capitalh | no one mourns the wicked

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no one mourns the wicked

Who: Optimus Prime and AUTOBOTS
Where: The Autobot campground.
When: The evening/night after the dance off.
What: Orion Pax has been restored to his past and future self. Optimus Prime is NOT HAPPY. Also, very very tired.
Warnings: Injuries, intense robot ass devastation. Angry dad. Angry mom.

Optimus Prime, unlike Orion Pax, leaves no time for argument or complaint. After he's finished dealing with Megatron, he orders the Autobots to roll out, provided assistance to injured comrades where necessary. He takes no assistance for himself.

Which is stupid, because after days of starvation and torture and minus the burst of power from the Matrix he was utilizing just before, he is extremely fucked up. It's less obvious that he's on his last legs than it might be with some bots, but he is very injured and trying hard to pretend that he isn't. He drives back to base by his own means, and doesn't speak but to give the occasional order until they are there.

He wants everyone safe and tended to and organized, and he needs to have a talk with just about everyone on the team, and besides that he needs to catch up with everything he hadn't been paying attention to as Orion Pax...he doesn't see how he could possibly take a rest quite yet, there is too much stuff to do, and if he made it this far he can make it a little bit father.

More than tired, though, he is angry. He's angry at Megatron, angry at some of his team, and angry at himself. He doesn't pause to talk to anyone once they get back to camp, and immediately starts to ineffectually try to organize things with as few words as possible.

[Feel free to tag in as someone at any point in this, including later in the night or the next day. He will probably pass out in the medibay within the hour, though. Either that or Ratchet will get him.]

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Sweet relief- except not really.

Some deep, distant part of Starscream does feel regret, but it's not an emotion he's familiar enough with to be able to identify it. It just confuses him, makes him angry.

For a rare, brief moment he's speechless. The clamp comes off and he grunts with relief and starts to flex his wings enthusiastically, working the kinks out... then they tuck back in alarm (potentially grazing Optimus inadvertently if he's still within range of them).

It sounds like hyperbole, but it's not: No one has earnestly used the word "friend" with regards to Starscream since... well, he literally can't remember. Since before the war, at least. And he hasn't reciprocated or used it sincerely towards anyone else, probably ever.

"Yes, well... that was your mistake. I don't have friends; the handful of individuals in my line of work can't afford the risk," he mutters with forced sounding disdain, like he's covering for something he's sensitive about. It's the hard truth of being a Decepticon officer (not that Starscream had ever at any point been very good at people even before he became that). The stakes of Decepticon politics are far too high, only the lower ranking officers can really afford to foster personal relationships or let anyone to get close to them.

The wings come back up, flexing laterally, almost like a bird flapping. "I can offer you this much in penance: My actions certainly weren't anything personal. You can rest easy about that."

Optimus pulls way from Starscream as he starts flapping his wings around, just barely avoiding getting clipped. He frowns in mild irritation, listening to those words, before sliding away his key into one of his robot pockets I guess.

"The me you speak to now was not the one fooled," he says, his voice flat. "Nor the one hurt."

He steps out of the cell and closes the containment field.

He only halfway turns back around, a warning growl underscoring his words: "In that case, why bother bringing it up at all?" The emotions he is broadcasting are marked by the same uncertainty and defensive aggression he displayed back during all of the emotionally charged discussions they had when they- or he and Orion Pax, anyway- were held captive by the rogue AI.

"You should be lying down," Ratchet says quietly, coming up to stand at Optimus' elbow. "You pushed too hard, after you acquired the Matrix again."

He makes no move to actually force Optimus to sit back down, or go anywhere at all--he just stands in semi-companionable silence, leaning against the doorjamb and looking up at the sky, watching Optimus out of the corner of one optic.

Orion Pax probably would have been concerned about that. He would have seen the vulnerability in someone so ashamed and unfamiliar with their own emotions, that they react to something like this with compensation and aggression. He would have tried to do something about it, even at risk to himself.

Optimus realizes that the bot he had become would not. Not for someone like Starscream, not like this. Not after so much. Not when he just...

The years of war bear down on him with a weight he has never truly felt. To see and feel yourself so divided...more and more, he wishes that he had not. The psychological ramification of this feel more and more damning by the moment.

"Because I still remember. I remember thinking of you in a different light, even if my optics see different now."

"I know," he says faintly, not quite looking away from the scenery yet. His body is improving with rest and repairs, but the fight with Megatron at the end undoubtedly made his condition far more lingering. He couldn't have conceived of doing anything else, in those moments. "I was angry. Too angry."

He's come to the point where he can label some of his emotions, after a long day of wondering. Earlier, he was incapable of even doing that.

Maybe that had been what was slowly endearing him to Orion Pax, even if at the time he found the bot's earnestness in that regard to be tiring and vexing.

He turns to face Optimus fully again, crick in his wing forgotten for now. "Let me ask you something, if you are so interested in baring your emotions," he deflects. "Why do you always speak as if you and he are two entirely different people? His experiences inform your own, do they not?"

"I don't," he says, though he's been confused on that point so far, and sometimes he goes back and forth. Much of the time he will refer to his time without the Matrix as himself, only as if he was in some altered mind state. But sometimes, with these gaps in perception, it feels as if there are experience that are incompatible. Experiences that Orion could have and feel that he no longer can as who he is now.

Like his innocent love for Arcee. His reckless trust in Starscream. His genuine heartbreak over Megatron.

"However...I was capable of many things then, that I am not now. You just spoke of how you could not afford friendship, as a high ranking Decepticon. I have similarly made sacrifices...and in many ways it seems as if they have irreparably changed who I am."

"You certainly don't talk about it as if you don't," he says flatly. "Still, it's rather ironic that your personal growth has come at the cost of losing certain capabilities. It seems inverse to basic logic."

It's an observation, and nothing more. No hidden implications, no sage advice. Nothing.

The Decepticon grunts and turns to pace to the back of his cell, too vexed by this line of thinking to pursue it any further. It's far easier to keep the two OPs separate in his own mind, and categorize Optimus as the enemy. Doubly ironically, this is also inverse to his own opinions on the matter when he'd first discovered Orion in the desert all those months ago. Funny how this shit works.

Edited 2014-08-28 02:38 (UTC)

Optimus crosses his arms over his chest, watching Starscream through the containment field with dull blue optics.

"Would you not consider the lack of ability to form meaningful bonds a loss, Starscream?"

Ratchet's lips thin slightly and he drops his optics from the skyline, looking down at the ground, if not up at Optimus quite yet.

"Who are you angry with?" he asks, not entirely sure he wants to hear the answer but knowing he needs to ask.

God dammit Optimus stop asking him hard questions.

"Not in the recent past, no," he says with forced mockery, settling against the back wall. It's a deliberately vague answer, and one that he has neither the wish nor the information necessary to clarify upon.

After a pause he tilts his head, glares, and adds something far more sincere, though it's stilted in a way that indicates that he's very unaccustomed to expressing true gratitude: "...Thank you for removing that clamp. I would not have trusted any of your officers to do the same, much less expected you to agree to it." His wings flick up at attention as if to further demonstrate his thanks.

"Megatron," he says, not easily exactly, but with some conviction. "Myself. It has felt like seeing my life - the history of this war - through an unfamiliar gaze. To see what was done to him. What was done to me."

He never knows how to refer to himself without the Matrix. Before it seemed so simple, but now he keeps switching back and forth. Sometimes it feels so close and so real, other times like something he is completely disconnected from.

"It's easy," Ratchet says slowly, "to take a step back and look at the choices you've made and not know if they're the right ones. I've done it every single time I've lost a patient, for thousands of years. But whatever mistakes you're seeing now, you made them in good faith." He does look up at Optimus now, his optics bright and piercing.

"And if I thought anyone else would have done better, I wouldn't be standing here right now."

Optimus looks down to him as well, and though there is less vigor in his eyes, there is a familiarity and understanding. It is the kind of reassurances he is accustomed to receiving from his friend. The sort of thing that, no matter how many times you tell yourself, you need to hear from someone else occasionally.

But, for once, it is not all his own mistakes he can't look away from. In some ways, that feels like a selfish weakness in of itself. His eyebrows furrow sadly, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips but never quite making it there.

"For once...it is not all my own actions that I doubt. Though it may be difficult to believe, old friend."

The smile leaves entirely.

"I feel truly wounded by what I have experienced for the first time. Or perhaps it is a resurgence of emotions I have since forgotten." He looks down at his hands. "For the first time, I see who and what I am, and I feel regret."

That throws Ratchet, and he looks briefly at a loss before he reaches out, his fingers snagging against Optimus' for a moment before he cycles his vents in a sigh and just lets his hand drop.

"What do you regret, exactly?" he says, looking up into Optimus' face again--he certainly has a few guesses, but he'd rather hear it from Optimus.

Optimus can't make himself looks back. Part of this whole issue is that everything about it feels foolish and unnecessary by his own standards of personal conduct. He didn't make things about himself. He just didn't.

So much of this pain, though, and so much of this anger...it's all his, and he doesn't have a place for it anymore. Due to circumstances, he was never given the opportunity to cope as he would have, like he has to many times before.

"I...have barely been able to identify it. I have been so...so lost, and even trying to identify what has gone wrong has felt too daunting of a task."

He really hates this. He almost can't make himself do it. He wants to, for Ratchet, and out of some small hope for himself. But every word feels like a grinder to the plating.

"So many things that were so easy for him...for Orion...for myself, before all of this. I do not feel capable of them any longer. In ways I had not fully realized."

Is that it? Drift almost asks as much aloud – he’s been building this conversation up in his head enough to have been expecting…something more. And there’s no relief in hearing the statement. It’s not as if he wants a harsher punishment, but…it feels like he’s getting off easy. Now is probably not the time to be voicing those concerns, though.

“Of course…of course. Whatever you think’s best.” He nods – a thoughtful expression on his face.

There’s a slight pause before he speaks again. Asking the next question might be pushing his luck, but there isn’t going to be a better opportunity for it. “Er…have you…talked with Rodimus at all since we’ve been back?”

Ratchet... slumps slightly, pressing his lips together for a long moment as he regards Optimus.

"You're the same person," he says finally, picking his words carefully. "I know you're suffering right now, with two sets of memories, but that should stabilize in time. But however strange it is at the moment, you are that person, still. Or you can be. ...I meant the things I told you, before you got your memory back, about why I followed you into a war. It's never been because you're a Prime."

He shakes his head a little. "Just--whatever you feel like you're losing, you don't have to. Whatever coping methods you had, you can relearn them. It might not be easy, but none of that is lost Optimus. If there's something you're missing, you can get it back."

Edited 2014-08-28 04:54 (UTC)

There are a few factors leading to a relatively mild punishment, but he is glad that Drift doesn't question them. The easier this conversation is right now, the better.

...And then he asks about Rodimus. Of course.

Optimus's expression immediately sharpens at that question - there is a flicker of anger in his optics, but there is mostly just kind of a pained look to the whole thing. Like being reminded of something regrettable.

"Rodimus did speak to me," Optimus says, flatly. "I did not enjoy his attitude."

Something about that actually sinks in, through it all. He has been thinking about all of this in terms of irrevocable changes, and though he still doesn't know that they're not...he doesn't know that they are, either.

Though he still doesn't know how practical any of that would be. Orion Pax hadn't been what they needed, even if it had been what some of them wanted. The war isn't over. Unicron is still out there. There is still so much to do.

How could he ever focus on becoming more vulnerable? He made himself like this for a reason.

Optimus takes a while to muster a reply. For a significant pause he finds himself staring at the ground and the horizon.

"The question I keep asking myself," he says, eventually. "Is if I should. I feel...so many things in my spark that I no longer have a place for. It isn't over. So much is still at risk. I...I cannot allow myself to feel like this. I carry so much more than myself."

"It doesn't have to be over for you to have a life that's your own, Optimus. There's nothing in the Autobot Code that says you're not allowed to be happy sometimes. Literally the last thing I'm worried about is you being irresponsible about relaxing a little sometimes, and considering everything that's happened, it's better for you to bend a little than break. You've been through something unique, and you need to cope with it any way you can, even if that's letting yourself be a little more like you were from now on."

"And--" Ratchet pauses, his throat working for a moment before he rubs the base of his helm at the back of his neck. He does look tired now, and a little unsure, staring down at the ground outside like he's not positive he should continue. He does anyway. "Just as your friend. ...it was good to see you smile again."

For so much of his life, these things had just fallen away in a natural feeling disinterest. He was so focused on everything else, on leading the Autobots, on stopping Megatron, on protecting other species, that most of his personal life had been tossed to the wayside, and he never regretted it. It didn't feel like a sacrifice at the time. He didn't consciously think of losing those aspect of himself as any sort of price - just a natural evolution of who he was going to be.

It had just felt reasonable and practical, and he was okay being the way he was because it got the job done. He would start thinking about that later, when the war was over.

But even though he's now been given this terrible shock, he finds himself thinking of it as something that should be natural, and that there must be something wrong with him for it to not feel that way anymore. Before now, he has never imagined himself as being a person who had those things, because he didn't even want it, really.

But now. But now...

Ratchet's last words hurt in a way, and it shows in his optics. Not the hurt of a slight or an insult, but of a truth that he's been ignoring. He's never thought of himself in terms of whether or not he was happy, or sad. Only how prepared he was to move forward. To the younger aspect of him, the intensity of his disconnect is chilling.

"I have been who I am for so long, I forgot the existance of other possibilities," he says softly, his optics dull and lingering in the ground. "I had no need for it, before. I had no desire."

'No personal desires' sums up a lot of it really.

Ratchet does reach out then, wrapping thin, steady fingers around Optimus' much larger ones, his grip tightening slightly.

"You became the person you thought you needed to be to protect as many people as possible and to best do the job you needed to do, because there was no one else to do it," Ratchet says slowly, watching Optimus' face. "You made the best decision you could make at the time, in good faith. You put others above yourself and that's--it's admirable, but you can do it in moderation." He pauses briefly, then continues as though unaware of what a raging hypocrite he's being. "You can take some time for yourself without the whole war effort falling to pieces. And there's things you don't have to do alone."

Optimus doesn't know how to feel about this either, but it is at least a far less blatantly tsundere reaction. Instead, his optics just linger on Starscream for a few moments, judging his sincerity. It doesn't seem the same as his obvious attempts at sychophancy.

"There is no need for further pain to result from all of this," he says tiredly, and turns to leave. That is quite enough of this for now. "Goodbye, Starscream."

He is so out of here.

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no one mourns the wicked

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~tsun tsun~

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gay tbh