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.
