Disclaimer: The pink slip to Transformers continues to allude me, so I am doing this simply for enjoyment. Actually, I'm doing it so the plot bunny would stop biting, but same thing in our world, right?

Shadow Chaser

By Uniasus

The twins and minibots always tell him to be quite, that all his chatter is annoying and that it hurts their audios. But every so often he catches one of them alone in the rec room late at night, nursing a lukewarm cube of energon and staring at the scratches in the tabletop. Bluestreak always joins them then, grabs his own cube to drink and starts talking.

Sometimes for breems, sometimes for joors, but he's never told to shut up in these dark hours of the night. Instead, as the mech stands up to leave, they reward him with a smile. It's always the same smile; soft, dark, barely there, and oh so filled with sadness. It's as close as he gets as a thank-you for something he doesn't understand.

They're all like that, not just the twins and minibots. Wheeljack, Mirage, Hound, Kup, Trailbreaker, Tracks, First Aid, Chromia, Powerglide, Blaster, Skydive, Windcharger, Moonracer, all of them. Even the officers. They all go to the rec room once in a while for that drink in a room of half powered lights. It surprises him how there is only ever one mech in the room at a time, how they never run into any one else but himself. But he never mentions that. Sometimes, he even gets a quite thank you, via whispered words or muted comm line.

It doesn't always end there, with Bluestreak sitting at the table alone while the other Autobot walks away. Sometimes, due to some unspoken cue the other mech gives that he just knows what it means, he follows. He talks as they walk back to the other mech's quarters, and sometimes he follows inside. It's not uncommon for him to talk until recharge hits him, waking in an odd position on the floor or with his head on the shoulder of the mech from the rec room, propping each other up on the berth.

Sometimes his mouth does things other than talk. He never starts it, but eagerly continues, bringing his hands into play.

He's been in closer quarters with so many Bots so often, talking or doing other things, that if thrown into a dark room where he was the only one online, he could identify them all and arrange them by rank. He spends so much time mixing with other EM fields, he sometimes forgets what his own untouched one feels like. Ratchet most likely has it on record. And it's not like if something happened there aren't other ways to identify him.

It's Prime he meets in the rec room the most often, follows most often, and wakes up next to most often, though he is ever loyal to Elita-One. He's always the most vocal of thankers.

Tonight they are in his quarters again, and like usual Bluestreak tells him to tell him to stop if he gets annoying. At night, no one takes him up on the offer, but it's good to ask. And like usual, Prime smiles softly and says no, his talking isn't annoying. And Bluestreak stops, wondering, and asks a question he's be wondering about for ages, because if anyone would answer it, give an answer he likes, the answer he's looking for, it's Prime. Why isn't his talking annoying?

"Because Bluestreak," he answers, "When the darkness comes, it comes with a weight so heavy I fear my spark will sink to the bottom of my laser core and not allow me to get up one day. It speaks of my mistakes, of things…I'd rather not remember. But you, you talk of so many bright things I can feel the darkness retreat and my spark become light. Because you make me remember happy things, moments I wish I could remember all the time."

So he nods and says he gets it, because he does, because all the other mechs he meets at night feel the same. But he doesn't say that, he moves on to other topics. Like his happy memories, the light moments he had the day before. Fills his mind with them until Prime falls asleep, leaning slightly over and crushing him between his bulk and the wall.

And still he talks, out loud until his vocalizer stutters like it sometimes does.

Because the answer Prime gave him isn't the one he wanted, needed.

And because no one asks him questions.

No one asks what he is doing in the rec room in the middle of the night, why he isn't in his room. Why he talks so much. Why he gets the darkness.

He is one of the lucky ones, one of the normal crew to have his own room though it is pitifully small. He doesn't mind though, he never sleeps in it; he is always in someone else's room.

Because it is dark in there by himself, with the slanted walls pressing closer and closer until he has to leave for a larger room, for the presence of others even if it is just echoes of earlier day traffic. Finding an actual mech in the rec room is a bonus, a solid reaffirmation that he isn't alone. Because he remembers when he was, his city dead and gray and so silent he would have welcomed the sound of artillery fire just so it would stop being so quite! But he had nothing but his voice, which he used to push away the dark weight of loneliness, of silence, of the guilt for convincing his creators to stay put and not retreat to Iacon. He talks because it helps him forget the bad memories. Certainly Ratchet didn't think needing his vocalizer fixed every three orns is normal.

Is it wrong that he had secretly desired that the other Autobot's talked about him, realized he was in the rec room every night, and knew something was wrong? He knows when something was bothering them, shouldn't they see it too? Maybe set up a schedule so there was always a mech in the rec room who would keep him company if only for a little while? Why else would there be someone there every single night?

Could they not see he needed support too?

Prime couldn't, never even thought about it, so how could the others? He was someone always there to push away others' shadows, had always assumed that they were trying to do the same.

Bringing the issue to the table never crosses his mind, because shouldn't friends be aware of each other's hardships? And pointing it out to them…leads to thoughts he wants to push as away.

Used echoes in the room, an empty haunting noise.

He starts talking again, bringing his knees to his chest and sinking down onto Prime's berth. The shadow chaser, who has to chase his own shadows away by himself. He's not strong enough, so he curls into Prime's side, sing-singing a Cybertronian nursery rhyme, drawing a weak strength from the sound of Prime engines and systems beeps, pretending they echo louder then the word he refuses to acknowledge and that the room is filled with ten Primes, until sleep finally over takes his processor.

A/N: You know how I said that my free time over here was a lot? Well, here's further proof. This thing was an hour and a half in the making, from bunny bite to completion, so I'm not to sure about the last couple of sentences, but I slept on it, had someone read it over, and didn't get any negative feedback about it so I guess its good.

But she mentioned it was dark, and I have to agree that yes a lot of what I produce is a bit on the other side of sunset (but I'm a sunny person! Honest! See me bounce!), but I can't explain why! And when I asked her if darkness was a bad thing...I didn't exactly get a response.

So survey, is darkness a bad thing readers?

And just for a change of pace, anyone have a sunny bunny to share?