The Choices We Make

The Choices We Make
By:  Kyron

I don’t care what you think.  I don’t care what you say.  In all honesty, I couldn’t give a shit less.  I’m not here to seek approval.  I’m not here to ask for permission.  

I’m here because I choose to be.  

Because choices are what make us who we are.  

And sometimes we make the wrong ones.

Sometimes we try so hard to prove something or to do what we feel is right and it all comes out fine and dandy.  

Sometimes, that’s not the case.

If there’s anything I’ve learned through my life it’s to listen to both your head and your spark before acting.  I can’t tell you how many times this has saved my ass in a fight.  It might only be a split second choice, but a choice none the less.  I see nothing wrong with gut feelings.  My job sometimes requires a bit of relying on your instincts.  The unfortunate part about that is that it leaves you a little callous to things.  Survival is as powerful an instinct as much as it is a useful one.  But the instinct to survive, to protect yourself, relies mostly on feeling…and less on your head.  It’s almost primal.  And that makes it difficult to control.

Things have happened recently.  Not all bad.  No, in fact, some were quite good.  The bad part is, some things stirred up a survival instinct that hasn’t surfaced since before I ever left Cybertron.  I’ll be honest, it scared me.  

The humans have a saying: “Once burned, twice shy”.  I find it fitting.  The fall of Iacon took more from me than most know.  I’m not going to dig up old skeletons but lets just say that Mirage wasn’t the only one to lose someone he cared about when the Towers fell.  Who knows how many vorns have passed since then.  I’ve kind of lost track of Cybertronian time since we’ve been here.  May be because I just don’t want to remember.  Only one other person really knows about my past back home.  And I know his.  Neither of us like to reveal a lot of what happened to us then because, frankly, it doesn’t matter anymore.  

And, something has been going on that has me more than a bit nervous.  At the same time, I’ve never really felt better.  

It happened by accident.  Me and Blue, I mean.  Kind of like an unspoken agreement.  I don’t think anyone really noticed at first.  I didn’t.  In fact, it never really caught up to me until recently.  It started with just a brush of shoulders or  an occasional animated conversation.  Sometimes, there was this unfocused look, or a sidelong glance.  Nothing serious at all.  At least, I didn’t think of it as serious then.  But that’s where the ‘agreement’ comes in.  What are the terms?  I don’t know.  I think they’re being made up as we go along.  

It was almost Christmas time.  A group of the ‘bots decided to go out into the snow and find a tree to bring back.  Well, when Blue had come back to grab a pot for the thing, he asked me to come along.  And I agreed.  So, we go out into the snow and out to the woods where they’d found this thing, dig it up and bring it back.  

Hound drops the thing off in the common room, where by some weird coincidence, Sideswipe is waiting with boxes upon boxes of decorations.  After who knows how long, the tree is ready to be lit and Jazz decides it’s an event for everyone to see.  Thus, everyone is in the same room at the same time.  Me and Sides?  We stick back almost behind the tree just to stay out of the crowd.  Blue goes and plugs the thing in and nothing happens.  

What got me was that he got the most down trodden look I’ve ever seen on his face.  And it hurt me.  A lot.  And I couldn’t explain why.

I ended up in front of the tree.  I was just thinking, really.  I thought that Wheeljack might be able to do something about the lights…maybe Ratchet.  And the whole ‘flick the light’ thing was just a whim.  I damn sure didn’t expect it to work.  Hell, I think half the crowd thought I was going to pulverize the tree then and there if it hadn‘t of.  But, at any rate, it worked.  And that down trodden look changed in half an instant.  And it didn’t hurt anymore.  

The tree struck me as strange at that point.  Not in a bad way, just in a way…well, it’s hard to explain.  So I just stood there and looked at it, totally disregarding the cheers and shouts that went up from the crowd after the lights came on.  Next thing I know, Blue is there at my shoulder and I felt him take hold of my hand.  Then I realized what was so strange.  I felt happy.  So, I returned the gesture.

It was after that when things went wrong.  I’d gone back to mine and Sides room.  I’d wanted to think about what was going on.  But the more I thought, the more afraid I’d become.  Something in my mind kept telling me to push away.  It said to either push away or get hurt when he dies.  And it felt like my fuel pump had gone cold.  There wasn’t an ‘if’ he dies…it was ‘when’.  Instinct, remember?  It scared me to the point to where my mind started to think of how many different ways it could happen…how many ways I could inflict enough damage to make it happen.  My mind told me that it could all happen again…that the fall of the Towers could happen twice.  And that I’d end up being the cause.  

So, when Blue came in and told me about him falling off the ladder, my mind took it to an image of him falling from the Towers.  And I went off.  Primus, I know I was being stupid, I really did.  But part of me actually believed that it could happen, even if the Towers were long destroyed and we aren’t on Cybertron.  Bluestreak seemed to realize that something else was going on in my head and he did try to not get me any more riled than I already was.  But I kept pushing…and eventually, he broke.  I said some things that I damn sure didn’t mean and I’m not going to repeat them.  Next thing I know, Blue’s left the room and Sides comes in right when I decided to chunk a data pad at the wall.  And when he told me that he’d taken a Polaroid of the ladder incident, I felt like killing something.  

I had to leave. I had to. Otherwise I’d really end up doing something that I’d regret instantaneously.  I won’t hurt Sideswipe.  I refuse to.  Which only served to make me even more angry because I felt like I had no compunctions about hurting Blue.  Far from true.  I already felt like an ass.  So, I go and take out the most convenient inanimate object that can take some abuse.  I know Red put out some report later about Decepticon spies and all that garbage.  He should really know better.  There were no explosions in the gym.  I just have a very strong punch.

Primus, I’d felt like a total ass.  And so, me being my usual self, go back to the room and promptly ignore my brother.  I know he was frustrated.  Hell, I was too because I wanted nothing more than to fix this mess but I didn’t know how.   Patrol a couple of days later had been shit.  Sides felt it was his duty to make me talk and all so I indulged him with a ‘fuck off’ and a grill full of snow.  I’m an asshole.  I know this.  

When he approached me in the common room…I knew what he’d wanted.  He’d been talking about it for days.  And I knew that he was absolutely right.  But I didn’t want to admit it.  Pride sucks sometimes.  It makes you do things that you really don’t want to do but feel you have no choice.  I ran my own brother off.  

Then there was that tree again.  The lights hadn’t failed anymore since that first time.  They shone brightly and insistently, never wavering, never faltering.  I thought about when Blue had hesitantly took hold of my hand, like he was afraid of my reaction.  It made me think about what exactly had gone on that night…and I knew I’d really fucked up.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  I had to drive.  So I left, heading down the longest road I could find.

How I ended up at the hill I don’t really know.  I was letting my scanners do the navigating and I just held the accelerator to the floor.  But that’s where I was.  I’m not sure what prompted me to start the climb or how I didn’t notice the other set of tire tracks in the snow, but I didn’t.  Then there was this faint whisper of light from the sky and it clicked in my head.  I’d come to see the meteor shower…because I’d been asked to.  And while part of me had forgotten, the other part refused to.  I also knew that this was my chance to fix things.
I found Blue at the top of the hill, eyes upward but distant.  And it hurt again…because this time, I knew it was my fault.  My mind didn’t want to remember what had happened…didn’t want to know that if this wasn’t fixed now, there probably wouldn’t be another opportunity.  So, I did the only thing I knew how.  I went and sat nearby and let my head do the thinking about what my spark wanted done.  

“I’m sorry.” I barely spoke it out.  It was hard to do but I knew it was needed.  And I mean it was damn hard.  I’ve never apologized before…not like this.  Not because I wanted to make amends.  Because I was hoping for another shot.  But as soon as the words left my vocalizer, I stood and started walking back down the trail.

When he called my name I felt every circuit in my body freeze.  I know I tensed, waiting for whatever he had to hit me.  I deserved it.  I’d pushed him away and if he chose to stay there then it was up to him.  But what he did…wasn’t what I was expecting.  No, not at all.  

“Sit with me?” he asked.  I was done.  My relief had to have been visible because I felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut.  I’d been forgiven.  Easy as if I’d never really had to ask.  Perhaps I didn’t but I think that it’s right that I did.  

So we sat until the meteors ceased to fall and then we sat a little bit more, just talking.  The conversations were mine and his.  But I’ll say that it did clear up a few things for our ‘agreement’.  

I feel like a sap…telling all of this.  But I’m being honest.  And like I said, I’m not here for approval.  I made my apologies and I’m not afraid to say that it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my entire existence.  Hell, I even apologized to Sides.  Different way, same meaning.  And he was just as forgiving I suppose.  Not that I really deserved being forgiven by either of them because of the way I’d acted…but he knows my past and knows why I acted the way I acted.  And it damn sure wasn’t over the picture…especially since I haven’t even seen that yet.

Sideswipe had left something on the nightstand before he’d gone off to do whatever torture he’d planned for Christmas day.  It was a Polaroid…the same one of Blue that he’d taken the day before.  Now that I actually see it, it’s a great shot.  You couldn’t plan something better than that.  I flipped it over and caught sight of the writing on the back.  It was Sideswipe’s messy excuse for handwriting in Cybertronian…

“Merry Christmas, Sunny”

I must’ve been looking at that picture pretty intently because I never saw anyone enter the room until there was a familiar shadow standing next to me.  

I looked up and I know I had to be smiling because I‘d finally made the right choice, “Merry Christmas, Blue.”