Duobus

His fall ended nearly before it began, halted by the hand roughly grabbing his wrist. He looked up, simultaneously shocked and grateful.

Megatron's full lips formed the twisted parody of a smile. "There are some deaths I wouldn't wish on anyone." He frowned, pulling Optimus upwards. "This is one of them."

They collapsed together on top of the ledge. Optimus landed across Megatron's chest, gasping just as hard as his rival, but the moment left him too emotionally drained to move--and Megatron made no efforts at shoving him away. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Megatron's fangs gleaming between his slightly parted lips. He made every effort not to stare, but such a task proved difficult when he had no other direction to look.

"Thanks, Megatron," Optimus said, hoping his words filled the odd silence.

Megatron smirked. "Thanks for not dropping you?"

Optimus picked his head up and met Megatron's eyes, "I guess."

"Don't read too much into it. If you weren't about to fall into acid, I would have left you there."

For some reason, Optimus found that funny. "Then I'm glad it was acid."

Both laughed, though it didn't dispel the odd new tension edging into existence.

The smirk on Megatron's face faltered. Optimus stopped laughing and mirrored his unexpected frown.

Something in the air between them grew suddenly warmer, drawing them closer. Optimus heard Megatron's intakes quiet and forced his own to follow. The tangible heat became a gravity well whose event horizon he'd already crossed. It scared him--this instant--as he let his eyes follow the long scar marring Megatron's serious features. He could smell the traces of lead and nickel in the solder. Or was that scent part of Megatron's natural odors, which was a mix of oil, warm metal and hydraulic fluid?

He felt his face inch closer to those smells, breathing, aching, submerging, until blue lips touched gray.

Optimus' mind reeled. This wasn't occurring. He wasn't kissing his enemy. Megatron's lips weren't silky smooth and beautiful against his own. He wasn't--

Megatron moaned in...relief?...and tilted his head. Optimus felt a rough tongue brush the edges of his lips, and the reality he once knew crumbled the moment his own glossa rose to meet it. Optimus tasted the dangerous peaks and valleys of Megatron's impressive fangs and the smoothness on the roof of his mouth.

Everything hung like a fireball between their dueling tongues. What they once were, what they were now and what they would be existed all at once in a single, sizzling Spark-beat.

They drew back an inch and Optimus saw his own realization reflected in the other's glistening eyes. Bitter awareness crashed like thunder, opening an invisible valley. Autobots and Decepticons were oil and water. Autobots and Decepticons did not fall for each other. This was wrong.

Megatron shoved Optimus aside and scrambled upright. He put several paces between their bodies. Optimus backed against the wall, grasping it to keep reality in phase. He still tasted Megatron on his aching lips.

What had they done?

"This..." Megatron stammered, "Th-this never happened." Except his eyes didn't match his voice. There was something so desperate and vulnerable in them that Optimus wanted nothing more than to reach out and relive that kiss all over again. Yet, simultaneously, he, too, almost convinced himself the previous sixty seconds didn't actually happen. They...they were enemies...leaders of opposing factions.

Factions that no longer existed.

The grief Optimus spent their journey suppressing threatened his self-control. He and Megatron...no other Cybertronians existed beyond them. The end of their lives marked the end of their kind. What point was there to continue their hatred?

...he's a Decepticon.

Decepticons are dirty.

Decepticons are the enemy.

Old prejudices didn't just die because someone wanted them to.

...but the Autobots created them, and I ignorantly let it continue.

Optimus bit his tongue hard so he wouldn't shed tears. This was just so wrong.

Megatron turned away, gazing out over the domed ceiling and mirrored surfaces. He laid his hand over the emergency food cylinder attached to his side by magnets. His expression remained unreadable. Did this moment hurt him, too?

"Megatron?"

"I remember the grand Cyber City cathedral. The Primusian one with the golden spire setting it apart from the surrounding structures." Megatron said, avoiding Optimus' curious stare. "My first day on the surface, I stood at its base and looked into the window. It was all cloisters and mirrors like this. That was the day I understood the concept of 'sparkle.'"

"I remember it." Optimus replied. "I--"

"And the tower..." Megatron went on as if he hadn't heard. He touched the wall, peering intently at his own reflection. "...every sound inside resonated all the way down into the mines. Even before I saw the sun, I knew when it was rising by listening. I waited every single day just to hear the morning chanter sing the sun into the sky. Every day, Prime, and I'm not even religious. He had the most beautiful voice I ever heard. His replacement wasn't anywhere near as talented."

Nodding, Optimus sympathized because he missed those shining mornings where he filled the city with his voice. If there was anything he could give back to Megatron, it was that...but he didn't know how. He never liked to boast about his hidden talent. No one other than the priests knew he chanted.

"I miss it, too." He admitted. "It was built just perfect inside. Voices spiraled and resonated right to the openings. Incredible sound amplification without electronics."

"Mm. Well...no sense crying over it." Megatron dismissed the subject with a derisive snort and walked towards the narrow opening in the wall. The next chamber was another smooth, silver dome that made his voice ring pleasantly in the silence. Recharge wouldn't be hard--very little light existed, providing a calm, quiet atmosphere. "It's getting late. We should conserve our energy."

"Good idea." Optimus said. He sat against the wall just inside the door.

Not surprisingly, Megatron chose the opposite wall. The glow of his eyes flickered as his systems powered down.

"What will we do about our energon?" asked Optimus.

"Ration."

Optimus began to wonder if there was even a point to that. What if it took months to reach another door? What if nothing awaited them at the end of their journey? What if their hunger drove them into irrationality? What if they killed each other before then?

Was there any hope?

And what about the events in the previous room? They...kissed...and it felt wonderful. Optimus still tasted it on the edges of his lips. He had no idea what possessed him to do that--he should hate Megatron! They were enemies! He was a Prime, for slag's sake, and Primes were supposed to be virginal, pure-Sparked mechs with no desires beyond protecting the Autobot faction. Megatron's scent made him feel carnal things too lustful to think about, but he couldn't stop the rushing desire.

Maybe I don't deserve the Matrix of Leadership. I...shouldn't have kissed him. Oh, Primus, I feel like I've failed my--

"For the fourth time, good night, Orion," Megatron's whisper dispelled Optimus' thoughts. The acoustics carried his voice like an amplifier.

"Huh? Oh...uh...good night."

Optimus shut out his thoughts and silence took over.

.o

Megatron still slept when Optimus' recharge cycle reached completion. He'd flopped backwards against the wall, head back and mouth slack, and Optimus almost laughed at the snoring. Megatron could fall into recharge anywhere.

No sleep seemed restful enough for the weary Autobot leader. Optimus still felt exhausted, as if he didn't get any rest at all. His servos ached from overuse. All of his fluids were due for a change, but with no place to do so, he'd have to continue recycling his wastes and risk sludge building in his engine parts. He yawned to clear his intakes of condensation and checked his internal chronometer to judge whether it was day or night above ground. Keeping track of days and nights gave him something besides Megatron to ponder.

It was exactly daybreak. The horizon would be brilliant blue, foretelling a glorious golden sunrise whose beauty was only matched on Earth.

Megatron shifted in his sleep. His head fell forward, closing his mouth and silencing his snores. Optimus heard him grunt a few times and realized his rival didn't get any rest from his recharge, either. What would someone like Megatron dream about?

There he went again, thinking in directions he shouldn't. He forced his mind to another subject.

I wonder if Primus ever heard the prayers I sang. Optimus wondered. He winced at the painful hope in his Spark. Maybe if I sang a few here...maybe I'd find a reason for all of this.

He pushed himself onto his feet and tip-toed towards the middle of the room. Even his quietest servos created an achingly familiar cacophony in the chamber. He stood straighter and transported his mind back to the tower, to the fantastic light of the morning streaming in across the mirrored walls. The chants from millennia ago remained burned in his mind, and the day he quit chanting was the day he died a little inside. And when the first few notes fluttered easily past his lips, it felt like time itself ran in reverse. He didn't need to sing very loud. The surrounding chamber caught his voice and swirled it into a tornado of sound. He chanted in Ancient, a language so old only scholars, priests and chanters knew how to read, write or speak it. Many said it was the language of Primus himself.

Optimus let his mind get lost in the rise and fall of his own voice. This was the sound of peace.

The actual chant wasn't as complicated as it sounded. What seemed like a long stream of words was actually the same phrases repeated over and over. It was the echoes that created the illusion of complexity by muddling one phrase into the next.

"Primus! Ostende nobis misericordiam tuam.
Clamor ad te veniat meus.
Exaudi orationem meam.
Refugium nostrum et virtus--
et vivificantem--
oremus, Primus!"

Each note clamored off the walls and coiled back into the next line. It sounded as if four people were singing at once. Tones overlapped, folds of sound finding every curve and dancing back to be sent out again.

Optimus knew exactly what he sang about--

Primus! Show us thy mercy.
Let my cry come onto thee.
Hear my prayer.
Our refuge and strength--
the giver of life--
let us pray, Primus!

--and the part of him that hadn't lost faith yet hoped that here, supposedly inside the plating of his own god, his prayers would be heard.

Optimus intoned the prayer three times. First from the lowest part of his voice, then in the middle and at last, from his highest register. He saw Cybertron the way it was before the chaos tore it apart. He saw the people, friends and foes alike--people he'd never see again--and couldn't hold the tears in any longer. They poured from his eyes as freely as the prayers from his mouth. Despite the tears and grief, his voice did not waver. He wouldn't let it.

The song settled his mind into a meditative state of deep prayer. Only his mouth moved to form words. The rest of him stood absolutely still, a statue cast in steel. He grew vaguely aware of hands on his shoulders and a weight against his back, but he didn't stop chanting until the final note passed his lips.

Suddenly, the chamber became as silent as a tomb. Nothing moved.

Megatron's intakes hitched. Optimus didn't turn around. He didn't want to see Megatron cry because people like him weren't supposed to show weakness in front of others.

"If Primus is real. If he exists," Megatron whispered in his audio, "he sings with that voice."

Somehow, Optimus smiled through his pain. He let himself reach up and pat the hand clinging tightly to his left shoulder.

"Please...Orion...could I trouble you to sing that one more time?"

Optimus forced himself to turn around and face the other mech. Megatron's expression revealed nothing. There were many tears present, each streak a raw scar bleeding. Faces and sunlight flickered in every golden-hued teardrop. The longing in Megatron's optics hurt worse than losing his entire world.

Optimus caught a droplet on his thumb and tasted a sweetness bordering on bitterness. Right then, he'd do anything to take that pain away, and if singing once more was that anything...

He began to chant again, and the joy he saw in Megatron's eyes was the sun peeking through the eye of a hurricane...

.o

...right before more clouds rushed in.

Everything that took place in the domed chamber stayed there like yesterday's dust.

Silence pervaded as they made their way into a winding corridor so narrow they had to scoot through sideways. Progress was slow, perhaps several hundred feet per day for many days with barely any rest in between. The rough walls scratched their already battered paint jobs, chipped solder off wounds and pressed dents into armor plating.

"Optimus," Megatron groused, "can't you move any faster?"

"No. Not when I'm on unfamiliar terrain."

"How much further?"

"Not a lot." Optimus ducked awkwardly through the low opening and offered Megatron his hand to help him out. Megatron slapped it away and assisted himself by bracing his palms on the walls. His cannon scraped noisily against the roughened archway, and for a moment it looked like he'd gotten stuck. Only when Optimus "accidentally" bumped his leg into it did Megatron finally emerge.

They stood in a space so small they couldn't avoid touching each other in some form or another. No doors, no paths, no openings...it was a dead end the size of a closet.

A week of shimmying sideways just for this?

"And you claimed to have a wonderful sense of direction..." Megatron scoffed. He shoved his way over to the blank wall in their path. It glowed blue while he went on, "Well, Optimus, you've wasted a week of our time and rations. Now wh--AAH!"

"Megatron?" Optimus jolted back as the glow of a warp gate dazzled his optics. "Megatron!"

He tried his radio to no avail--Megatron was beyond his range.

Being completely alone in the tiny room rushed around Optimus like a tsunami. No one to argue with. No voice complaining in his ear. No footsteps echoing his own. He couldn't fathom it. If he didn't leap through the warp gate, he'd condemn himself.

Alone.

No choice.

For all Optimus knew Megatron injured himself landing on other side. Or worse...but he refused to consider that alternative.

He stepped forward into the cold sensation of his molecules transporting themselves to another location. The wormhole spat him face-first onto a smooth, purplish-silver ground. He sat up and checked his coordinates. Still on Cybertron, but somewhere beneath the northern hemisphere. Hadn't he and Megatron been under the southern hemisphere? Why was there a warp gate here?

Optimus pushed himself up and glanced around. The surrounding area was little more than a tall, narrow cavern bearing another engraved door. He spotted Megatron standing by the doorframe, studying the engraved figures glistening on its silver surface.

"Megatron!" This chamber didn't echo like the last one. "Are you okay?"

Megatron snorted. "I'm made of much sterner stuff than you are, Optimus."

Optimus swallowed his rude retort and joined Megatron by the double doors. The engraved figures now stood inside planet Cybertron, holding hands. Their interlocked fingers marked the exact center of the doorway.

Megatron extended his hand without a word, his face more unreadable than ever. He looked so tired...and meeting his eyes let Optimus again see himself--a war-weary, lonely mech dreading the end of their kind.

Optimus grasped the offered hand and tried to flash a reassuring smile, but his lips merely quivered instead.

"We'll be okay," he whispered, and Megatron squeezed his hand.

The door split open without ceremony. No grinding or old joints groaning, just a slow, sideways slide revealing another titanic room. So tall, in fact, that it left the ceiling hidden in darkness.

"Optimus...the walls!"

Optimus stepped between the doors and they closed behind him. He followed Megatron's confused gaze to something he found both fascinating and terrifying.

Their lives had been engraved there. Megatron's on the left, Optimus' on the right. The images went on beyond the veil of darkness covering the ceiling and extended onto the floor, merging right when the war intertwined their existences. Even their most recent escapades--the chaos on the surface and their sojourn into the mines--were carved on the floor. The engravings just behind them ended in two figures loitering inside the massive door they just entered.

Gulping, Optimus glanced at the tile under his and Megatron's feet.

It was a featureless silver panel with a mirror finish.

The rest were mirrors as well, and if Optimus stared long enough he swore he saw smoke or fog swirling around the blank tiles directly ahead.

"What is this?" Megatron snarled, looking around. His quick, jerky movements and clenched jaw gave his emotions away. Optimus noticed Megatron tended to cover his fear with anger, and situations he couldn't comprehend or explain scared him almost as much as acid pools. "Is this a joke? I demand an explanation!"

"I wish I could offer you one." Optimus answered. He took a step and light flooded down the corridor, illuminating a silver sphere floating in the massive chamber dead ahead.

Megatron growled and shifted his weight.

Optimus started towards the sphere. It had an almost hypnotic pull--he had to get closer.

"Optimus!"

"It doesn't look dangerous. Come on."

The sphere was twice their height and a perfect model of planet Cybertron in all its former glory. Seeing it sent dull, aching pains across Optimus' Spark. It had been months since he saw the sky...and he was distressed when he realized how dim those memories were becoming as time wore on. They were fading away the same way the walls faded into the too-distant ceiling.

Seeing a model of Cybertron pained Megatron, too. Optimus reached over and laid a hand on his shoulder. The gesture was neither accepted nor refused.

Suddenly, the miniature planet started to rotate. Purple fog rose from the floor, enveloping the sphere in shimmering violet. Everything on the planet's surface crumbled like dust, mimicking exactly the landscape Optimus awoke to. After the last dust grain fell, the heat began. The surface was molten, uninhabitable for even the simplest life forms.

Optimus almost averted his optics. He didn't want to remember!

And then Optimus heard the Matrix of Leadership speak to him for the first time since he accepted his role as Prime:

Duobus.

The voice was a soft tenor as light and insubstantial as morning mist. The sound of it alone brought comfort and well-being.

Duobus.

"Duobus?" Optimus frowned, holding up a hand before Megatron could spit out a harsh comment.

Pacis venio ut bellum nunquam est.

"What the...where is that coming from?"

So Megatron could hear it as well. He had no grasp of the Ancient language at all, or else he would've understood every word.

"Peace is the war that never happened." Optimus translated out loud. Was this the voice of Primus? His optics widened. This had to be Primus! "Megatron...it's...it's Primus speaking to us."

"All I hear is mumbling!"

"No. It's Ancient." Optimus struggled to wrap his mind around the reality of the moment. Talking to his god, his creator...what should he say?

Primus spoke first:

Diligo contemno et sunt perturbatio.

"Translation?" Megatron growled.

"Love and hate are passion." Optimus gritted his teeth when he found himself losing patience with the riddles. "Oh...holy and ever-living Primus..." he buried his irritation and asked the only question a Prime should ask in this situation. "Can Cybertron be saved?"

Duobus te...sic.

Megatron growled. Being so tired and torn up left his temper shorter than Optimus remembered.

"Optimus, what is going on? Someone had better explain this madness!"

But Optimus hardly heard him as images flashed over his mind like a holo-movie on fast forward. Glimpses of the war, violence, the surface of Cybertron burning and time itself ripping apart at the seams. Megatron clutched at his head and bellowed for it to stop. Then the sphere in front of them suddenly shattered, opening the path to a shining, golden door. Engraved upon it were two figures.

They were kissing.

Irae subsisto. Salva me.

"What did he say?"

"Stop the wrath. Save me." Optimus faced Megatron, glancing over his shoulder treads at the golden doors that glowed in an almost holy light. The weight of realization nearly floored him. "Our war is killing Primus, which means it's killing us. He did that..." He gestured upwards towards the uninhabitable surface, "...to make us stop fighting."

Horror crossed Megatron's features. "W-what kind of god kills his children to stop a war?"

"What kind of people continue to fight when their hatred is poisoning the god that gave them life?" Optimus stepped closer to his almost lifelong rival. "Our fighting, our constant, incessant fighting, did this! All of this is our fault! Our fault!"

"Optimus, I--"

Optimus forced himself to face all those "wrong" feelings he'd been so painfully aware of when he saw Megatron repairing his own legs. He stared straight into himself, toe to toe with his thoughts on Megatron's unique and attractive facial features. Were his emotions wrong, or were the prejudices he let get in the way wrong?

"Megatron, in all the years we've been fighting, you've had several opportunities to kill me...yet you never took the final shot. Have you ever asked yourself why?"

"Because it would've been pointless. Because--because..." Megatron floundered for words. The cavern shook around them, raining dust and rocks from the ceiling far above. He dodged the last boulder and snarled as it shattered behind him. "If I'm going to kill you, I want to do it while looking into your eyes!"

"Then do it, Megatron!" Optimus grabbed the cannon on Megatron's back and aimed it at his chest. "Do it. Go on."

Again, slack-jawed horror flashed over Megatron's face. He was more afraid of this moment than all the loneliness in existence. A fear Optimus recognized all too well because he felt it, too. Both felt something they'd never admit to because it'd undermine their entire war...and end it. As long as they fought they didn't have to face this moment. They didn't have to face their emotions. They didn't have to face rejection. One word could've stopped the fighting, the dying and the pain. But one word was too easy.

What were they trying to prove? Their battle prowess? Their ability to conquer?

"This is nonsense!" Megatron snarled.

"Then finish me off. If you don't feel a thing for me, finish me off right now, Megatron." He kept his gaze steady on Megatron's eyes, taking in the swirling emotions his words awoke. "Go on. You win. You've won the war, Megatron. Cybertron is yours to conquer. Take it. It's yours!"

Their world continued to tremble, but they remained steady.

"S-stop it!" Megatron backed away a step.

Optimus slipped closer, passing the cannon. "For the longest time I thought I was just infatuated. But Primes aren't supposed to have lusts or desires beyond protecting the people. I spent a long time ashamed and afraid of what I felt. You're my rival. You symbolize everything the Autobots are supposed to hate."

"I hate you!" Megatron sneered venomously. "I loathe you, Optimus Prime!"

"You say that, but do you believe it?"

"Stop it!"

Optimus moved the cannon aside. "Is it me you hate, or is it what I represent?"

"Megatron bared his fangs. "I said stop it! Unhand me, now!"

"Megatron," Optimus leaned closer, cupping Megatron's face in his hands and feeling the other's lips tremble. "Let's finish our war."

"Fine!"

And the blinding pain of a fist against his jaw knocked his world off kilter. He landed on his back while Megatron stood over him, his body still twisted in a follow-through. Dull pain spread throughout his face and neck. He got right back up without changing his expression.

"Hit the other side," said Optimus. He turned his head, presenting the other cheek to his rival. "Go on."

Megatron's red optics opened wide. "You're crazy!"

"Do it, Megatron. Hit me again. Maybe--"

Another punch staggered him, but he kept talking.

"--maybe when realize you aren't accomplishing anything--"

An uppercut nearly offlined his sensory circuits. He stumbled until he regained his footing.

"--you'll listen to more than your basic programming."

"Shut UP!"

"Megatron!" Optimus' jaw ached when he snarled, "Look around! We have no factions. The people most likely to condemn us are dead! Dead! What's stopping us now? Fear?"

"How dare you imply that I'm afraid of you," snarled Megatron, his tone low and dangerous.

Optimus backhanded him. It was the hardest he'd ever hit another living being in his life, and knowing he enjoyed the pain he caused frightened him a little.

The purple mech fell backwards against the wall. His head rolled as he tried to remain online. Optimus waited patiently for him to recover.

Megatron regained himself quickly. Almost too quickly.

In a flash he jumped up and swung his fists one after the other, only to have them caught in Optimus' grasp. He struggled fruitlessly, and for a moment Optimus pitied him. All his life he only knew hardship, violence and struggle. His life and the way the Autobots treated his kind made him into a monster.

But some monsters...a very scant few...were still good people deep down. Their Sparks were in the right place, but their actions painted the wrong picture about who they were. Megatron was one of those.

Optimus grinned, flashing his straight, white teeth. He saw his opening. "It's not me you're afraid of, is it? It's what you see when you look at me...you see yourself, don't you?"

The stony silence was all the answer he needed. Flinging Megatron's fists aside, Optimus lunged and captured that full, round mouth with his own. He could taste Megatron's rage on the very tip of his tongue. Megatron resisted with all the fire in his being...before suddenly grasping Optimus' head in both hands and kissing violently back. Optimus felt those dangerously pointed teeth scrape against the sensitive inner surfaces of his lips. He bit Megatron's bottom lip and a growling moan vibrated his teeth.

"Harder," Megatron grunted. Optimus obliged.

Reality performed a loop and he found himself slammed against the wall, a ravenous mouth full of fangs working its way across his throat. All over his neck cables, he felt pinching nips and suckling like those blood-sucking fantasy creatures from human horror films--he couldn't remember what they were called in his deliriously aroused state. Sharp purple fingers screeched clumsily across his battered, scratched plating. He heard the coolant roaring past his audios and cycled air faster to keep his internal temperature from rising too high. His whole body tingled on the verge of something wonderful. Nothing about the way Megatron handled him was gentle. None of this happened like he imagined...

...it was better.

"You are too easy to arouse, Optimus," Megatron looked up, desire glowing within his eyes like subdued flames. He leaned in, snarling, for another kiss.

"Let's end the war." Optimus whispered between lip locks. The hands tangling in his chest grill didn't help his train of thought. "L-Let's stop it right now. If we're going to die here...do you really want hate to be the last emotion you feel? Do you want to die lying to yourself?"

Megatron pulled back, glaring. "People like us aren't meant to love."

Optimus touched the thin line of energon trickling over his rival's nose. Backhanding him opened the scar he'd soldered and it shed paper-thin tears. "But we can learn. Remember the doors?" He gazed into Megatron's red optics, grasped his hand and gently kissed him again. "Just like the carvings."

"But--all this time--fighting...I can't just let it go like this. Everything we've done in the past has been pointless! I can't just let go!"

"Yes, you can. I'd prefer it that way. It's..." Optimus smiled at the irony and rubbed his aching jaw, "...less painful."

But Megatron shoved him away and stormed over to the open golden door, shaking his head. "This is absurd! I feel like we've been enemies since the dawn of time! And you expect me to drop everything? Have you blown a processor?"

"You say that when you've stared at my unmasked face every time you thought I didn't notice."

Megatron averted his eyes. "So you have a nice face."

"I always thought you were pretty attractive."

"Don't joke with me. It's an Autobot trait to consider Decepticons hideous."

"I got fed lines about how miners are supposed to be disfigured, dirty mechs. I believed it until I saw you. You...never struck me as ugly."

Megatron brushed a finger against the scar marring most of his face. "My appearance has always been a source of pride for me. But now...my paint is almost scratched off. I'm missing pieces. I'm scarred--"

Optimus chuckled. "You still turn my head."

The poisonous look shot his way only made him laugh more.

Megatron kept glaring as he stalked through the doorway, and Optimus had to follow quickly before the door closed. The events that just took place remained behind the doorway they just entered. Optimus obeyed Megatron's tacit signals to drop it.

Realizing why sent pain shooting across Optimus' Spark.

Megatron doesn't think he deserves another's love. He reacts the way he does because he doesn't know anything else.

"Optimus, come on! Stop staring into space!"

"I wasn't--"

"Then close your mouth and start walking."

Embarrassed, he shut his mouth--ignoring the residual soreness in his mandible joints--and tried not to think about the buzzing arousal Megatron set off in his electrical system. Impure thoughts raced through his mind, threatening his ability to think clearly. Only when he forced his memory chips towards images of the surface did his desire plummet to tolerable levels. He looked around once he'd cleared his head.

They stood within tall, round chamber absolutely covered in Ancient glyphs. The marks were so close together that Optimus couldn't quite tell where one sentence ended and another began. Strange, green light glowed between the cracks in the aged walls.

The only direction they could go was down a long, winding spiral staircase, a trip Optimus spent trying to discern the elaborate writing all over the golden-hued walls. It was as if every word ever spoken had been documented somewhere in the room. He stopped to stare, forgetting for a moment that Megatron went on without him. The other mech's footsteps clanged into the distance. Optimus didn't notice Megatron was gone until he heard his footsteps come rushing back up the stairs.

"Optimus!" Megatron growled, "Stop gawking at the walls and get down here!"

"What in the world is your pr--" Optimus' words died at the strange gleam in Megatron's eyes. "What?"

"I..." Megatron bit his lip. He had the haunted appearance of someone whose entire belief system was turned upside down. His hands were shaking.

"Megatron?" Optimus hedged.

Looking up, Megatron voiced the impossible.

"I saw Primus."