Deserts

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW
Wing/Drift
no warnings
for tformers100 table talent prompt disappear

Drift snarled, hands clutching the balcony railing as though trying to throttle it.  He hated this place, its perfection too grating, the peaceful hum too steady and lulling. A mech could get weak here, lose his edge, blunted against the kindness and happiness of this place. A happiness, he thought, with a sharp snort, that could only exist bubbled up safely underground.  As if even they realized it was too fragile to stand reality.  A grand friable delusion, like a city made of glass.

“Drift,” Wing’s voice, from the interior. A question, a careful one, as though he could sense Drift’s mood.  Drift didn’t answer.  He heard footsteps behind him and he could just picture it: the white jet pausing in the doorway, gold optics alight with concern. As though he didn’t know what was bothering Drift.

He saw a red flash—the blade of Wing’s forearm, as the jet rested a hand next to Drift’s on the balcony.  Drift resented, perversely, Wing not touching him, though he knew he would have snapped and thrown off any touch.  Stupid, he thought. Sign of how this place is messing with you.

“I’m guessing,” Wing said, quietly, “you’re not admiring the city.” 

Drift felt his mouth twist. What was to admire? “Why admire a prison.” 

“Drift,” Wing began, “It’s not a--,” he cut himself off. “I suppose it must seem that way to you.”

“Seem that way?” He turned his head. “It is.” 

 “You’re angry.”

Drift’s optics flashed. “You wouldn’t be?” His hands tightened on the railing, knuckle servos whining.

“That’s not the point.”

“Then why ask?”

“I want to help, Drift.” Wing risked a touch, his smallest finger hooking over Drift’s.  A minute connection.

“Let me go,” Drift snapped. The old argument, again. It was like ramming his face into a steel wall. It never went anywhere.  But sometimes he just wanted to make Wing say the words, realize the hypocrisy, that not everyone wanted to be part of his perfect little city. Not when there was a war to win.

“And if I did?” Wing said. “You would still take this anger with you, Drift.”

“So?” A challenge. What did it matter to Wing, anyway?

“Holding onto anger means you’re stifling happiness.” 

“Happiness.” Drift scoffed. “There’s a fraggin’ war on, Wing. You can hide, here in the dirt, and pretend it’s not, but I can’t.”  Because that’s what this place was: running, hiding away from reality.  Happiness. The idea was almost…blasphemy.

“You’ll destroy yourself, taking your rage back to your war,” Wing said, his voice losing some of the gentleness, becoming the challenging tone he used when they sparred.

“Who cares? Better to die for something.” His anger gave him strength. It blocked out, scorched, weakness.

Wing’s face shifted through some unreadable emotions. “I care, Drift.”

“Which you show by keeping me prisoner here.”  Bringing it right back around, Drift thought, to the main point: Let me go.

A long, frustrated sigh.  “Drift,” he said, changing tactic, stroking the hand gently down the back of Drift’s. “Why are you angry?”

“I just told you!” He snatched his hand away. Wing wasn’t even paying attention.  How could he not know?

“I mean, what’s under that. You’re angry because you can’t fight. Why?”

“Because they need me.”  A brief flash of memory: Turmoil leaning over him, sneering his own retort to Deadlock’s claim.

Wing turned to face him. “They need one more mech with a gun. You’ll tip the balance single-handedly.” 

“Mocking me, Wing?” His mouth pressed together in a thin line, stung. 

“No. Just…trying to understand.”

“You can’t.” His optics flashed, hot and hostile.

“Help me understand, then, Drift?” The voice, softening again. The hand, still lifted from when Drift had torn his away, lowered slowly back to the railing.

“You can’t understand,” Drift muttered, some of the heat leaving his voice. “Who I am, where I’ve come from.”  He didn’t want Wing to understand, to see that ugliness. No matter how much he wanted to hurt the jet sometimes…not that.  It would be a wound that gashed them both.

Wing dipped his head, not arguing. For once.  Drift had half expected some plea, some reiteration, some push for disclosure.  As if what Drift needed was to lay himself open even more before the jet.  “What’s under that, Drift?”

“What?”

“You want to get back to the war. To win it. Why? For yourself?”

“Why?”  Blank. He wasn’t sure what answer Wing wanted—wasn’t even sure Wing knew.

“I mean…fame, glory? Why? What do you want?” He shook his head, the glittering light sparkling off his helm. “No. Not glory. Not you.”

Drift’s brow creased. “Not fame. Just…make things better.”

Wing tapped his chassis. “I mean, in here. Not,” another tap, gently, on his rank crest, “here.”

Drift frowned.

“What do you feel, Drift? Right now?”

“You know this.”

“Say it anyway.” The gold optics tilted, with curiosity. Not like when they sparred, when Wing was hard and pushing against him, knowing everything, always one step ahead.

Drift gave an impatient sigh. “Anger. Fraggin’ captive here.  Stuck.”

“Stop rationalizing. Don’t give me reasons. Just…what you’re feeling.” 

“Fine. Anger.”  His optics slid off to the city. “Hatred.”

“You’re pushing something away, Drift. What?”

“Not pushing anything away.” He snapped his gaze back to Wing, defiant.

“You are.  Look.” Wing turned his head. “You see only bad things here. As if the only thing that matters is the shadows.  Can you even imagine what we see?”

“Delusion. Brittle fantasy.”

Wing sighed. “All right.  Why? Why would we do that?”

“Easier. Lie here in your pretty lives, everything clean, everyone smiling at each other.  But it’s fake, if you have to hide, if you,” he jerked his chin at Wing, “have to keep me away from others, keep me from contaminating this place.” Oh he’d heard Dai Atlas: the large mech’s voice resonated down the hallway. 

Wing moved, the hand brushing Drift’s wrist. “You sound jealous, Drift,” he suggested, softly. 

The hot retort died in Drift’s vocalizer. “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me this place isn’t so fragile.”

“I can’t. It is.”  Wing shrugged. “But this is about you. Can you even see the…temptation? A hint of what others might see?”

Drift hissed, his optics raking over the city, imagining it burning, all the hypocrisy and lies that must exist under this pretty, glittering façade exposed at last.

No. Because it can’t be real.” His voice didn’t hold the fire he thought it would.

“It is real, or as real as we can make it, Drift.” The hand moved, gently, on his arm. Drift didn’t move, but he didn’t shake the touch off, either. “And it’s yours, if you want it.”

“Not mine. Didn’t earn it.” He felt his mouth curl into a sneer, looking down from Wing’s balcony to the city stretched before them. Their city. Their brittle little fantasy. His would be stronger. Better. …somehow.

“Ah.” The optic shutters flared, mouth flickering into a small smile. “That’s it, isn’t it.”

“That’s what?”  He looked up, sharply.

“That’s what’s under your anger. You don’t feel you deserve anything good.”

“What? Ridiculous.” The lights seemed…too dazzling somehow, shifting and twisting in the very edges of vertigo.

“Is it? Then say it, Drift. Tell me you deserve this city. Tell me you deserve anything.”

“I--,” his mouth shut. He…couldn’t. His mouth tasted like ash even trying to force the words.  He didn’t deserve any of it. Not the city’s vision—real or not.  Not the repairs. Not…. Not Wing.

He tore his arm out from under Wing’s, turning to the dark arch that led inside, hoping to hide his face, the roiling emotion, in its darkness.

“Drift.”

He stopped, not turning around, not trusting himself. “What?” Haven’t you done enough, said enough, he thought, wildly, desperately. 

“What can I do to convince you otherwise?” Wing’s voice was soft, no longer challenging, teasing, but gentle, importuning.

“Nothing,” he said, nearly choking on the word.  His hands balled and opened, impotent. 

Arms folded around him, from the back, and he felt the familiar hum of Wing’s systems against him, the slide of one of the knee stabilizers against his thigh. 

“Anger’s all I have,” Drift said, the sentence brittle, breaking under the pressure of being spoken. All I deserve.

“No,” Wing said. The arms tightened around him.  “You have—you are—so much more than you let yourself be.” 

Drift felt a sneer flame across his face. “Wish I could believe you.” He aimed for sarcasm, but the edge drained from his voice, leaving it raw, an honest, earnest wish. His hand came to the arms wrapping around his torso. 

“I’ll believe for both of us.” The words were barely a whisper, seeming traveling through the contact of their bodies. Drift’s hand folded over the hand on his chassis, tipping his head back, as though he could drink in Wing’s confidence and faith.  And the glittering night seemed to offer itself for him, the cool air sucking the heat from the last of his anger, replacing it with some gentle, shimmering hope.

Comments

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

That is stunningly beautiful.

[darkeyes-17.livejournal.com]

I loved the dynamic of Wing questing, being patient and determined, and Drift trying to block as much as he can so he wouldn't be vulnerable.

A very moving and beautiful piece, being superb as per usual :D