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It starts on the day of Dinobot’s funeral, even if Rattrap doesn’t realize it. After the body is cremated and the ceremony is over, the fatigue that urges Rattrap into a deep recharge is not born solely of the exhaustion that comes in tow of grief and anger.
The first cough comes the next day. While struggling to come out of recharge, he suddenly finds himself having trouble intaking oxygen. He’s sure he can feel something blocking his airway, and this is what pulls him all the way through to consciousness. He sits bolt-upright and pounds a fist against his chest, knocking the obstruction loose. He coughs hard once, urging the thing into his mouth, and then quickly spitting it into his hand. A wad of orange, yellow, and green organic material sits in his palm, slick with lubricant.
More curious than anything, he pushes and presses at the clump until it separates. Soon enough, he’s staring at two flower petals and some leaves, and he can’t help but laugh. He can’t even begin to imagine how these things wound up inside him, but he doesn’t pay it much mind. It wouldn’t have been the first time organic material had been picked up inadvertently.
The cough not only persists but gets worse.
Days later and outside of the Axalon, a rather intense coughing fit causes Rattrap to double-over. He tries pounding his chest, but this time the blockage is stubborn. It takes a few hits before something is knocked loose and he’s able to breathe again. When he does, something rattles inside his ventilator in a way that suddenly makes him feel sick. In a moment, his arms are wrapped around his middle and he’s wretching, energon and fluid dribbling down his chin.
Something is worked up his throat, and then he coughs it out. More petals fall out of his mouth and collect at his feet, and his chest heaves as he stares down at the mess.
“That… probably ain’t good,” he mutters to himself, wiping at his mouth with the back of one shaking hand.
In spite of how awful he feels and how concerned he should be, he can just imagine Dinobot now and it makes him grin a little. You are disgusting, Vermin. However, I will say that if I must bear witness to you regurgitating anything, flowers are preferred over whatever garbage it is you normally consume.
Almost fondly, Rattrap imagines himself replying, thanks, Dinobutt. Do ya like ‘em? I picked ‘em just for you.
His spark aches, and suddenly he’s overwhelmed by another coughing fit. More petals are forced out of his body, falling from his mouth in ruined, wet clusters.
“You really ought to have that cough looked at,” Rhinox says, catching Rattrap by surprise. It’s enough to calm the outburst and give him a moment to recuperate.
He straightens up, twisting around to face Rhinox. He tries to grin, but it’s weak and strained. “Aww. Are you worried ‘bout lil old me, big guy?”
Rhinox crosses his arms over his broad chest, staring Rattrap down. “Of course I am. You’ve been hacking up your respirators for days now. You’re not as discreet as you think you are. Or quiet.”
Rattrap snorts, doing his best to cover the collection of petals on the ground with one foot. “There just ain’t no gettin’ nothin’ by you, huh?”
Rhinox glances down in time to see Rattrap grinding the petals into the dirt with his foot. He raises an eyebrow and then looks up to his face again.
“I really think you should let me take a look at you.”
Content with the damage he’s done to the offending petals, Rattrap walks away from them and intends to walk by Rhinox. He waves the other Maximal’s offer away. “Maybe another time. I’m fine. Fit as – ah!”
Rhinox grabs Rattrap by the wrist, easily beginning to pull him along. “I’m not asking, Rattrap.”
“Ooh. Well, if I’d known yous was gonna manhandle me – ”
Whatever’s wrong with him, at least it hasn’t affected his humor. Something Rhinox is quietly grateful for.
“So, what’s the prognosis, Doc?”
Rhinox remains quiet for a moment while surveying the strange damage being done to Rattrap’s insides. He hadn’t known what to expect when he opened up his friend’s chassis, but nothing really could have prepared him for what had been waiting for him. Not only were there flowers strung throughout the gears and wires, but the majority of them seemed to be sprouting directly from somewhere near his respirator. Too many of them, in fact.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Rhinox comments, mostly to himself.
“Oh. Well, ain’t that just fantastic?” Rattrap snarks. He draws in a deep breath, and an orange bud shudders before it blooms into a lily. Its stem winds deep into his vents and he coughs. “You gonna tell me what the actual problem is or what?”
Rhinox is quiet again, gently moving lilies and marigolds aside to get a better idea of what he’s working with.
“I’m not entirely sure how to put this,” he says, brow furrowing. “But you have flowers growing inside of you.”
“I got what where?” Rattrap asks, lifting his head to finally get a good look for himself. His chest and torso are open, preventing him from sitting up properly and seeing everything, but he can see enough. Orange and yellow flowers and their bright green leaves peek up at him through his own innards. He stares for a moment and then snorts, letting himself lay back again.
“Guess that would explain why I been hockin’ up petals…” he comments.
Rhinox recalls the petals Rattrap had trampled outside. “That would explain that, yes,” he agrees. “How or even why this is happening, on the other hand…”
“Ooh, lucky me,” Rattrap says snidely and with a half-hearted chuckle. “This don’t seem like a Pred thing.”
Rhinox hums in agreement while shaking his head. “Not their style.”
Experimentally, he pinches one flower by its stem and pulls it loose. This makes Rattrap wince, and Rhinox’s brow raises while he twirls the flower between his fingers.
“Maybe give a guy a heads-up before you go tweakin’ his wires, huh?” Rattrap hisses, lifting his head again to scowl at Rhinox. His expression falters when he sees the other Maximal is holding a lily, plucked fresh from the garden growing in his torso.
“Wasn’t a wire I tweaked,” Rhinox confirms, carefully laying the flower aside.
“Great,” Rattrap mumbles, laying back again. He’s no medical officer, but even he knows that’s probably not a good sign. He sighs heavily, and a few flowers close and bloom in time with his breathing. “Can you fix this or not?”
Rhinox hums quietly to himself while looking through the flora and foliage in Rattrap’s chest. It’s during this second sweep that he notices some flowers have grown vine-like tendrils from their stems, and that they have wrapped and wormed their way deep into the more intricate and delicate parts of Rattrap’s framework. A few seem to have begun creeping along his spark’s chamber, too.
The decision is made swiftly; the flowers have to come out. If left alone, they could – and surely would – overcome Rattrap’s spark.
“We’ll have to put you into stasis,” Rhinox says as he leans up, meeting Rattrap’s gaze. “But it can be done.” Or so he hopes.
“Whatever you gotta do, do it,” Rattrap says, looking away from Rhinox and to the ceiling of the med-bay. “I ain’t exactly got time to take up gardenin’, y’know?”
Hours pass, and Optimus now stands over Rattrap in the med-bay. His chest and abdomen have been sealed back up, leaving no sign of the intrusion.
“How is he doing?” Optimus asks.
“Better now,” Rhinox says. “All of his vitals are back to normal. A few mega-cycles in the C.R. chamber and he should be good as new by the time he comes back online.”
“Whoa,” Cheetor exclaims as he looks at the pile of flowers on the tray Rhinox had set aside. Under any other circumstance, he would have thought they were pretty. “All of these came outta RT?”
“Mhmm,” Rhinox hums, also taking a moment to look the flowers over. They look so incredibly normal and inconspicuous; it’s hard to believe they could have choked the life out of his teammate.
“I don’t get it,” Cheetor says. More than once, a hand has hovered close to the lilies and marigolds, but he hasn’t been able to bring himself to touch them. He can’t explain why, but it feels wrong to do so. “How’d they even get inside him in the first place?”
Rhinox shoos Cheetor away from the flowers. “Don’t know, and won’t know until I get a better look at these.” He picks up a marigold, idly studying and admiring it all at once.
“He’s gonna be okay now, though. Right?” Cheetor asks, watching Optimus take Rattrap’s smaller body up into his arms, readying to move him to the C.R. chamber.
Rhinox nods. “He should be. I got all of them out, and welded the sprouting points shut, so they shouldn’t be able to grow back.”
Days have passed since the operation, and though the flowers have been removed and Rattrap can breathe easy again, something still doesn’t feel quite right. He doesn’t voice this concern to his teammates, of course. Physically, he knows he’s fine, and they have all already worried over him too much for his liking; he doesn’t need to concern them further over something as silly as a feeling.
He can’t put a finger on it, but it’s almost as though he’s forgotten something important. Since he’s come back online, this lost thing has nagged at the back of his mind, begging to be found again.
And he does find it – sort of.
He stands alone in Dinobot’s old quarters, and he feels nothing. Weeks ago, it had been a struggle to even walk by this room without grief clogging up his processors. Now, there is an obvious void where that grief was, and he can’t explain why or how it happened.
It’s silly to think that the flowers had something to do with it, but would that really be the strangest of things to happen since the Axalon crashed?
The grief is gone, and no matter how that happened, it should be a relief, but something else has been taken with it. Private feelings that had been fiercely guarded even when Dinobot had been alive have all but vanished. It’s as though he never felt them to begin with, and yet he can remember them and how they felt.
While Rattrap may have refused to honestly acknowledge what those feelings were, there is no denying that suddenly missing them is considerably worse than having ever had them in the first place.