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Kaon was loud.
It always had been. Even when the crowds had long since trickled out of the Pits, or when he was alone in his habsuite, it was all still loud to Megatronus.
Kaon bore the kind of noise that scratched at the inside of the helm. Kaon bore the kind of noise that made every nanoklik spent idle ache worse than was appropriate. Kaon bore the kind of noise that is the incitement to move and fight and draw attention away from that constant roaring.
And yet. The noise of Kaon still was in second place compared to the noise that was his own processor.
At this moment, Megatronus was in his habsuite, busy and productive with the business that is staring at the comm panel of his console, specifically opened to the channel of Orion Pax.
The last message had gone out four cycles ago. Four. He’d sent it directly to Orion’s personal frequency—a soft cadence of words more genuine than anything he’d ever let slip into the arena.
INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS LINE
status : open
corresponder desg. : Orion Pax
:: You said you would visit. I have yet to see you, Archivist mine. ::
The follow-up had come two cycles after that.
:: I rearranged my cycle. You are late. ::
Then, yestercycle.
:: Orion Pax, if this is your way of expressing disinterest, I ask that you simply say so, and not leave me in silence like a discarded tool. ::
Nothing. Not a single chirp back from his—from the Archivist.
He leaned forward, vents exhaling slowly. At his side, his fists curled into themselves, his gauntlets creaking beneath the strain of restraint.
He said he would visit.
At first, Megatronus told himself: Orion must’ve simply been delayed. The mech had duties in the Hall of Records, an overbearing mentor, and an almost pathological obsession with finishing tasks before moving on to the next. But for him to go this long without any sort of sign that Megatronus had been heard?
It wasn’t arrogance that made Megatronus expect the other mech to follow through. No. Orion Pax had always been… earnest. Attentive. Genuine, in a way that grated, sometimes, with its sheer honesty and the mild obliviousness that came with it.
But he never lied. Not once. Not even when they disagreed about the Council, or the Functionalists, or the damned Iacon elite and their precious caste-system.
So why now? Why the void?
“Is that it, then?” Megatronus muttered aloud, tone low. All the traitorous thoughts he had fought to keep away arose again, bitter and sharp. “I am reduced again to the role of spectacle, gazed only as a passing interest. Am I just the gladiator now? The name without value? The monster from Kaon?
He stood sharply, the motion rattling the desk behind him. There is a dull ache that throbbed in his sparkchamber each time he thought about Orion. The datapads stacked on the table tumbled in protest. He ignored them both.
If Orion Pax would not answer his messages, he would answer to a direct vidcall. There would be no ignoring him, then.
One long step brought him to the console again, digits hovering above the interface. Another nanoklik. Then, with a grunt of frustration, he initiated a call.
It rang once.
Twice.
No answer.
A flicker of unease passed through him, chased away quickly by a fresh wave of anger. Megatronus stabbed the reconnect button. Again. And again. And again.
“Don’t do this to me, Pax,” he growled.
He tried five more times. On the sixth, the call connected.
The screen blinked to life, static curling at the edges before it stabilized. Megatronus straightened, imposing and fully in control as one with a temper as short as his could be, ready to unleash the torrent of carefully chosen words to throw at Orion like shrapnel, and—
“…Orion?” Megatronus’ voice dropped immediately, the sharp edge of confrontation caught and dulled mid-arc.
Orion Pax was on the floor, seated awkwardly, swaddled in a vast collection of blankets, one of which being used as a pseudo-cape. His optics were glassy, barely slitted open, and his face was flushed with a pretty blue hue. There were tiny hitches in his venting, and his frame shook faintly every few moments with the telltale signs of internal misfire.
For a moment, it was clear he didn’t realize that the call had gone through—he was blinking with the slow, disoriented rhythm of someone not quite aware of his surroundings. A discarded energon cube was beside him, its contents barely touched.
And yet, as soon as he registered the vid feed, though somewhat delayed, his face brightened.
“Megatro—”
The word crumpled in his throat. Orion convulsed forward with a dry, painful-sounding hacking fit—a wet, jarring thing. His frame curled inward, jolting weakly with each cough, and when the fit passed, a soft pitiful whimper slid past his lips.
“Orion,” Megatron said, voice tighter now, “Archivist mine, are you alright? Are you unwell?”
Orion nodded vaguely, unfocused optics falling half-shut again. “Mhhmmmm…”
A small smile tugged at Megatronus’ lips despite himself. “‘Mhmm,’ to which part, little librarian?”
There was a brief pause in the conversation, and Megatronus dutifully stopped himself from laughing at the poor mech. He was so very focused on the screen, and he squinted at it balefully like it hurt his optics.
That stifled laughter was halted immediately. The saddest and most pathetically tragic little frown Megatronus had ever witnessed spread across his face, and he refused the urge to stab his servo into his chassis to rip out his spark.
“Mega…” Orion sniffled, dismally forlorn. “…’missed you lots…”
Oh. Megatronus feld his core twist, and he swallowed his jagged oration. The fierceness had no use here. Not when his Orion had looked at him with that kind of open, raw affection.
Then he scoffed at himself—for acting as though he hadn’t already reacted strongly, before this call. Four cycles of silence had carved deep into his spark with every unreturned message, and perhaps he had let his anger get the better of him, but that was besides the point. It had never even occurred to him that Orion Pax was unwell.
“I missed you too, Orion,” he said, quietly. “You should have told me you were ill.”
Orion smiled blearily. “You worried.” He stated, his vocalizer carrying something warm neath the congestion.
He paused briefly. “Yes,” Megatronus admitted, feeling stilted with the sudden guilt that arose in him for the amount of anger targeted undeservingly toward his Archivist. ”And furious. I…” he swallowed, avoiding his gaze and feeling like a petulant sparkling. “I am unused to silence from you.”
Orion’s smile disappeared and Megatronus vaguely felt something wretch at his spark at the saddened expression. “M’sorry…” he mumbled, burying the lower half of his face into the blankets. “Didn’t mean to…”
“I know. You never made it to Kaon, and I feared…”
“I tried,” Orion frowned, his optics flickering. “I was…‘was wanmnted t’see you…thought I could sleep it off, but then my spark felt… weird and then it hurt to move. And the light hurt. And it felt like my ventilation was being stepped on. ”
“Lovely imagery,” Megatronus said dryly, an underlying softness to his tone. “You should have said something beforehand.”
Orion’s helm drooped again, making a miserable whining sound that was not unlike a distressed warble. “Didn’t wanna bother you…”
Megatronus’ face twisted slightly at that. Bother him? The little fool had disappeared, unable to move from sickness, and yet even in delirium, he thought only of sparing Megatronus' concern. It was absurd. He was absurd and endearing and maddening all at once.
“You are not a bother.”
Orion hummed and shifted, the movement drawing Megatronus’ vision to the energon cube beside him. “Have you been taking any medicine?”
“..............................................................................some of it.”
“You are hopeless,” Megatronus frowned. “You realize you have an entire caste of medics trained to assist with illness, and probably have better flavored things to ingest than low quality, ill-tasting medicine, do you not?”
“They all suck,” Orion grumbled. “They don’t let me wear my blanket.”
Megatronus covered his face with one servo, dragging it down his face slowly. “You are going make me ill from your lack of self-preservation and the secondhand-embarrassment you give me, Archivist mine.”
Orion sneezed and made a sound between a hiccup and a laugh.
There was something endearing about seeing the half-conscious mech stripped of his usual formalities. The Archivist always made it a habit to hold himself with a certain rigidity, even in moments of lightsparkedness. Seeing him so soft, sleepy, and vulnerable…
His thoughts drifted to well-buried imaginations of himself caging Orion between himself and the berth, his Archivist still describable with those same adjectives, the only difference being their cause—
Perish the thought, he chastised himself, a servo raised upward to cover the sudden flush that lay on his face. Now was not the time!
Orion blinked up at him again. “Mega?”
“Hm?”
“Do you think if we sliced our wires and connected them to each other, we could create a pseudo-sparkbond?”
“What,” Megatronus asked gently.
Orion made to answer before he suddenly broke into a bout of coughs, and Megatronus refused the urge to move closer to the screen. What could he do with this distance, except watch worriedly? By the time the fit had ceased, Orion ended up on his side, curled up with a servo clutched to his frame.
“Orion,” he started, “perhaps you should retire to your berth.”
Orion’s lip wobbled.
“N-nooo,” he said pitifully. “I wanna see you…”
Megatronus fought himself. Despite his feelings, he could not just override protocol, legal permissions, and sector quarantine laws just to get to Iacon. He could not haul Orion Pax into his arms and cocoon him in warmth and safety until the fever broke and his optics cleared.
Still, that didn’t stop his voice from going soft.
“I will not leave, sweet one. Come now, rest,” he promised, the edge of a smile touching his face. “I will read aloud my poetry to you. Will that suffice, archivist mine?”
Orion’s lips curled into the softest smile, barely perceptible from under the pile of blankets. “Mhmm…”
Megatronus settled into his seat, leaning closer to the monitor, and pulled a datapad toward him. He adjusted the screen so his face was clearer, softer. Orion’s optics were already fluttering, half-lidded and glassy with the pull of fever-induced recharge.
Then, softly, he began to read.
“/ and lo, the towers reached to heightless ends,
/ rust bleeds through skyline and leaves naught but drought
/ in both realms: cold in their silence, wounded intertwined
/ there is an iota of ire that begins to ascend…”
Megatronus, despite his proneness to violence, had much enjoyed quietly reading poetry to his fevered Archivist. Ergo, the mech who would never know how deeply he longed to reach through the screen, to rest their foreheads together, to whisper between fevered kisses those three words and cradle him in his arms—unfortunately, he could not do any of those. Not at the moment, with their current distance and friendship that was the painfully kept platonic bond.
At some point, between reading the fifth stanza of “If I can not bend the will of Primus, I shall move Unicron”, Megatronus succumbed to the inexorable pull of recharge. The screen remained open, its soft glow illuminating the darkened space of Megatronus’ private quarters.
Orion was still a haphazard mess of blankets, the lone cube of half-drunk energon, and archival binders he’d apparently repurposed as a makeshift pillow. His forehead was buried in one of them, limbs sticking out at bizarre angles like he’d melted in place.
Megatronus himself had fallen asleep sitting up, arms crossed, helm tilted slightly forward. He stirred occasionally, in restless recharge.
He was not a mech who dozed deeply. The little amount of effort it took for one to wake him up was compared once, when he was new-sparked to the life of gladiating and had to share a bunker with his fellow low castes, to a charged weapon on standby. A very fitful comparison, to a warrior like him.
Which is why, when a wet, painful-sounding krrghckghk-kghhkkhh-KHGGHHK—hhh shattered the air like a cannon blast, Megatronus sprang up with the force and dignity of a dignified gladiator—by which he meant: violently and with a strangled, undignified yelp.
For a brief, confused moment, he assumed he’d been knocked unconscious by an opponent in the pits and toppled off his chair, before squinting blearily at the screen.
Orion was hacking violently into the blanket pile, venting shallowly between fits, optics squeezed shut and chassis hitching. One servo was weakly pawing at the ground for a the cube before guzzling the rest in one go. Megatronus watched, frozen, as the fit trailed off and Orion slumped slightly, letting out a soft, wheezing sigh, before falling limp again.
Megatronus waited. Just in case.
Silence.
He groaned and valiantly slumped back into his chair.
“…Primus,” he muttered.
And then, as if summoned by the invocation:
“KhHkHHHkkghhkKHkHHKH—!!”
Megatronus flinched and his optics snapped open again.
Another fit.
He sat there, jaw tightening with each wet-sounding cough, watching Orion rasp and fumble for a brief moment, and. The Archivist in question grabbed a datapad and licked it, looked at it offendedly, before he muttered what sounded like “s’fine,” as he nuzzled gently face-first into the blankets.
Megatronus granted him a long suspicious glance, and slowly, he allowed himself to close his optics.
“HAHCGK HH NNGH—MCNKOFF KOFF KOFF KOFF KOFFKOFFKOFF—HEUGhh..hww…”
Megatronus sat forward. Primus. He sounded like—those coughs sounded much more harsh, what if his internal throat cabling was torn?!
“Orion?” he hissed, urgent. “Orion—”
But Orion had already subsided, letting out a soft, bleary groan and burrowing further into his fluffy fortress like a tiny, pathetic thing.
Megatronus stared at the screen.
He scrubbed both servos down his face.
“Primus above,” he muttered, at his limit. “He’s dying.”
Sleep-deprivation tugged at the seams of his mind, wearing down what was once patience and composure and replacing it with a dangerous cocktail of system warnings, raw nerves, and a completely irrational protective instinct that screamed for him go to Iacon now.
He stared blankly at the screen for three whole kliks before reaching to his commlink, calling to Soundwave's frequency.
“Soundwave,” he said calmly, and whatever one might think, it was not the kind of calm that came from the precipice of madness. Whatever one might think, that deadpan, monotone calm that Megatronus held was not the one that made gladiators pause mid-fight to cautiously ask about his unblinking stare.
Soundwave groaned, groggy. “Hnn. Acknowledg’d.”
“I require,” Megatronus said, “a path to Iacon. Preferably in the next two joors. Faster, if available.”
“…Clarification: diplomatic visit?”
“No,” Megatronus said immediately. Then, “Yes. I—No. Maybe. I don’t care. Forge one. Lie to them. Say I’m delivering a speech to the lower caste social philosophy committee. Say I’m visiting the Hall of Records for a research audit. Say I’m being escorted by Iaconian authorities to review sanitation protocols. I don’t care if you tell them I’m a surprise guest lecturer on mid-cycle taxation law—just get me there.”
There was a short pause of either confusion or horror.
“Purpose of visit???????????????”
Megatronus vented slowly. On the screen behind him, Orion snuffled and made a quiet mnnnghhff noise as he shifted under his twenty layers of blanket.
“Hhhhhgk—khk—cough—ghhhhk—coughhHk—k-KHKHH!”
Megatronus slammed his servos on his thighs and leaned forward, staring at nothing unblinkingly. “Soundwave. Orion Pax is dying.”
Soundwave paused again. “…Is he terminally ill, or—”
“Listen to me, Soundwave,” Megatronus said, rubbing at his optics with a groan, “he is wracked with coughs and he is extremely delirious. I just watched him lick a datapad. He cannot take care of himself like this.”
“Diplomatic protocol and border permits require twenty-four joor processing at the minimum.”
“That’s lovely,” replied Megatronus evenly, “and irrelevant. I am invoking personal authority override classification Because-I-Said-So.” He then leaned forward, as if Soundwave was inside the screen he was glaring at. “If I am not in Iacon holding Orion Pax in the next few joors, I will dismantle the permit office with my bare servos and repurpose the remains into an Oilhouse.”
A sound that was vaguely reminiscent of a defeated sigh, and then the very faint noise of typing. “.....................................Authorization forms acquired. Route cleared. Estimated time: two-point-six joors.”
Megatronus allowed himself exactly one fist-pump into the air. “Blessed be your bandwidth.”
Soundwave just groaned and shut off the comm.
The gladiator ex-vented in relief and turned to look back at Orion.
Orion, snoring, had managed to half-unwrap himself in his sleep and was now lying face-down on a datapad. One of his pedes was sticking out from underneath the pile of blankets akin to a sad surrendering flag.
Megatronus took the moment to stare at him and then, with a small fond smile curling at the edge of his expression, said softly: “You ridiculous, fragile little thing.”
The shuttle ride from Kaon to Iacon had been long. Not by any normal measure (Megatronus was technically twenty-three kliks early) but time had begun dragging somewhere around the third click of his digits against his plating.
The soft whir of the shuttle was not calming. The gentle announcements from the navigation assistant were not calming. The smell of the seats, clean and polished and basking in midday glow, werenot calming.
It had been three joors and forty-seven kliks ever since he had said goodbye to his Archivist on vidcall. He would have kept himself in a call with Orion if not for the fact that shuttles do not make good areas for comms... an outrageous and criminal thing. It should be absolutely grounds for a public systems review on why his emergency political override hadn’t granted him a faster shuttle.
Orion could be dehydrated. Or mistaking a storage rod for a straw. Or worse. What if he’s eating an inedible object again. Or dead. What if his Orion Pax was dead???????
So when Megatronus stormed through the Iaconian corridors with the authority of a full-on siege, flanked by a very, very quiet escort, no one dared stop him.
Except for the doorman to the residential wing. Who cleared his throat and asked, “May I see—?”
“I am seeing my librarian,” Megatronus declared, shoving the necessary datawork into the mech’s arms without breaking stride, “he could be trying to inhale datapads.”
The doorman wisely stepped aside.
Finally, he arrived at Orion Pax’s habsuite.
He vented, and knocked.
Silence. He knocked again. More silence, again.
The fact that it took only silence for his anger and impatience to arise is astounding. Megatronus knocked again, harder. “Orion Pax?”
Nothing.
Megatronus stared at the door like it had personally betrayed him.
Then, he pressed the override panel, meaning to ring the doorbell but accidentally pressing the open button.
The door slid open and Megatronus balked. Why was his habsuite unlocked????????????????
He pushed through fast, his fusion cannon charged. If Orion was—if he—if an intruder—
He halted. Dead center of the floor, halfway between the desk and the berth, was a nest of blankets, cables, datapads, and one Orion Pax in front of his console, still swaddled in blankets, snoring.
Ah. There was no intruder. He must’ve forgotten to lock the door.
Megatronus didn’t even know he could feel twelve emotions at once, but here they were: relief, panic, fondness, dread, offense, confusion, secondhand embarrassment, and an overwhelming urge to throw the himself out the window. He crouched down beside Orion and tentatively reached for him. “Archivist,” he whispered, low and cautious.
Orion grumbled in response, turning away from Megatronus and attempting to burrow deeper into the fabrics. Megatronus snorted and gently gathered him up, arms steady. Orion mumbled, choosing to make Megatronus’ help harder and refusing to let go of the blankets.
He was halfway to placing Orion down on the berth when the mech stirred, one optic flickering open, bleary.
His face lit up immediately. “Megatronus!”
“Orion,” Megatronus smiled, “I am here now. You are no longer to move. I will be taking care of you.”
“I am not fragile, or unwell,” said Orion Pax, undeservingly self-righteously, very nasally, and slowly tilting to the side. “Begone.”
“Archivist mine,” said Megatronus evenly in turn, patting his librarian’s helm crest with a coolant patch, “You have a plague-riddled kazoo chassis. You have mistaken a datapad for energon and tried to eat it.”
“My point still stads.” Orion huffed, faceplanting into the blankets.
“Stands, you mean.” Corrected Megatronus, like the polite mech that he was, not at all amused or stifling a laugh. “The word is stands, little fool.”
Orion, face down in blanket, let out a tired groan. “Same diff’rence…”
“No,” Megatronus said, “there is a distinct difference. One of them is an actual word.”
He adjusted Orion’s position, tucking him into the blankets Orion had originally wrapped around himself. Then he sat himself down beside the berth, sighing deeply.
“—fluff my pillows?” came a muffled voice from the blankets.
“Alright,” Megatronus replied without hesitation. “You just rest yourself.”
Orion gave a weak, triumphant hum.
Then he sneezed so hard his pede shot upward from underneath the blanket and kicked one of the pillows halfway across the berth.
Megatronus retrieved it with dignity and fluffed it.
It was going to be a long few cycles.
The first official act of Megatronus’ stay in Iacon was confiscating all of Orion Pax’s datapads.
It was not done maliciously. It was an act of love, of intervention, of mercy, because Orion, sweet, brilliant, mildly delirious Orion, had attempted to transcribe a long dissertation on one of his datapads while hunched over, still mid-fever.
“No,” Megatronus had said firmly, plucking the datapad from under Orion’s half-curled servo as though he were disarming a bomb. “You are not allowed to write while your processor is operating at the capacity of a damp sponge.”
Orion made a pathetic noise and reached for it.
Megatronus raised the datapad higher, squinting at it. “You spelled your own name with a 9 instead of an O.”
Orion blinked slowly. “In my head my name sounds like a nine.”
Megatronus exhaled deeply through his vents, turned, and deposited all remaining datapads into a tall cupboard, which he then locked.
Megatronus found himself holding an energon cube, kneeling beside the berth with all the reverence of a penitent at the Well of All Sparks.
“Drink,” he ordered, guiding the cube to Orion’s lips.
Orion blinked once at the cube. “No thank you,” he said sincerely, “I already drank it.”
There was a pause.
“You have not had energon, Orion.” Megatronus said slowly. “This is a new cube.”
“I dreamed it.” Orion said, voice raspy and noble.
Megatronus sighed again, deeply, and gently tipping the cube into Orion’s mouth.
Orion pursed his lips together and pretended to sip it. Before Megatronus could coax (beg) him to actually drink, he stopped and murmured, “You’re very handsome when you look serious.”
Megatronus made a strangled noise and nearly dropped the cube.
Megatronus learned very quickly that Orion had two states while ill: boiling solar flare and frozen energon cube.
One moment, he was shivering and curling into the blanket pile, sneezing miserably. The next, he was kicking the blankets off violently, limbs flailing as he demanded for the wall to be opened.
Megatronus, flustered and barely composed, modified the temperature settings four times in a single joor, then had Soundwave bring him necessary materials so he could set up two small fans in the room.
Orion watched him work with glassy-opticedadmiration. “You’re the most competent mech I’ve ever met,” he said, voice slurred but awestruck. “You are building a fan? For me?”
Megatronus, who was now sweating, grunted “You were overheating.”
“I’d marry you,” Orion announced, “if I weren’t boiling.”
Megatronus choked and dropped his wrench over the jest.
Every few joors, when Orion fell into recharge, Megatronus allowed himself the indulgence of simply looking at him.
He watched the quiet rise and fall of his chassis. The little way Orion’s lips stayed slightly parted, even in sleep. The faint furrow in his optic ridge that smoothed only when Megatronus gently brushed a digit across his forehelm.
It was dangerous, how easily the sight made his spark ache.
Orion was… radiant, even when sleep-mussed and virus-damned. There was something about him that called to Megatronus, uprooting his buried desire to claim. But not in the way he’d claimed victories in the arena, or the way he’d claimed power in Kaon. This want was quieter and gentler and all the more terrifyingly foreign.
He wanted to kiss him.
Primus, he wanted to kiss him.
He wanted to lean down when Orion was rambling about the economic failures of triple-function society and shut him up by gently pressing their mouths together. He wanted to feel the heat of him, taste the rasp of sick breath and still think it all sweet.
He wanted—
Orion snored, loudly, and rolled over with a pitiful groan.
Megatronus moved forward, tucking the blanket back around Orion’s shoulders, and said softly, “You are truly the most ridiculous thing to have ever happened to me.”
Orion, in his sleep, grumbled. “M’not ridiculous. I’m…scholarly.”
“Yes,” Megatronus said agreeably, unable to stop himself from reaching forward and tracing a careful line down the edge of Orion’s helm. “Scholarly. And doomed to be stuck in delirium until your fever breaks.”
He sat beside the berth once more, datapad in hand, pretending to read while his gaze drifted back every few nanokliks.
You’re falling, Megatronus, his processor whispered to him. And if you’re not careful, you’ll descend so far into the abyss that is Orion Pax that you’ll never climb back out.
He glared at nothing resolutely, and whispered back: Then descend, I shall.
The quiet was never truly quiet in Orion’s little habsuite. Even in the midst of recharge, there were always tiny sounds only heard in the dead of the late-cycle—half-muted whirs, the soft honk-shoo of Orion’s vents, and the faint buzz of old datapads left online.
“HGKhh—KOFFKOFFKOFFKOFF—”
Megatronus awoke immediately, surging upright and blindly stumbling toward the berth where Orion Pax had curled up sideways, tangled in a blanket and hacking with a painful ferocity.
“Easy, easy,” Megatronus murmured, crouching beside him. He rubbed a steady servo up and down Orion’s backstrut as the mech wheezed, groaning raggedly. His Archivist blinked blearily and tried to sit up, posture slightly sideways like a listing building under seismic stress.
“None of that,” Megatronus said, pushing him back down “Stay still. Your frame is still fighting.” He grabbed a nearby medicated energon cube off the berthside table, tilting it to Orion’s mouth. “Here, drink this.”
Orion hummed sleepily and drank slowly, moving away after a few moments. His upper lip was smeared with residual energon, and a wide, bright, dopey smile crossed his face, unfitting for his recent bout of coughs.
“Mmm,” he hummed, voice thick and slurred from medicine and congestion. “You again. I dream about you a lot.”
Megatronus blinked. Orion dreamed about him? “You’re not dreaming.”
“Yes, I am,” Orion said solemnly. “Dream-Megatronus has much fewer frowny lines.”
Megatronus felt something uncoil inside his chest. A laugh tried to escape and he bit it down viciously.
“Well, if I am Dream-Megatronus,” he said, gently brushing Orion’s cheek with the back of his digits, “then I suppose I am under obligation to be less stern.”
“Mmhmm,” Orion agreed, melting slightly into his touch. “Be more smiley. And shiny.”
Megatronus snorted, imagining himself to be bedazzled with shiny gems. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re always shiny in my dreams,” Orion said, nodding slowly. “And tall. And nice. And—hmmm—you smell nice.”
Megatronus rubbed at his forehelm. “You are much more inclined to compliment when you are unwell, librarian.”
“You do,” Orion insisted, swatting vaguely in his direction. “And you’re being nice to me. Like…very nice. So I must be dreaming. Because you’re not this nice. You’re all ‘Raaaaargh, I’m Megatronus, I eat gladiators for breakfast.’”
“I do not eat gladiators for breakfast,” Megatronus replied, setting the cube of medicated energon into Orion’s servos. “Though I admit I’ve had worse accusations. You should finish this.”
Orion stared at the cube.
Then at Megatronus.
Then Orion whispered devastatingly, “Can you believe they let ME archive things? I forgot my designation once, and. I signed a ledger as Orbin." He shoved his face into his hands. "O-R-B-I-N.”
Megatronus very valiantly bit the inside of his mouth to stop the laugh bubbling in his tanks. “Again: you are not dreaming. It is dangerous to tell me things such as these, when I could use them against you, Orbin.”
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Orion whispered, putting a single digit to his lips—of which ended up on Megatronus’ chin, because Orion’s depth perception was nonexistent. “I’ve taken medicine and you are an elaborate fever hallucination.”
Megatronus buried his face in his palm to stifle the helpless wheeze of laughter that nearly escaped him. When he looked up again, Orion was squinting at him.
“I like your voice,” Orion said, waving a servo vaguely. “That deep voice that says ‘Orion, you’re being a menace’ and ‘Orion, you can’t just write an essay on the ceiling.’ It’s very commandy.”
Megatronus was valiantly losing a battle against mirth. He bit the inside of his cheek. “I do not recall preventing you from writing an essay on the ceiling, Archivist mine.”
“I had a stepladder dream.”
Megatronus couldn’t help it. A sharp laugh slipped out at the nonsensical reply, and Orion lit up brightly.
“There it is!” he crowed. “The laugh! Your laugh in my dreams is always that one. A little rumbly. I like it.”
“I’m not flattered by the implication that I am more tolerable in your dreamscape.”
“Oh, hush, you’re always very tolerable.” He mumbled, rubbing at his optic with a clenched fist. “You’re just especially dreamy in my dreams.” His optics fluttered closed, and he looked briefly like he’d slipped into recharge.
Megatronus had just begun to lean closer to check when—
“I—” Orion said, very abruptly. “I wanna tell you something, Dream-Megatronus.”
Megatronus flinched backward. “HRK—Orion, you’ve near given me a sparkattack! What is it??”
Orion stared at him. Then, in a sudden whirl of half-delirious intensity, he lurched forward and grabbed Megatronus’ servos with his own.
“I’m in love with you,” Orion blurted, voice thick and shaky and suddenly very loud, akin to warcry.
Halt, what.
“I’m so in love with you, Megatronus,” he continued tearfully, and Megatronus could only pretend his spark wasn’t exploding because these were the words he’d fantasized Orion saying to him for what felt like eternity. Orion grasped at his servo, voice watery. “And I’ve been in love with you for so long and I wanna run away with you and get conjunxed and have eight sparklings and we’d write poetry and philosophy for them to learn.”
Megatronus could only gape at him as Orion rambled despairingly.
“And I’ll make you soup!” Orion cried desperately, as if that would win the nonexistent argument between them. “And we’ll live in piece and stargaze and no one will bother us unless they’re very polite!”
“Eight sparklings,” Megatronus repeated faintly.
“We could name one of them Orbin Junior,” Orion added proudly.
And then, Orion Pax grabbed the sides of Megatronus’ helm, squinted very hard, and smacked his face directly into the middle of Megatronus’ face where he’d assumed his mouth was located. "MuuuuWAH!"
It was, in technical terms, a kiss.
It was, in more accurate terms, a poorly aligned attack on his face.
Then, newly-discovered-mutually-beloved, ridiculous, plague-riddled Orion honked his horn once and slumped forward, already passed out in his arms.
Megatronus sat down, very slowly, and stared at the berth, delicately placing Orion back onto it.
Then he raised one servo and touched the spot on his face where Orion had pressed his mouth, as if confirming the existence of the kiss by the warmth it left behind. There, he could feel the sticky kiss-shaped mark, courtesy of the medicine Orion had just taken.
“…Primus,” he whispered hoarsely. “I could die happy.”
Orion stirred slowly, his frame shifting beneath the layered folds of his many blankets. He sat up, yawning.
Megatronus was already there when he woke, as he had been for the last several joors, seated in a chair dragged close to the berth, elbows resting on his thighs.
If it wasn’t already obvious with his weary disposition, he hadn’t slept a wink.
Orion’s vents sounded…clearer. Not perfect, but definitely better. His armor no longer tremored, and his optics, though bleary, didn’t carry the glassy, unfocused haze that stemmed from the virus’ delirium.
Megatronus found himself releasing a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He leaned forward slightly, one servo reaching to gently touch Orion’s pauldron. “Orion,” he murmured. “Are you awake?”
Orion grunted. Then blinked. Then blinked again and turned his helm toward Megatronus, smiling. “…Hi,” he rasped, voice much too rough, but intelligible.
“Hello,” Megatronus greeted, tone joined with a fondness even he couldn’t disguise. “You’ve rejoined the land of the waking.”
“I…think so,” Orion said, attempting to move but ultimately giving up and letting himself flop back down instead. “…Or my dreams are getting unusually detailed.”
“Not a dream this time,” Megatronus snorted, lifting the energon cube slightly in offering. “Here. You’ll need to recharge again soon, but have some energon first.”
Orion blinked at the cube and slowly took it in both servos. His digits brushed against Megatronus’—light, and warm with fever. A small frown played across his face as he drank, and when he finally lowered the cube, he looked over at Megatronus with narrowed optics.
“Megatronus,” he started, tilting his helm. “You are being strangely quiet…”
Megatronus gave a half-shrug. “Ah, do not mind me. I am just thinking. Surprising, for a gladiator such as me, I am aware.”
Orion snorted. Or tried to. It came out as a wheeze that ended in a light cough.
Megatronus let the moment stretch, basking in the rare feeling of Orion being safe and conscious and—if not well, then well enough. He waited until Orion had relaxed slightly, leaning into the pillows behind him.
Then, he cleared his vocalizer. “So,” he began oh-so-casually, “have you had any dreams, Archivist mine?”
Orion blinked. His ridge furrowed just slightly, contemplative. “I think I might’ve. I do not remember it all, but—”
Smack.
Both of his servos flew up to his face, slapped straight over his mouth. He stared wide-opticed at Megatronus, his entire face blooming a pretty, fluorescent shade of soft blue.
Megatronus, who prided himself on his willpower and stoicism, on the many times he had endured taunts in the arena without a flicker of expression, was immediately overcome by a savage urge to squeeze the little fool into oblivion. He instead pressed his lips together, fighting every urge in his neural net shrieking to pounce forward and pull Orion into a full-body embrace.
Orion was still flushed, his servos remained firmly planted on his mouth, muffling the strangled, mortified sound he tried to make as he looked anywhere but at Megatronus.
“That’s a yes, then,” Megatronus hummed, betraying absolutely no delight. His mouth twitched very slightly at one corner.
Orion shook his helm violently, then nodded unassuredly, then gathered the blanket covering him into his servos and buried his helm into the fabric with a muffled whine. “Megatronus, I—”
“You know,” Megatronus interrupted, leaning back in his chair like he had all the time in the universe, “most archivists do not attempt to conjunx with dream projections of political revolutionaries. I’d assume what you did wasn’t considered standard protocol.”
Orion honked. Megatronus, this time, could not stop the low chuckle that slipped free.
“Shall I recite back what you said?” He offered kindly.
“NO—”
“Running away to have a minimum of eight sparklings,” Megatronus recited with gravity. “One of which specifically to be named Orbin Junior. And our living quarters: a lighthouse, filled with our writings of poetry and philosophy.”
Orion and just flushed brighter and bleated static into the . “Mega—!!”
Megatronus laughed loudly again, bright and unabashed.
“I am still waiting on that kiss to land properly, Archivist mine.” He remarked, offhandedly.
Despite the flirting-disguised-as-jest, Megatronus hadn’t meant the last bit he had said. The words had tumbled out with a lazy, casual charm, solely for the purpose of covering up his deep-rooted nervousness with the shell of confidence.
It was safer to phrase it as a tease, because that way, if Orion laughed it off—if Orion said Primus, did I really say that? I am so sorry, you know how viruses are,—then Megatronus could pretend it had all been clever banter. He could smile and say, Oh, it is alright—you were delirious. I didn’t take it seriously.
But every fail-safe, every excuse, every carefully curated strategy for damage control shattered the moment Orion sat up slowly, pulling away the blankets and still flushed the prettiest, disarming shade of blue, and looked him dead in the optics. A shy, flustered, and strangely determined gaze.
Orion reached out, gently cupping the sides of Megatronus’ helm, his digits brushing the curve of his helm, his touch cool and fever-warmed all at once.
And then, Orion Pax pressed a hesitant gentle kiss onto Megatronus’ cheek.
Askfksdjw. Hg. Oh. Megatronus could feel his spark exploding a multitude of times. He was—Orion was—
Orion—sweet, venerated, brave Orion—immediately began to retreat and pull away, gaze avoidant and lips pressed thin into an embarrassed line. Clearly, he expected this to be the end of it, a confession made and done, never to be spoken of again.
No.
Absolutely not.
Megatronus’ servos shot out urgently, catching Orion before he could fully retreat. He pulled him into the space between his arms; one servo went to Orion’s back, and the other cupped the curve of his jaw, tilting his face back up and forcing their gazes to meet.
“No,” Megatronus said lowly, repeating his traitorous spark, flaring with something between disbelief and hunger. “No, you don’t get to do that and flee, Orion Pax.”
Slowly, he drew closer, plating warmed between their shared breath. And then, Megatronus kissed Orion directly on the lips.
Orion made a soft, startled noise, but he didn’t resist. His servos fisted instinctively, grabbing at the seams of Megatronus’ armor, as if his frame had decided long before his mind could catch up.
There would be no room for questions or misinterpretation or plausible deniability. He had yearned for this for so long—the desire for Orion sharpening over the multitude of conversations shared between them, chance meetings, long debates, lingering glances, arguments-turned-laughter. And now, glorious, sharp-witted, frustrating, brilliant Orion was in his arms, kissing back.
Megatronus separated briefly and kissed him again, suppressed want and never-spoken yearning spilling out dangerously. Yes, something in Megatronus crowed triumphantly, yes, I want this. Yes, I want you.
When they parted again, breathing ragged, they took a moment to look at each other. Orion’s face was impossibly flushed, mouth parted slightly, obviously dazed.
Primus, thought Megatronus reverently, he looks like starlight.
“You kissed me,” Orion managed to whisper, awed and disbelieving.
“You started it,” Megatronus replied, his voice hoarse and unsteady.
Orion opened his mouth as if to reply and yet no words were spoken, and he closed it again. His optics fluttered, flicking from Megatronus’ optics, to his mouth, and back up again.
Megatronus felt a crooked grin tug at the edge of his mouth. “Do you want to do it again?”
Orion’s horn blared and his finials shot up. Megatronus refused the urge to bite them. “I—I—uhm—”
Megatronus huffed a laugh, knocking their forehelms against each other. “I was only joking, earlier,” he admitted, “in case you hadn't meant it. When you said you loved me.”
Orion bit his lip and took Megatronus’ servos into his own. “It is a recent discovery of mine, my love for you. Beforehand, I liked you and assumed that it was a crush stemming from proximity. But. Then I realized I liked you a lot more than that, in ways entirely unprofessional. And illogical. And ill-advisable.”
Megatronus caressed Orion’s servo, waiting patiently as the Archivist fumbled for words. “And now I’ve kissed you. Thrice. And you’ve kissed me twice. Which is not a very archival-legal order of things—”
“Orion.”
“—and you’re a gladiator which would require additional documentation if I—”
“Orion.”
“—ohhhhhhhhhhhh dear if Alpha Trion discovers this—”
“Orion Pax,” Megatronus said firmly, silencing him with a firm servo gently pressed over his lips. “I don’t care about the order. Or the paperwork. Or the regulations. Kiss me again, and I will not be filing any protests.”
Orion was quiet for a moment, and then he bit his lip, glancing at Megatronus. “...Maybe later?”
“Alright,” agreed Megatronus. Orion beamed at him. Hespite his supposed compliance, Megatronus, powerful as he was usually composed, promptly forgot what patience was.
Because “later” was subjective, was it not?
Later could mean now, surely. Just a few moments later. That qualified, right?
Orion had said it. Orion loved him. Orion had kissed him back. Orion had beamed at him, warm and drowsy and his. He had spent so long aching quietly, studying every twitch of Orion’s mouth, every crinkle in his optics and every layered implication behind one of his maddeningly elegant phrases.
Now, Orion was right here, curled in the berth’s blankets, still smiling that same smile that had (for vorns) been the background radiation of his spark. Except now it was different because he loved Orion and Orion had loved him right back. And now, with this revelation, he should, in question be allowed to show it freely.
“Megatronus?” Orion asked, concerned, when the gladiator kept his silence.
And then, with all the dignity of a swooning starship with its thrusters blown out, Megatronus groaned and clambered unceremoniously onto the berth, over Orion, bracing his weight carefully on his forearms so as not to crush the smaller mech he caged in.
“Wh—” Orion began, optics widening, vents hitching up in surprise when Megatronus pressed a quick kiss onto his crest.
“I’m allowed now,” Megatronus said, quite simply. “You said so. It is later now.”
“Wha—wait—I didn’t say that exactly—”
The rest was muffled by lips.
Soft at first, reverent. Then deeper, and deeper still.
Orion’s frame jerked in surprise, but to Megatronus’ delight, he didn’t resist. His servos gripped at Megatronus’, mouth falling open in a half-hiccup of a gasp as the other mech kissed him again, more insistently now.
“Whah—hah—mmnph—!” Was all he managed as kiss after kiss landed, each one firmer, more possessive, and more thorough than the last. Primus. This was much more satisfactory than any of his well thought out imaginations could ever accomplish.
“You’re warm,” Megatronus muttered, pulling back for a second to touch Orion’s flushed cheek. “Still fevered. You shouldn’t be so pretty when you’re ill. It’s unfair.”
Orion bleated static and squinted up at him, dizzy and overwhelmed but visibly delighted. “You—nnh—are being extremely irresponsible,” he mumbled breathlessly, trying and failing to keep away a smile.
“I’m besotted,” Megatronus growled, nuzzling into his neck cables. “It’s a medical condition.”
“You—nngk—you’re going to get sick…”
Megatronus paused, lifting his helm again. He searched Orion’s face.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Orion blinked at him embarrassedly. He looked dizzily flustered. “………………………………………………………………………Nnoooo?”
AGHfjggssjjdkw. Grhrg. Heh. Hreheh. Megatronus grinned. “Then brace yourself, little archivist,” he purred, briefly pausing to nip at his neck cabling. “I’ve been waiting decacycles to do this properly.”
And with that, he kissed him again. Slower this time. Less a siege and more a steady, devastating conquest.
Orion tried to pull back. “Wait, my love—” Megatronus’ spark stuttered at the term of endearment— “You’re going to get sick—”
“No, no.” Megatronus placed a kiss to his cheek. “Too late. I am infected already with feelings.”
“That’s not how viruses work—”
“Oh?” Another kiss to his temple. “Then how does it work, scholar?”
Orion opened his mouth to answer and received a kiss directly on the lips for his trouble. Orion’s vents faltered, his servos suddenly scrabbling for purchase on Megatronus’ chassis as if unsure whether to push or pull.
He settled on squinting at him, muttering, “You are needy.”
Megatronus smirked, already leaning down again. “I only mirror what I see.”
He kissed Orion again, biting his lower lip. Orion let out a helpless little whimper before swatting at his chestplate. “You really houldn’t—I’m still technically contagious!”
“Your ‘technical’ is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.” He kissed the side of his mouth. “I’d kiss it if I could.”
“I am it,” Orion sputtered, but the protest was half-sparked at best, especially with his servo fisting loosely in Megatronus’ pauldron again, pulling him just slightly closer. “And you are kissing me far too much.”
“I am, aren’t I?” He said agreeably, this time kissing behind one audial and making Orion’s finial twitch. “Terrible habit, really. Must be the fever spreading to me. It’s been making me terribly reckless.”
“Megatronuuuus,” Orion moaned, but he was giggling through it, “this is not the behavior of a revolutionary leader.”
Megatronus kissed him again. “I’m taking a sabbatical. Doctor’s orders.”
“You never—”
“Shh. Say less. Cough less. Kiss more.”
Orion tilted his head dramatically away, sighing. “It is too late, now. You’ll be infected for cycles to come.”
“Then I’ll be infected happily,” Megatronus replied, dragging his lips across Orion’s jaw with deliberate obstinance and nipping his chin.
“Hnn—don’t weaponize affection. And you are not a medic!”
“Oh, I will. I am. You’re under medical lockdown now. My personal patient.” Another kiss, quick and snuck in beneath Orion’s protests. “Quarantine procedures dictate close monitoring and regular smooches.”
Orion clung on, equal parts swooning and amused. Megatronus, for lack of better wording and at risk for sounding repetitive, kissed him again, slipping his tongue into Orion’s mouth and muffling any subsequent noises for his intrusion. When they finally parted for breath, Orion was drooling slightly, and his lips were kiss-swollen, a smile stretching across his face.
“I think,” he murmured, “you like me.”
Megatronus huffed out a laugh. “You think so, little librarian?
Orion nodded, optics crinkled. “I think I might like you back.”
“Might,” Megatronus repeated, brushing his thumb along Orion’s jaw. “After all that, you only might?”
“Shhh.” Orion poked at his chassis. “Let me have the upper servo.”
Megatronus let his helm drop to Orion’s shoulder with a laugh, pressing a kiss there too just because he could. “You already do, sweet one.”
Megatronus was sick.
It began, as all tragedies do, with smugness.
Megatronus, proud and defiant, had declared himself immune to Orion Pax’s “””adorable little Archivist flu”””, kissed him thoroughly, and refused to heed warnings about illness and proximity and common sense.
And so now he lay there, a great metal oaf of misery, sprawled across Orion’s berth like a felled warrior.
It was a rare, strange thing to witness—Megatronus, his most dearest and fearsome gladiator, now reduced to a groaning, overheated, clingy mass of plating, flopped unceremoniously across Orion Pax’s modest berth.
Orion, feeling significantly better and slightly vindictive, stood at the foot of the berth, holding a cube of carefully mixed energon and medicine in one servo and his other currently held (entrapped) by Megatronus. He himself had successfully broken his own fever and surveyed the patient in question with the weariness of someone who had fought a war. And lost.
He was a magnificent warrior, really. A gladiator made from the alloys of hardship and the fire of Kaon’s forges. A visionary, a speaker, an underestimately intellectual force—
—and, currently, the oh-mighty warrior was reduced to a snarling, wheezing pile of blankets that clung to Orion like a ghoulish bog-like creature trying to drag its victim into the depths.
“Megatronus,” Orion tried for the third time, gentler now, “my darling, beloved conjunx-to-be, gladiator mine, you need to let go.”
“No,” came the gravel-thick reply, muffled into Orion’s pillow.
“You need to take in energon, and I need to replace that patch of coolant.”
“Stay.”
“That’s not—”
Megatronus swiped at him, and Orion quickly danced out of his grasp. Megatronus scowled balefully. “You fiend,” he growled, voice hoarse with injury, “you forsake me in my joor of need. You owe me.”
“For what???”
His optics narrowed. “You kissed me when you were sick.”
Orion sputtered. “That was different!”
“You said you loved me.””
“Yes, but—”
“You said you wanted to run away and have sparklings—”
“I was delirious!”
“And now I am!” Megatronus coughed, the berth heaving with every movement. “Reciprocate my affections you traitorous little bookworm—”
“You are delirious with fever and will not be kissed directly on the mouth until you stop running a temperature. I will not risk another fever!”
Megatronus released a shuddering sigh. “If I perish, it will be because I was denied affection.”
“If you perish, it will be because you licked my helm and declared yourself immortal.”
“Tell my enemies,” he rasped dramatically, “that I died as I lived. Heroically and tragically and ultimately betrayed by my conjunx-to-be. IHave Soundwave upload my poetry into the public databanks, once I die.”
“Absolutely not. You’ll be immortalized as the founder of a cultural revolution, not the mech who wrote eighteen separate odes to my pelvic plating.”
“Twenty-one,” Megatronus corrected, making another grab for him. “And you haven’t read the new one yet. It’s about the curvature of your struts. Wonderful poetry, my best one, I think.”
“You are not even—that is not poetry, that is smut!”
“It’s poetic smut.”
Orion stared at him for a long, long moment. Then he reached for a nearby datapad on the berthside table and smacked Megatronus in the shoulder pauldron with it.
“Ow!” Megatronus cried, snatching the pad and cradling his pauldron. “Betrayal!”
Orion sighed and left the room to grab a cooling patch, dutifully ignoring Megatron’s protests. When he came back, Megatronus was glaring at him. “You’re always leaving and denying me kisses…” he mumbled balefully. “Y’do not love me anymore…………”
“Oh for—Megatronus, you held me down and demanded five different goodnight kisses yestercycle while complaining I was cold and slippery. I am still trying to get those datapads back from under you!”
“I am the foundry core,” Megatronus grumbled petulantly. “And you believe it is my destiny to burn. You love the datapads more than me.”
“Those are inanimate objects, my champion,” Orion snorted.
Megatronus narrowed his optics suspiciously at him, jabbing a digit at him. “You’ve changed.”
“Yes,” Orion nodded solemnly, pressing the energon cube towards Megatronus. “I got better. And now it’s your turn.”
Megatronus shifted, just enough to roll his massive frame halfway off the berth with a groan and a clumsy grab, somehow managing to wrap one arm fully around Orion’s waist and drag him down with the gracelessness of a collapsing building. Orion barely kept the energon cube from spilling as he landed with a startled “Oof—!” directly against the sick warrior's overheated chassis.
“Trapped,” Megatronus declared in triumph, his optics squinting open just enough to glow dimly. “Stay. I will warm your cold frame.”
“I was warm,” Orion grumbled, trying and failing to pry himself free without jostling the energon cube too much. “Then your ridiculous servo decided I wasn’t moving. Let go, Megatronus.”
“No.”
“Primus, you’re worse than me when I was feverish.”
“No.”
“You are so—do not squeeze my aft!”
“Ghrrrrrrrrr.”
“I mean it,” Orion tried wriggling away again, straining. “You need coolant, energon, and proper ventilation. I am not a ventilation fan.”
“You are.”
“I’m not!”
“You’re my fan.” Megatronus blinked slowly, a grin just barely tugging at his lips. “My biggest one.”
“You’re delirious,” Orion muttered disbelievingly. “And somehow you’ve become all the more self righteous.”
Megatronus didn’t answer. He just held on tighter, venting warmly against Orion’s neck cables and nuzzling the side of his helm like a sleepy beast who had claimed his favorite blanket and refused to let it go.
“Megatronus,” Orion tried again. “You’re overheating. Let go. I cannot help you like this.”
A muffled noise.
“Did you just growl at me?”
Another noise. Definitely a growl. Oh, this buffoon!
“You are being ridiculous.”
“No I’m not,” came the grumpy, scratchy reply. “You’re warm. You’re soft. You make the dizzy stop.”
“I make the—” Orion cut himself off and put his face in his servo. “Megatronus.”
“…Orion Pax,” Megatronus said in the same voice one might use to announce a royal title. “You are warm and good and mine.”
“I’m your lover, not your blanket.”
“Same thing.”
“That’s not the—” Orion sighed and leaned back into the berth, surrendering, and making sure to keep away from Megatronus’ mouth. “You know, I thought I was hard to manage when I was sick.”
“You are,” Megatronus croaked. “You tried to eat a datapad.”
“And you are currently trying to eat me.”
“I am only a mech. I hunger,” came the hoarse protest. “I’d let you eat me.”
“Oh, Primus help me,” Orion muttered, before reaching up and gently caressing his beloved’s helm. “You’re lucky I love you.”
“Mhm.”
“You didn’t even hear me, did you?”
Another soft grunt. Then: “Love you too.”
Orion smiled.
“Alright, fine,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to Megatronus’ chin. “You may keep me a little longer.”