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Cabin Fever Festival the pamphlet before Fort Max reads in bold, colorful print and we’re currently stranded! below it as if the absence of the telltale tremor and thrum of the Lost Light’s quantum engines isn’t already enough evidence of that fact. A painstakingly mundane week has already come and gone with radio silence from both of the ship’s resident geniuses locked away in their laboratories in an unspoken competition to see who could get the Lost Light back in the air first. And as the days stretch on under the suffocating weight of the stagnance hanging in the air, Fort Max is sure he’s not the only one starting to go a bit stir crazy.
The med bay, at least, is abuzz with activity. The growing sense of restlessness with no real other outlet sweeps across the crew faster than any plague and lends itself well to a sharp increase in petty squabbles. Lots of scuffed paint and minor cosmetic dents, annoying and tedious to repair but nothing major enough to be a concern.
Thankfully, Fort Max’s presence in the med bay usually prevents there from being many repeat offenders. It was a strange sort of arrangement, one Fort Max himself had offered, maybe out of some misplaced sense of atonement or maybe just out of a need to do something, help someone for once. As the weeks faded into each other, he began to know all of the regulars by name and they knew him in turn. Though, he wasn’t quite sure when it had stopped being about just that and started being more about the company he kept while tending to the less severe ailments and dealing with the occasional overly rowdy patient.
When he’d started to stay late to talk into the hours of the night after all of the day’s appointments had passed and all of the necessary paperwork already filed away and organized. When he’d started to join the medics on their nightly rounds to Swerve’s, trading stories over Engex and filling the gaps with laughter long after their drinks had run dry and most of the bar patrons had sidled out dazed and overcharged.
They make for an interesting group, far too much history between the four of them to ever make for something as light as friendship, but somehow they still manage to slot together easily where their grit-sharp edges have been sanded down by time. Because the war and its end changed and shaped them as much as it ruined them, and it’s only now they can fit together like this where they’ve made a place for themselves.
It’s as week one of being stranded crawls miserably into week two that Ratchet places down the flier in front of them with clear instructions to take the day off and that he’ll handle the Med Bay. “Have fun,” he says, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, leaving all of them unable to say anything other than a reluctant okay then. There was very little point in trying to argue with Ratchet.
The festival, as it turns out, started as Swerve’s idea. Though as soon as anything left Swerve’s mouth, it was best to assume that whatever it was had already made its way across the Lost Light at least two times over. The idea was quickly co-opted by Rodimus as the solution to growing unease amongst the crew, plastering his face and name all over the event.
Soon enough, you couldn’t walk anywhere on the Lost Light without seeing the fliers, stuck haphazardly to the walls, on doors, scattered on the floor. The halls, more crowded with other bots than they have been in months, became adorned with vibrant banners and streamers with signs advertising all of the different attractions and their room numbers. The sounds of laughter and music echoing from distant rooms and the chatter of voices that were no longer at each other’s throats for a change replaced the petty arguing of the weeks previous.
“What do you think we should see first?” Ambulon asks, still holding the pamphlet up for Fort Max to read. First Aid was supposed to join them as well, but quickly broke off from their little group to explore the festival on his own.
He squints at the long, long list of different games and stalls written in absurdly tiny print, unsure of where anyone was supposed to start with this. “There’s so much.”
Ambulon pulled the pamphlet back down to read it himself, listing off the closest attractions, any ones that might seem particularly interesting, the ones that they just have to see before the festival’s end in three days. And it suddenly seemed a lot less intensely overwhelming when it was broken down like that.
“Some of those games sound fun.”
“It’s a plan then,” Ambulon says, giving him that thousand-volt smile that’s come to make him feel as if he’s been struck by lightning.
Ambulon offers his hand, strictly so they don’t lose each other in the crowd, of course, to which Fort Max takes it. His hand is steady and warm in his grip, steering them through the sea of bots flooding the hallway with hard-won prizes and snacks cradled in their arms.
The first room they visit, some sort of ring-toss game, manages to already go wrong. Fort Max ends up accidentally throwing the ring way too hard, forcing it to sail right over the pegs he was supposed to toss it on and ricochet off the back wall nearly hitting the game’s operator clean in the face. Even with his sheepish apology and insistence that he’ll let Ambulon take over the rest of his throws for the game, the operator still glares daggers at the both of them.
It’s a complete disaster all things considered and yet still somehow the most fun Fort Max can remember ever having.
Gracefully and with no further incident, Ambulon hooks each remainly ring neatly around the pegs and quickly turns to pick out his prize. Dozens of festival masks line the walls, hand painted and each one bearing a different design—one meant to resemble a scraplet, one he thinks is supposed to be a sparkeater and many others.
“How does it look?” Ambulon asks, fixing his chosen mask to the side of his face, one bearing the symbol of Mortilus down the middle.
Seeing Ambulon outside of the Med Bay is a far cry from seeing him when he’s at work, all meticulous measuredness and professionalism. Here, even amidst all the chaos, he still maintains his calm and composed demeanor, but it’s lighter now, more comfortable. His smile, half obscured now by the mask, is easy and an entirely well lived-in expression.
“It looks nice.” Fort Max smiles too, finding some of his apprehensions about the day starting to melt away.
“I think we should go though.” He gestures towards the sour looking game operator before ushering Ambulon back into the hall. “If looks could kill… He looked like he wanted to rip my head off.”
“You did almost take his off with that throw.” Ambulon laughs, elbowing him gently in the side and then grabbing his hand once more.
“I didn’t throw it that hard,” he says, putting his free hand out in front of himself defensively, but there’s no bite to his protests.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to throw it at all, Max. You’re supposed to toss it.”
“Semantics.”
“Sure you weren’t trying to show off?” Ambulon teases, voice dangerously playful.
“Show off? Who? Me?” He gasps, hand over his spark-chamber in mock offense. Although, he doesn’t dare yet to think about just how much truth there might be in that statement.
“I’m pretty sure you left a dent in that wall.”
“No.” He hasn't felt quite so mortified like this in a long time. “Did I really?” That was certainly not doing any favors for his reputation on the ship.
A few rooms over is a shooting game set up with the promise of winning any number of the frankly ridiculous stuffed toys luring in guests from all over the ship. Chief among them is a giant, very soft and remarkably cuddly looking scraplet that takes up nearly the entire top shelf of prizes.
“Is that the one you want?” Ambulon asks, pointing towards it.
Fort Max blinks, unaware that he’d apparently been staring a little too obviously at it. “You’re going to win it for me?”
Ambulon’s almost conspiratorial smile is all the answer he needs.
“Well then, which one do you want?”
“Anything’s fine with me,” he says with a lazy shrug.
Challenge accepted, Fort Max thinks, stepping forward to pay for his tries.
The game operator hands him a colorful toy rifle loaded with rubber bullets. He carefully aims the blaster at the targets and shoots all three in quick succession. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t actually trying to show off just a little this time, occasionally allowing himself a quick peek over his shoulder to see Ambulon’s reaction, staring at him like he personally hung the stars in the sky. Maybe he’s not the only one left feeling a little electrified.
It brings forth a new and horribly silly form of excitement— the same one he gets from their nights at Swerve’s after the Med Bay’s closed, one he thinks he could definitely learn to get used to.
When it comes to actually choosing the prize, he knows he’s taking far too long, that Ambulon will be happy with anything he chooses, but unable to settle for that. It has to be perfect. Eventually, he settles for a red and orange plush of a Kremzeek, holding it up for Ambulon to see.
“It matches your colors.”
Ambulon stares at it for only a moment before he starts to laugh, quietly at first and then louder as if he just can’t help himself. A joy that suddenly seems too big for the cramped little room they’re in, one that’s impossible to avoid getting swept up in.
“I mean I can get you a different one if you want–” Max blurts out only to stop silent when Ambulon traces a line down his arm with his hand.
“No, no, it’s perfect, thank you,” Ambulon reassures him, still running his hand down his arm, “I love it. Thank you.”
“I’ll carry it for you,” he says and turns to hide his embarrassingly transparent smile as he hands Ambulon the toy blaster.
Ambulon holds the toy blaster steady in both hands, humming tunelessly as he often did when deep in concentration. The first round flies straight into the padded wall behind the row of targets. The second is closer but still narrowly avoids hitting it by a hair. Ah, definitely a medic and not a soldier.
“Need some help?”
“No.” Though his grip on the rifle loosens, letting it rest against the counter of the booth and his gaze carefully drifts to the side. Ambulon’s got more tells than he can count, or maybe he’s just learned how to spot them.
“Do you want some help?” Fort Max offers instead.
“Maybe.”
“Here.” Fort Max drops to one knee beside him, taking Ambulon’s hands gently in his and moving them to the correct position on the blaster. He’s long since learned how to live around his strength, but there’s something exceedingly careful about his movements in this moment. “Elbows down and in.” His hand reaches to correct Ambulon’s arms held out pin-straight in front of him. His touch lingers just a little longer than strictly necessary, something close to soft reverence in the way his fingertips rest on Ambulon’s shoulders. “Okay, good, now shoot.”
They both cheer when the target snaps over backwards, attracting the looks of a few onlookers in the crowd. And then Ambulon hugs him, small but sturdy arms wrapping around him before he can even stand.
“Good job! Knew you’d get it,” Fort Max says, all attempts to keep the smile out of his voice failing miserably.
“Well, I had the best helping me,” Ambulon replies, voice muffled slightly from where his face is buried in the crook of Fort Max’s arm before he finally breaks the contact. There’s something in that way Ambulon speaks that makes those who hear it believe that they deserve his kindness.
“At least those 4 million years paid off for something.” He gives an amused shrug to play off the traitorous double-time pulse of his spark and then turns to the wall of prizes.
The game operator struggles to pull the giant thing down from its shelf until Fort Max grabs it, tucking it safely away under his arm. It’s even softer than it looks somehow.
“Where to now?”
Ambulon holds out the pamphlet again, rattling off the list of nearby attractions for anything and everything that sounds interesting. “They set up fishing in the oil reservoir and we could grab something to eat while we’re there and…”
“All of it,” Fort Max says, any shred of hesitance in his voice long gone by now. Maybe it hadn’t been his idea of fun initially, but it’s hard to stay sour about it. “I want to see all of it.”
“We better get going then,” Ambulon holds out his hand far too fondly, “We only have 3 days and there’s lots to see.”
The oil reservoir is teeming with mechanical fish when they reach the lowest floor. They skid and skip along just under the surface like an underwater comet streaking through the night sky. The shoals scatter off into brilliantly pearlescent shimmers whenever someone manages to hook one of them.
The two of them sit on the edge of the oil reservoir, feet dangling over the body of oil below with fishing rod in hand. Fort Max is nearly certain this takes a level of patience he has never in his life possessed. He moves too quickly, reeling in far too soon and breaking his line more times than he’d like to admit.
“You’re scaring them,” Ambulon says, elbowing him lightly. Beside him, he makes it seem so easy, a decisiveness in his movements as if he were stitching a wound closed or any other task he’s more times than he can count.
“I’m terrible at this.” His reflection scowls at him from below, muddled slightly by the shifting ripples in the oil. It’s such a small thing, inconsequential, he knows, but there’s still a part of him living in a time where not being perfect could have life or death consequences.
“You’ll get it. Give it time,” Ambulon says like a promise, giving him a reassuring smile. “How have things been?”
He watches his expression shift into something lighter, something easier to hold onto. For this moment, at least, it’s just the two of them here side by side, very little else seems to matter. “Better,” he says, finding that this time he might actually mean it, “Things have been better.”
“Think you’ll keep helping out around the med bay after this? You know… you don’t owe us anything. No one holds what happened against you.”
“I wouldn’t say no one.” There’s quite a few mechs he can think of that would still hold a grudge against him for the mess he caused those months ago. Worse yet, he can’t blame them for it.
“None of us do,” Ambulon amends, “We could have done better by you. I mean, the end of the war was a lot for all of us, but you… you were thrown straight into the deep end. So… if you’re trying to make up for that, there’s no need to.”
Maybe it had started that way when it was all still so fresh in his mind and he was desperate to be anyone other than himself. There had been so much guilt, terribly heavy and with nowhere to put it down and he hadn’t yet built the space within himself to live around it.
But now, he can’t imagine his days on the Lost Light without it. It’s no grand purpose. His days of near-suicidal heroics may be long behind him, but an existence filled with small happinesses, helping in a more personal way with friends and laughter and days like these is certainly something he can learn to live with in its place. He’d forgotten somewhere along the way, or maybe had never been taught it at all, that living for yourself, for your own happiness, is still living for something.
“But,” he continues, “if you would like to, all of us would love to have you around. Primus knows we could use the help.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. It’s a sentiment they’ve all heard repeated ad nauseam in the med bay: there's just never enough time.
“I’d like that…” There’s no way Ambulon can know just how much he means it, how much it means to have found a place for himself and someone to share it with. Someday, maybe, he’ll be able to say it, once it’s more set in stone. For now, all he can do is smile dumbly to himself, any and all of the day’s frustrations washed away by the waves.
“We should probably get going if we want to see as many of the attractions as we can,” Ambulon reminds him, reeling in his rod for the last time, a fiery orange colored fish attached to the hook.
A quick check of his internal chronometer reveals that they’ve spent nearly the entire day together so far. When was the last time he’d let time run away from him quite this much—the last time he could remember living his days not just to fill the space between the end and start?
Once the fish is secured safely away in a plastic bag tied around Ambulon’s wrist (though, this does not stop it from trying to bite Fort Max’s finger through the bag when he prods at it), they set off towards the food stalls.
“Spirited little thing,” he says, watching the fish still trying to nip at him, “I like him.”
They can smell all of the food stalls well before they come into view. The air itself practically tastes sweet as they approach and there’s so many different options that it’s nearly overwhelming—energon spun into thin, colorful strings or coated into a glossy, candy-like film, and so much more.
Thankfully, Ambulon takes it upon himself to go down the rows of food stands, picking things for the both of them to sample together because Fort Max wouldn’t even know where to start with any of it. Usually, all he looked for in fuel was a full tank, but he couldn’t deny he was just the tiniest bit curious. So he graciously takes all of the samples Ambulon shares with him, laughing and ranking them together.
“Here, try this one.” Ambulon hands him a stick of Ener-Dango, though not before stealing the first bite with a sly smile.
It’s chewy and sweet and so far removed from any of the other meals he’s ever had. It’s weird and new and yet he’s glad he tried it, and wonders what other things he’s put off trying for too long. “It’s good,” he says, the dango hanging lazily from between his teeth.
“Thought you might like that one,” Ambulon says, face lit up full-beam, “We won’t have much time for today after this. Any ideas for where you wanna go next?”
He leans over Ambulon’s shoulder to look at the pamphlet one last time. One whole day gone and only two more after this and it feels like they haven’t even managed to make a dent in the list. “Hmm, next we could either go to Haunted Corridors or there’s the last showing of Crosscut’s play Information Creep here soon.”
“The play’s last showing doesn’t start for another hour and Haunted Corridors is close by. We could knock both off the list,” Ambulon suggests.
As they approach Haunted Corridors, they’re met with the sound of a scream followed near instantly with howling laughter as two of the attraction's patrons rush out of its exit, clearly with two very different experiences. The scream still makes every circuit in Fort Max’s body stand on end in an instant and has him bracing himself for some sort of attack that never comes. His hands clench into fists before he can reign it in and he’s keenly aware that his body has gone rigid. It’s a survival instinct he’s tried so hard to keep buried—for most of his life, it was something that kept him safe, but now all it brings him is more grief.
“Are you sure you want to do this one?” To his credit, Ambulon tries for something approaching nonchalant when he asks, but it feels almost like an accusation. “There’s plenty of other things we could do to kill time before the play.”
Fort Max is sure he’s far from the only one coming out of the war with an increased sensitivity to loud noises and an exhausting sense of hypervigilance, but that doesn’t make it any less humiliating to be confronted head-on with a vulnerability he’d nearly forgotten he still had. But he can deal with that later—today is supposed to be fun. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he gives Ambulon his best smile and reaches for his hand. “You ready?”
Ambulon nods, expression pulling into something resolute.
A fog machine sputters out a thin, cold mist across the ground leading to the attraction’s entrance lined with flickering lights and eerie music winding out from the speakers. The display they’ve managed to set up is shockingly impressive given how little notice they’d been given before the festival’s start.
Inside was nearly pitch black save for the dim lights lining the narrow pathway cutting through the middle. Heavy industrial chains spattered in fake energon swayed from the ceiling, rattling and clinking against each other with each step they took. Dozens of morbid props were on display, scattered pieces of fake gore and viscera laying in what was so thick it could only be pink paint and shadowy silhouettes of monsters projected on the walls accompanied by the sounds of low growls and whines.
In one corner was an exoskeleton posed against the wall, reaching out to where it had dragged an energon handprint down the surface. Beside it was a hastily written and remarkably uncreative scrawl of “get out.” Ambulon approaches it with an amused expression as he examines it further, crouching to get a better look at the prop.
“There wouldn’t be a frame strut there,” he says.
He sounds so earnest, so completely serious about it that for a second Fort Max manages to forget about the coil of anxiety wound tightly in his core and he can’t help but laugh. “That’s your take away from that? That it’s not anatomically accurate?”
“Well, it’s not.” His hand prods at the prop, finding it comes away with a glob of still wet paint. Ambulon’s laughter spirals through the darkened corridor as they hurry away further down the path, leaving the evidence of their transgression behind.
“Maybe you should offer to help them with their prop design next time, so that they’re up to code,” Max says, steps feeling much lighter and much less careful now the farther they go through.
“Maybe I will.” His hand breaks loose from Fort Max’s as he pushes forward to look at the other displays.
Fort Max turns to look as well and the panic hits him like a sucker punch, slipping through the careful distance he’d tried so hard to build from it with ease. The ghost of memory creeping in uninvited through some hole in his defenses he’d not yet patched up. With wide optics, he stares at a severed arm torn through by a hook hanging in front of him, small drips of energon beading down it and falling to the floor. The fear becomes a living, writhing thing, somehow tangible and impossible to get ahold of now that Ambulon is nowhere to be seen and he’s alone in the suffocatingly dark.
He spun on his heel, nerves bowstring taut and ready to snap at any moment, looking for an enemy that wasn’t there, couldn’t be there. Fight was always his first instinct but there was nothing to fight—nowhere for his panic to go. He knew that it was irrational, as he always did, but that did very little to help; this wasn’t something he could logic himself out of. The walls seem to close in on him like vicious observers to his spectacle, the corners and angles of the room twisting and turning harsh. It offers nowhere to hide and no escape. History repeats itself often in the cruelest ways.
“Ambulon?” His own voice comes out from far, far away as he squeezes his optics closed tightly. His spark sits miserably in his chest, a prisoner behind merciless bars.
And then– There’s gentle hands wrapping around his, warm and solid and real. “You’re okay,” Ambulon says, so calm and assured in a way that makes Fort Max nearly believe it himself despite his optics swimming with worry.
“I’m okay,” he echoes, rational thought slowly returning to him—the soothing press of their hands together is a remarkably grounding force.
“We’re almost to the exit,” Ambulon says, easing the worry that Fort Max hadn’t yet realized he was holding onto. “Here, follow me.”
Maybe it’ll never not be strange to let himself be guided along like this, even stranger yet that he finds he doesn’t hate it. Ambulon’s hands are quick and steady, a surgeon’s hands through and through, purposeful in his use of touch.
The trudge through the rest of Haunted Corridors is a strange experience. True to his word, it doesn’t take long to reach the exit and they don’t stop until they’re long free of the attraction. They’re the first ones in for the day’s last showing of Information Creep. The stage is barren and the lights still dim as they take their seats at the very back of the room.
“I’m not really hungry,” Fort Max says when Ambulon tries to hand him their leftover snacks. The worst of the panic has worn off by now, but there’s still a sense of numbness that clings to him like a film.
“It’ll help you get your energy back,” he says simply, like he’s prescribing a treatment. He doesn’t ask, not yet, just waits and lets Fort Max be the one who sets the pace— giving him an out if he doesn’t wish to talk about it now or ever. There’s something so patient about Ambulon that makes him feel as though he could tell him almost anything. “You’ll feel better. Trust me.”
“Okay. I can do that.” It’s just slow, piecemeal bites that are difficult to stomach at first, but little by little, the energy boost does wonders to mend his frayed nerves. The numbness begins to peel up and fall away as the minutes tick by in the quiet auditorium.
“Better?” Ambulon offers him a small, slightly nervous smile. He watches him intently for a moment long enough that Fort Max can practically see the gears turning behind his optics, searching for what he needs in this moment and how best to deliver that.
“Better.”
There’s a strange sense of defeat in realizing that all of his favorite moments of this day, of the past few months, have been the times where it was just the two of them. He can’t deny it any longer, no even to himself, just how bad he’s got it. Being with Ambulon comes far more easily than it should. There’s no fear of saying the wrong thing, of being too much—for once, he’s allowed to just rest.
“Sorry, I– I just forgot where I was for a second back there.” Fort Max is sure he’ll feel embarrassed about the whole incident later, but for now there’s just relief. His expression melts into something achingly soft and he reaches across their shared armrest for Ambulon’s hand again. “Thank you.”
Ambulon blinks at him for a moment, taken aback. “For what?” he asks as though he isn’t singlehandedly responsible for stealing the most smiles from him in his entire 4 million year lifespan.
For getting him out of his own head back there, mainly, but truthfully there’s a great many things Fort Max could thank him for. For staying with me through this, for always listening, for making me happy, for being you. But there will be time for all of those conversations outside of today, at least he can only hope there will be.
The war is over now and the future stretches endlessly blank out into the horizon, ready and waiting for something new to be written. It feels more certain than it ever has before, a promise all of them have fought so hard to keep. And it was something that he had mourned for at first, the sudden influx of new opportunities, the chance to take his life back set out in front of him but forever just out of his reach. But like all things, it just took a little time to figure out what he wanted his second lease on life to look like, the small fragments of hope he wanted to fill it with.
They have so much time now, more than either of them probably ever thought they’d have. An equal parts foolish and hopeful part of him thinks what better way to spend it than together?
Even so, today is still special. This festival won’t come around again— it’s a memory he’s sure to cherish and hold close to spark for the rest of however long they’re on the Lost Light. Maybe it hadn’t been his idea of fun at first, not something he ever would have given more than a second glance on his own, but he’s glad he had today despite its ups and downs.
“For today. All of it,” he settles for saying, and because he’s never been any good at waiting, he cements the sentiment with a kiss pressed to Ambulon’s forehead.