Author's Notes: Hmm. I need to flex my lambo twin skills. Badly. So I write. Set after the movie, the reaction to the deaths of many.
Warnings: Mention of violence, swearing.
Spoilers: Transformers movie.
Obligatory Disclaimer: I own no part of Transformers or any of its characters.
Over and Done
"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."
-Dinah Craik
Knock. Knock. Knock. A hand rapping at his door.
"Whoever's there, go away. Go far away."
Bang. Metal smashing into metal.
"I thought I said go the hell away."
"Open the damn door, Sunstreaker." A voice to break amidst the cacophony of sound around him. Then a door forcefully shoved open, nearly pulled of its hinges.
"You're going to fix that." A quiet statement.
"I gave you plenty of warning, slagheap." Hands clenched at sides before heavy footsteps tread across the floor until they were rest next to him. An angry, shuddering pause, then, "Are you even going to look at me?"
Not making optic contact, he stares at the devastation that had once been Autobot City. "What the hell do you want?"
"What do I want? What do I want? You slagging bastard."
A insult casually ignored, and Sunstreaker continues to gaze levelly out into the city beyond. "I said. What do you want, Sideswipe?" Words said slowly, as if at any other pace they would be misunderstood.
A stuttering before reply. "I-I want to talk. I need to talk to you."
Sunstreaker does not want to talk. Because he knows exactly what his brother wants to talk about, and it is the last subject he wants ever to approach. Because if they do speak of what had come to pass in the last twenty four hours, then it would not be so easy for him to continue to look at the world through just a window. And once he leaves his window, then what was left were thoughts of Prowl scattered over the landscape, or Prime as a grey hulk in a dark room, or Huffer torn apart by seekers, a city bathed in blood...
Talk is overrated.
"What did you want to talk about?" A lie. A terrible lie. He knows what is wanted. But the lie was one that avoided the inevitable for a few precious seconds.
"What do you think?" A brother that is not familiar with subterfuge. "Just look at the window! What do I want to talk about? You! Me! Prime! Everything that's happened in the past day!"
There are many ways to break a soul.
A waver in the younger's voice, and infallibility reveals itself an untruth. "We haven't lost this badly in...in...forever."
Forever is a long ago, far away lie of a word. They had been losing all along.
"I know," he replies simply, finally compelled to turn from his window and gaze levelly at his brother's torso. But not his optics. No - because they read like novels and regale tales of pain and death and the blood bath that was yesterday.
"Knowing's not enough." Sideswipe hunkers low now, trying to catch his brother's optics. "I saw what you did out there, throwing yourself into that group of seekers. You were completely without backup."
A dodge, and his gaze is set on the wall behind him again, lending further into a deadly game of cat and mouse. "I know."
"People died out there. Friends died. You could have died."
"I know."
Mutterings now, possible ravings. "What are we going to do? Prime's dead. Our friends are dead. Our city's dead. Everyone's gone."
"I know."
Finding no victory in his game, the fight is abandoned and Sideswipe turns to rave at the wall, a shuddering, shaking monument to madness and mania. "Can't you say something else? Don't you feel anything? You've been sitting in here all day. You haven't even seen the medics yet!"
A fleeting glance, a brief once over. His body is in aesthetic ruins, paint job scorched and scratched, dents and kinks hither thither. Then the injuries. A busted shoulder, a mangled hand, a pain that shot up through his back in every animation. There are scars, but the worst is yet to come.
A shrug. "I know."
A flash of red, and Sideswipe's right up against him again. "You're sick, you know that? I thought it was just a quirk you had, but now...What would I have done if you had died?"
Now there were no more words. Instead, the sharp, stinging feel of a fist connecting with a jaw. A head snapping back at the impact.
And it hurts, and maybe it is supposed to hurt. But not where the metal swells and reforms itself as pain circuits surge and temporarily repair. It aches where even his brother cannot see. Because there it is again. A fleeting image of Gears locked in death's throes. A melted corpse, unidentifiable to either faction. Four seekers surrounding him, hands and guns prodding and searing metal as he struggled to escape.
His brother, pinned beneath a cannon, reaching out a hand in desperation.
An ache that becomes an acute throbbing as he watches his brother almost sink to his knees but not quite, upheld by the columns of stubborn will and denial. "You...you..." Confusion now, then resolution. "Bastard."
"I know."
Another swing, but now he catches the fist easily and relinquishes it, only to entwine his fingers with the other's digits, gently pulling him down easily as Sideswipe's supports crumble beneath him.
Speech, not so hysterical now, but frightened nonetheless, weak now with exhaustion. Weary and defeated. "They're dead. Prime's dead. You almost died..."
The one working arm coming up around shoulders and pulling him close. Crimson melting into gold as his head falls near his, sensor crests just barely touching.
Whispers. "I know."
A touching of minds. An admission of weakness. A broken barrier. A lending of strength. A fleeting, weeping sensation of hope.
And the worst is past.