Comfort

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

R
IDW/AHM
Sideswipe, Drift, Perceptor
spoilers through AHM 9, fail porn, sticky
It's apparently botcon tradition that I am up for 48 hours. Wrote this on the plane. Where the dude sitting next to me was watching porn on his Ipad.  Yyyyyyyeah. You see, I needed the distraction.

“No!” Sideswipe howled, dropping to his knees. “How could you!” He whirled to the assembled faces. “How could you!”  His gaze stabbed each of them in turn. 

“Sideswipe,” Ironhide began, helm tilted, palm open. 

Sideswipe lunged at him, hands curled into feral claws. 

“No.”  A bar around his waist, holding him back, lifting him up. “No, Sideswipe,” the voice repeated, quiet, but strong, sure. Sideswipe squirmed against the white armor.  Drift, the newcomer. 

“Let me GO!” 

“It won’t change anything,” Drift said, softly. 

“Shut up!” Sideswipe snarled. “You think I don’t know that?” He thrashed, turning to the other mechs.  “Tell him to let me go.”

“Sideswipe,” Mirage said, “you’re upset. It’s perfectly natural.”

“Perfect natural?  You tell me one thing that’s ‘perfect’ or ‘natural’ about this!”   Sunstreaker, dead. And their last words had been hostile.  He’d never get a chance to fix it. Never.

A movement behind him: Drift shaking his head.  “It’s not. It’s not.  Doesn’t change anything.”  A pressure around Sideswipe’s waist, and he found himself lifted, bodily, the swordsmech’s strong servos lifting him easily.  Sideswipe kicked, in his grief not caring that his feet struck Drift’s, hard. 

Hands caught at his ankles, hauling upward: Perceptor, face stern, impassive.  He shook his head. Sideswipe kicked, feebly, petulantly.

It didn’t change this, either:  Drift carrying him, like some sort of newframe, out of the room, pushing him into an alcove.  “Stop,” Drift murmured. “Stop and we’ll let you go.”   

“Leave me alone!” 

“Alone,” Perceptor said, releasing the ankles he held, “is the last thing you want or need to be right now.”  His optics glimmered with a keen understanding.

Sideswipe balled his fist, arm coming up to strike.  Perceptor caught the blow before it could get momentum, simply…catching it in one palm.

No. Perceptor was right: Alone was the last thing he needed right now.  He burst into tears, all the emotion inside him boiling into helplessness and grief.  Sunstreaker, dead.  Somehow that was worse than Sunstreaker, tortured, or Sunstreaker, betrayer.  No of course.  It was worse.  How much Sunstreaker hadn’t told him!  That, that was the true betrayal, that was what hurt. And that, with Sunstreaker dead, was unfixable.

 

“It-it came out wrong.  I never meant to say…,” words failed him.  So much he’d said. He thought he knew now why these two were so quiet: you never know the harm your words do.  What if Sunstreaker had chosen to die—as they’d said. What if Sunstreaker had wanted death, sought it as a release—had Sideswipe’s own words driven him to it? Had his words tilted that balance point, prised up the fulcrum that rooted Sunstreaker to life? 

Perceptor released the wrist, hesitating for a long moment, before reaching forward, arm around Sideswipe’s shoulder, pulling him against him, out of Drift’s grasp.  It was an awkward embrace, Perceptor’s frame stiff and unyielding, but Sideswipe found himself clinging to it anyway, throwing his arms over the shoulders, burying his face in the broad chassis, sobbing his grief and loss against the implacable stolidity that was Perceptor until he fell into a drained, exhausted recharge.

[***]

Sideswipe purred, drowsily, feeling a warm engine behind him.  He squirmed, feeling the comforting weight of an arm over his chassis, a leg against his hip. He had had…some awful nightmare. He couldn’t remember it—the memory was blurry edged with emotion—but it had been terrible. And all made better by Sunstreaker’s comforting mass behind him. 

He shifted, in the darkness, ducking his head down to press his mouth against one of the hands. The hand twitched in his before softening, giving a gentle stroke at his chassis.  His engine revved. “Hey, Sunstreaker,” he murmured, his voice like glittering velvet in the darkness as he turned, “I really missed waking up like thi—“ The word died in his vocalize.  That…wasn’t Sunstreaker’s hand, or his body’s systems humming behind him: it was Drift. 

It made sense in a way: same height, same basic frame type. But in another Sideswipe felt…vile that he had confused them. As though Sunstreaker were already lost to him, that he was mistaking someone else’s touch for his frame-twin’s.

“Sorry,” he blurted. It all rushed back to him: Sunstreaker’s death, his loss, his grief-stricken tantrum, Drift, Perceptor.  They must have held him until he’d given into recharge.  They must have laid against him like a warm net, holding him  and holding him back.

“It’s all right,” Drift said, voice quiet, steady.

“Where’s Perceptor?”

“Sentry duty,” Drift answered, lifting his hand from Sideswipe, unsure of his welcome.  “You can go back to recharge.”

“I don’t want to.” He could hear the childishness in his voice. He could not summon the energy, however, to care. 

“What do you want?” 

“I want…I want him back! I want none of this to ever have happened!”  His mouth twisted at the pathetic plea.  He waited for Drift to lecture, argue logic with him.

Drift nodded, gently, the hand squeezing over Sideswipe’s shoulder. “I know.”

“No! No you don’t know!”  Sideswipe felt his hands ball into hard fists again.  No one could understand.  No one could possibly understand what he had lost—what he had ruined, before he’d even lost it.  This war…it ruined everything.

“I do.” And there was such surety in his voice that Sideswipe’s fury was derailed, all his grief, newly spun from the ashes of what he’d thought was a nightmare, bursting from him in hot bitter tears.  Drift held him, this time, letting the helm nestle against his shoulder, the hands tentative over his white armor.  And somehow, somewhere in there, Sideswipe’s bitter tears melted into a kiss, his mouth seeking Drift’s.  Drift’s lip plates opened against his, yielding, giving Sideswipe what he wanted, with no pressure, no demand of his own, and the embrace grew an edge, prickling over Sideswipe’s sensor net. 

Sideswipe pushed against Drift, that frame that was so…not Sunstreaker’s, yet warm and humming and desiring him.  Drift’s hands slid down over his frame, halfway between a comforter’s stroke and a lover’s caress. Sideswipe wriggled under the touch, inviting more, pushing between the dark thighs with his knee. His hand crept down over Drift’s frame, feeling the change from the sleek gloss of the white armor, to the eggshell matte of the black under-plating. And lower, his fingertips flirting with the white margins of the interface hatch.  Drift’s mouth quirked into a smile against his, the optics flaring with desire, pelvic span bumping, gently, against his palm.

Sideswipe felt a moan build in his vocalizer, nudging his mouth more insistently against Drift’s, probing with his glossa, in sharp little pokes, feeling Drift growl and move around him, curling into the kiss.  He didn’t bother to ask why Drift wanted this, wanted him. It was enough to be wanted, and he twisted his hand, releasing his interface hatch.  One lazy finger circled the hatch, trailing in the willing lubricant, before the wrist flipped back over to rub the hot wetness over Drift’s spike as it emerged from the housing.

A hand on his shoulder, pushing him back to the ground, Drift pushing up on his knees between Sideswipe’s thighs.  The spike, silver, erect, thrust between them, desire and promise.  Drift’s hand grazed over the open valve, skirting the inner rim, giving a throaty laugh at Sideswipe’s feral whine.  “Yes?” Drift murmured, asking permission.

Sideswipe nodded, tipping his hips up, eager.  Drift’s optics gave a slow, drowsy blink as he pushed forward, one hand by Sideswipe’s shoulder, the spike edging into the valve.  Sideswipe murmured encouragingly, tipping up into the motion. He purred.  Body was better than mind, any day.  His words were ruinous, his thoughts betrayers, but his body…simply wanted. And it wanted comfort; wanted this.   Something he’d almost given up feeling again. How long since he and Sunstreaker had…?

Sunstreaker.

The word, the image of the word, slammed over his cortex, his voice crying out warping a cry of ecstasy, and suddenly the face above him wasn’t Drift’s at all, the exotic audial flares and finials morphing into Sunstreaker’s gilt-louvered vents, and the optics weren’t kind and solicitous, but cool, demanding and…dead.

“No!”  Sideswipe cried, pushing palms against Drift in a sudden horror, rejecting the thought, the image, rejecting Drift’s kindness.

Drift stopped, freezing in the gesture, spike sunk in the valve, the pleased growl cutting off abruptly. 

“Sorry!” Sideswipe said, breathless from the vision’s intrusion, “sorry I just…it….”  His mouth twisted itself shut, words petering out. 

Drift nodded, and rocked back, dislodging his spike, dropping to his elbows, pulling his arms gently, comfortingly, around Sideswipe. 

“You can, I mean, I can handle it,” Sideswipe said, feeling the gentle hum of engines against his, the arms around him keeping him stable, here, in the present.

Drift shook his head, pressing his mouth chastely on Sideswipe’s helm.  “Not about ‘handling it’,” he chided.  He rolled his weight off to one side, pulling Sideswipe over, against him, their bodies sliding slick from the aborted interface.

Sideswipe found himself clutching at Drift, burying his face, his shame, his disappointment, in Drift’s broad spaulder.  He didn’t know how long he lay there, silent, entwined with Drift, pressing himself against, into the white and black, horror and grief giving way at last to a flare of anger.  And then suddenly, he heard the quiet scrape of a foot behind him, saw Drift’s gaze flick upward.

The whole story was easily read, Sideswipe thought. He could almost imagine the mech’s optics take in his pitiful, curled embrace (that Sunstreaker would have derided, ruthlessly), the flash of Drift’s still erect spike. The whole pathetic, sordid, pitiful story. 

Another sound, and the soft brush of an EM field behind him, a teal forearm riding over his shoulder. Perceptor, lying down next to him, behind him, taking in the scene, accepting it, offering his own mute comfort.  Sideswipe didn’t know why they were doing this, why they cared, anyway, when no one else did.  And then it struck him that…maybe they knew. Maybe they understood, and they were reaching out to save him from his own grief. 

He was not the only mech who had lost, who had suffered. He felt a hot lance of anger,  that his loss, after all, wasn’t so special, wasn’t devastating. That Sunstreaker’s death, to the war—always the WAR as though it were some half-sentient beast, like the Swarm—meant…nothing.  Changed nothing. 

But these two…had lost. Lost themselves, lost their ideals, their vision. And yet they had found it in themselves, somehow, to reach beyond that, to try to share.  The anger squelched itself, leaving only him, pressed between them, as their EM fields wove a cradle of comfort around him, silent and understanding, knowing that some things--all the important things--were beyond words.

Sideswipe was humbled.  He leaned back, pressing against Perceptor’s chassis, trying to accept, to learn from them. 

“He all right?” Perceptor murmured.

Drift squeezed the smaller frame, bumping his helm’s crest, gently, like a wink, against Sideswipe’s.  “He will be.”

 

Comments

[not-your-gun.livejournal.com]

Dang. Given everything going on *around* this story, I'm impressed with how it came out. Sideswipe's transitioning grief and desires seem realistic for him--that he wants, and needs, and just absolutely can't deal with what that might mean right now. It's neat to see how it kind of gives him greater understanding of Drift, too, which he wouldn't have ever necessarily thought, otherwise.

Now you obviously have to write a reunion story or some such.

[dvana.livejournal.com]

If this is what you manage when you're sleep deprived, I think it needs to happen more often. ;)

Have fun at the con!

[library-drone01.livejournal.com]

tis was an awesome birthday read for me I must say. The grief and regret ring very true.

[eerian_sadow]

oh, beautiful. just beautiful. <3

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

I think you broke my heart when Sideswipe woke up and thought he was with Sunstreaker and then it wasn't and oh man.

It hurt. It was beautiful and it hurt so bad. But Sides has a good pair of bots to hold him.

One thing I think was a typo of some sort? I couldn't quite parse it...

They must have laid against him like a warm ne, holding him and holding him back.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Ah thanks. The word was 'net'.

[ladyofdragons.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness. This is so very lovely. Sideswipe's grief is so very raw and real. It's hard when we lose characters, as fans we want so desperately to comfort the characters we love, ease their pain, help them through it. Drift and Perceptor are perfect surrogates for me here in so many beautiful ways, doing things I would but cannot. It's cathartic.

All of Sides's emotions are lovely and terrible to behold, so true to each moment and situation. The moment where he mistakes Drift for Sunstreaker is heartbreaking but Drift handles is masterfully, reading Sides's need, being avaliable to meet it but not pressing. I really enjoyed the conversion when his need turns physical, so very natural, and again the way Drift fields it, with genuine want but also great gentleness. Perceptor punctuates the whole scene by joining them; and I take a little comfort from that which they give to Sideswipe, seeing him resting more peacefully.

Masterfully done, I don't know that I've managed to express how much I enjoyed this, (both times, and I'm sure there will be more) but I hope you at least get an inkling from my babble here. n_n