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The only thing softer than his eyes was the touch of his servos over the delicate parts of the model. Skids had picked up how it was done and was already a master in record time. To be expected of course from the outlier. Still it made a tender smile cross Rung’s faceplates as he watched the other. He would have been jealous of the way he was able to deftly connect pieces and know where they went, without even thinking about it, it seemed. That is, if Jealousy was in Rung’s nature, which it wasn’t. Instead he watched and dreamed.
This wasn’t a session, not therapy, just genuinely enjoying the company of a good friend.
“Hey, did you get stuck on yours? Isn’t it like the fifth time you’ve had to put it together?”
“What? Oh! No, no just impressed with how good you are at this.” Rung admitted, feeling his cheek-plates change colors at being caught staring.
“I’ll have you know, that I know, that you know, that I can’t even help being this good.” Skids commented with such good humor to his voice. A confidence filled smile emerged to compliment his handsome features. Rung let out a small laugh.
“Yes, I know.” He couldn’t help the honest smile on his face. “Doesn’t stop me from admiring that it is mesmerizing to watch.”
“Smooth talker.”
Rung raised his hands in defense; “I’m only stating the obvious facts.”
Skids cocked a browridge and leaned his cheek against his closed servo. “You like watching bots make stuff huh?”
“Well… yes. I do. I enjoy it myself obviously.” Rung nervously turned his attention back to the partially put together ship in front of him. “There just… something life affirming about watching something be built or created. Creates a certain sense of peace deep in ones spark, you know?”
Skids expression softened, and he went back to putting the tiny pieces on the ship he was still working on. “You really do have a way with words.” He stated quietly. Though their conversations died in favor of a pleasurable silence. It was not missed as much as it might between other bots. Skids was good and pleasant company, and really, Rung would trade this time for few others. He liked that he could have a personal relationship with Skids, not just a professional one, even if he knew it was, on some level, a mistake. He wanted to keep making that mistake. A happy accident. It didn’t take long, as expected, for Skids to finish the ship and Rung to lag behind him in finishing his. The outlier made him smile and even laugh as he was regaled with stories and adventures the other had.
Once the ship was done, Rung didn’t stop himself, though he did hesitate, as he reached out and gently laid his hand upon Skids. His servos were so gentle, so soft, and yet as strong and as powerful as whatever he needed of them. Rung would know, he’d been in Skid’s care when they’d had to deal with the spark eater. There would never be a thank you good enough.
“Rung?” Skids asked gently, moving his servo so she could take the psych’s servo in his. His blue optics curiously gazed into Rung’s greener, but still blue, eyes.
“I was just..” He couldn't help the blush, they were holding hands, he had to tell him now, before it was to late. Even for beings such as themselves, life came at you fast, and mercilessly. “I was just thinking,..” Why did Skid’s long face have to be so sweet, so pleasant? Why did he have to know that it hid such deep pain? “That I don’t know how I will ever be able to thank you for saving my life.”
“AWh Rung!” Skids smile appeared again, it faltered slightly, “I’m fine with you being here as a thank you.”
“Still.” Rung argued back, gently, running his thumb over the knuckles of Skid’s digits. Tracing the shapes slowly and meaningfully. “I want to be able to make a difference for you too.” Rung cut off skids from replying. “I meant I want to be here, with you, for as long as you’ll have me.”
The blue hue on his cheek plates matched the rest of Skid’s plating.
“You are wonderful Skids, I would not replace you for anything or anyone in the world.” Rung held tightly to Skids hand, feeling that any second the form of the other’s hand would evaporate into cyber dust any second.
Which of course it did. He blinked the haze of recharge out of his eyes as he woke on his berth, alone. He rubbed at his face, before locating his glasses, and slipping them on. He’d had that dream a lot lately. To much, to frequently, leaving him with an emptiness that no amount of energon or engex would ever fill. There was only one piece to the puzzle and they weren’t going to be able to fill that slot anytime soon. Best to swallow down the pain of it and keep going. An Internal alarm went off, his first appointment was coming in about 45 minutes to an hour.
He rubbed at his nasal ridge. After a dream like that, the last thing he wanted to deal with was the ex-warlord. Megatron was the last bot on the ship he wanted to talk to all day in fact. That he had to any way was a choice he wasn’t allowed to have right now. “Helping” him maintain a peaceful composure was part of his duties now.
Grindcore.
Megatron had yet to really, truly accept why he had let himself and his decepticons do the horrible, terrible things they had done to others. He couldn’t just handwave away that he didn’t exactly know how he was getting ‘new troops’ just that he needed new troops.
He had living bombs made. Overlord was his work. Simanzi was a Win for him once.
As commendable as it was that he wanted to protect the Lost Light, as much as he wanted to prove he was changing. That he was returning to his ‘old goals’ of just trying to better their lives and be against the functionalist regime… He had yet to accept any guilt, feel any regret for what he had done and caused. Not that apologizing would ever really solve the horrors he had wrought upon the universe, but some acceptance would make it all seem less like an attempt to avoid real punishment for what he had done.
Rung had to try and help a mass murderer and somedays, like today, it made him Sick that he had to.
Primus, he missed Skids.