Title: The Mech Before Me

Universe: G1.

Rating: PG-13. Entry for April 2008 at MechaErotica, Lonely Ol' Night Challenge.

Pairing: Optimus Prime/Ratchet with reference to Elita One/Optimus Prime.

Author's Notes: If pressed, I would insist this is transformative, an experiment in style. Each line should be read slowly, a heartbeat or two allowed between them as thoughts come slowly from a weary being. 1700 words. The fanfiction system would not accept empty lines between paragraphs, so the radio chirp mark (-:-) was inserted to indicate a longer pause.


He comes to me again

on a day like many others.

I hear the door cycle open

and look up in time to see him

register that there is no one else here,

everyone repaired and released,

gone on about the lives they're making here.

-:-

"I need you," he says

in that voice that resonates in my head,

with the vocalizer I've half a mind to detune.

But I see the change,

see the mantle fall from him,

so that the leader,

the commander,

the Prime

is not the mech standing there.

The strain,

the sadness,

the senselessness of war,

weigh on the mech before me.

He is not free,

never free,

bound as he is to duty

and to the past,

to the soul of another.

Often he comes to me like this.

-:-

Each time feels like a first time

and feels like a last time.

-:-

I stand up slowly at my desk,

other tasks forgotten.

My priority always has to be

this mech before me

because without him

we are all lost.

-:-

He steps closer

in the quiet of the room.

It might be the middle of the day

or the darkest hours of night

but the others are elsewhere,

my helpers sent to rest

and recover their energy

after dealing with the aftermath of battle.

He doesn't come to me every time

but enough that I never allow them to remain

when the last repairs are done.

I find reasons for them to go,

leaving me to inventory

or to clean up

and take stock of the damage,

plan the replenishment runs to be made.

His steps are cautious,

uncertain,

not the character he displays at any other time.

-:-

The mech before me is asking permission.

He thinks he is asking of me

something difficult,

something uncomfortable,

even something wrong.

-:-

The task I was working is forgotten.

Unhurried,

as smoothly as I can move,

I hold out a hand to him

in a gesture of welcome

and acceptance,

offering understanding,

the stolid support that he needs.

At these times

the mech before me is not the power in this company,

not the one whose name everyone knows.

I have no name for the mech before me.

-:-

If anyone else were to observe this

they might say that I am as different in these times as he,

but that is not the case:

I care as much

and use the same judgment

with them as with him,

but part of my charter,

my guiding light,

my programming, even,

is to treat each patient as is best for his condition.

The twins curse and carouse

so I curse and carouse with them,

as rough and as harsh

as they need me to be

to get them through;

my fingers less gentle

but my carefulness the same.

Others need to be reassured,

need me to downplay everything:

"Oh, it's just a scratch, get over it,"

I say to one while my student reattaches a limb,

knowing what they need to hear

and how they need me to be.

-:-

Bravado and raucousness,

crotchety complaints,

these are not for the mech before me.

-:-

He stops about halfway,

as if he does not have the energy to go farther.

Perhaps he does not,

but I find it more likely that he is reconsidering,

thinking that he should not,

that he must not,

that it is somehow unfair of him to ask this of me

one more time.

-:-

Before he can talk himself into leaving

I carefully move to close the distance,

silently offering my support,

my presence,

anything he needs that I can provide.

He always waits

for me to touch him first,

then it is as if he deflates,

as if his hydraulics have cut out,

as if his power relays have failed.

I am strong

and the mech before me is not the largest in our ranks,

not the most massive,

and he is not wounded, now,

his gyros are spinning

and the lift I provide him

is of the spark not the body.

He leans into me,

bowing into my embrace.

It is not sensual

or romantic in any way;

at least, it does not start out that way.

Yet we move,

knowing this dance,

knowing that what we share

may not be a love worthy of dreaming,

or a love fit for song,

but it is love none the less,

unchanging

and sustaining,

that keeps him on his feet when he should fall,

and keeps me at my post when everyone else is gone to rest.

-:-

Sometimes we both overload

and do not know how we came to it;

sometimes it is purely for comfort

and he plugs into me

so that I can soothe his soul

by partitioning drives

and putting memories in files more remote.

Sometimes, after the initial meeting,

after I hold him for a moment or two,

he straightens up to leave

with a lighter step and a promise to return:

the welcome was all he needed,

a moment to relieve the loneliness.

-:-

Those may be the worst times for me,

a reminder that although I count myself his

we both know he can never be mine.

-:-

The best times are others

when the welcome is all he needs,

but he straightens up

to become active,

displaying the traits everyone knows

but in a circumstance few would guess.

Leader as lover

is passionate and tender and true.

Those are the times that leave me reeling,

that leave me wishing

he could stay by my side.

-:-

This is not one of those times.

I can feel it in him,

I can feel that the bond is aching.

His spark, the core of his being,

the eternal flame that makes a machine alive

is hurting

from being spread too thinly,

across too large a distance,

half of it held by his mate.

This time I hold him and soothe,

I tell him I love him,

and tenderly I touch him,

with gentle hands I drive him to the edge.

I let him forget for a moment -

an hour? - a breem? -

that I am not her.

I brace myself for the sound of her name.

The mech before me knows loneliness

even surrounded as he is by many

who would happily absorb his pain if they could,

or fill the gap in his soul.

-:-

"How often have we done this?" he asks

and I don't know what to say.

-:-

"I haven't been keeping track."

-:-

He accepts that for answer

and leans into me

where we've knelt down on my office floor.

-:-

"Does it hurt you when I cry her name?"

-:-

That is a question I never imagined:

"I- haven't been keeping track."

-:-

"It is not fair to you," he says,

"that I ask this of you."

-:-

"You need it-" I start to say.

-:-

He overrides me

with his voice no longer controlled:

"What can I do

to leave her behind

and free my spark for the rest of my time?"

-:-

I ache for him and he knows it

but I never dreamed he could feel the same.

I touch his face - battle mask long removed -

and gaze into eyes I adore.

-:-

"There is nothing,"

I begin, "no change you can make

except to move on day by day.

You deal with the pain,

and you know I can help,

but your spark will remain bound to hers."

-:-

He thinks for a moment with faraway optics;

I can hear his processors spin.

Then he returns to the present,

sees me holding him.

He looks at me searchingly

and I meet his gaze,

unflinching

as I am in all things.

-:-

I sense a shift in him I do not recognize.

-:-

"Do you ever feel I am using you?"

That sounds like his Prime voice.

-:-

I let him know I noticed: "No, Prime."

-:-

"I do," he says, "but I'm weak and come to you."

Prime no more, he reverts to the lover I know.

-:-

"You shouldn't," I offer, "I love you -

I will give freely what you need."

-:-

"We can never be open

or allow others to know what we have,

between you and me.

Who here doesn't know her?

But you know, or should know, how I feel."

The pain is still there, I can feel it in him,

but he is shifting, his world's not the same.

"I may be bound to her forever," he says,

"can it be enough that I come to you now?"

-:-

"Enough for whom?" I reply, "Don't ask for me, only you."

-:-

He turns thoughtful

again looking inside,

and probably back to the past.

-:-

For a time we are quiet,

sharing comfort and warmth,

not our thoughts or our fears or our dreams.

-:-

Then his focus shifts to me

and he is the one I long for

who is lover and leader and friend;

not the patient,

not the Prime I must mend.

The mech before me is all of those things

as he fans the fire in my spark,

yet I know each time is a first time

and each time is a last time,

with a soul who can never be free.

-:-

I ease the strain,

I soothe the sadness,

I lament the senselessness of war,

yet they bear down on the mech before me.

I do all I can to bring a change,

so that when he rises from my side

to resume the mantle of command

he is the leader,

the Prime,

the champion once again.

-:-

The mech before me will always come again,

on a day like many, many others.

I will hear the door cycle open

and look up in time to see him

register there is no one else here,

everyone repaired and released,

gone on about the lives they make here.

-:-

"I need you," he will say

in that voice once again,

the same that rings true when he says, "Freedom-

-is the Right of All Sentient Beings."

Yet freedom is not his,

bound as he is to duty

and to the past,

to the soul of another.

-:-

Each time will be a first time

and each time, a last time,

with this mech who comes to stand before me.