Mabaya ch 18

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

R
IDW
Drift/Deadlock, Turmoil, Perceptor
pnp, noncon

“Are you going to let me out of here?”  Deadlock’s voice sounded…almost normal.  Almost, that was, like Deadlock.  And Turmoil heard it, too, the similarity. As Turmoil had suspected, free from the influence of the Autobot, Deadlock was returning to his old ways. For good and ill.

“You’re not a prisoner, Deadlock,” Turmoil said.  “Beyond, of course, whatever mental prison you’ve created.”

More philosophy. More words.  Deadlock had never been good with them, even when he thought he knew what he was; even before he questioned everything. 

“Then why’s the door locked?” 

“It’s not.  You simply have to put in your authorization code.”

“Tried that,” Deadlock snapped, hating what that had cost him—as if donning part of an old uniform again.  It felt like signing on with the Decepticons.

“Ah.” A pause, Turmoil doubtless calculating his approach. “I suspect,” he said, “you might have utilized the wrong rank code.” 

Deadlock went rigid.  “And what is my ‘right’ rank code?”  His voice was flat, dangerous.

“Well,” Turmoil’s conversational tone was all too comfortable: Deadlock had stepped right into one of his snares.  Again.  “Clearly, you’re not my Second anymore.”  Another pause. “Or are you?”

 

[***]

 

Perceptor knew it was his suffering Turmoil wanted.  Not  him.  He, his frame, was irrelevant save as a vessel to get Turmoil what he wanted.

And Perceptor wondered how long it had been that way. Possibly from the very instant in the dockyard.  Everything, always, giving Turmoil exactly what he wanted.  Playing into a game where he didn't even know the rules.

But this time, he had no choice in the matter. This time, such knowing, such speculations, just made things…worse. 

Turmoil had him pinned, one broad knee against his backframe, resting his weight over Perceptor’s center of gravity. And Turmoil might move lightly, but he was, in the end, massive, heavy, powerful.

And Perceptor…was not.  For all the fact that he stood taller than Drift, he’d never upgraded the power of his servos. Just their stability, their steadiness.  He was not a powerful mech, in terms of brute strength.  Nor did he have Drift’s caginess about groundfighting. He thrashed, possibly piteously.   

Turmoil snatched his hand from mid-swing, hand clamping over the wrist like a barrier of solid iron. Images of Drift’s destroyed hand—what Perceptor  had seen, mingling with what Drift had told him—flashed over Perceptor’s processor.  He flinched, visibly, as two fingers pinched one of his own. 

“I could,” Turmoil murmured, his voice dark with suggestion. “A scientist needs his hands, but….”  He waggled the finger back and forth in its joint, testing, taunting, showing his power.  Perceptor sucked in a vent, determined to hold himself back. Not to scream, at least. Had Drift screamed? 

Turmoil laughed, releasing the hand.  “Later. Maybe.”  His hand swept down Perceptor’s side, hard at first, but then shifting to gentle, almost delicate brushes.  Perceptor writhed under the touch, hateful, unwanted.  “Better,” Turmoil said.  He leaned lower—the weight changing on Perceptor’s backstrut, a shadow falling over his face.  “You bleed fear,” he said, as though this were somehow…erotic. Desirable.

Perceptor tried to clamp down on his emotions. His face was immobile, he knew this. He knew this.  So then, what was Turmoil sensing? What could he shut down? 

Turmoil lifted his shoulder—his powerful arms lifting Perceptor’s weight easily—snaking a hand in for his interface hatch.  No. 

Perceptor thrashed, but everything was against him—momentum, angle, mass, leverage, basic strength.  His heels thudded uselessly against Turmoil’s kneeling frame, spine bucking and twisting as much as it could, pinned by Turmoil’s knee. Turmoil laughed, snapping the hatch open, prodding one finger into Perceptor’s access port.  Perceptor hissed in pain at the blunt contact, freezing, half-arched off the ground.

You can endure this, he told himself.  You can endure this. It’s merely pain. 

A shifting weight above him, and the sharp shock of a module, driven home into his port, and the sudden, syncopated throb of a datastream against him.  Resonance began building, first shaking over his net, but building, quickly, to a sort of rippling agony. Pain. Just pain.  Turmoil above him, reveling in the pain, controlling his datastream, slower, slower, lighter, then letting it slip, forging cross-ripples of electric pain across Perceptor’s net, his own module unconnected.

Turmoil lifted his knee, the relief of weight so great that for a moment Perceptor couldn’t process that he could move, wracked by dataflow, pinned by pain.  Perceptor rolled, resisting the urge to curl into a ball, like a system cysting around an infection.  He swung at Turmoil, leering above him, backhand landing on the broad shoulder panel.  Turmoil laughed, slamming the arm down onto the decking, holding it with one thumb like an iron bar. 

“More,” Turmoil said. His datastream hitched against Perceptor’s system, demanding, insistent, a tattoo of control.  “Fight more.” 

Perceptor kicked one leg, curling the other up to wedge it between Turmoil’s belly and his own, trying to use the entire actuator force, every joule of power in the pistons, to shove the Decepticon off him.

“Yes!” Turmoil’s optics blazed, his free hand riding a hard line down Perceptor’s frame.  His vents blasted heat against Perceptor in a sudden wash of ions.

And it hit him—Turmoil wanted him to fight back.  Needed the fight, the resistance. 

The exhilaration of discovery was short-lived, when Perceptor realized, also, that that left him two choices—resist or submit. And either way…gave Turmoil what he wanted.

He gave a cry more of despair than pain, a suffering so deep it could not find its way to a name, that made pain seem like a shallow thing, a spark-deep, core-cutting agony.

 

[***]

Comments

[kamiraptor.livejournal.com]

D8

P-Percy... Nooooo....!!!!

*sniff*

As usual, excellently written. Absorbing, even, judging by the way I only just noticed people standing around NE on the bus. :-P

Oh, how it hurts! The second part, obviously, but also Driftlock, awash and floundering and lost but trying so, so hard to not realize/admit/acknowledge it.... :C

Mmmooooooorrrreeee!!!!!!!

[kamiraptor.livejournal.com]

Whoops, meant "around me." typing on a crowded bouncy bus is hard. :-P

[swift117.livejournal.com]

*cries*

[d-lueth.livejournal.com]

D': *sniff*

*hides Percy somewhere Turmoil can't go*

[silaphet.livejournal.com]

I love your phrase "cysting around infection" just gives me delicious chills, conjurs images of pus & the smell of rotting. & Turmoil's sadism is such a head-trip trap, i hope Perceptor can keep fighting, fond reminiscence on your fic 'Training'.

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

....*cries and wibbles*

Turmoil is such a horrible bastard, and you write him so... evil. Well done. even if it makes me cry for my nerd... ;_;

[anavidbookworm.livejournal.com]

You are evil, but do it in such entertaining ways. I'm hoping this is just building up to Drift/Deadlock finding Perceptor and finally giving Turmoil his due. As always I can't wait for more of this story.