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You are not in your own habsuite. You’re in Ratchet and Drift’s, sitting on their sofa and feeling a million miles away. You’ve got a cube of high grade in your servo- not the first of the night by far, but this one is taking a lot longer than the others to finish. Ratchet and Drift are on the sofa across from you- although it is smaller than the one you are on, they’ve squished in next to each other instead of one of them sharing yours. You’d sat here intentionally, when you’d arrived back here, hoping that one of them would sit with you or ask you to move or anything that made you feel a little more present, a little more real, but it hadn’t been mentioned and it’s been too long now for you to offer to take the smaller seat without sounding awkward.
You don’t want to sound awkward.
You’re simultaneously (and isn’t that a fancy word, great job, Rodimus!) too drunk and not drunk enough- there’s a light static in your audials that seems to be taking over, but you can see in full clarity what Ratchet and Drift look like as they watch each other, optics picking out the subtle signs of comfort that come in their gentle touches and soft looks. You want to rip them apart, snarl at them and say look at me, look at me, don’t forget me I’m right here but you’d rather die than actually do that and you’re not quite sure what to make of that line of thinking so you put that thought away deep in your processor where you can pretend you never thought it.
Ratchet is just as drunk as you, if not more. It’s been a long evening (a long life) and he’s never been one to take it slow. You can tell from the way his optics dim and relight, hazy and unfocused, that he will be recharging soon whether he wants to or not. Drift, meanwhile, is far more present, but you’re not his focus right now and if his gaze ever approached you with anything like concern you know just exactly how to smile to make him happy, what to say to nudge away his worry.
You’d done so earlier, back at Swerve’s, and then again on the standard ‘everyone’s drunk, let’s go watch a movie’ walk over to the converted cinematic habsuite and then again on the walk back to Ratchet and Drift’s, when Drift had asked, as he always did, if you wanted to come back for one more drink and you’d said of course and you’d meant it because you’d do whatever he asked of you forever, now.
In their habsuite, you’d had one more drink and then one more than that, and they’d both laughed at something inane you’d said and you wouldn’t trade it for anything.
It’s not that long until they’ll be asking you if you want to stay over, sleep on their sofa instead of walking the scant few minutes back to your own habsuite, and you’ll say yes even though you mean don’t ask me this, like you always do, and you’ll lie awake as they go back to their berthroom and you’ll wish and wish that they didn’t care about you because being this close to them and yet so far hurts but there is nothing you would not do to stay.
Your spark feels hollow as you laugh along with one of Drift’s abysmal jokes the same way they laughed at yours and you take the empty cubes to be washed and you watch as Drift leads Ratchet back to their berthroom and shuts the door, smiling at you just before he does with an undeniably warm goodnight, Rodimus.
You think about how they must be, cuddled up together in the berth. You don’t want to join, not really. You don’t know what you want, but it isn’t that. It is something though, something that slips from your grip every time you try to think and you’re not sure what you’re missing but your spark aches and aches and aches as you lie back down on the sofa and stare at the ceiling. You’ve been friends with Drift for so long and while your relationship with Ratchet has been strained and rocky in the past it feels good recently- you want nothing more than for them to be happy and yet watching them being happy makes you hurt.
You’re a horrible person.
Well, maybe not horrible. You do try to be good, you really do, and you want to be a worthy friend and a kind person and you try but any time someone else succeeds and you’re left as you always were it burns deep inside you, not quite like your flames but hot and sharp and angry. You don’t want to be angry- you’ve been angry so many times and it’s never truly made anything better. It probably wouldn’t this time, either.
A dishonest person, then.
When Drift asks how you are and you grin and ignore the ache and say yeah, I’m pretty good! and he doesn’t believe you because he is your friend so you say it’s been a bit rough but I’ll let you know if I need anything from you, promise and he believes that because he knows you wouldn’t be honest the first time, wouldn’t say if you were finding things hard, but he believes the second because he trusts you. He shouldn’t.
Not that you’d do anything to hurt him. You wouldn’t do anything that would hurt any of them- you’ve got friends who care about you, now, somehow, and anything you do that would hurt you would inevitably hurt them so that puts hurting yourself off the table entirely. Not that you’re sure you’d want to- you are fundamentally (another good word!) happy, as sickening as that feels to admit to yourself when you don’t really want to be. You hurt and are empty and yet it’s not enough to make you hate, make you lost, not this time. Yet, at least. Hopefully never, but you don’t know.
You can hear footsteps from their berthroom, just general shuffling around and preparing for recharge. You’re on the outskirts of them- on the outskirts of something precious, and you hold your vents even though you know they can’t hear you because you don't want to feel like you’ve disturbed them.
Honestly, you wish that you just wanted to be with them. Both of them, or just Drift, or just Ratchet, any of those options would be easier than what you actually feel, which is completely lost to you no matter how much you try to analyse it. Not jealousy, not pining, but a secret third thing. It’s kind of distressing, sometimes, to realise just how little you can understand your own processor.
At least if you knew what you wanted, you could do something about it. A grand gesture, a huge mistake. Just… something.
Instead, you curl up on the sofa and you pretend that you are somewhere else and you pretend that you understand yourself and you pretend and you pretend and you pretend.