Chapter Text
The whole experience had left Ratchet shaken. Not that anyone would know by looking at him; stern in his bed manner and soft in his actions: stable as he ever was, drinking twice a week with his friends, laughing and chatting and sharing a song.
It was in the way he couldn’t sleep at night until late, his mind thinking and rethinking one and a thousand scenarios. It was in how he would not allow himself to be alone in his thoughts. He had always been a mech able to compartmentalize; to let things go until he wasn’t a slave to his worst instincts - he wasn’t used to the spiraling, the regret.
All those things he’d try to bury. When he was young and stupid and falling in love for a night with anyone that bought him a drink - when a bot with golden eyes had looked at him like he was the sun, when warm energon would appear during a long shift or the floors would suddenly be swept while he was on surgery. When he knew he could never return the feelings for a patient (how indecent!).
When that bot never came back and things turned bloody. When the Dead End became more agitated. When he felt eyes on his back every time walking home, but never got jumped once.
He worked in the meantime. Couldn’t stand the silence, so he took residence on a desk near the beeping machines in the ER - listening to the sounds through the thin walls where the patients rested.
A beep, another, another, another.
This should go here. Should it? Yes, it does. Beep, beep, beep. Twirling his microwelder in his hand. I’ll need to sand that off later. Beep, beep, -his face, so scared- beep. This line doesn’t connect, I’ll have to pick up a longer wire -he had smiled- or some connector if, if it has a triple -how could I leave him there- a triple pathway, wait, this is a knee component, these don’t -he said I would see him again, just not there- these don’t have, Primus, focus, -he was so hopeful, had he given up his spark casing already- no triples, no connectors, only pick up wires (2.5, 2.2 if I can’t sand that off well enough) was he waiting for me?
Beep, beep, beep. Suddenly bringing him back to the present.
“Can’t fucking work like this.”
He walked to the energon dispenser and got himself half a ration. He needed to talk to Greenlight about the latest reports from the frontlines and how it was nearing ever closer to their makeshift medbay.
Beep, beep, beep.
Deadlock had never longed for comfort. Softness and gentleness were never truly far away from him - a plush berth waiting for him, warm energon, silence; anything he might wish for was taken care of. A shiny credit chip laid on his subspace, payments engorging its numbers far past what he could've ever dreamed back in…
Back where? That was a different life. Not me, never me. He sneered at himself while dismantling the bowels of his guns sitting on the desk in his berthroom, cleaned from top to bottom by someone that wasn't him. He finished shining the muzzle of his rifle and dropped the oily rag to the floor while taking another for the trigger, focused on his task.
The different life someone had lived had been difficult. Never comfort, never softness: the harsh sounds of the city, the broken windows, the few friends one could trust and the dozens one couldn't; a whisper of quietness found only in the next hit. Constant panic and scarce warmth, mostly taken when pressed as close as possible to the mech who meant home, who meant food.
He's gone now. There’s noone.
His brow creased.
There’s noone now.
Content with his work, Deadlock reassembled his gun.
Deadlock did not depend any longer on someone else to bring him peace, no frailness to combat. He had speed, aim, and two good hands, and those could pay for whatever his heart desired. The life from before had been violent before he had gotten good at it, and today - he was the best.
He put away his weapon and strode to the washroom to wash his hands. It was impeccable, as everything else in the habsuite was.
The person who was here to pick up my trash is the reason I'm fighting for. The clean mirror, the fresh sheets.
He didn't fight for them, specifically, but to make up for the military effort they weren't putting in. He was there to fight every fight any decepticon couldn't, be it for morals or restrain - push when everyone else would retreat, be the fist on the wall when anyone would shy away. Deadlock had no remorse and was committed to keeping as such. It paid for all his comforts, you see.
As he laid on his plush bedding and closed his eyes he felt a pinch of pain on his side and remembered the week before. The acrid smell of blood in his nose, the sticky texture of mud on his lips. The whisper of hands welding his hip making itself known in the darkness. Deadlock traced invisible ridges on the scar with the tips of his fingers as he exhaled.
He was the most comfortable he had ever been, in this life or another. He had everything he could wish for.
Primus, why am I feeling so hollow?