Work Text:
His normally precise steps were jerky and uneven. His servos hissed and clicked as if struggling against themselves. His words were jumbled, different voices taking turns. His hands clutched at his own face, scraping along the cold metal.
“No, no, no, no… compose yourself, old mech… compose yourself.” He frantically pleaded, his voice trembling.
His tone shifted without warning, slipping into that other side; dark, volatile, violent.
“COMPOSE YOURSELF?!” A deep growl ripped from his throat.
“Seven centuries—seven centuries and what has it left you with?! NOTHING! NOTHING BUT DEATH AND-”
He cut himself off with a whine, the servant’s polished voice bleeding back in.
“Please, please… please don’t make a scene. T-they hate me enough.”
“LET THEM LEAVE! LET THEM ALL LEAVE!THEY DON’T LAST ANYWAY!”
His hands clawed against his own chest, denting the plating with a violent screech.
“Stop! Stop it! STOP! You promised Sir Edmund… perfect composure, perfect manners-“
“EDMUND IS DEAD!” The scream tore out of him.
“THEY’RE ALL DEAD, AND YOU STAYED LIKE THE PATHETIC LITTLE DOG THAT YOU ARE!”
He froze, his chest heaving, and every system screaming overload. The voices tumbled out of him, overlapping in a storm of rage and grief.
“N-NO! I SERVED! I DID EVERYTHING!
I-“ His voice immediately became static.
“…I can’t do this anymore.”
It went silent.
“Then kill it. End it. You’re of no use anymore.”
The door creaked open, showing a thin slice of warm hallway light into the dim room. Cade leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, ready with some snarky remark about the noise…. until he saw him.
“Jesus…” Cade’s voice faltered for a second. He stepped inside slowly, his boots crunching over broken parts from a smashed chair.
“Cogman… what the hell are you doing? Having a… robo-seizure or something?”
The servant’s head snapped toward him so fast it was unnatural. His voice was fractured, spitting two tones, one cold and the other desperate:
“Get. OUT….”
Cade moved to leave.
“…No… don’t leave me.”
Cade froze. The sarcasm that usually sat on his tongue died instantly. This wasn’t the same smug annoyance he’d been butting heads with since day one. This was… broken. Terrifyingly broken.
“Hey… hey, uh…” Cade moved to cogman carefully, palms out like he was trying to soothe a cornered animal .
“You, uh, you’re glitching out, man. Real bad.”
Cogman slammed his fists into the wall, hard enough to crack the stone.
“I’M… FINE!” he screamed, then collapsed forward on his knees, clutching his head as static hissed through his voice.
“I cannot stop it…”
Cade creeped closer, despite every instinct telling him not to.
“I can see that…”
Cade hesitated only a second longer before kneeling beside him. Slowly, like approaching a bomb, he reached out and set a hand on Cogman’s trembling shoulder. The metal was burning hot, vents still spitting steam.
“Hey,” Cade said, softer.
“You’re here. You’re not… losing it. Not on my watch, alright?”
“You HATE me!” Cogman rasped.
“Yeah…” Cade muttered, half a smirk breaking through the tension.
“But I’m not about to let you fry your own brain on the floor.”
That earned him a broken, static-laced sob. Cogman slumped forward, collapsing against Cade’s shoulder. His metal fingers clutched Cade’s jacket… desperate and trembling.
“I can’t- ” Cogman’s voice cracked, so small now it barely sounded like him.
“I can’t stop breaking…”
Cade just held on tighter.
“Cade…” Cogman lifted his head just enough for those glitching optics to lock onto him. Blue light flickered in and out like a dying star.
“Do it. Now. ”
Cade frowned.
“Do what?”
“Shut me down.” The words were a demand, but his tone… God, was it full of despair.
“Override my systems. Pull the core. End it before I… before this gets worse.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a damn second. You’re asking me to… what? Kill you? No. No way.”
“I’m not Cogman anymore! ” he snarled, voice fracturing into two tones again.
“I’m… broken. I can feel myself slipping. It’s only a matter of time before I’m like the others! Rusted relics mumbling in the dark! Please… please don’t let that happen to me…”
Cade realized something: Cogman wasn’t just afraid of dying. He was afraid of losing himself. Becoming something unrecognizable.
“Listen…” Cade said slowly, forcing his voice to be steady.
“That’s not happening. You hear me? I’m not gonna pull the plug on you because you’re having a bad night.”
“This is NOT JUST A NIGHT!” He screamed.
“This is the beginning of the end. Please. Do this one thing for me, Cade. If you’ve ever hated me, if you’ve ever wanted me gone, now’s your chance!”
“No. I don’t hate you, okay? You’re… you’re a pain in my ass, sure, but…” He sighed, voice dipping low.
“You’re also the toughest bastard I’ve ever met. And I’m not letting you go out like this. Not on the floor, not like a broken… toaster or something.”
“No… no, no, no,” Cogman rasped, voice shaking with pure static.
He shoved himself back from Cade and began pacing the room in jerky, unnatural motions, hands clutching his head, wishing he could rip the madness out.
“I can feel it crawling in my code! It’s eating me alive!” His voice split into the two tones.
“Cogman-“ Cade started, stepping forward.
“NO!” The scream ripped out of him, loud enough to rattle the walls.
Sparks burst from his joints as he clawed at his own chest plating.
“Do it, Cade! End it! PULL MY CORE OUT NOW!”
Cade froze, stunned at the raw violence in his tone.
“Jesus, Cogman… stop…”
“I SAID DO IT! Please… please don’t make me live like them … rusting in their own madness… I’m already losing names… I can’t lose myself too! ” He begged, referring to the other autobots with dementia at the castle.
Cade stepped closer, hands out, trying to calm him. “You’re not gone. You’re still you.”
“FOR NOW!” Cogman roared, slamming his fist so hard against the wall that shards of metal splintered.
“Cade, listen to me!” His voice cracked into a sob mid-sentence.
“I have served and served and served… centuries of loyalty…and this is my reward?! To rot like some tool?! NO!”
He dropped to his knees so hard, optics wide with terror.
“Please… I’m begging you… don’t let me turn into that…”
Cade felt his own throat tighten, and he dropped beside him, gripping those trembling metal shoulders.
“Look at me! I’m not doing it, you hear me?! I’m not killing you!”
Cogman’s voice collapsed into incoherent static before breaking into raw, wrenching sobs that shook his whole body. He clawed weakly at Cade’s jacket like a child.
“Please, Cade… please… please end me …”
Cade pulled him in, holding on through everything. “No,” he said firmly, voice breaking.
“Not tonight. Not while I’m breathing.”
“THEN PROMISE ME YOU’LL TAKE ME WHEN I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER YOUR NAME! WHEN I CAN’T REMEMBER SIR EDMUND’S VOICE! WHEN I CAN’T REMEMBER HOW TO PLAY THE PIANO! WHEN I CAN’T HOLD A TEACUP ANYMORE! WHEN I ROT! WHEN I FUCKING ROT, CADE!”
Cade froze, heart hammering, feeling those sharp, trembling hands dig into him like claws.
“Cogman-“
“Don’t you dare lie to me! Don’t you leave me to ROT in this cursed body! Don’t let me become one of them! ”
He shoved Cade back, slamming his fists into the floor.
“Say it! Say you’ll kill me when it gets to that point! Please… I can’t watch another master die, Cade! I can’t! I can’t be alone again! ” The last words broke into a sob so loud it shook his entire body.
Cade held him, feeling those edges dig into his arms, and for the first time in a long while… Cade didn’t have a damn thing to say to Cogman.
Finally, Cade whispered through his clenched teeth, voice trembling…
“…Fine. You have my word.”
Cogman sobbed out.
“Thank you… thank you…”
Cogman flopped against him, his metal trembling violently with every sob.
“I-it hurts so bad…”
Cade’s heart ached. He tightened his grip, bracing against the shaking frame.
“I know, buddy. I see how bad it is. I know it hurts.”
Cogman flinched at the words.
“Y-you don’t understand…” His voice hitched into a choke of static-filled sobs.
“Every century… every master… gone. And now… you… you might be next. I can’t lose anyone else! I CAN’T!”
“You’re not losing me.” Cade said firmly.
“Not now, not ever. I’m here. I see it, I see all of it. And I’m not leaving.”
The violent jerks softened into quivering shakes, the storm inside him reluctantly simmering down under the steady pressure of someone refusing to let go.
The servant’s violent sobs had subsided into shallow, ragged quivers, though every twitch and spark reminded Cade just how raw and fragile Cogman truly was.
In that quiet, suffocating closeness, Cade realized he was holding not just a machine, not just a past enemy, but a soul that was fractured, terrified, and desperate , and that he would not let it fall apart alone.
He’d seen this bot kill, sass, explode with temper, but never like this. Never so raw. Never so broken. And now… completely trusting him.
Cogman’s optics flickered, a glimmer of hope and recognition peeking through the pain. He didn’t speak again, only leaned into Cade’s arms, letting himself be held like he hadn’t in centuries… just a weary, broken soul clinging to the one person who refused to let him face the world alone.
“Maybe just before I go… there’s one last person out there for me. Someone who will… I don’t know… deal with all of my worst-“
“A friend?”
“Yes. A friend. Not a master.”
Cade kept him there, steady and warm, because some battles aren’t fought with fists or missiles, but with arms that refuse to let go.
Cogman’s sobs finally subsided, now tiny weeps of joy. After centuries of service, grief, and survival, he could finally allow himself to hope in a promise: that his suffering wouldn’t stretch endlessly, that someone would allow him peace…
And that he might finally rest.
Next to Cade.
“Primus… help me get one more.” He echoed inside his head.
…or maybe next to another waiting soul, it seemed.