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redyarns · 19 hours ago

Text

caught in the undertow

Chapter: 6/?

Part: 1/5

Rating: E

Relationship(s): Orion Pax/Megatron, Optimus Prime/Megatron, Sentinel Prime/Bumblebee

Summary:

When Megatron, leader of the rebellion, escaped from prison, everybot knew one thing, and one thing only: he stole an innocent with him.

---

"I'm not a sheep, how dare you!" Orion hissed, bristling at the insult.

"Oh, really?" Megatron drawled. His red optics glanced up again, and Orion's glossa went dry.

Scrap.

Who knew the cruel and ruthless leader of the blasphemous rebellion was so... handsome?

Special note: This is a ROUGH DRAFT. It will go through some changes before it is officially posted on AO3. The majority of the themes will remain the same, but please don't be alarmed if the final draft on AO3 reads differently.

Scene: START!

Act I, Scene XIV: Atropa belladonna

It took Sentinel several kliks of lying completely still in unfamiliar sheets before his processor began to urge him to at least open his optics. He groaned lightly, his voicebox hoarse and crackling with static. He winced at both the sound and the sensation of his throat clicking in pain, and he tried to raise a servo to rub at it, wondering why the hell he was so -

His servo caught on something. He froze, feeling a bit dumbfounded when he realized that the prickling sensation of his arm wasn’t because of some residual injury from training, but instead because it had spent the last - he checked his chronometer - four joors tucked tightly underneath Elita’s frame.

The aristocratic femme was recharging silently beside him, her spinal strut curled slightly inwards with her facial plates towards him. If he listened carefully, he could pick up on the soft, whirling pattern of her slow vents. She was snuggled close so that her nose was pressed to his chassis as his servo curled up and over her dorsal plate to touch her hip.

The light of Helios streamed in gently through the two windows of the room, and Sentinel felt his helm hit the pillow again as he sniffed the air and his cheeks burned at the lingering scent of ozone and transfluid. The lune cycle had certainly been… something, his processor provided meekly, flashes of last night (the way she arched on top of him, his frantic servos scrabbling uselessly at her sides, his spike throbbing as he choked) running across his vision in a decidedly unhelpful manner.

That had been - uh - good. Very good. A bit too good, actually, and he felt shame as well as guilt burn through his frame as he thought about the way he had gripped her waist so desperately that bruises had almost instantly bloomed. As if to prove his dreadful thoughts right, he hesitantly lifted his helm again, his gaze roaming her figure.

His optics lingered on her midsection, where, just like he suspected, there was a distinct pattern of five, circular bruises that lined up too easily with the length and spread of his digits. He almost brushed his servo against them, his guilt gnawing at him as he let his helm fall with no small amount of regret.

Slag. He shouldn’t have been so rough; he was always too unaware of himself and his extremities, especially since he hit fifteen vorns and practically shot up in height, frightening his carrier into thinking he was going to end up being a roller rather than a flier.

He lifted a servo and stared at it, clenching and unclenching his digits. These digits hurt Elita, he thought to himself. He had gotten carried away, too enthralled by her and the scent of charge, his olfactory sensors tingling with her smell of jubiline, and in his naivety and eagerness, he had allowed himself to slip out of his careful control.

It felt awful, the more he thought about it. He hadn’t lost control like that since the first time he attempted to fly with both Bee and Orion and ended up gripping them so tightly that they both had bruises around their waists for cycles. It had horrified him to the point he refused to fly with them for vorns after that.

Keeping control was important. Crucial. Essential.

“Control yourself. You’re unsightly, Sentinel,” Ultra Magnus had once said to him. When was that? Sentinel’s processor whirled, and he blinked slowly as he recalled the way energon had dripped slowly down from his forehelm and how he’d tried hastily to wipe it away with a shaky wrist.

Ultra had taken one look at his shallow breaths, cracked plating, and had made an expression of such disgust that even now, Sentinel’s processor had a hard time bringing up that particular memory file. It was distorted and filled with static, almost like he couldn’t remember properly, which was ridiculous since it only happened a sol ago.

As if on cue, something twinged smartly in his shoulder, and he couldn’t stop himself from flinching as his neural subsystem practically shouted at him that he was pinching something. He grunted, his entire frame jolting, and his pain bled into guilt as Elita shuffled from her position on top of his arm.

“My Prime?” She muttered, her spinal strut arching slightly as she stretched, an effortlessly seductive look on her as she slowly onlined her optics. She blinked them several times before she smiled up at him. “What are you doing?”

He gave her a hesitant smile, feeling rather defeated as the pain reluctantly subsided and instead left him with nothing but a sense of embarrassment. His cheeks were warm and no doubt blue with energon, and he mentally groaned as he struggled to provide an answer.

He was as eager to tell her the truth as much as he wanted to stick his bare aft over an open flame, so not at all. Instead, his sluggish processor (something he found was common around her and her beauty… urgh) simply made him smile stupidly again, and he said, “uh… good morning.”

She laughed, a light and airy sound that made his spark jolt as she rolled over, the top half of her now draping across his chassis as she winded her arms around his neck. Like this, the top of her helm brushed alarmingly close to his dermas, and he swallowed as she smirked and said, “good morning, my Prime. Did you recharge well?”

Sentinel shifted his gaze to the side, clearing his throat as he muttered, “of course. It was - fine. What about you?”

Elita tilted her helm and didn’t answer as he prayed she wouldn’t see through his lie.

Though that hadn’t been the worst sleep he had ever gotten, it still hadn’t been good. He always had trouble recharging even before Ultra took over the majority of his training, and now, well… He considered himself lucky if he only had the one nightmare or two.

“You seem distracted,” Elita said, staring up at him with her large optics as he hastily began to try and distract himself by going through the notifications he had missed last lune. When he didn’t reply right away, she pouted, a subtle push of her full dermas as she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his chin. “Busy already? We’ve been awake for less than ten kliks, my Prime.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, already feeling like he was messing up as he hesitantly reached down to peck her forehelm. It was apparently the right move, since she smiled widely up at him and giggled as he chuckled quietly. “There’s just a lot that I have to sort through. But as soon as I’m done then maybe we can spend the… spend the… uh…”

He mumbled something incoherent as his processor pulled up the notification that had been bothering him up until now. He had made a note a long time ago that any message from Orion or Bee was to be marked as urgent, and he felt his spark lurch as he realized that this was the first time in vorns that he hadn’t managed to write back right away.

He sat up, leaning against the headboard and mumbling a sorry to Elita when she protested, claiming she wanted to lie on him some more.

He felt dread gnaw at him from the inside out as he quickly began to slide through Orion’s messages, which started off well enough, but quickly devolved into frustration after Sentinel completely glossed over them.

Private Comm Link (ID: #628317): Sentinel Prime? No, Sentinel Prick

Incoming message…

DES: Orion Pax - ID: OP-001628

:: Sentinel! ::

:: Look, Sen, I really need your help. I'm assuming you're still at the party, so could you get me Hot Rod's private comm line if you can? ::

:: I know it's a lot to ask but I seriously need to talk to him. ::

:: … Sentinel? ::

:: Sen, come on. Whatever happened between you and Bee, we can fix it. Don't be too upset. I seriously need you right now, buddy. ::

:: Sen. ::

:: Sentinel!!! ::

“Slag.” Sentinel swore quietly, running a servo down his face, his wings stiffening as they fluttered with his anxiety before he forcefully stopped them from moving so much. Primus, would he ever learn how to control them?

“What happened?” Elita asked.

“Nothing,” he said automatically. When she continued to stare at him in an unimpressed manner, he ex-vented slowly, and tried to think of what to say. “It’s - nothing. I promise. I guess I just forgot to reply to my friend last night, and… that hasn’t happened before.”

Elita hummed. There was a glimmer to her optics as she leaned up and kissed him, the touch soft and coaxing, and he shuddered as he parted his dermas a little too eagerly and held her close when she traced the tip of her glossa against his bottom dentae.

“Is this the same friend that Hot Rod reminded you of?” Elita muttered curiously, her small and nimble servos cradling his helm gently, like he was the most precious thing she had ever held. It melted him, and he felt his engine start to purr quietly in his chassis as Elita smiled into their kiss.

“Hm?” He said dreamily, feeling rather off kilter as he tried to chase her when she broke contact and gently pushed him back, her legs swinging so that she was now straddling his lap as he fell onto the pillow again with a soft oof. It took him a few micro-kliks to try and remember what she was talking about, since, oh, Primus, she was a vision. “Oh, yes, that one. He’s very close to me, and I feel bad for not being able to respond right away.”

“There’s no need to feel bad,” she said sympathetically, her digits fluttering across his collar plates and causing him to tremble slightly. His wings in particular were practically vibrating, and he gave up any pretense of controlling them when she stroked a particularly sensitive spot. “Your friend sounds like he’s difficult, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Sentinel said rather hoarsely, his optics squeezing shut when she leaned down and bit gently at his neck cables. “Ah - he’s a great friend, he’s been there for me for vorns - oh, frag - “

Elita clicked her glossa gently, the sound both fond and exasperated. “If he’s really that precious of a friend, then shouldn’t he be understanding that you have your own life to live?”

“Well… I mean…” he said, trailing off weakly as she stared at him pointedly and settled more in his lap, her wiggle pressing her interface panel right up against his as energon pumped wildly in his veins.

It was difficult to think through the haze of charge that ran through him, though his processor did pause to whirl on what she said. It wasn’t like he was lying; Orion really was a great friend, and he and Bee had been the biggest pillars for Sentinel ever since they met as sparklings. There was very little Sentinel wouldn’t do for either of them, stuff that he wouldn’t do even for Ultra.

But it did bother him, just the slightest bit, how Elita’s words resonated with him. Though he knew that Orion always had his reasons, sometimes those reasons were just so ridiculous that it caused him more stress or trouble than it was worth. He couldn’t think of one decent answer as to why Orion needed to speak with the newest to-be-named trailblazer, though some part of Sentinel dreaded the thought that he had an idea as to why.

Megatron. These sols, every single thing that Orion did led to that blasted mech, and Sentinel honestly didn’t understand. Initially, he had indulged his friend because a tiny part of Sentinel had been curious, too. The names Megatron and his rebels had been more of a myth than reality at that point, and he’d feebly wondered what the real mech was like.

After finding out, he had simply categorized Megatron as the criminal as he was. So when Orion had insisted on feeding the damn bot, and even worse, began to extend sympathy… Sentinel feared for his friend, he really did. There was only so much someone could play with a line before they fully crossed over.

And Orion asking for the personal comm link of a mech who was about to climb the ranks and become an elite was definitely hopping over that line. Obliterating it, even.

“I should text back, shouldn’t I?” Sentinel said in a small voice, now feeling more unsure than ever as Elita paused on top of him.

She tilted her helm, and for a fleeting moment, her gaze sharpened. It was razor-thin and so quick that he began to doubt if it ever even happened, and when she spoke, it was still as sweet and soothing as ever. “If you want. Just tell him you were busy. He doesn’t need more than that.”

Right.

Right, because - because Sentinel had other things to do than just lounge around for Orion like some messed up pet waiting on its master. (Don’t you already do that? No, he didn’t. Really? Ultra only likes complete obedience from you. Because he was Sentinel’s mentor. Because you don’t deserve decency? Because you don’t deserve dignity? Fine, then. You're pathetic. Stop it. Why? Because you're ashamed? Some future Prime you are. You can't even protect yourself. How are you going to protect the world? Enough! So shameless. So selfish, stupid, nothing's ever enough - )

Private Comm Link (ID: #628317): Sentinel Prime? No, Sentinel Prick

Outgoing message…

DES: Sentinel - ID: SN-402021

:: Sorry, I was… occupied.::

Almost immediately, Sentinel's communication chip pinged him that a call was coming through, and of course it was Orion. But before he even had a chance to acknowledge it properly, Elita was pressing down on him more insistently, and he felt like he was floating as she kissed him again.

The call rang at the back of his mind, mixing into a hazy mix with the amount of notifications his charge was sending through his interface subsystem. He flailed slightly, still unused to any of this even after joors last night learning how to touch and be touched, but he had already ignored Orion for too long, he should at least pick this call up.

… Right?

“H - Hold on - “ Sentinel mumbled in between kisses, feeling rather disoriented and overwhelmed as Elita simply hummed and pressed closer. Already, her servo was dragging down his chassis, and he shivered at the touch, unable to stop himself from ignoring the hot, sweet sensation of her dermas, but also unable to completely snuff the comm call line, which was ringing insistently. “E-Elita, just - just one micro-klik, okay?”

“I’m doing a bad job at this if you’re still thinking of taking that call.” Elita huffed, but her swollen intake was pulled into a smile as she let out a small, exasperated sigh and then fully draped herself over him, her arms crossed across his chassis as she tilted her helm and smirked. “Fine, then. Answer it, my Prime.”

He gave her a shaky, nervous smile, his servos flexing with uncertainty on her warm hips as he cleared his throat, accepted the annoyingly insistent call, and hesitantly said out loud, “hello?”

“Sentinel!” Orion’s voice blasted through his processor at a decibel so high that he immediately flinched. He turned down the volume hastily, grateful that at the very least, Elita wouldn’t be able to hear Orion’s side of the conversation regardless of the noise. “Dude, why the hell didn’t you respond to my comms last lune?”

“I do actually have a life outside of you, you know,” Sentinel said in exasperation, darting his gaze down and trying not to gulp when he saw and felt the way Elita began to trace loop shapes on his paint. Holy shit, he needed to wrap this call up yesterday. “Get on with it, O - “

He barely managed to bite back Orion’s name in time as Elita pressed a small, fleeting kiss to his collar. It was hard enough to keep his focus with her in the same room as him, but with her entire frame firmly on top of his, and worst of all, with her flirting… She was a temptress and knew just how weak he was for her.

He needed to be careful. It was already a risk to accept Orion’s comm and have Elita listen to Sentinel’s part of the conversation. If he slipped up and revealed too much about who Orion actually was, then there was no doubt to Sentinel that Elita wouldn’t approve.

Him, a high caste bot, but more than that, the future Prime, talking to a miner? And addressing him so kindly at that, as well? Dire consequences would surely follow. Sentinel still bore the marks and sting of the last time he had made that mistake in front of Ultra. His wrist twinged slightly as it rested against Elita’s waist.

“I told you, I needed to speak with Hot Rod,” Orion said impatiently. Sentinel could practically see the way he must have looked at that moment; tilting his helm and rolling his optics because he was just that obnoxious when it came to getting what he wanted. “Please don’t tell me he’s already left.”

“Why do you need to talk to him?” Sentinel forced out, placing a servo on the back of Elita’s helm in some poor attempt to both stop and encourage her as she began to nip at his neck cables. He coughed, a small amount of static running through his hoarse voice as he said, “you can’t just ask me for something and not tell me why. That’s not how this works. And I already told him good luck for you.”

“Well, I was wrong. Luck has no place within the ceremony,” Orion said tightly. He sounded different, tense, and it was enough of a change that it made Sentinel frown, smile apologetically at Elita, and then sit up, gently wrapping his arm around her waist so she wouldn’t fall.

Her optics narrowed and she was definitely displeased, but she still hooked her elbows around his shoulder plates and leaned her cheek onto one of them as he said, “what are you talking about?”

There was no answer.

Sentinel's face pinched as he went through a quick systems check with his processor, but everything was fine. It was already hard enough to shut Orion up over text comms, but verbal comms were a whole thing altogether. And Sentinel had known Orion since they were sparklings; maybe Sentinel even knew Orion more than he knew himself, so it was easy to pick up on the uneasiness of his tone.

Something was wrong.

“Hey,” Sentinel said more gently this time, allowing his previous annoyance to soften into empathy. Though he couldn't deny that maybe Elita had been right in that Orion could be pushy, that didn't take away from the fact that he was still one of Sentinel's closest friends. “Come on, talk to me. What's going on?”

“There's more to the ceremony than we know,” Orion finally said, his voice strained. It was gruffer than usual and there was a small shuffling noise on his end, like he was climbing something. What the hell? “Just - look. Is he still there or not?”

Sentinel squinted up at the ceiling as he tried to make sense of whatever Orion was rambling about. His weird insistence to talk to Hot Rod was already a bit strange, but the ceremony on top of that… As far as Sentinel was aware, Orion had never been that interested in the Iacon 5000 or the subsequent trailblazer ceremony that followed.

Why was he suddenly expressing such blatant regard for it now?

“You mean Hot Rod?” Sentinel said after a klik of silence. Elita moved slightly on top of him, and when he glanced down at her, she gave him a look of what's going on? He tried to reassure her with a smile, but she simply nudged him, which he tried to brush off. “Of course not. I don't know where he is, he and Ultra left together last night I think.”

“Fuck.” Orion swore. “He was my only chance! Shit. Okay, it's… okay. That's fine, it just means I have to go see Megatron sooner than I thought I would.”

Okay. That was definitely not what Sentinel had expected nor wanted to hear.

He practically leapt up from the berth, mouthing apologies to Elita, who was left sprawled on the sheets with an indignant expression twisting her pretty face. She huffed and draped herself more elegantly across the mesh as he hissed way too urgently, “what the frag are you talking about, you bucket of bolts? No! It's been less than a sol since you last saw him, are you fragging kidding me?”

“He has the answers that I need, Sen!” Orion pushed back. “He's the only one who can help me figure out what's actually going on!”

Sentinel felt like ripping the paint off his helm as he buried his face into his servos and tried to vent steadily. He couldn’t fucking believe this. All this trouble and flack for, what, Megatron? Again? Why was Orion like this? Why was he so obsessed with a mech like him? What could Megatron have possibly said to sway one of the best bots Sentinel knew?

“You promised me that you weren’t compromised,” Sentinel said, his voice edging into something sharper, more dangerous. He paced steadily on the rug beside the berth, occasionally sparing Elita a glance whenever she made a small noise of inquiry, but he shoved away any distracting thought about her as he was mortified instead by the way Orion remained silent. “Answer me. Tell me that you aren’t actually starting to care for that - that - “

He couldn’t even say it. Not even because uttering it out loud would reveal too much to Elita, who continued to observe him with wide optics, but because Sentinel honestly felt sick as he realized that something had shifted. Whatever change had occurred, it started last night, when he was too occupied to be a proper friend and dissuade Orion from getting involved in something he very well could never get out of.

“What’re you implying?” Orion snapped. He sounded agitated, on edge, and there was a muffled noise from his end of the comm, like he had just slammed a door shut. His words were tense and Sentinel didn’t understand. “Why’re you interrogating me, Sen? You know I never do anything without reason! Why’re you acting like this?”

Sentinel was floored, and he sat down abruptly on the edge of the berth, the force of him doing as much so impactful that it lightly bounced Elita on the sheets. His wings drooped on top of the mesh out of his shock, and he knew that he was staring directly at the bland painting hung on the wall across from him, but he couldn’t even begin to comprehend it as he tried to digest what Orion had just said to him.

“What?” Sentinel said, his voice almost hysterical as he gripped his servos into fists and his wings began to tighten so much that they were practically flat against his spinal strut. “Why am I acting like this? Why the hell are you acting like this, you afthole? Are you trying to spin this and pin this onto me when I’m not the one who’s compromised? Huh? Don’t you fucking dare - “

“Primus, Sen! You’re seriously getting mad over something that isn’t a big deal - “

“It actually is a big deal, you’re literally asking me for another favor, again, and you won’t even - “

“It’s not a favor! Oh, for - it’s a freaking solid, and you and I always - “

“Always what?” Sentinel spat, and by this point he was shouting, his voice hoarse and crackling with static as he gripped his own patellas so hard that it was a wonder the armor didn’t crack. His helm was spinning and he couldn’t vent properly; had he ever yelled at Orion before? “Go on, say it! It’s always you and me, except it’s me getting dragged into another one of your master plans that ends up getting us in trouble in more ways than one!”

“This is bigger than just you holding a petty grudge!” Orion hissed. It occurred to Sentinel just then that Orion was shouting, too. He had never heard it before, honestly, and it was jarring. Maybe a little scary. Not because Orion himself was a particularly menacing mech, but because they had never done this before. They had never… fought, and Sentinel felt sick. “Can’t you see that? I’m sorry that you have such a busy life, I’m sorry that you’re doing all your fucking aristocratic bullshit - “

“Aristocratic bullshit?” Sentinel cried out. He couldn’t tell if his vocalizer was cracking from the anger that boiled inside of him like magma, threatening to spill over and eagerly burn every part of this conversation, or worse, because of the tears that were starting to well up in his rapidly blinking optics. “You know it’s not like that! I’m working my fragging aft off so I can be a good Prime! So I can be a good Prime for you!”

“For fuck’s sake, Sentinel, I never asked you to be Prime!” Orion shouted.

Silence.

Sentinel’s ragged venting filled the room, his breathing off and inconsistent as he stared dizzily at that damn painting, unable to make sense of its swirls and colors. He sat there, lost, hurt, angry, everything he had never felt for Orion, his dearest friend. Orion, his biggest supporter. Orion, his brother.

Orion…

Who had just told him he never wanted Sentinel to be Prime. Sentinel had never known anything but how to be one. He had been raised on this, told that this was his path, and that nothing could lead him astray. For a long time, he had believed Ultra who told him that everything, including friends, could be a distraction. But Sentinel had told himself that just this once, he could ignore Ultra.

Just this once, he could pretend that he was a miner like Orion and Bee, who weren’t miserable even despite their ranks, and seemed happier than Sentinel, who felt like he was often carrying the weight of the world on just his shoulders alone.

Just this once, he had allowed Orion liberties, taken him places he couldn’t, and let him do things that Sentinel would never allow anyone else because Orion had never once not told Sentinel with the uttermost confidence: “you’ll be a better Prime than any of the Thirteen were.”

The tears fell.

They were warm and soft on his cheekplates, and his hardly functional processor told him that he was running low on tear solvent. Of course he was running low on tear solvent. These weren’t the normal kind of tears he usually cried during moments of pain or frustration or even dramatic manipulation for when he needed one of the staff to do something for him and he wanted to appear extra pitiful.

These were tears of hurt.

A servo draped gently over his own. He watched blankly, his vision swimming and watery, as slowly, digits smaller than his own curled in between his and held them in a way they had never been held before.

“Sentinel,” Elita said. He could barely focus on her. Her voice was like a phantom to him. “Enough.”

Enough, Sentinel repeated. Enough of this.

“Aren’t you tired?”

I am.

“Don’t you deserve better?”

Do I?

“He isn’t worth anything.”

That’s not right…

“He’s nothing.”

No, that’s…

“Let it end.”

But…

“Stop.”

“Stop,” Sentinel muttered.

“You’re right,” Orion said after a brief pause. His voice was thicker, and he cleared his vocalizer. Almost like he was sorry. Was he, though? Was he sorry? Was he sorry for implying that Sentinel was only that, an aristocrat? Was he sorry for taking back all his support as Sentinel strived harder and harder to be a good Prime? What was he sorry for? Was he sorry at all? When did he and Sentinel stop talking? When had they been reduced to this? “I should have stopped. That - that was low of me. I’m - “

“Figure it out, Orion.” Sentinel interrupted. He stared at the painting. His voice was hard and cool, and there was no more room for argument. “I’m done saving you.”

He ended the call with a soft click. He immediately blocked the notification of Orion trying to reconnect, and instead found himself blinking through his tears as Elita practically leapt into his lap, her engine purring something fierce in her chassis as she leaned up and began to smother him in kisses.

“You did so well, my Prime.” Elita practically purred, her optics gleaming and her touch purposeful as she stroked his audials, then his cheeks, and rubbing away any of his tears with a surprisingly firm nudge. “You don’t need the likes of Orion. You’re the next Prime. You’re the most intelligent. The strongest. The best. You don’t need anyone.”

Oh, Sentinel thought to himself dully, slowly leaning down to press a kiss to Elita’s eagerly waiting dermas, though for the life of him, he couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, right at that framed painting that he had been staring at the entire time. Except it wasn’t a painting.

It’s a mirror, he realized.

For a moment, he thought he saw Ultra in his place.

Just for a moment.

Scene: END!

Next scene: coming soon!

#megop #optimus prime #orion pax #megatron #sentinel prime #transformers #tf one #transformers one #okay well i at least finished this scene #even tho it was a pain in the ass #oh my god #undertow

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