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It was when things seemed to be finally coming to a head that you pulled him aside.
He stands before you with his arms crossed over his chassis, a look of annoyance written across his faceplate. You know he’s about to tell you to hurry up because you were wasting his time, so you decide to speak before gets fed up and leaves.
You spill your tanks out to him, and you’d be surprised if he even understood a word you said, what with you stuttering and stumbling your way through your unrehearsed confession. Because if one of you were to offline tomorrow—or, Pit, even today—then you’d rather not have your unsaid feelings constantly weighing on your processor and be left wondering if anything could have come of them.
Cooling fans clicking on in nervous anticipation of being rejected, or, and this was an equally likely possibility, being made fun of, you await his response as he just gapes at you—you always feel so small under his stare—in bewilderment. You can feel the shock radiating from his EM field, clear as the waters he’s so fond of.
It feels like many long cycles go by before either of you react, but in reality, only a servoful of nano-cycles pass. You weren’t expecting him to return your affections, no. Depth Charge felt untouchable—he pushes everyone away and keeps to himself. In any case, it feels good to have gotten that off your chassis. The future is ever uncertain, so at least you’d be able to offline peacefully with that burden off your pauldrons.
Intake dry and energon pounding in your audials, your spark sinks when he huffs a quiet laugh. Definitely not what you wanted to hear… but strangely, it didn’t sound like one of mockery?
What…? you think to yourself, perplexed.
“Thought you’d never say something,” he says, the corners of his optics crinkling in amusement, a nice change from the scowl he usually displays.
You cycle your optics a few times, processor racing a megamile a cycle. “I… don’t understand,” you reply, shaking your helm.
Did he know the whole time but didn’t say anything? But why? He didn’t react negatively or shoot you down—you can’t get a good read on him. If anything, he sounded… relieved? You don’t know what to make of it.
“C’mon… Don’t play dumb with me,” he says in a playful tone.
He walks forward until he’s standing so close, you have to look up at him. “I could feel you projecting ‘frag me’ whenever I walked by, you know.” His vox drops dangerously low, making warmth pool in your array. “Did you mean to be so loud? One of the others could have thought it was directed at them.”
Your optics widen in mortification and shame washes over you. It’s just your luck he’d accidentally pick up on your feelings for him—now you’ve made him uncomfortable. This was a stupid idea, anyway. You originally weren’t going to say anything, but the stress you’ve been under recently emboldened you—your dumb, little crush seemed like the least of your problems, an issue you could easily address. But now, the whole thing feels like a mistake.
“I-I’m sorry,” you stammer. “I didn’t know that I… I shouldn’t have said anything, I should go—”
Your faceplate burns hot with humiliation. At the next opportunity, you’ll gladly throw yourself at the first Predacon you see. You don’t know how you’re going to be able to look Depth Charge in the optics now.
When you step around him and try to hurry away, he snatches your wrist, stopping you in your tracks.
“Not so fast,” he says, pulling you back towards him. “I never said I didn’t like it. I just didn’t think you had it in you to say it out loud. It’s… different actually hearing it from you.”
“What do you mean? So… you’re not mad?” If he doesn’t like you back, you wish he would say so already, not keep doing… whatever he’s doing right now.
“Primus, don’t play with my emotions like this! Do you or don’t you feel the same? You’re not giving me a straight answer here.” Your embarrassment gives way to flustered anger. It’s nice to know that he’s getting some twisted enjoyment out of toying with you.
“I was getting there,” he hisses. He tends to get worked up easily, but for all his faults, you still love him.
He paces around, tail swishing behind him from the palpable tension in the air. “Frag, I’m not good at this,” he growls, dragging a servo down his faceplate. “Look, I’ve… had optics for you for a while. But I didn’t know how to approach you. I knew how you felt about me, which made things that much more complicated.”
The energon in your fuel lines sings and your spark feels like it’s burning brighter at his admission. “You… have? Then why didn’t I feel anything in your EM field?”
“I was just better at hiding it than you were,” he replies cheekily.
“Hmph. Afthole,” you snort, lightly punching his pauldron in mock offense.
“You know it,” he chuckles.
You’re the most carefree you’ve felt in a while—all your anxieties melting away as you both share a small laugh. But there’s something else there, some underlying, nagging feeling that calls for your attention. At the risk of turning things dour, you just can’t ignore it anymore.
“I don’t get it, though. If you knew I felt the same way, what made it so hard to talk to me?” you ask.
The idea that such a gruff, serious mech like him was too afraid to confess his feelings makes you want to laugh, but the sudden dejected, almost sad look on his faceplate causes uneasiness to roil in your tanks instead.
Depth Charge sighs, and suddenly, his EM field shifts. “That it would change nothing. You know we can never be together, right?”
Your frame goes rigid, sombreness falling over you. Of course you know—you’re painfully aware. At night, when you struggle to fall into recharge, you like to imagine what it’d be like to be with him, for him to call you his. Your fantasies would always take a depressing turn, because the pragmatic side of you knew it could never be. He’s conjuxed to his mission, not to mention it was a poor time to be looking for love.
However, a small, hopeful part of you still believes that maybe, just maybe… you both could make it work. That was part of the reason you confessed to him in the first place, because you wanted to see where you both would go from there.
But you weren’t going to argue with him, because you know he’s right. “I know,” you murmur, vox small and hurt.
Depth Charge nods his helm. “Good, then this doesn’t need to be harder than it already is,” he agrees. “It’s best we move on, better that we spare ourselves from the sparkbreak.”
“What are you saying? That I just stop having feelings for you?” you ask, almost not believing what you’re hearing. “I can’t do that, Depth Charge. Do you realize what you’re asking of me?”
It’s just… not possible. At nearly every waking moment since meeting him, he’s been occupying your thoughts—the rare occasions he stops by the base being the highlight of your solar cycle. How can you just put him out of your processor?
“I don’t think I need to remind you why I came to this planet in the first place, and it wasn’t for this war,” he growls. “We can’t go through with this. I know exactly how it will end.”
You’re bracing yourself for an argument, because when he gets like this, wings raised and servos clenched, you know he’s ready for a fight.
He tears his optics off yours to gaze emptily into the distance. His tense plating relaxes, and you’ve never seen him look so vulnerable before. “I’ve had enough of losing those who I care about,” he finishes, a forlorn look in his optics.
“You wouldn’t lose me, you know I can handle myself,” you argue, though there’s no real heat to your tone. “I’m not a helpless sparkling.”
“Then you don’t understand what you’d be getting yourself into,” he sighs. “My point still stands. It’s dangerous to know me and you don’t want to get close to me. This is more for your own good than it is for mine.”
He pauses, a contemplative look on his faceplate. “I’m sorry. I know that wasn’t what you wanted to hear. Trust me, I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but it wouldn’t be fair to you if…” he trails off, his optics narrowing.
You know where he was going with that. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say anymore,” you interject softly. “You’re right. I wasn’t trying to make you change your mind, it’s just…”
“I know. But I have my own commitment and nothing else gets in the way—not even you,” he says, his vox cold and optics hard, yet you could tell he was only being honest.
In that very moment, you felt your spark shatter into a million pieces. Your intake opens and closes a few times, but you can’t wrack your processor for something to say. How does one respond to that?
Depth Charge always says things as they are, never sugarcoated anything. Where you’re optimistic, he’s realistic, and you admire that quality about him. He doesn’t let frivolous emotions like love cloud his judgment. Unlike you.
You would never want to come between him and his mission. Still, hearing that from him, the ‘bot who means so much to you hurts more than nearly anything you’d ever experienced before. So, you elect to say nothing.
Hugging your arms around yourself for a false sense of comfort, you feel that you can’t look at him anymore, otherwise you might break down. There’s a deep, yearning ache in your chassis because you know you can never truly have him.
The war would soon be coming to an end—that much was obvious. Tensions are rising, and the stakes are higher. For a few solar cycles straight now, you felt like something bad was going to happen. Concerning what exactly, you’re not sure—all you know is that one morning, you woke up with a sickening feeling of dread in the pit of your tanks.
He must have felt it, too, since he’s been speaking so definitively this entire time.
“Listen,” he speaks up after a few nano-cycles of awkward silence go by. You look up at him, your optics dim and glassy. “We could all offline horribly any solar cycle now.”
Wow, thanks, Depth Charge, very comforting, you dryly think to yourself.
“The way things are right now, we can’t make a relationship work,” he continues, “so let’s make this moment count.”
“Huh?” That gets your attention. “Make it count how?”
“Let’s frag,” he says, vox and faceplate dead serious.
“What?! Now?” you blurt out, then slap your servos over your intake—sound tends to carry in the base.
“Sure,” he says frankly, as if it were the most obvious thing to do. “We should get our fill of each other now while we can. It’ll make things easier for us going forward. So do you want to or not?”
“Well, I’m not opposed to the idea.” You pause, glancing around to confirm that you’re alone. “But… what if the others hear?”
“Then I guess you’d better keep it down, right?” he teases with a wink.
You take a moment to consider, but your mind is already made up. In an actual relationship with him, you would have liked to take things slower; get to know him better because you’re not just looking for interface. You want him for him, not just for his frame.
But he’s right—you never know what the following solar cycle might bring. So for now, you have each other, and you’re determined to enjoy your time together to the fullest extent.
“I… sure, okay,” you say, nodding your helm shyly. “Let’s do it.”
His features twist into a smirk, one that has your spark fluttering in your chassis. “I’ll try not to make you scream too loud,” he murmurs suggestively.
Shuddering, you place your servos on his chassis when his come to rest atop your pauldrons. They’re big and heavy, and you’re reminded of his strength despite the little force he uses when he gently squeezes. Your vents catch from the way he’s staring down at you hungrily. Words escape you, and the only sound you can utter is a small gasp as he pulls you flush against his frame.
Then, he tilts his helm down and kisses you. The best he can, with a lack of an intake. He walks you backwards until your back strut hits the wall, one servo gliding down, feeling and caressing your frame all the while, to cup the small of your back strut and push your frame against him.
You moan against his mouthplate when his other servo squeezes your aft, your optics fluttering shut when he grinds his concealed array into you. Standing on your tiptoes, you throw your arms around his neck to pull him closer to you, not wanting to ever let him go.
You were doing all the kissing, and he was simply pushing against you, but you didn’t mind. Your dermas press into his faceplate, pecking his mouthplate, cheeks, and jawline, your frames colliding with soft clanks as you feverishly grind into each other.
Letting slip an airy sigh, you realize you’re not going to last long if you keep at it because of how pent-up you’ve been for the longest time. Your own digits can only offer so much relief.
You stare at each other with lust-dimmed optics when you eventually pull away, venting heavily as your fans work to cool your frames down.
Dropping to your knees, your servo strokes his thigh armour. “I really want to service your array. Please, let me.” Lifting your optics to meet his, he stares down at you with an expression that makes you grow more wet.
Maybe you should have been a bit ashamed by how you begged, but the thought doesn’t even cross your processor.
He huffs in amusement at your eagerness. “Don’t get your panels in a twist.” His panels shift away, revealing his pressurized spikes and slick valve. “Go on. Show me how bad you want to.”
Leaning forward, you wrap your servo around his lengths, giving them a light pump. You plant a gentle kiss to both spikeheads, his pre-fluids staining your dermas a glowing pink.
Depth Charge’s wings twitch. “Slag,” he hisses, his servo holding onto your helm kibble tightly.
Swirling your glossa around the tip of one spike, you then push it past your dermas, working the other with your servo. Feeling his ridges slide along the roof of your intake, you suppress the urge to gag because he’s just so big.
Bobbing your helm around his spike, you take it as far as it will go down your intake, feeling your oral lubricant leak from the corners of your dermas and run down your chin. At the same time, you tease his other spike by slowly and firmly stroking along the shaft, smearing his pre-fluids over his length.
A small, muffled gasp leaves your vocalizer when he tilts his hips and his spike hits the back of your intake, slowly thrusting in and out. The tang of his pre-fluids spreads across your glossa. It’s strong—musky and metallic, but not overpowering. Overall, it just tastes overwhelmingly like him, making you moan quietly around his length.
His lubricant has begun to drip down in little glowing rivulets, his violet folds soaked and puffy. Gingerly, you pinch and rub his anterior node before sinking two digits in his valve to the knuckle to elicit a deep, pleased rumble from him.
You feel lubricant cling to your digits as you repeatedly curl and lightly drag them along his walls to make his frame shiver. His EM field flares and brushes into yours, allowing you to feel the heated desire coursing through him.
“Oh, frag,” he groans your designation, “keep… keep doing that.” His helm slightly tips back from the intense pleasure of you pumping your digits deep inside him, a sight that goes directly to your spike and anterior node.
His vents come out rough and shallow as he grinds down on your knuckles while you continue sucking his spike and pumping the other with your servo. The mesh of the walls of his channel is silken and hot as he clenches around your digits. When his lubricant begins to trickle down your gauntlet, pride blooms in your chassis from how wet he is. Wet for you.
“Gonna… overload,” he says through harsh vents. The movement of his hips stutters as he nears his release.
Depth Charge’s servo moves to hold the back of your helm, pushing you further down on his spike. His hips rock into your intake a few more times before he stills and overloads down your intake with a sigh of pleasure, transfluid spilling from the spike you’re working with your servo and dribbling down. There’s so much in your intake that you have a difficult time swallowing it all, but you clamp your dermas around him, refusing to let any go to waste.
Using the pad of your digit, you target his anterior node next, rubbing vigorously until he overloads for a second time with a growl. His lubricant gushes around your servo and you lick your digits clean, whimpering from the taste of him on your glossa.
“I never thought you would be so good with your intake,” he says, still venting heavily. His optics glow bright, causing him to appear like he’s ready to pounce on you. It almost makes your knees buckle.
You could never really tell what was going on in that helm of his, and never would you have guessed that he was thinking about you in that regard… You’re just about ready to throw away what little dignity you have left to get down on your servos and knees and beg him to take you.
“You’ve… thought about it?” you ask meekly. Even though you have no reason to be, considering you were unabashedly moaning around his spike like you were the one whose array was being serviced.
“I couldn’t shake it from my processor sometimes,” he admits. He puts his servos around your waist, pulling you close. “It made me wonder how well you’d be able to take me. Think you can handle two?”
“Yes, please,” you urge. “I need all you can give me.”
“Take it easy,” he chuckles, laying you down on the ground. “I’m not going anywhere.”
As he kneels in front of you, pumping his spikes to get them to pressurize again, you spread your legs to make space for him, retracting your panels to present him with your needy array. You watch how his optics rake over your frame, taking in the sight of your achingly hard spike and your weeping valve, so ready and eager for him.
You can’t help but feel a bit shy splayed out in front of him like this. He’s such a big mech so you’re not sure how you’re going to be able to handle both spikes at once. You know you’re going to be paying for this in the morning.
“Frag, you’re so wet,” Depth Charge muses when his digit glides effortlessly through your lubricant-soaked folds.
“Haa—oh, please… I can’t wait much longer,” you whine, biting your derma when he pushes two thick digits inside your valve, spreading them apart to stretch you open.
He rolls his optics at your impatience. “You can’t blame me for thinking I’m too much for you. Because let’s face it—you’re tiny.”
Squirming as he thrusts his digits inside you, you feel a pressure building within your abdomen of your overload approaching already, the loud, wet squelches of him digit-fragging you making it hard to think.
“I-I’m not…!” you huff, your audials burning from his teasing. Your glossa feels heavy in your intake and your processor is muddled from the relief of finally having some part of him inside you, and because of his rough treatment of your valve.
He pulls his digits out which are joined together by a dripping strand of your lubricant. “Sure you aren’t,” he says sarcastically, nudging your legs further apart with his pede.
Finally, he lines himself up with your entrance after what feels like an age. “Since you think you’re ready, I’m not gonna go easy on you,” he says. He locks optics with you to ask for your permission to proceed and you nod frantically in response.
When he crawls over you, he tightly interlocks his digits with yours, pinning your arms above your helm. He crashes his mouthplate against your dermas in a frenzied, albeit one-sided kiss, muffling your whine as his spikes begin to split you open. You can feel the sting of the mesh of your valve stretching wide to compensate for his size, though the pain quickly gives way to pleasure.
The large wings of his beast mode outstretch on either side of you, blotting out the already dim lighting, and blanketing you in comforting darkness. It’s intimate, like the rest of the world ceases to exist and it’s just you and him—both your troubles, gone temporarily forgotten. If only there were a way to preserve this moment, because after today, it will be as if none of this ever happened.
Ex-venting shakily, your optics threaten to roll back into your helm as his ridges catch on your anterior node while he sinks deeper still, going slow as a show of consideration for you, until he bottoms out.
You feel so full, it almost hurts. Never has any ‘bot before him filled you so completely, and you swear you can feel the protoform beneath your abdominal plating shift with every small movement he makes.
“Please, move. I-I can’t take the waiting anymore.” You cross your legs around his hips to hold him close—not that he’d leave; he said so himself.
The lust emanating from his EM field is unmistakable as his ex-vents come out strained, like he has to hold himself back from fragging you. You involuntarily clench around him, sighing wantonly because only in your dreams did you imagine you’d have such an effect on him.
“So fragging tight,” he snarls, his thick digits squeezing yours as he starts thrusting into you, deep and hard, like he’s keen on not wasting anymore time. Your servos twitch, wanting to touch him, to feel up his big, powerful frame as he frags you into the ground, but he’s much too strong for you, so your arms don’t even budge.
Intense warmth from his vents spills over you in waves, heating your frame more than it already is. You quickly dismiss an alert appearing in your HUD warning you that your core temperature is reaching dangerous levels as fast as it pops up. Being speared open by his spikes is well worth the melted circuitry.
Dermas parted, moans of bliss leave your intake from the dual sources of pleasure of Depth Charge pounding into your valve and the rough friction of his abdominal plating sliding against your spike. There’s a growing wetness of your pre-fluids between your frames, but he obviously doesn’t care, and neither do you.
Frag. Biting the inside of your cheek, your spike throbs because you can just barely make out the glow of your pre-fluids painting his armour each time he pulls back to thrust into you, a sight that makes you feel like you’re going to blow a gasket.
As time goes on, you feel condensation running down your frame and between the seams of your armour, but from who, you’re not sure. Probably you, if you had to guess—he does have significantly better stamina than you. That fact had always given you robotterflies in your tanks when you considered the implications. It seems you couldn’t have been more correct.
“Overload, haah, soon…” you manage to choke out. It’s hard for you to think, let alone talk, with his hips snapping so fiercely into you. His spikeheads repeatedly brush against your ceiling node deep inside your valve, jumbling your HUD and causing your vision to glitch.
“Same here,” he grunts. His optics bore directly into yours, and the juxtaposition between the tender look he’s giving you while his spikes are having you see Primus almost makes you crack up, but your processor is too muddled to do so. All you can do is moan loudly, not caring that your vox carries a clear echo.
He watches you intently as you struggle to keep your optics open while you lose yourself in the pleasure. Adjusting himself, he lets go of your servos to push your knees towards either side of your helm. You’re about to protest when he pulls his spikes halfway out before roughly slamming back inside, making you cry out in surprise.
This new angle has you desperately scrabbling at his pauldrons for purchase. “Depth Charge, Depth Charge, ah, m-more. Pl-please go harder,” you chant as his thrusts jostle you.
You’re pretty sure he was only half-serious when he told you to keep your volume down, because he groans in response into your neck cabling when you call out his designation repeatedly like it’s the only two words you know. His strong digits tighten their grip on your legs and he picks up the pace, driving his spikes into you faster until your sparks fly out from between your frames and your processor goes numb.
You’re drooling. He has you fragging drooling as you writhe beneath him from the unimaginable pleasure you’re feeling. At least, you think you are… You can vaguely feel something leaking from the corner of your intake, but find yourself unable to perceive anything other than him moving inside you.
When an intense shudder moves through your frame, Depth Charge slides a servo down between the two of you, roughly stroking your anterior node until you overload so hard around him, you’re worried you’re about to undergo a system reboot the way your vision blacks out for a nano-cycle.
I love you. The words mercifully die in your vocalizer before they can even be verbalized. No, you wouldn’t do that to him—can’t do it. How terribly you wish you could, though. To say you adore him, how much you appreciate him, that he makes you feel whole. Maybe in another life, one in which the universe is kinder, where there would be nothing stopping you from professing your love for one another.
As you ride out your overload, he continues to frag into you as he chases his own. The processor-numbing pleasure of his spikes pounding into your sensitive valve has you gasping in a mix of pleasure and overstimulation, static straining your vox.
Hissing a curse, Depth Charge pulls out, and while your frame is still tingling from your overload, you’re left feeling disappointingly empty.
“Let me help you with that,” he murmurs. He looms over you, hurriedly pumping his spikes with one servo and your previously neglected spike with the other.
Your optics do roll back into your helm this time, back strut arching off the ground when he gives the base of your spike a squeeze. Your pre-fluids, which have since dribbled all over your length, slicks his servo, allowing him to work it up and down with ease.
You had been so worked up for such a long time that you don’t last long. You overload again with a whimpered keen of his designation, your digits clawing at the ground beneath you. Your transfluid spurts around his servo and drips down onto your chassis.
“Agh, frag.” Just nano-cycles later, Depth Charge overloads on your abdominal plating, coating it with thick ropes of his warm transfluid. He vents heavily, cooling fans on high blast.
Lying down beside you as you both catch your vents, you barely notice him stiffening when you roll onto your side and lean in to enjoy his warmth—even though you’re already boiling. You’re too busy relishing in being so close to him to pick up on the subtle change in his frame language.
“Want to go another round?” he asks once your cooling fans slow.
“You bet I do.” Your digits trail from his abdominal plating down to his array, feeling his spikes pressurize once more under your touch.
You’ve never seen him so at ease before, leaving you to wonder when the last time he let himself relax was. “I don’t think I can ever get enough of you,” you joke lightsparkedly. You weren’t actually joking.
Depth Charge shoots you a look of disapproval as you swing a leg over him and slide yourself up to sit on his hips.
“What’s wrong?” you ask confusedly, then it hits you. “Oh.”
Whoops. A slip of the glossa.
“Um. Right. Forget I said anything,” you quickly inject, hastily trying to backpedal before you can dampen the mood further.
Sighing to yourself, you lift your hips and impale yourself down on him, gasping when he wraps his servos around your thigh armour and thrusts upward into you without warning.
From there, you spend the next couple of mega-cycles fragging like petrorabbits, taking breaks in between, only to start up again, more frantic and desperate than the previous round.
Next, he seated you in his lap, taking it upon himself to move you up and down on his spikes like you were a spikesleeve when you overloaded and went limp. You weren’t able to truly grasp how much stamina he had until only a few cycles after he overloaded, he took you again, this time from behind by pinning you against the nearest wall, letting you frag his servo in the process.
You were given your chance to be on top, fervently spiking him because you knew by now that he liked it rough. He felt divine, as soft around your spike as he felt around your digits, and was as tight as you imagined. His noises of pleasure as you pounded into him rang deliciously in your audials until it sent you over the edge and you overloaded all over between his thigh armour. As you watched enraptured as your transfluid streamed down his legs, he bent you over on your servos and knees and mounted you, his spikes filling you to the point that they bruised your seal.
You were oversensitive to the point where overloading was becoming painful, and you both began to overload dry towards the end. To close things off, you slotted your legs together and sluggishly grinded your anterior nodes together, your spikes lazily rubbing, until you both overloaded for the final time.
Exhausted, Depth Charge rolls onto his back strut and you slump over tiredly on his chassis, a pleased sigh escaping your dermas. You faintly smile against him when his servo awkwardly grazes your hip, then rests on your back strut—a warm and comforting feeling. Shutting your panels, you decide you’re content to stay like this for the rest of the solar cycle if he’d let you, despite being drenched in your combined fluids.
You’re thoroughly startled awake just as your optics begin to shutter, the hum of his spark having begun to slowly beckon you into recharge, when his vox cuts through the silence.
“I guess this is it,” he states blankly. He slides you off him but before he can stand, you grab hold of his gauntlet and drag him back down.
Wearily, you cycle your optics. “Where are you going?” you question, your fatigue quickly vanishing and turning into confusion. “Don’t leave just yet.”
He glares at you, his wings pulling close to his frame. “The Pit is it now?”
Your optics widen in incredulity from his unexpected, snappish tone. “I’m sorry?” Did you hear him right? “I know you’re probably busy, but I… just wanted you to lie with me. For only a bit longer?” you offer uselessly, hugging his arm to your chassis.
Your request goes disregarded, and instead, he hisses your designation under his vents, like a warning. “Let go of me,” he venomously demands, yanking his arm free and standing up. “We’re done here.”
You instinctively recoil, your optics wide with bafflement from his complete shift in mood. “What? Just like that?” you ask cautiously. “I know what we did was purely transactional, but… don’t you want to stay with me for a while?”
“No,” he simply says, and turns to leave in the opposite direction.
His refusal to explain his odd behaviour is really starting to get on your case, but you take a deep in-vent, trying to remain levelhelmed.
Hobbling after him on sore legs, you put a gentle servo on his pauldron to stop him. “Hold on a nano-cycle,” you say, trying to be as nonconfrontational as possible. “Talk to me. I… I don’t understand where this is coming from. Do you not… not like me anymore?”
He whirls around to face you and this time, he really seems angry. “For frag’s sake, don’t try to turn this into something it’s not,” he growls, raising his vox threateningly. “You and I both know it’s better that I leave.”
Your optic twitches in irritation. You’ve tried to be patient, but you’ve officially had it with him insisting on skirting around the subject.
You retract your servo, intake agape because you’re nearly lost for words. “What is your problem?” you fume, on the cusp of breaking into an all-out shouting match. “Why are you running from me? What are you afraid of, Depth Charge?”
“I’ll tell you what your problem is,” he snarls, pointing an accusatory digit at you. “You’re too slagging attached for your own good so I’m doing you a favour. It’s…”
He takes a deep in-vent, his expression calming. “…It’s necessary, but you obviously don’t understand.”
No, you understand just fine. He’s intentionally being cold and uncaring to push you away, so that you’ll eventually get bored of him and lose interest. Maybe this is for your own good, but he doesn’t have to be such an aft about it.
“So you treating me like scrap is supposed to help me somehow?” you scoff, a lowly sneer tugging at your dermas. “We both know this is all an act, so why bother pretending?”
He looks taken aback for a nano-cycle, almost like he feels guilty, betraying his steely façade.
You’re speaking again before he has a chance to reply. “Depth Charge, I…” Love you. Please don’t shut me out of your life. “I… care about you. A lot. And no matter what you do, what you say to me, you can’t ever change that. I always will.”
Looking down at the ground as he mulls over your words, his optics narrow when they flit up to meet yours again.
“I’m not doing this for your sake,” he sighs, pressing his servo into his faceplate. “I’m doing it for mine. Falling harder for you is what I’m… afraid of.”
He pauses, lost in thought, as if debating whether he should say what he says next. “I knew I’d be making a mistake getting you involved with me, but I was selfish. So I figured it’d be best if I could convince myself to get over my feelings for you somehow.” His servos ball into fists. “There, happy?” he growls.
“Selfish?” you murmur, sympathy superseding your anger. “Depth Charge, you were lonely. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself for wanting me.”
“Maybe I was, but you’re wrong about that last part.” His plating flares with agitation. “I’ve let myself be distracted by you too many times and for far too long.” His gaze intensifies, and you take a nervous step back, though you’re not sure why.
A sick feeling eats away at your tanks. You’re too stunned to say anything, and for a few unpleasant, tension-filled nano-cycles, neither of you make a sound.
“Are you… blaming me?” you ask, almost too afraid to know the answer.
“No,” he replies firmly. “I blame myself for putting you at risk and for losing focus of my purpose—that ends now. If only I could forget—”
You?
He tenses, noticing the way you appear to shrink in on yourself out of sheer sadness. You think you know how he was going to conclude that sentence and you don’t want to hear it.
“Never mind.” He waves it off. “I’m going now. Don’t try to stop me,” he hisses with finality.
No. No. This isn’t happening; you can’t bring yourself to watch him go, to leave you, abandon you with your love for him that’s only grown stronger since the moment he first kissed you.
Without thinking, as he’s turning to leave, your arm darts forward to take his servo in yours.
Startled, Depth Charge’s wings flick upward in surprise. “What—?”
“Please don’t leave me,” you whisper. You press his servo over where your sparkchamber is and hold it there, a gesture that carries weight and is not to be taken lightly. “I’m not ready to say goodbye. I don’t want this to be the end of us.”
He tears his servo away, purposefully avoiding your gaze so he doesn’t have to see the devastated look on your faceplate. “Don’t do this to yourself,” he says gently. The softest you’d ever heard him speak. “You need to let me go. You’re only going to get your spark broken.”
Depth Charge spares you one last pitying look before coldly turning and walking away.
“Hey, no, wait!” You reach out to him, but your digits grasp at nothing but air.
Before he’s gotten too far away, he stops to bid you the next closest thing to a farewell over his pauldron—not even able to look you in the optics.
“You’re a nice ‘bot,” he says your designation, “so when this is all over, go find yourself someone who can always be there for you.”
But you don’t want another ‘bot. You want him.
That was the last thing he ever said to you—your final conversation, full of sorrow and repressed feelings.
He hesitates for a nano-cycle, as if he wanted to say more, but he shakes his helm free of whatever it was he wanted to add. Without waiting for a reply from you—because there was nothing more to be said—he leaves you there, trembling and struggling to comprehend the innumerous, chaotic emotions running through your processor, your frame still covered in the evidence of your coupling.
All you had left to remember him by was some of his light blue paint, which had scratched off onto some areas of your frame, that you couldn’t bring yourself to clean off.
You’re left staring blankly in the direction he left for… you don’t know how long. Motionless as a statue, but internally, you’re a wreck. Looking back, you still don’t know why you did this, honestly; it wasn’t as if he was going to come back to you and apologize.
Some time passes that you’re trapped inside your own helm, replaying the events that unfolded so quickly over and over—it could have been anywhere from cycles to mega-cycles. Eventually, you force yourself to carry on with the rest of the solar cycle and attempt to act like everything was fine—when it decidedly wasn’t—after coming to the bleak conclusion that you just possibly made one of your biggest mistakes ever since you’ve come online.
Now that you’ve had a taste of him, it was impossible for you to not want more, a realization that terrifies you.
What have you done?
The following solar cycle, he was gone.
Upon feeling his energy signature dissipate, a wail of anguish leaves your dermas and your legs give out—you would have collapsed to the ground had Rhinox not been there to catch you. You don’t fight back—like you should have, how could you leave him?—when you’re physically dragged onto the escape shuttle, near catatonic, and too beside yourself to react.
There was no time to mourn. No time to retrieve what remained of him to give him the proper send off he deserves. You had to leave now, and you knew there wasn’t any conceivable way the others would willingly leave you behind.
Numbly watching the stars and planets blur past through the windshield, you think to yourself that you should be ecstatic to be going back to Cybertron, but you’re not. You can’t stop mentally berating yourself for leaving him behind, left to rust away like he was little more than scrap metal, doomed to eventually be forgotten with the passing of time.
What do you do now? Begin a new chapter of your life, you suppose—he did want you to move on, after all. But how can you? For some reason, the idea feels wrong, like you’d be betraying him.
As you near Cybertron’s sector of space, and painfully further away from Earth, you choke back a sob, earning you sympathetic looks from your fellow Maximals. You turn in your seat to face away from them, not wanting their pity.
Maybe you’d be joining the AllSpark sooner than you thought, if it meant you could be reunited with him. There, you could be together forever.