Mabaya ch 20 Show of Force

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

R
IDW
Drift/Deadlock. Perceptor, Turmoil
pnp, Turmoil, angst

Get to see Drift.  It was becoming, Perceptor was acutely aware, something like a monomania.  And he recognized it for what else it was—something to cling onto, to wrap himself around, some reason to endure.  It would all be worth it, if he could see Drift.

And he realized that that was a lie. He wanted to do more than see him; Perceptor wanted to talk to him. And he knew how foolish that was—he’d tried his best to talk some consolation into Drift, and that had failed miserably.    He knew his words couldn’t do any good.  So he tried to console himself that he just wanted to…see. To know that Drift was all right. 

And then, plan.  They had to get out of here. There had to be a way. This place was killing them, more surely and more insidiously than the crystal drive radiation.

No. 

Perceptor stopped, his hands stilling on the circuit board he was welding.  Just like the Axion, Mabaya seemed to have an bottomless box of damaged components and circuits and misaligned servos.  Parts for refit or salvage. 

Your priorities are wrong, Perceptor, he thought.  Finding Drift and then making a plan: you’ve tried that before, with decidedly poor results.  Repeating the experience will only lead to a repetition of results.  Have you forgotten that basic tenet of science?

Plan first.  Then find Drift.  Prove you’re not helpless or weak. Do what you came to do in the first place: rescue him. 

Yes. Better. 

Perceptor looked at the pile of junk parts, and up at the mech bent over the worktable next to him.  Buried in his own work, he hadn’t seemed to notice Perceptor’s pause.  Perceptor dropped his gaze back to the board he was working on.  Something could be done with these parts.  Nothing big: there was no sheet metal for armor, plating.  But…something could be done.  He felt something stir in him, something that didn’t dare to call itself hope, as his cortex stirred back into life. You’ve been a scientist, Perceptor. You don’t lose all of that. 

He reached down, pressing to open a storage compartment. 

A shadow fell over him.  He steeled himself, looking up, coolly.

A mech looked down at him over a pistol’s barrel. “Come on.”  He sounded impatient, the red optics glaring and hostile.

“Why?”  Perceptor pressed the compartment closed again, keeping his gaze level and steady.

The mech smirked: contempt, disdain. “Something about seeing Deadlock.” 

Perceptor’s spark pulsed, hard enough to hurt. Drift!  He wasn’t ready. He didn’t have a plan.  But. “Yes,” he said, standing up.  Turmoil hadn’t lied.  For some reason, that felt more unsettling than anything.

[***]

 

Turmoil had not lied, but Drift had been right, warning Perceptor not to trust him.  Perceptor could see Drift. Just not hear, just not touch. Just not anything that might provide comfort beyond the fact that Drift was alive. And Drift could not see him.

A thick sheet of one-sided barrier separated them.  An interrogation chamber.  Drift, sitting, looking achingly as Perceptor remembered—the hand had been replaced, the Great Sword reared over his head as he paced the room.   Only the optics were wrong—Decepticon red. And the mouth—twisted into a flat hostile sneer, as if it had never smiled.  Deadlock’s face, brimming with self-loathing.

“Drift,” Perceptor breathed, one palm flat against the barrier between them.  So much between them. 

This was cruel, but crueler was yet to come: the door opened. Turmoil’s too familiar bulk blotted the light from the corridor. Drift turned, and Perceptor caught the flash of the gem in the Great Sword’s hilt.  Perceptor braced for violence, for Turmoil to swing, for another round of the torture he knew all too well, all too intimately. 

He was wrong.  Drift tilted his head up, snapping something—Perceptor could tell by the way his optics flashed.  Turmoil gave one of his slow headtilts, amused, before reaching one hand for Drift’s forearm, his massy dark hand closing over the arm. Drift didn’t resist, letting himself be pulled to the berth.

No.

Perceptor watched in a stiff, frigid horror as Turmoil pushed a compliant Drift onto the flat surface, his hands roaming over the white frame.  The large palms roamed possessively up the white planes of Drift’s hip scabbards, Drift shuddering into the touch.  His own hands raked down Turmoil’s armor, gouging into small breaks in the armor, prying at the seams.

It was…obscene. It was horrifying.  And Perceptor couldn’t look away.

He’d told me. He’d told me he was gone, told me he was lost but this…but this.

He’d never thought of this.  Even when Turmoil had thrown the idea in his face, he’d refused to imagine it, refused to picture it as anything remotely involving consent.  Anything remotely like Drift, his mouth biting into Turmoil’s throat, leg twining around Turmoil’s. his interface hatch open, cables tumbling out over his frame.

Perceptor watched, horrified, helpless, frozen, as the two connected, watched the soundless spectacle of  their bodies thrumming to the same tempo, Drift’s body arching and writhing under Turmoil’s datastream, under his groping hands. 

Drift was…so beautiful, even now, with red optics blaring from his sockets, his body twisting sinuously, erotically. Perceptor hated the high hot arousal that sang through his net watching the white mech’s wanton display. 

No. This isn’t Drift. It can’t be.  You were wrong, perhaps all along.  Perceptor’s hands tightened, one gouging into the other wrist, deep enough to hurt, deep enough to compress the power core line, a dull starved ache building in his hand, as a sort of counterpoint to the sharp pain of a piston warping under the pressure.

It wasn’t enough. He could still feel.

The bodies bucked, abruptly, locking rigidly into the overload’s fadeout, Turmoil’s head turning, optics glinting with that mix of amusement and malice, as if he could see right through the mirror barrier, right into Perceptor’s agonized face.

Perceptor felt ill, his hands clutching against the barrier between them.  He thought of his feeble plan with disgust.  What did he think he could put together—what did he possibly think he could assemble from scraps and junk—that could fix…this?

Comments

[wicked3659.livejournal.com]

Oh my heart went out to Perceptor through this, especially at the end there. Such a cruel show by Turmoil for Perceptor, another form of torture in my view. I really liked the pace of this chapter, made it feel like I was seeing everything through Perceptor's optics and seeing it all in slow motion.

Excellent chapter, *hugs Percy*

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Turmoil is astonishingly thorough in his manipulation. ;_;

[anavidbookworm.livejournal.com]

Perceptor finally finds some hope and a begins a plan only to have it all taken away from him. The worse part is that I see the disappointment coming but still can't help but read. You are way too skilled at writing train wrecks that simply won't let the go of the reader.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

This whole story is one big disaster after another. ;-;

[kamiraptor.livejournal.com]

8C *wibbling*

Turmoil, you jerk. *cries and hugs Perceptor*

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Wut? Turmoil insists he's done nothing wrong. He's repaired injured POWs, and lived up to his promise to let Percy see Drift.

...my god he's a bastard, isn't he?

[swift117.livejournal.com]

Its amazing how you roll with this. It keeps getting darker in different ways, even when i was thinking they have hit the bottom already, you come out with more ideas.
Hope you can find a way out for them... coz now i cant. *is desperate*