In Your Eyes.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW
Drift/Wing Perceptor
combo platter: tformers100  table talent prompt telepathy and tf_speedwriting  incapacitation

 

Wing dragged Drift over to a chair, pointing him to sit. “Come on,” he said, his grin blinding.  “This’ll be fun.”

“Little wary about your idea of ‘fun’,” Drift said, stumbling along after Wing.  When the jet was enthusiastic like this, it normally ended up with Drift thrown across a room. 

“Oh nonsense.” Wing pushed him onto one chair, dragging over one of the backless cubes the Knights preferred, plopping himself on it, his Great Sword dangling free off the back. He spread his legs, knees on either side of Drift’s, as he took Drift’s hands.

Drift frowned. “Why are your legs on the outside?”

Wing cocked his head. “It matters?” He looked down for a moment, puzzled, and then shifted his legs, scooping one of Drift’s knees under his stabilizer and propping his own thigh over Drift’s other leg. “Symmetrical,” Wing said, brightly. “Better.” 

Drift tried to find an argument, other than the ridiculousness of the posture, but Wing scooted forward, tugging at his inner thigh servos. 

“Now,” Wing said, grabbing for his hands, again, squeezing, lightly. “Look at me.”

“Kind of hard to avoid.” This close, most of his vid field was Wing. 

A chuckle. “I meant my optics.”

All right…?  Drift shifted his gaze to the gold lenses. “…what now?”

“Just look.”

He looked, the gold optics staring into his own.  He could see small scratches on the lenses, reflective prisms, the slight rainbow sheen of lens lubricant.  And the small, worn channel where the lens shutter rubbed against the cheek, a brighter silver on Wing’s titanium faceplate.  And…nothing. “What am I--?”

“Hssssh,” Wing murmured. “Just look. No talking.”

He fell silent, optics refocusing on Wing’s. 

What did Wing see? He thought. What did those gold optics see looking back at him? He could see the dimmest, smeared shape reflected on the surface, that must be himself. Tiny, unimportant.

About right.

The optics seemed to grow, spiral open behind the lens shields, until the gold light seemed to take all of Drift’s field of vision, expanding, warm and gentle around the edges.  What had these optics seen? The fall of Altihex.  Days and days trapped under rubble, looking out on a narrow, burning world from behind a wall of agony. And the war, tearing Cybertron apart with bloodied claws.  And yet they were still wide, and honest, and gentle, and open, the gold light burning into him like the gentle sun he’d never seen on Cybertron, glowing like the light of all the worlds, like life itself. 

And Drift felt the warmth flare against him, his own optics unfocusing, opening to the gold and all that was behind it, and it ran through him, as though lighting him from within, dancing around his spark and driving away, forever, the cold and dark from his memories. And the gold grew, closer, ardent and sweet, and he felt the brush of a mouth on his own.

“Drift.” 

“You said no tal—“ He realized, too late, the words weren’t coming. And the warmth around his spark turned to burning, sharp white pain.  And the optics looking down at him weren’t gold, but blue, mismatched, a targeting reticle whirring to focus. 

“Drift,” Perceptor repeated, and Drift felt a hand, large and awkward, but comforting, on his shoulder. “You’re safe now.”

Space resolved around Perceptor—the bleak white sun of the planet they’d dropped into, billows of black smoke smearing the sky like malignant clouds. Drift tried to speak, again, sound coming only as a moan. He was sprawled on his back, body numb, sensations clouded from sensorblock, as if erecting a translucent wall between him and reality.

“Ambush,”  Perceptor said, quietly, turning his head to work on something—something down Drift’s chassis. His mouth quirked.  “You took them all out before you fell.” 

Drift grunted, his body shuddering as if cold, despite the harsh white sunlight. His world. The real one, the one he had to live in, day after day.  Wing, Crystal City, all of it was nothing but a beautiful, fragile memory and that glowing acceptance, that playful intensity, that would make a game out of staring into the other’s optics just to see, just to feel,  belonged to the past, to someone else. 

This was his world, and this bleak, bleached sunlight, Perceptor’s guarded concern, was the best he could hope for.

 

Comments

[toyzintheattik.livejournal.com]

That was beautiful. It reminds me of this song: http://youtu.be/OLhglefWgDU

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

*wibbles* I should have known that this one would hurt when I saw the characters. ;_;

I want to cuddle them all.

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

Oh. It's beautiful and ever so sad.

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

Oof. I think I got the same sense of soul-thumping return to reality that poor Drift did, reading this - lost in a golden sweet gaze, d'awww and then...thump. There are worser fates than Perceptor, though ^^

[kamiraptor.livejournal.com]

*sniff* That's really kinda bittersweet. At least it's nice Drift has these memories, something to look back on with fondness.

:3