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[Cybertron, Iacon, Sector B-14Ti]
The ceiling lamps hummed softly, filling the room with warm, diffused light. The medic, who was always tired of the shadowless glare of operating rooms, preferred exactly this kind of lighting at home. The windows were open; far below, the capital roared, but up here only faint, softened sounds drifted in: the shimmering hum of antigravs, someone’s laughter, echoes of music from a small refueling station at the intersection. The compartment smelled of slowly cooling metal, with a sharp hint of sterile solution and warmed energon — a scent Orion had long grown used to, and which, for some reason, had begun to feel surprisingly cozy.
Stretching out his legs, one servo tucked behind his helm and the other resting on the abdominal plating of his frame, he lounged in a relaxed half-sprawl on the couch. The dense cushioning had noticeably sunk under the weight of two bodies, but Ratchet didn’t complain when Orion once again draped his shins across his lap. The medic merely braced an elbow on the back of the couch, lifting his datapad a little higher, and continued reading — all while managing to hum quiet, affirmative little “mm-hm” sounds at the right moments in the story.
“...and he still kept insisting that it doesn’t matter what your primary protocols are,” Orion said unhurriedly, a faint smile in his voice. “Claimed that history judges intentions, not methods. And that being right is supposedly just a matter of perspective.”
Ratchet huffed again. Without looking away from the text, he idly brushed his fingers along the lateral plating of Orion’s shin — not deliberately, just absently, the way he had many times before. His palm was warmer than usual, and at the contact, a brief pulse of calm traveled through their closely aligned EM-fields.
“Mhm. Another philosopher who’s never had to reset shoulder joints after someone decided to demonstrate their ‘perspective.’”
Orion laughed quietly, almost soundlessly. He shifted his helm slightly to get a better look at Ratchet. The medic was absorbed in his article, optics glimmering softly in active reading mode, but Orion knew — he was listening. He always listened.
“He actually cited your article about reconstructing sensory relays after cognitive overload. Called it foundational.”
Ratchet lifted one optic ridge, reluctantly pulling his attention from the datapad. He narrowed his gaze, studying Orion carefully.
“A philosopher called my article foundational?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he even understand what it was about?”
Orion smiled, giving a small shrug.
“I think he just liked the sound of the phrase ‘deep sensorimotor replication protocol.’”
Ratchet rolled his optics and went back to reading, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. He scrolled the log to the next file and, with his free hand, tugged Orion lightly by the ankle to change the angle of support. His fingers kept absently rubbing the cable junctions beneath the thin armor plating. Orion didn’t mind — on the contrary, he stretched out a little more, easing the tension in his joints.
The silence between them wasn’t empty. In their quarters, that had long since become the norm — they could sit quietly together for hours and still feel no less connected than during the longest conversations. There was always room for moments of complete relaxation; to lie back, drape your legs over a friend’s lap, and know you’d be accepted without question.
“How did your shift go?” Orion asked after a while, gently. “Did anyone come back online under your hands today?”
This time Ratchet looked away from the datapad and vented slowly.
“One,” he said quietly. “I told you about him. Young mech, recent graduate from construction engineering. A section of overhead structure collapsed on him. We kept him on stabilizers for a long time. I thought we were going to lose him — yesterday he was worse than ever. But if a patient wants to stay online, medicine can’t really take the credit,” he added with a familiar, wry half-joke. “It was a rough cycle, but today we finally brought him out of stasis. He’ll recover in time.”
Ratchet tapped the datapad out of habit, turning the page, but his optics lingered on Orion for a moment now — on the familiar lines of his armor, on his characteristically lazy sprawl.
“On days like this… it’s good that you’re home,” he said, simply and sincerely.
Orion didn’t answer right away. He just reached out, sliding his hand along the back of the couch, and lightly — almost weightlessly — touched Ratchet’s elbow, a quiet gesture filled with unspoken comfort.
A few minutes passed in silence. The datapad flickered faintly, signaling a low charge. A breeze stirred the open window, and the hanging cables in the room chimed softly. Orion found Ratchet’s servo again and gave it a gentle nudge with the joint of his bent index finger.
“So when are you planning to rest?”
“Sometime next era.”
“You didn’t even hit pause. I was telling a very engaging story, by the way.”
“And you, by the way, are lying there recycling the same theses about moral ambiguity, while I’m trying to figure out how to stabilize sensory feedback when fitting a prosthetic arm with a damaged medial channel.”
“It was an interesting argument. They almost got into a fight, actually.”
“Archivists?”
“Yeah. I think one of them used to do street theater at some point.”
Finally setting the datapad aside on the armrest, Ratchet laughed — quiet, but genuine. Then he leaned forward slightly, stretching with a soft click of a shoulder joint, and rested his other hand on Orion’s shin.
“Are you on first shift tomorrow?”
“Not until mid-cycle,” the archivist replied quietly. “What about you?”
“Night shift. ER duty.”
Orion shifted again, bending his legs slightly so he wouldn’t put too much weight on Ratchet. Their fields touched, intertwining right at the edge of perception — a soft, unhurried contact, without agitation or anxious tremor, just the steady warmth of familiar presence.
“It’s nice here,” Orion murmured, optics dimming. “I don’t want any of this to ever end.”
Ratchet frowned faintly but didn’t answer right away. He ran his fingers along the narrow vent beneath Orion’s knee, absently checking that the airflow was steady. Then he fixed him with a serious look.
“Not all good things end. Some just… transform.”
Orion looked at him with interest — that deep, tireless attention Ratchet valued in him. And sometimes feared.
“Like what?”
Ratchet gave his leg a slight squeeze, as if anchoring himself in the touch.
“Like what you’re calling peace right now. Later, it becomes memory. Or home. Or, if you’re lucky, someone.”
“Someone?” Orion echoed softly.
“Someone who stays beside you. Even if everything else changes.”
They fell quiet. Not because they didn’t know what to say — but because nothing needed saying. Some evenings didn’t require an ending. They simply went on in comfortable silence, until one of them drifted off right there on the couch, and the other eventually got up to turn out the lights.
Ratchet huffed, vented a little deeper to bleed off the warmth building in his processor, and a familiar wave of comfort rolled through his systems. Then he gave Orion a light but firm pat on the ankle.
“Alright, Mister Archivist, shift over a bit. I do actually want to finish reading about that new sensor coating. You can keep talking — if you promise you’ll refuel properly at the Archives tomorrow.”
Orion gave a tired, warm smirk and obediently adjusted, bracing on his pedes and taking most of his weight off Ratchet’s knees.
“Deal.”
They stayed like that for a long time. One talked, the other listened with only part of his attention while continuing to read. And in that moment — in the gentle overlap of their EM-fields, in the small, absent touches, in the simple freedom of being side by side — there was, perhaps, everything they would one day be fated to lose.
But for now… for now there was only the evening. Home. And two mechs for whom that was enough.