Little Comforts

By Dreaming of Everything, betaed by mmouse15, written for Neurquadic!

Author's Notes: This takes place in-between chapters nine and ten of Sheer Dumb Luck (story ID 4327380) but isn't actually part of the canon continuity of SDL—think of it as more of a deleted scene, or a fanfic of my own fanfic. (I know, I'm ridiculous sometimes.)

It was written for Neurquadic (user ID 1359877), who drew me absolutely incredible fanart—you can find the link on my profile page! It's truly spectacular, and so I offered to write her something, and this is the end result of her request—I hope you all enjoy it!

Ratchet twitched as he looked up, startled enough to almost stab himself with the welder he was fiddling with.

He hadn't been expecting Scavenger. Not standing so close.

(What didn't escape his attention was how he hadn't reacted aggressively. He'd reacted stupidly, yes, but he hadn't gone on the offensive, transformed any of his weapons, none of that.)

"Hello," Ratchet said, after a second, because there wasn't much else to say.

"Hi," Scavenger said. He'd been staring at him, but as he spoke he turned his head to the side, looking away and down. His sensor-spikes were...drooping. He looked withdrawn, almost—depressed?

"What's—is there something wrong?" Ratchet said, frowning. He shouldn't feel protective, maybe, but—he did. In a strange way, he guessed that he was responsible for the health of the Constructicons, at least partially, since he'd taken on the task of repairing Bonecrusher, and that meant he was repairing all of the Constructicons, and he'd repaired Long Haul and Mixmaster when they'd been injured, and it was his duty. Slag it.

"Oh!" Scavenger said, looking up, looking far too startled and hopeful and happy and innocent for any Decepticon at all. "No—no, everything's fine." And for some reason, he did look much happier, all bright and smiling. "I guess I just startled you?"

Ratchet looked at him a little oddly for a minute, before he just decided to let it go. "You did," he said, turning back down to his work. The little wound on his hand where he'd gotten himself with his welder was nothing more than a little bothersome, and that only because he had sensitive hands to help with his job as medic.

That didn't stop Scavenger. This time, Ratchet was controlled enough not to flinch when the mech wrapped himself around him, peering over his shoulder to look at the small injury with concern as he threaded his arms around Ratchet's shoulders in a way that should have been threatening, claustrophobic, but wasn't. "Are you okay?" he asked. "I really didn't mean to startle you—I guess I'm not used to people not knowing when I'm there." He looked almost pathetically apologetic. Ratchet felt like he should be irritated but, really, he wasn't. Even at the implications—that only the Constructicons really counted—and at how he'd apparently forgotten that Ratchet wasn't one of them, wasn't a Decepticon at all.

"It's nothing," he said, instead. "I can hardly feel it. It's hardly like this is a weapon." He hefted the welder, which truly was inoffensive—it was meant for fiddly repair work, not cutting through sheets of armor.

...He should be complaining more about how Scavenger was clinging to him. It wasn't like anything had really changed—well, it had to the Constructicon. Apparently, it had erased whatever lingering remnants of propriety had been keeping him in check.

Instead, the next time Ratchet needed to reach down to grab a tool, he let his hand brush against Scavenger's tail, which had been wrapped firmly around his leg, approximately where the knee joint was. Scavenger made a happy noise in response, and pulled himself even closer, if that was possible.

"You're going to need to let go a little for me to keep on working," Ratchet said, but his too-warm tone belied any causticity that would have been there, otherwise.

And Scavenger made a slightly mollified noise—not that he looked at all regretful, shameless as he was, as he smiled down at Ratchet—and did let go, untangling himself from where he'd ended up wound around the Autobot.

Ratchet ignored him, turning all his concentration back to his work. After a few moments he became aware of the other again—he'd found a chair of his own, and he pulled it close to the working medic, so that he could hook Ratchet's leg with his in a strange sort of embrace, and wrap his tail around the other leg, and sink his fingers into a gap in Ratchet's armor in a way that was barely sexualized at all, and look over to watch what Ratchet was working on. Not that he was likely to understand anything—he just wanted to see. Damned curiosity, and endless fascination in what everyone else was doing.

As he worked, Ratchet could feel the slight hum of the other's engine, the vibrations carried through Scavenger's frame to his own. It was...oddly comforting. Warm, like things were—right. For no explicable reason. So when Ratchet finished what he was working on, rather than move everything and clean up and prepare to go back into town and his life as a dutiful undercover Autobot, silent and effective and not at all a traitor, he put aside his tools and stayed where he was, maybe leaning back a little more fully into Scavenger, who shifted his grasp a little to allow the movement. And after a while, Ratchet let his arm fall against Scavenger's shoulder, and eventually his fingers ended up brushing gently against one of the sensors, holding it in a loose, gentle grasp.

It was very quiet, the only sounds their systems running, and it was very, very...

Comforting. Ratchet was—happy.

--End--