Personnel Duty

Prime/Ratchet

Ratchet was intoxicated. That had been the intention when he'd walked the medic back to his own quarters after the last mech had left the Medbay, and now Optimus felt that they could finally get somewhere. He'd drawn out half a cube of High Grade over the last hour, feigning indulgence whilst refilling the medic's cube five times. He didn't want Ratchet to do this on his own, which he suspected was a habit following a frustrating death, and it was one of the few sure-fire ways of getting him to accept a cleansing merge. Which he needed, almost as desperately as he'd needed it after Jazz's death.

"It was a nothing part," Ratchet snarled with narrowed optics, his voice becoming less angered and more grieved with each repetition. He turned on Optimus, sitting against the desk, and continued pacing the restricted living space between them. "Younglings grow the mineral for science projects, for frag's sake." Realising the mistake, he paused with shuttered optics and high shoulders. "Grew. Grew it. Grew it because it was everywhere on Cybertron and was outright disposable in the Medbays."

Optimus listened with a bowed head, his vents cycling warm and slow. His chassis ached, and he knew in his spark that he, for one of a very few times, needed this as well. Needed the comfort, the distraction of another's soul and the sense of purpose – of being able to do –something- that cleansing merges could give him. It was a deeply selfish want, and one that he would do everything he could to hide from the medic, but it was another compelling reason to battle past Ratchet's armour.

It was the first time a spark-case heat-sink had failed, a negligible part until there wasn't another one to hand. It was rare for the parts to fail, only changed as part of maintenance a handful of times throughout a bot's life, and it was sheer misfortune and incalculable odds that had Cliffjumper's obliterated as part of a close volley of shots. There was nothing like the mineral on Earth, and no other part of a Cybertronian could do the same job. Synthesizing a comparable compound had been proving difficult for years and hovered low on Ratchet's lengthy to-do list, a failure that he now felt was inexcusable.

"There was no way you could have predicted this," the Prime interjected softly, setting the cube aside and resting his hands on the edges of the desk. "Even Ironhide's heat-sink has never been damaged, and he's seen more close combat than Cliffjumper ever did."

Ratchet's steps had slowed to a halt close to the wall, but he didn't turn. Optics dim and the cube hanging from his fingertips, it was only when he dropped it to clench his fist that Optimus saw that it was empty. He straightened before the medic twisted to face him, closing the small space between them to stand rigid and scowling.

"I spend more time than you imagining how these bots could die," he murmured tightly, the plates on his face held tight and close. Stale heat from his vents pooled and mixed with the Prime's, an even greater indicator of his anger than his stance. "This was one of the sure-fire ways one of us was –going- to die. Because I never bothered to find a substitute for the part. Because I was too busy smelting the dead from both sides to keep armour on our backs and energon in our lines so that we could keep fighting this fragging war."

His optics shuttered, mouth twisting as if pained by the thought of the words alone. They opened again like a flare going off, his voice tenebrous and sharp. "And so far from home. From any of our bases, where this mineral grows like a weed. We're on this miserable organic planet that seeks to rust and erode us at every turn, fighting because the 'Cons –might- be a risk to this infantile species, the All Spark gone and mechs dying because I can't complete the simplest of repairs."

Jazz's heat-sink had been bifurcated when Megatron tore him apart, Optimus realized with a grimace. It hadn't been what had offlined him, but it was one of the main injuries that had made saving his life absolutely impossible. Even with the mineral to hand the odds that he could have survived were infinitesimal, but Optimus sensed that Ratchet wasn't operating on that much rationale at the moment.

He didn't realize Ratchet had moved to strike him until his chassis shuddered with a loud sound, quickly repeated as the medic toppled into this new rut. Optimus wrapped both arms around the smaller mech and pulled him close.

Ratchet fought as if he was truly being threatened, though didn't bring any of his medical overrides to bear to take control of the bigger mech's motor functions and free himself. As much as he didn't want to be held, embraced like this, there was no denying the instinctual attraction of that powerful spark pressing so close to his, thrumming and ready.

He was far from done with being angry, though. "Who next, Prime? Who else is going to die because of the destruction of a stupid part? If we'd stayed anywhere near the colonies, Pit, near the Ark where it was shot down, I would have crates of them. They'd be in the way. Here I don't have one. Cliffjumper couldn't have one, and neither could Jazz, and neither can the next mech who gets mangled the wrong way."

And there Ratchet stopped, at the glaring but invisible line in the sand. The thing that could not be said, no matter how much anger, despair and intoxication bolstered it. The thing that, in dark and quiet hours, Optimus almost wished someone would voice to him: That is was his order keeping them here, and for the sole purpose of protecting the humans. They could take respite on any planet, but they remained here. At personal cost.

Meeting the mech's stare and holding it, Optimus ran a hand down one arm and clasped a solid wrist before squeezing hard enough to hurt. Ratchet flinched, hesitant and uncertain. So much strength in this body, Optimus marvelled anew. The medic was designed to be able to pry apart the toughest armour to conduct surgery, to tear parts off of himself to conduct field repairs, and wielded this thunderous strength with a dexterity that funnelled it, tighter and tighter, into taut delicacy. He rarely allowed it to come out raw, and at times like this it boiled within systems designed at every turn to contain and control it so as not to do harm.

The Prime could take it, though. It was part of his code now to want to if that's what would help. Optics narrowing with communicative intent, he squeezed the wrist again and pulled it into an awkward angle to underline the pain.

Ratchet hissed and tried to pull his arm free, his torn expression faltering when Optimus did not let go and the realisation of what he was trying to trickled in. "Don't provoke me, Prime," he warned softly, the words lower for it. Even as he spoke, though, a tremble passed through his frame. The grieved rage was still close.

A barely perceptible exhale from the larger mech's vents as Optimus tried to suppress the sigh, his overly swollen spark aching anew. "I'd rather you take this out on me than on yourself, old friend." He shuttered his optics, inwardly bracing himself. "Cliffjumper's death was not your fault, no more than Jazz's was."

A choked sound that was almost static, almost words blasted from Ratchet's vocal processor before his fist moved again, this time striking directly over the Autobot symbol on the Prime's armour. The symbol of their almost-extinct race's petty division. The banner for peace and freedom that Optimus led them under that, for centuries, had brought nothing but death and pain to them.

The High Grade leeched strength from the medic's body as well as co-ordination. Much as Ratchet wanted to continue to batter this accepting symbol of his frustration, after scant minutes he was clinging to the shallowly dented chassis with his optics shuttered and head bowed. Optimus did not initiate any movement, though, much as Ratchet may have wanted him to. If he turned passive now and merely let the Prime minister him, then nothing would be resolved. Ratchet needed this moment of control, of certainty, of being able to dictate what was going to happen with another's body. Not something that the medic could be aware of, but what Optimus knew heuristically through the vicious seeping of energy from the mech's spark, now reaching instinctively for his own.

There were no straps here – nothing to bind with as Ratchet may have wanted in the Medbay, and Optimus allowed himself to be coaxed backwards to the wall on the other side of the desk. Using his dorsal sensors, he lined up with and rested his weight against one of the solid support beams and allowed his wrists to be lift and set against the wall. Without drawing attention to it, he adjusted his footing to better equalise their heights, locking his legs when Ratchet's hands descended on his chassis.

Every part opened without resistance though Ratchet lingered over the components as if they were damaged, stroking and squeezing to test resistance, relishing the feel of -life- that was there. His movements were edged with desperation, a seeking need for something he couldn't identify but felt was somewhere in this body. The Prime's spark was a scorching point of heat now, the casing doing little to trap the light inside as it rippled over his opened chassis in bright waves. His own finally parted and allowed their joint energies to begin to mingle.

Ratchet's hands were rough and merciless, and it was a conscious effort not to bring his hands onto the medic's body or to move away. With the spark revealed openly, Optimus felt the miasma crash into him with almost nauseating potency. Cliffjumper was there, but Jazz as well. Always Jazz. Every time there was a death, Ratchet lurched back to his sparkmate's body. A self-inflicted haunting that spiralled his black feelings to greater heights. Optimus winced as Ratchet's hand clenched in spasm somewhere to the right of his spark, crushing a small part and piercing several lines. He ushered the damage report aside, wholly focussed on the emotional energy curdling out. His heat-sink was now visible, he realized. Small and often overlooked, but a beacon now, cradled at the very bottom of his spark casing.

The medic paused, optics bright and almost trembling, stuck on the sight of the insignificant, critical part. He gave a harsh exhale when Optimus's hand came to rest on the back of his neck, needing no further invitation to grasp the flared armour and crash their reaching sparks together.

There was no heady build-up, no caressing of energies and gentle sifting through thought and feeling. Ratchet had plunged, and Optimus received his soul with the same immediate urgency, almost entirely engulfing it within his own and pouring everything he could give into it. This was not an act of consolation or comfort but a place to scream, and Ratchet's spark writhed and thundered with everything that had been trapped and would have to be trapped again. Optimus shuddered with the force of it, overload striking them both almost out of nowhere.

The climax was from the sheer power and intensity of the merge, far removed from sexual arousal. It left them both gasping to supplement their already maximised ventilation systems, bright optics staring at nothing. Ratchet pulled away first, noticing the bled fluids on his hands and front as his chassis was closing. Optimus placed gentle hands on his helm and ran his thumbs down over his optics, cutting off the scan. "It's nothing."

Ratchet reached up to hold each wrist, hanging the weight of his arms down from them. He met the concerned optics with dimmed ones of his own, the irises drawn in tight from where he had aborted the scan. "I'm sorry," he murmured, shoulders sagging when he heard that there was less in the words than he had even hoped to convey. Prime understood, though. Always would.

Clicking softly to dismiss the apology, to assure that it wasn't necessary and that, in some way, the damage done was welcomed as the price of some kind of peace, Optimus drew the mech closer. Arranged like this, his finial came to rest against Ratchet's helm, and he shuttered his optics to sigh into the embrace.

Dimly, held close and safe on some deep and fundamental level, Ratchet knew that if their species could, he would be weeping. He couldn't decide why.

The result of reading some truly outstanding updates on stories, lately. Check out my fav. list. ^_^

Thanks for reading this latest installment.

(And Cliffjumper is dying all over the shop at the moment, so he was the easy choice when it came to picking the deceased. ^^;)