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Ultra Magnus was dead. Ultra Magnus the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord was dead, his spark had sputtered out and his plating was gun metal grey. Invincible, untouchable, larger than life Ultra Magnus was gone and all Rodimus found he could do was stare at the body, laid out on the medical berth. He would have looked peaceful if it weren’t for the large, gaping hole in his chest. Open and black and empty where the glow of his life should have been nestled comfortably. The Prime looked and looked and kept looking until First Aid took him and pushed him out of the impromptu morgue and into the main med bay.
Rodimus didn’t stop for repairs. He couldn’t watch Ratchet being overhauled and Drift’s limbs being reattached. He couldn’t watch Fortress Maximus practically carry a catatonic Chromedome passed him, energon leaking from his missing arm and his visor blank. He couldn’t watch any of it. Instead, he walked through the doors and into the hallway.
Rodimus walked around the ship absently. There was spilled energon being cleaned up, dents being pulled out of the walls, nothing was stopping but no orders were being given. Some of them looked at Rodimus sadly; Tailgate trailed after him for a moment or two before returning to Cyclonus’ side, Swerve tried to talk him into getting a drink and even Trailbreaker attempted a conversation. They were all background noise. Ultra Magnus was dead. Drift had almost died. Red Alert was still in stasis and wanted to be dead. Chromedome might as well be dead without Rewind. Rodimus walked from one end of the ship to the other aimlessly for a while. Eventually everyone started staying out of his way.
The Prime stared at Ultra Magnus’ office door for a long while. He sat on the floor and traced the letters with his optics and thought about the embossed glass under his digits. Maybe if he stared long enough Magnus would walk out and scold him for sitting on the floor like a sparkling. Tell him to act more like a Prime. Tell him that his aft was violating some Autobot code that he’d never heard of. Tell him to quit drawing things on his desk even though they both knew Ultra Magnus didn’t mind it half as much as he said he did. Rodimus rested his helm on his knees and curled his arms around them tightly. He couldn’t go in; Ultra Magnus had to come out. That would show him for…Rodimus bit his lip plate hard enough to taste his own energon and kept staring. If he blinked, if he dozed off, Ultra Magnus wouldn’t come out. Please come out.
He sat there for hours, maybe even a day but no one came out. Pleas left unanswered in his mind. Someone had left an energon cube next to him; Rodimus couldn’t remember who. For some reason he wanted to believe it was Cyclonus. He dipped the tips of his digits into the liquid and caught the dripping drops on his glossa. It was bitter and old, not fresh but it tasted like nothing to him. He had a ship to run. Magnus would want him to run the ship. He picked up the cube slowly and drank it even slower. A sob bubbled across the draining surface of it and he left it half finished.
When he stood a rippling popping noise worked its way up his backstrut. It didn’t hurt, didn’t feel like anything really, just a pressure like fingers flowing up the compressed tubes and wires.
Rodimus left the office; optics flicking to the door every so often to make sure no one would walk out. He wandered to Drift’s quarters and opened the door. They weren’t locked and the white mech wasn’t in. Rodimus ran his fingers along the wall of the Spartan room before crawling along Drift’s berth to curl up in the center and just vent slowly. In and out, in and out.
The berth smelled like Drift’s polish, the cleanser he preferred, the stuff he used to keep his swords clean. Ultra Magnus’ berth never smelled like anything. Not that Ultra Magnus knew Rodimus knew that. Not that Drift knew he did this either. Ratchet caught him doing it once but didn’t tell anyone. Rodimus knew that an adult mech shouldn’t be acting like this. Shouldn’t break into rooms just to doze in their beds and cover himself in someone else’s scent so he could detect it for the rest of the day.
It was easier, though, to breathe in someone else when he didn’t feel like being himself.
Rodimus shoved his face into the cushion at the head of the berth and took in a deep vent through his mouth and olfactory sensors. He heard the door open and lock behind the new occupant and felt someone sit by him shakily as if on new legs. Another breath and he sat up to look Drift in the optics. They looked at each other for a while, a long while, and when Drift put a servo on his arm Rodimus felt something in him shatter. Coolant flowed down his face freely and a choked sob broke out of the cage of his vocalizer.
Drift dragged him to lay on the berth, wrapping an arm around his waist as he sobbed into the sword mech’s chest. He grabbed Drift around the shoulders; Rodimus nuzzled closer and saw the translucent blue stains of his coolant tears spread across the white mech’s chest, reflecting the glow of his optics. Drift was here. Drift was actually here and alive and Magnus wasn’t and Rodimus really needed someone to be there and alive. Drift held him just a small amount closer and the Prime made a decision; impulsive and rash and completely against anything Ultra Magnus would have ever said or did.
He tilted up his helm and pressed their mouths together tight; no room for arguments, not chance to say no. Drift’s plating was warm and his spark was still spinning and Rodimus put a servo directly over it just to feel it thrum. There was a moment where Drift hesitated, made a motion to pull back but Rodimus grabbed his helm and held him there. He pushed his glossa passed Drift’s lips and tangled them until finally the sword mech relaxed and held him tight.
Rodimus tasted coolant and medical grade energon and that bitter taste that came with being operated on. He moaned and sobbed and draped his leg over Drift’s hip. They had arms trapped beneath them and the lines were being compressed. An empty heat built in Rodimus’ circuits; everything felt empty but Drift was alive and Rodimus wanted to cling to his taste like a lifeline. Because Drift was alive and fighting to stay that way and everything else around him felt dead and empty and cold but maybe he could pretend to simply be in his best friend’s berth because he wanted to be and not because he needed to be.
Rodimus kissed desperately and Drift met his desperate plea for affection and life with languid slowness. Where his Prime would beg to go faster, Drift would slow them down. Rodimus whimpered and rubbed their interface panels together and that is what finally caused Drift to pull away.
“Take me,” Rodimus begged. One part of him needed to be fucked as hard as he hated himself and the other wanted love to be made to him. Like some how he could look beyond the worst thing he ever did, all of the worst things. He whimpered and pressed a coolant filled kiss to the edge of Drift’s mouth. Ultra Magnus was dead.
“No,” Drift replied, voice rough and quiet, “not like this Roddy.” He soothed a servo along Rodimus’ back strut and held him impossibly close. He felt the new bout of sobbing ripple through Rodimus’ chassis and there was nothing he could do. He pressed a small kiss to his friend’s forehelm and Rodimus surged against him to begin the kiss anew.
It wasn’t something that could move into anything more and every time Rodimus tried Drift would meet him to calm the flow into something manageable. Rodimus begged with his body for Drift to be alive and the sword mech did his best to prove it without rising to his demands. Only kisses, traded secretly and with rough tenderness like ice crystals growing in the shadows. Eventually, Rodimus finally fell into recharge with his lips murmuring over Drift’s with the last need for that taste and that smell to pretend to be anywhere but where he was. That the berth was adrift in space and that he was cushioned between white and blue in different measures, safe and warm and with no decisions to make or goodbyes to say.
Drift was going to be gone when he woke up. He would leave Rodimus a note and with the lingering feeling of a kiss. They’d find a shuttle missing and Rodimus would have an urgent message about it from Swerve. He’ll know Drift took it to try and change things, to keep them safe, to relieve Rodimus of the pressure only to make it worse with his absence.
There were going to be orders that needed to be given, a search party that needed to be arranged, a stupid sword mech to send a billion angry messages to, and perhaps a cube of energon to get himself back into working shape. It was going to wait. It was going to wait because Rodimus, with Drift’s scent clinging to him like a pall, will first go to Ultra Magnus’ office.
He will open the door and see how perfectly everything is ordered, how everything is being made to fit even into spaces it doesn’t want to be in. He will walk behind the desk; run his digits over the incised surface of his own graffiti, and then he will sit in a chair far too big for him.
He will sit and he will take it all in. He will berate himself for never noticing the tang of oil and weapon grease that permeates the air. He will regret the missed taste of Ultra Magnus’ lips, like order and paperwork taking category of every nook and cranny of his mouth. He will think of Drift and Magnus’ mingling scents. Rodimus will feel the weight of everything happening, knowing that there are funeral orations to write and procedures to work through and he will lean back in the chair.
He will lean it back as far as he can and he will breathe it all in and pretend.