Things Left Unsaid

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW
Ambulon, Pharma
spoilers for MTMTE 4 and 5, but then again if you haven't read those you probably have no idea who these guys are anyway XD
for tf_rare_pairing weekly request, and from when I stole the title because I am uncreative like that

“That would be a very costly ‘no’,” the voice said, dark and amused.  The optics burned like red embers on the screen, almost taunting him.

“I can only do what I can,” Pharma hissed.  He flinched at the sudden soft chime on his office door, hand clutching out of reflex at the comm screen, even though it was—as always—turned away from the door.  He felt a brief, and admittedly petty, flare of satisfaction as he ended the feed, cutting off whatever dire threat the DJD commander would cook up this time.

It wasn’t that Pharma didn’t believe the threats.  He believed them all too well, and if nothing else, hearing them had confirmed that the commander was immensely creative and anatomically knowledgeable. He just used his knowledge for other, far more malignant ends. 

Pharma hoped he had composed his face into reasonably calm lines by the time the door opened.  “Ah. Ambulon.” 

The smaller mech juggled a datapad and two cubes of energon.  “You wanted to see me.”  Ambulon didn’t feign a smile, as another might. That sort of pleasantry went nowhere in the Decepticons.

“Take a seat.” Pharma folded the comm screen down with one last, tense look.  He forced a smile. “It looks good on you. The new deco.”

Ambulon laid a cube of energon in front of him and then the other in front of himself.  “You said it would help with acclimatization.”   It hadn’t.  The medics weren’t fooled by a paint job: they knew who he was, who he had been.

It hadn’t worked on Ambulon, either. He knew all too well who he had been, and still was.

“You have to understand, my friend.  Mechs who are brought here are in very…fragile condition.  The last thing we need is for one of them to think we’ve been,” he waved his hand at Ambulon, “infiltrated by Decepticons.” 

“I told you. I gave that up.”  He ran a hand over the enamel, worrying one edge where the color had scraped away. It hadn’t been the best re-enameling job: they were a medical facility here, not a cosmetic refinisher.

“I know,” Pharma said, smoothly. He sipped his energon. Warmed, the way he liked it.  Ambulon may have a well-earned reputation for faultfinding in others, but in Pharma’s mind it was far outweighed by the fact that Ambulon held himself to the same attention to detail. It was just what you wanted in a ward manager.  All the better since Ambulon had no ambition, and spent so much time looking down at his ward notes that he didn’t have time to ask any awkward questions.  “And so how’s the caseload looking today?”

“Tracer’s ready for limb replacement.  Dogfight’s beginning to be fractious.” A pinch of the mouth: Ambulon did prefer his patients to be the limp and uncomplaining type.  He didn’t know how to do this strange kindness the mechs here used: he’d studied First Aid and his genuine, easy sympathy and been…confounded.

“He can be as fractious as he wants. He’s not discharged until we sign off on it.”

A glance, shared between them.  Ambulon nodded, reaching for his own energon.

Ambulon did appreciate getting his authority bolstered. They understood each other: the best interests of Delphi were what mattered.

“And you,” Pharma said. “How are you fitting in?”

“Does it matter?”  Ambulon’s dour face folded into a tight frown.  He lowered his energon, staring at it moodily. He had quarters, and privacy, but one shrouded in questions no one dared to ask and he didn’t want to answer.

“Doesn’ t it?” Another pause, another sip.  Pharma began to feel himself relax.  Dealing with the DJD always left him a little unsettled, but there was something about warm energon and having to use his wits that he found strangely soothing.

Ambulon shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if they don’t like me. I’m good at my job.”  He hoped that was enough.  It was all he had to offer. The price of betrayal, flight, severing himself from the ghastly experiment.

“Irrefutably so,” Pharma agreed. He leaned back, propping one knee against his console. Ambulon sat, rigidly upright. Sometimes Pharma wondered how much of Ambulon’s tension had been drilled into him by the Decepticons, and how much was the fact that he was surrounded by Autobots?  Old prejudices, Pharma knew, died hard. On both sides.

“It’s none of my business, of course,” Pharma said, “but I do want this facility to run well, and that would mean minimizing friction among my team.”  He smiled. ‘Team’.  He liked that word.  Military units spoke of units, squads, other names that implied objects. Teams worked together. Teams were collaborative, cooperative, each member important.  Teams were made of individuals. Individuals with personalities and pasts to manage.

Or manipulate.  He hated that word and the concept behind it, but war had its way of digging its twisted, gnarled fingers into everything, even a place of healing.

“There’s no friction.” Ambulon frowned. “Why? What have you heard?”  He’d dreaded, every moment, their looks, their curious gazes. Mechs who knew anatomy, knew the complicated systems of transformation: they had to notice something. They had to note the lack of wheels, engines.  They had to wonder.

“Nothing.”  True enough.  But this hint of suspicion would keep that wedge driven between Ambulon and the others, just as Pharma wanted.  “Beyond, I’d imagine, simple curiosity.”

Ambulon tensed. “I don’t want to talk about it. You agreed when you took me in that—“

“And I keep that agreement, Ambulon.” Pharma gave a tolerant nod. “But you do understand, they are curious.  And tense, with the Decepticon Justice Division breathing down our necks.”  His own neck in particular. He rested a palm on the back of the comm panel, as if to reassure himself it was closed.

Another ratcheting up of tension, Ambulon nearly quivering. The DJD stalked his nightmares, turning every strange sound in his still-too-new quarters into an infiltration, an attack.  He barely rested at night, walking the wards just to keep himself focused on something other than a blind panic from a future he felt was all too inevitable.

Oh, Pharrma knew how much the DJD would love to get their hands on Ambulon.  He didn’t know quite why there was such a high price on Ambulon’s head, but it was enough to keep him in line here.  One less thing to worry about. 

“You’re safe here, though, Ambulon,” he said.  As safe as any of them were, with the DJD around.  He’d bought safety for them, for all of them. Or thought he had, but the costs seemed mounting. Something he could feel slipping through his fingers.

He clutched the energon all the tighter for it, something he could control, and looked over at  Ambulon—something else he could control.  He gestured with his chin towards Ambulon’s energon. 

Ambulon raised it to his mouth, taking a hurried gulp.  “What time can we expect you for ward check?”  His own attempt to control something. He took pride in his ward, the sort of desperate pride of a mech whose whole world depended on something. He kept the records straight, rotated staff meticulously, spoke—if briefly and brusquely—to every patient and every medic on the floor.   Pharma’s approval, the curt nods and satisfied frowns as he leafed through Ambulon’s ward records, were pretty much the bright spot of his day.  He collected them, racking them up like a small store of self-esteem.

“A few cycles, at least.”  Pharma opened his datapad, flicking to the calendar with his stylus. “I have a new culture in the vivarium, first.” 

“Research,” Ambulon said, and his voice was wistful.

If only, Pharma thought. If only things were different: Ambulon was a decent-looking mech, with deft, quick fingers, and a quick, diagnostic mind. And a concern, though he hid it well, for his patients’ progress.  It would be nice to have someone to confide in, to share at least part of the burden. But it was too dangerous. And his research? Far too dangerous, for too many reasons. “Yes,” he said, and he heard a similar sort of eagerness slip out. 

“I know, though,” Ambulon said, after another drink of his energon. “Former Decepticon. I don’t rate any sort of clearance.”  He said it flatly, without any malice. It was merely the truth, and he was a realist: a coward who had fled, and begged. He was in no place to make a fuss about what were, at minimum, reasonable precautions.

Pharma wished—for a mad, wild moment—he could deny it. He wished there weren’t an iota of truth in the statement; he wished he could find some other way out than that culture waiting for him in the lab.  He wished…a lot of things.

But the war had a way of twisting everything, even wishes, so they sat, quietly, staring moodily into their energon, separated by all the things they couldn’t say.

Comments

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

Oooh, most intriguing! I really must check MTM TME TMRMEMT... um...whatever it is, lol...out.

[ocelli.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was wonderful. You write so nicely! I like how you built up Ambulon's character. He quickly became one of my favorite characters in MTMTE, even though there wasn't much to know about him. Ah, I hope you write more of these two in the future. uvu

[lilac28.livejournal.com]

It's been a while but I just stumbled across this and loved it! Nice look into their respective motivations, good tension, wonderfully characterized. I just can't get enough Ambulon. Nice job!