CHAPTER 7
As they emerged, the shine of dripping Energon flashed down to the concrete floor. Ratchet was already preparing the med berth.
"Bring him here! I've got a transfusion ready."
"No, don't waste it…didn't get the main cable in my leg," muttered Karl without activating his visor. "He's been at me with the proud. And the clamps…the pliers…something with my neural net…"
Optimus' digits tensed as he heard the details of Karl's hours in his absence. He reached the table and stopped, staring at it. He looked at Ratchet, who watched him with an odd expression as he waited for him to lay Karl out on the table.
"I…" he looked at the table and felt Karl curling against him, and he couldn't let him go. He let him go once and he couldn't do it again, not even into the safe hands of a friend. Not for a second. So he turned around and sat on the table with Karl still in his arms. "You'll have to work on him like this," he said stiffly, shifting his arm so that Ratchet had access to the wound on Karl's thigh.
If there was a longer, more disbelieving stare in existence, it would have found a challenger in the look Ratchet gave Optimus just then.
"Fine."
Despite all protests, he started a thin line of Energon flowing into Karl's arm. Then, working around his friend's arm, Ratchet gingerly separated the Vehicon's thighs and settled between them. Beneath the welding rod's hiss, the numerous deep serrations began to close over. He avoided saying even a quarter of what was on his mind, sensing it would have been the worst thing to confront Optimus with now.
"You don't need to hold him so tightly," he finally chanced. "Unless he's planning on running."
"Never again," said Karl, too warm and safe and free of pain to feel anything else.
Optimus felt affectionate warmth grow inside of him, and he didn't loosen his grip on Karl despite Ratchet's comment. He closed his optics during the repairs, just enjoying being able to hold him there. His thumb circled against the Vehicon's shoulder, his chin resting lightly on his helm.
"Ratchet, would you please use the laser saw to remove the cuffs?" Optimus asked when the repairs were completed and the larger amounts of energon were wiped from Karl's frame.
Activated, the saw was more powerful than the sum of its small size; it gave off a high, intimidating whine and a potent chemical scent. Karl held out his bound servos, unflinching as the circular laser cut straight down the center. Seconds later, the cuffs fell away like two broken halves of a nut.
"Thanks," he offered, rubbing his numbed wrists.
Ratchet nodded, but his attention was firmly on Optimus. Rather than presuming, he waited for the order to prepare the Vehicon's cell once more.
Unnoticing, Optimus stood and headed out of the medical bay. "Thank you," he said to Ratchet before leaving. He carried Karl to the elevator to his personal quarters, trying to ignore the incredulous expression on his friend's face as the doors closed.
When they reached the top, Optimus walked a few feet down the hall. Straight out would lead to the top of the mountain, and the door to the right would lead to his quarters. He brought Karl inside, and was glad that it was warmer in there than it had been downstairs. They crossed his main living area, a wide open room with a computer center connected to the one downstairs, a wall of tiny drawings, and a large set of windows looking out over the desert.
Optimus brought Karl into his berthroom and laid him down on his oversized berth, letting go of him for the first time in over an hour.
Karl wearily took in the room around him, having nothing to compare it to besides drone barracks. In a place so wide, warm, and filled with sunlight, it was easy to forget the darkened halls of the Nemesis and all the pain that had befallen him there.
His visor offlined, then suddenly lit up in a nodding blink. The berth was the softest, deepest he'd ever laid his back struts upon, and it was all he could do not to fall immediately into recharge. Still, he couldn't power off without speaking privately to Optimus.
"I don't know how to thank you for this...I'll fight for you, go wherever you want me to..."
"Then don't go anywhere," Optimus replied, crawling in beside him. He put his arm around the smaller mech, still feeling the need to be close after all that had happened. He listened to him mumble a few moments longer before the drone's dark optical visor finally blinked off. Optimus shifted closer and planted a kiss above the recharging Vehicon's visor.
He stayed a while longer, pondering over all that had happened. But there was a point where he didn't want to think further, which related closely to the future. Resting here beside Karl was more than he would have expected not long ago, or even imagined a while before that.
Slowly he slipped out of the berth, pressing a button on his way out that closed the blinds and darkened the berthroom. Karl had undoubtedly gone without energon on the Nemesis, and he wanted to make sure he onlined from recharge to a cube on the berth-side table.
When he reached the central room he was surprised to find the whole team standing around.
"Just to clarify," Ratchet quickly began, "this isn't a meeting I called or a reflection of my personal opinion. These three arrived several kliks ago and I filled them in as best I could."
Arcee took over."We'd still appreciate hearing it from you. Optimus, is it true that you snuck aboard the Nemesis to rescue that Vehicon prisoner? And that he's here now?" The blue femme shook her helm, slightly lost for words. "No one here is ever going to tell you what you can and can't do...but some things..."
Bulkhead didn't chime in, but he kept shooting glances towards the elevator door. He seemed to be expecting the rogue Vehicon to step out, guns blazing, and make a mad dash for the exit.
Optimus looked around at his friends and sighed. "This is… as hard to believe for me as it is for you. I…" Optimus hesitated. What could he say? What did he want to say? He didn't want the Autobots to see Karl simply as an object of his affection. He wanted them to see him as a comrade. "I first brought up the possibility of inviting Karl to stay with us, and he declined. He chose to stay loyal to his own, and in return Megatron rewarded his loyalty with cruelty. I do not regret my decision to board the Nemesis and track him down, because he is with us now, and he plans to stay. He is no longer our prisoner. I know this may be difficult for some of you to accept, but his transition will run more smoothly if you are all cooperative and supportive. Karl has much to learn, but I believe he will become a meaningful member of our team."
The remaining Autobots were silent, each pondering the matter and trying to make sense of it all. Less than a week ago, the possibility of taking a Vehicon hostage was impractical and remote...now, it was a question of accepting one into their midst. None of them could have prepared for it.
"I still think we should keep an optic on him," Bulkhead finally put in. "He could be faking it."
"He wasn't faking it." Adverse to the whole idea as he was, Ratchet knew that they had more staggering concerns where the Vehicon was concerned. "His injuries were severe, and completely consistent with Decepticon interrogation methods."
Arcee sighed, resigned. "Well...it's not like we're handing him the keys to the base."
Optimus' helm tilted down very slightly at mention of the torture. It made him want to hurry back upstairs. But he focused on Arcee's last statement. "I am not asking you to trust him right away; trust can only be formed with time. Feel free to withhold information from him if it puts you at ease for the meantime. I only ask that you try to treat him as cordially as you can."
Optimus began walking to the hall when Bumblebee piped up. 'So should I set up a room for him? He can't live in the storage room forever."
For a moment Optimus looked bewildered, not having even thought about it. Despite his own preference, it would be normal for Karl to have his own space to retreat to if he ever felt like being alone. So he nodded awkwardly.
Bulkhead gave a massive shrug, half tossing up his servos. "Eh! Long as he's not bunking with me."
Arcee, for her part, was already attempting to view this strategically. If she was going to accept a Decepticon in their midst, she was going to approach it from the most practical angle she could. "Maybe the one at the top of the hall, between Bumblebee's room and mine. Not enough to make him feel closed in, but close enough to know if something does happen?"
"That sounds fine," Optimus lied. It was far from his quarters, but he supposed that was the point after all. He looked around at them and then turned and walked down the hall to the rations room. He took a pair of cubes so he could refuel with Karl, and returned to the central room and to the elevator. He wondered for a moment whether they had been talking about it from the sudden silence, but decided against inquiring.
By the time Optimus returned to the room, Karl was already sitting upright in berth. Replete in the memory of warm arms around him and a thundering spark near him, waking up alone had come with an immense emptiness...one that had never been there before. His internal clock showed only a short time since his last recharge, so he knew Optimus couldn't have been gone long.
"Nnn...sorry for passing out like that..."
"Not at all," Optimus said as he approached. He set one of the cubes in Karl's servos and sat just below his pedes. "How are you feeling? Have your sensory wires calmed at all?" He looked at the cube he was holding and decided to wait. If Karl finished the first one he would make him drink another.
"Yeah, they feel fine...oh, wow. Thanks for this." A sharp, sudden ache in his fuel tank and a flash of red light in his HUD reminded Karl of his hunger. It had been well over a day since his last refueling, and the presence of fresh energon had him ravenous. Only after three long sips from the cube could he turn his attention back to conversation, and giving Optimus his answer. "Actually? I feel pretty good."
Optimus blinked, surprised. "That's… that's good to hear." He smiled. "Do you feel up to some fresh air and a little sun? I can take you outside if you would like. You wouldn't have to walk far…" He hesitated, almost too embarrassed to plainly offer to carry him. "Or at all."
The truth was, sunlight sounded wonderful. Sunlight sounded like the opposite of the holding cell, and all the shadows Starscream had cast when he moved. "You're doing too much for me, y'know..."
Optimus looked away, slightly embarrassed. He had to resist telling Karl that he deserved every bit of it and that it was his pleasure to provide. So he stood without responding. "How is your leg? I don't know exactly what Ratchet repaired, and I wouldn't want you walking sooner than you should."
"I'm not planning on overdoing it. But at the same time..." He hesitated, knowing what he was about to say and how it would sound to Optimus. Stubborn and illogical. He scratched at the side of his leg, not wanting to come right out and awkwardly ask permission to stand, and unsure how freely he was allowed to speak. "I don't want Starscream to be the thing keeping me down. Is it...alright if I try?"
"There's no need to ask," Optimus said. He stood close by, however, to make sure he could grab Karl if he fell.
Something in the way the Autobot said those words warmed Karl's spark all the way through; made him feel as though he could power through any pain. Putting the empty cube aside, he slid haltingly from the berth, holding onto the side to steady himself. The pain in his thigh hadn't abated completely, but he was able to shakily hold his own, and for that he was deeply pleased with himself. He looked up at Optimus, offering a few sure nods of the helm. "Alright. I'm good."
"Right this way then," Optimus said, and he slowly lead him through his living quarters, down the hall and out onto the cliff. The sun was low in the sky, and shadows from surrounding rocks and mountains made sharp lines in the ground around them.
As the sun's heat touched his visor and the breeze brought the scent of baking Earth up to meet them, Karl forgot all about discomfort...forgot that he had ever been abandoned or alone, that his world had ever consisted of what lay beneath the ground. It was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in years, and it had always been right there waiting. "By the Allspark..."
Optimus kept his gaze to the side, watching the Vehicon look out. The desert was a sight he had seen many times before, and it was more enjoyable to be able to share it with Karl. He realized then that he was still holding the second energon cube, and set it on the ground beside them. "Come sit," he said, helping Karl down and making sure he didn't move too close to the edge.
Obediently, Karl sat. He couldn't seem to take his visuals off the desert before them, and with the scenery spanning out towards the horizon, he didn't have to. Eventually, he gave a soft laugh. "Sorry. They don't let us up to the surface very often. Never this high."
Optimus leaned in toward Karl and pointed to a long, dark line in the distance, curving with the canyons in the landscape. "That road there is my escape," he said. It was strange how easily he could suddenly share with a Vehicon what he had withheld from everyone else. "There are times when I find the war consuming my every thought. And when I find myself in that dark place, and when time permits, I drive out there and find blessed relief from my thoughts. This world is so beautiful that sometimes driving down that road allows me to forget who I am and all of my responsibilities." Optimus laughed at himself, embarrassed. "What I meant to say is that it's a good road, and I would like to take you driving some time… if you'd like."
Whenever Optimus spoke to Karl like this, it was difficult to believe the other mech was a leader of such great magnitude. In the Vehicon's experience, leadership and hardness went hand-in-hand. You couldn't take time for beauty and relief, forget your responsibilities, sit down with your subordinates and waste precious minutes. Under no circumstances did you charge into enemy territory to save prisoners.
There was so much about Optimus that he couldn't begin to fathom, and it made him want to remain at the Autobot's side, devoting a lifetime to figuring it out. "That's...just really amazing. To me, at least."
"What is?" Optimus asked.
Karl searched for a succinct reply, scratching at the back of his knee as he did. "For someone who's in charge of an entire faction, you really are a normal guy." He gave a long pause. "...That didn't come out right."
"It's alright," Optimus said as he looked out. "I believe deep down that was a complement." He glanced back at Karl, not sure if his first attempt at humor in the last thousand years had succeeded.
Another long pause. Far, far below, a nightjar's cry echoed off the rocks, clipped and rasping and almost like a sob. Karl started to chuckle, his visor brightening in the fading light. "Yeah. It was definitely a compliment."
"If my processor serves me well, this is the first time anyone has called me 'normal'." He looked at Karl. "But I do like that. I crave normalcy."
He watched Karl, wishing he could read him. No doubt the drones could read each other by body language of some kind, but he was too used to expressions. Karl was somewhat of a mystery. His stance seemed casual enough, comfortable, but he would have to know him better before he could really start to understand. He looked over Karl's face plating and the red-rimmed oral intake, and wondered how it would feel to kiss him. There was no telling if Karl would even like being kissed. He opened his mouth to speak and quickly closed it.
Even through the lengthening shadows, Karl noticed that Optimus was watching him closely. He thought that he may have been more uncomfortable if the older mech's expression weren't so gentle, and his cyan optics so kind. When his mouth opened and closed, he turned to face him more directly. "Hmm?"
Optimus blinked and looked away. "Ah…" he swore internally over the corner he'd pushed himself into. He couldn't catch Karl up in his own emotions, not so soon after everything he'd been through, Karl's whole life being uprooted, and the meaning of it scattered to the wind. But he could still feel Karl's digits touching his chest as he carried him back through the ground bridge.
He mustered the courage to look at Karl again, and all he could see was purple curves and smooth edges, pink reflecting off the sky and sliding over his silver plating, and that orange optical visor glowing in the growing darkness. The logic and patience that had gotten him so far in the war dissolved. He leaned forward, put a servo against the side of Karl's face and kissed him. He pulled back only slightly, forehelm still pressed against Karl's. "I'm drowning in you."
Karl's visual feed blinked. His spark raced. Everything he'd lost was rapidly dimming, blurring, until all he could piece together was Optimus.
The face he'd seen as stasis was overtaking him, and the servo on his as he came out again...the gentle voice had that offered him the world...the arms that had swooped in to save him when he thought his time had run out, and then held him close enough to remind him that things like home and security still existed.
With a small, choked, gasp of intakes, Karl leaned in again, rubbing the smooth side of his helm to Optimus's; the only kiss he could give in return.
Optimus took the invitation and kissed him again. He'd wanted to ask something, say something, but his language was gone. He shifted closer, his other servo moving over the Vehicon's frame almost desperately, starting at his shoulder and falling down to his waist, and settling on the side of his hip. As quickly as he did it he pulled his servo back up. "Sorry," he whispered, parting from Karl just slightly.
Karl felt his sensors lighting up, one after another, as heat pooled beneath his plating. It brought back the memory of his cell beneath the base, when Optimus had applied the coolant to his aching side, and his touch had lingered. Back then, the worst possible thing for either of them was for that servo to remain against his side, and Karl had wanted nothing more.
He lay his servos against Optimus's chestplate, the broadest thing he could find. "Please...please leave it there..."
Optimus waited a moment before laying his hand against Karl's hip once more. His thumb trailed under the lower seam, brushing over wires. He kissed Karl's jaw and then moved down to his neck, opening his mouth a little more and finally running his glossa over the cabling.
He encouraged Karl to lay back and continued his ministrations, touching him reverently. His hand slipped down that smooth leg plating, digits pressing firmly around him, sliding back and forth until his servo turned to his inner thigh.
If Karl had possessed slightly more presence of mind, he would have been floored by his own responsiveness - but every touch felt perfectly right, as if those powerful servos had been meant to rest on his plating. Soon he was dragging his digits down the back of Optimus's neck, tipping his own helm to expose the sensitive, dark cables of his throat...parting his legs, quivering and eager.
The temperature in Optimus' engine had been slowly rising with each second that the smaller mech lay on his back beneath him, and when Karl's legs opened for him a blast of heat ran off his engine and his fans kicked in. He groaned softly against the Vehicon's neck, wanting so desperately to do more, to please Karl in whatever way he could. He wanted to hear his vocals whimpering in his audio. The tips of his digits drifted up Karl's thigh and met with the seam of his interface panel. He could feel the rising temperature beneath his palm and he began running his digits against the heated purple plating.
"Nnn..." Instinctively, Karl's hips tipped up into the heated caress. His processor was already jumping ahead to what Optimus's digits would feel like as they slid over his interface array, brushed the metal rim of his valve, how thick and full they would be as they slid into him, opening him up.
That line of thought proved to be the tipping point as his panel snapped loudly open. Already half-pressurized and shining with lubricant, his interface array was already blurred with heatwaves.
Optimus leaned back, giving in to his desire to see. "Look at you," he breathed, optics trailing over the Vehicon's luscious, exposed frame, and the dripping valve beneath his servo. It took everything in his power to keep his own panel from sliding open. He brushed a digit over the wet valve entrance, brow plating pulling together at the feeling of it. He pushed in slowly, mouth falling open as he felt Karl's tightness. He pulled out and pushed in again.
Karl's intakes heaved. His overheated metal groaned. If he'd had a properly expressive face, it would have been taut with pleasure. Servos clenching on Optimus's shoulders, he spread his legs wider as a fresh wash of lubricant welled out to meet the penetrating digits. "Oh frag...ohfragohfrag..."
Optimus heard a ping in his audio as someone commed him, and quickly rejected the incoming message as he focused on Karl. He pushed his digits in again, spreading them out slightly, and rubbing the inner walls at different angles. The comm pinged again and he ignored it, engrossed in the lubricant dripping from the valve down his servo. At the third ping he stopped, sighing.
"Ahh…" He looked at Karl guiltily, wishing there was some way to freeze time rather than stop what he was doing right now. "I'm being commed, and I think it's an emergency."
It took Karl several seconds to remember what words like comm and emergency meant. His inner walls gave an occasional, expectant shiver around Optimus's digits, and he didn't possess quite enough resolve to pull his hips free from them. But he nodded, speaking over the combined roar of both their fans.
"Yeah...yeah. We'd better stop."
Optimus, extremely frustrated with the situation, pressed a kiss to Karl's inner knee before gently pulling out. "I'll finish what I started," he promised before getting to his feet, and giving Karl a hand too.
He straightened up and accepted the comms, which turned out to be from Ratchet.
[Decepticon signal detected in close proximity to the base]
[Optimus, get out of berth and get down here]
[OPTIMUS]
Optimus' sight turned quickly to the dark skies, trying to spot any airplane or flyer. He put an arm around Karl and hurried him to the door. "Karl, we must conceal ourselves immediately."
To Be Continued
