Chapter Text
It’s the gentle rocking of the boat that is just as foreboding as anything else could have been. It’s not often that Orion has to take metaphors literally, but as he leans against the ship’s railing protecting him from toppling overboard, watching the deceptively peaceful, thick, dark clouds floating in the distance, he thinks of the calm before the storm.
The water is so gentle with them here. Were the state of the other worried passengers and their trip not turning south incredibly quickly, he could have likely been lulled to recharge. Orion looks upon the churning waters with a resigned admiration, optics softening.
A sharp, taloned servo, firm on his shoulder is what breaks him out of the immersion. The owner of said servo doesn’t need to forcefully turn him since he’s already doing so, but does anyway, and in quite the annoyed fashion at that.
Orion comes face to face with Starscream’s leveled look, face pinched in a frown. His wings make him look much taller than he (and his natural, frame-included heels) actually is, and Orion has to fight the urge to automatically look at them instead of the seeker’s face. But height is not meant to be the measure of his skill and competence as a member of the Air Command. He’s not even that short, the top of his helm still managing to just reach Orion’s intake, and Orion knows his frame is quite tall. Their height difference certainly isn’t enough to avoid the knowing, exasperated glare in his optics.
Unsurprisingly, Starscream does not look happy to be caught in this situation. Even when they were first sent out to one of Orion’s few outsourced archiving jobs, he made it very know how much he did not want to take the duty of his protector, that the sea would do terrible, uncomfortable things to his wings, that he didn’t want to chaperone Orion and his annoying wandering habits, and that if he was going to leave the comfort of his own home, he’d rather it be on a vacation instead of some “stupid business trip”. (That last part was the only thing to earn an affronted retort from Orion)
And yet, here they were, together, on a ship, on the ocean, heading (relatively) straight towards the source of Orion’s work, and a storm.
“You know, we should be going inside by now,” Starscream grumbled with no small amount of irritation, pointing a thumb back to where some few were escaping to safety. That could warrant some sympathy from Orion. He knew that as much seekers (or perhaps Starscream specifically) hated boats, they hated enclosed spaces much more. “Unless you’d like to stay up here and be thrown overboard,” he added with a nonchalant shrug. “If that’s what it takes for you to leave me alone, then I don’t really care.”
Orion, not for the first time, huffs a startled laugh at his callous words, before offering him a small, apologetic smile in return. “My sincerest apologies Starscream. But please, if you’d like, go ahead and wait for me downstairs. I’d like to help the crew as much as I can before I join you.”
Starscream crosses his arms, scoffing as he rolls his optics muttering something that Orion’s processor fills as “typical”.
Orion’s smile brightens as his friend, decidedly, does not wait for him (and makes it painfully obvious that he’s only doing it out of the goodness of his spark). The seeker makes it a point to show that he’s only there to join Orion for moral support, but it doesn’t work very well when something is promptly shoved into his servos anyway to carry to safety.
“I don’t understand why they couldn’t just have sent some flight frame. At least I could have just flown over the storm,” Starscream says with a roll of his optics and shift of his wings in lieu of his preoccupied servos. “Or better yet, become a flight frame yourself, Orion. You’d do wonders with a pair of wings.”
“A frame change would require extensive surgery, Starscream,” Orion says matter-of-factly as he kneels down to secure their items.
“Knock Out’s done it! Slag, he could do it for you. Maybe even for cheap,” he scoffs in response. “Though why in Primus’s name he would choose wheels over wings is beyond me,” he mutters to himself.
Orion finds himself chuckling in spite of himself. “Thank you for the suggestion, Starscream, but I find myself happiest with how I am.”
Starscream shrugs as he hands Orion his charge. “Your loss,” he says before offering a servo. “Terrible taste.” Orion smiles gratefully before taking it. Starscream pulls him up with a frankly deceptive strength, but Orion can’t find the will to mull over it when a flash of silver catches his eye, bright against the slowly darkening background of stormy seas.
He briefly squints, trying to make sure he isn’t seeing things, but it’s long enough that Starscream turns in confusion as well.
“What?” he asks as Orion brushes past him. “What, did you see lighting or something?” his tone increasing from annoyance directly to anguish.
Orion doesn’t answer, letting himself lean on the railing as he peers into the deep, murky waters before his optics widen in surprise, intake falling open in soundless awe. He doesn’t even know what Starscream’s reaction is, he himself is far too taken by the large shadows moving around the boat.
It’s too dark to truly tell what creatures they could be, anything about their coloring or patterns, and the water blurs their shapes, but there are many, a beautiful pod of them swimming away from the rough storm waters. They’re oddly large too, his original suspicion of them being Dolphinoids falling null at the realization.
One, Orion notices, weaves carefully through the rest of the pod, possibly the largest of all he’d seen and the only one swimming in the opposite direction. His brows furrow, his optics follow the shadow until he has to squint to keep it in his vision before it disappears. Curiosity and confusion take hold onto his mind, but he doesn’t need to think on them very long. Orion finds his spark somehow both melting and contracting tightly in it’s casing when he realizes with a start that the creature has returned with two much smaller shadows swimming beside it.
“Oh,” he vents softly. “Oh, Primus, that’s precious…”
“Are we done looking yet?” Starscream interrupts, more a statement than actually questioning him.
Orion paused before lifting his head, turning to Starscream with a flat look on his faceplates. To his credit, the seeker looked equally as unimpressed. Orion retaliates by raising an optic ridge, to which Starscream rolls his optics at, again.
“I thought you were going to help the crew,” Starscream drawls, waving a sarcastic servo.
Orion frowns at him, already turning back to the water. “Yes, of course, I’ll return right after-”
He cuts himself off when a flash of red catches his eye, jarringly bright and clear in the tenebrous water. Orion stares at it, frozen before he rapidly offlines and onlines his optics, only to find it vanished from his sights. Along with the rest of the pod.
“… What?” Starscream eventually asks impassively, arms crossing, digits tapping impatiently.
“Did you see that?” Optimus replies tersely, sounding rather unsure himself.
“The blobs? Yes Orion, I saw them,” Starscream says with another roll of his optics. Honestly, Orion isn’t sure how he isn’t dizzy with the sheer amount of optic rolling he does, but he decides to shelve the thought for later.
“No, the-” he glances back at the water hesitantly, only to find it empty and waiting. “I am sorry, I… I just thought I saw something.”
“Yes, that was the blobs.”
“No, something else-!” Orion cuts himself off with a groan. “Nevermind, perhaps I’m just seeing things. Let’s just return to see if we can help with anything else.”
“This is in absolutely no way a “we” thing,” Starscream retorts, wings flaring indignantly before quickly relaxing. “But fine, the sooner you’re done, the sooner we can get out of this scrappy weather.”
He was right. It was not just the sea that was dark, but the sky above them had turned a gray dark enough to rival Starscream without his paint. Orion found himself easily acquiescing (for perhaps once in all his functioning) with a nod as he followed Starscream back to the deck.
~
“Scrap!” Starscream shrieked, voicing Orion’s thought just short of perfectly. Personally, he would have preferred a stronger word, but “scrap” would do just fine.
They had approached the storm far sooner than expected. Perhaps it was an unlucky breeze, or they veered along the path of a current, but whatever the reason, Orion found himself violently losing his balance as the ship broke through thunderous waves with a terribly loud crash. Starscream’s clawed digits dug painfully into his forearm, trying to keep both of their pedes from escaping the ship in a flurry of water, foaming like the jaws of a beast.
“Get inside! We can take i’ from here, jus’ get yerselves to safety!” one of the crew members shouted at them.
Starscream’s helm whipped towards him, optics wide in a glare, dentae grit, and wings drawn up tight. “I fragging told you, Orion!!” he screeched, furious.
Orion couldn’t respond, he was too busy attempting to shield his optics from the rain pelting against his plating hard enough to feel the tiny vibrations they left behind. Starscream tugged at him harshly, trying to drag him down into their quarters by force, snarling every vulgarity that came to his processor.
However, as strong as Starscream may have been, even he was no match for semitruck frame.
For a moment, the world around Orion was strangely clear, as though it had frozen perfectly for him to watch as a bot, rather young, much younger than he, and gripping onto a rope fought a futile struggle against the wind and sea. The wave came as a call of ruin, a frothing, rising wall, an unwanted embrace, as it crashed against the side of the ship, and took into it’s arms the young bot over the edge. It was the flash of terror in the bot’s bright optics that returned the world to it’s unpredictable, angry nature.
“Overboard!” Orion shouted as loud as his voice could carry, ripping his arm out of Starscream’s hold and not even registering the stinging pain that followed. “Overboard, port side!”
His servos came to tightly grip the railing before he even realized it, frantically scanning the black, churning sea, his tight spark pulsing in tandem with the storm around him. He sent prayer after prayer in the few empty seconds, begging for Primus to let them spot the bot, to at least let her break the surface.
“Please,” he gasped, refusing to cycle the rain out of his optics, digging his digits desperately into the railing as Starscream and another mech slammed into the side, rope in hand.
‘Please!’
The splash she made was nothing in comparison to the fortresses rising from the sea, but the waves in Orion’s spark released all at once, his pulse hammering against his chassis in a brief, but shattering relief. The bot bobbed up and down over the water, desperate to keep afloat, but waved an arm. The mech beside Orion flung the buoy just as a few more mechs joined them, ready with a rope ladder.
“Orion!” Starscream screamed directly into his audial, attempting to tug him away when that wasn’t enough to get his attention. “Orion, we need to go! The crew will get her, but we need to get out of here!”
Orion shook his helm, unwilling to look away. “No! Starscream, I can’t! I have to make sure she’s alright!”
“That’s not your job-!”
Another wave sprouts from underneath her, and in a horrifying movement, drags her further away from the ship while throwing the life preserver too far to swim to. The mech next to Orion violently curses, muttering a prayer to himself as he quickly manages to pull the rope back in a skillful maneuver before preparing to throw it again.
Orion grabs his wrist.
“She won’t be able to get to it!”
“Then what else are we supposed to do?!” the mech spat back angrily.
Orion glanced between the bot and buoy, his jaw tight and servos closing into fists before his gaze finally rested upon the railing. Starscream’s optics widen beside him.
“Orion no-!”
But he isn’t fast enough.
Orion plucks the ring right out of the startled mech’s servos, takes a few quick steps back, and with all the strength he can muster, Orion pushes himself off the railing. His leap into his foolishness is oddly peaceful. Even Starscream’s shrieking sounds distant just before he feels himself plummeting into a flurry of bubbles.
Buoy in hand, Orion breaks the surface immediately, and doesn’t stop to consider the sheer illogical stupidity of his decision (or more accurately: impulse) as he wades further forward, reaching out an arm towards the terrified bot. She scrambles, trying the best she can to try to reach him, water tumbling against both of their frames and trying to throw them even further away.
Orion’s arms are beginning to tremble with strain, his struts stretching tight enough that his limbs might actually break away from his frame. His optics widen in horror when she swipes her servo through the air, so close, and yet unable to reach his digits; the water pulls her away again.
‘No!’ His servo clenches on water that slips through his fingers just like the bot floating away. ‘No!’
Maybe it’s a blessing, or perhaps it’s mercy, or maybe it’s just sheer dumb luck, but the bot suddenly surges forward, a startled look on her face, and unwilling to waste the chance (blessing, mercy, dumb luck, whatever it was) given, Orion’s arm snaps around her like a vice trap. Behind him, he hears a piercing, familiar shout, and for a moment, he feels his spark ease.
“Hold on!” he yells over the roar of the storm. Optics wide, she frantically follows his orders, wrapping her arms around the ring float, hugging it close as a shuddering sob escapes her. Orion waves back at the ship crew before covering her tired frame with his own. “You’re safe now,” he tells her softly. “You’ll be alright.”
Now there’s not much left to do but wait.
The trip back to the ship is rough, they float over waves taller than both of their frames that drop them without a care, quite desperate to hold onto their capture. The rain and sea combined try their best to blind them, but the tug of the buoy is a steady lifeline, dragging them over the water’s surface. The ships high sides are a beautiful thing to see, and Orion can’t help but allow himself a moment to relax, a hint of tension releasing from his frame in a small, grateful smile.
The powerful, ever benevolent sea is quick to punish him for it.
A shadow covers them like a blanket thrown. He doesn’t need to look at the faces of the mechs above them to realize the grave danger threatening them, the flash of panic in the several sets of glowing optics leaving nothing but a resigned sadness within him.
Heaving a deep sigh, he glances between the towering wave, the rope ladder waiting for them, the trembling bot beside him, before finally stopping at Starscream’s faceplate, wide optics shining bright, shouting something unheard to his thundering audials, and for the first time since Orion knew him, looking genuinely afraid. He offered his friend a small, apologetic smile.
::You were right:: he comms instead, ruefully watching as Starscream stiffens. ::I’m sure you would have preferred to hear me say it directly though::
Starscream’s lip plates move in another shout as he comms back. ::No! Orion, no, whatever you’re thinking in your stupid, noble processor, stop that! Orion!::
“We don’t have any more time,” he says urgently against the young bot’s audial. She looks up at him with big optics, dermas pressed together tightly. “Once you get to the ladder, hold onto it as tight as you can, and find your footing, okay? You cannot afford to hesitate. Do you understand?”
She replies with a quick, terrified nod. “Y-Yes- Yes sir!” she chokes out. “B-But-?”
‘If I survive this, Starscream is going to kill me,’ he finds himself thinking with a small laugh.
With whatever strength he has left, Orion pushes her forward. With the tug of the rope, the sudden loss of his prominent weight, combined with his added force, she is thrust forward into the side of the boat, instinctively scrambling for the rope ladder before she turns to him, optics wide in horror at the realization of what he’d just done.
Orion finds himself thankful that the crew immediately hauls her up to safety, not letting her attempt to reach for him despite her piercingly clear objection. He smiles up at her gently.
Orion turns his helm, watching the way the bow breaks the wave with a bated vent before shielding his face as the sea crashes over him.
The water is somehow too claustrophobic and stretching him thin all the same. The weight of the ocean is crushing against his frame, like a hydraulic compress leaving him for scrap, but the waves above aim to carry him back up only to toss him around like a toy. His CPU continues to ping him with notifications, comms from Starscream, water underneath his plating, and overwhelming his processor entirely. His optics cycle back and forth, trying to uselessly keep their vision from blurring to near blindness. A crawling feeling tingles strangely on his ankle of all places, compared to the stinging pinprick sensation he’d expected on his shoulder.
He manually forces his vents closed, trying to desperately rationalize with his CPU begging for him to panic, to frantically search for the ship, to scramble out of the water and find something to hold on to, to force himself afloat in a sea with the intent to rust and drown him.
Orion tries to swim up, attempting to gently kick his pedes when he nearly vents in alarm, shoulders tensing almost painfully when he realizes the sheer depth the horrifyingly endless ocean around him has taken him. The glinting surface suddenly seemed miles above him, and no matter how he tried, how he reached, he couldn’t get any closer. His optics continue their feeble attempts to clear his vision and only succeeding in adding more water into his sockets.
Something grips onto his forearms, tight like reinforced iron bars and nearly pressing dents into his plating with a servo-like spread. A shadow abruptly takes the span of his already bleak vision. Flinching like a wounded mechanimal, Orion unintentionally lets out a near soundless, bubble filled shriek, ripping his arms away and swimming back up to the surface.
It comes to him with a start that, in his desperation to escape some kind of fairytale fate, the he recognized the bright, glowing red- reds, watching him wide, like a pair of optics. Time and distance don’t let him think much of them when he bursts out of the water, servos coming up to wipe as much water out of his optics as he can, all while frantically looking around to find the ship.
Thunder claps in the cloudy sky, briefly illuminating the distant ship like either a blessed savior or some vassal of horror. He recognizes shouting, someone with large wings being held back, a mech lifting up the float ring, and a grip on his ankle that he can’t wrench out of before it pulls him down again.
A wave curls over him in an audible boom, and the flurry of bubbles shoves his rattling frame right down into something solid, large arms wrapping around him automatically as he scrambles against what he can feel as shoulders. In a section of his processor somewhere behind his adrenaline, he files that whatever it is that is intent on keeping him underwater (besides the sea) is decidedly some form of mechanism, and promptly hears an imaginary Starscream in his helm telling him to shut up and focus.
Orion unwittingly obeys, trying to force himself out of the creature’s hold, all too acutely aware of the waves trying to pull them up and sending them lower down once again.
It takes far too long for his processor to kick in and realize that the creature is not attempting to harm him – Primes, it’s been radiating a calming EM field for Primus knows how long, staring down at him with blurry red optics. When Orion finally stops actively struggling in his shock, the creature loosens its grip, albeit only slightly. Certainly not enough for him to wriggle out of it and escape before slowly taking them down, far enough to avoid the most extensive of jostling.
Orion freezes, shaking his helm, servos curling into loose fists before he points upward, optic glitching.
‘No!’ he tries to desperately convey. ‘I need to go back up!’ he thinks as he turns, pointing to the dark curve of the ship’s hull. When he turns back to the creature, the red is narrowed and promptly shakes, a universal symbol if any. Orion attempts to pull away slightly then, letting his field open to reveal how urgently he needs to return, releasing all his twined fear, worry, and guilt in a blip.
The creature falters, just barely, but Orion takes the jump.
He slips out of the creatures hold, but he doesn’t have enough strength to remove himself entirely before the creature’s arms are tight around him once again, field thrumming with surprise. Orion tries to kick himself away, servos scrambling to leverage himself back to the surface, but it’s a weak effort. His helm throbs, pounding in an unreasonably distracting pain that has him noticeably losing vision in a glitching optic.
The water pressure is too tight around his helm, Starscream has not let up in his well-meaning panic, and now the creature has started to emit a low noise, vibrating the water around them. His helm, his processor hurts so much, agonizing to the point he could almost reach up and rip the front of his cranial unit out just to make it stop. Ratchet wouldn’t be very happy with him though, the back of his processor chimes in.
He tries, but his effort is much weaker than he’d like it to be. His system is stretched thin trying to deal with the several prevalent issues both around and within him. His servos can’t seem to decide whether they should struggle against the creature’s grip, hold onto his helm, or swim up to the surface.
The creature lets out a small, deciding hum, its field radiating something comforting once more before a massive servo reaches up to gently cup the back of his helm and press him into it’s shoulder. Orion finds an undignified yelp escaping his intake when the creature is off like a shot, water rushing by them far faster than the waves ever were. Orion’s optics widen once more, trained on the ship only growing smaller. He tries to yell, hits the creature with a weak, useless fist, lets his field open once again, but he’s powerless to stop this.
Trapped and resigned, Orion wraps an unsteady arm around the creature, finally opening all of Starscream’s comms.
::I’m sorry Starscream::
::Orion?!::
::Orion where are you?!::
::I’ll be fine. At least, I think I’ll be fine::
::WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!::
::YOU IDIOT, WHERE ARE YOU?!::
::I promise I’ll be okay. I’ll find you again.::
Orion pauses, releasing a shuddering sigh before he sends his final comm.
::Sorry to leave you with the whole mess.::
::Orion!::
::Oh for frag’s sake, Orion!::
::Orion, respond!::
::Orion!::