Mabaya ch 15 Drive

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW Mabaya AU
Drift, Perceptor
Warning: headcanon that small strafers would have harmonic crystal drives to boost to FTL. It's SO not canon.  

 

Deadlock wished there was something in the cell he could destroy.  He paced, feral.  Perceptor knew better than to interrupt him, propped back into the corner, trying not to see the spattered greasy stains of energon on the floor, along Drift’s chassis.   

Stupid, Deadlock thought.  Just…everything. Stupid. Perceptor, starving himself in some…completely idiotic attempt at heroic sacrifice.   

Completely Autobot attempt.  

Same difference.  Not that Deadlock had done much better. He’d caught, too late, the glitter in Turmoil’s optics, the amused coldness in his voice before he’d left, still wrapping the long tubes of the emergency ration’s autoinjectors around his fingers.  “I’ll leave you, little scientist, with your Drift.”   

Perceptor hadn’t caught it—or at least, hadn’t caught the meaning.  Turmoil didn’t slip. Not that way.  A hint to Deadlock that he’d caught Deadlock’s sudden, frantic concern—concern Deadlock would not have for an Autobot.  Concern Deadlock had never had for his own troops.  

A sign how far you’ve fallen. 

I grew up in the gutters.  There’s not very far to fall.  

Finally, Perceptor could no longer take it. “I’m sorry.”  He slumped in the corner, staring at his hands, folded over his lap.  Useless hands, but at least he had them both. And how had he used them?  To cheat.   

Deadlock turned, his heel scraping on the rough decking, his red optics blazing furious.  “That…doesn’t help right now.”  A long moment, the solitary hand clenching into a fist, then spreading itself open, with effort. “Why?” 

Perceptor bit the inside of his mouth.  A nervous habit that Deadlock—Drift—had always found almost endearing.  Now it seemed a sign that he was trying to hide something.  “You need to stay strong.”   

Deadlock’s mouth curled into a snarl. “You don’t get to unilaterally decide that.”  He continued his pacing, footsteps fast, irritated.   

Perceptor looked stunned.  “I was trying to help.”  

“Help,” Deadlock scoffed.  “There’s no help.”  Perceptor didn’t realize what he’d given away, what he’d made Deadlock give away to Turmoil. To himself. “You were trying to control me.”   

“What? No!”  Perceptor sat forward.  “You needed it more than I di—“ 

Deadlock swung down, his red optics blazing. “You think I’m weak.  That’s it, isn’t it?”   

“No!” The black hands clutched over the red greaves, the optics wide and worried.  “Drift, I just thought tha—“ He flinched as Deadlock, trembling with fury, tore one of the damaged panels off his truncated arm, simply to have something to throw.  At Perceptor.   

Deadlock stood, ventilation heaving, his damaged arm sparking and spurting fitful fluids as the panel struck Perceptor’s shoulder.  Perceptor gaped, staring at the damaged arm, ignoring the sharp gouge in his front shoulder panel from where the torn plate had bitten.  

A tense moment. 

“I’m not weak,” Deadlock growled.   

“No,” Perceptor said, barely daring to pitch his voice above a whisper. “You’re not weak.”   

Drift ‘s hand balled into a fist but suddenly he stopped, words boiling in his vocalizer, but before they could pour out, the ground seemed to buck beneath his feet.   

He dropped to his knees, quickly, arms spread for balance, cocking his head.   

“What?”  Perceptor, already on the floor, felt the shock against it.  

Deadlock didn’t answer, optics dimmed, tuning into the sudden freq pitch of the crystal drive, whining into evasive maneuvers.  He called up the base outline for this model of ship, snorting bitterly.  Further proof of what he’d always been—a ‘Con.  He still had data archives of ship plans, standard weaponry, comm protocols, all of it.  Everything else…surface changes.  Maybe Turmoil was right.  

Sickening thought.  

He looked up at Perceptor abruptly.  “Move.”   

Perceptor…didn’t.  Deadlock tore at his scabbard.  It might be one sword, it might not be much by itself, but it was a weapon, and something that right now could speak far more concisely and eloquently than Deadlock himself. The blade flashed toward Perceptor.   “MOVE.”   

The floor seemed to vibrate.  A tactical jump-boost, designed to pull them out of target lock.  Even Perceptor caught the whine from the drive, rolling forward, dropping his palms flat against the decking.   His optics went distant for a klik, trying to sense through his palms. “Under attack.”  

Deadlock growled.  “Yes. By your Autobot friends.”  

That got Perceptor’s attention—he looked up, abruptly. “They are your friends as well, Drift.”  

Deadlock twitched, halfway between a flinch of pain and holding back some kind of assault. “I don’t have any friends.”  Didn’t matter, anyway.  Just a matter of time before the Autobots blew the engine.  The light strafer class vessels were notorious for the weakness in the underhull—and right on cue, the room seemed to buck, rocking under a hit.  

Deadlock scanned the room. There wasn’t really any place that was safe, not from a drive-housing breach. It would flood the room with toxic harmonic radiation.  But there, in that sort of cut in from the force-barrier’s lock.  It might shield someone from the worst.  If.  

Perceptor still wasn’t moving.  He heard the crystal drives whine higher, knocked out of tune. Frag.   

He lunged forward, grabbing Perceptor by the projection of his shoulder, hauling him toward the small nook, his strong hand hard on the armor.  Perceptor had to scramble, only half on his feet, to follow the force of Deadlock’s movement, landing heavily against the force barrier.   

It wasn’t much, but it was as far as they could get from the crystal drives. 

Perceptor climbed awkwardly to his feet, acutely aware that the energon in his systems was Turmoil’s, his tanks still roiling at the thought and the thick richness of the fuel reserved for command line mechs.  “Drift—“ 

“Stay down!”  Deadlock swung out his foot, hooking the back of one knee so that it buckled, sending Perceptor tumbling back down.  The ship rocked again, metal groaning around them, the panels of the walls and floor shifting against each other.   The drives howled, enough to hurt his audio.   He cursed, part of him bitterly pleased at the look of shock on Perceptor’s face.   

Yes, that shadowed part thought. Not the clean and pure Autobot you are.  Filth. Guttersnipe. The kind the Autobots ignored back on Cybertron, beneath notice.  His hand curled over his sword, half for comfort, half contemplating violence.  Kill him.  This is your chance.   

No.  

He’s just like the others. Judging you.  Better than you.  

No one’s better than me.   

Don’t even have to do anything, Deadlock. Just switch positions.  Drive’s going to crack.  Take care of him for you.   

Deadlock felt ill, only partly from his thoughts.  The harmonics of the drive were sour, seeping through the floor like a noxious gas.  Stupid gesture, he thought. If the floor cracks, we’re both dead.  Doesn’t matter what order they find the fraggin’ bodies.  

The room heaved again, sending Deadlock stumbling, Perceptor falling back against the barrier before a loud, hideous wrenching sound of metal tearing apart screamed through the air.  Without thinking, he threw himself at Perceptor, tackling him to the ground by mass alone, his one good arm wrapping around the chassis, even as Perceptor struggled against the attack.  

…that wasn’t an attack. 

The floor split, noxious blue-green light that was thick with sound and radiation stabbing through the gap. It was the last thing Perceptor saw—the sickly light tainting Drift’s white armor—before he slipped offline.

Comments

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! O____________O

First three quarters I was going "omg omg don't let Turmoil twist your brains into pretzels" and then all of a sudden it's a lot more important to not die first and worry about surviving psychological decontamination procedures later. Amazing how sudden impending death kind of immediately changes ALL the priorities...