Work Text:
How many suns did this planet have? It felt like five, maybe six, as Impactor sprinted through the piles upon piles of bodies on the sand underneath him; tainting the surface with permanent anger and resentment, carrying the souls of the damned for generations.
Impactor wasn’t bothered about whose hand he was tripping over or how a face was blasted off of one of the corpses, no, he was desperate to find Takedown. He’d heard them scream, cry, even pinging his comms for some aid — Impactor never came.
“..No.” All he could murmur once his optics had caught sight of Takedown lying there. His expression tightened as he picked up the pace; breaking out of his frozen trance. “No! Takedown!” What was he thinking? Yelling like this, letting everyone know he cared about them more than he normally let on. It was supposed to be a secret, just between them, like they promised.
He didn’t care if the energon stained his hands, he just needed to be as close as possible to Takedown, pulling them closer and leaning over them. “Can you hear me? Takedown, damn it, can you hear me?!” In the deep recesses of his processor, Impactor wanted to throw them, slam their metal skull into the ground, but that’s not what his spark was saying. Instead, he held them tightly.
He could feel his hands shake, his vision slightly blur, and his spark was jumping out of control. Impactor closed his optics, using his other senses to find their face and gently touch their cheek.
“Do you remember…?”
Takedown’s voice broke through the quiet void he was trying to forge in his mind.
“Remember, what?”
His throat was sore from screaming orders left and right. He struggled to get his words out, trying to be quiet; trying to pretend like he couldn’t feel Springer or anyone else staring at him from behind.
They laughed hoarsely.
“Our bet, silly, remember? The one we made those few cycles ago, about me dying first. Looks like I win, yea? Heh, yea…”
Why remind him? Why now? Was this supposed to be their crappy attempt at comforting him? Because it sure as hell wasn’t working.
“..You owe me a pint when you get out of this.”
“Me? No, I’m getting us out of this Takedown. You’re getting out of here.”
“You don’t normally treat your soldiers like this, don’t let them think you’ve gone soft.”
“I haven’t gone soft!” He snapped, scowling at them, before softening again. As his hand went to touch the largest wound on Takedown’s frame, they stopped him and lead him back up to their chest plate; their spark chamber underneath where he could feel faint pulsations. He sighed. “I’m not used to this… Feelings shouldn’t be getting in the way of work, especially this.
“Why couldn’t you just stay away from me? Hm? We wouldn’t be talking like this. I wouldn’t be embarrassing myself in front of the others if we kept our distance.”
“Oh, so I’m embarrassing now?” They tried to laugh again but it sounded all wrong, distorted. “You would still find a way into my life. One way or another.”
Impactor scoffed and looked away briefly. His surroundings were still a blank portion in his mind.
“I…” Nobody was close enough to hear him, right? He turned back, finally meeting their gaze. “You’re an idiot.” Then he huffed and began laughing. It was obnoxious.
“I love you,” he wanted to say. He couldn’t.
Seriously, he tried. It felt like he was suffocating. The second after he blinked, Takedown was gone. The world was completely silent, blank, empty.
——————
Then he sat up, grabbing around his neck immediately like he was struggling to swallow something. The room was dark, but he wasn’t alone. Impactor could feel a shift next to him and a hand gently squeezing the soft part of his frame between his thigh joints.
Takedown.
“Mm… what’s the matter?”
“…What?”
“The matter, the problem, the issue: why are you trying to strangle yourself when I could do it for you?”
Cheeky sod, he thought, as he gave the other mech a clap around the helm.
“Ow-“
“Don’t frag with me, scumbag. No more of those stupid bets.”
They stared at him, leaning back when his finger prodded hard against their chest plate; it didn’t last long as his fist quickly unclenched and rested gently above their spark chamber. He didn’t stay mad long, and he knew they didn’t mind a certain amount of degrading, especially from him.
“I thought you liked it, after all, you sounded very keen on losing-“
“Yea, well, I thought about it and I don’t.” Impactor huffed and turned his back to them, but did that stop them from wrapping their arms around him and pulling him closer?
———
“You were talking in your sleep.”
“No I wasn’t.”
“You said that you lovvveedd meee!”
“No I didn’t.”