Not the feeling, no, that was the worst part. He craved the feeling. The warmth you brought him. The way your voice settled the storm in his spark when the rest of the world only added to it. But the helplessness of it, the loss of control, that’s what he hated.

You had taken up permanent residence in his processor. You lived there now, rent free, haunting his thoughts like a phantom he didn’t want to exorcise. Every moment he spent in the mines, every swing of his pickaxe, every rally he gave to rising voices around him, you were there. Watching him with those optics. Those beautiful, soft glowing optics. They drove him insane in a way that had nothing to do with fury and everything to do with desire.

D-16 was not built to love. Not in the soft, fragile way the stories spoke of. He had come up clawing through darkness, metal, and disregard. The system taught him to fight, to dominate, to survive. Love was a myth. Something built for the privileged. But then you had come into his life like a fault line cracking through the foundation of everything he knew.

You were different. You didn’t look at him with fear. You didn’t speak to him like he was just another angry gladiator or an ambitious loudmouth from the lower castes. You listened. You challenged him. You respected him. You saw him as more than the sum of his scars, and primus help him, that broke him more than any chain ever had.

He adored everything about you. Your voice, your confidence, the way your frame moved with grace but never arrogance. You never pretended to be something you weren’t. And that laugh… Your laugh was a melody in a world of static and silence.

He replayed it in the back of his mind like a glitch he didn’t want to fix. And yet, he never dared speak the truth aloud. Because D-16 may have been bold on the higher ranks, fearless with words, but when it came to you, he was a coward. He’d rather take on a thousand enemies than risk watching your expression shift into discomfort… or worse, pity.

He couldn’t bear the thought of losing the fragile but precious thread between you.

He treasured your friendship more than he’d admit to anyone, not even himself some days. If he told you what burned behind his dimmed yellow optics, would you pull away? Would you see him differently? Less composed, less powerful, less… worthy?

So he kept it hidden, locked away in the quiet chambers of his spark. Every time he stood beside you, brushing servos by accident, watching your smile from across the chamber, he stayed silent. Silent, but longing. You were the only thing in this world that made him believe he could be more than just a simple miner.

You were the light in the pit.

And so, he let you live in his mind, unchallenged and sacred. Obsessed, yes, but not possessive. He didn’t want to own you. He wanted to be worthy of you. And he wasn’t there. Not yet.

But he would be.

And when that day came…

The night air was cooler now that the shifts were over. D-16 guided you away from the flickering refinery lights, down a narrow service tunnel that opened onto a shattered overlook of iacon lower districts. You both paused at the edge, the city’s glow painting your features in soft ambers and blues.

He turned to you, shoulders tense. “We’re free from the mines,” he began, voice low, controlled. “But I’ve been trapped by something far stronger.” You met his gaze. His spark stuttering in his chestplate, He drew in a breath, servos clicking softly.

“I thought I could bury it beneath work, stress, or being around orion,” he said, stepping closer so the distant lights danced in his optics. “But you’re always there… in every quiet moment.”

He reached out, digits brushing your servo. “I love you. I didn’t plan to say it tonight, but if I don’t-“ His voice softened. “I’ll never forgive myself..”