there was someone writing a bad story about them and trying to break the reader's hearts every step of the way.

Movie night crawled by. At one point he attempted to go back to their habsuite and recharge, wake up, and find Cyclonus safely sitting at their data computer, quietly writing a report. Of course this is reality and not the sweet fantasy world he'd sometimes go to to try and squash a panic attack. He felt far too isolated there without Cyclonus. Especially when he knew the warrior was knee-deep in swamp muck inside some stupid ruined construction probably getting shot at, stabbed, or spark eaten by creatures whose very existence managed to puzzle absolutely everybody on the entire ship's crew of experts on everything. Tailgate felt like if time got any slower it would halt entirely.

Finally, at what felt like the end of eternity, a full 6 breems later, the habsuite door opened. Tailgate hopped up from his place perched upside-down on the windowsill and ran to the door to embrace whatever he could reach on his now-safe Cyclonus.. and stopped entirely when he saw white, not purple, legs. Chromedome's bright yellow visor stared down at him in sadness and pity, and sort of a pain he hadn't seen in his eyes before. A sort of knowing. Tailgate kept hearing clicks of static as Chromedome halted half-processed speech about a dozen times, trying to find the right words. His spark sank to the floor. Something terrible had happened. Cyclonus was gone. He just knew it. Maybe they were able to spend a few more moments together but Cyclonus sacrificed his life for Tailgate's. And Tailgate found the sacrifice not worth it. What was the point of living without one's other half?

Chromedome finally broke the silence, and all he said was "he's not dead." At least it was something Tailgate wanted to hear, more than anything, at this point. Maybe that was the knowing he saw in his visor. The tall mech led him to the infirmary, and then into the medbay. A lot- no, most- no, all of the mechs on the mission are here. Even Rodimus and Ultra Magnus are here, all standing in quarantine tubes. Separately. And there was one, covered in a tarp, with this horrible noise coming from it. If agony of all kinds had a corporeal form, it would sound like this. It made Tailgate's spark slam in his chest. He didn't see Cyclonus anywhere. He was getting very worried now, as Ratchet dismissed Chromedome and led Tailgate to the covered quarantine lock. Ratchet wordlessly pulled the tarp away, and all that time spent waiting for news back from Cyclonus felt like nothing. All time had stopped. He wished he couldn't see. He wished he was sparked blind. He wished he would have died from Cybercrosis so he would never, ever have to see his ancient friend in such a state. Anything would have been better than what he saw before him now. He saw a clouded quarantine chamber, a sort of gas filling the inside in an apparently pointless attempt at shutting down the mech's systems. The inner walls of glass were pierced, cracked and gouged out by Cyclonus's claws and what looked like his denta. Energon, viscous like no energon should ever be, and oil with a green sickly hue was smeared across the glass by his claws. His optics were burning so bright it felt like staring into the sun. His mouth was constantly dripping oil, or at least what was left of it was. His jaw was completely missing, and on a short search, was found desperately clutched in Cyclonus's hand, being ground against the glass, which explains the denta marks. The rest of his frame looked like he had fallen down a cliff for a long, long while. Rocks and all kinds of organic matter, mixed with his own sick energon were stuck in about every place it could be, and some sharp sticks and construct rubble found their way into new places, gouged open and bleeding like the rest of him.

All that, that is to say, is he didn't actually see his warrior. He saw the shell of his warrior, burning in a pain and agony like nothing before it. He was speechless. He was heartbroken. He was shocked. Most of all he was frightened. So frightened he couldn't move. The sight before him was so terrifying, so incomprehensible that he couldn't look away. Cyclonus's unimaginable agony was almost tangible. He felt like he could grasp his hand in any direction and no matter where it landed in space, there would be pain. No matter where he went, the horrible grinding static of Cyclonus's muffled, jawless, twisted screams would reach him.

Finally Ratchet broke the silence. "He's not dead. I'll cut to the point, Tailgate - Cyclonus is infected with a Class 8 semiorganic disease called Graverobber's Disease. It's caused by the infected flesh of a plague that once wiped out a race of semi-organics, rotted and twisted, unable to die below the surface of the planets they dwelled upon, until a graverobber or other explorer-type stumbles upon a tomb, often literally. The disease was powerful against the semiorganics, built for their bacteria and immune systems, but in a solid mechanical, where there is no beating 'heart' or organic life system to kill, all it can do is slowly destroy the fluids inside, and rot away at the protoform. Unlike most of the diseases we come across this one has an effective cure, but despite that the fatality versus survival rate is 95% to 5%. Very few have ever survived the curing process. Most kill themselves halfway through. It's simply too painful. The curing process involves the gas you see pouring from the vents above him - but the disease is hardy and the cure takes at least two entire cycles. Once the cure has eradicated the disease, then the medic involved simply repairs whatever the disease had destroyed, granted it's all fixable. But Tailgate - Cyclonus knew this would happen. He knew what it was when he fell down a weak floor in the ruins, and Magnus had to shut off his vocalizer because he would not stop repeating your name."

Tailgate's spark stopped in his chest. His hand twitched, and then as if on it's own, reached out and pressed against the third layer of quarantine glass separating them. Cyclonus stopped his thrashing of pain, and simply sank to the ground, coated in energon, pressing his body tightly against where Tailgate's hand was placed. He simply laid there, eyes burning into Tailgate's panicked visor, his form racked in convulsing shakes against his control. Tailgate's mind was blank. He couldn't think about anything but his warrior, laid there against the glass. Everything else melted away. The strongest, most fearsome mech Tailgate had ever met needed him. In Tailgate's time of need, blinded by cybercrosis, paralyzed and terrified, Cyclonus had been there at his side, every waking moment. He sang to him until he was deaf, and even after then, sang to him still. He had felt the vibrations of Cyclonus's voice against his hand until he had finally gone unconscious. And now Cyclonus was in pain. Cyclonus was blinded, and in agony, and in his own time of need.

So that's what Tailgate decided to do.

He sang. He didn't take a moment to collect his lessons, he didn't begin with rebooting his vocalizer, he didn't even think about anyone else. He simply started to sing, as loud as his little voice could possibly go, and then louder. Cyclonus didn't seem to respond at first, but a fraction of the convulsing was gone, and the agonized static and grinding from Cyclonus's throat was soon gone, for fear of not being able to hear Tailgate's song over it. He first sang every song Cyclonus had ever taught him, and then two he had learned on his own, and then every song all over again, for as long as it took. Eventually Cyclonus had exhausted his energon reserves and effectively was bled out of all energy, and Tailgate still sang, as Ratchet hurried to reconnect his feed lines through the glass. He sang until Ratchet pulled him from the quarantine chamber and repaired his body. He sat beside Cyclonus's regenerating form, unconscious on the berth beside him, and he sang for the cycles it took for him to be let up from stasis. He was still singing, vocalizer creating long patches of static and hoarse grinding from the severe overuse, as Cyclonus clamped his clawed hand over Tailgate's mouth, halfway through waking himself.

Tailgate's form fell to the floor in a heap the moment Cyclonus's hand had touched him of it's own will. It meant Cyclonus was alright now, and that Tailgate didn't have to sing anymore. He could finally stop.

Warmth. Warmth and comfort was all Tailgate felt, and he never wanted it to go away. Slowly, as more of his systems onlined, memories came flooding back. Horrible memories. Memories of the last few days, of Cyclonus diseased and broken, isolated in a quarantine tube, and then of Cyclonus's many repair operations, and his recovery. Memories of his vocalizer giving out and having to watch as Cyclonus slowly began to convulse again until Ratchet could get it at least temporarily back online.

He onlined his visor with a jolt and immediately sat up. Had he offlined in the middle of Cyclonus's recovery? Had he left him alone to face his agony?

He looked around, and saw Cyclonus sitting against the window, staring out into the stars beyond. His spark immediately sank back to a normal pulse. He was so happy to see him repaired, and back to stargazing in their habsuite, his jet engines burning hotter than Tailgate's little engine ever could and making the room a wonderful, familiar kind of warm. He didn't remember what happened when Cyclonus had onlined. All he remembered was blacking out as Ratchet pulled him from stasis. He wondered if Cyclonus had heard him, all that time, singing to him. He wondered if he had helped at all. If Cyclonus remembered his gesture.

"Tailgate."

Tailgate crawled onto Cyclonus's berth beside him and copied his cross-legged sit, for once afraid to break the silence. For once, not knowing what to say. Should he ask what it was like? If he had heard Tailgate? Why he asked for Tailgate and no-one else? Why he had ever admitted to needing him there to anyone, or if he knew Tailgate would have been there whether he had asked him or not?

"You have told me what Cybercrosis felt like, as it was happening. I did not have a chance to return to you that small favor, to tell you what I was going through. Have you ever been electrocuted, Tailgate?"

"I uh- I once-I mean I tried to change the socket on one of Swerve's engex dispensers with a wet servo once?"

"Imagine that tenfold. And that, again, a thousandfold. And a thousandfold again, for a thousand years, in slow motion. Picture your plating and armor picked away and stripped, the sharp talons of cyberhawks tearing at your protoform, except that your plating is still there, trapping the talons in your cabling. A darkness surrounds you, you don't know where you are, there is no-one there. Just you, and your agony, and the talons, and the sticky, wet feeling of bleeding, all over. You're unable to scream, or express your agony in any way. You cannot call out for help, or for anyone, or anything. You cannot wish for death because it is all around you already, slow and careful, feeding off of the arid, searing heat your pain has engulfed you in. There is no moment where the pain is dulled for even the briefest point of time. For a thousand, million years. All you ever want is to go home. And then Tailgate - picture a voice, a wonderful voice, the voice of Primus's angels, piercing through the veil. Like the smallest star to lead you home through a volley of comets crushing through every seam on your body. Blindly you follow the voice, and it carries you faster through time, until you see a face with it, through the blinding of your optics bursting from their sockets, blocking out the light that feels like staring into every sun in the known universe. And then nothing. Pure, sweet, lonely nothing. No pain, no face, no voice...and then a softness, caressing you gently through the nothing, almost hiding itself in the background of your thoughts of nothing. The softness carries through, and it becomes warm, and you feel cleansed. As if every sin you ever committed was written away in a single moment of the most blissful song."

Tailgate couldn't stop listening. Internally he recorded this moment, as Cyclonus spoke more than he ever has and more than Tailgate will probably ever hear again. But as he listened, time stopped again. Time was funny that way, recently. It seemed to stop a lot. And not just for him. His spark was funny that way, too, especially as Cyclonus turned his head and gazed directly into Tailgate's visor, past the obstruction and directly into his optics, into his very being. And for once, the look wasn't mild disapproval, or annoyance, or a passing exasperation in exchange for companionship. It was a warm look, of appreciation, a look that Tailgate felt was the closest he would ever get to a "thank you" from the warrior. And Tailgate decided that honestly, it was all he wanted.