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Of course they were stranded out here.
Out here, on the outer rim of the galaxy, on some tiny planet far too close to its sun.
Ratchet built a small fire just outside their shuttle, frowning at the flickering flames surrounded by a makeshift arrangement of rocks and sticks. The dunes of dust and minerals stretched outwards in all directions, and their footsteps from the day’s effort spent scouting left footprints all around their tiny campsite and the ship. He sat atop a small pile of rocks, leaning against one hand as he tended to the meager fire.
It seemed almost silly to build a fire here, but his sensors told him that the temperature was predicted to drop far below the freezing point come dusk, and Ratchet would rather not deal with frozen lines if it came down to it.
Some of the taller dunes still had dustings of frozen moisture from the previous nights, leaving the landscape around them a rippling sea of grays, pinks, oranges, and browns. They were waves of color in an expansive desert, and two mechs at the center of it and their tiny spaceship made it seem even more desolate and small.
Drift was drawing lines in the dust with a twig, frowning at his work.
“Drift, don’t stray too far. According to my scans, the atmosphere here wicks up moisture, sucking it out of everything around. It’s dried out the shuttle’s cells, which means we probably have to wait around for rain…”
But the speedster just smiled. “Well, there’s clouds overhead! Don’t worry, I’m working on the rain part!”
“Working on it. Right.” Ratchet rolled his optics. “Try to preserve your fuel. We’ve only got so much by way of solid energon, and I’m not risking the liquid, since we need it for the ship…”
“Oh, don’t worry, Ratch!” Drift countered happily. “I’ve got it covered!”
“Right…” Ratchet huffed.
There were pink and blue clouds high overhead, tinged with the metals of the planet, but there was no sign of rain. Even from orbit, the atmosphere here was filled with clouds, dense and ever-present above, shifting and swirling.
Drift was pacing around the camp with a stick, drawing intricate lines in the dust. He hummed to himself as he worked.
The air here was desolately still, and it made Ratchet even more tired. Even a tiny bit of wind across his frame might be comfort in this stagnant, dry place, but there was none here. The air was just stale and dry.
Miserable.
He sighed, pushing himself to his pedes. “All right, what are you doing?”
Drift looked up abruptly, his audial fins twitching. “Oh! I’m calling for rain here!”
“Calling… for rain?” Ratchet asked, tilting his helm. It felt ridiculous. It was ridiculous. “Drift, there’s nothing you can do to affect the movements of the atmosphere here, let alone induce precipitation…”
“Well, you never know! I’ve been to this sector before, not this planet, per se, but this system is home to a race I’ve met before! One of the things they taught me was sun and rain calls! And if I ever need them, that I should use them! So! Here I am, using them.”
“Calling for sun and rain…” Ratchet grumbled incredulously. “Right.”
“Yep! It was this little insignia you draw, either on the ground in front of you, or on your hand. But we really need some rain, right? So… ta-da!” The swordsmech was beaming as he stood, gesturing to the lines and symbols he’d drawn all around their campsite. It was a giant, elaborate symbol, carefully crafted with regards to the placement of their pedefalls.
Ratchet couldn’t help but groan. “Oh puh-lease.” He’d forgotten just how annoying Drift’s foolish antics could be! Perhaps it was that he merely lamented the mech’s absence, missing the comfort of his presence when it wasn’t around. Perhaps it was something else, a distant pang, that lingering feeling that always drew them back together.
Perhaps it was some want, some other feeling…
No, it was definitely annoyance.
Drift was a professional at being annoying.
And yet…
There was something undeniably cute about his enthusiasm, even if Ratchet was loath to admit it. That smile of his always sent his spark spinning.
"I even included our pedeprints in the symbol! I was taught to make it personal, so here it is, surrounding us, and our ship!" Drift was positively beaming. He looked so proud of himself.
Ratchet didn't want to dash his hopes, but he was so tired. Exhausted, even. They couldn't waste any fuel in this stagnant, arid climate. As much as they needed the rain, his scanners indicated that the clouds far above were a natural and permanent part of the atmosphere here, not rain clouds. This planet had storms, but the stale, dry air here showed no signs of changing.
"It's uh… it certainly is impressive… you can probably see it from space," Ratchet admitted, struggling to choose the right words to sound as neutral as possible. He didn't want to encourage more of Drift’s mysticism. It wasn't like there were any locals around to offend with it, either.
"I'm calling for rain!" Drift declared again, optics shining with excitement. “At least, this is how I was taught how to!”
Ratchet vented a sigh. “Well, maybe on some other planet. Or, that’s how some other species does. It doesn’t have any scientific basis.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t have any scientific basis.” Drift was smiling in a particular way that Ratchet knew he was taking great pleasure in getting a rise out of him. “Those clouds have been up there all day. But it does have magical basis!”
It took all of the restraint in Ratchet’s frame not to roll his optics. What was that even supposed to mean? Sure, there were clouds swirling overhead, but they’d been there all day.
“Drift, look. There’s no telling when it will rain next. And knowing you, even if it didn’t rain until an entire lunar cycle from now, you’d say your rain… ‘call’ was successful, because it is an eventuality. The problem is, if all of the energon in our reserves, and the energon in our frames dries up before then, then we’re slagged. Forgive me for not being as chipper about our situation as—”
He stopped mid-sentence.
A single drop had landed on his arm, and he raised his hand slowly to look at it. It was water, colored slightly silver and pink from the metallic contents of the clouds above. Blessedly, it wasn’t acidic or inherently harmful. The PH level seemed neutral enough.
He absolutely did not make optic contact with Drift. He wasn’t sure if he could handle that massive grin right about now.
A second droplet followed the first, and a third. A fourth.
“Hm, well, maybe it is just a drizzle,” Ratchet observed.
And then, as if beckoned by Ratchet’s words, the rain came cascading down in massive droplets, in a thick, heavy sheet of water. It poured straight down, extinguishing their small fire and rattling against their armor.
Drift burst out laughing, his expression beaming.
“Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t, but it did pass the time, and we got what we wanted!”
“I said it was an eventuality!” Ratchet countered.
Drift grinned, grabbing Ratchet by the arm. “Let’s enjoy it! After all, we’re both pretty slagged from all the fighting we’ve been doing, let’s have some fun before we go get fixed up!”
“What do you mean?” Ratchet asked, but he let Drift pull him away from where he was sitting, to the center of the sigil he drew.
Drift spun around, laughing as he watched the tiny lines he drew in the dust and sand filled in around them.
Despite the sound of the rain all around them, splashing down against their frames, Ratchet thought it was arguably one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. Something was swirling in his spark and gripped it so tightly, he thought he might cease to exist in that moment. The way Drift smiled as he looked up at the sky, his free arm spread wide as he gestured to the world around them, Ratchet felt like he understood something he’d been missing all this time. For millions of years, he’d never truly witnessed pure bliss, such an unrestrained, beautiful joy.
Drift had crawled into his spark and danced there.
A spark once on the verge of burning out before his very optics, despite his sins, was now bright and brilliant before him.
“Come on, Ratchet!” Drift laughed. “Dance with me!”
“This isn’t just a little rain, this is a downpour! What are you—” He stumbled forward, catching himself just barely before he fell into Drift’s arms.
“Just enjoy it! Doesn’t it feel great? Especially after how dry the air was earlier…” Drift answered with a grin.
“It is… nice, I suppose. But I’m NOT saying what you did worked, and if I indulge you here, you’re not telling anyone, especially not anyone on the Lost Light!”
Drift was all smiles.
The rain was echoing against their plating as he spun around, pulling Ratchet in tandem with him. The ground beneath them was already beginning to harden as the mineral-enriched rain soaked into the strange dust (Ratchet was unsure of its exact composition to create such a phenomenon), and couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous the whole scene around them was.
Just two mechs outside of their beat-up ship, in the middle of what appeared to be a desert, stumbling about in the rain. Rain that was coming down in a torrential downpour, soaking them thoroughly, dripping across their plating in criss-crossing lines and cascading down around them both.
The swordsmech’s laughter was barely audible over the pounding of the rain on both of their chassis, and eventually the downpour became so heavy that they had to retreat into the ship.
“Looks like the fuel cells are back online. That rain really did restore the moisture here. We can take off as soon as it starts to lighten up,” Ratchet explained, tapping through the ship’s readouts.
Drift peered over his shoulder, looking past the projected numbers and charts, at the waves of rain pounding down upon the space glass. He was wiping the excess water from his chassis with a cloth, though it was now so soaked that it, too, was dripping onto the floor beside them.
“That’s fine, we can hang out here awhile! At least we’re not stranded anymore!”
Ratchet waved a servo dismissively as he closed the readouts, turning around in the chair. “Yes, yes, but I’m not attributing it to your…’calling for rain.’ We just got lucky. It’s a coincidence.”
“Well, either way, I’m calling it a win. And the sound of the rain on the hull above is soothing,” Drift countered.
The medic vented a small sigh, letting his optics roam over the edges of Drift’s plating. His “adventures” had taken a toll on his frame before Ratchet encountered him, but now he could see all of the scrapes and dents that had settled in over the course of their time away from fellow cybertronians. He probably looked just as worn himself, in horrible need of a waxing and proper polish. Not that polish would cover up all of these scars…
He knew Drift wore them with pride, but…
“Fine, fine. You can call it a win. But I don’t want you hanging it over my helm,”
Drift, ever the astute observer, however, noticed how Ratchet was glancing him over, optics outlining every cascading bit of water that was dripping from his frame. “Okay, but that’s not what you’re thinking about, is it? What’s the matter…?”
“You look like slag,” Ratchet answered.
“Hah! Why did I know you’d say something like that?” Drift shot back, punctuating the sentence with a laugh.
“Because you do. Maybe after this… we can head somewhere and pick up some parts for major repairs? I’m not going to make you return to the Lost Light if you don’t want to. I’m not going to ask you to return to being an Autobot at all if you don’t want to, but… at least let me fix you up?”
“You survived a war, and you can’t be seen with a mech who has a few battle scars?” Drift asked, the amusement plain in both his field and on his face.
“No, I’m a seasoned medic, and I can’t be seen with a mech who looks like his limbs might fall off at any moment,” Ratchet retorted.
Drift pulled a second cloth from his subspace, dropping it uselessly in one of the puddles on the floor, where it was far too small to soak up most of the liquid. “Fine, fine. But that’s for after we get out of here and pick up some parts. For now, we can at least enjoy the rain.”
Ratchet turned his attention back to the waves of rain pounding on the space glass before them, and settled back into his chair.
As much as he told himself Drift was annoying, it did give him an odd sense of peace.
Their lives weren’t in imminent danger, they weren’t about to be eaten by a space monster, or attacked by a horde of Decepticons. The rain had given them an opportunity to just exist here.
A beautiful chance to bask in each other’s presence, and wait out the storm outside. They could pretend there was no grand cosmos beyond this ship, only the clattering of rain around them, beating out a steady rhythm against the metal and reinforced space glass. That their universe could be so small, just a tiny shuttle and two mechs, at the center of a storm within their sparks. Their mutual love unspoken, the gravitation that drew them together an undefined science that Ratchet couldn’t quantify, nor did he wish to try.
It was cleansing, freeing, and reminded him that Drift truly was free.
He’d never seen a mech as happy as moments before, dancing in a storm, nor now, content and smiling, his field abuzz with amusement. Now, Drift sat across from him, the shadows of the droplets on the space glass above casting lines and dappled distortions of light across his frame. His beautiful, (desperately in need of repair) frame, all sharp lines broken up by dents, scars, scrapes, and exposed wire.
The contentment that sank in now was something he treasured.
He was grateful that Drift called for rain.