𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦

Tarn :

Appearance : A chubby sparkling with a tank mode that looks like a toy. His purple mask darkens when he's about to throw a tantrum. He always has a tiny non functional fusion cannon toy with himself.

Personality : His gift is the whine. It's a high pitched cry that can make any adult mech drop what they're holding and instinctively apologize. He uses it to get other babies toys. His baby voice echoes. Creepy. His first words weren't sire or carrier but the first word in Megatron's Towards Peace.

Vos :

Appearance : A scrungly face with huge unblinking optics. His alt mode is a small sniper rifle.

Personality : Vos only communicates in a chirping and clicking baby babble. Only Tarn has even an idea of what he's saying. His favorite game is Peek a Boo but he calls it 𓆠𓄿𓅅𓆟𓅆 which translates to the sudden and terrifying revelation of the hunter. When you see his face it's already too late cause he's probably already chewed a corner off your favorite datapad.

Helex :

Appearance : A massively chunky sparkling with a chassis where you can see plastic blocks being smelted. He's the living embodiment of a good eater.

Personality : Helex doesn't just put toys in his chassis. He puts everything. Sippy cups. Data pads. Loose change. He's a mobile oven of destruction. If he likes you he'll hold your servo and it will be uncomfortably dangerously warm. His tantrums involve him sitting down with a thump and opening his chassis and threatening to melt the entire place down unless he gets his energon gummies. His cry sounds like a tea kettle that's been left on too long.

Tesarus :

Appearance : A bulky sparkling whose entire midsection is spinning blades.

Personality : He is obsessed with putting the square block in the square hole. If you give him a triangle block for the square hole he gets frustrated. His giggle sounds like a kitchen blender crushing ice. He loves shredding paper and playing with confetti. He and Helex are a destructive duo. Helex melts things down into cubes and Tesarus then puts the cubes through the correct hole.

Kaon :

Appearance : A thin and pale sparkling who looks like a small sad Victorian child. His alt mode is an electric chair of course but since he's a sparkling it can just send a static shock. His pet is a pull along toy on a string.

Personality : Kaon is unnervingly quiet and still. He just sits staring. If another sparkling is crying he doesn't try to comfort them. He just scoots closer and sends little electricity from his frame in a warning zap. His Turbofox pull toy has been decommissioned and rebuilt so many times it's more repair patches than original material.

Act now think never :

This is his most dangerous trait. Rodimus wouldn't plot a kidnapping. He'd just do it in a flash and reframe it as a heroic rescue mission. He'd demand reciprocity. He would make them his devout sweetspark unable to love anyone but him even if they try to. He'd have moody episode and snap at them if they get on his nerves too much only to come back crawling to their lap asking for forgiveness. He'd be a mix of confident and unconfident constantly questioning if what he does is right but doesn't stop.

Courtship :

His courtship would be public and therefore impossible to refuse. It'd be a campaign. In order to get the yes he'd give them intense attention and focus. Rodimus who has the attention span of a turbofly suddenly becomes laser focused. He learns their entire record and their secret favorite things and even their childhood. This wouldn't be sweet but invasive and would demonstrate a complete violation of their privacy. His manic energy would be entirely directed at them.

Protection :

The moment they become his sweetspark their freedom would be over. This would be where his role as a Captain becomes the perfect excuse for control. They'd be relieved of any duties that involve risk. Any dangerous mission even slightly? Not anymore. For their safety the door to their room would be locked from the outside because the authorization code can only be trusted to the Captain himself. He wouldn't just physically isolate them. He'd rewire their processor.

Rejection :

The most terrifying part is when his sweetspark tries to escape or rejects his love. This would be an apocalypse for Rodimus and the final confirmation that he is not the hero. If he manages to get them back he wouldn't get quietly angry. He would be violent. One moment he'd be on his knees clinging to their leg like a sparkling and sobbing. Saying he'd be a failure and nothing without them. The next he'd be standing rigid and yelling at them saying how dare they spit on their precious role. If they cry he'd just coo at them and say that he's gonna fix them because that's a hero's job.

Ratchet tells himself it's just to check on him. The former Decepticon turned Autobot has been quieter than usual lately. Quieter than his already reserved nature. The jokes with Rodimus has stopped and his appearance has become fleeting. Even the light in his optics the one that has flickered with hope since he's found a place on this ship seems to be dimming.

Ratchet pauses outside Drift's door. He presses the comm. No answer. He tries again. Nothing. Raw panic takes place in his spark.

"Drift?" He calls out. His voice is low and raspy. He overrides the lock with his personal code. It's a privilege he abuses only for the mech he loves.

The room is empty. The berth is made with precision and everything else is undisturbed. But there is a wrongness to it. It's too quiet and feels more like an ending than a pause.

Ratchet's spark clenches. He runs out of the room. His EM field flares out as he runs and his pedes clang against the metal floors. The sound is so loud it's a contrast to the heavy silence. He checks the training rooms and the medbay and everywhere he can. All are empty. The panic is a living thing now and it tugs at his poor spark.

Then a ring from his comm. It's from a tracker he's set on Drift's frame without him knowing about it. It's pinging from the observation deck. The one with the massive viewport. The one that leads to the endless void of space.

Ratchet runs faster than he has in vorns. His old joints scream in pain but he doesn't stop. He bursts through the doors to the observation deck and his spark stops in his chassis at the view.

There stands Drift. He's on the wide ledge of the viewport with little to no safety behind him. The only thing between him and oblivion is a single backwards step. His frame is slack and his helm is tilted.

"Drift!" Ratchet's scream is torn from his very core. He's terrified.

Drift doesn't turn. He just leans back.

Time fractures. Ratchet's world narrows to a single point. The space between him and the mech on the ledge. He lunges and his servos outstretch. His digits close around Drift's servo and his back strut. Ratchet doesn't even know what he's doing. He just holds on. He yanks with all his strength and pulls the lighter mech back from stumbling backward and crashing to the space.

For a long moment there is only the sound of Ratchet's ragged vents. Drift is limp in his grasp and his frame is cold. His optics look back but staring at nothing. He hasn't struggled. He hasn't fought the rescue. He has simply let it happen.

Ratchet holds him wrapped gently around his servos. He's afraid he might crack his armor. He buries his face plate in the crook of Drift's neck.

"Why?" Ratchet finally chokes out whispering against Drift's neck. "Why Drift?"

There's absolute silence for a bit. Then Drift's voice comes so soft and distant it's barely a vibration. "I heard… if you jump out here… you go to a nice place."

Ratchet pulls back and his optics wide with horror and confusion. He stares at Drift's face. At the blank peaceful expression that's a thousand times more terrifying than any scream of despair. "What? What are you talking about?"

"The others." Drift continues while looking at the stars. "They said… when a mech goes out the airlock their spark drifts in space for a while… and then it finds a new home. A nice place. With a nice house to live in. No fighting. No past. Just… peace."

The words are like shards of glass in Ratchet's spark. It's a bar story. A myth. A comforting lie told to soften the reality of a grim death. And Drift in his misery has latched onto it as the truth. He isn't trying to escape pain. He's trying to go home.

A sob comes out of Ratchet's intake. A broken sound he didn't even know he's capable of making. He pulls Drift back into his servos and cradles him like he's the most precious thing in the universe and rocks him gently. The coolant tears he's held back for so long for all the horrors he's seen for all the patients he's lost and for the constant fear for this one mech finally spills over streaking down his face plate.

"No." Ratchet weeps. "No baby no. That's not… that's just a story. A stupid story."

He feels a tremor run through Drift's frame. A single tear slips from the corner of Drift's optic down his face plate before disappearing into the seam of his jaw plate. He doesn't even make a sound. He just cries silently as he always does. His pain is always a private internal thing. He never knows how to share.

The sight of that silent tear breaks Ratchet completely.

"You’re my baby!" Ratchet chokes out. "My stupid brave and beautiful idiot. I can't lose you. I can't!" He presses multiple kisses on Drift's helm. Anywhere he can reach. "Do you hear me? I have held so many mechs as they sparked out. I have lost so many but I can't lose you. You're my everything."

Ratchet holds Drift tighter. "That nice place… that peace you're looking for? It's not out there in the cold. It's here. It's with me. We'll find it together. I promise you we will. But you have to stay. You have to stay with me."

Drift remains silent but his frame begins to shake and the silent tears turn more violent. He doesn't even have the energy to speak or to explain the crushing weight of millennia of guilt and of all the sparks he's extinguished as Deadlock and of the feeling that he's a monster wearing a pretender's peaceful facade. He just lets himself be held.

Ratchet doesn't let go. He sits there on the cold floor of the observation deck holding his broken love and whispers promises into his audio receptors. He talks about the future and about the silly little hab suite they could decorate. He talks about teaching him medicine and about just sitting in silence and watching a nebula pass by.

After a long time Drift's trembling stops. His optics finally focuse and look up into Ratchet's tear streaked face. His voice is broken. "I'm sorry."

"Don't." Ratchet says firmly and cups Drift's face in his shaking servos. "Don't you dare apologize for hurting. Just… promise me. Promise me you'll come to me when it gets dark. When the guilt is too much. Come to me. Always. Let me help."

Drift looks at him and for the first time in vrons the weight on his spark seems to lessen although just a fraction. He gives a tiny nod.