Chapter Text
Thinking hurts and thoughts don't rhyme
To those of us who've never tried
To find a face behind our lipstick smiles
And as our pretty faces die
Our broken hearts will wonder why
The make-up just won't hide the scars of time
-"Play Dead," The Birthday Massacre
"Passed away. Departed. Deceased. Dead.
Humans have such ways with words. They sugarcoat meanings into euphemisms, thinking it will somehow make the pain less real, less raw. No words in any language could ever make it better. No single word could ever contain the significance of feeling him (friend. comrade. lover.) die thousands of miles away, hoping against all odds that for once, your heart is wrong."
-gift drabble from bunnytofu
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Prowl was losing his mind. The entire crew was certain of it. They had tried to ignore the signs, tried to give their commanding officer time to heal on his own, but now it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. For four deca-cycles the usually logical and rational tactician had been descending into a deep depression, the cause of which none of them ever spoke of, and the whole crew had tried to help him as best as they could, in their own ways.
First Aid constantly badgered him about his health, and on six separate occasions had to force Prowl into stasis when he refused for Orns to enter it himself. Perceptor allotted a fraction of his vast processing abilities to performing almost constant scans on their leader so he could inform First Aid of any and all health risks.
While the scientific minded Autobots saw to Prowls physical well being, the Twins saw to the mental and emotional. When attempts to cheer him up utterly failed, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe settled for making him mad. They pulled pranks and blatantly violated regulations. They did anything and everything they could to get to kind of angry reactions that the old Prowl had been infamous for. Nothing.
They were all at the ends of their ropes when Steelhaven’s onboard computer informed them that they were only an Orn’s worth of space travel away from their destination. Earth. The planet that the Autobot leader and his team now called home because Cybertron was beyond hope.
This news brought relief to the crew of Steelhaven. They thought that if anybody could help Prowl through the loss of his bonded, it would be Optimus Prime. They thought that nothing could go wrong.
An Orn later they all became intimately familiar with Murphy’s Law.
TBC