Sursum part 3

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW
Drift, OC (Cloudburst) refs to Wing/Drift
More talking.

 

“It’s good to see you again,” Cloudburst smiled, approaching Drift where he lounged on the entryway to Wing’s quarters.  “Though I wish it were under better circumstances.” 

Drift grunted. “Stupid laws you have.”  He fell into step with the larger jet, out of the desire to move, to do something.

“Oh?” Cloudburst looked down at him. “How do your Decepticons handle these matters?”

Drift flinched. Oh he knew all too well.  Rank disobedience got one shot in the head.  “Also stupid,” he managed.  He did not want to think about that, happening to Wing.  “Not going to kill him, are they?”

“Kill?” The green optics blinked then turned sad. “No, Drift. We...aren’t like that, here.”

“Well then...?” He hated that he was asking.

“Punishment is counterproductive if one is not alive to learn the lesson, Drift.” He seemed...amused. 

“Doesn’t sound like Wing’s learned yet, other than that he’s going to get punished.”

“That’s a lesson, too, though.”  Cloudburst paused at an intersection. “So, Drift, what would you like to do?”

Drift shrugged. “Leave.”

Cloudburst gave him a sudden, surprised look, before bursting into a laugh. “Wing’s told me you were...insistent.”

Drift frowned. How...much did these two talk? 

“How about we just...walk. I imagine you would at least appreciate movement.”

Paltry movement, trapped in a backwater city while the war was raging.  Still.  It wasn't Cloudburst's fault.  He shrugged, continuing to pace next to the larger jet. 

“What do you remember,” Cloudburst asked, “of before the war?” 

“Nothing good.”

Cloudburst nodded.  “Some of us fight to get back what we lost.  It's...interesting to meet someone who is fighting for something he never had.” 

Drift didn't know what to do with that. It sounded like a compliment. It felt like a compliment. 

“Tell me, Drift, what world do you see?  When the war is over?” Cloudburst swept his hand over the city before them, steering Drift into a bustling shopping district.  “Help me--help us understand,” he amended, with almost too-much haste. 

Drift lobbed a sharp look at him, which faded as his optics moved over the city level that splayed in front of them. “Don't know,” he said, finally. Something like this, he thought. Only, something he'd fought for. Something he'd earned.  This wasn't right, because...it wasn't his. 

And what did that do to all his suffering? All those kills he'd made? It made them butchery. 

Cloudburst said nothing, studying a sign before him with way more attention than it could possibly have required, giving Drift his privacy, in a way. Everyone here, so...eerily polite. 

“Would you like,” Cloudburst said, suddenly, as if aware he was breaking an awkward silence, and not very gracefully, as if that were some transgression, “to visit the hanging garden?”

Drift had no idea what that was, but, well, it was something to do, another corner of this pretty cage.  Maybe, he thought, there was some weakness there. Some vulnerability, some access to the surface.  He wondered sometimes why he was letting himself be bound by Wing's rules; by Crystal City's rules.

He didn't like any of the answers he came up with.  They were weak answers: he selfishly wanted to see and know and feel.  ...and then...Wing.  His captor.  His lover. 

He nodded, and fell in beside the larger jet as they turned down one path.  They walked in silence for a long while, the path snaking leisurely through a row of glittering businesses, storefronts colorful, clean.  Was this what Cybertron had been like before the war?  The parts he'd never seen while hiding in the gutters? It doesn't matter, he told himself; he still didn't belong.

But this time...he really wanted to.  Jealousy burned like phosphorous over him but without, for once, the rancid fuel of hate underneath.  He wanted this.  And instead of the hostile glares he'd gotten the few times he had ventured uplevels back on Cybertron, the looks he got here were curious, but nothing more. 

He barely noticed how Cloudburst slowed his pace, letting Drift look in the windows, study the ornamental pillars.  Wing seemed intensely proud of his city, fiercely certain of it; Cloudburst's pride was quieter, letting it be seen instead of showing. It was still overwhelming.

“Ever feel trapped?” he blurted. “I mean, here, underground?” He shifted again, too aware that his question related...to himself. “As a jet, that is,” he added, lamely.

Cloudburst's easy laugh rumbled from his chassis. “Yes, of course.  There's something about the open sky that...calls to us.  But we have to sacrifice, all of us, something for the greater good.” 

“But...,”  The copperspun arch of the hanging gardens swallowed them, the shops and buildings falling away to a metallic, serpentine path, slicing an intricate pattern through space, each bend and twist marked with some crystal or sculpture or cultivated exotic plant.  Beautiful, Drift supposed. Also, though, useless.  Who ate because of this? How did this improve anything?

“If someone takes it from us, that is a wrong, Drift.  But we have given this up, we made the decision of our own free will.”

Wing hasn't, Drift thought.  But still...Cloudburst's point.  “Never had anything to give up,” he muttered.

“That's not true,” Cloudburst said, stopping, turning. On either side of the narrow, gleaming path, nothing but air, punctuated by a network of thin lines of chain, a glittering web.  “Honor.  Ideals. Vision. You have these things, Drift. And anything you have can be given—or taken—away.” His optics burned. 

Drift rocked back on his feet, Cloudburst's words striking home, like a blast of cannonfire. Cloudburst leapt forward, catching him, the  blue arms wrapping around him just as one of Drift's heelplates scraped empty air.  He felt the vibration of a larger engine—almost large enough to be Turmoil's—against him. :

“I was not attacking you,” Cloudburst said, quietly, his deep voice turning the air between them into something rich and plush.  He stepped back, hauling Drift back onto the path, and Drift felt the warm huff of air from the jet's vents, and the soft brush of a mouth over his, before moving on his helm's rank crest. Cloudburst stepped back, his hands trailing longingly over Drift's frame, sending sparkling swirls of sensation, tempting, promising, over his net. “You have friends here,” Cloudburst added, optics glowing. 

Drift shifted.  Cloudburst couldn't mean...? No.  Just what he'd said. Friends.  Nothing more.

As if he had any idea how to do even that.

“Lost them along the way,” Drift muttered, twisting away. 

Cloudburst squeezed his arm.  “Then maybe you can find them again. Here.”

 

Comments

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

It's so hard to understand something so alien and "plenty" when you've never had it yourself. It fascinates me how you manage to convey that so subtly.

And this bit with Cloudburst is not only telling, but sweet. Drift isn't used to being pursued like this, and I like it.

[gwenithcoy.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with ravynfye! And Cloudburst letting his true interest in Drift surface was wonderful!

I really like the introspective glances we get into Drift's mind. The way he views art as pretty but ulitmately useless because it doesn't help anyone, feed anyone, or serve any other purpose than to be seen. New Crystal City might overwhelm him at times but it doesn't blind him, he can't lose himself to it. I love it, gives him, his character, depth.