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niyazi-a.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
shadow_vector2011-08-01 08:42 am
- 100s,
- drift,
- drift/wing,
- wing
Glittering Jewels of Time
PG
IDW
Drift/Wing
for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
tformers100 table: talent prompt: invisible (one day I'll spam that comm with so much fic...!)
“You can,” Wing said, grinning, “order something else. You don’t always have to get what I get.”
Drift’s mouth twitched. “What you order’s fine.” He didn’t want to explain, all his life he’d had no choice. Or, rather, fuel or not. Taste, choice, these were things beyond his experience.
Wing tilted his head, optics crinkling with the magnitude of his smile. “I’ll take it as a compliment,” he said. “But if you do discover you like something better, you won’t hurt my feelings.” He reached forward, even the simple movement of picking up the tray fluid and graceful. He flashed the bolt on the inside of his wrist to a scanner. Drift followed him, like a clumsy shadow, repeating the movements. When he turned around, Wing had already found a small table. Drift dropped down into the seat across from Wing who perched, carefully, the Great Sword dangling free from the backless seat.
Wing took a sip of his drink, letting his gaze wander around the room. Not as if he’d never seen it before, Drift thought, wryly. But it was something Wing had taken to doing—looking at things he’d seen forever as though he’d never seen them before. Trying, Drift thought, to see them through Drift’s gaze.
It wouldn’t work. Too much difference between them.
“So what is this place?”
“Knights’ Refectory,” Wing said. He gestured to the walls, where shapes of different colored metals were inlaid into the beige stone of the planet’s bedrock. “That’s the astrogational positioning of Cybertron, above us.” He tilted his head. “From this position, we’d be in Tarn.”
Drift found himself looking up. He snorted. “Never saw the stars back home. Not like this.” There had been a few snatches of the sky—daylight, night—as they’d fought their way through the upper levels. Certainly nothing sure enough to navigate by.
Wing nodded, the smile fading. “We saw the stars all the time.”
“Altihex,” Drift nodded. Wing flinched, as though even the name of his former home hurt to think of. “Cloudburst told me,” he blurted.
Wing tapped his hand with one fingertip, the smile resettling on his face. “You don’t need to protect me, Drift. Least of all from my own past.”
Drift dropped his gaze, grabbing for his own drink. It was the same sweet drink Wing had told him he liked, and he let the small sip melt over his glossa, sweetness spreading like one of Wing’s quiet smiles. “Just…no need to stir up bad memories.”
Wing tilted his head, the audial flares cocked. “Really?”
Drift tipped back, guarded. “Something wrong with that?”
Wing laughed, hiding it behind his hand. “No, Drift. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just…,”he cocked his head to the other side. “Would you have said that a month ago?”
Drift’s hand clenched around the glass. Would he have? He frowned. “Never wanted to hurt someone just to be cruel,” he said, tightly.
He could feel Wing’s golden gaze on him, measuring, considering. “No,” Wing agreed. “You wouldn’t.”
Drift felt the tension drain from his shoulders. He took another sip. “Not who I am,” he muttered.
“I know,” Wing said. “I told you before, you’re not some brute. You have ideals.” He looked down at his plate. He prodded one of the energon gels with a finger. “These are my favorites.” An easy, elegant change of subject, retreating, backing away from the awkward wall between them.
The wall fell. “I probably wouldn’t have,” Drift admitted, quietly. “Said that.” He dropped his own optics to his plate, picking up the gel Wing had indicated. It was tart, at first, but as he bit into it, a sweetness so sharp it almost hurt. He laughed. It was just so fitting, just so Wing.
“I wish you could have seen it,” Wing said. “Altihex. It was beautiful and vibrant and…oh, the sky.” Wing’s gaze went distant, swooping into memory. “All around us, the sky, like an invisible embrace.”
“I’m guessing this,” Drift gestured at the stone walls, “isn’t the same.”
“No, but this keeps us safe. A different kind of embrace.” He bit into his own gel, optics dimming, savoring the taste of it. Drift wished he knew the trick of it—how Wing threw himself so openly into pleasure.
Drift studied Wing, the way the face was so open, expressive. As though he’d never had to lie or keep a secret. What must that have been like? Drift…couldn’t imagine. “I wish I could have seen it,” he murmured, surprised that the words…hurt to say. “And you,” he added, his gaze dropping like a stone back to his tray.
“Me?” Wing sounded startled. He shook his head. “I was no one before the war, Drift.” One half of his mouth curled in a sardonic, uncharacteristic smile. “I was a vain silly thing who thought I knew everything.”
Drift’s smile matched Wing’s. “I still am.”
Wing’s smile faded. “No. You’ve never been silly. Or vain.” He reached over, brushing Drift’s hand with his fingertips. “I wish I could have known you back then.” He slid his thumb between Drift’s thumb-webbing, lifting to turn the hand over, palm upward. He grinned, optics warm and crinkled narrow with some quiet happiness, as he slid his palm against Drift’s, like placing an offering in an open hand. He looked up. “Who were you before the war, Drift?”
Drift looked at Wing’s hand, letting his battered fingers curl around the sleek, elegant armored hand. So much strength, grace and control, being…offered. “Invisible,” he said, his voice raw. “I was invisible before the war.”
Wing’s hand tightened over his, thumb glossing over the wrist. “No, Drift,” he said, optics glowing, his voice sharp with conviction. “You’ve never, ever, been invisible.”
Drift was about to argue, but then, his past seemed to spring into his mind, like looking at it through a prism. And no. He never had been. He’d always stuck out, gotten attention, whether he’d wanted it or not. With Gasket, then with Megatron. Even Turmoil. And here, where optics seemed drawn to the purple insignia on his chassis. No, he’d never been invisible. “I…felt it.”
“Ah,” Wing said. “That’s a very different thing.” A trembling moment, like a drop of dew Drift had once seen quivering on a blade of grass before an attack. He remembered suddenly, the thick, golden light, the way the world had seemed inverted, like a tiny jewel, in that drop, his entire body and awareness, tensed and eager. The moment had stretched, like torture, before him then. He’d had happiness, there, a brief moment of pure serenity. And he…couldn’t wait till it was over, wanted to rush by it, onto some future he somehow thought would be brighter, more beautiful.
And it struck him: the invisible moments of his life, always, the ones he had rushed by, as if afraid to linger, to feel them. As if action was better, doing was better. And his past seemed like a path of gems he had thrown behind him in his headlong haste, rushing nowhere.
Rushing…here.
His optics prickled, the still-unfamiliar blue ranges sharpening, rendering the moment into something sharp enough to cut, as he lay his other hand atop Wing’s. He’d wasted so much time, so many moments of what might have been happiness. Even in the gutters. He wouldn’t waste this one.
And he raised his optics, blue meeting gold, and he saw in those sunlit depths, the topaz gems, glittering like hints, that Wing knew it too, had learned the same lesson. Perhaps in Altihex. Perhaps in the war. But he had learned it, and it had been a poignant, painful lesson to him, as well.
They said nothing—words were just hindrances—but Drift could feel the empathy, flaring around him like gentle fire. And he knew he’d never waste these precious, glittering moments again.
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<3
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Aaaahhhh, all these little things...
Am, er, a big fan of little things.
And it struck him: the invisible moments of his life, always, the ones he had rushed by, as if afraid to linger, to feel them. As if action was better, doing was better. And his past seemed like a path of gems he had thrown behind him in his headlong haste, rushing nowhere.
YEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3333333333333333333333
::has an enthusiasm::
::happyflail::
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Sadly I've spent a lot of time like Drift--doing just to do. :c
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