Work Text:
Theres flowers now.
Surrounding the well, creeping up the sides.
Cybertron has it's own native flowers. Usually glowing in shades of blue, a few pink and yellow, but mostly blue.
When Optimus sacrificed himself, the flowers returned. The usual blue, yellow, pink.
But that changed pretty quickly. Somehow, Cybertrom was able to grow Terran flowers. Forget-me-nots and lavenders. Roses and dandelions. Lilies and daisies.
Scientists were stumped. Botanists too. Even the medics and inventors who worked with organic and non-organic material on a daily basis were clueless on this one, yourself included.
And everyone on Cybertron all had the same question…
How the frag were they growing here?
"It may sound outlandish" Starscream trailed off, all optics turning to the seeker as he swirled around the contents of his cube, "and absolutely crazy, but… We all know the Prime loved that cursed mudball of a planet… What if, theoretically, the Matrix or The Allspark or Primus or some other supernatural thing made those flowers grow.. In rememberence."
You were never the religious type, you preferred facts and certainty grounded in reality over the half baked words of some Priest or Prime.
But at this point, you're not sure what to believe anymore.
And, truthfully, Starscream's theory made the most sense. Not that you admitted it of course, that seeker had enough of an ego as is. He doesn't need anymore encouragement…
Mechs asked what you thought of them, the flowers, and you answered bluntly that you didn't care for them. They're flowers, Cybertronian or not, so why should you care?
But then again, lying seems to be more your expertise nowadays. You could probably beat Starscream in a 'best liars' competition if you really wanted to… Not that you did.
Point is, you lied.
But they couldn't tell, so you didn't care to tell the truth.
The flowers made you angry at first.
You denied that they even existed actually. Until you saw them for yourself.
Then you were angry.
You couldn't tell why, and emotional vulnerability was never easy for you. Even when you had just came into your last frame upgrade fresh out of medical school all those thousands of vorns ago. Even as a small sparkling, new to the world but already scared of what you had already saw, heard, felt…
You know now that you had many reasons to be angry. You were a naturally petty mech afterall, and being constantly annoyed was just part of your personality at this point.
Simply put; you cared too much.
Seeing those flowers upset you so because you cared too much about the mech who had been lost not that long prior. When you saw them growing on where he passed… His resting place…
So you were angry.
And that's fine… Perfectly fine.
It was fine when you saw those flowers spreading throughout Iacon.
It was fine when you saw some of those flowers mingle with the native flora and grow in denser patches.
It was fine when you realized they were their densest around the Well.
And it was fine, still just fine, when seeing those flowers made you so angry that…
You cried.
It was nothing overly dramatic like your usual anger induced sob sessions would cause. Nothing was broken, ripped, damaged.. Yes, you did need to repair some of your plating from the dents and bends you made trying to.. Self-regulate, but that is neither here nor there.
What matters was that you cried.
You took one of your rare solar-cycles off from work.. and cried. Because you knew if you didn't several mechs that you know would be on your aft in an instant.
Because you never cry. You got angry, sure. You lashed out at people, pulled at your plating, threw things sometimes like wrenches, but crying was something you never did.
Well, you did cry, you just hid it from prying optics…
Only Optimus knew what happened, but that is neither here nor there.
Concern came your way no matter what you told them, but it didn't matter. You just said you needed a break and that was that.
You were back to work the very next solar-cycle.
As the questions and possible solutions grew, the less mechs gave a fuss about the new flowers. Those who said they were 'just flowers' weren't looked at as if they had lost their processor or not by this point. However, people were still curious. These flowers were now the new normal, spreading across Cybertron in colors both natural and not to their Terran counterparts…
Now mechs just wanted to know why.
By this point you weren't angry anymore.
Instead of annoyance, every time you saw one of those flowers you just.. Didn't care.
Okay, saying that you 'didn't care' is inaccurate. You still did.
Just.. Not as much.
The cycles just started blurring together, is all. Sometimes you couldn't tell where the old one ended and a new one started. You were going with the motions, still acting like yourself, but feeling… Different.
Drained. Tired. Numb.
You didn't care for yourself like you used too. Old habits returning that you thought you curbed back in your youth. From forgetting to shower to feeling as if getting out of birth was a chore.. It's not good. You know that. By this point you'd be concerned for a patient or friend if they told you any of this.
But we're talking about you right now, and when you thought about yourself?
You didn't care.
You hadn't felt this way in so long…
You couldn't even remember the last time you were like this. That's how long it's been.
At some point during the week, you would usually have something to do. Whether checking up on Bee or Arcee, Bulkhead paying you a visit, or doing 'overtime' to help the interns and trainees new to the medical field you hand just hired to your centre.
Point being, you usually had your servos full.
Then the comm calls started getting shorter, you visits starting becoming less and shorter, and the interns and trainees were getting to the point where they could work on their own. Didn't need your help anymore except when they were confused, and even then, that started happening less and less.
Outside of work or aquiring necessities like energon, you never left your hab.
You laid in your berth. Or on the couch. Wasting away when you could be doing something good. Something beneficial and productive.
Instead you did nothing.
And you embraced it.
It came to you in the dead of a random night-cycle. What time it was didn't matter. What did matter was that you were awake at some ungodly hour when you were usually asleep.
The insomnia kicked in when the depression did.
You existed. You were there. But it didn't feel like it.
Then your spark felt like it was being squeezed. Like it was pressed between a flat surface and a hydrolic press.
It hurt. It filled that hollow feeling that you've been feeling for months now at this point, shocking you back into your frame as you intaked, staring up at the cieling.
You looked beside you.
And he wasn't there.
"… Oh."
You didn't get back on your pedes immediately upon snapping out of that depressive episode. No one expected you to, really. But the relieved smiles and blatant relief you were hit with made you not care about bouncing back either. They were glad you were still online, and you were too.
The flowers continued growing. The questions had stopped coming and mechs just shrugged. Some started collecting these flowers, finally glad that Cybertron has more diverse flora for them to see and care for. Creators stopped guarding their sparklings away from the flowers, and let them pull them from their roots, wave them around, and gift them to those they loved. Those who made crystal bouquets were especially excited to have new material to work with.
And then there was you.
You were back to square one. Unsure how to feel about the flowers, even as you began to see them as the new normal. They were pretty. You could admit that now that the anger and depression had passed.
But no matter how hard you thought, of what others asked, you still couldn't figure out what they mean to you.
And…
Maybe, that's okay.
It's been a vorn now since they first started growing. Spreading through Cybertron wherever they could. Were allowed to.
Mechs found beauty in them, treating them gently, with kindness and patience.
You did find the flowers pretty. They came in so many colors that anyone could find one that they liked.
…
It's been a vorn now since he passed. Sacrificing himself for Cybertron. For it's people. For his enemies. For it's team. For you.
You denied it. Briefly. You were angry for a while, by the fact that he was gone.
The depression lasted the longest. It crept up on you without warning but somehow shocked you to your senses.
He was gone.
Looking at what he managed to save with his sacrifice, what was created from the ashes and pure ruin of a planet once bathed in life, the new additions that came with it…
And the sudden gift from Bumblebee, a forget-me-not with the recognizable blue and red colors of that self-sacrificial dumbaft…
He was gone.
You couldn't change that.
But seeing what came out of that fact made accepting it just a bit easier.
One solar-cycle at a time.