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shadow_vector2011-04-26 11:56 am
niyazi-a.livejournal.com) wrote in shadow_vector2011-04-26 11:56 am
Altihex Glow
PG
IDW pre-war AU
Drift, Gasket, Wing
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tformers100 table war prompt loss
This is a oneshot AU it is also my headcanon that a) Wing is from Altihex and that b)an Orbital Torus State actually, uh, orbits.
“Come on.” Gasket grinned, optics bright in the gutter's perpetual gloom. It was just...amazing sometimes to Drift that Gasket had the energy and ability to be happy, to find pleasure where other mechs were struggling to find energon to stay alive. “It'll be fun.”
“Fun.” Drift's entire feelings about the word expressed in the flat voice, the flatter sheen on his scratched optics.
Gasket gave a cocky shrug. “All right. It's something to do. Something different.”
Drift grumbled, but he elbowed himself off the wall. Gasket was right. It was boring here, and besides, Gasket could use someone to keep an optic on him.
“So what is 'it'?” Drift fell into step alongside the larger mech.
“Altihexian Launch Festival,” Gasket said. When Drift just...blinked, he added, “Anniversary of its launch. Lots of light shows, flying demonstrations, parades and stuff.” A beat. “Parties.”
Right. Like they'd get invited to any. Still, Drift had committed now. The whole thing sounded impossibly stupid. Which was one very, very small step above 'boring'. Possibly.
“You'll see.” Gasket led him to the first level gate. Not much of a gate—the mechanism torn from its seating, bent, punctured, as though hundreds of mechs trapped down here had vented their wrath against the system that held them down on this...mute symbol. Down this low, security was non-existent: no one cared if the roaches from one level moved among the rats of another. The only threat was from the other mechs, just as hungry and starved as they.
They cruised the next level in silence, tense, alert. This was not their territory, not their scavenging grounds. Even Gasket's walk changed, a bit harder, a bit tougher. Just enough to radiate 'not prey.'
The next two gates were quiet, diminishing danger from their own kind, increasing the attention, though, of the Security forces, who seemed to find harassing mechs who already looked like they had it hard enough already to be...some form of entertainment. Hostile, bored, petty. Everything Drift had come to associate with authority.
This, Drift thought, as he raised his arms for them to run some sort of scanner over him to check—allegedly--for hidden weapons, better be worth it. Armed. The idea was ludicrous. Like he had spare energy for a weapon.
The first concourse was crowded and bustling—mechs with places to go, things to make happen. It seemed...strange to Drift: something to do other than hunt for food. He felt a pang of some new kind of hunger. What must it be like...? He studied the faces that rushed past, trying to read into their thoughts. The same and yet somehow...alien.
Their pace slowed, taking in this level they rarely visited, light and color and noise and motion. Drift felt the hard optics of some passersby on his dented and dull armor. He jutted his lower lip. Not his fault. But still, inwardly, he burned.
Gasket dragged him over to a row of windows. Shops, displaying...things Drift barely knew the names for. Probably useless, he thought. If he didn't know what it was, that meant that you didn't need it to survive. But still—the colored lights, the bright, shiny finish seemed to glow and refract some sense of longing, a hollowness deeper than hunger. All these...things.
Gasket tore himself away, and they proceeded up the paved path. They were high enough up that light aerials zipped up and down through the levels, seemingly only a handspan away. The path on the other side was lined with shops, almost overflowing with stuff, cafes brimming with noise and smells that made Drift edgy with hungry envy, and between them, at intervals, fountains of light, tinkling curtains of crystal, like time-frozen rain, other things that seemed to exist...only to be pretty.
Gasket looked up, following the contrail of a particularly brightly-colored jet. “Oh!” He reached for Drift's arm, pointing. “Look.”
Drift looked, stopping in the middle of the walkway. Up through the long blades of the buildings above, he could see...sky. Actual sky, tinted a warm pinkish-orange. He felt his spark seem to falter in his chassis. Sky.
“I wonder where Altihex is,” Gasket said, standing next to him, studying the ribbon of pink.
“Can't see from here,” Drift said. He looked around, and then headed, with purpose, to a large jut over the airway, stepping onto the black-and-yellow striped edge, optics studying the sky. He edged forward.
Something, a hand that he could tell just from touch wasn't Gasket's, on his wrist. “Be careful!” Drift stiffened, but the voice was not the traditional harsh command of Security Forces, the nasty edge of virulent authority. He turned, twisting in the grasp, to face a small airframe, no larger than he was, optics gold and warm. “I'm sorry. But large ferries fly through here, and sometimes they cut their safe distance margins. The wakedraft can be dangerous.”
“Really?” Gasket, optics keen, bent on learning. Knowledge, Gasket had always said, was their ticket out of the gutters. He managed to dream of escape. Drift just wanted to survive.
The jet nodded. “I've seen it suck mechs right off the edge. Fun if you can fly, but...”
“Not fun for grounders,” Drift finished. Another unfair thing.
The stranger nodded, hesitated, then said, “You were looking for Altihex? I...couldn't help but overhear.” He seemed to shrink with apology. Drift glowered at Gasket, but nodded.
The jet tilted his heat to the sky cut through the buildings above. “You can't see it very well from here, I'm afraid. Are you going to watch the festival flights?”
“Yes,” Gasket blurted, cutting of Drift's denial. They exchanged looks, Gasket's saying clearly, not to mess up a good thing.
“There's a better platform up two deca-levels,” the jet said. “That's where I'm going. You can come?”
Up two levels. Two more harassments by SF. And with the added sting of a witness. Drift shook his head, adamant, optics narrowing at Gasket. No. Gasket frowned, hating the truth just as much; that they had to be ashamed of circumstance.
“We'd...uh....slow you down,” Gasket offered.
The jet tilted his head, his face twitching, embarrassed. He'd obviously somehow not noticed, or thought through, the fact that his companions were not jets. Didn't deal much with lowly grounders, huh? Drift thought.
The jet's face lit up. “I could fly you there. I rated highly in Secure Carry.”
Which meant....nothing to Drift. “Two of us.”
“I can take one and then return for the other.” The idea had taken root in Wing's cortex, roots twining deeper with every challenge. “And really, I'd be glad for the company.”
“Why.” This had to be some sort of trick; no one was this nice.
The grin flattened. “I...am from Altihex. But I couldn't get leave from the Academy to go back. Just...just a day's pass.”
Drift wanted to roll his optics: poor little jet. Wish I had your problems. Wish I had a home to get homesick for. But...something in the jet's disconsolate expression quelled that. Longing, Drift knew longing. He was just—he hoped—better at hiding it.
“All right,” he said. Gasket shot him a surprised look. He shrugged . “Wanted to see this thing, right? Might as well.” Gasket's grin rebloomed: Wing lit up. Drift grumbled. Stupid idea, but...why not?
“First,” Drift insisted. They could at least have...some semblance of personal safety. “Designation.”
The jet ducked his head. “My apologies. I'm Wing.” He waited expectantly.
“Gasket,” Gasket pointed at himself. “And that's Drift.” Drift gave a grunt of acknowledgment. “Me first,” Gasket said, stepping forward. “How do we do this?” He almost vibrated with eagerness.
“We...,” Wing moved behind Gasket, wrapping his white arms around Gasket's chassis, “do this.” The nacelles on his shoulders cycled on, a high hum. “Are you ready? I'll be very careful.”
“Don't be,” Gasket said. “I want to fly.”
Wing laughed, the sound sparkling in the evening air. “Very well.”
It struck Drift that they didn't know Wing from...anyone. If he killed Gasket...?
“I will take care of him, Drift,” Wing said, optics bright and solemn, peeping over Gasket's taller shoulder. “On my honor.”
“Honor,” Drift snorted. “Stupid intangible luxury.”
“Anyone can have honor, Drift,” Wing answered. “It is not—at all—a luxury.” He launched skyward before Drift could summon a response, Gasket clutching suddenly, excitedly, at the white arms, white wings snapping open from behind the jet's back, compact and intricate.
Drift fought anger and fear, watching them rip into the sky on those far-too-small looking wings, tracking the twin blue glows of the nacelles fade into the evening's red. He could do nothing but grit his dentae, wait, pacing along the platform.
He jumped back at the sudden heavy buzz of engines, vibrating the deck under his feet so hard that his knee gyros wobbled. The sound crested, and a large industrial ferry broke the horizon, barreling upward. He felt the wakedraft Wing had described, as if all the air on the level was sucking upward, rocking him upward onto his toeplates..
Wing returned, slicing through the turbulent air, a sudden clean white presence. His smile glowed. “Your friend is waiting. I'm...really glad you let me join you.”
Drift shrugged, still rattled from the ferry. The white jet moved behind him, the sleek lines of Wing's arms wrapping around his chassis. It felt like...an embrace. Drift felt suddenly, acutely, aware of himself; his lack of maintenance. He probably smelled. Definitely different from the jet's light clean scent of fresh lubricating oil and ionized air from his engines.
“Ready?” The same question he had asked Gasket. Drift grunted, hearing the nacelles fire, the soft slide of the wings unfurling, and then the sudden lurching lift, his feet leaving the ground. Wing's voice was a soft tickle against his audio. “Shall I 'fly' for you as well?”
“Yes,” Drift managed, breathless, feeling a grounder's clutching panic at movement he did not control.
Wing didn't answer, but the nacelles whined higher and the cold cut of air shocked Drift's systems, under his armor, sliding through his bare systems like a cold, erotic knife, stripping away the heat of his engines, ruthless, clean.
Wing spun in a slow helix as he rose, the world, the glittering but blank face of the city, rising around Drift. He wanted it to see, wanted everyone to see him...flying, an elegant jet touching him, but at the same time he wanted not to be seen, to have this moment as a cocoon of privacy. Special. He had...very few beautiful moments. He wanted to hoard them.
“Do you trust me?” Excitement in the voice, but not tension nor fear. Not the sound of a trick.
“Yes,” Drift croaked. Self evident, he thought, since he'd let the jet take him, take Gasket.
A satisfied chirr. “Good. Because this is really fun.”
Fun. That word again. But before Drift could respond, Wing blasted upward, till the air screamed against his audio. And then, abruptly, sound seemed cut—no engines, no air. Just a vast, engulfing silence. There was a long moment of stillness, noiselessness and then, slowly, it was as if gravity reached up through the air to seize them, pulling them down into a wild tumble. Drift's hands clutched over Wing's. If this was a trick, he thought—as clearly as he could think as the sparkling city seemed to whirl and wheel around him, witnessing his hard plummet—he was determined to take Wing with him.
Levels sailed past them in a breathless silence, and then, suddenly, the nacelles sang again, the most welcome and beautiful sound Drift had ever heard, as Wing pulled into a shallow dive.
And then up, shedding speed, and then Drift's feet were touching gently down onto solid ground, an instant before Wing's, placed down as gently as if Drift were crystal. The control, he admitted, impressed him and he found himself lingering—just for a klik—in the jet's embrace.
“Fun?” Wing asked, his arms releasing.
“Yes,” If fun meant something he wanted to do forever.
Gasket nearly bounced with excitement, beckoning them to a balcony he'd apparently claimed. The place was...beautiful. Drift lacked any other words for it: pavement of softly glowing white stone, set in a strange arrangement of circular daises, music floating down from above like mist. Only a few dozen mechs here, standing, chatting, with an air of luxury. “Look!” He pointed, excitedly. One or two of the other mechs gave drowsy glances over, as if the real novelty weren't Altihex but someone excited about it.
“That is Altihex.” He leaned in, dropping his voice so that if Wing overheard, he'd know he was eavesdropping. “This is awesome.”
Drift looked, mostly so he didn't have to say anything, after shooting a glare at some of the others. Something was still...unsettled in his systems. Probably the flight, he thought. That's why he was so giddy feeling.
Altihex was a blaze of color and light in the darkening purple of the sky and as he watched, flyers traced colored streams of light in an intricate, interweaving pattern, turning the growing violet of the sky into a lacework of power and grace.
“He seems really nice,” Gasket said. “I mean...party, right?” His grin was nearly blinding.
Drift grunted, turning and noticing that Wing was...nowhere to be found. “He has a motive,” Drift said. “Just don't know it yet. Where'd he go, anyway?”
Gasket shrugged. “He'll be back. Or he won't. We can get down from here. I already scoped the service corridor.”
Well that was some relief: Gasket hadn't taken leave of, you know, common sense.
“Kind of hope he comes back, though,” Gasket added. “Want to hear more about this Altihex place.”
“Probably same as here. Just...newer.”
“Maybe.”
“Probably don't even have any grounders.”
“Maybe.”
Drift saw the wistful haze in Gasket's optics: Gasket wanted to know, to go. Always dreaming of a better place. Drift dreamed, too, but he knew they were just that—dreams, illusions. Unreal. Things he used to torture himself with the real.
Gasket nudged him: Wing was returning, holding two cylinders of blue liquid. “Altihexian wine,” Wing announced, handing one to each of them. “It's good after a flight. Warms you up.” He gave a proud grin, as if realizing that a grounder would chill in flight. “And besides, it's traditional. You can't not have Altihexian wine during the festival.”
Managed just fine without it so far, Drift thought. “Why don't you have one for yourself?”
Wing rolled one shoulder. “I could only carry the two.”
“You can have mine.” Not so much an offer as a refusal.
Wing blinked, confused: as if no one had ever refused him before. “How about we share?”
“How 'bout--”
Gasket cut him off. “It's really good, Drift. You should try it.”
Drift's mouth flattened, but he forced himself to take the cylinder. It was, he rationalized, fuel, right? He took a cautious sip. The liquid burst over his intake sensors, bright and clean and unlike anything he'd ever had before.
Wing's smile bloomed. “Good, yes?” There was no hint of condescension, nothing that indicated there was anything superior about it. Just a kind of pride and some...completely incomprehensible delight.
“And now,” Wing said, taking the cylinder for his own dainty sip, and the gesture seemed like some bond, “let me tell you about Altihex.”
[***]
“Thank you,” Wing said, flinging an arm over both mechs—around Drift's shoulders, and taller Gasket's midsection.
“For what?” An honest question. They'd done nothing but drink wine he'd bought, listen to him talk.
“For listening to me talk so much.” Wing laughed. “It made me less homesick to talk to someone about it.”
“I'd like to go there some day,” Gasket murmured, optics lingering on the dancing lights over the orbital torus. “It sounds perfect.”
Wing squeezed the arm around Gasket's chassis. “No place is perfect. But if we all try to be...better than we think we can be...we can be, maybe, one day.”
“Idealist,” Drift muttered, but with less heat and malice than he might have said a few cycles ago.
The hand around his shoulder, the fingers, curled playfully, dipping into his exposed throat—a light, teasing touch, an open invitation.
And Drift was...tempted. The image burst across his sensor span: Wing, writhing beneath him, that refined soft voice whimpering with arousal, white armor sleek as satin against Drift's belly, thighs. His spike prickled with desire, with want.
He leaned into the touch, tilting his head, opening his throat for the jet's delicate fingertips. He wasn't going to question. He wanted this.
The jet tugged at him, pulling them together. Drift could taste the Altihexian wine in Wing's mouth, gentle and exploring, inviting, against his, smell the warm, clean oil. And for a moment Drift forgot everything but the jet's body plush with promise, against his.
The gold optics flared, a handspan from his, the kiss ebbing between them, but with hints of continuance, like a diver coming up for air. “I want to see where you live.” Wing's voice was raw and husky.
Drift went rigid, all the lust within him souring, flattening. Wing...in the gutters. His beautiful white armor smudged, no place to take him, no place to touch him, spike him, but the cold filthy ground. Unsafe. Filthy. Humiliating. Every hard word every Security Force mech had ever spat at him rumbled through his audio. No. NO.
The gold optics tilted with a sudden concern. “What's wrong?”
Drift tore himself away, a sound like raw pain coming from his vocalizer. He'd never hated the gutters quite so much as now, when he could see, touch, taste, something better, brighter, a dream made real, within his grasp.
And he had to let it go, let it slip through his fingers.”Have to go,” he muttered.
“Drift?” Wing turned. “Gasket?” An open plea for explanation.
Gasket's optics darted between them, hard with understanding, merciless through kindness.
“He's right,” Gasket said, quietly. He beckoned for Drift to follow, turning to lead to the service corridor. “Thanks, Wing. Really. This was...unforgettable.”
Unforgettable. Drift could feel the jet's kiss burn against his mouth, searing into his spark as he stumbled after Gasket, his optics lingering on the dismayed face of the white jet.
“What...what did I do?” Wing said, and Wing's incomprehension struck Drift as the saddest thing he'd ever heard. What had the jet done wrong other than be lucky enough to live a better life than Drift dreamed possible. What had he done wrong other than share it, igniting in each of them a dream that would burn forever unfulfilled in their sparks. Other than show them clearly all that they had not?
Nothing.
Wing burned like a lost, lambent flame in the darkness, optics wide and worried, hands outstretched, as if after an escaping dream, a symbol of everything Drift could never let himself have.
IDW pre-war AU
Drift, Gasket, Wing
tformers100 table war prompt lossThis is a oneshot AU it is also my headcanon that a) Wing is from Altihex and that b)an Orbital Torus State actually, uh, orbits.
“Come on.” Gasket grinned, optics bright in the gutter's perpetual gloom. It was just...amazing sometimes to Drift that Gasket had the energy and ability to be happy, to find pleasure where other mechs were struggling to find energon to stay alive. “It'll be fun.”
“Fun.” Drift's entire feelings about the word expressed in the flat voice, the flatter sheen on his scratched optics.
Gasket gave a cocky shrug. “All right. It's something to do. Something different.”
Drift grumbled, but he elbowed himself off the wall. Gasket was right. It was boring here, and besides, Gasket could use someone to keep an optic on him.
“So what is 'it'?” Drift fell into step alongside the larger mech.
“Altihexian Launch Festival,” Gasket said. When Drift just...blinked, he added, “Anniversary of its launch. Lots of light shows, flying demonstrations, parades and stuff.” A beat. “Parties.”
Right. Like they'd get invited to any. Still, Drift had committed now. The whole thing sounded impossibly stupid. Which was one very, very small step above 'boring'. Possibly.
“You'll see.” Gasket led him to the first level gate. Not much of a gate—the mechanism torn from its seating, bent, punctured, as though hundreds of mechs trapped down here had vented their wrath against the system that held them down on this...mute symbol. Down this low, security was non-existent: no one cared if the roaches from one level moved among the rats of another. The only threat was from the other mechs, just as hungry and starved as they.
They cruised the next level in silence, tense, alert. This was not their territory, not their scavenging grounds. Even Gasket's walk changed, a bit harder, a bit tougher. Just enough to radiate 'not prey.'
The next two gates were quiet, diminishing danger from their own kind, increasing the attention, though, of the Security forces, who seemed to find harassing mechs who already looked like they had it hard enough already to be...some form of entertainment. Hostile, bored, petty. Everything Drift had come to associate with authority.
This, Drift thought, as he raised his arms for them to run some sort of scanner over him to check—allegedly--for hidden weapons, better be worth it. Armed. The idea was ludicrous. Like he had spare energy for a weapon.
The first concourse was crowded and bustling—mechs with places to go, things to make happen. It seemed...strange to Drift: something to do other than hunt for food. He felt a pang of some new kind of hunger. What must it be like...? He studied the faces that rushed past, trying to read into their thoughts. The same and yet somehow...alien.
Their pace slowed, taking in this level they rarely visited, light and color and noise and motion. Drift felt the hard optics of some passersby on his dented and dull armor. He jutted his lower lip. Not his fault. But still, inwardly, he burned.
Gasket dragged him over to a row of windows. Shops, displaying...things Drift barely knew the names for. Probably useless, he thought. If he didn't know what it was, that meant that you didn't need it to survive. But still—the colored lights, the bright, shiny finish seemed to glow and refract some sense of longing, a hollowness deeper than hunger. All these...things.
Gasket tore himself away, and they proceeded up the paved path. They were high enough up that light aerials zipped up and down through the levels, seemingly only a handspan away. The path on the other side was lined with shops, almost overflowing with stuff, cafes brimming with noise and smells that made Drift edgy with hungry envy, and between them, at intervals, fountains of light, tinkling curtains of crystal, like time-frozen rain, other things that seemed to exist...only to be pretty.
Gasket looked up, following the contrail of a particularly brightly-colored jet. “Oh!” He reached for Drift's arm, pointing. “Look.”
Drift looked, stopping in the middle of the walkway. Up through the long blades of the buildings above, he could see...sky. Actual sky, tinted a warm pinkish-orange. He felt his spark seem to falter in his chassis. Sky.
“I wonder where Altihex is,” Gasket said, standing next to him, studying the ribbon of pink.
“Can't see from here,” Drift said. He looked around, and then headed, with purpose, to a large jut over the airway, stepping onto the black-and-yellow striped edge, optics studying the sky. He edged forward.
Something, a hand that he could tell just from touch wasn't Gasket's, on his wrist. “Be careful!” Drift stiffened, but the voice was not the traditional harsh command of Security Forces, the nasty edge of virulent authority. He turned, twisting in the grasp, to face a small airframe, no larger than he was, optics gold and warm. “I'm sorry. But large ferries fly through here, and sometimes they cut their safe distance margins. The wakedraft can be dangerous.”
“Really?” Gasket, optics keen, bent on learning. Knowledge, Gasket had always said, was their ticket out of the gutters. He managed to dream of escape. Drift just wanted to survive.
The jet nodded. “I've seen it suck mechs right off the edge. Fun if you can fly, but...”
“Not fun for grounders,” Drift finished. Another unfair thing.
The stranger nodded, hesitated, then said, “You were looking for Altihex? I...couldn't help but overhear.” He seemed to shrink with apology. Drift glowered at Gasket, but nodded.
The jet tilted his heat to the sky cut through the buildings above. “You can't see it very well from here, I'm afraid. Are you going to watch the festival flights?”
“Yes,” Gasket blurted, cutting of Drift's denial. They exchanged looks, Gasket's saying clearly, not to mess up a good thing.
“There's a better platform up two deca-levels,” the jet said. “That's where I'm going. You can come?”
Up two levels. Two more harassments by SF. And with the added sting of a witness. Drift shook his head, adamant, optics narrowing at Gasket. No. Gasket frowned, hating the truth just as much; that they had to be ashamed of circumstance.
“We'd...uh....slow you down,” Gasket offered.
The jet tilted his head, his face twitching, embarrassed. He'd obviously somehow not noticed, or thought through, the fact that his companions were not jets. Didn't deal much with lowly grounders, huh? Drift thought.
The jet's face lit up. “I could fly you there. I rated highly in Secure Carry.”
Which meant....nothing to Drift. “Two of us.”
“I can take one and then return for the other.” The idea had taken root in Wing's cortex, roots twining deeper with every challenge. “And really, I'd be glad for the company.”
“Why.” This had to be some sort of trick; no one was this nice.
The grin flattened. “I...am from Altihex. But I couldn't get leave from the Academy to go back. Just...just a day's pass.”
Drift wanted to roll his optics: poor little jet. Wish I had your problems. Wish I had a home to get homesick for. But...something in the jet's disconsolate expression quelled that. Longing, Drift knew longing. He was just—he hoped—better at hiding it.
“All right,” he said. Gasket shot him a surprised look. He shrugged . “Wanted to see this thing, right? Might as well.” Gasket's grin rebloomed: Wing lit up. Drift grumbled. Stupid idea, but...why not?
“First,” Drift insisted. They could at least have...some semblance of personal safety. “Designation.”
The jet ducked his head. “My apologies. I'm Wing.” He waited expectantly.
“Gasket,” Gasket pointed at himself. “And that's Drift.” Drift gave a grunt of acknowledgment. “Me first,” Gasket said, stepping forward. “How do we do this?” He almost vibrated with eagerness.
“We...,” Wing moved behind Gasket, wrapping his white arms around Gasket's chassis, “do this.” The nacelles on his shoulders cycled on, a high hum. “Are you ready? I'll be very careful.”
“Don't be,” Gasket said. “I want to fly.”
Wing laughed, the sound sparkling in the evening air. “Very well.”
It struck Drift that they didn't know Wing from...anyone. If he killed Gasket...?
“I will take care of him, Drift,” Wing said, optics bright and solemn, peeping over Gasket's taller shoulder. “On my honor.”
“Honor,” Drift snorted. “Stupid intangible luxury.”
“Anyone can have honor, Drift,” Wing answered. “It is not—at all—a luxury.” He launched skyward before Drift could summon a response, Gasket clutching suddenly, excitedly, at the white arms, white wings snapping open from behind the jet's back, compact and intricate.
Drift fought anger and fear, watching them rip into the sky on those far-too-small looking wings, tracking the twin blue glows of the nacelles fade into the evening's red. He could do nothing but grit his dentae, wait, pacing along the platform.
He jumped back at the sudden heavy buzz of engines, vibrating the deck under his feet so hard that his knee gyros wobbled. The sound crested, and a large industrial ferry broke the horizon, barreling upward. He felt the wakedraft Wing had described, as if all the air on the level was sucking upward, rocking him upward onto his toeplates..
Wing returned, slicing through the turbulent air, a sudden clean white presence. His smile glowed. “Your friend is waiting. I'm...really glad you let me join you.”
Drift shrugged, still rattled from the ferry. The white jet moved behind him, the sleek lines of Wing's arms wrapping around his chassis. It felt like...an embrace. Drift felt suddenly, acutely, aware of himself; his lack of maintenance. He probably smelled. Definitely different from the jet's light clean scent of fresh lubricating oil and ionized air from his engines.
“Ready?” The same question he had asked Gasket. Drift grunted, hearing the nacelles fire, the soft slide of the wings unfurling, and then the sudden lurching lift, his feet leaving the ground. Wing's voice was a soft tickle against his audio. “Shall I 'fly' for you as well?”
“Yes,” Drift managed, breathless, feeling a grounder's clutching panic at movement he did not control.
Wing didn't answer, but the nacelles whined higher and the cold cut of air shocked Drift's systems, under his armor, sliding through his bare systems like a cold, erotic knife, stripping away the heat of his engines, ruthless, clean.
Wing spun in a slow helix as he rose, the world, the glittering but blank face of the city, rising around Drift. He wanted it to see, wanted everyone to see him...flying, an elegant jet touching him, but at the same time he wanted not to be seen, to have this moment as a cocoon of privacy. Special. He had...very few beautiful moments. He wanted to hoard them.
“Do you trust me?” Excitement in the voice, but not tension nor fear. Not the sound of a trick.
“Yes,” Drift croaked. Self evident, he thought, since he'd let the jet take him, take Gasket.
A satisfied chirr. “Good. Because this is really fun.”
Fun. That word again. But before Drift could respond, Wing blasted upward, till the air screamed against his audio. And then, abruptly, sound seemed cut—no engines, no air. Just a vast, engulfing silence. There was a long moment of stillness, noiselessness and then, slowly, it was as if gravity reached up through the air to seize them, pulling them down into a wild tumble. Drift's hands clutched over Wing's. If this was a trick, he thought—as clearly as he could think as the sparkling city seemed to whirl and wheel around him, witnessing his hard plummet—he was determined to take Wing with him.
Levels sailed past them in a breathless silence, and then, suddenly, the nacelles sang again, the most welcome and beautiful sound Drift had ever heard, as Wing pulled into a shallow dive.
And then up, shedding speed, and then Drift's feet were touching gently down onto solid ground, an instant before Wing's, placed down as gently as if Drift were crystal. The control, he admitted, impressed him and he found himself lingering—just for a klik—in the jet's embrace.
“Fun?” Wing asked, his arms releasing.
“Yes,” If fun meant something he wanted to do forever.
Gasket nearly bounced with excitement, beckoning them to a balcony he'd apparently claimed. The place was...beautiful. Drift lacked any other words for it: pavement of softly glowing white stone, set in a strange arrangement of circular daises, music floating down from above like mist. Only a few dozen mechs here, standing, chatting, with an air of luxury. “Look!” He pointed, excitedly. One or two of the other mechs gave drowsy glances over, as if the real novelty weren't Altihex but someone excited about it.
“That is Altihex.” He leaned in, dropping his voice so that if Wing overheard, he'd know he was eavesdropping. “This is awesome.”
Drift looked, mostly so he didn't have to say anything, after shooting a glare at some of the others. Something was still...unsettled in his systems. Probably the flight, he thought. That's why he was so giddy feeling.
Altihex was a blaze of color and light in the darkening purple of the sky and as he watched, flyers traced colored streams of light in an intricate, interweaving pattern, turning the growing violet of the sky into a lacework of power and grace.
“He seems really nice,” Gasket said. “I mean...party, right?” His grin was nearly blinding.
Drift grunted, turning and noticing that Wing was...nowhere to be found. “He has a motive,” Drift said. “Just don't know it yet. Where'd he go, anyway?”
Gasket shrugged. “He'll be back. Or he won't. We can get down from here. I already scoped the service corridor.”
Well that was some relief: Gasket hadn't taken leave of, you know, common sense.
“Kind of hope he comes back, though,” Gasket added. “Want to hear more about this Altihex place.”
“Probably same as here. Just...newer.”
“Maybe.”
“Probably don't even have any grounders.”
“Maybe.”
Drift saw the wistful haze in Gasket's optics: Gasket wanted to know, to go. Always dreaming of a better place. Drift dreamed, too, but he knew they were just that—dreams, illusions. Unreal. Things he used to torture himself with the real.
Gasket nudged him: Wing was returning, holding two cylinders of blue liquid. “Altihexian wine,” Wing announced, handing one to each of them. “It's good after a flight. Warms you up.” He gave a proud grin, as if realizing that a grounder would chill in flight. “And besides, it's traditional. You can't not have Altihexian wine during the festival.”
Managed just fine without it so far, Drift thought. “Why don't you have one for yourself?”
Wing rolled one shoulder. “I could only carry the two.”
“You can have mine.” Not so much an offer as a refusal.
Wing blinked, confused: as if no one had ever refused him before. “How about we share?”
“How 'bout--”
Gasket cut him off. “It's really good, Drift. You should try it.”
Drift's mouth flattened, but he forced himself to take the cylinder. It was, he rationalized, fuel, right? He took a cautious sip. The liquid burst over his intake sensors, bright and clean and unlike anything he'd ever had before.
Wing's smile bloomed. “Good, yes?” There was no hint of condescension, nothing that indicated there was anything superior about it. Just a kind of pride and some...completely incomprehensible delight.
“And now,” Wing said, taking the cylinder for his own dainty sip, and the gesture seemed like some bond, “let me tell you about Altihex.”
[***]
“Thank you,” Wing said, flinging an arm over both mechs—around Drift's shoulders, and taller Gasket's midsection.
“For what?” An honest question. They'd done nothing but drink wine he'd bought, listen to him talk.
“For listening to me talk so much.” Wing laughed. “It made me less homesick to talk to someone about it.”
“I'd like to go there some day,” Gasket murmured, optics lingering on the dancing lights over the orbital torus. “It sounds perfect.”
Wing squeezed the arm around Gasket's chassis. “No place is perfect. But if we all try to be...better than we think we can be...we can be, maybe, one day.”
“Idealist,” Drift muttered, but with less heat and malice than he might have said a few cycles ago.
The hand around his shoulder, the fingers, curled playfully, dipping into his exposed throat—a light, teasing touch, an open invitation.
And Drift was...tempted. The image burst across his sensor span: Wing, writhing beneath him, that refined soft voice whimpering with arousal, white armor sleek as satin against Drift's belly, thighs. His spike prickled with desire, with want.
He leaned into the touch, tilting his head, opening his throat for the jet's delicate fingertips. He wasn't going to question. He wanted this.
The jet tugged at him, pulling them together. Drift could taste the Altihexian wine in Wing's mouth, gentle and exploring, inviting, against his, smell the warm, clean oil. And for a moment Drift forgot everything but the jet's body plush with promise, against his.
The gold optics flared, a handspan from his, the kiss ebbing between them, but with hints of continuance, like a diver coming up for air. “I want to see where you live.” Wing's voice was raw and husky.
Drift went rigid, all the lust within him souring, flattening. Wing...in the gutters. His beautiful white armor smudged, no place to take him, no place to touch him, spike him, but the cold filthy ground. Unsafe. Filthy. Humiliating. Every hard word every Security Force mech had ever spat at him rumbled through his audio. No. NO.
The gold optics tilted with a sudden concern. “What's wrong?”
Drift tore himself away, a sound like raw pain coming from his vocalizer. He'd never hated the gutters quite so much as now, when he could see, touch, taste, something better, brighter, a dream made real, within his grasp.
And he had to let it go, let it slip through his fingers.”Have to go,” he muttered.
“Drift?” Wing turned. “Gasket?” An open plea for explanation.
Gasket's optics darted between them, hard with understanding, merciless through kindness.
“He's right,” Gasket said, quietly. He beckoned for Drift to follow, turning to lead to the service corridor. “Thanks, Wing. Really. This was...unforgettable.”
Unforgettable. Drift could feel the jet's kiss burn against his mouth, searing into his spark as he stumbled after Gasket, his optics lingering on the dismayed face of the white jet.
“What...what did I do?” Wing said, and Wing's incomprehension struck Drift as the saddest thing he'd ever heard. What had the jet done wrong other than be lucky enough to live a better life than Drift dreamed possible. What had he done wrong other than share it, igniting in each of them a dream that would burn forever unfulfilled in their sparks. Other than show them clearly all that they had not?
Nothing.
Wing burned like a lost, lambent flame in the darkness, optics wide and worried, hands outstretched, as if after an escaping dream, a symbol of everything Drift could never let himself have.
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Nice writing! The emotion really pulls at your heartstrings. I can't help but feel sorry for them.
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And hugs all around!
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It's poignant. You captured the point of view of someone who's so briefly lifted out of his world, gets to see things from another perspective, finds things that everyone takes for granted to be so beautiful and alien...and then has to sacrifice it all, and go back down.
I really treasure it when I can find a piece that packs such a powerful punch without being drawn out, and I especially treasured this tonight. Thank you for sharing it.
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I think the hardest thing is realizing that why you have to sacrifice it all, why you have to refuse something wonderful that's offered to you, is oftentimes your own fear holding you back, in a way. I can't do this, because I'm afraid that will happen. And facing the fact that it's fear that causes you to turn your back is...really hard.
/still not coherent, obviously.
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...I am SO waiting for the day where we can plug USBs into our ears and transfer mental images, because I totally want to see that cityscape too!
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Loved the description of flight, but Wing's incomprehension at the end -- and Drift's refusal to let him see how they lived (or survived, more like) was painful.
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But then I was all D: :c
And I am really, really late to reading/commenting, sorry. But wow this was good, and I dunno yet if you've written any more like this, but whoa is was awesome and I would totally be up to reading more if you have it! :D
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It's so... light. Light, a little sad in the end, beautiful in descriptions and - aww - in characters. I love this Gasket, so... optimistic and trying not despair. And gloomy, always alert Drift.
And Wing - lighty little jet, he never changes.