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Fate was a cruel joke. Ratchet was not laughing.
Sure, he lasted a long time. He saw life start, watched as the golden age sank into the muck and the mire of corruption and greed. Watched life flow out of mechs and into the gutters of his home. Corpses littered the streets as mechs spoiled and splurged in tall, glittering towers, and Cybertron groaned beneath the weight of its citizens sins. Combined, they could take out Primus himself.
So he buckled down, powered through the Academy, and became a medic. Hell, if no one else was going to do it, then he was going to do it himself. He opened up his clinic in Dead End, and one guttermech after another came in and left.He met Orion, the gunho police cadet, and then trouble started to brew in the east. And then Orion dropped one off, and there was just...something different about this one. He could see that this mech had a rough start, but with the right push, he could become something great. So he sent him off after cleaning him out, telling him that he was going to do great things. And forgot about him as things moved fast after that, then, and suddenly Orion was Optimus and the gladiator he had admired was brawling in the streets with mechs he knew.
Things spiraled out of control after that. Millenia of war, death, destruction. Their home, gone. Mechs fled in all directions, coming into his life and out of it as the steely cold digits of Mortilius sank deep into cracked and broken frames that he struggled to patch up. Supplies were running low, hope sinking as the cause dragged. No one remembered anything except for pain, death, and ruin. Hiding in plain sight, searching for the purple badge that meant death.
His first love was Optimus, plain and simple. He had known him almost as long as he could remember. Words were never exchanged, but he was sure he felt the same way. Then again, he was terrible at social cues. Sometime in the millenia that he was serving, ‘I love you’ got replaced with ‘old friend’ in his processor, and he acknowledged it and moved on. Turns out it was one sided. The matrix did not allow for another to get near Optimus’ spark, and he was always….different after that fateful day.
After Optimus, Ratchet was content. He stopped looking for anything more than another patient, another potential death to add to his roster. It was war. Death was everywhere, his constant companion. It was whispered about in the shadows, it was synonyms with many of the Decepticon names. Tarn, Megatron, Turmoil, Deadlock, Soundwave, Starscream. The list was endless.
Ratchet stopped believing in gods and the well early in the war. He was immersed too deeply in the war, watched too many horrid things happen. He lost too much to believe that anything good was waiting for him after he passed. He had watched too many sparks dissipate to think they went anywhere but became one with the galaxy they were born from.
And then he showed back up in his life. Things were looking down. Prime had been taken out by Megatron. They were allowed to limp home, and Ratchet was sent to patch Prime up. The Wreckers found them, and that was when he saw the kid again. He introduced himself as Drift, and Ratchet took the slight uplift of his spark as a sign that he needed to stay away from that one. He was dangerous, and he didn't even know it. In fact, he seemed more skittish than a turbofox in the daylight. He was almost always around Perceptor, and those two seemed rather tight, almost welded at the hip.
Ah well. It might be better, this way. Ratchet shrugged and marched on, slapping patches on soldiers and sending them back out, ignoring the tug each time he saw a flash of long white plating, the sheen of a sword, the spray of energon as it was flung carefully off of a sharp blade. Watching Drift work was like a beautiful dance and a painting all in one. But he saw the regret each time Drift killed someone, saw the way each corpse dragged at the others shoulders, trying to swallow him down in his guilt. And for once, Ratchet wanted to try to do something, to remind him of….something. He could have sworn that he had seen that kid somewhere before.
And then Prime was back on his feet, and they were taking Earth back from the Decepticons, and he lost track of the sword mech. Again, it was better this way. Ratchet was the CMO of the Autobots, the best medic they had, and he didn't have time for….feelings.
Things get a little fuzzy towards the end of the war. Things happened so fast, so many were lost, and suddenly Megatron was defeated and the Decepticons were captured and Cybertron was…..not the same. Sure, Prime sacrificed himself to set Cybertron right, but the new world was harsh and wrong. So, so very wrong. Stepping foot on the newly minted planet made Ratchet’s plating crawl. He wanted to be surrounded by starts, feeling needed again.
So when news came to him about a ship going on a quest, he stopped thinking logically for a moment and signed up. After all, how many idiots were going to need patching up on a suicidal quest to find some mythic mostly likely never were real Knights of Cybertron?
And then he was there. Drift. Again, it was like fate was taunting him, showing him what he was not allowed to have. After all, if he was not with Perceptor, then he was certainly with Hot...Rodimus. He missed his chance, just like he missed his chance with Prime. A day late, a shanix short, an empty cold berth waiting for him. Just like it would always be.
And then something changed. Ratchet never really knew what it was, but something made Drift notice. Notice him, that was. Sure, he was mostly with the commanding crew ( Ratchet made damn sure to not be included in that crew, but as he was still the best medic they had, he was always called in for decisions and the like) but he made it a point to come around more than anyone else had. The weird flutter in his chest plates was….odd. He didn't know if he liked it, or even what to classify it as, so he marked it down as ‘old age’ and moved on. After all, he watched how Rodimus and Drift interacted when they thought no one was looking. Drift was rather close to the Captain no matter what he said. He did buy the hot head a ship.
But then again, he did save his sorry aft. Got him new hands out of the deal, too. Weird. Ratchet replaced his hands, ignoring the way that Drift had looked at him and was always making sure he was alright, and continued on.
Things got weirder and weirder, and he didn't always mean about Drift. For his lack of faith, things happened that tested his patience, and then Rodimus kicked Drift off the ship. That was a dumb move, kid. The crew may have needed someone to punish for how fate dealt the cards, but Drift didn't deserve half of what he was given. So Ratchet slipped off the ship to find him. He found a whole lot of trouble, but a frame upgrade and a paint job later, they returned.
He lost more friends, this time. Considering how many he lost during the war, this normally didn't affect him this badly, but this was different. It was peacetime. He found a damn good apprentice by the way of First Aid. Things were looking up.
Somehow, he noticed more things about Drift. The lingering glances. The soft touches. The way he hovered just out of noticeable field range. How often he stopped by the medbay and dragged him out of his office to refuel, to recharge, to get a break. The way he fluidly stepped into his space and how well they fought together.
Drift felt like home. The thought almost crashed the medic as he was working on Bluestreak’s most recent injury, and a questioning prod from First Aid reminded him of where he was. Damn damn damn, this was not how it was supposed to happen. He had settled to be alone til the day he died a long time ago. He could not afford to get his hope up now. After all, Rodimus and Drift were a thing…..weren't they?
Now it was him doing the lingering glances, the stilted touches. He drew away from his work, confident in First Aid’s ability, as he tried to sort himself out. Perhaps...he could go. Take the shuttle, find a small colony, and….what, exactly? He would drive himself crazy if he stayed somewhere small.
He barely remembered being herded into his quarters ( damn they were so dusty, when was the last time he was in here? Were these even his?) by Drift, a scarred but lithe hand catching his own, rubbing at the plating. It was funny; these hands were not even his originals, which had ached fiercely, but they still throbbed when he used them too much. Phantom pains, he was aware, but some habits were hard to break. Here he was, back to the wall, optics wide for a moment before dropping down to where their hands were connected, trying to make sense of things. Drift was touchy feely, so this was...normal, right? He did this to his friends. He had seen him touch Rodimus plenty of times.
“Stop overthinking this, old man.” Drift said softly, optics burning brightly into his own as he glanced up, startled. Could Drift read thoughts? How fragged was he? Perhaps if he made up an emergency, he could get some distance between them ( was Drift getting closer? When did that happen?) and-
The press of lip plates against his own, soft, forgiving, hesitant, actually did have him crash( he could blame many things, but the fact he had forgotten to refuel, and had been awake for three days straight may have had something to do with it almost more than Drift’s kiss). Darkness swallowed him as he heard that soft voice call his name in surprise. He almost hoped that if this was a dream , he would never wake from it. Let him die here, please.
But fate was cruel, and he awoke, helm in Drift’s lap and the other mech dozing. He took the time to study the others faceplates, noting the exhaustion, the way that the other mech hand a hand over the medic’s chestplate, where his spark was.
Things spiraled from there, between finding the Knights and coming to some serious conclusions, and then Drift was once again taking him aside and asking him about conjux ceremonies. It was bliss. Ratchet had always wondered what having a conjux was like, and now he knew. Drift was beautiful, he was brilliant, he was skilled, he was warm, he was his, and he was …..home. They were home when each other was around, and …..Ratchet felt cold. The slight tremble in his digits was nothing new, but he could feel that his time was running short.
Fate was a cruel mistress, and he could feel space itself wrapping around his spark, shrinking it, taking away his strength and his wits.
He hid it as long as he could. It came as a tremble of digits, a slight misstep, a furrowing of his optic ridges as he forgot ….something for a moment. And then Drift came closer and everything was right. He could give him some more time to be happy. It helped that he was the only medic among the two of them. He took what time he could steal, staring at Drift as long as he could bare, memorizing the curve of his faceplates, storing memories and voice clips and feelings as close to his spark as possible as if that would help him stay alive longer.
The day Drift walked up to him, and he looked at him politely and offered his hand to shake introducing himself, was the day he watched Drift shatter. It was only a moment, a small slip of his facade, but Drift was immediately aware. First Aid was called, and he was diagnosed almost over the comm.
He had lived so long, but fate was taking his happiness away almost as soon as he received it. Having been aware of what was happening to him, he had already drawn up a plan of what he wanted done with his things. Hands would go to whirl. Innermost energon, well...that was a no brainer. Datapads on medical achievements would go to First Aid. And then he did his damndest to make sure that Drift knew how much he loved him. How much he didn't regret anything.
He was afraid, for the first time in forever, of dying. He didn't want to leave Drift alone. He knew that he would die, and that would be it. There was nothing waiting for him after that last spark beat. He had been here for long enough as it was, but he wanted nothing more than to sink into Drift and never let go.
And then that dreaded day came, and he watched Drift’s face fade into darkness as he memorized it one last time, field full to bursting with love as it wrapped so tightly around Drift that it was almost smothering, and then he felt his spark give out.
It's a weird feeling, when your soul shatters across the stars. He saw darkness, and then there was this….brightness. It started as a speck, like a star blooming to life, and he moved towards it, the brightness suddenly flooding into his optics as he closed them. It was overwhelming, too much, so sudden, and then….
There was a soft touch on his shoulder, and he turned to see Pharma beside him. But this was not the Pharma he had seen before, this was Pharma as he knew him, Pharma from before Delphi, the Pharma he had so much guilt about never saying goodbye. The Pharma that had never gotten over him to the point that he had forced himself to the surface the last time they met. Optics widened as Ratchet clapped a hand over his faceplates, a startled laugh echoing out of his chassis as he realized that after all of the arguments, all the time he spent bickering ( lovingly) with Drift about the well and his faith, that here he was.
A thin orange mech with...were those glasses….? walked up to him, smile soft on his face. A name sprung to the tip of his glossa, but another was spoken aloud.
“Primus?” to which the small orange mech (Rang? Prung?Remus?) smiled, and hugged him. He swept that mech up into a huge hug, something rather unusual for him but this just felt….right. He had missed him so much, he had done….something for him. For them. Saved them?
And then dread swelled in his spark as he realized that he was in the well, and Drift was alone. He had happiness, he had love, and it was taken away from him, ripped from him.
“You will see him again.” said the small mech, to which Ratchet looked at him with tears in his optics, old friends and new friends surrounding him, and he knew...he would be alright. He could wait.
He had waited for millennia for Drift to come into his life. What is waiting a millenia more to see him again? He knew who won this argument, after all.