#cdbs

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25638397 

Four Failures

You’ve watched your best friend die three times, and as far as you’re concerned, it’s your fault.

First is Scattergun. Another MTO, your friend first and then his, too, and, soon, his conjunx. The three of you are inseparable, until poor luck removes Scattergun from the group, and he falls. He won’t leave his apartment and you have to come over and prepare his energon if you don’t want him to waste away. The funeral happens, and his visor is barely lit, it’s so dim. The next day, you go to the cafeteria at work and see him at an energon dispenser, visor back to normal. Except it’s too normal. You ask him how he’s doing and he gives you a blank look, the worst look, because he doesn’t know what you’re talking about and you’re confused. You realize later that day what happened, and you curse yourself for not recognizing the risk he posed to himself, and you resolve to not let it happen again.

Next comes Pivot. He’s another mnemosurgeon, and like him, he’s exhausted by the toll that work takes on them. They meet for drinks sometimes to kvetch about it, usually inviting you as well. It takes longer this time, but it morphs into the two of them meeting at one or the other of their homes, and at some point on a night that you aren’t invited, it becomes more. Again, he jumps in with both pedes, because that damn spark of his doesn’t do anything halfway. They get more time than the last, but the end of it is just as abrupt. Pivot disappears, and even to this day you don’t know if he’s actually dead, but he grieves him just the same. You do your best the night you receive the news to convince him not to go the easy way out, because the grief will change with time, become less overwhelming, but your best isn’t good enough and in the morning you see that terrible expression.

Then it’s Mach. He isn’t a coworker and he lives a little far away, so you aren’t as familiar with him, but you know from what you’re told that he feels just as intensely about this one. They only have a few years before an illness with no known cure and without the courtesy to make it fast pries him from his servos. You try again the night after the funeral, but he tells you he watched him turn grey and he’s only been able to cope up to that point because he knew he could be done with it as soon as he made it through the service in Mach’s honor, and you know he won’t listen to you. Because your best is still not enough and you’ve failed him again.

And finally, it’s Rewind. He gets just as attached as the previous three times, and you can’t even blame him because Rewind saved his life, so, of course, with that soft spark of his, he would dedicate it to him. Even when Rewind is so dedicated to finding his first conjunx, and it’s not like that’s a bad thing, but you can’t help but hold a little resentment for the fact that it makes his present conjunx feel perpetually less-than. You can see the way Rewind acts about him, how he’s in just as deep, so you know he would want to be with both if he could, but through a lens of self-loathing there’s no doubt that he thinks Rewind would leave him behind if they found the original. And even with that in mind, he commits himself to helping Rewind search. They set a new record, just over a million years, before searching lands them on the Lost Light and things go horribly wrong, and Rewind, caring as he is, dooms himself to save as many mechs as he can. You know what’s coming the moment the cell disconnects from the ship and he shoots it down to save Rewind from any extra suffering. He makes it to the funeral, and he gives the most minimal eulogy he possibly can. He leaves early, and you head to his hab the moment the service is over, slowed only by Fortress Maximus pulling you aside and handing you a thumb drive he says Rewind threw through the cell door as it closed. You find him already putting Rewind’s belongings in a box marked for waste disposal. You tell him about his previous conjunxes—their names mean nothing to him—and you tell him the grief will change into something bearable—he says you’re right, but his mind is already made—and you tell him you know he’s still going to do it because that’s what always happens. You pass along the thumb drive and leave. 

You’re almost relieved when he won’t leave his habsuite and you have to bring him his energon if you don’t want him to waste away.

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