A Priori, A Posteriori

99. Meeting -- Cosmos, Soundwave -- Rating PG


It was during a battle that they met. Cosmos was hunkered down behind a rock face for cover, praying back up would arrive in time. His patrol had accidentally stumbled across a Decepticon mining group and now they were all pinned. He slid around the side of the rock face, hoping to get a chance to get airborne or to circle back to his teammates. Making his way around a corner he turned only to be stopped suddenly by a chest-plate, ablue chest-plate, with a glaring purple Decepticon logo on it.

Cosmos cried out only to be struck and knocked to the ground. He trembled as a concussion blaster was pointed to his helm. He offlined his optics, not wanting to watch his own death. He wasn't a fighter, he was just a mech doing what he could. He waited for his death.

He felt a knee come to press into his chest holding him down, and he onlined his optics in shock. The blaster was still pointed at his head, but the Decepticon had grabbed his right servo, the servo that still had traces of the temporary paint on it.

Breaking out of his shock Cosmos attempted to jerk his servo away and escape.

The blaster whirred as it cycled on and Cosmos froze.

"Demand; explanation."

That could be taken in many ways, and for a moment Cosmos was at a loss until he realized Soundwave still had a hard grip on his painted servo.

"Last night cycle was the twelfth orn. I preformed the corresponding ritual, to the best of my abilities." His head felt a little fuzzy and he panicked at the thought that Soundwave might be reading his mind.

Soundwave's face was a blank mask, "Statement; belief that Primus sends visions to torment you, Incorrect. Statement; Primus loves all his children. Loves most of all those that do his will."

Cosmos trembled, to hear his innermost fears spoken and then cast aside was, it was a powerful feeling. "Those that do his will?"

"Statement; those that hold true to the covenant, those that work to do the bidding of Primus, those that work towards the true future of Cybertron." The grip on his servo tightened, "Soundwave; not aware Autobots remembered the rituals." 

Cosmos whimpered as his servo was crushed, "My creator taught me. She taught me to light the lamps and drink the energon." This was so strange, what did Soundwave want? Why talk to him if he was just going to offline him? If he could just hack his processor and gain all the information he wanted.

Soundwave seemed to suddenly tense, and then releasing Cosmos's servo he reared back and struck him across the helm. Cosmos knew no more.


Soundwave stood quickly glancing down at the Autobot. Megatron had commed him and if he didn't go soon he risked his leader's wrath. Still, he never thought he would see an Autobot that knew the old ways, and to think that this mech dreamed the Primus induced dreams.

He raised his blaster pointing it at the mech's spark ready to take the shot.

Megatron commed again, demanding his presence on the battle field.

He lowered the blaster and left to respond to Megatron's call, the Autobot's mental impression still on his processor.

019. Countdown-- Cosmos, Jazz, Skyfire, Wheeljack -- Rating PG


Ten Times that they shared shy, friendly smiles across the recroom. One curious, and the other lonely but smiling anyway. Sometimes Cosmos wished he had a chance to get to know Jazz better.


Nine Days they spent together on a mission to monitor the Decepticons that went normally, and nine days that they spent in the Decepticon brig. Cosmos didn’t like to think about those days. Watching the other be hurt while he was ignored in a tiny cell. He was a nobody to the Decepticons, a nobody that couldn’t even protect his teammate.


Eight Months that passed before Cosmos got a chance to speak to Jazz alone and attempt to apologize. Jazz had just shaken his head and patted Cosmos on the head with a smile.

“Don’t worry about it mechlet,” Jazz smiled optics bright. “It is in the past and Ratchet patched me up good.”

Cosmos struggled to smile back with his optics, “If you say so. But I would like you to know I am sorry.”

Jazz walked away with a wave, “And I said don’t worry about it. Now if you will excuse me I have me a date with Prowl.”


Seven Weeks after that, Cosmos was finally feeling over the entire incident even if he couldn’t look Jazz in the optics still.

He was finally feeling able to talk to others in the Recroom again. He laughed as he sat beside Skyfire in the recroom. The shuttle was always very kind, he didn’t understand why the others mistrusted him.


Six Days after he got overcharged and kissed the large flyer he was still hiding. Skyfire had pushed him away so fast afterwards, he knew he offended the mech.


Five Klicks into his surveillance mission, he learned why. Skyfire was still seeing his old lover. He wouldn’t report them, it seemed wrong to do so, but at least he knew now it wasn’t just because it was him. The thoughts distracted him and he crashed. The injury was minor but he would still have to visit the medbay.


Four Hours of watching Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Perceptor working together in the medbay, laughing and joking, and all he wanted to do was curl up and recharge back in his quarters. Sometimes he thought Wheeljack was a bit like himself, but seeing him at work made him realize he had been wrong.


Three Things had always kept him going in the past, his belief in the Autobot cause, his belief in Primus, and the words of his creator. His creator had always told him there was a mech or femme out there for everyone. Maybe it was time to face the fact that if his mech had existed at all they were probably long offline now.


Two Tears fell from his optics at that thought. He was going to be alone forever. His spark mate didn’t exist, no one would ever really love him. His spark burned as if someone was twisting an energy blade inside it.


One Sob emerged from his vocalizer before he muted himself. No one loved him, so why would anyone care about his pain. He comforted himself with the fact he was due to have a few months in space soon. Up there he could get this out of his system. The only thing worse than a mech who was always going to be alone, always the tag along never the focus, was a mech who couldn’t accept that and be happy anyway. He’d spend his time learning to be happy again in a world where his current lot in life was as good as it could get.


Zero, nothing. Not even dancing through a meteor shower could make him feel happy again.

050. Moonlight-- Cosmos, Bluestreak, Sunstreaker -- Rating PG

Cosmos hummed happily to himself as he danced through the air. Moonlight guided his way casting everything in shades of black and gray. He twirled and spun and smiled when the meter shower started dancing in and out between the flashes.

Flaring his own lights he laughed wildly going faster, and faster. Under the moonlight he was free!

Down below a group of Autobots on patrol looked up with a smile, pausing to watch the saucer dance.

--

“Pretty,” whispered Bluestreak. “I wonder if he knows we are watching, I mean if he didn’t know that would be a little rude for us to jut watch him, but I don’t want to interrupt him you know? Because that would be rude too and might throw him off and I wouldn’t want to do that. He spends so much time in space I don’t think he gets much free time, and wow did you see that!”

Sunstreaker growled, “Shut up Blue. Just watch and be quite.” It had been a long time since he wished so hard for a brush and canvas. He wanted to capture the light dancing through the night sky.

Bluestreak winched but fell silent for a spell. He couldn’t stay silent for long though, “Cosmos looks different in the moonlight. Kind of happy sad. He looks kind of happy sad  normally, but the moonlight really brings it out.”

Sunstreaker sighed and transformed, “Whatever Blue let’s just finish this patrol.” That wasn’t exactly something he wanted to dwell on.

--

Cosmos stopped his dance once the last of the shooting stars had fallen, and hovered lazily in the sky before he shot upwards to return to orbit.

 He loved dancing in the moonlight, it made everything a shade of gray and always made him feel calm.

052. Under the Influence -- Cosmos -- Rating PG-13


Cosmos knew he shouldn’t have. Jazz had been very over charged towards the end of the party when he came in and wasn’t in his right processor, but when Jazz had wrapped his arm around him and started whispering in his audio he had lost himself for a moment. He’d been a little overcharged himself of course, and that was how he ended up in this position, sitting in Jazz’s quarters in the dark.

He rested his head in his servos. He was such an idiot, his creator had always told him how important it was to wait. That Primus blessed those who waited until they found their spark mate.

He had almost tossed all of that away.

It had taken Jazz getting him flat on his back in his berth before he realized what was happening, realized what he was doing. He had pulled away despite Jazz’s half sparked protests. Jazz wasn’t thinking clearly. He had just had a huge fight with Prowl, everything about it was all messed up.

He stood slowly and made his way out of Jazz’s quarters, maybe they would both be lucky and Jazz would be too overcharged to remember what happened. He had promised Primus and his creator he would wait, he couldn’t throw that away because he was under the influence. No matter how nice it had felt. For a few moments before his processor had cleared, he had been able to pretend he was Jazz’s lover.

Under the influence or not, he would cherish those moments. It was moments like that that would hold him over until he found his spark mate.

089. White Noise -- Cosmos -- Rating PG

Cosmos found quickly how much he enjoyed Earth music, it was something to break up the constant white noise of the empty radio signals.  He enjoyed the white noise as well of course. After so long working monitoring channels he found he couldn’t recharge without listening to white noise over his comm. From talking with Jazz he found many mechs and humans were like that, they found the sound relaxing.

White noise, background sound.

He supposed he was like white noise in a way, in the background and not often heard. He was ok with that though--most of the time as he did have his depressed and dark days. Days when he wondered why he came out of recharge at all, times when he longed for contact with someone, anyone.

Soon enough though, there would be a meter shower to dance through or a truck traveling a lonely highway at night that he couldn’t resist and he would start feeling better again.

White noise helped other relax, and if the was white noise then he was helping others. By monitoring signals and reporting his findings he was keeping the others safe so they could relax.

Most days he really liked being like white noise, and the days that he didn’t, he didn’t like to think about anyway.

032. Home --  Cosmos -- Rating PG

Cosmos continued his slow circling, monitoring the many channels and signals the permeated the airwaves. He often wondered about human sayings, trying to work out their meaning and translate them into some human form. His latest one was a rather old saying.

Home is where the heart is. A deceptively simple phrase that could be seen in many places in human culture, often as a source of comfort.

For Cybetronians he supposed a proper translation would be “home is where the spark is,” but what did that mean? The more he thought about it, the more he wasn’t sure he knew.

Not to say he didn’t know what the phrase was supposed to mean.  He knew it was supposed to mean that home was with the ones you loved. That as long as you were among people who loved you, you were home.

Cosmos took a moment away from his thinking to monitor a suspicious signal before determining that it was merely a glitch in the system. What did it mean? No, not mean, what did it feel like? What did it feel like to have a home?

If the saying proved true, then he had never had a home.  He’d never lived in a place where he felt loved, not that he remembered.

Sure he felt that the members--some members--of his faction cared for him, some of the time. But he wasn’t at home on the Ark. He spent to much time away from it to feel at home.

As he whirled aimlessly above the earth he tried to push the entire idea from his mind. Tried to satisfy himself with the idea that surly, one day, he would have a place his spark could call home, and that thought made him smile.