shadow_vector

PG
IDW
Drift
Spoilers for Drift series? Do I need to warn for that?
for

tformers100 table: peace, prompt: forgiveness.

They never bothered him—not even Perceptor—when he got in these black moods. When he sat, Great Sword over his knees, staring out the starboard bay, watching the stars that barely seemed to move, shine in their bright eternities.

They probably thought he was crazy. But they were Wreckers, and as long as a mech pulled his own weight in combat, they didn’t ask too many questions about what he did on his off time or his private thoughts. Drift wasn’t sure he could handle any questions, no matter how benign. It was the past, over and done with, one death among thousands, but in another way, it was a moment, the moment, that changed everything. The only thing that could stand against this darkness.

It had burned within him, that sudden, new kind of strength, this solid assurance like a vault of crystal around his spark, as he stood in front of the Circle and admitted he had betrayed them. Ironic that that would be such a glittering shard of memory for him, and not sullied and dull with shame. It hurt, it had hurt at the time, even more than Dai Atlas’s fist, but it had been the clean hurt of something burning itself off, turning mass into smoke and vapor, heat and light, burning like a star. And he'd thought himself...made of light itself. Strong, undefeatable, and Wing behind him, nodding, his strength not even needing words.

Light. After so long underground, on ships, the light of the planet’s surface blinded him, his new armor feeling tight and strange and almost weightless. His new armor gleamed white—some obvious symbolism, white over black, new over old, remaking him. But Wing was brighter than all of that—almost incandescent in the sunlight, glowing bright with the spark of a mech entirely at peace with his own death. A sun calling to a sun.

Drift hadn’t understood it. Still didn’t. That laserbright clarity of purpose, as if his entire spark were burning through his armor, burning his life up, everything that Wing had and was and believed coruscating on the surface, dazzling Drift.

And even then, Drift had looked down at his black hands, his white armor and thought…I will never be like that. I will never be so sure of my purpose, so devoted. I will never be so willing to die. I’ve been fighting to stay alive as long as I can remember. In my last moments, I will claw for life, every last, precious second. I will gouge and strike and rake with my last dying charge, to hang onto every moment, every precious moment that isn’t that final, terminal darkness.

And Wing had gone into that darkness…willingly. He’d volunteered, knowing. Knowing at least some of it. Did he know how much it would hurt? Did that much pure faith make it hurt less? Drift…hoped so. As much as a mech like him deserved to even hope, he hoped that it hadn’t been as painful as he knew it was. Wing, of all mechs, deserved less pain.

It didn’t seem fair that the evil should suffer no more than the good.

He glossed his left hand over the Great Sword’s hilt, his palm grazing the contact plates, just enough for the jewel to activate, glyphs down the blade to glow, blue and intimate, flaring in the darkness. “Wing,” he murmured, so quietly his own audio receptors didn’t pick up the word. He adjusted his grip, remembering Wing’s hand around it, trying to summon the sight, overlay Wing’s hand with his own. The blade tugged at his spark like a thousand silver lines of wire, pulling at him, drawing his energy into the blade, feeding the metal, giving it life and power and purpose.

His right hand stroked the jewel, as if he could feel the light within. Mingled, perhaps, some trace of Wing’s spark energy touching his, some pathetic distant contact, a ghost touching a shadow.

The stars seemed to yawn silently in front of him, stately, regal, confident. The stars had it all figured out, he thought, wildly. The stars never doubted their purpose. They burned and glowed and consumed themselves, giving heat and light and life, feeding on their own substance, like the gem fed on his.

He didn’t deserve it: he tore his hand free, the jewel guttering dark, the blue glow seeming to seep from the room, fading slowly, defying the physics of the speed of light, until the darkness had swallowed him again, and he was nothing more than a reflection of two blue optics on the plasglass of the starboard bow’s window.

I’m sorry.

He couldn’t even bring himself to say the words aloud, the pain too deep, as though tearing itself free from the silver net around his spark, slicing itself along the way. I’m…sorry. I can never be you. I can never be worthy of what you gave for me. Never.

And the weight of his failure—a future of long years of never being quite enough, never fitting in, always questioning, never having that bright clarity of purpose, never being pure…crushed in upon him, quailing him against the chair’s back, a whine of animal pain tearing from his systems, his hand clutching, simple reflex, around the hilt again. And the light flared, and dispelled the darkness, and the net on his heart grew gentle and light, as if regretting its pain.

Be happy, a voice seemed to say, filled with sunlight Wing had only rarely seen, a voice so quiet that it could have been a blip in the crystal drive, an elevator somewhere hitting a bad gear. Be happy, and be free. Another phantom of sound, seeming to vibrate through the servos of his arm. If not for yourself, for me.

And he bowed his head against the darkness, but this time, it was to curl around the glowing web over his spark.