#readalot

Round audial wriggling, shaped similar to that of a fluffy bear, more specifically, a fluffy polar bear stuck on a thinned splotch of ice as it had no choice but to watch the rest of its world, as it knew it, melt away & sink underneath its paws that once appeared so powerful, now starved & weak, unable to claw let alone clench .

“ My audials are some of the best in the security business . I can hear a caterpillar munching on a leaf all the way from Earth. I can hear Whirl tormenting Trailcutter into doing something stupid while under the influence of illegally obtained mixed ethanol, which I will need to go down & disrupt soon . So this little bell ringing right by me ? "

He faintly budges the bell, the soft sound barely registerable .

Red Alert grits his dentae, tar trailing from a nare before he swipes it away, bell left swinging to ring more.

“ It’s more like a Boom .

. . a successfully deterring sort of suffering . ”

Just for Red .

All for Red Alert .

but that's fine .

Just like how he’s aware of how many vents Inferno usually inhales & exhales for his engines aid, always in a constant state of cleaning up smoke, how they shorten & rapid when he’s having one of his horrible nightmares made by overworked networks consistently struggling to seek the sunshine in disastrous situations, how far & fast his helm’s winged decor twitches at rest & at activation & their precise meanings to demonstrate what internal turmoil the large mech feels that he has to hide, how his pedesteps can be recognized even when their room wasn’t shared, how warm he ran when his temper was low & how quick it could steam when it wasn’t, he-

Was just another mech Red Alert felt obligated to watch over, or- for.

It was a necessity engrained in his functioning.

The Security bot had some of the best hearing in the business.

It was only natural for him to recognize the typically passable points in life. & it would only be a natural waste for him to deny it.

“ We have a history of being professional partners . ”

& nothing more .

Red Alert straightened his broad form, the mere mention of the mech’s name making him quietly worry about his whereabouts. Was he watching now? It didn’t matter if he was, but it did. Of course it did. Everything mattered when it came to Red, especially if it involved—

. . .

Professional– .. Ruin. Of course.

He squared his hefty shoulder pauldrons. Pristine digits habitually assure the golden bell was secured to his bowtie .

“ He’s a-”

A good mech that Red Alert wished, really, truly wished, would believe it himself instead of always trying to convince others.

He’d burn up one day, his shining sun.

& Red wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, other than be stuck with the torture of knowing who had played the permanent part of quickening the extinguishing of an inner flame.

He was aware of his smile. He was aware of his desire to squint his optics & shy away from staring, in fear of scarring his sight from perfection piercing them. He was also aware that he had to keep a careful watch, though, for numerous factors, all of dire importance.

One, the biggest of them all, was due to the known fact that the smile could be as smeared on as desperate paint flung across a blank canvas, covering as a salvation for Something.

Red Alert wanted to say less, that they were just mech who happened to have worked with each other in world where it was either work & suffer or suffer & die, & to tie it at that. Less is more, that’s the lecture he’s heard his whole life. There was less prying, less opportunity for vulnerability, &, with less vulnerability, less room for preventable harm. But some mech-

Some mech deserved More.

Other mech found it silly to concern themselves with the sun’s eventual explosive demise, they would always have superior technological means of saving themselves than the humans had, that was for sure. It was appreciated warmth, & a worry for later .

But Red Alert was terrified.

He felt bad for the sun.

& that scared him.

Because he knew, as much as others could save & be saved themselves, it was doomed from the start .