Titanium Bare
Mar. 8th, 2011 05:32 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
niyazi-a.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
shadow_vectorNC-17
IDW
Perceptor/Drift
Sticky, protoform sex which may read an awful lot like disturbingly-flayed.
ALLEGEDLY, if I work up the nerve for it, a kink meme fill for this. Not really sure a) it works b) it fills the kink request and c) that it's actually hot. ;_; It had three betas, but I'm not sure they want to be associated with this pile of potential kinkfail.
The Axion had been in dock for a decacycle. Which was, Perceptor knew from his experience with the Wreckers, just long enough for what little military discipline they had to erode, and real dockside trouble to begin.
What he hadn't expected, however, was that the trouble would come from...Drift.
A little blinking red light in the corner of his HUD. //Drift,// Perceptor commed, feigning a light tone, his hands stilling on the circuit board he was repairing.
A muffled curse, shot through with static. Perceptor forced himself calm.
//Status, Drift?// Perceptor allowed a little of that edge into his tone. The one that told Drift he wasn't just asking.
//...trouble.//
Perceptor shut off the small soldering iron, pushing up from his workbench. His rifle was never far from him, not even onboard ship—he snatched it up, heading toward the door. //On my way.//
A burst of static and then, //...deco--//.
Perceptor frowned. Had he been Springer, or Topspin, he would have cursed, at least once. But it was a waste of energy, energy he needed to focus, to retrieve Drift. Drift had saved his life, when his own mechs had left him, abandoned, on the deck of the ship, bleeding out his failure. He owed Drift everything. Every moment of life, every pulse of energon: Drift's.
He raced down the Axion’s ramp, heading for the directional ping from the tracker node. A little...something he'd installed in Drift. Not entirely with Drift's permission, that. But the very fact he needed to activate it now proved to him, conclusively, that it was not only wise, but right. How else do you protect a mech with such a tendency to wander off?
It wasn’t—perhaps—the darkest alley in Kazten Hub, but it was pretty close. Perceptor slowed, popping his headlamps on, peering at what seemed to be a mass of twisted metal. His rifle readied itself in his hands, the safety shutting off at a silent command. The mass of metal resolved itself into two dark-armored frames—the dull palette of Decepticon armor, silver grins of sword cuts gleaming under the sweep of Perceptor’s lamps. And in the middle, one hand still clutching a sword—Drift. Immobile.
Perceptor clicked the safety back on, slapping the gun over his shoulders as he vaulted the first downed ‘con, his feet crunching in the thin glass of what had been some sort of gas vial. He dropped to one knee. “Drift.”
A thin moan, a staticky blat from the vocalizer. The white armor was mazed with cracks and bubbles. Some sort of corrosive agent, Perceptor thought. He snatched protective gloves from his storage. There was some benefit in having been the closest thing to a medic for the Wreckers for so long. He was always prepared for the worst.
It was a shame he was so rarely disappointed.
He leaned forward, over Drift’s downed form, lifting the head gently to apply a sensor-block component to the primary attachment point in the base of his neck. Perceptor had gotten so accustomed to these that his fingers, even gloved, could tap the codes for the systems he wanted blocked blind, behind another mech’s head. He blocked every physical relay, nodding brusquely as Drift’s frame seemed to sag with relief, all sensory feed save audio and video clicking offline. He had questions, but…there was time for that later.
Right now, his priority was to get Drift decontaminated. He tugged the sword out of the numb fingers, sheathing it carefully in the hip scabbard. Drift’s optics followed his movements, embarrassed and grateful—two things Drift hated being, hated showing as though they were gaping vulnerabilities.
Perceptor folded himself into his vehicle mode, letting his arms haul Drift’s frame over him. He was slow in this mode, but it was—he hoped—less awkward to carry Drift. He disabled the speed governors, maxing his straight line velocity, wincing inwardly on the return trip every time his treads jounced over a deck seam or took a corner too hard, feeling Drift’s numbed fingers trying to grip onto him. Perceptor roared back up the ramp, tearing down the corridor, not even caring that his treads left black gouges on the floor when he locked one side down for a hard turn, not stopping until he’d rumbled into his lab.
Drift edged himself off Perceptor, wobbling unsteadily as Perceptor pushed back to his feet. Perceptor shot him a glance, before heading to the door, locking it, and adding another level of encryption. Drift hated being seen as vulnerable by anyone. He might make an exception for Perceptor, but it was an exception Perceptor took as an honor, a sacred trust. And Perceptor would do everything to keep that honor. No one else would see this. He’d make sure of it.
Perceptor strode to the lab’s decontamination booth, hitting the taps on full, before turning to beckon Drift over. He tried to block the worry from his face as Drift staggered over, his sensor-blocked systems half-responsive from lack of feedback, some of the armor crackling and chipping off as he moved. Perceptor tried even harder not to swoop in, using his larger mass, to scoop Drift in himself under the cleanser spray. It was important, he thought, not to make Drift feel more helpless than he was.
“Gas,” Drift said, filling the time it took for him to move. His vocalizer was still mostly undercharged, depleted by the routing of his power to pain thresholding, so the sound was scratchy and thin.
Perceptor acknowledged him with a nod. “Ambush, yes?”
Drift gave a weary nod, stepping, finally, under the spray, hands wide for balance.
“We need to get your armor off,” Perceptor said, quietly, bracing for Drift’s response. Drift…hated weakness. Despised it in others, loathed it in himself. He saw Drift’s face go stiff—a tight mask of denial, the optics shuttering before, finally, another nod.
[***]
Drift stood under the cleanser-fall, feeling…the absence of feeling. It was eerie. He could see the clear liquid fall, could see it striking his armor, but he couldn’t feel it. Not pressure, not wetness, not temperature. He couldn’t feel anything. It had been a relief when Perceptor had snapped the sensor block on—the corrosive agent had been scorching over his armor, like a fire that somehow never consumed its source, flaring against his cortex, making thinking almost impossible. But by now it felt unnatural: not to feel, to be trapped in sight and sound only, locked in with his thoughts and emotions—things he’d rather not feel.
He knew it should hurt—decontaminant cleanser scalded like nothing else, designed to destroy chemical bonds, render inert any chemical compound, burning itself out against his bubbled, warped armor, staging a one-on-one molecular level deathmatch against any liquid or gas.
He thought, suddenly, of Perceptor—hanging in the regen tank after Turmoil’s ship. His lasting memory of Perceptor. He’d never thought—never could have thought—they’d become anything to each other, other than his first saved life, the first stone on his path to redemption. He couldn’t have predicted that somehow…. In his own way, he owed Perceptor, despite what the taller mech said. For this. For so much more.
Perceptor, though, must have felt something like this, hanging in the blue energon-gel, this eerie trapped sense, no choice, no escape from himself. And doubtless…had handled it way better. Perceptor lived in his head, as though his body were sometimes an alien thing he could only clumsily control; Drift was the opposite—all body, reflex, instinct, ill-suited for reflection of any sort.
Perceptor knelt down in front of him, black helm bowed, a flat-headed screwdriver repurposed into an ersatz chisel, jamming into seams that the corrosive had bubbled over, melting closed. Drift did his best to strip his own armor, his movements slow, having to watch everything he did, having no other way to gauge pressure, location, motion, but by tracking with his optics. Slowly it happened—peeling first the white heavy armor on his forearms, then shucking down the finer black mesh underneath.
Bits of his armor lay scattered on the floor of the decon booth around his feet, the plates cracked, chipped, bubbled rust-orange in spots, garish and hideous, thinner mesh mail armor splatted across it like clots.
And underneath… the dull titanium of his bare protoform—the small boxes of actuators, the smooth tubes of pistons in his hands, wound with the cables of coolant, energon, the white and red and black of wiring, small ventilation ducts, the small plates pink fine fur of sensor-cilia, separated from their armor, all of it glistening under the cleanser. He felt…naked. Exposed.
Perceptor stood, pushing the last of the armor clamshells around Drift’s right ankle open. The white armor fell, splashing up puddles, bouncing on the rubber of the tire as Perceptor leaned over, around Drift, to shut off the tap. Drift felt the buzz of Perceptor’s EM field against his. He shivered at the primal contact—too deep, too essential for even a sensor-block to shut out. It felt like velvet being sleeked over him, deep and plush and comforting.
His optics met Perceptor’s, his ventilation catching suddenly.
“I have to remove the sensor block,” Perceptor said, apologetically. “We need to check your primary systems for functionality.”
Drift nodded, bowing his head for Perceptor’s hands to reach behind, carefully, almost gently, plucking off the sensor-block. Sensation returned: first, a stray brush of one of Perceptor’s fingers over his throat cabling, and he could feel the cooling cleanser, its solvent bite long since worn off into a stinging echo, and…something else. A hot arousal, the awareness of the contrast between them: Perceptor large and armored, he small and bare and naked. It was…terrifying but at the same time right on a razor’s edge of erotic: the knowledge of how easily he could be damaged right now, how little it would take to hurt him—pluck out a wire, or bend a piston rod or even flick too hard against a capacitor. All his strength, all his hardness…gone. It was like vertigo, spinning through his system.
And above that, the sure knowledge that Perceptor wouldn’t hurt him. He felt almost dizzy with this new sensation, this realization, his own EM pulsing against Perceptor’s. Drift tilted his head, so that Perceptor’s fingers grazed over his cheek.
Perceptor snatched his hand back, optics alarmed. “Let’s…,” he faltered. “Need to run a diagnostic.” He stepped back, abruptly, optics downcast.
Drift stepped back, out of his toe plates, and picked his way around his shed armor. Moving was easier now, with feedback—weight, pressure, balance—but it felt different. So much lighter without the armor that his servos had to calibrate down, firing at a tenth—or less—of their usual power. It made him feel…weightless, insubstantial. Like a ghost.
He floated, it felt like, after Perceptor, following him to the workbench, where the red mech had bent down, a determined hunch, rifling for tools. Drift held out one of his own hands, bending and flexing it, fascinated by the visible operation of the mechanisms. Unmuffled by armor, firing actuators made little soft click, pistons delicate hisses, gyros murmuring whirls. A whole host of sounds, under his armor, all this time. It was like seeing himself for the first time. And Perceptor—under his armor, too, this intricate array of parts and motion. Every movement the controlled performance of a dozen interlinked mechanisms. It struck Drift as fascinating, just as swiftly as it struck him that Perceptor…probably already knew this.
Perceptor turned around, keeping his optics averted. “First,” he began. “Primary systems.” His hands clutched over the scanner.
“Something wrong?” Now that his systems weren’t clogged with alarms, his vocalizer had built enough charge to speak.
“Nothing,” Perceptor said, studying the scanner in his hand, fiddling with a knob.
“Why won’t you look at me?” Drift lifted his hand between them.
“I…,” Perceptor forced his gaze upward, locking it staunchly with Drift’s. “Preserving your modesty?” He’d seen mechs stripped like this, down to bare systems. A few times. But never like this. The same sense of awe at the vulnerability, but this time the vulnerability, the fragility…was Drift’s. It made a difference, somehow.
Drift laughed. “Modesty?” He reached up—unarmored he was even smaller than usual—brushing one naked hand over Perceptor’s cheek. “Nothing to hide from you,” he murmured. He pulled Perceptor’s face down, tipping his own up into a kiss. His own ventilations picked up, air gusting strangely through his systems, against actuators, cooling lines, parts that normally never felt the strike of air. His EM fluttered like gossamer when he moved, no longer contained in metal. It sent a tingling hot awareness over his net. He should be terrified, exposed, but…this was Perceptor. And the sensor block had always affected him this way—a little loopy, transmuting pain into a strange, light euphoria, everything warm and hazy, like the world was wearing a bright halo.
His mouth was gentle against Perceptor’s, his bare hand glossing around Perceptor’s black helm, fingertip sensors prickling over the audio receptors. The scanner, Perceptor’s hands, bumped against the power lines snaking over Drift’s exposed spark chamber. Drift felt a shiver run through his own frame at his audacity, at the risk. Perceptor hesitated, his mouth moving slowly, gently, as if the kiss could kill, before he pulled back.
“Scan,” Perceptor said, and Drift realized, suddenly, that Perceptor was more nervous than he was; more afraid of hurting him than he was of being hurt. Drift reached for one hand, lifting it from the scanner, his bare mechanisms silver and bright against Perceptor’s black armor. He pried into the hand, curling his fingers into Perceptor’s.
“Touch me,” he murmured.
“Drift, I--,” Perceptor’s hand was still, afraid of damaging the needle-fine actuators.
“Touch me,” Drift repeated. “I won’t break.” He raised the black hand, placing it against his bare shoulder.
Perceptor gave a shuddering sigh, his hand resting lightly on the exposed systems, feeling the hum of the system, the pulse of energon through a hose. He could name each wire, each line, each actuator, could recite the tolerances and load specs of each component. But this…felt too intimate.
Drift’s optics dimmed, concentrating on the touch. He stepped closer, letting the bare systems of his thigh slide against Perceptor’s armor, backing him toward the workbench. Drift slid his hands around Perceptor’s chassis, pulling him against the exposed mechanisms of his body.
Sensor-cilia pads rippled, their pink strands furring over Perceptor’s armor. Drift gasped, frame shuddering against Perceptor’s, as his cilia tried to make sensor connections over the red armor. Perceptor pushed away, bumping into the edge of his workbench. “Drift, no,” he said, hands on the naked shoulders, shivering with alarm.
Drift hesitated. “Why?”
“You could be damaged. Too easily.”
“Tougher than I look,” Drift said, a note of challenge in his voice.
“Yes. Yes. I know.” Perceptor understood—all too well—Drift’s need. “But…the scan, and then we need to install another set of light mesh mail while the rest is being fabricated and there’s the matter of decontaminating your Sword and—“ A silver-padded finger on his mouthplates.
“Perceptor?” Drift’s tone was teasing. “Talk too much.” He ran his finger over the mouthplates, down the stern flat plane of Perceptor’s cheek. And then he said the word Perceptor had been dreading, the one he couldn’t refuse from the smaller mech. “Please.”
Perceptor’s mouth flattened. “You will tell me—immediately—if it hurts.” Giving in, since…he had no other choice. Drift was too headstrong. If he wanted this, he’d have it, and if not from Perceptor, who could at least be careful about it…? The image of Blurr popped into his cortex. No.
His optics blazed, stern, his targeting reticle whizzing over his right optic, boring into Drift’s gaze. Drift nodded, solemnly. Perceptor shook his head. “Say it. Aloud. Your word, Drift.”
Drift gave an indulgent grin, as though Perceptor’s qualms were somehow…adorable. “I promise. If it hurts—at all—I’ll tell you.”
Perceptor glared for a moment, before nodding. “Yes. Fine.” His optics scanned Drift, uncertainly. “Now…?”
Drift grinned, the triumphant smile of someone who had gotten his way. He leaned past Perceptor, sweeping the circuit board, the box of capacitors and transducers, aside, perching himself on the surface, tugging Perceptor toward him. “Touch,” he ordered.
Perceptor gave an unsteady vent of air, letting his hands settle again on the shoulders, the powerful actuators, before letting his fingers dip into the ball joint, the radial assembly. Part of him was occupied in naming the parts--C3 clavicular strut, secondary gyroscope, anterior feedback array—while another felt the warmth of an EM field, the pulse of energon through a power hose, the silky burnished metal of a piston housing, with a lover’s sensitivity. He felt his own EM field flare, his ventilations lose some of their nervous shallowness. Protoform metal was exquisitely sensitive, and felt almost like warm satin under his touch.
Drift smiled encouragingly, sliding his naked hands up Perceptor’s forearms, silver against red, pulling the taller mech over into a kiss that started gentle, hesitant, but quickly grew hungry, wanting. Drift’s hands, though armorless, knew everything Drift knew—all the secret sensitive places Perceptor responded to. His fingertips brushed the back of Perceptor’s waist, just where it framed into the heavy pelvic armor, fanning over the black span itself as his stripped thighs parted, pulling Perceptor between them, sliding against Perceptor’s beveled thigh plates. “Not so bad, is it?” Drift’s voice, husky, murmured against Perceptor’s mouth.
“No,” Perceptor managed, the skillful touches sending flashes of flame over his sensor net, firing on his interface array, teasing, tempting him knowingly, but not too far; inviting, but not pushing. Drift’s trust was…almost frightening, and just like Drift, edged and intense.
“More?” Drift asked—asking permission. Perceptor nodded. Drift moved his arms closer, twisting so that one plate of his sensor-cilia brushed against the armor, again, both of them shivering at the poignant intensity of the contact, Drift’s sensors crossing over, in prickling nano-kliks, with Perceptor’s. Impossibly intense, a bright sweet burst of sensation shared between them. Perceptor’s hands clutched, involuntarily, around Drift’s frame. Drift hooked his legs around the narrow black hips, pulling Perceptor against the bare metal of his interface array, hatch cover gone, only the thin equipment covers between them. Perceptor shuddered, his spike pressurizing, his whole frame wanting Drift, Drift wanting him, connected through the cilia plates in a closed circuit of sensation.
Drift could feel his desire, even without the sensor feedback, tilting his hips invitingly along the bench’s surface, clicking open his valve cover. “Want to?” he offered—already knowing the answer. He could feel Perceptor’s desire spike through the closed loop of the sensor cilia. His fingertips ranged down Perceptor’s back, the sensor plates prickling and kissing their way down the red chassis, following the gesture. Drift rarely offered this, more likely to growl and bite and grind his spike against Perceptor’s frame. Drift sensed his hesitation, read the cause of it, nuzzling his face against the black helm. “If I’m going to be vulnerable, might as well go all the way, right?” As though this were a contest.
No. As though this were a test.
Drift’s glossa snaked down the helm, into Perceptor’s throat. Leaving Perceptor to make the choice. Perceptor ex-vented, his systems, still connected through the sharp-sweet stab of the cilia against his armor, wanting with Drift’s intensity, a phosphorous flare that blinded him to just about anything else, barely leaving him enough presence of mind to move slowly as he released his spike, easing it carefully into Drift’s valve.
They both shuddered as the spike slid home, Drift’s legs locking around the black hips, falling back against the workbench, optics dimming as the sensor cilia on his thighs took over, feathering in contact with Perceptor’s armor, linking their systems, reading the plates between them as no barrier at all but a membrane through which…everything passed: lust, sensation, color, sound, movement and…the sweet pain of emotions too deep for either to ever speak.
It was all Perceptor could do to control his movements, keep his thrusts slow and even, surging and ebbing into Drift’s body, spike sliding through the valve’s aperture, slick and warm. It felt wrong, or that it should feel wrong. It felt dangerous—a slip, and so much damage. And Drift, lying there, trusting him, naked, exposed entirely, while Perceptor himself kept his armor, safe and hard. It felt like…something he was hiding behind, and Drift wasn’t hiding.
Drift’s body rocked in tempo, and Perceptor found himself enthralled by the firing of the mechanisms—sliding pistons, the small clicks of actuators, the way wires and hoses bent and shifted with each move. It was…beautiful, form and function, power and grace and design combined, undulating with pleasure. Drift’s hands fell back off Perceptor’s body, fingers roaming over his own bare systems, one clutching at his underchassis, the secondary plate over his spark chamber, the other sliding down his pelvic frame.
Drift was enthralled with himself, as if discovering his frame for the first time, and his probing, curious touches at his own body were maddeningly erotic to Perceptor, a curiosity driven more by pleasure than science. Strange how Perceptor, in all his study of robotics, of systems analysis, had never considered the mechanisms this way—sensual and intimate, touching the most private, deepest areas.
Perceptor risked a touch, gently, on the bare thighs, two fingers on the main endoskeletal strut, riding down it before it buried itself in the stabilizers and rotational array of the hip, his other fingers feathering over the pistons, the fine wires of the circuitry. Drift moaned, pushing into the touch, into the intimacy of it all, letting the sensor feed wash through the cilial circuit, building to an overload faster, more inexorably, than mere friction could have, whipped on by desire and openness and fragility and the mutual acknowledgment of the other’s trust like a sacred bond.
Perceptor held back at the top of each thrust, wincing as the black solid plane of his pelvic span bumped the powerful, exposed pistons of Drift’s thighs, the hard edges of his interface hatch bruisingly hard against the thinner metal of Drift’s body. But his spike slid, through the slick heat of Drift’s valve, and the feedback loop gave him spike and valve, so he could feel…his own nakedness, his own spike advancing and retreating in the valve, pushing open through the calipers, riding over the sensor clusters, hard and turgid, an instrument of their shared desire. His body was Drifts; Drift’s his, connected through the cilia, and it was his valve being entered, his body thin and fragile on the workbench, his hands, small and bare and hypersensitized, clutching, grabbing, tugging against his own bare titanium.
Drift clutched into his own systems, helm rocking forward, his spinal struts curling, mouth panting open around a cry, as the overload tore through them, the high note of his cry echoed by a matching pitch torn from Perceptor’s vocalizer.
Perceptor’s palms slapped flat on the workbench on either side of Drift’s frame, catching his weight before he fell onto the fragile protoform. For a long moment they hung there, faces close, panting to the same rhythm, bodies throbbing together, EM fields swirling in a unified spiral.
“See?” Drift breathed, spinal struts releasing, optics blue and clear and open. “Wasn’t that bad, was it?” His sensorfeed was still linked with Perceptor’s, thighs squeezed around the black hips. Perceptor whimpered, shaking his head, mute. Drift curled his arms over Perceptor’s shoulders, sensor cilia licking over the armor as he moved. “Do it again, maybe?”
“Not…right now,” Perceptor said, a deep vent rattling from his chassis. Even Drift’s systems releasing, lowering him back to the bench, captivated him, the soft hiss of releasing hydraulics, the slide of coolant lines over hard framework. Beautiful, vulnerable, exposed and still somehow…Drift.
Drift grinned. “Later.” He tipped his chin up, mouth finding Perceptor’s, lipping it gently until Perceptor’s frown melted. “And later?” he murmured, two fingers tugging, teasing, at an armor lock over Perceptor’s shoulder, “Maybe you can try it.”
IDW
Perceptor/Drift
Sticky, protoform sex which may read an awful lot like disturbingly-flayed.
ALLEGEDLY, if I work up the nerve for it, a kink meme fill for this. Not really sure a) it works b) it fills the kink request and c) that it's actually hot. ;_; It had three betas, but I'm not sure they want to be associated with this pile of potential kinkfail.
The Axion had been in dock for a decacycle. Which was, Perceptor knew from his experience with the Wreckers, just long enough for what little military discipline they had to erode, and real dockside trouble to begin.
What he hadn't expected, however, was that the trouble would come from...Drift.
A little blinking red light in the corner of his HUD. //Drift,// Perceptor commed, feigning a light tone, his hands stilling on the circuit board he was repairing.
A muffled curse, shot through with static. Perceptor forced himself calm.
//Status, Drift?// Perceptor allowed a little of that edge into his tone. The one that told Drift he wasn't just asking.
//...trouble.//
Perceptor shut off the small soldering iron, pushing up from his workbench. His rifle was never far from him, not even onboard ship—he snatched it up, heading toward the door. //On my way.//
A burst of static and then, //...deco--//.
Perceptor frowned. Had he been Springer, or Topspin, he would have cursed, at least once. But it was a waste of energy, energy he needed to focus, to retrieve Drift. Drift had saved his life, when his own mechs had left him, abandoned, on the deck of the ship, bleeding out his failure. He owed Drift everything. Every moment of life, every pulse of energon: Drift's.
He raced down the Axion’s ramp, heading for the directional ping from the tracker node. A little...something he'd installed in Drift. Not entirely with Drift's permission, that. But the very fact he needed to activate it now proved to him, conclusively, that it was not only wise, but right. How else do you protect a mech with such a tendency to wander off?
It wasn’t—perhaps—the darkest alley in Kazten Hub, but it was pretty close. Perceptor slowed, popping his headlamps on, peering at what seemed to be a mass of twisted metal. His rifle readied itself in his hands, the safety shutting off at a silent command. The mass of metal resolved itself into two dark-armored frames—the dull palette of Decepticon armor, silver grins of sword cuts gleaming under the sweep of Perceptor’s lamps. And in the middle, one hand still clutching a sword—Drift. Immobile.
Perceptor clicked the safety back on, slapping the gun over his shoulders as he vaulted the first downed ‘con, his feet crunching in the thin glass of what had been some sort of gas vial. He dropped to one knee. “Drift.”
A thin moan, a staticky blat from the vocalizer. The white armor was mazed with cracks and bubbles. Some sort of corrosive agent, Perceptor thought. He snatched protective gloves from his storage. There was some benefit in having been the closest thing to a medic for the Wreckers for so long. He was always prepared for the worst.
It was a shame he was so rarely disappointed.
He leaned forward, over Drift’s downed form, lifting the head gently to apply a sensor-block component to the primary attachment point in the base of his neck. Perceptor had gotten so accustomed to these that his fingers, even gloved, could tap the codes for the systems he wanted blocked blind, behind another mech’s head. He blocked every physical relay, nodding brusquely as Drift’s frame seemed to sag with relief, all sensory feed save audio and video clicking offline. He had questions, but…there was time for that later.
Right now, his priority was to get Drift decontaminated. He tugged the sword out of the numb fingers, sheathing it carefully in the hip scabbard. Drift’s optics followed his movements, embarrassed and grateful—two things Drift hated being, hated showing as though they were gaping vulnerabilities.
Perceptor folded himself into his vehicle mode, letting his arms haul Drift’s frame over him. He was slow in this mode, but it was—he hoped—less awkward to carry Drift. He disabled the speed governors, maxing his straight line velocity, wincing inwardly on the return trip every time his treads jounced over a deck seam or took a corner too hard, feeling Drift’s numbed fingers trying to grip onto him. Perceptor roared back up the ramp, tearing down the corridor, not even caring that his treads left black gouges on the floor when he locked one side down for a hard turn, not stopping until he’d rumbled into his lab.
Drift edged himself off Perceptor, wobbling unsteadily as Perceptor pushed back to his feet. Perceptor shot him a glance, before heading to the door, locking it, and adding another level of encryption. Drift hated being seen as vulnerable by anyone. He might make an exception for Perceptor, but it was an exception Perceptor took as an honor, a sacred trust. And Perceptor would do everything to keep that honor. No one else would see this. He’d make sure of it.
Perceptor strode to the lab’s decontamination booth, hitting the taps on full, before turning to beckon Drift over. He tried to block the worry from his face as Drift staggered over, his sensor-blocked systems half-responsive from lack of feedback, some of the armor crackling and chipping off as he moved. Perceptor tried even harder not to swoop in, using his larger mass, to scoop Drift in himself under the cleanser spray. It was important, he thought, not to make Drift feel more helpless than he was.
“Gas,” Drift said, filling the time it took for him to move. His vocalizer was still mostly undercharged, depleted by the routing of his power to pain thresholding, so the sound was scratchy and thin.
Perceptor acknowledged him with a nod. “Ambush, yes?”
Drift gave a weary nod, stepping, finally, under the spray, hands wide for balance.
“We need to get your armor off,” Perceptor said, quietly, bracing for Drift’s response. Drift…hated weakness. Despised it in others, loathed it in himself. He saw Drift’s face go stiff—a tight mask of denial, the optics shuttering before, finally, another nod.
[***]
Drift stood under the cleanser-fall, feeling…the absence of feeling. It was eerie. He could see the clear liquid fall, could see it striking his armor, but he couldn’t feel it. Not pressure, not wetness, not temperature. He couldn’t feel anything. It had been a relief when Perceptor had snapped the sensor block on—the corrosive agent had been scorching over his armor, like a fire that somehow never consumed its source, flaring against his cortex, making thinking almost impossible. But by now it felt unnatural: not to feel, to be trapped in sight and sound only, locked in with his thoughts and emotions—things he’d rather not feel.
He knew it should hurt—decontaminant cleanser scalded like nothing else, designed to destroy chemical bonds, render inert any chemical compound, burning itself out against his bubbled, warped armor, staging a one-on-one molecular level deathmatch against any liquid or gas.
He thought, suddenly, of Perceptor—hanging in the regen tank after Turmoil’s ship. His lasting memory of Perceptor. He’d never thought—never could have thought—they’d become anything to each other, other than his first saved life, the first stone on his path to redemption. He couldn’t have predicted that somehow…. In his own way, he owed Perceptor, despite what the taller mech said. For this. For so much more.
Perceptor, though, must have felt something like this, hanging in the blue energon-gel, this eerie trapped sense, no choice, no escape from himself. And doubtless…had handled it way better. Perceptor lived in his head, as though his body were sometimes an alien thing he could only clumsily control; Drift was the opposite—all body, reflex, instinct, ill-suited for reflection of any sort.
Perceptor knelt down in front of him, black helm bowed, a flat-headed screwdriver repurposed into an ersatz chisel, jamming into seams that the corrosive had bubbled over, melting closed. Drift did his best to strip his own armor, his movements slow, having to watch everything he did, having no other way to gauge pressure, location, motion, but by tracking with his optics. Slowly it happened—peeling first the white heavy armor on his forearms, then shucking down the finer black mesh underneath.
Bits of his armor lay scattered on the floor of the decon booth around his feet, the plates cracked, chipped, bubbled rust-orange in spots, garish and hideous, thinner mesh mail armor splatted across it like clots.
And underneath… the dull titanium of his bare protoform—the small boxes of actuators, the smooth tubes of pistons in his hands, wound with the cables of coolant, energon, the white and red and black of wiring, small ventilation ducts, the small plates pink fine fur of sensor-cilia, separated from their armor, all of it glistening under the cleanser. He felt…naked. Exposed.
Perceptor stood, pushing the last of the armor clamshells around Drift’s right ankle open. The white armor fell, splashing up puddles, bouncing on the rubber of the tire as Perceptor leaned over, around Drift, to shut off the tap. Drift felt the buzz of Perceptor’s EM field against his. He shivered at the primal contact—too deep, too essential for even a sensor-block to shut out. It felt like velvet being sleeked over him, deep and plush and comforting.
His optics met Perceptor’s, his ventilation catching suddenly.
“I have to remove the sensor block,” Perceptor said, apologetically. “We need to check your primary systems for functionality.”
Drift nodded, bowing his head for Perceptor’s hands to reach behind, carefully, almost gently, plucking off the sensor-block. Sensation returned: first, a stray brush of one of Perceptor’s fingers over his throat cabling, and he could feel the cooling cleanser, its solvent bite long since worn off into a stinging echo, and…something else. A hot arousal, the awareness of the contrast between them: Perceptor large and armored, he small and bare and naked. It was…terrifying but at the same time right on a razor’s edge of erotic: the knowledge of how easily he could be damaged right now, how little it would take to hurt him—pluck out a wire, or bend a piston rod or even flick too hard against a capacitor. All his strength, all his hardness…gone. It was like vertigo, spinning through his system.
And above that, the sure knowledge that Perceptor wouldn’t hurt him. He felt almost dizzy with this new sensation, this realization, his own EM pulsing against Perceptor’s. Drift tilted his head, so that Perceptor’s fingers grazed over his cheek.
Perceptor snatched his hand back, optics alarmed. “Let’s…,” he faltered. “Need to run a diagnostic.” He stepped back, abruptly, optics downcast.
Drift stepped back, out of his toe plates, and picked his way around his shed armor. Moving was easier now, with feedback—weight, pressure, balance—but it felt different. So much lighter without the armor that his servos had to calibrate down, firing at a tenth—or less—of their usual power. It made him feel…weightless, insubstantial. Like a ghost.
He floated, it felt like, after Perceptor, following him to the workbench, where the red mech had bent down, a determined hunch, rifling for tools. Drift held out one of his own hands, bending and flexing it, fascinated by the visible operation of the mechanisms. Unmuffled by armor, firing actuators made little soft click, pistons delicate hisses, gyros murmuring whirls. A whole host of sounds, under his armor, all this time. It was like seeing himself for the first time. And Perceptor—under his armor, too, this intricate array of parts and motion. Every movement the controlled performance of a dozen interlinked mechanisms. It struck Drift as fascinating, just as swiftly as it struck him that Perceptor…probably already knew this.
Perceptor turned around, keeping his optics averted. “First,” he began. “Primary systems.” His hands clutched over the scanner.
“Something wrong?” Now that his systems weren’t clogged with alarms, his vocalizer had built enough charge to speak.
“Nothing,” Perceptor said, studying the scanner in his hand, fiddling with a knob.
“Why won’t you look at me?” Drift lifted his hand between them.
“I…,” Perceptor forced his gaze upward, locking it staunchly with Drift’s. “Preserving your modesty?” He’d seen mechs stripped like this, down to bare systems. A few times. But never like this. The same sense of awe at the vulnerability, but this time the vulnerability, the fragility…was Drift’s. It made a difference, somehow.
Drift laughed. “Modesty?” He reached up—unarmored he was even smaller than usual—brushing one naked hand over Perceptor’s cheek. “Nothing to hide from you,” he murmured. He pulled Perceptor’s face down, tipping his own up into a kiss. His own ventilations picked up, air gusting strangely through his systems, against actuators, cooling lines, parts that normally never felt the strike of air. His EM fluttered like gossamer when he moved, no longer contained in metal. It sent a tingling hot awareness over his net. He should be terrified, exposed, but…this was Perceptor. And the sensor block had always affected him this way—a little loopy, transmuting pain into a strange, light euphoria, everything warm and hazy, like the world was wearing a bright halo.
His mouth was gentle against Perceptor’s, his bare hand glossing around Perceptor’s black helm, fingertip sensors prickling over the audio receptors. The scanner, Perceptor’s hands, bumped against the power lines snaking over Drift’s exposed spark chamber. Drift felt a shiver run through his own frame at his audacity, at the risk. Perceptor hesitated, his mouth moving slowly, gently, as if the kiss could kill, before he pulled back.
“Scan,” Perceptor said, and Drift realized, suddenly, that Perceptor was more nervous than he was; more afraid of hurting him than he was of being hurt. Drift reached for one hand, lifting it from the scanner, his bare mechanisms silver and bright against Perceptor’s black armor. He pried into the hand, curling his fingers into Perceptor’s.
“Touch me,” he murmured.
“Drift, I--,” Perceptor’s hand was still, afraid of damaging the needle-fine actuators.
“Touch me,” Drift repeated. “I won’t break.” He raised the black hand, placing it against his bare shoulder.
Perceptor gave a shuddering sigh, his hand resting lightly on the exposed systems, feeling the hum of the system, the pulse of energon through a hose. He could name each wire, each line, each actuator, could recite the tolerances and load specs of each component. But this…felt too intimate.
Drift’s optics dimmed, concentrating on the touch. He stepped closer, letting the bare systems of his thigh slide against Perceptor’s armor, backing him toward the workbench. Drift slid his hands around Perceptor’s chassis, pulling him against the exposed mechanisms of his body.
Sensor-cilia pads rippled, their pink strands furring over Perceptor’s armor. Drift gasped, frame shuddering against Perceptor’s, as his cilia tried to make sensor connections over the red armor. Perceptor pushed away, bumping into the edge of his workbench. “Drift, no,” he said, hands on the naked shoulders, shivering with alarm.
Drift hesitated. “Why?”
“You could be damaged. Too easily.”
“Tougher than I look,” Drift said, a note of challenge in his voice.
“Yes. Yes. I know.” Perceptor understood—all too well—Drift’s need. “But…the scan, and then we need to install another set of light mesh mail while the rest is being fabricated and there’s the matter of decontaminating your Sword and—“ A silver-padded finger on his mouthplates.
“Perceptor?” Drift’s tone was teasing. “Talk too much.” He ran his finger over the mouthplates, down the stern flat plane of Perceptor’s cheek. And then he said the word Perceptor had been dreading, the one he couldn’t refuse from the smaller mech. “Please.”
Perceptor’s mouth flattened. “You will tell me—immediately—if it hurts.” Giving in, since…he had no other choice. Drift was too headstrong. If he wanted this, he’d have it, and if not from Perceptor, who could at least be careful about it…? The image of Blurr popped into his cortex. No.
His optics blazed, stern, his targeting reticle whizzing over his right optic, boring into Drift’s gaze. Drift nodded, solemnly. Perceptor shook his head. “Say it. Aloud. Your word, Drift.”
Drift gave an indulgent grin, as though Perceptor’s qualms were somehow…adorable. “I promise. If it hurts—at all—I’ll tell you.”
Perceptor glared for a moment, before nodding. “Yes. Fine.” His optics scanned Drift, uncertainly. “Now…?”
Drift grinned, the triumphant smile of someone who had gotten his way. He leaned past Perceptor, sweeping the circuit board, the box of capacitors and transducers, aside, perching himself on the surface, tugging Perceptor toward him. “Touch,” he ordered.
Perceptor gave an unsteady vent of air, letting his hands settle again on the shoulders, the powerful actuators, before letting his fingers dip into the ball joint, the radial assembly. Part of him was occupied in naming the parts--C3 clavicular strut, secondary gyroscope, anterior feedback array—while another felt the warmth of an EM field, the pulse of energon through a power hose, the silky burnished metal of a piston housing, with a lover’s sensitivity. He felt his own EM field flare, his ventilations lose some of their nervous shallowness. Protoform metal was exquisitely sensitive, and felt almost like warm satin under his touch.
Drift smiled encouragingly, sliding his naked hands up Perceptor’s forearms, silver against red, pulling the taller mech over into a kiss that started gentle, hesitant, but quickly grew hungry, wanting. Drift’s hands, though armorless, knew everything Drift knew—all the secret sensitive places Perceptor responded to. His fingertips brushed the back of Perceptor’s waist, just where it framed into the heavy pelvic armor, fanning over the black span itself as his stripped thighs parted, pulling Perceptor between them, sliding against Perceptor’s beveled thigh plates. “Not so bad, is it?” Drift’s voice, husky, murmured against Perceptor’s mouth.
“No,” Perceptor managed, the skillful touches sending flashes of flame over his sensor net, firing on his interface array, teasing, tempting him knowingly, but not too far; inviting, but not pushing. Drift’s trust was…almost frightening, and just like Drift, edged and intense.
“More?” Drift asked—asking permission. Perceptor nodded. Drift moved his arms closer, twisting so that one plate of his sensor-cilia brushed against the armor, again, both of them shivering at the poignant intensity of the contact, Drift’s sensors crossing over, in prickling nano-kliks, with Perceptor’s. Impossibly intense, a bright sweet burst of sensation shared between them. Perceptor’s hands clutched, involuntarily, around Drift’s frame. Drift hooked his legs around the narrow black hips, pulling Perceptor against the bare metal of his interface array, hatch cover gone, only the thin equipment covers between them. Perceptor shuddered, his spike pressurizing, his whole frame wanting Drift, Drift wanting him, connected through the cilia plates in a closed circuit of sensation.
Drift could feel his desire, even without the sensor feedback, tilting his hips invitingly along the bench’s surface, clicking open his valve cover. “Want to?” he offered—already knowing the answer. He could feel Perceptor’s desire spike through the closed loop of the sensor cilia. His fingertips ranged down Perceptor’s back, the sensor plates prickling and kissing their way down the red chassis, following the gesture. Drift rarely offered this, more likely to growl and bite and grind his spike against Perceptor’s frame. Drift sensed his hesitation, read the cause of it, nuzzling his face against the black helm. “If I’m going to be vulnerable, might as well go all the way, right?” As though this were a contest.
No. As though this were a test.
Drift’s glossa snaked down the helm, into Perceptor’s throat. Leaving Perceptor to make the choice. Perceptor ex-vented, his systems, still connected through the sharp-sweet stab of the cilia against his armor, wanting with Drift’s intensity, a phosphorous flare that blinded him to just about anything else, barely leaving him enough presence of mind to move slowly as he released his spike, easing it carefully into Drift’s valve.
They both shuddered as the spike slid home, Drift’s legs locking around the black hips, falling back against the workbench, optics dimming as the sensor cilia on his thighs took over, feathering in contact with Perceptor’s armor, linking their systems, reading the plates between them as no barrier at all but a membrane through which…everything passed: lust, sensation, color, sound, movement and…the sweet pain of emotions too deep for either to ever speak.
It was all Perceptor could do to control his movements, keep his thrusts slow and even, surging and ebbing into Drift’s body, spike sliding through the valve’s aperture, slick and warm. It felt wrong, or that it should feel wrong. It felt dangerous—a slip, and so much damage. And Drift, lying there, trusting him, naked, exposed entirely, while Perceptor himself kept his armor, safe and hard. It felt like…something he was hiding behind, and Drift wasn’t hiding.
Drift’s body rocked in tempo, and Perceptor found himself enthralled by the firing of the mechanisms—sliding pistons, the small clicks of actuators, the way wires and hoses bent and shifted with each move. It was…beautiful, form and function, power and grace and design combined, undulating with pleasure. Drift’s hands fell back off Perceptor’s body, fingers roaming over his own bare systems, one clutching at his underchassis, the secondary plate over his spark chamber, the other sliding down his pelvic frame.
Drift was enthralled with himself, as if discovering his frame for the first time, and his probing, curious touches at his own body were maddeningly erotic to Perceptor, a curiosity driven more by pleasure than science. Strange how Perceptor, in all his study of robotics, of systems analysis, had never considered the mechanisms this way—sensual and intimate, touching the most private, deepest areas.
Perceptor risked a touch, gently, on the bare thighs, two fingers on the main endoskeletal strut, riding down it before it buried itself in the stabilizers and rotational array of the hip, his other fingers feathering over the pistons, the fine wires of the circuitry. Drift moaned, pushing into the touch, into the intimacy of it all, letting the sensor feed wash through the cilial circuit, building to an overload faster, more inexorably, than mere friction could have, whipped on by desire and openness and fragility and the mutual acknowledgment of the other’s trust like a sacred bond.
Perceptor held back at the top of each thrust, wincing as the black solid plane of his pelvic span bumped the powerful, exposed pistons of Drift’s thighs, the hard edges of his interface hatch bruisingly hard against the thinner metal of Drift’s body. But his spike slid, through the slick heat of Drift’s valve, and the feedback loop gave him spike and valve, so he could feel…his own nakedness, his own spike advancing and retreating in the valve, pushing open through the calipers, riding over the sensor clusters, hard and turgid, an instrument of their shared desire. His body was Drifts; Drift’s his, connected through the cilia, and it was his valve being entered, his body thin and fragile on the workbench, his hands, small and bare and hypersensitized, clutching, grabbing, tugging against his own bare titanium.
Drift clutched into his own systems, helm rocking forward, his spinal struts curling, mouth panting open around a cry, as the overload tore through them, the high note of his cry echoed by a matching pitch torn from Perceptor’s vocalizer.
Perceptor’s palms slapped flat on the workbench on either side of Drift’s frame, catching his weight before he fell onto the fragile protoform. For a long moment they hung there, faces close, panting to the same rhythm, bodies throbbing together, EM fields swirling in a unified spiral.
“See?” Drift breathed, spinal struts releasing, optics blue and clear and open. “Wasn’t that bad, was it?” His sensorfeed was still linked with Perceptor’s, thighs squeezed around the black hips. Perceptor whimpered, shaking his head, mute. Drift curled his arms over Perceptor’s shoulders, sensor cilia licking over the armor as he moved. “Do it again, maybe?”
“Not…right now,” Perceptor said, a deep vent rattling from his chassis. Even Drift’s systems releasing, lowering him back to the bench, captivated him, the soft hiss of releasing hydraulics, the slide of coolant lines over hard framework. Beautiful, vulnerable, exposed and still somehow…Drift.
Drift grinned. “Later.” He tipped his chin up, mouth finding Perceptor’s, lipping it gently until Perceptor’s frown melted. “And later?” he murmured, two fingers tugging, teasing, at an armor lock over Perceptor’s shoulder, “Maybe you can try it.”
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 11:34 am (UTC)As for the hotness factor? I'm biased, but I think it's really, REALLY sexy. Your descriptions always *get* to me anyway, but the way you describe everything here, the way Perceptor looks at Drift with a sudden new awareness... guh. It's not just the physics and mechanics and descriptiveness of that that makes it so hot to me, but the way you describe their *responses* to everything.
Thank you for finishing this one. You totally made my night! (huh... it's morning now, actually, isn't it? well... fuck.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 11:40 am (UTC)a) Oh hell yes it works.
b) I sure think so.
c) It's very, very hot.
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Date: 2011-03-11 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:25 am (UTC)Instead, it felt a lot more like "protective and less-sensitive defenses have been peeled back so approximately 30 million velvety sensor-packed microtentacles can fuzzily grope Percy aaaaaalllll over."
prrrrRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr. :D
also? Even peeled like a banana, Drift totally grooves on how he can still overwhelm
Percy*cough* "anyone" with his hotness anywhere, any time. In conclusion, succubus. XDno subject
Date: 2011-03-11 04:19 am (UTC)And fuzzily groping Percy is Drift's favorite hobby!
(This succubus idea is beginning to take root in my brain, you realize)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 01:24 am (UTC)There's a real sense of trust you've written in too. Drift is freaked out at first, but Perceptor being there, and being the one to see it made him feel safe enough to actually explore his vulnerability.
I lol'd a bit at Perceptor thinking of Blurr having Drift like that and just going "No. >:(" Its protective, but there's a hint of possessiveness about it. That's his Drift. And his Drift is delicate right now.
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Date: 2011-03-11 04:23 am (UTC)It was kind of fun to play with the idea--the challenge was to describe it in a way that was at all hot!
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Date: 2011-03-09 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 04:26 am (UTC)Oh, my gods. You just made my crappy night so much better. This was sexy and hot and it sent shivers down my back at the sheer trust Drift has in Perceptor and it's gorgeous. You really describe things so well and it adds so much to the hotness. Thank you for the sexy pick-me-up.
I noticed the OP really liked it, too, so congrats.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 08:26 am (UTC)adfhadiofhbvoadfvbnasdl'b
bzdbnadvoapgbjsbl;hasdfkb
THUD
Exquisite details and just UNF!!!!!! Woo! Gorgeous. <3
no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 11:38 am (UTC)Can I shamelessly beg for a sequel? Perceptor needs to try it, because dem cilia.