Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Hello, You can call me O.

I’m not usually one to post in places like this, but I’ve found myself at a bit of a loss...and I would deeply appreciate any thoughts.

Context: I've not been very social these days (or millenias). It’s not that I dislike others...I’ve just spent a long time focused on… responsibilities. I’ve spent a very long time carrying obligations. The kind that blur the edges of who you are.

I’ve spent the better part of my life in my roles...to causes, to people, to peace. I’ve held these responsibility so long I’m not entirely sure where it ends and I begin. I don’t resent it. But it does mean that I’ve let certain things… drift.

Like joy. And ease. And companionship.

I've forgotten how to reach for those things, or perhaps I never learned.

But recently, I’ve been reconnecting with someone. An old friend...let’s call him M. We used to be close. Then we weren’t. Then we were actively, uh… opposed. For a while. But now things are better.

We’ve had… a complicated history. Longstanding ideological differences, a few conflicts (galactic in scale), and some unresolved tension involving tactical leadership disagreements and mutual exile. The usual.

Once, we were inseparable. However... we became the kind of enemies who define one another by opposition...every step I took forward, he mirrored in resistance. For so long, the only words we exchanged were ones of hatred and pain.

And yet… there is something unbroken between us. Some thread that time, war, and silence never quite severed.

Because he is… extraordinary.

There is no one like him. He is radiant in his conviction, brutal in his wit, and devastating in his intellect. 

It’s difficult to explain what he means to me without sounding foolish. He’s intelligent in a way that doesn’t dull over time. Everything he says, he says with fire. Even when he’s being sarcastic (which is often). He can hold an entire room in silence with just his voice. He’s sharp, principled, unyielding. He’s a storm in motion. Brilliant, irreverent, poetic without meaning to be. 

We’ve begun to speak again. Not as symbols, or soldiers, but as ourselves. Quietly. Carefully. In the in-between hours when the world isn’t looking. He visits sometimes, often unannounced. He calls it reconnaissance. I pretend to believe him. He pretends I don’t wait for him.

We’ve walked through old halls together. Argued about philosophy again (I missed that). He laughs sometimes now, not cruelly. He offered to spar and then gave me grief for pulling my punches.

I've enjoyed spending such time together again. Our long conversations, or simply any time we spend together. It’s been good. Peaceful.

We talk. About old things, new things. About philosophy, art, stars, regrets. He laughs, now and then, and it sounds like something unburied. He teases me for my formality. He calls me names that should sound like insults but don’t. He’s still sharper than anyone I’ve ever known.

Sometimes we argue, but it’s different now...gentler. He still burns with that impossible force, that incandescent certainty that once scorched the world. But now I see the wear in his shoulders. The longing behind his pride.

I think I want to take him somewhere. Just somewhere he might enjoy. Somewhere he could relax. I don’t think he’s had much of that.

Nothing extravagant. I doubt he’d enjoy that. I don’t want a celebration...I want a moment. A place where he could breathe. Where the weight he carries might loosen just a little.

He deserves peace, even if he’d never ask for it.

But I don’t know what people do for things like this. I don’t… get out much. I’m terribly out of touch with what people find fun. I tend to think of “fun” as organizing historical records or patrolling a perimeter in silence.

These days I find comfort in structure, in silence, in orbiting duty like a familiar star. 

And he’s the opposite.

He’s restless. Brilliant. He speaks like he’s daring the world to answer him back. 

That said, I want to see him smile again. A real one. Not the smug kind he gives when he wins an argument (though I do like that one too).

So… any ideas?

Something off the path would be ideal...he hates crowds and formal things. He likes stories. And power.

He likes beauty, but not ornament. He likes silence, but not emptiness. Nor has he ever liked artifice. I’ve seen the way he softens when the light catches old architecture.

He thrives in brilliance. He enjoys intellect, argument, and he respects meaning.

He doesn’t think anyone remembers who he was.

But I do.

Maybe something outdoors? Something quiet but striking? Or something surprising...he’s always appreciated a well-planned ambush.

I have an idea of my own, but I'm not sure whether it is a good one.

I once worked in the archives, long before the war. He doesn’t know I kept every speech he ever gave. Every manifesto, every poem, every policy. I restored what I could, memorized the rest. Some days, I would read them over just to hear his voice in my thoughts again.

Most voices entered the archive already dulled. Flattened by bureaucracy or by the pretense of formality. But his...his struck. Every syllable was deliberate, every phrase laden with conviction like molten steel, burning through every assumption I’d ever held about order, or truth, or peace.

And it was beautiful.

Not polite. Not soothing. But alive.

He spoke in a way that made me feel. And I, who had built my life on balance and record and context...I felt unmoored.

His voice didn’t just demand. It was an art sharpened on rage and conviction. He stood before systems that thought themselves eternal and still fought with every ounce of himself.

And I—

I listened.

I told myself I preserved his writings for the sake of balance. That opposing views must be retained for the sake of intellectual honesty. But the truth is, I kept them because I couldn’t let them go.

I memorized whole passages. Not just the words, but the cadence...the way he leaned on certain syllables, the way his tone cut through even low-grade transmission static like a blade.

His voice wasn’t just rebellion.

It was poetry forged in anger. Philosophy honed into a weapon.

It was truth made unbearable, and then spoken aloud anyway.

His fury was elegant. His arguments fierce and unbearably beautiful in their clarity.

He was alive in every syllable.

And maybe… maybe perhaps that’s when I was first drawn to him. Quietly. From the silence of a records room, too young and too bound by rules to admit it even to myself.

To dare to listen to those not silenced, not repetitions of our societies, monotonous voices of rule.

Now, so many cycles later, I hear that voice again. Softer now. Tired in ways it wasn’t before. But no less luminous.

And I think...I know...that I want to give something back.

Even if it’s small.

Even if it’s only this. I heard you. I never stopped.

I was thinking of showing him. As a surprise. A quiet offering, nothing grand. Just...

I see you. I remember who you were before...everything. I still do.

That someone still sees him now, in all his iron-edged grace and exhaustion, and thinks, you are still worthy of gentleness.

And now, after everything...after war, and loss, and exile...he’s here again. Speaking softer, but no less fiercely. We’ve begun to rebuild something between us. Tentative. Careful.

Is that too much? Too strange? Would it make things… awkward?

Or would it be alright to simply want to see him happy?

I’d be grateful for any suggestions. Places to go. Things to see. Something small, maybe. 

We’ve been through a great deal. I simply want to do something kind for him. A gesture of acknowledgment, perhaps. Something quiet. He deserves to be reminded that someone still sees him, as he is, not just as the figure history made of him.

I suppose I’ve just… never had the practice in this sort of thing. Appreciation. Friendship. Peace.

Anyway. Suggestions welcome. I want him to be happy. I just don’t really know how to make that happen.

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Edit:

Thank you all again for the incredibly thoughtful replies. I’ve read each one, but these two in particular caught my attention, so I hope it’s alright if I address them directly.

HailSam:

Man, you are so in love it's almost painful.

There's a meteor shower happening in a few days I hear, and the best place to see it is always up somewhere high, like a hill or in a park. Why not weasel out what his favorite snacks/drinks are, take them along, and have a picnic as the stars dance in the sky? I bet you'll have a great time ;)

As for your suggestion, thank you, that’s genuinely thoughtful. I hadn’t considered a meteor shower. He’s always been fascinated by the sky...by anything vast, unknowable, and deserving reverence enough to mirror him, I suppose.

But the stars... yes. He has always admired the stars. He once said they were “the only things arrogant enough to shine through the dark,” which I think means he admires them. Equal parts poetic and audacious. And also, I think, quietly sincere.

He'll probably make some cutting remark about celestial phenomena being "predictable," but then he’d watch the whole thing without blinking. 

(When we were younger, watching the sky was something we used to do often...before everything became... more complicated. Back then, I'd sometimes narrate myths off constellations we saw. He had a favorite one as well...perhaps I could recite it to him again...)

I’ll try to plan it. A hill, some privacy, and maybe a flask of that strange energon infusion he pretends not to like but always finishes anyway. That sounds... peaceful.

He claims to despise sentimentality, but I’ve caught him consuming precisely the same energon blend for over three centuries. I suspect there’s meaning in that. I’ll investigate further.

Anyway. I appreciate your idea. I think he’d enjoy something quiet and meaningful like that. It’s... comforting to think of giving him a moment like that.)

Flora01 

Dear O,
Show him the collection of all his works that you’ve put together!
Find a quiet, comfortable place, and bring along some good food.
Good luck!