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What you knew once, but don’t remember, is how I watched you with them.
Every one of them, over countless vorns. I watched Scattergun gently tease you out of yourself, back when you first started to vanish into your work, into your own head. I saw how Pivot made you laugh, how you and Mach could barely keep your hands off each other. I’ve kept files on all of them, you know; not obsessive, but thorough. Just one mech’s data, culled from the stream and processed separately. Easy, when you have the resources that I do.
It’s how I found out that Scattergun was dead, killed in the course of an assault on a Decepticon prison. The next time you came to headquarters, I shepherded you into my office and offered a few, awkward words of condolence.
You looked at me blankly. “Who?”
“Scattergun. I heard he – ” It only took a few seconds to piece together what you’d done to yourself. I switched tacks to cover up the slip – “was at the New Institute. Did you not know him?”
“Scattergun, huh? Can’t say I did; he must have been a really new trainee.”
“Yes, that makes sense.”
The second time around, Brainstorm pinged me a message – Pivot KIA; C’s gone and fragging done it again. By the time Mach died, I didn’t even have to be told.
I suppose I took a twisted pleasure in it. Because of the way we ended, you see, you never bothered to erase your memories of me. I was the one you stopped loving – my loss didn’t hurt, the way theirs did. It didn’t eat at you, the way yours ate at me. But that meant that, in your churning, shifting universe, in that fragile little world you made in your head, I was the one constant. In a strange way, I was your guiding star. Knowing that, I could accept your resentment. Because at least you wouldn’t forget me, the way you forgot them.
Or so I thought.
We were on opposite sides of my desk. A formal consultation. That’s how I always pitched them, formal consultations, the Autobot second-in-command calling on our top mnemosurgeon. The conversation had turned to natural variations in Cybertronians, and which ones could be exploited, which ones weaponised. You were slouching in that knowing, insolent (all right, damned sexy) way you have, watching me. I was industriously taking notes, until something you said brought me up short.
“Pit, I’m surprised Wheeljack never asked to examine me, if he’s looking at variations.” When I looked up in confusion, you continued, “Y’know. The whole born dry thing.”
“Born dry?”
“No innermost energon.” You tapped those clever fingers lightly over your spark. “Maybe if we figure out why I was born that way, we could get further with that work on developing fuel-less systems… oh. You didn’t know that about me?”
I must have been staring. Quickly, I shook my head.
“Huh. Guess it never came up.”
Guess it never came up.
I managed to get through the rest of the meeting, of course. Cold, calculating Prowl. It’s what I do. Eventually, I thanked you, showed you out of the office – and only then did I let my hands start to shake.
I don’t know when you got rid of that memory. I’m not sure it even matters – after all, it must have been just a little bit of retroactive continuity, to explain to your own reconfigured mind why you have no innermost energon left. Implant the myth that you were born dry, and wipe out any previous instances that could contradict that. And if one of the things you wiped out didn’t relate to any of the conjunx endura you erased from your mind – well, what’s one more memory? I guess you didn’t think it was very important.
It goes like this: You are standing in front of me, one hand clasped awkwardly around the back of your neck – this is before you get the needles, before that gesture becomes sinister instead of endearing. Your feet shuffle, your gaze fixed on the vial in your other hand. You turn it by its slender neck, apparently mesmerised, as you clear your vocaliser. “Prowl, I… I wanted to…” Eventually, you trail off, and simply hold the energon out to me.
How did you used to remember that moment, when you still could? I know that I hesitate – it must be a long time, because the look in your visor changes from hopeful to surly, and you’re halfway through muttering something about how you know I think gestures are stupid when I reach out, instantly silencing you. I take the vial in my hand, turning it to see how beautifully the light plays off the precious liquid inside. And then I’m pressed up against you, kissing the side of your mask; my arm is around you, my hand, clutching the vial, is brushing the back of your neck. I’m whispering things to you, fond, stupid things I can’t even remember; maybe you used to.
Do you still have the flask I offered you in return? Or was that thrown out, as well – a potential trigger for troublingly incongruous memories? You were always thorough; I liked that in you. I still have yours. Don’t worry, no one but Brainstorm knows about the hidden compartments in my desk, since he designed them. And even if someone finds it, say, after I’m dead – because I have no illusions about surviving this war – there’s nothing to connect it to you. I do think of these things.
You have a new conjunx now. Rewind, this one’s called. Archivist and intelligence analyst; I knew him a little already, even before I started my research. There’s really no one I don’t know, but then it’s been such a long war, and there are so few of us left. In person, he’s all big, sunny presence and grating voice and intrusive camera. I don’t like him. Of course, I’d be lying if I said I liked any of them, but Rewind’s worse. He’s actually gotten you to give up injecting, going on about how it’ll end up killing you. Pardon me, I had the crazy impression that we were soldiers, and that there was some kind of war going on –
That sounds bitter, I know. And perhaps I am bitter. You don’t know what it’s like, watching the way each of them slowly lights you up from the inside. You think I’m jealous, but it’s not that – not just that. It’s seeing that expression, hearing that broken, hopeful, aching note in your voice. You’re falling in love for the first time. You only just found out that you could. After a lifetime of isolation, someone has come along and woken you up.
And I know that in vorns or days, when I see you, that light in you will have gone out as if it never existed. You’ll sit across the desk from me with your arms folded and your optics dull, sunk back into the misery, into the myth. Chromedome, born dry and only ever good at being alone.
So I hold onto the files. Oh, I’ll admit, it was jealousy at first. I was so young, then. Now, though, it’s because someone should remember them. Because someone should remember you, like that.
Cold, calculating Prowl, remember? I always have my reasons.