Chapter Text
Orion Pax first discovered the concept of a ‘Hanahaki Disease’ during one of his regular break-ins into the archive. He had been looking in a section simply labelled ‘ancient history’ which seemed to have datapads chronicling tales from the moment the Primes came online. One of those datapads in that shelf covered various ancient illnesses and foreign threats beyond just the Quintessons, and it was in those digital pages where Orion discovered the name for a disease that had wormed its way into his systems.
A few cycles prior to this particular excursion, Orion Pax had ended up in the medbay due to a severe coughing fit in the mines that left him unable to work. It had begun as a slight irritation in his ventilation systems, but very quickly progressed into hacking coughs that had forced Orion to put down his mining equipment. On that shift he’d been working with Jazz and Wheeljack, who took one look at his trembling frame and pretty much dragged him into the medbay.
“You ain’t getting any better inhaling dust down here, mech,” Jazz reasoned as he escorted Orion, who could only wheeze in reply.
At first, he’d thought that his filters were clogged, or worse, required a replacement – but as Ratchet kept digging his servos around Orion’s chassis, the confused expression he saw in the medic’s faceplate had Orion fearing the worst.
“How many cycles do I have left, doc?” Orion joked, his teasing tone hiding an undercurrent of fear present in his EM field.
Ratchet didn’t grace him with a verbal reply at first, simply giving a huff as he took apart more of Orion’s plating. “You’re not dead yet, kid.” Orion heard a quiet ‘somehow’ being muttered under Ratchet’s breath, “I’m just trying to work out what in the Pits is going on here.”
“O-okay.” Orion replied, any remaining jokes on his glossa disappearing to allow Ratchet to concentrate. If even Ratchet didn’t know what was going on in his frame, then it was a bad sign.
Eventually, the uncomfortable silence was broken by Ratchet as he carefully placed Orion’s plating back on his chassis. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
Oh no. “Uh… Good?”
“You’re not dying. Or anything close to it, if you ignore any of the stupid stunts you do all the time.”
Orion was elated enough to hear the news that he let the insult slide. “That’s great!”
“–However, you have unusual crystal growths concerningly close to your spark chamber. Rust infections look similar to what you’ve got, except… it's not rust. I’ve never seen this kind of disease before.”
Orion’s mood was immediately dampened. Rust infections? Those were normal, a pretty common thing for miners like him to get them every now and then due to their work. But crystals? That was entirely unheard of. Crystals grew from the ground, not inside a bot’s frame!
Ignoring any internal dilemmas that Orion was going through, Ratchet continued, “It doesn’t look to be especially dangerous right now, but you’ll need to take care to make sure it doesn’t spread further.” He turned around and handed Orion a small, well-worn datapad. “This contains treatment information for rust infections, slightly modified to account for… crystals instead.”
Orion took the datapad and began to skim over its contents: keep your filters clean, avoid staying in humid environments for long, regularly scrub your plating. Nothing unusual there. He’d had a minor rust infection before – it wouldn’t take long before whatever strange disease he had would disappear and he could get back to his usual self. He had exited the medbay after giving a smile in Ratchet’s direction.
So, when Orion Pax read the description of ‘Hanahaki Disease’ on that old datapad in the archives, he froze where he stood.
[PAGE: 159 – INTERPLANETARY DISEASES]
NAME: Hanahaki Disease
ORIGIN: Non-Cybertronian, possible techno-organic planet.
SYMPTOMS: Starts as crystal growths from the spark chamber. Initially resembles symptoms of acute rust infection: wheezing vents, poor fuel intake, coughing. Growths spread throughout the frame, the patient may experience a blocked intake and/or vents causing severe coughs to dislodge crystals. Crystals can also be found in the neural net and central nerve circuits. The length of this phase can last quartexes to stellar cycles, depending on the health of the patient.
During the later stages, forcefully ejected crystals may resemble crystal flowers seen on Cybertron, its colours differing depending on the patient. This is the longest stage, with a duration ranging from stellar cycles to vorns.
In the final stages of the disease, crystals spread into energon and coolant lines, consuming the spark until it is snuffed out. The patient will always die from spark burnout within a deca-cycle once this phase begins.
CAUSES: Proposed to be linked to strong emotions exhibited by the patient, typically romantic affections. Crystals grow and spread when these feelings are present, but symptoms can also worsen due to stress.
TREATMENT: Forceful removal of crystals from the chassis is ill-advised. Patients who have had crystals removed exhibit disinterest and apathy towards any previous object(s) of their affections, causing distress to those individuals. Patients also exhibit deteriorated memory cells and are unable to recall any previous memories with said individuals.
The only successful treatment that has been found is a confession of the patient’s affections. Reciprocation reduces spread significantly, however any existing crystals will remain for stellar cycles or until a spark merge.
Orion Pax stared at the datapad in horror. The coughing, the struggles he had just venting, and of course, the crystals – it all matched to his own symptoms. Hurriedly he began looking through the other pages in the datapad, searching for anything remotely similar to the foreign disease. But unfortunately for him, there didn’t seem to exist no such illness in common, leaving Orion with only one conclusion–
He had Hanahaki Disease. A disease from an unknown techno-organic planet that caused crystals to grow from his spark (and his neural net – in his processor?!) which would continue until he choked to death or… confessed.
But a confession would require having feelings for someone. According to the document, it wasn’t exactly necessary, just… typical. He wasn’t in love with anyone!
Well, there was one bot he liked. A lot. Him and D-16 were just (unofficially) Amica Endura, though. Amica Endurae was another concept that Orion discovered in the archives, alongside Conjunx Endurae – both traditions which fell out of popularity after the loss of the Primes, and wasn’t even heard of amongst the cogless population. Despite neither Orion or D-16 could complete the rites properly, they both considered each other Amicas, and in a way, it was like their little secret between themselves.
They were just that: Amicas. Bros. The best of friends. Orion didn’t – couldn’t – love D-16! He just really cared for Dee, in an exclusively friendship way.
Trying to suppress the coughs that threatened to come out of his intake and expose his location to the surrounding security bots, Orion snuck out of the archives as quietly as possible. Somehow, despite his worsening health, he managed to make it all the way back to the miner’s main hub without getting caught once.
Orion was startled when he suddenly bumped into D-16 as he tried to sneak his way back into his recharge pod. D-16 stood with his arms crossed across his wide chassis, and all Orion could do was stare dumbly at the one he cared about so much, his– Amica. He could see the tiny gears in Dee’s amber optics turning as he waited for Orion’s inevitable excuse for his disappearance this time.
“Oh, heyyy, Dee. I was a little bored, so… I went to the archives again.”
“Pax.” D-16’s arms seemed to tighten against his frame, a frown very prevalent on his faceplate. The clearest ‘you’re in trouble’ sign. “Please tell me why you decided to wander around the archives – which I must remind you, is forbidden – when you are on medical leave?!”
Orion laughed awkwardly, but only succeeded in deepening D-16’s frown. “You know I can’t sit still. I’m sorry, Dee.”
“I know. Which means I need to keep a better optic on you! How are you feeling?” D-16’s arms unwinded so his servos could hover over Orion’s scuffed up frame, as his optics scanned him for anything out of the ordinary.
“I’m fine! It’s only–” his vents took that opportune moment to stutter and rattle his entire frame “–only a small cough.”
Dee’s optics narrowed. “Doesn’t look ‘small’ to me.” Internally, Orion panicked at the idea of being found out so soon, but then his processor quickly realised that if not even Ratchet knew the name of this disease, there was no chance that D-16 would. “C’mon, Pax. You need to get some rest. Medical leave isn’t a vacation, y’know?”
“Fineee,” Orion replied petulantly, dragging out the word for as long as his vocaliser possibly could. He did as he was told, though, stepping into his pod and falling into recharge shortly after.
The next morning, Orion awoke with a jolt, stumbling forward as he coughed roughly. The racket he was making was enough to rouse some of the bots near him out of their slumber, a few giving him annoyed looks, then they shut their optics to the sound. D-16, being his neighbour in the recharge quarters, was at his side immediately, supporting his shaking frame with solid servos.
After what felt like eons, his coughing fit finally subsided and Orion dared to glance up at D-16, whose faceplate and EM field displaying nothing short of pure worry. “Thanks,” he said, steadying himself onto his pedes rather than hanging onto Dee any longer, “I’m alright now.”
D-16 gave him a doubtful look. His optics didn’t dare to leave Orion’s frame, examining it like a seasoned medic would. Even though he didn’t utter a word, Orion felt inclined to justify further.
“I’m fine, Dee! I swear.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You know what I mean!”
D-16 gave a more incredulous look at Orion. “Pax… How are you gonna work in the next cycle like this?”
“Maybe returning to work will help me get better!” He’d be further away from D-16 at work, the distractions were what he needed to get the idea of Dee being his possible crush out of his processor.
Dee snorted, a rare moment of unseriousness during his interrogation. “Yeah, right. All the dust and grime down there is just what you need to fix your clogged vents. Oh, I never got to ask you – what actually is wrong?”
I have a disease that makes me suffocate on crystals because I’m in love, apparently. Orion decided not to say that, rather: “You’re starting your shift soon, promise I’ll tell you after, ‘kay?”
D-16’s expression softened as he pressed a servo on the side of his upper arm. “You're not dying, are you, Pax?”
Orion laughed as best he could with his intake still raw from coughing. “Nah, you can’t get rid of me that easily! See ya after your shift, yeah?”
D-16 matched Orion’s weak grin with a warm smile of his own, letting the touch linger for a moment before he left the quarters to grab his mining equipment and start his shift. At the sight, Orion’s spark burned hotter than it ever had before.
When D-16 returned, he made an immediate beeline towards Orion’s direction. To be fair, he had been good; he hadn’t taken a single step outside the mining hub and just tried to get as much recharge as he could. Rest came to him quickly but simultaneously he woke up frequently to cough, leaving him with little energy. Thankfully, when D-16 had left for work, he was able to recharge with fewer interruptions from his frame.
Was he really in love with Dee? Was that love hurting him?
There was no time to mull over the question as D-16 approached Orion, his silver frame dirtier than it had been early in the morning, covered in dust and flecks of dirt. D-16 seemed to realise the state of himself at the same time as Orion did, sheepishly wiping off any visible dirt with a servo.
“Now, Pax, about this morning.” He levelled Orion with a look that said ‘don’t you dare try to get out of this one’.
“Of course! I’m not gonna let my best friend–” then added with a furtive whisper even as it made his spark constrict sharply, “–my Amica – from being out of the loop.”
“Go on,” D-16 instructed with a tilt of his helm, “I want to hear exactly what Ratchet told you. And see any datapads he gave you.” Sometimes Dee was such a worrier.
“Yes, yes. Well, apparently I have something similar to a rust infection, except instead of rust, it's crystals.” D-16 stared at him quizzically. “I’m not kidding! Look, here’s what Ratchet gave me,” Orion explained, then handed over the datapad nestled in his subspace.
D-16 took the datapad, reading over its contents with a more and more confused look. Then he looked back at Orion. Then the datapad. Then Orion again. “Crystals? But that’s–”
Orion finished his sentence for him. “Impossible? That’s what Ratchet thought too, ‘till he opened up my chassis and there were crystals next to my spark chamber.”
“Your spark chamber?” Dee replied in horror, servos grabbing both of Orion’s shoulders tightly. “Pax, are you sure you’re not dying from this?”
Orion shrugged. “Ratchet said it’s not dangerous as long as it doesn’t spread.” It is dangerous. It’s going to spread until energon no longer flows through my frame. “Honestly, aside from the coughing fits, I feel fine!”
Dee’s strong grip on Orion loosened slightly. “If Ratchet said so…” He replied, “Promise me if it gets any worse, you’ll be at the medbay immediately! Or I’ll drag you there personally.” D-16’s vents huffed. He could easily carry a defiant Orion all the way to the medbay on his own, and Dee knew it.
D-16 cared so much about Orion, a care that he so often squandered by constantly getting the two into trouble. Yet in spite of his dumb actions, Dee was always there to nurse his wounds from the cogged bots, to share his rations when Orion had none, to worry about him when nobody else cared. Orion hadn’t appreciated D-16 enough for everything he’d done for him. It was a miracle he had agreed to be Orion's Amica at all, unofficial or not. His spark lurched at the thought.
“I promise,” Orion replied, managing to keep his voice level despite more coughs threatening to erupt from his vents.
“Maybe all your constant break-ins into the archives gave you some ancient disease,” Dee said with a smirk.
How are you always so close to the truth, Dee?
Thankfully, Orion’s condition remained relatively stable after returning to work. The archive datapad did mention that it took a while to develop into the second phase of the disease, and the mines provided sufficient distance between him and Dee to keep any of the sappy feelings away.
The only issue was that after work, D-16 barely let Orion out of his sight, constantly fretting over his health. If he was honest with himself, Orion liked the attention but as he swiftly came to the realisation that he had fallen for D-16, the care he was receiving only succeeded to further the growth of the crystals. Every time Dee’s servos would brush against his plating, his spark would become impossibly hot, and by extension his frame would heat up too.
One time, when Dee was tenderly cleaning the hard to reach parts of Orion’s frame in the communal washracks, he had paused, washcloth in his servo. “Pax, you’re running really hot. Do you need to go to Ratchet?”
Orion replied with a dismissive tone, desperate for D-16 to return to scrubbing his frame even if his spark ached at the sensation, “Nah, I’m alright. My vents must be getting blocked again.”
D-16 nodded, then returned to cleaning his frame somehow gentler than before.
Another time, when Orion was going through the worst coughing fit he’d experienced so far, Dee had clasped one of his servos in his own, squeezing it gently as he rubbed Orion’s back with the other. The more Orion relaxed into Dee’s touch, the harsher the coughing became. His vents and intake had been rubbed so raw that he struggled to speak without wheezing for a deca-cycle.
“Orion, are you sure you’re not getting worse?” Dee had asked him after the worst of the coughing fit was over that night, his optics meeting Orion with the saddest look he’d ever seen. His EM field was flooded with concern.
“Just–” Orion let out a wheeze. “Just a bad cycle. Gets worse before it gets better.”
“Your rust infection before didn’t last this long.”
“It’s not a rust infection! It’s a– crystal one.”
“Right, right, crystals…”
Orion was never able to tell if Dee actually believed he had crystals in his chassis until he began to cough some up. Cogless bots couldn’t transform away any of their plating like cogged bots could, so to get a possible glimpse at his own spark chamber, Orion would need a medic to take apart his plating correctly. He’d tried to do it himself once, which ended up being his personal best record for the fastest he ever got sent to the medbay.
The coughing up of crystals was relatively mundane compared to the rest of his symptoms. A logical conclusion of the constant coughing – at first, it came as a relief to finally get rid of the cursed crystals trapped in his ventilation. That was, of course, until hacking up the foreign objects that had made a home inside his chassis would become more frequent. Until the tiny shards of crystal bloom into flowers and you die painfully, a quiet part of his processor retorted.
Orion was a long way away from that phase of the disease, let alone death. Still, it was hard to convince Dee of that fact when the first time Orion choked on a crystal happened right in front of his watchful optics.
First, it began as an uncomfortable tickle in his intake, not unlike the warning signs his frame would show when he was about to enter a coughing fit. However, instead of the usual coughs Orion expected, he was flooded with an instinctual panic as he felt something trapped in his intake.
Intakes were only meant for energon, which were usually consumed in either liquid or cube forms, but were never large nor sharp. Energon jellies also existed which further protected the intake, but those were usually a treat reserved for the cogged bots only. Either way, energon always went down the intake, never up.
So when Orion began desperately hacking out his internals in an attempt to get rid of whatever was clogging up his intake, Dee had a servo pressed on his back in an instant, rubbing gently. In his panic, Orion had shrugged off the arm to lean further forward, but he was so caught up in getting the offending crystal out of his intake that he barely noticed the hurt that spread through Dee’s field, before it met the pure terror in Orion’s and disappeared completely.
“Orion!” D-16 exclaimed but Orion’s intake was too obstructed to reply. He continued to cough and hack until one final ex-vent forced the small crystal past his derma and it fell onto the hard floor with a tiny clink. “Orion, what is that?!”
He took a few more wheezing vents until he stopped shaking enough to be able to speak. “A crystal.” Gingerly, he picked up the crystal which was soaked in his own oral lubricant (gross) and rotated it between two digits. He offhandedly wondered how such a tiny object could cause such distress to his frame. The crystal was a pale, transparent colour, almost like glass, with a reflective sheen that shifted as the light bounced off it.
If Orion ignored its very horrific origin, he would be inclined to call it pretty. Morbidly, he wondered if he could start a jewellery business for his fellow miners with the crystals he coughed up. He was probably the first cogless bot to be this close to such a refined crystal in stellar cycles. Dee brought him out of those strange ideas in his processor with a confused whine. “A crystal?” He repeated, staring at the glittering object in Orion’s palm. “But that’s–”
“Impossible?” Orion smirked, but the idea that D-16 didn’t completely believe him the first time hurt a little. To be fair to Dee, he had made some pretty bold lies in the past, mainly to get him out of trouble with the higher-ups. “I promise you this crystal came straight from my intake.”
“Pax– no– I can see that! I saw it happen! I believe you entirely, okay? I was doubtful before, but this… This is wrong, Orion. You need to see Ratchet.”
“Ratchet? No, I-I’m fine,” Orion stammered, but his wheezing vents did not support that opinion. “It can wait until tomorrow, he’s probably busy this late.”
D-16 let out a loud huff and his shoulders rolled back as if he was gearing up for an argument. “Orion Pax. I don’t care what excuse you give me, we are going to the medbay right now and you will be seen by Ratchet. If you refuse, I will simply carry you. Your frame is too weak to fight back anyways.” Seeing Orion’s indignant expression at his last sentence, he added, “I’m being honest! You’re barely holding yourself up right now.” Then, as a quiet whisper (a gentle plea) in his audial, “You’re my Amica Endura, Orion, I’m not letting you continue to suffer.”
Orion would hate to admit it but Dee was entirely right (like always). With a resigned sigh, he followed D-16 to the medbay, the arm supporting Orion at his back a constant presence as they walked side-by-side. When they reached the medbay, Orion was sat onto a medical berth by a fretting Dee, telling him to stay put until he fetched Ratchet. Orion could hear his impatient calls from the other side of the medbay, shortly followed by two sets of pedes walking in his direction. He could hear the murmurs of their discussion as they approached.
Ratchet looked at Orion somewhat pitifully. “So, coughing up crystals now, Orion Pax? You never cease to amaze me.” His snarky comment was rewarded with a sharp glare from D-16. “Ah, don’t you look at me like that. Despite him being a regular here, I always treat Orion with the utmost medical care, don’t I?”
D-16 almost looked ashamed at that. Almost.
“You’ll need to move aside so I can assess Orion’s frame.” Ratchet tilted his helm towards the end of the berth and D-16 moved to a far corner of the berth promptly. His optics never left Orion throughout the assessment. Ratchet, understandably, didn’t want to hold the still-slimy crystal in his bare servos, retrieving a small medical tray to place it on for later analysis. Orion nearly felt sad to part with it after it had caused him so much trouble.
At one point, Orion had begun coughing again, causing Dee to leap to his side opposite Ratchet, reaching out for him. “Don’t touch him yet!” Ratchet commanded, and Dee’s arm slunk down to his side. Orion let out an almost inaudible whine that could be mistaken for him being in pain from the coughing fit, but it was really because he wanted Dee to be close by when he got like this. Even if the coughing subsided quicker without his constant hand-holding. The ache he felt in his spark wasn’t worth it.
His coughing went away not long after. Looking down at Orion with a deep sorrow, then back to Ratchet, D-16 asked, “Is he really going to be okay?”
Ratchet sighed, a long, drawn out ex-vent. “Unfortunately the condition has gotten worse since the first time I saw it, but it may start to stabilise and improve soon. Coughing up the infection is a usually good sign – it means your frame recognises it’s a threat and is trying to get rid of it.”
D-16 nodded, his field a little more relaxed, whereas Orion could only recall the information from the archives with a tense spark. Coughing up crystals was the sign of the disease getting worse. He couldn’t explain that to Ratchet, let alone with Dee present, and that was if the medic would believe that the ancient datapads he had found were real in the first place. It wasn’t like he could easily steal them from the archives, as they were set to trigger the archives’ security if they were moved too far.
“Stay here tonight, Orion,” Ratchet ordered, “I want to keep an optic on your condition before I can discharge you.” He turned to D-16, who was still hovering over Orion. “And you, head back to recharge. I’ll let you know if his condition changes, alright? Orion needs to rest.”
Reluctantly, Dee nodded and left the medbay, dragging his pedes. Orion watched as the door shut behind him. After a few more instructions from Ratchet, he fell into a dreamless recharge easily.
After coughing up the first crystal, the next didn’t feel as bad in comparison, yet they still caught Orion off-guard every time. At least he only experienced it every now and then, and only after his spark would burn especially hot at something Dee did that left him reeling and gasping for air.
D-16 really did take his breath away.
Orion would have it no other way though. In one way, he had to thank the Hanahaki Disease for being the reason that he had gotten closer to D-16. Any slight rumble of his engine or sigh from his vents had Dee looking in Orion's direction immediately. He felt guilty for using his friend's care for him in this way, but that was all they'd be – the best, closest of friends.
D-16 considered Orion Pax to be his friend and nothing more.