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shadow_vector2011-05-27 09:48 am
The Long Night
IDW
Wing, Drift
possibly spoilers for issue 1 of the Drift series
for
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tformers100 table Peace prompt LifeWing rocked, restlessly, on his feet. There was a low bench, by the med berth, but he had too much energy to settle himself on it. Even looking at it made him feel…confined. Grounded.
The open air of planetside seemed to cling to him still, like an aura, locked in his joints, the spicy smell of plant life, of sun-heated sand, and now, the reek of energon and alien fluids. He was filthy, still, his white armor smeared and scorched. But, he thought, looking at the dark form on the med berth, it was worth it. It was all worth it.
“Drift,” he murmured, tasting the name. The first new name he’d had to learn in ages. The first time in…forever he’d seen a Decepticon insignia. The memories it brought back rendered him breathless, flashes of fire and pain and fear, crushing weight, darkness, hopelessness—all distilled to that tiny purple design, its tilted eyes something malign. Victory through strength, conquest. Valuing not the strong but the violent.
And Drift was no refugee, fleeing from those values. It had been a long time, but the gold in the mech’s helm, he remembered, was a rank-flash. And Wing had seen him in combat, the fast, feral style, so unlike his smooth, schooled control. One who hungered for combat, who grinned at each death he caused, reveled in this power to destroy. A true Decepticon and all Wing remembered of them.
Wing had killed, too, but fast, unthinking, concentrating on rhythm and flow, movement and objective, not reveling in the acts themselves. Death had been…another re-introduction, another acquaintance he’d had to renew, the sounds and the stink and the jar of blade hitting flesh, bone, body, of it brought back its own army of bad memories.
But the figure on the berth, he thought, dispelled those. He was alive. Still, somehow, alive, after the slavers’ brutality, he had clung to life with the same dogged, stubborn, ferocious will that Wing recognized. Drift, whatever he was, was a survivor.
He crossed to the berth, optics trailing down the alien contours of the dark armor, the naked titanium of the chassis and shoulders—raw replacements to last until morning, enough to keep him intact and less distressing than the horror of the crushed frame Wing had pulled from the slavers’ hands. He laid one palm on the stark surface of the chassis, feeling the vibration of the systems underneath, the slow, erratic pulse of the spark. What had he seen? Wing thought, what had he known that led him to such violence and mistrust?
What could set a face in that perpetual scowl that even medical recharge couldn’t smooth? He traced the lip plates with one thumb, a ghost of a touch, before letting his fingers cup and slide over the battered helm. Optics, new, blue, lay in replaced sockets, under newly-machined shutters. Wing wondered if the blue light would soften the severe lines of the face, if they could lessen or lighten the memories this mech must carry.
“Who are you, Drift?” he asked, his voice resonant in the room’s hushed murmur of idling engines and all the apparatus that was keeping Drift alive. The possibilities excited him—an exotic, alien mind, new memories, new history. It felt as if the horizon had been moved, the sky expanded, wide and broad and deep.
He knew he should leave--there was nothing to do here, nothing happening but the slow, even cycling of the life-support machines. He should go, and clean the sticky stain of battle from his armor, refuel, recharge, refamiliarize himself with his quarters, with normalcy. But everything seemed...shaken up somehow, edges crisper, cleaner, sharp enough to cut, made anew.
Battle, he thought, the surge of life and skill a residue through his systems, cyberdrenaline's last effervescent rush. He let himself pace, the red flashes of his knee stabilizers marking the movement, bringing him, without thought, to the far side of the room. He turned, the med berth, and Drift's battered frame--dark and injured, or silver and too new--arranged like an effigy.
Mine, he thought, and for a moment was startled by it, optics flaring in the darkness. Mechs did not own other mechs. That was cruelty, injustice. That was the start of everything wrong. But still…he had rescued Drift, had borne Dai Atlas’s scowl, and the gravelly disapproval in the way the larger mech had said, stiffly, simply, that “we will deal with the ramifications later, Wing.” He had paid in violence and worry and it did not, it should not, give him a claim over Drift…but it did. He couldn’t shake it.
He flung himself on the bench, the projecting points of his wing tips scraping the surface. Not his. Nothing was his. Even the sword which was bonded to him could be revoked, taken back, at any time by the Circle. And he was fine with that, accepted it, believed it, and in a way this dark stirring of possessiveness reminded him why they had made these laws.
It will be easier, he thought, when Drift is back online. When I can hear his words, see him move. When he becomes a mech and not a…tempting dark jewel, inert, limp, on a med berth.
“You are not mine,” he said, quiet, his tone formal, as though revoking obligation, making it real. “You are not mine and you owe me nothing. I only ask that…out of desire more than gratitude, that…maybe you’ll let me know you.” Yes, that was better. Drift should not feel compelled, forced, obligated to anything. How much better, how much purer, it would be—if it happened—that Drift turn to him? How much more beautiful, worthy, to be chosen than to hold him fast, twisted in the reins of debt?
“Live,” he added, quietly. “That is all I really ask.”
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