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The landscape wasn't more than a devastated battleground, devoid of the lush colors of the surface and barely lit by the smoke curtains blocking the sun. The cacophony of the war began to disappear as he watched the bright blue energon flow and cascade down the grey chassis of his nemesis. How he hated having to refer to him as such.
It occurred so fast that he had to reset his optics twice to be sure. His energon axe still dripped with the life of the mech he felt so much for.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Megatron's fusion cannon lay attached to his torn arm as sparkles of electricity from his shredded cables tried to find a circuit path.
"I guess this is it..." He twitched as his broken chest plates and chamber exposed his shattered, leaking fuel tank and flicking spark.
The spark he had dreamed of one day being bonded for eternity lay now with an open laceration, emanating its light into the inferno his user had helped create.
"What a fitting end for myself, don't you think, old friend?"
The horror of what Optimus had done came crashing down too fast for him to process and do more than whisper a single word.
"Why?"
Why did it come to this? Why did this happen? Why did you want this? Why do you keep making me hurt you?
Megatron's vents screeched in turns, trying to work properly, and the horrible sound seemed like he was choking, but instead, he chuckled.
Optimus's fury returned, turning incandescent each time Megatron wheezed a laugh. How could he still laugh in this situation?
"Do you think this is funny?" Optimus trembled, suppressing the need to punch Megatron's mouth.
"Hilarious, actually, but someone like you would never understand..." Megatron's vocalizer rasped, but Optimus could identify the tinge of sadness behind the mocking tone. "But then again, what could I expect of a Prime?"
Optimus gritted his denta hard enough to chip a piece out. "Stop it, just stop already. You know I'm more than a Prime, Megatron."
Why can't you see it? Why do you keep stacking me up with all the others?
"So you say... Tell me, what did you do with the wisdom of that bauble inside you until now?" The sounds from his effort to speak made Optimus's audio finials twitch unpleasantly. "Did you manage to change Cybertron? Or did your new comfortable position make you forget about your lowly origin?"
Megatron grinned cruelly despite the pain he was probably feeling, and Optimus's optics flashed an intense dark sky blue as he fisted his servo tightly. He knew Megatron only wanted to bait him, so he held his barbed response.
"What? Am I not worthy of an answer by the illustrious savior Optimus Prime?" His red optic's light dimmed to a low burgundy color. "I guess I can't blame you... after..."
Optimus's optics widened, and his energon axe transformed back to his formal arm. "No, no..." He wobbled forward, darting his gaze to all the deep wounds of the mech before him, and knelt by Megatron's side. "Primus, please." He had lost so much energon it painted the rocks and dirt underneath.
"Don't waste your time." Megatron winced as an involuntary twitch of his body made his cracks burn.
"Shut up." Optimus servos were soaking in lukewarm neon blue, and something was shattering inside him.
"No one can fix a broken spark, Optimus... you know this."
"I said, Shut up."
He feared moving Megatron and further damaging his wounds. Were these even mendable? Where did the others go? They had separated in the battle too far from their troops, but he should at least try to call Ratchet. Megatron snatched his servo before he could press his fingers and try using his busted communicator, making him almost activate his defense protocols.
"Optimus," Megatron's optics lens refocused as he grimaced. "End this and then take my head to the council."
Optimus felt all his cables and struts freeze as he heard those rotten words. "How dare you?" His engine revved in outrage. "How dare you ask me that?"
"I did worse things." The grip on his servo was weakening. "This war is lost, and there is no point in prolonging this charade. You won Optimus Prime, so go ahead and claim your prize."
Megatron spoke with such bizarre and uncharacteristic calmness that Optimus wondered if he was in one of his recurring nightmares and couldn't help but let out a dry and cold laugh.
"Why do you think I haven't killed you the first time we fought or the other thousands of chances I had over all those millennia?"
Optimus could feel the cleaner fluid of his optics slowly running down, but he couldn't care less if he was showing weakness. He was tired of being the unbreakable leader Cybertron required he wasn't built to be.
"Prime-"
"Do you think it was because I couldn't do it? No, it was for a more selfish reason." Optimus held the trembling servo tight and opened his battle mask. "I... I still wanted to believe you would see reason and return to us."
He missed being just Orion Pax.
"I wanted you back," Optimus whispered.
He missed his best friend.
"It would've been," Megatron shut his optics for a second. "Impossible."
"Because you made it impossible!!"
"I..." Megatron's lips quivered slightly, and Optimus could see his forming tears about to fall.
"I begged and prayed for a solution so I could have you back in my life, but the Matrix never answered my pleas." His golden tears burned against his dirty and injured facial plate. "I wanted you even though everyone told me I was insane for wishing for such unachievable nonsense, but without this, what would I even have?!"
What would be the point of fighting in this endless war if not for a slim chance of getting the one who had illuminated so much of his life in those mines back?
"Tell me, D-16," why did you let me go?! "Do you even have any regrets at all?"
"...many," The red that had hunted his recharge for millennia slowly dissolved to that stunning shade of yellow Orion had become enamored with long ago. "So many I can barely count."
Optimus vents hitched an intake, and with his other servo, he curled his fingers over the bleeding, warm spark, making Megatron gasp.
"Pax..."
Please.
Please tell me one of them was...
"Orion, I—"
Orion cut him off and pushed his lips harshly against the ones he had desired the most in all this unrelenting suffering. The kiss was like a wrangle between glossas and denta as Orion tried to transfer all the years of loneliness, pain, sadness, and unending yearning.
"D, D, D," Orion kissed him again, just as intensely as the first, and bit those beautiful, plush lips. D-16 moaned, and Orion's spark pulsed as much as it ached for their fractured fate. " Please ..."
Orion dug his fingers, encasing D's fragile spherical shell in his servo, and kissed softly the last of D's tears, attempting to ignore the scents of energon, ash, and fire.
"It's been yours... from the very beginning." The black and red color of his plating began to fade, and terror gripped Optimus's spark. "Orion... Ori_o_nn... Ori...m..."
"D?" He tried his communicator, to no avail. No. No, no! This can't be! "D!"
"M...Hh...o...mn_e..."
"Please, D-16, don't leave me!!"
Please, Primus, don't take him away from me!
D's optics lights flicked one last time, off-lining as his whole body lost its remaining warmth and slumped against the dirt with a small thud. The servo in his had no strength, but Orion did not let go, staring and unblinking at the lightless optics.
How long did he remain there just waiting?
At some point, his internal systems returned online, and in his servos lay a cold, broken spark. His audio signals catch the tremors of wheels driving fast over dirt approaching, but he dismissed the care to discern who they belonged to. As delicately as he could, he caressed D's discolored derma, running his fingertips over the hard lines of his cheeks and finally shutting his optics all the way.
"Optimus!"
Elita-1, Prowl, and Ratchet approached quickly, asking him in variations of worry and irritation too many questions he promptly disregarded. Numbly, he activated his axe and, with one swing, severed D's neck cables. The war was over one way or another.
When he rose to his pedes and turned to his friends, they stepped back. Their aghast expressions barely registered in his processor as he cradled the remains of his beloved close to his spark chamber.
"Let's end this once and for all."
The beautiful azure of Cybertron's sky gradually tinged to a perdition red, and now his friends could only pray to Primus that the once-bright miner who brought once hope would return one day.