[IDW] Lost and Lonely Space 11/12
Jan. 7th, 2019 06:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22a/n: Commission fic for Cosmicdanger!
Happy New Year!
Title: Lost and Lonely Space
Universe: IDW, Pre-Death of Optimus Prime
Characters: Ratchet, Deadlock, Alien Original Character(s)
Rating: M
Enticements: Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Canon Divergence
Description: While on a sabbatical from the war, Ratchet runs into a spot of trouble that lands him in close company with a familiar face, the famed Decepticon Deadlock.
chapter eleven
Ratchet lurches online to the noise of an audial-splitting shriek and a rattle so loud it makes the entire shuttle shudder. He startles, trying to find wakefulness in the sea of recharge fog, but Deadlock lurches out of the berth as though there are rockets attached to his aft. He has his blasters drawn and yanks open the door to the berth room before Ratchet manages to swing his legs over the side of the berth.
Another crashing noise boots Ratchet’s defensive protocols in a flash, and he stumbles off the berth, fumbling for his blaster as he gives Deadlock chase. Bright lights pour in from the rear hatch that’s been wrenched open, and Ratchet nearly hits Deadlock’s back as the Decepticon stops and aims his blasters, frame vibrating with threat.
“What is it?” Ratchet asks, through the comm, atmosphere rushing out through the hole in the rear hatch.
“We’ll see,” Deadlock says and smoothly steps in front of Ratchet when Ratchet tries to move beside him.
Well then.
He’ll just stay back here.
Shapes move in front of the bright light, casting thin shadows across the floor. Friend? Foe? It’s impossible to tell.
Ratchet squints, barely able to make out bodies smaller than he and Deadlock. Perhaps half their height, wrapped in some sort of bodysuit, with a heavy helm surrounding a small head. They’re bipedal, and all Ratchet can make through the clear substance of their helmet is pale purple skin and multiple eyes and a mouth that seems to lack teeth behind very thin lips.
There are three of them, and as far as Ratchet can tell, none of them carry weapons. One has what appears to be a welding torch, another has a large sack hanging from each shoulder, and the third carries nothing visible. The body suits are too tight to possibly conceal a weapon, unless this species has determined how to have a subspace of their own.
Ratchet waits.
Deadlock does, too.
They can’t speak, not without atmosphere to carry the sound. The alien in front, probably the leader, swings its head left and right. It takes in Ratchet and Deadlock, and behind its mask, the thin lips droop into a frown. One hand lifts, and there’s some kind of device in it, pitifully small. Bright lights flash on it, faster and faster, as the entity swivels its hand toward the table.
And the emergency beacon resting on it.
“Rescuers?” Ratchet whispers into the comm. He doesn’t know why he’s whispering. But he steps close enough for his chest to bump against Deadlock’s back.
“Or pirates,” Deadlock replies.
The leader alien moves swiftly toward the beacon and picks it up, turning it over in a hand bearing at least seven fingers and an extra thumb. It flicks the button on top, which turns off the beacon. At this, the entity shifts its attention to Ratchet and Deadlock, and gestures at them with the beacon.
Ratchet narrows his optics.
The alien gestures again.
Deadlock lowers one arm, but keeps his weapon at the ready. He nods slowly – a nice universal gesture of confirmation. Ratchet’s not met a species yet who didn’t understand the point of a nod.
The alien’s lips curve into a wide grin. It reaches up with a free hand and taps its head. Its lips move, and Deadlock shakes his head negatively.
Thin lips twist with agitation before it taps its head again, and again, until Ratchet hears the sudden crackle through his comm. A voice comes through, soft and smooth, with a faint echo, like it’s being directed through a translator.
“--me now? Yes?”
Ratchet nods as Deadlock maintains his silence. “Friend or foe?” he replies, his own fingers still resting on the grip of his blaster, ready to fire if necessary.
“Friend, I assure you,” the alien says. It makes a vague gesture to its companions, who dip their heads in a nod. Their stances shift into something a little less wary. “Cybertronian, yes? We picked up your beacon when we passed over, though we’ve had this site marked to salvage for a week now.”
Salvagers. Are they better or worse than the Penta? Ratchet doesn’t have a clue.
Deadlock, however, lowers his other blaster and both of them abruptly vanish into his subspace. “You’re Collectors,” he says.
The alien tips its head up, and the grin widens. “You’ve heard of us then? Good. That saves us an explanation.” It turns and gestures. “Come. Follow me.” It pauses and holds up a hand, folding the other behind its back. “You are not attached to this wreck, are you?”
Deadlock holds up a finger. “Keep it,” he says. “But I need to get something first.”
Ratchet arches an orbital ridge. “What could you possibly need?”
“Our engex.” Deadlock points a wink over his shoulder, grin sly, lips curved back over his denta, and it’s unfair, how that smirk slithers straight to Ratchet’s groin and coils hot and heavy in his array.
The evidence of their coupling last night still sits tacky on their frames. He doesn’t know if these Collectors know enough about Cybertronians to recognize the residue, but it still causes shame to heat Ratchet’s cheeks.
It’s like the Collectors have come and popped a bubble on an impossible dream. It’s only been a couple weeks, trapped on this shuttle, but it seems longer. Like he could have stayed here, and forgotten the war entirely, and eventually, forgotten he was supposed to hate Deadlock on principle.
“We’ll wait for you outside,” the alien says, tipping their head again, before slipping out the hole in the rear hatch, taking their companions with them.
The glow remains, beaming inside the shuttle like a searchlight. Deadlock immediately sets off on a hunt for their engex, and Ratchet joins him, a strange anxiety curling in his spark.
“Rescue came that quick, huh?” Ratchet comments as he pulls out the spare medkit and shoves it in his subspace. No point in leaving it for scavengers.
“A lucky break,” Deadlock replies, sounding distracted. And not at all disappointed about it either.
Well.
Ratchet’s not either.
He finishes stuffing supplies into his compartments just as the entire shuttle shakes and he has to catch his balance. He rushes to the rear hatch, into the bright light, and finds a very large ship hovering over the shuttle. It’s fired two spear-tipped cables at the wreckage, embedding them in the thickest parts of the hull.
“I think that’s their way of telling us to get a move on.” Deadlock steps up beside Ratchet, tapping him on the side of his arm with something.
It’s one of the bottles of engex, unopened still, the bright label of Ratchet’s favorite brewery gleaming up at him.
“It’s a gift,” Deadlock says with an uncharacteristic wink and another wiggle of the bottle. “To commemorate our time together.”
Ratchet takes the bottle, tucking it under his arm. “You did say they were for celebration.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to find each other when the war’s over.” Deadlock laughs and hops down from the ship, landing gracefully on the surface of the asteroid.
The ship rocks, nearly sending Ratchet careening out the rear hatch, as the cables start to retract, drawing the wreckage toward some kind of clamp on the underside of the Collector’s ship. So much for waiting. By outside, the alien must have meant ‘inside our ship, please climb the cargo ramp’ because that’s all there is left to do.
Ratchet leaps down with less grace than Deadlock, walking away from the wreck that had been his home for the better part of a month. There’s no point in turning back to watch the shuttle as its pulled into position, but he does anyway. An odd sense of loss crawls over his processor, like the knowledge the ship is going to be salvaged and repurposed and sold for scrap, is somehow analogous to a pointless dream about a war that never was, and a conjunx he could have had.
Bah.
He’s getting sentimental for no reason.
Ratchet trudges into the Collectors’ ship, refusing to look back again. Deadlock is far ahead of him, moving so quick he’d almost be running. If he looks back, Ratchet doesn’t see him do it.
No sentimentality in him apparently.
Ratchet cycles a ventilation and crests the ramp as one of the suited aliens comes up to him, different than the one before. This one is taller, their skin more of a sea-green and speckled with glitter, their eyes fewer in number but larger in appearance.
“We have become accustomed to mechanicals lately,” the alien says, their voice heavier, deeper, with a harsh rasp. “Can I take you to a room?”
Ratchet eyes the alien. “Why so helpful?”
“Laws of Space Reclamation,” the alien says as they curl an arm around Ratchet’s and tug him forward with unexpected strength. They’re barely half Ratchet’s height, but prods him forward with no trouble at all. “If you’d been deceased, your shuttle would be rightfully ours. However, you were both online, therefore the ship and its contents belong to you. We are purchasing your rights by answering your distress beacon and rendering aid.”
“Oh.” Ratchet’s head spins a little. It’s all happening so fast.
He cranes his neck, can barely see Deadlock led in another direction by the alien from earlier, or at least, he assumes they are the leader alien.
“You and your companion are differently branded,” Ratchet’s escort continues as they step through an automatic door and into a small room – a pressurization chamber. “We assumed you’d wish to be quartered separately. Were we mistaken?”
With this, multiple large eyes look Ratchet up and down, lingering briefly on his thighs before the alien looks at his face again. If Ratchet has to guess, that weirdly plastic expression is one of curiosity but no judgment.
The doors shut. Lights flash. Something beeps and the vents hiss, blasting them with atmosphere. Sound returns just like that, the hiss and creak of his own frame, the steadying noise of a functioning ship around them.
His escort reaches up, palms the side of their mask with their free hand, and the helmet and mask both retract into a thin ring around their neck. Two sets of antennae spring from their bare heads, bobbing playfully in the last gusts of pressurized air.
“There, now is that not easier?” the alien asks, the voice as deep and resonant aloud as it had been within Ratchet’s comm. “My name, by the way, is Illithon, and I will be your point of contact for the duration of our assistance. Might I have the pleasure of yours?”
“Ratchet,” he grunts.
Illithon releases a sound Ratchet might charitably call a giggle. “You Cybertronians and your silly names.” They pat Ratchet on the arm. “Now don’t take offense, I know it’s a loose translation. I assume it’s related, in some manner, to your skillset.”
Ratchet cycles a ventilation. “I’m a medic.”
“A doctor? What in Althea’s Grand Blessings is a doctor doing out here on the Fringe?”
The doors blat noisily at them and open, spilling them into a wide hallway positively choked with more of Illithon’s kind, though none of them wear the thin bodysuit. Instead, these are dressed in loose, flowing robes which flap around them in dizzying arrays of color.
Ratchet’s head aches.
“I’m on vacation,” he answers as Illithon tugs him down the hallway, against the flow of the crowd.
To their credit, none of Illithon’s compatriots do more than cast Ratchet a curious glance. Apparently, Ratchet is not the first Cybertronian they’ve encountered. They are quite lucky to have not met an untimely demise.
Cybertronians aren’t well liked in the universe, Ratchet knows. Strange that Illithon and their kind seem to be the exception to that.
Or maybe Ratchet’s wandered into a trap not unlike the waystation where he’d found himself in the Penta’s grasp. Then again, Deadlock had trusted the Collectors immediately, which means Ratchet trusts them by proxy.
What a strange universe his life has become.
Illithon makes that raspy laughing sound again. “So you say. A pity it had to end like this.” Multiple eyes give Ratchet a knowing look, something sparkly glimmering across their pupil-less interiors. “You’re certain you don’t wish to share a room with your companion?” There’s something in the question, an implication, Ratchet doesn’t like. Not just there might be a hint of truth to it.
“I’m sure,” he says, careful to keep his tone curt. “Now are you taking me somewhere with a comm? I’m ready to get on my way.”
Illithon pats his arm. “Yes, of course. The room we have for you will have everything you require.” Illithon hums happily. “Refreshment. Solvent. A communication station. A bed to rest upon. Feel free to contact whomever you wish. We can make arrangements for safe passage, should you require it.”
“And I’m not allowed to leave, I’d guess,” Ratchet says.
“Of course you are!” Illithon actually sounds offended. “We’re not captors or heathens. You are here as guests, as customers. You are free to go wherever you like that’s considered a public space.” They gesture grandly. “Private quarters are off limits, but that’s only to be expected. Also, visitors are not allowed on the bridge or in the engine room, but otherwise, feel free to explore as you wish.”
Ratchet nods slowly. “You’ll excuse me if I’m a little bit suspicious.”
“You are Cybertronian after all.” Illithon pats him on the arm again and tugs him in the direction of a long corridor, one taller and broader than the others, with doors of better size to accommodate Ratchet. “Anyway, this room is yours for the duration of your stay.” They gesture toward it and give the door a push to open. “It doesn’t lock when you leave, so I recommend you keep your valuables upon your person.”
“Noted.”
Ratchet slips inside as Illithon lingers in the doorway. “You may reach me on the comm, should you have any questions. Please. Enjoy your stay.”
Illithon smiles, the perfectly practiced thin-lipped grin of an individual trained in customer service – as falsely sincere as possible – and vanishes out the door, closing it behind them. Ratchet’s shoulders slump in their absence, at last able to draw a vent for himself, one that doesn’t feel stifled.
The room is smaller than the average Cybertronian habsuite, but adequately furnished. There’s a berth Ratchet can fit upon, a console built into the wall – the comm he assumes – and when he opens a cabinet, he finds an array of bottled fluids inside, perfect for the mechanical being. Even energon.
How many Cybertronian wrecks have they salvaged, he wonders?
A smaller door off to the side reveals a tiny washrack, even smaller than the one on the shuttle. There’s barely enough room for himself much less an additional frame, if he’d felt so inclined to invite Deadlock. It doesn’t matter. They’ve gone their separate ways, back to the status quo, as it should be.
He’ll think no more of flashy Decepticons with talented hands and unexpectedly enticing smiles.
Ratchet bathes first, letting the warm solvent wash away all evidence of his interactions with Deadlock, the grit and grime of the crash, and the last vestiges of shame. He lingers in the washrack, indulging for long enough he threatens to waterlog his substructure, before he steps out in view of a full-length mirror.
His armor is scratched and scraped, marked by long strips of paint that aren’t his own. He has no supplies to touch it up, but he supposes he can get that fixed when he returns to the Autobots. It’s not like they’ll be able to read his liaisons with a Decepticon in the shade of paint scraped along his thigh.
He drops down in front of the comm console next, booting it up with a few quick flicks of his fingers. It’s a standard configuration, one he’s seen in numerous waystations and public-use installations. It’s easy enough to plug in and verify his identity, and he debates for several long moments about who to contact first.
Or at all.
Has anyone noticed him missing? He’d not checked in as he should have, but did anyone take note of it?
Ratchet can’t log into the Autobot intranetwork from a universal station like this unfortunately. He has no way of knowing. Even whatever message he sends could take weeks to get to someone who’d care. By the time it’s routed from one net to another, he could very well be back home.
He composes a message to Wheeljack just in case. He doesn’t know how long it will take before he returns to the base.
There’s a part of him that isn’t sure it’s where he intends to head first and foremost. He never did get much of a vacation after all.
Ratchet sits, hands on the keyboard, words failing him now as much as they do in person. He feels a need for advice, and knows he’s not going to get it. He hates the inner turmoil, the conflict, in general. It should be an easy choice. He shouldn’t be debating anything at all.
He belongs with his friends, with the Autobots.
Doesn’t he?
Ratchet growls and leans back in the chair, palming his face. What the frag does he think he’s doing? Why is he letting this nag at him? Why does he care?
It was a few weeks at best! Two weeks of tension and arguing and yes, some outrageously great interfacing, but that’s it. He has a place he belongs. He has a place he’s needed. Ratchet doesn’t need a press release to know the war still goes strong. Mechs are dying while Ratchet sits here and hesitates.
He clicks out of the comm program and opens up the intranet for the ship. He finds a map, downloads it, locates a common area on it. There’s a transportation nexus as well, and Ratchet selects the option before he can do something stupid and ignore it.
The ship will dock at a waystation later this evening. From there, he can find safe passage back to the sector where the Autobots are currently based. He can even purchase tickets on a passenger ship from the Collector database. At a discount, no less, thanks to the trade he and Deadlock are unofficially making.
Ratchet gnaws on the inside of his cheek.
He purchases a ticket before he allows himself to do otherwise. One way, out of the Fringe, and back to the sunside of the Chlori Cluster, where the bulk of the Autobot army orbits a husk of a satellite. They’ll make an assault on the nearby Decepticon forces any cycle now. Or at least, that had been the plan before Ratchet had been urged on his sabbatical.
He can only pray they are still there.
Ticket purchased, his decision made, there’s nothing left to do but wait until the Collectors’ ship docks at the waystation. He has no interest in the berth, recharge won’t come to him he knows, but the map informs him of a common area. Perhaps he’ll get lucky and find something to drink. If not, well, he still has the bottle of engex Deadlock had given to him.
A parting gift, as it were.
Ratchet can’t very well take it with him. There’ll be too many questions, ones he especially doesn’t want to answer. He might as well finish it before he goes back.
He leaves the room he’s been granted – it doesn’t lock behind him, as Illithon mentions. Good thing he’s carrying all he presently owns. The hallway is still choked with more of Illithon’s kind, but they pay him no more mind than they did before. Apparently, strange aliens walking among them is nothing unusual.
Ratchet consults the map he downloaded and follows the surging tide of aliens several hallways over, until a set of doors slides open and reveals an open space, the ceiling far above and set with panes of some clear material. Space stretches far and wide above him, white lights dancing in the endless black.
Conversation lingers as ambient noise. Several different musics play soft and tinny underneath the current of speech. Different varieties of aliens wander in greater abundance here, and relief trickles over Ratchet’s shoulders. No wonder the Collectors had not been startled. Perhaps Ratchet had been shown the mechanicals hall?
He wanders through the large space, passing by a corner that is clearly some kind of trader’s market, and another corner that seems to cater exclusively to the smaller, more squishier organics. There’s an open space sectioned off by a low fence with wide slots, and Ratchet peers inside. It’s some kind of dispensary, he guesses, and that’s when he spots a familiar back and set of finials.
Deadlock.
He’s perched at one of the tables, hunched over something in front of him, his pose half-relaxed and half-tense.
Ratchet tells himself to keep walking. He can find entertainment elsewhere. There’s plenty to pass the time before the ship docks and he sets out to find his transport.
His feet carry him into the dispensary. He beelines for Deadlock, something twisting and squeezing inside of him. Something he can’t put a word on. Past and present colliding, swirling in front of a nebulous future.
He doesn’t walk away.
Instead, he walks toward Deadlock, without any idea of why, only knowing he needs something more than a faint smirk before they part ways.
****
a/n: Feedback, as always, is welcome, appreciated, and encouraged.
The final chapter next week might be delayed as I return from vacation and I may or may not have internet access. Thank you for your understanding!
Happy New Year!
Title: Lost and Lonely Space
Universe: IDW, Pre-Death of Optimus Prime
Characters: Ratchet, Deadlock, Alien Original Character(s)
Rating: M
Enticements: Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Canon Divergence
Description: While on a sabbatical from the war, Ratchet runs into a spot of trouble that lands him in close company with a familiar face, the famed Decepticon Deadlock.
Ratchet lurches online to the noise of an audial-splitting shriek and a rattle so loud it makes the entire shuttle shudder. He startles, trying to find wakefulness in the sea of recharge fog, but Deadlock lurches out of the berth as though there are rockets attached to his aft. He has his blasters drawn and yanks open the door to the berth room before Ratchet manages to swing his legs over the side of the berth.
Another crashing noise boots Ratchet’s defensive protocols in a flash, and he stumbles off the berth, fumbling for his blaster as he gives Deadlock chase. Bright lights pour in from the rear hatch that’s been wrenched open, and Ratchet nearly hits Deadlock’s back as the Decepticon stops and aims his blasters, frame vibrating with threat.
“What is it?” Ratchet asks, through the comm, atmosphere rushing out through the hole in the rear hatch.
“We’ll see,” Deadlock says and smoothly steps in front of Ratchet when Ratchet tries to move beside him.
Well then.
He’ll just stay back here.
Shapes move in front of the bright light, casting thin shadows across the floor. Friend? Foe? It’s impossible to tell.
Ratchet squints, barely able to make out bodies smaller than he and Deadlock. Perhaps half their height, wrapped in some sort of bodysuit, with a heavy helm surrounding a small head. They’re bipedal, and all Ratchet can make through the clear substance of their helmet is pale purple skin and multiple eyes and a mouth that seems to lack teeth behind very thin lips.
There are three of them, and as far as Ratchet can tell, none of them carry weapons. One has what appears to be a welding torch, another has a large sack hanging from each shoulder, and the third carries nothing visible. The body suits are too tight to possibly conceal a weapon, unless this species has determined how to have a subspace of their own.
Ratchet waits.
Deadlock does, too.
They can’t speak, not without atmosphere to carry the sound. The alien in front, probably the leader, swings its head left and right. It takes in Ratchet and Deadlock, and behind its mask, the thin lips droop into a frown. One hand lifts, and there’s some kind of device in it, pitifully small. Bright lights flash on it, faster and faster, as the entity swivels its hand toward the table.
And the emergency beacon resting on it.
“Rescuers?” Ratchet whispers into the comm. He doesn’t know why he’s whispering. But he steps close enough for his chest to bump against Deadlock’s back.
“Or pirates,” Deadlock replies.
The leader alien moves swiftly toward the beacon and picks it up, turning it over in a hand bearing at least seven fingers and an extra thumb. It flicks the button on top, which turns off the beacon. At this, the entity shifts its attention to Ratchet and Deadlock, and gestures at them with the beacon.
Ratchet narrows his optics.
The alien gestures again.
Deadlock lowers one arm, but keeps his weapon at the ready. He nods slowly – a nice universal gesture of confirmation. Ratchet’s not met a species yet who didn’t understand the point of a nod.
The alien’s lips curve into a wide grin. It reaches up with a free hand and taps its head. Its lips move, and Deadlock shakes his head negatively.
Thin lips twist with agitation before it taps its head again, and again, until Ratchet hears the sudden crackle through his comm. A voice comes through, soft and smooth, with a faint echo, like it’s being directed through a translator.
“--me now? Yes?”
Ratchet nods as Deadlock maintains his silence. “Friend or foe?” he replies, his own fingers still resting on the grip of his blaster, ready to fire if necessary.
“Friend, I assure you,” the alien says. It makes a vague gesture to its companions, who dip their heads in a nod. Their stances shift into something a little less wary. “Cybertronian, yes? We picked up your beacon when we passed over, though we’ve had this site marked to salvage for a week now.”
Salvagers. Are they better or worse than the Penta? Ratchet doesn’t have a clue.
Deadlock, however, lowers his other blaster and both of them abruptly vanish into his subspace. “You’re Collectors,” he says.
The alien tips its head up, and the grin widens. “You’ve heard of us then? Good. That saves us an explanation.” It turns and gestures. “Come. Follow me.” It pauses and holds up a hand, folding the other behind its back. “You are not attached to this wreck, are you?”
Deadlock holds up a finger. “Keep it,” he says. “But I need to get something first.”
Ratchet arches an orbital ridge. “What could you possibly need?”
“Our engex.” Deadlock points a wink over his shoulder, grin sly, lips curved back over his denta, and it’s unfair, how that smirk slithers straight to Ratchet’s groin and coils hot and heavy in his array.
The evidence of their coupling last night still sits tacky on their frames. He doesn’t know if these Collectors know enough about Cybertronians to recognize the residue, but it still causes shame to heat Ratchet’s cheeks.
It’s like the Collectors have come and popped a bubble on an impossible dream. It’s only been a couple weeks, trapped on this shuttle, but it seems longer. Like he could have stayed here, and forgotten the war entirely, and eventually, forgotten he was supposed to hate Deadlock on principle.
“We’ll wait for you outside,” the alien says, tipping their head again, before slipping out the hole in the rear hatch, taking their companions with them.
The glow remains, beaming inside the shuttle like a searchlight. Deadlock immediately sets off on a hunt for their engex, and Ratchet joins him, a strange anxiety curling in his spark.
“Rescue came that quick, huh?” Ratchet comments as he pulls out the spare medkit and shoves it in his subspace. No point in leaving it for scavengers.
“A lucky break,” Deadlock replies, sounding distracted. And not at all disappointed about it either.
Well.
Ratchet’s not either.
He finishes stuffing supplies into his compartments just as the entire shuttle shakes and he has to catch his balance. He rushes to the rear hatch, into the bright light, and finds a very large ship hovering over the shuttle. It’s fired two spear-tipped cables at the wreckage, embedding them in the thickest parts of the hull.
“I think that’s their way of telling us to get a move on.” Deadlock steps up beside Ratchet, tapping him on the side of his arm with something.
It’s one of the bottles of engex, unopened still, the bright label of Ratchet’s favorite brewery gleaming up at him.
“It’s a gift,” Deadlock says with an uncharacteristic wink and another wiggle of the bottle. “To commemorate our time together.”
Ratchet takes the bottle, tucking it under his arm. “You did say they were for celebration.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to find each other when the war’s over.” Deadlock laughs and hops down from the ship, landing gracefully on the surface of the asteroid.
The ship rocks, nearly sending Ratchet careening out the rear hatch, as the cables start to retract, drawing the wreckage toward some kind of clamp on the underside of the Collector’s ship. So much for waiting. By outside, the alien must have meant ‘inside our ship, please climb the cargo ramp’ because that’s all there is left to do.
Ratchet leaps down with less grace than Deadlock, walking away from the wreck that had been his home for the better part of a month. There’s no point in turning back to watch the shuttle as its pulled into position, but he does anyway. An odd sense of loss crawls over his processor, like the knowledge the ship is going to be salvaged and repurposed and sold for scrap, is somehow analogous to a pointless dream about a war that never was, and a conjunx he could have had.
Bah.
He’s getting sentimental for no reason.
Ratchet trudges into the Collectors’ ship, refusing to look back again. Deadlock is far ahead of him, moving so quick he’d almost be running. If he looks back, Ratchet doesn’t see him do it.
No sentimentality in him apparently.
Ratchet cycles a ventilation and crests the ramp as one of the suited aliens comes up to him, different than the one before. This one is taller, their skin more of a sea-green and speckled with glitter, their eyes fewer in number but larger in appearance.
“We have become accustomed to mechanicals lately,” the alien says, their voice heavier, deeper, with a harsh rasp. “Can I take you to a room?”
Ratchet eyes the alien. “Why so helpful?”
“Laws of Space Reclamation,” the alien says as they curl an arm around Ratchet’s and tug him forward with unexpected strength. They’re barely half Ratchet’s height, but prods him forward with no trouble at all. “If you’d been deceased, your shuttle would be rightfully ours. However, you were both online, therefore the ship and its contents belong to you. We are purchasing your rights by answering your distress beacon and rendering aid.”
“Oh.” Ratchet’s head spins a little. It’s all happening so fast.
He cranes his neck, can barely see Deadlock led in another direction by the alien from earlier, or at least, he assumes they are the leader alien.
“You and your companion are differently branded,” Ratchet’s escort continues as they step through an automatic door and into a small room – a pressurization chamber. “We assumed you’d wish to be quartered separately. Were we mistaken?”
With this, multiple large eyes look Ratchet up and down, lingering briefly on his thighs before the alien looks at his face again. If Ratchet has to guess, that weirdly plastic expression is one of curiosity but no judgment.
The doors shut. Lights flash. Something beeps and the vents hiss, blasting them with atmosphere. Sound returns just like that, the hiss and creak of his own frame, the steadying noise of a functioning ship around them.
His escort reaches up, palms the side of their mask with their free hand, and the helmet and mask both retract into a thin ring around their neck. Two sets of antennae spring from their bare heads, bobbing playfully in the last gusts of pressurized air.
“There, now is that not easier?” the alien asks, the voice as deep and resonant aloud as it had been within Ratchet’s comm. “My name, by the way, is Illithon, and I will be your point of contact for the duration of our assistance. Might I have the pleasure of yours?”
“Ratchet,” he grunts.
Illithon releases a sound Ratchet might charitably call a giggle. “You Cybertronians and your silly names.” They pat Ratchet on the arm. “Now don’t take offense, I know it’s a loose translation. I assume it’s related, in some manner, to your skillset.”
Ratchet cycles a ventilation. “I’m a medic.”
“A doctor? What in Althea’s Grand Blessings is a doctor doing out here on the Fringe?”
The doors blat noisily at them and open, spilling them into a wide hallway positively choked with more of Illithon’s kind, though none of them wear the thin bodysuit. Instead, these are dressed in loose, flowing robes which flap around them in dizzying arrays of color.
Ratchet’s head aches.
“I’m on vacation,” he answers as Illithon tugs him down the hallway, against the flow of the crowd.
To their credit, none of Illithon’s compatriots do more than cast Ratchet a curious glance. Apparently, Ratchet is not the first Cybertronian they’ve encountered. They are quite lucky to have not met an untimely demise.
Cybertronians aren’t well liked in the universe, Ratchet knows. Strange that Illithon and their kind seem to be the exception to that.
Or maybe Ratchet’s wandered into a trap not unlike the waystation where he’d found himself in the Penta’s grasp. Then again, Deadlock had trusted the Collectors immediately, which means Ratchet trusts them by proxy.
What a strange universe his life has become.
Illithon makes that raspy laughing sound again. “So you say. A pity it had to end like this.” Multiple eyes give Ratchet a knowing look, something sparkly glimmering across their pupil-less interiors. “You’re certain you don’t wish to share a room with your companion?” There’s something in the question, an implication, Ratchet doesn’t like. Not just there might be a hint of truth to it.
“I’m sure,” he says, careful to keep his tone curt. “Now are you taking me somewhere with a comm? I’m ready to get on my way.”
Illithon pats his arm. “Yes, of course. The room we have for you will have everything you require.” Illithon hums happily. “Refreshment. Solvent. A communication station. A bed to rest upon. Feel free to contact whomever you wish. We can make arrangements for safe passage, should you require it.”
“And I’m not allowed to leave, I’d guess,” Ratchet says.
“Of course you are!” Illithon actually sounds offended. “We’re not captors or heathens. You are here as guests, as customers. You are free to go wherever you like that’s considered a public space.” They gesture grandly. “Private quarters are off limits, but that’s only to be expected. Also, visitors are not allowed on the bridge or in the engine room, but otherwise, feel free to explore as you wish.”
Ratchet nods slowly. “You’ll excuse me if I’m a little bit suspicious.”
“You are Cybertronian after all.” Illithon pats him on the arm again and tugs him in the direction of a long corridor, one taller and broader than the others, with doors of better size to accommodate Ratchet. “Anyway, this room is yours for the duration of your stay.” They gesture toward it and give the door a push to open. “It doesn’t lock when you leave, so I recommend you keep your valuables upon your person.”
“Noted.”
Ratchet slips inside as Illithon lingers in the doorway. “You may reach me on the comm, should you have any questions. Please. Enjoy your stay.”
Illithon smiles, the perfectly practiced thin-lipped grin of an individual trained in customer service – as falsely sincere as possible – and vanishes out the door, closing it behind them. Ratchet’s shoulders slump in their absence, at last able to draw a vent for himself, one that doesn’t feel stifled.
The room is smaller than the average Cybertronian habsuite, but adequately furnished. There’s a berth Ratchet can fit upon, a console built into the wall – the comm he assumes – and when he opens a cabinet, he finds an array of bottled fluids inside, perfect for the mechanical being. Even energon.
How many Cybertronian wrecks have they salvaged, he wonders?
A smaller door off to the side reveals a tiny washrack, even smaller than the one on the shuttle. There’s barely enough room for himself much less an additional frame, if he’d felt so inclined to invite Deadlock. It doesn’t matter. They’ve gone their separate ways, back to the status quo, as it should be.
He’ll think no more of flashy Decepticons with talented hands and unexpectedly enticing smiles.
Ratchet bathes first, letting the warm solvent wash away all evidence of his interactions with Deadlock, the grit and grime of the crash, and the last vestiges of shame. He lingers in the washrack, indulging for long enough he threatens to waterlog his substructure, before he steps out in view of a full-length mirror.
His armor is scratched and scraped, marked by long strips of paint that aren’t his own. He has no supplies to touch it up, but he supposes he can get that fixed when he returns to the Autobots. It’s not like they’ll be able to read his liaisons with a Decepticon in the shade of paint scraped along his thigh.
He drops down in front of the comm console next, booting it up with a few quick flicks of his fingers. It’s a standard configuration, one he’s seen in numerous waystations and public-use installations. It’s easy enough to plug in and verify his identity, and he debates for several long moments about who to contact first.
Or at all.
Has anyone noticed him missing? He’d not checked in as he should have, but did anyone take note of it?
Ratchet can’t log into the Autobot intranetwork from a universal station like this unfortunately. He has no way of knowing. Even whatever message he sends could take weeks to get to someone who’d care. By the time it’s routed from one net to another, he could very well be back home.
He composes a message to Wheeljack just in case. He doesn’t know how long it will take before he returns to the base.
There’s a part of him that isn’t sure it’s where he intends to head first and foremost. He never did get much of a vacation after all.
Ratchet sits, hands on the keyboard, words failing him now as much as they do in person. He feels a need for advice, and knows he’s not going to get it. He hates the inner turmoil, the conflict, in general. It should be an easy choice. He shouldn’t be debating anything at all.
He belongs with his friends, with the Autobots.
Doesn’t he?
Ratchet growls and leans back in the chair, palming his face. What the frag does he think he’s doing? Why is he letting this nag at him? Why does he care?
It was a few weeks at best! Two weeks of tension and arguing and yes, some outrageously great interfacing, but that’s it. He has a place he belongs. He has a place he’s needed. Ratchet doesn’t need a press release to know the war still goes strong. Mechs are dying while Ratchet sits here and hesitates.
He clicks out of the comm program and opens up the intranet for the ship. He finds a map, downloads it, locates a common area on it. There’s a transportation nexus as well, and Ratchet selects the option before he can do something stupid and ignore it.
The ship will dock at a waystation later this evening. From there, he can find safe passage back to the sector where the Autobots are currently based. He can even purchase tickets on a passenger ship from the Collector database. At a discount, no less, thanks to the trade he and Deadlock are unofficially making.
Ratchet gnaws on the inside of his cheek.
He purchases a ticket before he allows himself to do otherwise. One way, out of the Fringe, and back to the sunside of the Chlori Cluster, where the bulk of the Autobot army orbits a husk of a satellite. They’ll make an assault on the nearby Decepticon forces any cycle now. Or at least, that had been the plan before Ratchet had been urged on his sabbatical.
He can only pray they are still there.
Ticket purchased, his decision made, there’s nothing left to do but wait until the Collectors’ ship docks at the waystation. He has no interest in the berth, recharge won’t come to him he knows, but the map informs him of a common area. Perhaps he’ll get lucky and find something to drink. If not, well, he still has the bottle of engex Deadlock had given to him.
A parting gift, as it were.
Ratchet can’t very well take it with him. There’ll be too many questions, ones he especially doesn’t want to answer. He might as well finish it before he goes back.
He leaves the room he’s been granted – it doesn’t lock behind him, as Illithon mentions. Good thing he’s carrying all he presently owns. The hallway is still choked with more of Illithon’s kind, but they pay him no more mind than they did before. Apparently, strange aliens walking among them is nothing unusual.
Ratchet consults the map he downloaded and follows the surging tide of aliens several hallways over, until a set of doors slides open and reveals an open space, the ceiling far above and set with panes of some clear material. Space stretches far and wide above him, white lights dancing in the endless black.
Conversation lingers as ambient noise. Several different musics play soft and tinny underneath the current of speech. Different varieties of aliens wander in greater abundance here, and relief trickles over Ratchet’s shoulders. No wonder the Collectors had not been startled. Perhaps Ratchet had been shown the mechanicals hall?
He wanders through the large space, passing by a corner that is clearly some kind of trader’s market, and another corner that seems to cater exclusively to the smaller, more squishier organics. There’s an open space sectioned off by a low fence with wide slots, and Ratchet peers inside. It’s some kind of dispensary, he guesses, and that’s when he spots a familiar back and set of finials.
Deadlock.
He’s perched at one of the tables, hunched over something in front of him, his pose half-relaxed and half-tense.
Ratchet tells himself to keep walking. He can find entertainment elsewhere. There’s plenty to pass the time before the ship docks and he sets out to find his transport.
His feet carry him into the dispensary. He beelines for Deadlock, something twisting and squeezing inside of him. Something he can’t put a word on. Past and present colliding, swirling in front of a nebulous future.
He doesn’t walk away.
Instead, he walks toward Deadlock, without any idea of why, only knowing he needs something more than a faint smirk before they part ways.
a/n: Feedback, as always, is welcome, appreciated, and encouraged.
The final chapter next week might be delayed as I return from vacation and I may or may not have internet access. Thank you for your understanding!
