Keeper
When Ratchet finally emerged from the repair bay, his face was grim. Sunstreaker jumped to his feet and looked at the medic, unspoken fear stark on his sculpted face in a rare example of his genuine love for his twin. Ratchet looked the warrior in the optic for a long moment, then stepped aside to let the mech past. Sunstreaker nearly sprinted into the repair bay in his desperation to get to his brother.
"How is he?" Optimus quietly asked as he approached, having hung back in wariness of the distraught twin. Ratchet growled, his optics narrowed in helpless fury directed at an enemy that lay beyond his grasp. "That slagging bug's toy nearly fragged Sideswipe's entire neural net." He shook his head slightly, shoulders sagging in despair. "I've done all I can, it's up to him now."
Sunstreaker ran through the maze of equipment to where his brother lay, battered and abused; half his armour removed to allow the medics access to his systems. Sunstreaker hated seeing him like this, the elegance of his twin rent and torn like am eagle with broken wings. Nobody could do that to Sideswipe; nobody could touch his brother's beauty. Angrily, he vowed to make Bombshell suffer for harming him. But the anger held little hold when he beheld his spark-twin.
Nobody else was in the darkened repair bay at this time; Sideswipe had been the worst hit. Monitors and equipment hummed and beeped around them, but neither Perceptor nor Wheeljack or anyone else were here; it was an unspoken agreement worked out long ago between the twins and the medics when injuries were as severe as this, that the twins were left alone to challenge the inevitable.
Long golden fingers interwove between unresponsive ebony, a silent query seeking a silent response but finding none. Sunstreaker knelt beside his brother, a submissive gesture solely reserved for the twin alone, a silent plea to return to his brother and make everything light again with his sheer vibrancy of life.
"Please come back." Quiet words spilled from the mech's lips, gentle words only his brother would ever hear, spoken in the soft voice only the red twin was permitted to listen to. All others heard only the coarse language, the rough and angry tones, the hated whine and the devilish laugh. Only the twins knew each other's true voice. "Please Sideswipe, I'm afraid." The murmured confession barely echoed, but it laid bare the mech's true fears.
Despairing, the living twin lowered his head, his free hand looping under and around the scorched shoulders, seeking to gently draw his limp brother closer in a tight embrace, the black crowned head rolling with the motion and coming to rest against the polished shoulder. They were so close, Sunstreaker could feel the faint flutter of his brother's spark pulse against his chest, it's beat echoed by his own.
The twins were always in such close proximity that it was hard for the others to think of them as separate entities, it was always 'Sunstreaker and Sideswipe', the names rolling off the tongue without division. If there was one, the other would be close behind, in battle or in rest they were always near each other as if bound by an invisible cord. Even if they were simply walking down a corridor, it was side by side, shoulders just brushing. That was how it had always been, and how in death it always would be; one's footsteps echoing the other's.
But it was not tonight that they succumbed to the final enemy.
Long ebony fingers tightened around the intertwined gold, the black helm rising of it's own accord to stare at the face mirrored by his own. "Sunny?" the second born slurred, his tones equally soft as the other's. "'s'allright Sunny, I'm here."
"I know, I know."
Ebony and ivory, ruby and gold; and neither of them letting go.
