Chapter Text
☆ Some days you liked to pretend that you didn't know how you got here. That the takeout boxes, stamped in Chinese characters you're mostly certain were chosen by some white man in Chicago, simply appeared one day, in that haphazard Everest beside your bed. That the smell in the sheets is new and strange and perhaps cause for a little bit of concern. That you have not yet noticed the way that the dust and detrius and God-Only-Knows built up on the windows has become enough to dull the sun. Pretend that you can fool yourself, even for a moment, that the slope you slid so easily down was something completely out of your control.
Maybe it was, at first. It had to have been, surely, but maybe that was your fault too. Maybe you couldn't bear to be in control. You try to haul yourself up from the nest of negligence your bed has long since become, dragging yourself forward on limbs that shake until a sock-clad foot touches carpet with a soft, giving crunch that you're sure shouldn't be there. An errant chip, perhaps, or some well-meaning kudzu beetle long since vaulted to Valhallah. Makes you wish it were your turn, as you shuffle forward without bothering to check, but you have done nothing noble enough to earn that final, grand acknowledgment.
The kitchen isn't clean enough to use. The dishes mock you as you make for the door, hair too much a mess to bother with touching anyway. You don't deserve the world outside the walls of your cage, but, selfishly, you do so crave the light. Luckily, there is no one near enough to see you here, in this distant cabin in the woods that was meant for a family. So much woods and yard space and freedom for little things to run about on. But empty, so very empty. There is no one to catch you but yourself when your foot rolls and you stumble to slam into the post holding up the roof, standing on the porch and breathing air that does not smell of body and meal and Lonely.
So hard to think of all those empty walls, so hard to think of that box of frames that would never have photographs. You thumb the place on your finger where a ring once lived, wonder what they are doing now. They do not stand on their porch and picture your face, you are sure. The clean air burns cold in your lungs, the chill of it bites at your skin through threadbare pajamas that had once been part of a matched set, as worn away now as you yourself.
There is an almost rhythmic booming coming from your trees. A sound like impact that you're mostly sure is not real, that is, instead, a trick of the mind. A trick, from your aching, dying head. The throb of dehydration or hunger or some other missing necessity so familiar now that the thought of being without the pain feels like one abandonment too many. Surely someone had to carry it. And surely that sound was just the natural throbbing always curled just behind your eyes, a dull pound that only felt like it could be sound.
There is a gentle trembling to your body, a soft shiver that seems almost timed to the not-real booms of impact and when the trees start to shiver in your vision, you close your eyes, lean your head against cool, dark wood, and try to pretend you are not just waiting to die. But it's hard when you can still feel the fetid heat of your rotting nest as if the sheets of your bed, that had so-long forgotten how to be dry, still clung damp and warm against your skin. Can still smell the haze of a body unbathed even against the brush of the wind, not enough to bring true cleanness into your lungs.
It's almost sad, the realization that you will never be clean again. You kind of want to be, you think, before this gnawing, pounding thing that has eaten up all of you takes up what little is left and you simply... cease.
When you open your eyes, the woods have not stopped shivering. As though they are afraid. You are sure that it is not your eyes, blinking hard to clear them just in case, but the pounding outside of you continues, loud enough now that you're starting to believe it's real, and the shaking shudders up your body like earthquake.
When the thing steps from the trees, you forget, for a moment, that you should be afraid. Forget that a life is something to fear losing.
But even when you remember, the fear does not come.
♡ Kickback could almost be fond of this planet, if it were not also the home of Lord Megatron. All around him were things that gave way beneath the force of his jaws, tree that cracked and stone that shattered, meat that sheared and bled and tore. The perfection of his people turning nearly all of this place that was so inhospitable to his lesser halfkin into fuel. Yes, he could grow to be very fond of this new nesting ground were it not for the old, weak, badgering grounder always chattering in their audials.
Followed him at first because he promised freedom. Nesting grounds. Safe places for grubs to hatch and molt and grow. But grounders are tricksy, should have remembered that they are all tricksy, so now they follow because Lord Megatron has their last Queen, and until Broadbite was safe and free, there would be no more grubs. No more Insecticons.
He clicks his mandibles soothingly at himself and banishes the thread of thought. Nothing to be done for it. Better to focus on the job. Everything would fall into place in time, Shrapnel only needed more material to work with and their hidden nest would be safe and ready. Then, if Broadbite was to be rescued, she would be properly protected. They would eat whoever dared try and steal her back.
The Era of the Insecticons was quick approaching, and no bot- Seeker, grounder, arial or otherwise- was prepared for it.
Chittering softly to himself, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't even notice the little human dwelling at first, when he pushed through the pines to step out into a small clearing in the greenery. It wasn't terribly large, and it seemed to be the only one. Incredibly odd, taking what he knew of human nesting habits into account. They lived in clusters of small hives or great big tower types, all of them crawling about together, so for one to be here all alone? Surely the dull remnants of a failed hive.
It wasn't until he'd taken two steps forward to examine the thing that he noticed the organic creature clinging to a structural support.
His wings twitched in surprise, a humming jolt of electricity thrumming through his leg struts for a moment at the shock of it all. A single human? Where was its hive? He bent down to take a look at you, sniffing the air, but your smell was thick and fresh, so you were certainly alive and certainly here. Was there something wrong with you? Why had your hive abandoned you? Scented again, deeper, but there was only you. No other scents at all, as if you really had been abandoned. Did humans abandon hivemates? The thought made his plates twitch.
Something else was bothering him, but it wasn't until he'd obeyed his knee-jerk impulse to pick you up that it hit him. Despite the thickness of your smell, there wasn't any trace of fear scent in the air at all. He stood straight, shook you gently, but you didn't act like other humans he'd swatted about, shook around, hunted or eaten. You just... stayed there. Limp and soft in his grip, staring up at his face with a gentle sort of docility. Looking down at the tiny, solitary nest, turning again to look around himself as if the others of your cluster could have simply been hidden from sight until this moment, he finally accepted that you were utterly alone and utterly uncaring as to his presence. Which made you something new.
Mandibles working gently in thought, it didn't take Kickback long to make a decision. He wasn't really one for weighing pros and cons anyway. Keeping his hold on your warm, squishy body light, he sang softly to you and started to make his way back towards the nest.
Was mostly sure Shrapnel would appreciate having a look at you. Would click his manibles and give a 'nice nice' in that way he did when he found something interesting. Even if he did end up eating you when he got bored. Bombshell would hiss at him for it, he was equally as certain, but it was never hard to get Bombshell to forgive him, so that wasn't much of a problem. And he'd go right back out, tear the little human hive apart for the pieces, and that would surely make up for the detour.
☆ The hold is almost careful. Running your hand against the massive finger curled around your chest, the only part of the fist that held you that you could really reach, your first, slow thought was that it was like touching the warmed metal of a car left to sit in the sun. This was probably real. The wind of your passing tugging at your knotted hair feels real. The warmth feels real. And when he starts to sing, a chattering sort of chitter, like a cicada taught halfway to be beautiful that then had to figure out the rest himself, it sounds more real than you can remember anything being.
He feels more real than you do.
Your house is drawing further and further away, but you cannot truly bring yourself to long for the muddy hallways and molded dishware and the bathroom you can no longer use. Cannot bring yourself to do anything but hang there, in the grasp of this thing that seems half kaiju anime mecha suit, half mutant bug monster from horror film, and wonder if it will hurt when he kills you. There's something halfway familiar about it, in a way. Part of you is certain that such things should not exist, but something distant and hazy insists just the opposite. It tumbles through the muddied river of your thoughts, dragging and slow, as you stare at his face.
You think it's a he, at least. Feels rude to call him it, even in your own head. Always tried to be nice to bugs. You trace the lines of his visage with your gaze, the sharp, bug-ish mandibles, the planes of his cheeks, the gentle curve of his nose, the antenna that twitch like a grasshopper's on his head. Yes, you always did try to be nice to bugs.
You think it should alarm you, that you cannot even drum up the energy to hope that this one will be nice to you. But you're far too tired for that.
Instead, you just turn away when your neck twinges a protest at the angle, fold your arms, and lay your head down on them. His hold keeps you almost safe from the wind and late-autumn chill, and the rhythm of his steps sways gently through you. You could almost fall asleep again here, that exhaustion that never really leaves brushing soothingly against your thoughts like an over-pampered pet. No need to fight, it murmurs with the cadence of affection. Just give in.
And you do.
Before the darkness settles like peace, you have the wherewithal to wonder how you're ever going to find your way back home.