Sorry sorry sorry! I updated the wrong chapter. THIS is the one I spent weeks trying to figure out. I have a weird numbering systems because I didn't could the prologue as a chapter but FF does so all my chapter numbers are off. Sorry bout that.
now reviews make a bit more sense...
Neon: They're more of flashbacks of memories. I have them purely because I can and then I can paly with their relationship a bit. TMJ will get updated when I get the next chapter back and when I can finish the next chapter.
Answerthecall: Eeh, eventually... maybe... if he doesn't get eaten first... ;)
HeartsGuardianSol: Glad you're enjoying it so far.
Coolga02: Yes stalling. I figured that shoving his twin of a building would be something Sunny-boy would do. He'd enjoy it too I'll bet. Lots of questions and they will all be answered eventually.
"No! For the love of Primus Sideswipe, you're doing it wrong!" I yelled, snatching the polishing cloth away from him roughly before shoving him in the back to make him sit down. With a huff he collapsed onto the chair, straddling the seat backwards and resting his arms and helm on the back rest. I flipped the cloth at his helm, smirking when annoyance flashed across the bond, then grabbed his wrist, deliberate jerking his arm to the side to make him yelp.
"Primus Sunny! You trying to tear my arm off?!"
"I would if it would mean you learnt how to fraggin polish your own armor!" I snapped, smacking him over the bond. We both knew why Sideswipe refused to do a good job on his armor. It was the same reason I insisted on making him learn how to do it properly. Purely an excuse to touch each other.
And you love it.
I smacked Sideswipe again, letting love leak across the bond even as I ran the soft cloth up the back of his arm, then across his shoulder guards and up the back of his neck. He shivered at the contact, the back of the neck a very sensitive place before I swiped the cloth down the back of his helm.
His engine started purring as he sank into the chair, humming some drinking song he had heard one of the other frontliners singing.
I took the moment to subspace the cloth, then started kneading my digits into his shoulder blades and neck.
The purring escalated and I smirked as I dug deeper into his neck.
xxXXxx
When I onlined, the first thing I saw was that fraggin turbofox, not even twenty feet from me.
I shot to my peds and staggered back, trying to put space between us so I could fight but all I ended up doing was tripping on my peds and landing flat on my aft, jarring my torn back. At my sharp gasp of pain the thing onlined, it's helm shooting up from where it had been curled up in a ball. It watched me a moment with bright gold optics, energon still staining it's muzzle before it put it's helm back down.
You have got to be kidding me.
The thing had been following me for over a cycle. Steadily getting closer, but never making any kind of aggressive movements.
For some reason I didn't move, just stared at the thing. It hadn't attacked me, it obviously wasn't afraid of me, and it attacked others of it's kind when I was the obvious, weaker target. Carefully, I stood up, right sword out in case my stupidity caught up with me.
The turbofox didn't move except to flick it's long tail, pointed audio receptors swivelling to follow my sound. The thing was between me and Iacon and I made a wide circle around it, keeping it in my sights at all times. As I started to move away, still watching it, its helm came up again. It got up then, stretching it's front legs forward then standing and giving itself a shake before sitting down to watch me.
In truth, it was freaking me out. But more to the point I was lonely. I was so lonely. I missed Sideswipe. This constant silence was going to break me when both Shockwave and Flatline couldn't. I wasn't a sociable mech, not by any means. Sure I still liked to hang out with the other grunts, but Sideswipe was the chatty one. I was content to sit back and listen, always watching his back even when I didn't need to.
Sideswipe…
My spark throbbed and I pressed a servo to my chassis. I missed him so much. Shaking my helm to get my thoughts back in order, I kept walking. After a few feet, the turbofox stood up and started following me.
ooOOoo
Later that orn I paused. Something was off. Turning, I scanned the area for turbofoxes, thinking that I was picking up on their false sparks. But then it hit me. It was because I couldn't sense them that was weirding me out. Or more aurally, the single creature that had been following me. I turned in a full circle again, feeling very exposed and alone. I had been alone for so long, that even knowing that creature was following me had relaxed me a little. It was unsettling that I was comfortable around the thing when its kind had attacked me twice.
It attacked it's kind as well.
That one fact came back to me but I brushed it off as being territorial. There was no way that thing was protecting me.
Was it?
No. Stop being a dumbaft. You're just desperate for attention.
I gritted my denta.
I miss you Sideswipe. I hate being alone.
Memories of our time in the pits flashed across my vision and I froze up.
No! I am not back there, we are not locked up!
I can't handle being separate from you.
I shook my helm sharply, trying to get rid of the feeling of filthy, energon soaked grime coating my armor, the terrifying, suffocating feeling of being locked in a too small cage for me and the horrible feeling of my twin leaking out somewhere where I couldn't see him.
I shuddered and took a hesitant step forward. Then another. And another.
I can do this. Sideswipe's in Iacon, I just have to get there in one piece.
It was easier to keep going. I knew Sideswipe was waiting for me in Iacon and that was all I needed to keep my hopes up and keep moving.
ooOOoo
A few joors later and I sensed a turbofox coming up. I whipped around expecting the worse but all I ended up doing was staring in shock as the turbofox trotted up. It still kept it's distance as it trotted past me, then slowed to a walk, then stopped all together and glanced back at me.
It had such an obvious 'what are you waiting for?' look on it's face that I couldn't help but smirk, subspacing my blades as I started to follow it.
ooOOoo
We kept it up for another cycle. Every orn, I would online to see it lying closer and closer to me. During the orn, the thing would walk beside me or in front, always keeping up and I came to appreciate his presence. It kept the loneliness and the darkness at bay and I was able to relax my coding a little.
I missed Sideswipe though and all the turbofox did was remind me that there should have been someone else watching my back. A new wave of pain flared though my spark.
I miss you so fraggin much Sideswipe.
I didn't want to keep moving. Two cycles and my frame was just throbbing in pain. While most of my injures had healed-
Sideswipe and I both have a wicked self-repair system.
-my back was still taking the longest to heal. Between the 'foxes tearing my back apart and the blistering burns from waking in the sun, I was shocked I hadn't picked up a virus yet.
Nasty fraggers. Not something I want to deal with right now.
I hoped my malware was still active but with all the messing around Shockwave and Flatline did, it wouldn't surprise me if it was just pure luck that I hadn't gotten a virus yet. With a tired groan I finally got to my peds and the turbofox looked up at me. It stretched before taking the lead as it trotted off. With a smirk, I continued to follow it.
ooOOoo
A cycle later, when I started to fully trust him, I finally decided to call him Slate. Figured if the thing was going to be following me-
Actually, I'm following it,
-all the way to Iacon, he should at least have a designation. Most of the time he walked ahead of me, glancing back every once in a while to make sure I was still following and I came to trust his senses. He could tell when other 'foxes were around long before I could and at night I was able to recharge easier knowing that I had someone-
Well, something.
-watching my back. My coding finally went dormant and I was able to get a good recharge for the first time in the three cycles I had left Kaon.
But the weight of Slate pressing into my back at night made me miss Sideswipe all the more. I desperately needed him and I had never been so lonely in my life. Even having a four legged beast walking beside me was better than being all alone in this wasteland where the only things keeping me company was my imagination.
ooOOoo
Four orns later and we walked into the destroyed town of Aerios. It claimed to be a neutral town but at a little over half an orns drive from Iacon, it was a fairly Autobot place. From Aerios, I figured I had another week long walk before I got to Iacon and Sideswipe.
Slate wandered down the road, muzzle sweeping the area in front even as I kept an optics out for danger. I knew the place like the back of my servo. Sideswipe and I had been there enough times with some of the other grunts that the place was a second home.
Or one building in particular.
Taking a side street, Slate paused before following me, trailing just beside me.
The corner building had been destroyed like the rest of the town. Seeker fire had left the ground littered with massive craters, buildings half collapsed and glass and debris were scattered all over the grown. The building was somehow still standing-
It had better. The fights that went on in that place? Nothing short of a combiner stepping on the place could bring it down.
-and I rested a servo on what had been the doorframe. The huge windows wrapping the building were all shattered and when the building had shifted, jammed the door.
I climbed in the window, careful that I didn't cut myself on the broken glass and stepped into the bar.
A backwash town, it was very small but the place had the best bar on Cybertron. Maccadam's Oil House. It was far better than Elite places like The Circle and Goldstar's and places like that. Maccadam's was for us grunts. Looking around the wrecked building hurt. We'd toasted lost friends and lost times here more times than I could count.
Being so close to Iacon, it had been included in Red Alert's massive security blanket that covered nearly all of Iacon territory. But because of its neutral status, Red couldn't put any of his millions of little scanners in the town. It left a big blank zone on the security grid and us grunts were often sent in that direction to visual check it out. Decepticons liked to use the place as a hideout and because of the neutral status of the town, Autobots couldn't do anything to drive them off. That being said, when over 90% of the population were Autobot frontlines, anyone with a Decepticon insignia had the utter slag beat out of them and the higher ups just happened to look the other way.
The attack, when it came, had come from Aerios. Decepticons had started filling the town, keeping low that we never realised what was happening until the Seekers were on Iacon. A small army managed to punch though most of our defences and other then the last battle for the Allspark, they got as close as they ever would to reaching the center of Iacon. We drove them back, but the damage had been done.
Iacon's defences had been all but destroyed, Aerios was completely leveled as the Seekers bombed the place and took out the Autobot fighters on leave in the town.
We knew mechs that had been terminated when the Decepticons had made their move. We had been on the front lines in a desperate attempt to drive them back.
It had been close.
They had almost breached the final wall before we managed to wipe them out.
Shaking my helm at the memories, I glanced around the old bar one more time before subspacing a cube of energon.
To new friends and old ones.
I drank the cube in a silent, time honored toast to our friends that were now in the Well.
I subspaced the half empty cube and left the bar, wandering around the town. Grey frames still littered the ground but most had been torn apart by Decepticon scavengers. Only Decepticon frames were left as we had gone back after the battle to retrieve our friends, both the offline and the badly damaged.
With a sigh, I left the bar and continued down the street. The destroyed buildings would be a safe place to spend the night.
Because of the Seekers, most of the upper levels were destroyed and I didn't trust them after who knows how long of rusting. The ground floor of a three story building was where I finally decide to stay. While Slate did a lap around the open ground floor, I sat down against the wall, watching him. Satisfied, he finally lay down beside me, his back pressed up against my leg. I rested my servo on his back and he gave a deep sigh, the vents on his sides flaring before settling back into their rhythm. With a faint smirk, I rested my helm back against the wall, letting my systems slow down. Eventually I let my systems fall into recharge.
Again... sorry...
R and R people!
