The mines of Iacon didn't sleep.
They churned and clawed and bled. They howled and gasped and shrieked through the gears of labor and the screams of those who stumbled. The walls themselves had memory — every strike of equipment against ore echoed with a thousand other sounds: colliding metals, collapsing stone and many sparks that flickered out before the end of a shift.
D-16 didn't flinch when he heard somebot scream, he just kept mining.
Again and again.
The beat of it was simpler than the arena.
There was no audience here. No cheers or jeers or booming names. Just darkness and the ache of repetition. The miners here didn't care if you won or lost, most didn't care if you lived or not. They only wanted more energon, they only wanted to survive to the end of their shift.
And now, apparently, he had a new partner.
He didn't want one, even if it was the logical response after his last one died. It wasn't safe to mine alone so, usually, bots were assigned from groups varying from two to five depending on their performance.
That didn't mean D-16 had to like having a new partner, it was just one more spark that would eventually be snuffed out and forgotten.
So, when the bright colored frame wandered into the tunnel he had been assigned to that day— young, polished, soft-voiced — D-16 barely looked up from his work.
"Excuse me," the new bot said, polite. "I was told this section is where I'm assigned."
D-16 gave the other no reply, or any signs of acknowledgement of his new partner's arrival.
"I'm Orion Pax," he tried again. "Records clerk. Or—used to be. I guess I'm a miner now."
For a moment D-16 pauses, wondering why a bot that used to work among the Elite society would be turned into a miner of all things. But a brief glance behind him provided all he needed to know, the new bot had no t-cog, just like D-16 and any other miner.
Bots without a t-cog always end up either in the mines or in the fighting arenas.
Still, D-16 said nothing, he just kept mining.
One klik.
two kliks.
"You don't talk much, do you?" Orion offered with a nervous laugh.
D-16 stops and sighs. Slowly straightening he turns his helm just enough to let his golden optics catch the blue glow of Orion's hopeful ones.
"Shut up and get to work" he demands and then turns back to the wall and resume digging.
If Orion took offense, he didn't say, but obediently followed his order and also started mining.
D-16 had seen others crumble faster.
—o0O0o—
This new mech was persistent.
That was the worst part.
Most new miners broke within cycles. Some collapsed from exhaustion. Others cracked under the weight of the cold-hearted higher ups.
But not Orion.
Orion never lost his brightness, his hope. It was still there, even it it wasn't exactly the same compared to when he first arrived.
He didn't speak much after that first day. Just worked. And when the shift was over, he didn't retreat to the farther corners of the berth chamber like the other bots.
He came to D-16's berth. Sat beside it.
Sometimes Orion spoke to D-16, even if Orion knew that he would not respond. Sometimes he didn't, but after every shift, he was always there.
...
The first night Orion sat guard Infront of D-16's berth, he didn't recharge. He didn't dare to.
His vents hitched in his chest. He swore he smelled the oils of the arena in his throat. Felt the sensation of somebot else's died energon under his claws. The chant of his designation echoing in his helm, even though it had been silenced when the arena gates closed and Kaon's steel pit was repurposed for mining quotas.
He lay there, optics wide open, systems screaming for rest — but unable to trust that the quiet meant safety.
Unable to trust that Orion would not betray him and try to end him while he was at his most vulnerable.
And then Orion's voice broke through the dark.
"Do you want me to stay?"
The question wasn't pitying. Just gentle. Earnest.
D-16 didn't respond. Couldn't.
He just turned his helm the slightest bit.
Orion took that as enough.
The smaller mech curled up beside the berth, frame pressed near but not touching.
Orion's fuel cables on his neck were near enough that D-16 could swiftly end him in one movement, but at the same time Orion was at the optimal position to defend D-16 if anybot tried to approach while D-16 recharged.
Orion didn't leave, and D-16 didn't recharge. Not for one full recharge cycle.
The next night, Orion was there again. And the next after.
—o0O0o—
By the sixth solar cycle, D-16 was exhausted but had acquired enough data about Orion's personality to assure his own processor that the chances of the red and blue bot trying to end him while he recharged where nearly inexistent.
And that was enough reassurance for his exhausted processor. He recharged that night, and when the next solar cycle came and he was still alive, he was a bit more willing to trust Orion.
Orion keept coming back on the following nights and D-16 found himself less and less reluctant to fall into recharge around the smaller mech each night.
That was until Orion collapsed in exhaustion.
"Why?" He had asked Orion when he came to retrieve the smaller bot from the medbay.
"Because I saw how reluctant you were to recharge when other bots were around, so if I stood guard, there would be no chance of anybot harming you and you could recharge with more ease." That was the stupid self-sacrificial bot's answer.
D-16 couldn't believe there was a bot who would willingly sacrifice their own health just so somebot else could be more comfortable. But apparently there was one, and this bot was Orion Pax.
"You are taking shifts with me." He demanded before leaving. Orion's optics shuttered in confusion but D-16 did not elaborate.
That night when Orion Pax entered the berth chamber he found D-16 seated beside Orion's berth, observing sharply any bot that dared to move closer.
"Dee?" Orion called hesitantly.
D-16's golden optics locked onto Orion's blue ones.
"Sleep" He demanded the smaller mech before resuming his post.
Orion laughed, but still laid on his berth and was deep into recharge in moments.
'Stupid Bot' D-16 thought as he kept watch the entire night.
And from that day started a new routine between them.
—o0O0o—
It's been about a little more than one Stellar cycle since he met Orion.
This solar cycle had been a bad one.
The walls of the tunnel they where digging started to collapse and D-16 and Orion almost died.
And while the cave in had been D-16's fault, the Elite bot in charge of them didn't care, he screamed at and punished only Orion, it was unfair.
Orion shouldn't have been the one punished, but just because the Elite bot knew the red and blue mech from the time he was Orion Pax, the archivist.
D-16's cables boiled with rage but he could do nothing to help his friend.
Later that day, when Orion climbed into the berth beside D-16, when the smaller mech pressed his back against him and D-16 could feel Orion's plating shaking, he warmed his own plating in his own way to show silent comfort.
He didn't ask, he didn't say anything, but he knew. And when Orion finally fell into a restless recharge, D-16 also allowed himself to fall into recharge.
—o0O0o—
It has been three stellar cycles since D-16 and Orion pax met.
This life together became their rhythm.
The mines were hell. The tunnels worse. They always went down together.
Orion was perceptive, the mech picking up on danger before it came. His frame was smaller, but quick. While D-16 who was broader and stronger, always kept him shielded when debris fell or unstable veins cracked overhead.
When others got aggressive — and somebot always did — Orion talked them down with his ridiculous calm, his stupidly soft voice, and his spark-deep conviction that words still mattered, even here.
D-16 doesn't believe in that.
But he believes in Orion.
They bled together. Saved each other. Leaned on each other when the weight was too much.
D-16 hoped they would spend many more stellar cycles just like that.
Inseparable.
—o0O0o—
Five Stellar cycles since they met.
Once, after a tunnel collapse kept them buried under the rubble for two entire solar cycles before rescue came, D-16 woke in the medbay to Orion slumped in a chair beside him. Online, if barely.
His plating was cracked, energon flaked dry on his cables. Orion looked like he hadn't recharged in full cycles.
"What are you doing?" D-16 rasped, throat raw from dust.
Orion's optics shuttered for a moment before he glanced at D-16 and gave a soft smile.
"Somebot has to keep watch, and it was my turn, so here I am."
D-16 stared.
"You sat here all night?"
"No" D-16's shoulder plates sagged in relief.
"I've kept guard for about five solar cycles if you count tonight" Orion corrected with a sheepish shrug.
No wonder Orion looked so ragged.
"Idiot," D-16 chastised, but he didn't mean it. Not really.
Orion's smile softened.
"Yeah," he said. "But I'm your idiot."
D-16's spark fluttered for a moment.
"Idiot" he repeated.
—o0O0o—
It's been about seven stellar cycles since they met, if D-16's processor doesn't fail him.
They recharged together now.
Every night. No more sneaking. No more excuses. No bot in the berth chamber questions it anymore. Most even approved for whatever reason.
There was something sacred about the way they curled together — sometimes silent, sometimes murmuring stories until recharge claimed them.
D-16 never asked about Orion's past, the time he was an archivist. And Orion never pushed about the arena.
They just were.
Their sparks never fully interlinked. They never called each other conjunx. But when D-16 woke one night from a flashback — overheating and claws digging into the metal of the berth — Orion was there, immediately, without question.
Their helms touched. Servos found each other.
"You're here," Orion whispered. "It's just us. You're safe."
That was the moment D-16 knew.
He'd never need the word.
He was Orion's.
Just as Orion was his.
And if he could carve out a better world with his own servos — if he could tear down the one that makes Orion's brightness flicker out sometimes— then he would.
He'd protect that spark until the very end.