Mold the Body, Burn the mind, the Heart is still the same.
(@quibble-auk hehehehehe some Comet lore, and your BOY. Oh and angst and stuff. War and casualties. )
Within the medical bay sat a very odd bot, that was the rumors that circulated after the failed forward march at the front. And the influx of wounded that crashed into the base after. The front line medical units were completely overwhelmed with casualties, dead and the soon to be flooding in. Not many made it off the tarmac.Those that did were in dire straits. Busted and fractured armor littered the open halls from the rush to bring in the soldiers. From the look of it that battalion had been shelled beyond hell by seekers. Some were so badly maimed the medics had no choice but to put them down. “Why would they send him here, he should never have made it off the ground.” One in particular was critical. A red and black frontliner who’s gladiator programming almost led to a medic losing a hand. He would have if not for he red mech’s companion.
Holding on tight and stopping any rampages was a small mech. Green and dark eyed he had soothed the bot and made it so the medics could complete triage. The ex gladiator had severe busted internal lines and was drowning in his own energon. He was sent into surgery the moment he could be sedated. His friend, as most assumed, stayed out to help with the unloading of casualties. He spoke a word to no one, moved quickly.
Hours later the surgeries had all been done, wounds patched, limbs reattached and all they could do was wait. Waiting was the worst part of a base when under a deluge of the dead. It was a grim reminder to all far from the front that the war was happening whether they remembered or not. Slowly the bots who could be transported were shipped off to better equipped facilities. Some had to stay. One of those was the red mech and his green guardian.
The mech did not leave the med bay often, he stayed firmly by the bedside of his companion who could not be moved, nor had woken up. Every bot that entered the facility took a peak at the strange mech. Hunkered by a bedside, never leaving to refuel.
He noticed every glance.
Comet knew the not so polite stares quite intimately. Ever since he was young they followed him. Nudging and poking at his skin. That's why he hated odd bases and strange med bays. Too many questions. Too many eyes. Bots were nosy by nature and he didn't need that. Not right now. He was wound too tight to be questioned by stupid creatures. He let out a slow sigh at the bitterness in his mind. He had no right to be cruel, he spared a glance at the trio of medics working. All of them had been kind enough to let him stay and wait for Sideswipe. None had ratted him out and got him redeployed.
He would be less tense, he knew that, if Sunstreaker was here. He would know what to do. Sunstreaker would be telling him all the slag Sideswipe was saying about him over the bond. He would be there at his side, the protective force he had always been.
But, because life was cruel to those who loved, instead of Comet being on the side of the crater that exploded, it was Sunny.
They had lost contact the second the convoy was hit. Mechs and weapons scattered and lost, energon and ash everywhere. Comet knew he should have been awake when it happened. He should have heard the birds and their rumbles. He could have commed Sunny and told him to stop helping and move. He could have shoved Sideswipe under him.
Another deep breasted sigh, he needed to stop. This was going nowhere. Comet in time with his heart beats marked out what he knew. Sunstreaker would need to find a safe place to contact anyone first. He wasn't stupid. It would take time. Sunny was going to find them. Comet hugged onto Sideswipe’s hand he held in his grip, noticing with a squeeze to his heart, it was so much smaller than what it had been when Comet was a child. He gazed down at Sideswipe’s cracked face plate and patched stomach. His older brother had never looked so frail. Comets' skin flared. The medics had begun to move, he gently released Sideswipes hand. His paranoia wouldn't let him sit while they walked around, it was too much vulnerability on top of everything else.
Slowly CometEater stretched and sniffed the air. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. That was another thing keeping him on edge. He walked around the berth holding his beaten blackened brother, mind whirling. He slid his hand firmly into his brothers, after his aching lap around the berth. Comet’s hip had been hurt during the explosion, he could feel it. It cracked and strained under every twist of the joint. It was rather ironic, he allowed an amused hum as he sat back down, that he couldn’t ask for any help with the problem in a med bay of all places. Comet ran his thumb softly along his brother’s as he stretched out the offending piece of him. He would have to wait till he saw Ratchet again, he was the only one who could help him. The slagger might have been mean, but he knew how to sort out Comet’s internal workings like no other. And Comet wasn't about to introduce himself as an alien life form to one of these weird smelling medics with a pamphlet and ask for help.
Yep it had to be one of them, that smell. He sniffed deeply as the smaller one, Jeopardy? Began his rounds with the other patients. That odor however did not belong to him. It wasn’t right. He smelt, well he smelt like antiseptic and energon. But beyond that, his spark smelt like warm wood. Not the smell that was hiding beyond Comet’s senses.
Comet knew the smell of a spark well, better than even the taste of one. The way they sizzle on his tongue. It was a light smell that clung to every cybertronian alive. It made his mouth water if he didnt watch himself nowadays, if the hunger grew bigger than his heart.
Their odd sizzly hearts were all different, he remembered most if not all the smells and who they belonged to. Now it wasn't an overpowering scent, no their thick armor and paint helped hide it, but if you breathe in deep enough you could taste it in the back of your throat.
He knew his two brother’s scents very well, waxy and heavy. Sideswipe was peppery however, Sunstreakers deep and dark. It coated his heart and made him warm to smell it.
This new smell, was different. It was the faintest spark he had ever caught wind of. Made him uneasy.
It was marred and smothered in other scents. Like the extra plating a mech can wear over his natural shell. He felt bile rise in his throat.
It reminded him of how Sunrazor’s spark smelt. That's how he knew she actually had one under all those scars and thick plating. He had snatched the scent when he had opened her chest in a particular battle ago. It had hit him like a wave.
She smelt burnt.
Like hot metal, it had shrouded some other scent he knew had to actually be her heart. No one smelt purely of hot and stress. Her hardware had been hurt badly, her innards scraped of her spark’s presence. But, Comet had struck deep enough to catch what had been hidden.
Sunrazor smelt like deep water. The deep green water back home.
Now as he sat firmly holding Sideswipe’s hand, far from that twin creature who smelt like his old home, he still almost gagged.
He redirected his mind however when the odd muster of a smell caught his attention again. Comet could almost catch it. It was so buried, like Sunrazor’s it had tried to be hidden away past other smells.
Usually he didn't sit around and sniff people, he noticed scents. It took him a while to notice that his brother’s hearts had a smell. But now that scent was so close to familiar it was clenching his muscles and grinding his teeth. Because it was hiding. Someone didn't want to be found and Cometeater knew why things hid their scents. Same reason why he wears this skin.
He felt eyes dig into his flesh once more, not the soft pecks of glances. A hard stare. It was a knowing curious stare. Comet felt himself stiffen sharply, the faint scent was very close now. He tilted his head up ever so slowly to find a large mech planted at a desk, datapad in hand. He wasn't facing Comet, his red and black helm down. Don't take the description of down as a weak display however. The mech in question had a beyond familiar build. A flash slipped past Comet’s eyes. Glares. Breathes. Yelling. Blood. Pain. Fear. Watching. Family.
He breathed in carefully as he tilted his helm. The coy smell was close, close enough to be deciphered.
Comet knew him.
Like the smell of your own turf, trees, rocks and sand.
The mech smelt of the Pit.
He had tried to wash and scrub and layer but he still smelt of the arenas. The energon he had bathed in clung to him. Past those already dead smells was his heart.
It smelt of cold glass. Warmth within and cold on its clear skin.
He could hide his teeth and strength but his spark would always smell the same.
The same cold that had gnawed at Comet when he was young. Those same optics had stared at him once before, in the same vein. Curious. As they did now, perfectly composed and for the first time in a very long time, Comet felt his hackles raise in the presence of the mech in front of him.
“Dropmix.”
(next)
