Title: Juxtaposition: Brink

Canon: G1, "Juxtaposition" AU

Description: "Some memories, she supposed, were forever scarring." Evelyn and Sideswipe have a 'moment'.

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. HasTak does. I didn't write "Juxtaposition". Vaeru did.

Author's notes: Sorry this one is short. I'm working on another one of these that is much longer, and this just popped up in the meantime. I should mention that these snippets jump around in no particular order, either, but that should be fairly obvious.

Speaking of meantime, Vaeru has begun "Schism" at long last! I'm psyched, guys. Are you psyched? I am so psyched.

Brink

Take me to the edge so I can fall apart
'Cuz there's only one way to mend a broken heart.
- Wailin' Jennys, Beautiful Dawn

She was finally adjusted.

The realization came to her as she sat on a giant, discarded tractor tire in the the Autobots' warehouse-turned-secret-base, going through a stack of forms Prowl had printed off human-size for her and unwrapping the sandwich she had grabbed from the "refrigeration unit" Wheeljack had installed and Jazz had lovingly (and mysteriously) filled with all Good Things For Evelyn to Eat (That Won't Make Her Toss Her Cookies).

The unexpected epiphany occurred when Sideswipe walked by humming the Oscar Meyer Wiener Song and she hadn't even bothered to glance up in annoyance. And that's when it hit her: somehow, here in a decrepit building that smelled of oil and gasoline and things she'd rather not think about, occupied by giant sentient transforming robots with a thing for irritating commercial jingles, she had done the thing that had eluded her for her entire year aboard Metellus.

She had settled.

It was a single moment of clarity, followed by the barest twitch of depression. So this is normal now. Huh.

Wonder what the catch is?

With that thought, she proceeded to ignore her treacherous sense of pessimism and went back to her papers. Prowl had been acting as her unofficial agent in the job-search market, finding freelance work suited to her skills as a linguist and setting up a safe online contact base that could be easily monitored. Which meant that soon she might even have enough steady work to get an apartment of her own again, which meant she could move out of her parents' house, and with that her life ought to reach a more recognizable level of stability.

She smiled as she felt a weight dissolve from between her shoulders. All the ups and downs and roller-coaster pitfalls of the past year and a half were finally levelling out into something manageable, and the tight knot that had taken up permanent residence in the pit of her stomach had vanished sometime without her noticing. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that she was dealing.

"Are you going to eat that?"

She looked up. "Eh?"

Instead of passing by on his way to annoy someone else, Sideswipe had stopped to ponder the no-doubt curious expression on her face, the more typical result of one who has just left Liminality behind for something a little more stable.

"That," he pointed, and she realized she'd been holding the half-unwrapped sandwich up to her mouth without actually moving to take a bite. "Are you going to eat it? Is something wrong with it?" The red Autobot bent at the waist and scrunched his metal face at her. "Is there something wrong with you? You look funny ..." he looked suddenly alarmed and backed up a step. "You're not gonna to purge your tanks again, are you?"

Her stomach had long since stopped acting up at every bite of normal food, but she supposed some memories were forever scarring. Biting back a snort at his generous estimation of her range, she rolled her eyes. "No, Sideswipe. You're in the clear."

"Oh. Okay then."

She moved to take a bite, and stopped. Sideswipe was still peering down at her lunch as though at some particularly fascinating dead bug. She lowered the sandwich.

"Yes?"

"What is that?"

She frowned. Asking her what her "fuel" was made of had been a short-lived practice that had ended not long after the first trip through a fast-food Drive-Thru. She looked down at her sandwich, realizing she hadn't even bothered to see what she'd grabbed to eat.

Something vegetarian on whole-wheat bread, a sad little crumple of lettuce wilted over ... a generous heap of diced tomatoes slathered in mayonnaise.

Her heartbeat ticked to a slow crawl. Somewhere in the distance, she swore she heard a shoe drop.

Sideswipe's face was a mix of apprehension and awe. "It looks ... gross."

Though he made a valiant effort, the red Lamborghini was unable to convince Prowl he had no idea why Evelyn had suddenly burst into tears.

End "Brink"

Liminality: a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes. [Wikipedia]