Archive of Our Own ^beta

Optimus wasn't even halfway through his transformation sequence to root mode after parking his trailer. "We're not even inside," he said, as he stepped up to where Megatron was standing, arms folded derisively, and staring at the gargantuan building in front of them.

"Yes, and I already hate it," he insisted.

"They have an oil house inside," Optimus tried to soothe, and tugged gently at Megatron's arm. "We can do an initial round, have a break, and then decide what we buy."

"We don't even need anything," Megatron kept on griping, but he followed when Optimus threaded his fingers into his own and gently pulled him along.

"First of all, 'need' is the wrong word. We want furniture," Optimus said. They stopped walking when they got to the entrance; there was a queue in front of the slow-moving automatic doors that only let in a few mechs at a time. Megatron made unhappy noises. "Second of all, yes we do. All we have is a berth."

"Which is perfectly functional!"

"It's too small for the both of us," Optimus chided. They finally sidled through the funnel doors. "And I am too old to sleep on top of you every night."

Megatron muttered something about liking Optimus sleeping on top of him every night. Optimus smiled to himself and let him have this.

"It's gonna be fun," he promised.

"Your definition and my definition of fun are vastly different," Megatron said. "If I were having fun, I would be at home, reading."

"As a matter of fact, I too enjoy being at home and reading," Optimus said. They slowly made their way up the escalator. The building was very packed. In truth, Optimus could understand Megatron's bad mood, at least where the mass of mechs was concerned. But he also thought this was a necessary endeavour, and he was looking forward to it.

"The problem," he went on, "is that we don't have a couch where we can read."

"I can read on the floor if I must!" Megatron told him. "I've read in tunnels, Optimus! On battlefields! I can read wherever I life puts me!"

"How about on a comfortable couch, then?" Optimus asked mildly, and Megatron harrumphed because it was a good argument and he couldn't rebuke it.

And unbidden, a stroke of genius came to Optimus. As they stepped off the escalator, and the store proper opened up in front of them with its multifarious displays of tiny, modern, affordable habsuites in all shapes and forms.

"You know that little room that branches off the living room we didn't know what to do with?" he said excitedly. "We could make it a library!"

Megatron didn't immediately gripe, which meant he thought the idea was worthwhile. Oprimus went on, excitedly.

"Imagine! We line the walls with shelves of all our favourite books. We could get a really comfortable reading chair in there. It's probably too small for a couch or something, especially if we want a lot of books, which I immediately do."

"Can we keep the colours dark?" asked Megatron, because he was Megatron of Tarn and liked sitting in the dark, reading and brooding.

Optimus loved him a lot.

"Of course," he said, figuring he could still snatch the books and read on the porch of their little garden, in the light, like a normal mech.

(The garden was completely overgrown and an entire mess. Optimus found he was excited about this, too: During wartime, he'd never had the time to take shears and files to crystals and trim them into something beautiful. But he'd always liked the idea. Now, finally, there was time to try his servos at it.)

"I'm sure they have dark shelves," Optimus said. He began tugging Megatron along through the predefined journey through the furniture store. "Maybe we can paint the walls with a purple accent?"

"Hm!" Megatron said, and Optimus knew he had won him over.

..

Megatron sat and the chair immediately made a pitiful creak and sank down several decimeters beneath him. Megatron yelped and jumped up again.

"Are you okay?" Optimus said, who'd witnessed the whole thing.

"What in the absolute Slag," Megatron hissed and stared in disbelief at the bent legs.

"I think that chair is not meant for your weight class," Optimus said. He found it very hard not to laugh.

"It's certainly big enough for me though! You'd think it would be able to carry a few tonnes?!"

"You're pretty heavy," Optimus said, mouth tight.

"I'm heavy?" Megatron said, in disbelief.

"A little," Optimus said. It came out a bit of a squeak.

"Is that why you insist on sleeping on me every night, I'm too heavy?" Megatron hissed.

Optimus couldn't say anything because he tried very hard not to breathe.

"Utter nonsense," Megatron decided. "I'm not too heavy. This just proves that the entire scrap in this pit-forsaken store is shoddy handiwork! It's all just mass-produced garbage!" He picked up the chair and bent the legs back. Mechs were staring.

Optimus fled under the pretense of looking at another chair.

..

Optimus sat down on the couch and then kept on falling. He threw an arm out to steady himself, and finally settled into the soft material.

"Oh," he said, dumbfounded. "Wow."

"Hm?" Megatron came over from where he had tested another couch.

"Careful," Optimus warned as Megatron made to sit. "This one eats you."

Megatron sat and had the same reaction as Optimus. "Oh," he said, steadying himself on the armrest nearest to him.

"I know," Optimus said. Once you were settled, it was actually very comfortable. Optimus put one ped up on the nearby footstool.

"Hm," Megatron said as he carefully sank back, letting the couch envelop him. "Hm."

"I don't think I can get up again, though," Optimus said. He tipped his helm back and tried to imagine what it would be like to have this couch in their living room. It was big enough. It was comfortable. Megatron wasn't immediately complaining.

"Not conducive to a productive day," Megatron observed. He, too, was sinking into the cushions.

"No," Optimus agreed. "But very comfortable after a long day of work."

"We have office jobs," Megatron reminded him. "You're not exactly hauling anymore."

"You're right," Optimus said. "Eight hours every day of peace talks with Starscream at the table is so much worse."

Megatron scoffed, but made no move to get up. They sat in silence for a while.

"I think like this one," Optimus decided.

Megatron didn't answer, but the lack of objection was answer enough.

..

"Absolutely not," Megatron said, and Optimus needed to remind himself that he unfortunately loved this mech, and, even more unfortunately, had decided to spend the rest of his functioning with him.

"Why?" he asked.

"It's undignified," Megatron said heatedly.

"Five minutes ago you were fine with reading on the floor and now you're telling me this is undignified?"

Megatron crossed his arms in front of his chestplates. He might as well have raised the muzzle of the fusion cannon to Optimus' face, as far as opposition went.

Since he wasn't wearing it anymore, crossing his arms was all he could do.

Optimus squared his jaw.

They stared at one another for a long moment. Megatron was very good at staring. Optimus less so, especially without the facemask. But bringing it out now would be pathetic.

"Fine," Optimus relented unhappily. "No stuffed mechashark for the couch. Fine."

Megatron lowered his arms again, triumphant.

"I still think it's cute," Optimus muttered as they continued their walk.

..

Optimus sighed. "I don't know," he admitted. "Does it really make that much of a difference?"

"Of course it makes a difference!" Megatron said. He crossed his arms again. Optimus felt very tired all of a sudden.

"The kitchen is indubitably the most important room in the house," Megatron insisted.

"We just get energon there," Optimus tried to reason. "I don't see how you can think the kitchen is more important than the, the... berthroom!"

"We just sleep there!"

"We don't just sleep there," Optimus huffed, and was so indignant that his plating puffed up.

Megatron's look said he realized the error in his argument but wasn't prepared to give in, slag him.

"We decided on a very nice couch," he pointed out.

"If you frag me on that couch every single hinge in my backstruts will lock up," Optimus hissed, voice lowered. "And I won't be able to walk for two weeks!"

"So you don't want it?" Megatron's brows rose.

"No, I love that couch!" Optimus said desperately, throwing his arms up. Arguing with Megatron was a nightmare. "Just not for-- interface," he hissed.

"Shame," Megatron said. "But I digress. Yes we need a nice table for the kitchen, not just 'whatever.'"

"Fine," Optimus said. "Get a nice table, then! I don't care."

"You should care! The kitchen is a communal room, a transient room; everything of note happens in kitchens!"

"I said get a nice table if you want!"

"If we get a good sturdy table we can interface in the kitchen as well," Megatron said, rubbing his chinguard in thought. "Instead of the berthroom."

"But I want a nice berth!" Optimus cried, and Megatron actually laughed. Optimus hit him in the arm, harmlessly.

..

"This is gonna be a tight fit," Optimus muttered, palming his mouth in thought.

Megatron, next to him, had his arms crossed. For once, it wasn't at Optimus, however, but at the fact that the desks they liked were too big for their designated office room.

"We could take the smaller ones," he said, but didn't sound happy about it.

"Hm," hummed Optimus, looking at their next best choice. They were fine desks, in truth. But they had both unanimously decided they liked these best. "We could."

They remained standing where they were and didn't say anything.

"We wouldn't have room for a single shelf," Megatron lamented. "Which means we would have to put all datapads in the living room or the library. What a hassle."

Optimus sighed. "We could get a few smaller shelves for under the desks," he suggested. It wasn't a perfect solution. With bigger desks, they were hard-pressed for space.

"We could take one of these and one of those," Megatron said instead.

Optimus took his servo from his intake. "Oh, and you get the bigger one, I presume?" he said dryly.

"I'm told I'm bigger."

"I said you're heavier, not bigger."

"Still a good reason to get the bigger desk!"

"We'll both get the smaller ones," Optimus decided. "It's the sensible thing to do."

"I don't want it to be sensible!" Megatron huffed. "This is our home, Optimus! It needs to be perfect!"

"Aw," Optimus said, before he could stop himself. Megatron harrumphed immediately. "No, I mean," Optimus quickly added, putting a gentle servo on Megatron's arm. "I'm happy you care."

"Of course I care," Megatron said snidely. "This is important."

Optimus smiled, and, because he was a gracious conjunx, didn't remind Megatron that when they had gotten here, Megatron had insisted they didn't need furniture at all.

"Let's get the big desks," he said conspiratorially. "We'll figure it out."

Megatron's grin showed a bit of teeth.

..

"My pedes hurt," Megatron muttered.

"Hrm," Optimus said, which was as good an admission to smarting pedes as any.

"How big is this thing, anyway?" Megatron continued, throwing a lazy servo out to indicate the entire warehouse.

"We're still only in the berthroom section," Optimus muttered. "There's still washracks, and decorations, and then we have to get all the furniture from the warehouse." Even the oil house with its promised break was a while away.

They were silent for a while.

"How do you like this one?" Megatron asked finally.

Optimus moved his helm to look at him where he was in a berth next to him. "I can't tell a difference to the last one," he admitted. "We've been on so many berths and they all feel the same to me."

"All day you nag be about our berth and now you can't decide?"

Optimus sighed. "I'm tired," he admitted.

Megatron rumbled. In the space between them, he found Optimus' servo, and threaded his fingers into his.

"We should get the big one," Megatron decided.

Optimus chuckled. "Oh, should we?" he teased, after Megatron's insistence that they could interface everywhere but the berth.

"Yes," Megatron said with a smirk. "Because you kick when you sleep."

Optimus did kick him.

..

"How can they sell energon for a hundred shanix a cube?" Megatron asked, holding said cube aloft to his optics to scrutinize it. "Is it just unfiltered sludge? Is it poisoned? Will I purge it immediately? Maybe it's just oil!"

"Let's just sit down and drink," Optimus pleaded. Trying out berths for a while had been surprisingly exhausting, and his pedes still hurt.

They found a table together, popped the seals off their cubes, and drank.

It was okay energon for 100 shanix a cube. It filled his empty tanks, and that helped at least.

"You were right," Optimus admitted halfway through his cube. "I hate this."

Megatron scoffed. "Nonsense," he said. "Like you said, it's quite necessary. Our current berth is too small, and I really did like that couch we picked out."

"There's still so much store left," Optimus lamented, with an oncoming episode of depression.

"The washracks section will be quick," Megatron waved him off. "We don't need anything but a shelf for our supplies."

"I half expected you to want to shop for handles," Optimus said tiredly. "For interface in the washracks."

"Good point," Megatron said, unconcerned by the barb. "But that can wait. We have a couch, a table and a berth. That should tide us over for a while."

"No interfacing on the couch," Optimus insisted. "It'll stain."

"Fine," Megatron sighed dramatically. "Be like that."

Optimus perked up suddenly. "Oh Primus and when we get home we have to assemble it all," he realized with horror.

Megatron took pity on him. "Not immediately," he soothed. "We'll just pile it all in the house and let it be until tomorrow. Tonight, we can go to our terrible, small berth, and you can sleep on top of me and kick me, and tomorrow we can start assembling."

He reached out for Optimus' hand across the table again, and stroked his thumb over his knuckles. Optimus' spark spun, and it was enough to bring a smile back across his faceplates.

"I love you," he said.

Megatron chuckled and took a drag from his energon. "Wait until we're done with this place until you declare your love for me," he said. "We're only half done."

Optimus groaned.

..

Megatron was right, and not in the assumption that by the end of their trip, Optimus might revoke their Rites: The washracks section was over quickly and without too many standoffs. They decided on two matching shelves and a few small containers and went their way.

Optimus caught a second wind as soon as they strolled through the hall with the decorations.

He wasn't sure if Megatron was past caring, or felt he had to atone for something, but with almost everything Optimus held up to him with questioning optics, his conjunx shrugged his pauldrons and said, "If you want it, we can get it."

And so Optimus amassed a little collection of truly superfluous, wonderful little trinkets.

Did he need any of them? No, of course not. But, he figured, 'need' was the wrong word: He wanted them. Nothing said 'the war is finally over' like a collection of little figurines he could put on a windowsill that served no purpose but to collect dust and delight him.

He was inspecting a little desk tidy when he realized Megatron had strayed from his side.

"Megatron?" he asked, looking around, but didn't immediately spot him. He put the desk tidy back and wandered through the shelves.

He found Megatron a section ahead, arms crossed over his chest, staring at a picture at the wall.

Optimus looked at the picture for a moment and then wagered, "Do you like it?"

"It's Messatine," Megatron said without taking his optics from the framed picture.

"Oh," Optimus said, all excitement that Megatron might be interested in decorating their home with a picture immediately flagging. "That seems to be in... poor taste."

"Oh, Messatine is beautiful," Megatron objected. "The sunsets? I've hardly seen anything like it. Which makes this--" He waved a servo at the picture. "--even more puzzling."

Said picture depicted, in stark contrast of blacks and whites, one of Messantine's many, many mines. One of the borers, to be exact; all sharp tips and right angles.

"The brutalist beauty of an age long past, I guess," Optimus said carefully.

Megatron scoffed. "Who would even still print this?" he asked. "Who would look at this and say, 'I bet this is something mechs want to be displayed in their homes!'?"

"Well," Optimus said, "no accounting for taste, I assume."

And then he watched in utter bafflement as Megatron stepped forward and picked one of the readily framed pictures from the stock.

"It'll go into the library," Megatron told him when he saw Optimus' confused look. "Over the chair."

"Well," Optimus said again, truly at a loss for words. "I'm... happy you like it?"

"Oh, I don't," Megatron said. "It's awful."

And then he simply subspaced the picture and went onwards.

..

"Don't you think it would be better to get fake crystals?" Megatron asked.

"I don't like fake crystals," Optimus muttered, a pot of crystals in each servo. "They look so... fake."

"Well I don't have a pink thumb," Megatron asked. "These are just gonna crumble and die if I have to look after them. And you don't know if you have a pink thumb or not, so they might crumble and die under your care, too."

Optimus pressed his lips together unhappily. "It would be a good opportunity to learn," he said, but it sounded a little weak even to his own audials. "Before tackling the garden."

"The garden!" Megatron said. "We'll get a professional for the garden. There, problem solved."

Optimus sighed and put one potted crystal back on the shelf. He held on to the other one. He looked at Megatron.

"Get the crystals if you want, Optimus," Megatron sighed. "You don't need my approval."

"But I want your approval," Optimus said, dour.

"Well, it's good to have a hobby," Megatron decided. "Otherwise you'll just overwork yourself."

Optimus thought that was rich, coming from a mech who had a private line to Ultra Magnus so they could go over legal texts even after work.

But he picked up the second crystal again. And then a third, and a fourth, and kept going, until Megatron said, "Alright, that's enough crystals" and pushed him further along.

..

A bed, several shelves, a chair, two desks, a couch and a generous conglomeration of bits and pieces were a lot to carry, even for two mechs their size. They ended up getting two carts.

Megatron's cart, of course, had a broken wheel, which meant he was complaining about it wheeling off-course during the entire time it took them from the entrance of the warehouse to the checkouts.

After a couple of millions of war, Optimus was pretty good at turning him out, and pushed his cart in peace.

Peace that lasted until the cashier kept scanning their furniture, and their total just went up and up and up.

"Oh," Optimus kept saying every time the little scanner beeped and another price was added. "Oh."

"Relax," Megatron called from where he was at the other side of the cash register, behind their two carts.

"We should have considered this," Optimus said, with looming terror. "Oh."

"What, you didn't?" asked Megatron. He had his forearms leaned on the handles of his cart and looked perfectly at ease, which Optimus thought looked very sexy but was very unfitting. Optimus himself was so tense, he thought he could be a load-bearing pillar.

"I didn't think it would be quite so much," Optimus whispered.

The cashier, a blue minibot with three wheels that Optimus didn't recognize from either side, eyed them. "We have a veteran's discount," he said. "Mr Prime, sir."

"Oh," breathed Optimus in relief, at the same time that Megatron called, "Absolutely not!"

"Shush!" Optimus told him. "Ignore him," he said to the cashier. "We would very much like that."

"Optimus!" Megatron griped, but was effectively trapped behind two desks and a couch.

"Just keep unloading, I'll pay!" Optimus said. "Don't let him pay," he told the cashier. "He'll probably try to."

"Don't you dare!" Megatron shouted.

"It's fine, you already paid for the energon!"

"That was two-hundred shanix!" Megatron roared.

Optimus ignored him and just continued to pile their purchases back onto his cart as soon as they were scanned.

When the remaining desks and the couch were scanned, there was a short scuffle at the terminal about who got their currency card into the reader quicker, but Optimus had the advantage of not having to navigate past a broken cart and was faster.

Megatron blew hot air from his vents at him and stalked past him to, in what Optimus could only assume was an attempt at petty revenge, grab Optimus' unfaulty cart and push it away.

Optimus saved a good amount of shanix on the veteran's discount. It put him in a good enough mood that when the little cashier bashfully asked for a picture, he smiled brightly at the camera and even threw up a peace sign.

Megatron waited for him, leaning against the stack of shelves, with two cubes of triple-filtered energon he had presumably gotten from the overpriced dispenser in the corner.

Optimus took the cube thankfully and downed it in three greedy gulps. It tasted absolutely awful.

"This was pretty successful, I think," he said as he chucked the empty cube into a trashcan.

Megatron grunted. "I'm ready to recharge for the next vorn," he grumped.

"We'll be home soon," Optimus said with a smile. "And then it will actually be a home. We have a couch!"

"The couch is good," Megatron agreed. He finished his own cube and threw it in the same trashcan. "But first we got to load all of this nonsense in your trailer."

"How hard can it be?" said Optimus cheerfully, pushing his cart after Megatron.

..

"How can this be so hard?" Optimus lamented. "These are all rectangles! It should be so easy to stack them!"

"Don't ask me, I was a miner, you worked at the docks!" Megatron called from inside the trailer. "The damn desks are too big!"

"Oh, we should've taken the smaller ones," Optimus sighed. "I knew this was going to happen!"

"You insisted on getting the big ones!" Megatron said, helm shooting up in indignity. He hit his head immediately on the ceiling. "Ow."

"Come on, let me try," Optimus said, and stepped aside to let Megatron out. Megatron rubbed his helm and grumbled, but hopped out of the trailer.

Optimus climbed in instead and surveyed their dilemma. "The desks are too big," he observed.

"No slag," muttered Megatron. He leaned against the couch they still needed to load into the trailer. "Now what?"

Optimus looked from the packages to the couch, to Megatron, and back. He rubbed his chinguard in thought.

"How much can you take in your cargo hold?" he asked.

Megatron scoffed.

"Megatron," said Optimus flatly. "I doubt either of us wants to take two trips. You can have a little furniture in your cargo hold until we're home."

Megatron crossed his arms pointedly. Optimus stared at him.

A moment passed.

"Please?" Optimus tried. "We'll load the desks and the couch inside the trailer. You can take the shelves and the chair."

"Fine," Megatron grumbled, mostly because those were things he had picked out for the library.

"And the crystals, maybe?" Optimus said hopefully. "I don't want them to get damaged during transport. They'd just get tossed around in the trailer..."

"Ugh," said Megatron, throwing his arms out. "Sure, and the crystals."

"Thank you." Optimus smiled at him. "Here, help me get the desks out..."

..

With Megatron being a flier, he was always home first. When Optimus turned on his turn signal and pulled into their driveway, Megatron was already lugging the desks inside.

"I hate these slagging desks," he complained when Optimus disconnected his trailer and folded into root mode. "They are so big!"

"We only have to move them once," Optimus said, stretching. Several joints popped and cracked. The trailer was heavy and Optimus didn't haul much anymore. "Let me help you."

"I got it," Megatron grunted, lifting the package up and carrying it through the door.

Optimus smiled and followed.

Between the two of them, they unloaded the trailer quickly. They were both tired by the time they finally got the couch, upright and turned, through the door and into the living room.

They placed it slab-dab in the middle and collapsed on it immediately. It blissfully devoured them in its plushness.

Nobody moved or said anything for a long while.

"We can never move again," Megatron decided finally. "I never want to do that again."

Optimus nodded slightly. Whatever motivation he'd started the day with had dissipated like the daylight outside.

Their house was a mess of stacked boxes. Tomorrow was going to be another long day of unpacking and assembling. But that was tomorrow.

He remembered something.

"I still love you," he decided, and turned his helm toward Megatron. "Even through all of this."

"Lucky me," Megatron muttered.

Optimus flopped his servo toward him. Megatron grabbed it, lifted it to his intake and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Optimus smiled.

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hey yourself," Megatron rumbled, nuzzling his nose against the back of Optimus' hand.

"How about we try out the couch?"

"We're on the--" Megatron looked up at Optimus' bright optics. "You said no stains," he said then.

"I've decided I don't care," Optimus said. "We can wipe any stains off."

Megatron grinned. "That's the first good thing to come out of this day," he said, and used his hold on Optimus to drag him towards himself.

"Don't be dramatic," Optimus chided, but fell comfortably against Megatron's frame. He was warm, and familiar, and steady. Optimus thought he could feel the thrum of his spark in his own.

Megatron swiped a gentle hand along Optimus' chin to direct his face. "Have you met me?" he rumbled, leaning forward into Optimus' space.

Optimus laughed, and kissed him.

..

"Oh," Megatron said later. "By the way."

"Hm?" Optimus sighed, half asleep. The couch was very comfortable. They fit on it perfectly. No hinges had locked up, either.

"Here," Megatron said, and handed Optimus something.

It was big and white and blue and soft.

"What," Optimus said when he realized that it was the mechashark plushie he had fallen in love with earlier.

"You liked it," Megatron said. "So I got it for you."

"What," Optimus said again. He found the energy to prop himself on one elbow to stare at Megatron. "When? How?!"

"I will not reveal my secrets to you!" Megatron said defensively.

"That's--" Optimus stopped himself. It didn't really matter. He looked at the mechashark's dumb face. "I love him," he decided.

"I love you," Megatron said.