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Chapter Thirty – Orion's Origins
"What were their names?"
He took a deep breath in as she pulled her head away from his hands and shifted along his bench. She removed her boots, the two muddy, dark brown steel toes dropping on to the ground roughly and landing on the floor of his cab with a muffled bang. She pulled her feet up to her side as she got comfortable. He smiled softly.
"J.J, I don't want to offend you, I know right now you're upset and –"
"I wanna hear about them," she interrupted him softly, lifting an elbow against the back of his bench and holding her head up with her hand, "Please?"
He sighed, but smile softly – he didn't want her to get offended, or make her feel worse by listening to a family that wasn't her own. He didn't want her dreaming of what could have been, or what she missed out on. He didn't want to make how she was feeling worsen.
He smiled, "Okay. Okay, only if you insist."
She nodded. "I do."
He took a deep breath in, but lifted one arm to place it along the back of his bench as well, their fingers so close they were almost touching. He could feel the presence of her fingers only centimetres away from his and it took a lot of willpower from him not to reach out and grab her hand in his.
"My Carrier's name, my Mom's name, was Goldbelle, and my Sire, or my Father, he was named Ophiuchus Pax. In my family's tradition if a femme is born then her name must start with the same first letter as her Carrier's and it must reflect her Carrier's name. If a mech is born, the situation is flipped to reflect the Sire's. My father was named after what humans call a constellation and thus when I was born, as was I."
J.J furrowed her brows. "There isn't a constellation called Optimus or Prime."
He chuckled, "No, there is not, but I wasn't born with that name. Prime is my position, my leadership, not my name. Much to the way William is referred to as Major Lennox, I am Optimus Prime. Once appointed Prime, I was given such a name, but I was not born as Optimus. Rather, I was given the name Orion Pax. Pax was a name that has been passed on for generations to the mechs in my family."
"So you're Dad was, what? Ophiuchus? We don't have a constellation named that."
He chuckled, "I believe the humans pronounce it differently. We pronounce it Uh-fie-uh-kiss, but I do believe the humans pronounce it Oh-fee-you-kiss."
Recognition covered her face, "Oh, okay! So you're father is Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, and you were Orion, like the constellation of the hunter." She mumbled.
He confirmed, "Indeed. As such, I was named after my Sire. My Sire worked as a security advisor for and within Crystal City, which was the most beautiful city-state on our planet. Mechs and femmes of the highest castes, those who came from long histories of money, resided in Crystal City. He was very much an amazing leader, he was always well respected because of the way he carried himself, the way he operated. He treated everybody the same way until they proved him wrong. I do believe that if he had been alive when the war started, he would've been appointed Prime rather than I. Elita One has told me multiple times that that is false, that I think too highly of him, and that he, like everybody else, had flaws, but I suppose I failed to see them because I looked up to him so much. Then, my Carrier ran what you would call a day care out of our home in Iacon. She loved kids with everything she had. She was the kindest femme you'd ever meet, she thought the best of everybody and gave them chance after chance. She was trusting to a fault. She wouldn't have believed in the war when it started, she hated any form of conflict no matter what, and she believed everybody and everything to be inherently good, and deserving of happiness. And she was always worried about us, if we were okay, if we didn't need help. Then, there was my siblings, my sisters."
J.J's eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline. "You had sisters?"
His face softened again as his mind jumped to them for a moment, "I did. Three of them."
"Younger or older? Were you close with them?" she questioned, readjusting her feet once more.
"All three of them were younger than I. I was close with all of them for similar reasons, because I was their older brother and I would be there to protect them no matter what. We all depended on each other for advice and support when we needed it. The oldest was Goldmine, she grew up to be much like our Mother. She loved sparklings with everything she had, so much so that she went on to have three of her own with her own Sparkmate."
"What's a Sparkmate, again?" she pipped up.
He hesitated for a second – how should he explain this to her?
"A Sparkmate is one of the mechs or femmes who were born to be yours. The one being in the universe who is everything you need to balance you out, and you're everything they need to balance them out. A Sparkmate bond is our version of marriage, except much stronger. Once the bond is in place, it can not be undone, but it doesn't matter because your Sparkmate is the one person you will never feel the need to leave or be without."
J.J hummed. "Sounds serious, sounds intense actually. But, okay, its basically a marriage, its like soulmates, keep going."
He nodded, "Then there was the middle femme, Gleambelle. She and I got along so well because, even as a young sparkling, she liked all the things I did. We were always around our Sire, always taking after him, exhibiting traits he had. She had a mean streak to her which, from what I've been told, she inherited from my Sire, which he had when he was younger. A femme as tough as nails. She never went on to have sparklings, but she went on to open an academy on self-defense, and she did have a mate – your species' version of a relationship partner, a boyfriend. They claimed they were Sparkmates but hadn't wanted to take that degree of commitment yet."
J.J's lips curled up in a smile. "An independent, boss ass bitch, good for her."
He chuckled, but his spark squeezed as a thought crossed his mind – Gleambelle would have loved J.J. She would've loved how tough his Sparkmate was, how well she evened him out.
"Then there was my youngest sister, Greystar. By the last sparkling my parents were running out of ideas for femme names resembling my Carrier's so they used the first letter of my Carrier's name, but used the theme that my Sire's name followed. Greystar was really exuberant, she had a glow to her that I'd only ever seen one person diminish for a little while. In her world, there were no problems ever. She got along with everybody, she was friends with everybody. She was curious about everything, nobody could do any wrong. She was very… for a lack of better terms, good. She went on to become a medic because all she wanted to do was help people.
"The entire family was close – my Carrier and Sire seldom fought because they were the perfect match for one another, my sisters and I always got along. They often came running to me if they needed moral support, and a couple times Goldmine came to me because her Spark had been broken by some punk mech who thought he could do what he wanted with no repercussions. And I leaned on them whenever I needed advice about femmes, or an objective point of view if I felt like something was wrong. My Sire died when I would have been what humans would call around twenty-seven years old. He grew quite ill and only found out about it once it was too late. Once he did offline, once he passed, my Carrier moved in with Gleambelle and her mate. The last time I'd seen them I was still Orion Pax, but I had been chosen to be Optimus Prime and didn't have enough time to say goodbye or tell them what was happening before I left. Once I became Optimus Prime, the bonds I shared with them were severed. Though I can no longer feel them, I do believe they were killed in the war, during one of the Decepticon raids of Iacon."
She nodded as she listened to him speak, and he noticed the way the tension in her shoulders had disappeared; she'd unclenched her jaw, and allowed her posture to slump a little more. Most of her weight was now leaning into the backrest of his bench rather than her holding herself upright with her back as stiff as a board.
"Do you miss them?"
He nodded softly, "Every day."
His spark squeezed even tighter as he realized his entire family would have loved her. His Sire would have taken a little while to adjust but once he got over the fact that she was human, he'd admire how tough she was, how resilient she proved herself to be, how understanding she was about no matter what you spoke about to her. His Carrier and Goldmine would gush over her, how pretty she was, how well they would fit together – frag, when they'd first met Arial all they could talk about was how cute their sparklings together would be, he could only imagine what they ramble about to him if they were to meet her. Gleambelle would tease him for falling for a human, tease him for thinking Arial was the one for so long, but later admit that she liked how well J.J got on with them. And of course, Greystar would love her simply because she was his Sparkmate.
The feeling of a finger tracing over the top of his forearm pulled his eyes down to where the middle and ring fingers on J.J's right hand had started running over the Cybertronian inscribings along his skin, what humans would assume were tattoos. J.J's own tattoos shone against the rays of sun that sneaked through his windshield, following her as her fingers moved onto the bruises that had taken up home on his arms, an odd mix of yellow and brow and bright blue and purple, spread all over his skin in random patterns. Most of them were healing, but he had a few of them that were fairly fresh from the last time he and Ironhide had sparred. He watched as her dark blue eyes ran over each mark along his arms in what seemed like great detail, before she looked up and they locked eyes once more, less space between them now compared to when they first sat down. A ray of sunlight caught her eyes, a speck of hazel in her iris shining gold, and he watched as her pupils' reflex kicked in, the small, black pupils restricting and shrinking down to control how much light was affecting her vision. He found it interesting to watch as her body acted on its own to protect her as much as it could.
"Do they hurt?" she asked quietly, clearly referring to the bruises littered along his arm.
He shook his head. "Not right now."
His voice rumbled deeply, and he realized that his voice didn't come from the holoform, but rather from the speakers in his alt mode. The fact didn't seem to throw her off too much, she simply nodded in acknowledgment that she heard him, but continued looking at him, their eyes dancing together.
He didn't miss the way her eyes left his for a moment to land on and linger along his lips for a second, two, three, four, five. She swallowed deeply when she looked back up, and it took a lot for him to keep himself from leaning towards her more – they were already close enough. But it wasn't close enough, and oh how badly he wanted to get closer.
The sound of a vehicle horn blaring seemed to break her out of whatever trance she'd been in. She blinked a handful of time as her brain seemed to come out of her trance, and she cleared her throat awkwardly, pulling her hand away and back into her own space, her eyes averting to outside the windshield. They'd ended up between two hangars, out of view from most everybody who could have been passing. Everybody except for the silver Corvette that was sitting about twelve feet away, in front of the two hangars, his headlights staring at them intensely.
"I'm, um – " she cleared her throat, pulling her boots back on, "I'm sorry, I'm just gonna go hide at my place for a bit. Thank you for, y'know, everything."
She offered him a tight, closed smile, reaching to her side to pull the door open. Before he had anytime to stop her, she'd gotten out and closed the door, and was jogging off.
He wondered briefly, if he hadn't been a Prime and rather was just Orion Pax once more, how quickly he'd beat Sideswipe into the absolute ground for that.
X0X0X0X0X0
A deep rapping on the door had both Olly and Atari barking, howling as they jumped off the bed and ran towards the door. J.J's head snapped over to watch Olly's tail end turn the corner into the living room.
"Guys!" she yelled out, "Quit it!"
One of the voices stopped barking, and she could immediately tell before getting off the bed herself that Olly had stopped barking, but Atari continued barking at the door, growling and snarling in between the two barks.
"Atari, I said enough!"
She exited the room, storming towards the door. Olly jumped out of her way to avoid getting tossed around by her legs, and Atari finally stopped barking when Jess was only a few steps away.
"Go lay down" Jess's voice came out angry, a little harsh, but it did the job. With her tail tucked between her legs, Atari lowered her head and walked over to the dog bed, with Olly following close behind her. Jess turned around and grabbed the door handle, cranking it up and opening the door slightly.
A man in full uniform stood in front of the door. He was carrying his hat in his hands, revealing his short cut salt-and-pepper coloured hair, which matched the salt-and-pepper goatee on his face. His dark blue eyes that sometimes looked grey depending on the light squinted slightly as he smiled at her.
"What the fuck do you want?" she asked.
"A little harsh of a start to a conversation, wouldn't you say?" he asked, his demeanour the same as she remembered; cocky, always trying to make jokes. Nothing ever stuck to this man, mostly because he was so damn slimy.
"This isn't a conversation. We won't be having a conversation."
He tsked. "Come on, Juney. Its been, like, three or four years."
She scoffed. "How old am I?"
His eyebrows furrowed. "What kinda question is that? You're nineteen."
It was her turn to scoff, laughing rhetorically. "I'm twenty one, almost twenty two, but its good to know you care about your kid. I haven't heard from you in five years, I haven't written you a letter in eight. You don't get another chance, Jennings," she spat out at him, "I begged you to at least write to me, Mom and I asked them to have you call back all the time, Mom and I needed you, you decided not too; that's on you. You'll never get that relationship back, you'll never get another chance with me; that's on you. We tried our hardest to keep you in our lives, you decided to leave. Live with that for the rest of your life, because its all on you."
Before he had the chance to say anything, she slammed the door shut, making sure to lock it behind her.
FIN
Date Started: December 3, 2020
Date Finished: December 5, 2020
Last Edited: December 6, 2020