shadow_vector | In the Palm of Your Hand

Title: In the Palm of Your Hand
Continuity: IDW
Pairing: Perceptor/Drift
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none, maybe fluff?
for

tf_speedwriting , prompt 'kiss me'.

“Kiss me.” Drift’s voice was soft, that pitch that carried to Perceptor’s audio, and no farther.

“What?” Perceptor looked up from the gun he’d been cleaning. Around him, the usual ruckus of the ready room, prepping for battle--weapons loading, crates of ordnance crackling open.

Drift wrapped his arms around his one upraised knee, heel hooked over the edge of the table. “You heard me,” he said. He rested his chin on his knee. The hilt of his Great Sword rose over his head. “Afraid?” His optics glinted.

“Battle coming up,” Perceptor countered.

“All the more reason,” Drift said, reasonably. “Dangerous business. You wouldn’t want to regret missing an opportunity.” He was teasing, but just like all of his teases, there was some ancient, iron-hard hurt twisting under the surface.

“Why?”

It was a testament to their relationship, that Drift knew how to translate Perceptor’s terseness. “Because I want you to.” He grinned.

“Others are watching.”

Drift looked around, in mock surprise. “So they are. Who cares?” His wrapped arms dropped down to encircle his ankle, his voice shifting to a conspiratorial stage-whisper. “I think they’ve already figured it out.” He winked.

Perceptor felt his facial heat-sinks warm. Had they? He ducked down, studying his pistol, his fingers suddenly fumbly.

“You’re not embarrassed by me, are you?”

A question just this side of ridiculous. Right. Perceptor, embarrassed to be associated with Drift. More likely the other way around. But he saw nothing but a familiar, welcoming light in the blue optics. “No,” he murmured. The opposite--Perceptor felt a surge of pride and...some swelling thing he couldn't name at the thought that of all the mechs, all the Wreckers, Drift had chosen him.

Drift grinned. “I even asked nicely.”

“Technically, that was worded as an order.” The slightest flicker at the edge of his mouth, the side below the reticle.

“Oh fine,” Drift made a showy roll of his optics. “Please, if you wouldn’t mind, if it’s not a massive inconvenience, I would humbly request that you possibly condescend to—“

“Stop,” Perceptor’s mouth fought a laugh. “You’re truly terrible at that.”

“Decepticon,” Drift gave a lopsided grin. Only with Perceptor did he allow that to be a joke. Only with Perceptor, whose guilt and wound were almost as deep as his own, whose need for redemption resonated with his, did he let some of the weight fall.

“Here. Now,” Perceptor repeated, stating the terms. Drift nodded.

“Where. On you.” He was steeling himself, trying to use his focus to blank out the bustle and noise of loading weapons around him, Kup droning about a mission that was, somehow unsurprisingly, just like this one….

Drift glowed in triumph. “Anywhere you like.”

Perceptor considered, looking at Drift as though seeing him for the first time. In a way he was—mapping the other mech’s body, evaluating, weighing, considering. Trying to find one place, one preferred area on the white and black frame. The mouth, yes, but he had kissed that before. This should be…different. The tires, demurely braced around Drift’s upraised leg, drew him. Speed and skill, maneuverability and motion, the opposite of his heavy, slow, unwieldy tank form. But then, the hands. Strong and adept, able to wield swords with force enough to shear through armor, gentle enough to brush over Perceptor’s body like a petal on a breeze. The white backs, the black palms, the short, powerful fingers. Even now, when still, holding the potential; motion, barely restrained. Energy, lightly controlled. A warrior’s hands, tenderness and violence yoked together. Yes.

He clapped the pistol’s housing closed briskly, giving a firm ex-vent, before dropping forward on one knee, hand reaching for one of Drift’s, prying it off his leg. He nuzzled his cheek against the black palm, smelling the light oil, the slight ionized scent of the small, powerful pistons and servos. His optics dimmed, transferring the process load from visual to his other senses, brushing his mouth gently over the split between the palm plates, his helm’s crest sliding against Drift’s thumb. He felt the palm stiffen, flatten and then cup around his face, as he probed his glossa gently over the plates, over the palm, flirting with the gap between the first two fingers. Perceptor’s hand curled gently over Drift’s feeling the difference between the satin white of the back of Drift’s hand, the shift to the complicated glossy plates of the fingers. So much sensation, so much to feel and sense and know, in this one hand. Drift was a mystery he could study forever.

He hoped he got the chance. It was as much hope as he allowed himself now, and even then, more than he deserved.

Drift made a contented growling purr, his other hand moving to Perceptor’s shoulder. Perceptor tilted his head up, looking up the length of Drift’s lower leg to see the open, beloved face looking down at him, mouth quirking unsteadily, optics glinting with some inexpressible depth of emotion.

Perceptor could hear no other sound than the soft hum of Drift’s systems—the bustle and buzz of the others around him seemed to recede, hieratic, unimportant. And nothing mattered but the sleek palm under his mouth plates, the warm, tremulous glow from the blue optics, the fingertips brushing his cheek like small, gentle stars, Drift’s teasing smile melting into a deeper warmth neither of them could express any other way.