Transformers ( Bayverse ) - I Bleed When I Fall Down

44 - Truth Be Told

    After a few minutes of debating styles and colors, Fay settled on a tri-mare charm necklace. Three interlocked pendants hung from a sterling silver chain. Optimus had insisted on three instead of two, and Fay had shrugged in agreement. To replace the necklace her father had bought her, and she’d lost, the first moon phase pendant she’d picked out was from the night of her birth. A full moon. The sight of it made her smile a little. It made her think of her father and how wonderful he’d been, even though she’d been without him for so long. Even though she remembered so little of him by now.

    The second, as promised, was taken from the day they’d met. The process used took the date selected and went off the calculated moon phase from that night. After giving the woman the date, she dug through her folder and pinpointed the correct pendant add-on. “Here it is . . .” She spoke, though Fay was sure it was mostly to herself. “Third phase ascending.” She turned around, digging through a separated and organized plastic case. She returned with a thick sliver of a moon, attaching it to the full.

    “All right, Dear, and what would you like for your third moon?” Fay frowned. Optimus didn’t want her getting one for the anniversary of the accident. She wasn’t sure what else to get. The woman looked between Fay’s face, her blue eyes focused on the counter, and Optimus’s, who was watching Fay, hoping she’d have some answer. And also hoping she wouldn’t so she would be more open to suggestion.

    The sales woman’s brown eyes flicked between them a moment longer. “Look, if you only want the two, I can change the order and-.”

    “The third one is for today,” Optimus informed her, eyes going back to the woman inside the booth. Fay’s brows stitched together as she looked up from the black cloth to Optimus.

    “I don’t believe you’re in any position to choose for me-.”

    He smiled, pressing a finger to her lips to shush her. “I’m paying, Filly. Relax yourself.”

    Fay frowned, crossing her arms, and Optimus reluctantly pulled his finger from the soft flesh. She desperately wanted to kiss him, and he wanted to kiss her back, but neither would admit it. “Since when are you paying?” She asked, staring him down. He gave her a weak smile.

    “Since you needed someone new to confide in again,” he explained gently, pulling her into a tight embrace, pressing his lips to the hairline that contrasted with her forehead. He ended it shortly, and she blushed, the heat rushing to her forehead, the excess warmth hitting his lips just a moment before he removed them from her skin. “I promise I’ll be good, Filly. I’ll do things right . . .”

    Fay swallowed her own saliva, wanting desperately to say so many things, to ask so many things and demand answers from him, but she couldn’t bring herself to it. She just wanted him. That was all she wanted right now. But despite how flustered she felt in this moment, she managed to keep him on his toes. He certainly hadn’t expecting her to go in the direction she did considering his display.

    “So what’s so stupidly special about today, Creep? I thought you didn’t want me getting one for this day.” A bit of that sour quality was seeping back into her tone, an old defense that was far too much of an instinct. That, and the unnamed part of her was coming out again. Fortunately, Optimus handled it with grace, and actually smiled at her, though a bit of his own sorrow tinged the gesture.

    “I didn’t want you to get one for the day twelve years ago today. But today . . .” He exhaled slowly, blue eyes clashing with blue, one pair vulnerable, the other speaking of horrors that seemed beyond his twenty-some years. “Today will be a day to remember, Filly. You’ll never forget it.”