The twins had a fucked up past and an easy cruelty about them, but they were not either of those things. Not to the extent Ratchet was. Not to the extent that he could give them what they needed. He’d backed off, helped find better companions for them.

Succeeded, even.

They were happy now but they worried about him, because even they couldn’t understand what he saw in the Decepticon berserker. Ratchet didn’t know himself, so he couldn’t blame them there but he at least had an idea.

Deadlock offered him no sympathies.

He didn’t look at Ratchet’s excess drinking with pity. He didn’t treat Ratchet like a fragile creature when he lost a patient. He stormed in, sat down, took a look at the medic's face and told him to get over it.

“We’re at war.” He said it coldly, with a shrug. “People die.”

“I am more than aware of that!” Ratchet had snapped, leaping to his pedes and whirling to face the ‘Con.

Deadlock gave him a flat, unimpressed look. “Then why are you acting like this.”

“Because I-I-”

“Killed them?” Deadlock guessed. Optics rolled when Ratchet flinched.  “They died from their injuries. Aren’t you supposed to be older than me? How have you not learned this?” As though they were discussing a textpad and not people’s lives.

Rage rushed him and Ratchet spat, “Same reason you haven’t learned control. Because I don’t want to.”

Silence.

The anger stayed, pulsing through Ratchet’s field and was answered for a brief second in the gunner’s field. It disappeared though, vanishing only when Ratchet thought he might have overstepped.

“You want to forget? Fine.” Drift rose, strolling towards him with that lethal grace. “You can fight me,” He came close heat spilling close enough for Ratchet to feel it. “or fuck me. Your choice.”

His fanged smirk disappeared when Ratchet’s lips crashed over it.

The kiss was a bit of both, fighting and fucking, and Deadlock rolled right into it, sweeping Ratchet onto the floor in a move that put the gunner on top. His hips dipped into a smooth, long grind, answered by surge of heat and a low moan.

No, the twins didn’t get this. But Drift did.

Ratchet lost himself in him, blacking out the memories and replacing them with the feel of hot plating under his touch. 

He was surprised he had survived it, however. The only one, apparently. Or at least, the only in this quadrant.

He walked the wasteland, noting how nothing was burning anymore and yet a haze of smoke still filtered around the devastation. Grey, destroyed bodies and the skeletons of buildings were his only companions for days, while he searched for--something.

A fight, most likely.

He didn’t know how to do anything else.

The Decepticons had created monsters out of their own people, towering, terrible things that morphed six or more unstable minds into one uncontrollable killer. The Autobots had followed them right over the edge and finally, after hundreds of thousands of years, they’d found the answer to how the great war would end.

“Place your bets” Swindle had purred around a gloom-lit table, practically a lifetime before. “Decepticons win the war, Autobots win the war or--” his visor glinted, helping highlight a jagged smile, “we kill each other.”

Somewhere, a bunch of dead mechs owed Deadlock some credits.

He didn’t know how long he’d been wandering. He’d had the smarts to siphon energon from the dying after his last battle, and had enough of it to keep him going for a while. He was used to cannibalizing others like that--every Decepticon was. It was part of their training, of how they’d kept ahead of the Autobots energon consumption and creation. He’d seen others struggle with the morality and idealogy of it but he never had.

It was just something you did when you grew up where Drift had.

The only thing he kept track of was how much he had left and how much he was willing to starve himself. His last battle seemed forever ago and with the land growing cold around him, the horizon motionless, he figured he’d either have to figure out a way off the planet or decide if he wanted to simply end things here.

The last Decepticon standing.

His mind balked at taking his own life, but he hated the idea of succumbing to starvation even more, if only because to avoid it had been his main goal for over half his life.

Just because the Decepticons guaranteed you fuel didn’t mean you’d get it.

He hadn’t contemplated the idea long when the universe decided to make the decision for him.

An explosion lit ahead, a small fireball of fury and Deadlock was chasing it instantly before he’d even realized he’d transformed.

The smoke billowed around a ship and battle-lust shot through the berserker.

A ship like that, mostly whole, easily recoverable, meant there were people about. People meant a fight.

A fight was all Deadlock needed to feel alive.

The figure that staggered out the doors choking  hadn’t noticed him, didn’t notice him as Deadlock flipped into rootmode. His frame was covered in grime and ash, hand waving rapidly as to clear his vents and Deadlock had identified six weak points and drawn his guns before the guy spat curses.

“--massive, absolute, fragger of a --”

He knew that voice. He knew that swear.

Deadlock’s shots went wide as the figure spun, finally registering his presence.

The Decepticon aborted his psychical-attack, the momentum forcing him on his knees and sliding him nearly to the other mechs pedes. Red optics met blue, startled expressions on both their faces. There was no denying who they were facing.

“Ratchet.” Deadlock said nearly like a prayer, identifying the mech he was --literally--looking up at.

“--douchenozzle.” Ratchet finished lamely.

                                                  xXx

Deadlock, frame clearly cracked from barely-healed battle wounds and smeared with dirt, energon and Primus-knew what else, was looking up at him like he’d been looking for a turbofox and found God instead.

“...Douchenozzle?” The Con repeated,  tone inflicting a question while he tasted the foreign word.

“It’s an insult. Human.” Ratchet didn’t bother to specify which language, Deadlock wouldn’t know.

“Is it... a type of instrument?” The mech asked again, making no effort to raise himself from his knees. His hands remained at his sides, guns held easily in each one. He’d been attacking and had just--stopped. Stopped and was making conversation, as if Ratchet’s last hope off this planet wasn’t smoking to his left and everyone else around was dead.

“It’s--nonsensical. A mix of words, like pitfragger.” He said, because if he didn’t talk he’d break.

Deadlock seemed to consider that, red optics, dipping into a slow blink.

They considered each other, Ratchet half hysterically because of all the mechs, he’d gotten Deadlock.

Ratchet had watched their numbers dwindle, patching up mechs only to send them right back into battle, repeating the cycle until he’d confirmed more deaths than he had saved lives. He’d done it until he no one else had come to him, done it until he had failed so horrifically that he was the only one alive. He’d been alternating between cursing and praying to the god he swore he didn’t believe in to give him just one sign of life. Any life, Autobot, Decepticon, a fucking organic rat, he didn’t care.

He needed--something. Anything.

And here he was.

Deadlock.

That was it. Primus, absolutely did exist, and he was a cruel, cruel being.

Ratchet felt the urge to swear himself over to Unicron, as the mech finally rose from his crouch. Quick trained movements had him holstering his guns, optics moving from Ratchet’s face to his body and then to the ship. Scanning, considering, thinking.

Ratchet knew what the mech was thinking.

There was a reason he’d kept well away from the mech during the war, and it had nothing to do with the berserker's reputation, fraction or kill-list.

It was because Deadlock considered Ratchet his.

He kept Deadlock on top, knowing the gunner would object to having his back pinned just as much as he would to being pinned down. Even passionately. The slimmer mech was grinding hard, his heated array drawing sparks as it moved across Ratchet’s own. The medic didn’t object-but he did move a hand to Deadlock’s hip. Hooked a thumb in a seam, rubbed a gentle circle in his armor.

When Deadlock’s head came down to kiss him-all hard nips and demanding glossa-Ratchet let his own be slow. Heavy. The kisses he returned where as gentle as his hold, ignoring the energon Deadlock’s fang’s drew and sucking on his frantic glossa in slow waves.

One of the gunner’s hands slammed down, right next to Ratchet’s head. Ratchet responded by running one of his own hands up the extended arm-then across Deadlock’s shoulders, stroking  down his back. Ever so slowly he moved down, to cup the Decepticon’s aft, palming it almost lovingly.

Deadlock pulled away violently, rearing up like Ratchet had struck him.  “Stop that!” He spat, optics narrowed.

Ratchet titled his head at him, tongue darting out to catch the energon leaking from his punctured lip.

“Stop what?” He said, knowing the movement of his glossa had already re-directed Deadlock’s attention.

“This is a frag. Stop treating it like it’s a, a--” Deadlock trailed off, struggling to name the things he balked at.

“This is a frag. This is how I frag.” Ratchet rolled his hips up, let his array make contact with Drift’s. “You’re the one halting things.”

Deadlock snarled at that, slamming his hips down against Ratchet’s and grinding hard. Ratchet allowed it, letting the other mech have a moment at his desired pace to keep him invested before slowing it down again.  

“You can’t treat ‘em like they’re fragile ‘cause they’re not.” Kup had told him once, when Ratchet had asked how he managed to turn so many ex-Cons. “But the one thing they’re all starved of? Gentleness. Gentle affection. Gentle attention. You have to go slow though-you go to fast, you give them too much and it’ll break them.”

Ratchet had thought he was full of it. That Kup had been teasing, or lying-but it was true. He could see it now, in the way Deadlock balked at it. In the way slower movements scared him.

He’d hardened himself to survive. He was afraid of who he’d be if he allowed himself to be soft. Of what would happen to him.

Drift had been a gutter mech, which no options to get out. It wasn’t hard for Ratchet to remember that, but it was difficult to recall just what it meant. He had admitted to himself, long ago, that he could have done better with Drift. Could have helped him get out, get a job. Get into some kind of apprenticeship. He hadn’t though-had barely helped any of his patients in that way.

How many would have been Autobot’s, if he had? How many Autobot’s would have lived, never having to face the monsters Ratchet had a hand in creating?

He had a chance now. To right a wrong. To see what Kup saw-not a badge but a person.

Deadlock had killed thousands-but so had Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. All three were praised by their respective sides for their kill-counts. All three were looked at with contempt by members of their own fraction for those same counts.

Their only difference was who surrounded them, and what badge they wore.

Ratchet could change those two things. Not for Deadlock, but for Drift. For the mech he knew was still inside the one lying atop him.

He just had to be gentle.