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shadow_vectorNC-17
IDW
Red Alert/Drift
sticky, size kink, frot
Red Alert slotted the input rod into the datareader. New arrivals. He hated new arrivals. So many variables. So many unpredictable combinations of personality and history. These, better to be called refugees. From a Cybertron nearly swallowed by the Swarm. They’d be…scarred. Just what he needed: there weren’t enough issues here on Earth. He needed more tension, drama, needed the bad memories of Cybertron stirred up again. There’d be too many questions, half of them unanswerable, the other half with…answers they didn’t want to hear.
But that wasn’t his concern right now. Now was the tedious sorting into teams, rummaging through personal datarecords, looking for potential problems—personality conflicts, bad blood. He hated the job, but he was the best at it, having sorted out the disaster that had happened when Bumblebee had tried to lead…everyone.
This one. Drift. He studied the ident picture. Different-looking. Which was enough to get Red Alert’s hackles up. He tilted his head, trying to find what was…off about the frame. Just something about the lines, the aesthetic.
Eh, seeing shadows. He tore his attention from the blue optics, the intense, serious face, the strangely jutting white helm, to the file itself. Cybertron. The Axion. And before that…nothing. The file was blank.
Red Alert ran a scan for data corruption, but no, the file was intact. But…this only covered months. Not the years—centuries—of the average service record.
Something was wrong here. Very wrong. Red Alert flipped to the front of the file. Losing unit commander: Springer. Right.
He reached over tapping the code into his comm. Springer’s face resolved onto the screen. “What?” He never looked happy to see Red Alert. Which was fine: the feeling was mutual.
“Drift.”
A sharp look, guarded. “What.”
Red Alert frowned. “His record. It’s…short.”
“All I have,” Springer snapped. “You want more, you talk to Kup.” He cut the connection.
Oh, that was comforting, Red Alert thought, staring at the dark screen. He flipped through the file, scouring it for why—or what—Springer might be hiding. Nothing. Springer seemed…not fond of Drift but there was nothing in the record to indicate why. And Springer was normally pretty transparent.
Frag.
Red Alert cycled a deep vent of air. Then another. No choice but to contact Kup. He hated this job.
[***]
After only a cycle yammering out entirely irrelevant stories—and the effort of sifting some sort of meaning from them, like clues to a puzzle, had entirely exhausted Red Alert—the only good he’d gleaned was that he’d ‘have to ask the kid himself.’ Great. Fantastic advice, Kup. He’d never have thought of that on his own.
At least, he thought, as some consolation, this Drift was punctual. The white mech stepped through the door, pausing, letting Red Alert study him.
“Sit down.”
“Rather stand,” Drift said, moving forward, voice and movements hushed, quiet. He moved in front of the desk. Red Alert could read, in the lines of his posture, a mech who had spent a long time in the military, under rigid discipline. That short, slim record? Oh no. It was missing a LOT.
An argument worth having? Not yet, Red Alert decided. “Swords,” he began, neutrally. “An unusual weapon.”
“Don’t run out of ammunition or charge.”
“No range,” Red Alert countered.
“Range enough.” A shrug broke the military bearing.
Right. Very chatty, this one. Red Alert pulled up the file. Might as well get to it. He flipped the pad over, so Drift could see the screen, and scrolled it to the end. Drift’s optics lingered just long enough to recognize the document for what it was.
“A little short,” Red Alert said.
“Yes.”
Well, agreement at least. “Any reason why that is?”
Drift’s head moved, a tiny gesture. “Autobot service record.” His voice went flat. Telling.
“And before that?”
Guarded. “I wasn’t an Autobot.”
“I’d surmised.” Red Alert swung the pad back around. “And what, then, were you?” Let’s see how long Drift will drag this out.
A pause, hesitation, the mask seeming to slip. “Deadlock,” Drift said, his voice quieter than a ghost’s. “I was Deadlock.”
Deadlock. Red Alert blinked, twice. Three times. He stared at Drift, his memory overlaying the two. Yes. The buccal armor was different, but the same audial finials, and the same lines of the face. Even, now that he thought about it, the same slightly-arrogant posture. And the voice. Yes.
“I see.” He did. He tapped out the code, brought up Deadlock’s file and swung it over. “You.”
A longer look at the file, one finger reaching to scroll down. “Missing some things. But yes.” He pushed it back across the console.
“And you’d be willing to supply the ‘missing things’?” Open challenge.
“Yes.”
Well, that was a little unexpected. It took Red Alert a moment to regain his ground. “And now you’re an Autobot.”
The blue optics flicked to the Autobot insignia on his shoulders as if pointing them out. “Yes.”
Red Alert studied him, head tilting. And Drift merely…stood, knowing what must have been going on behind Red Alert’s keen optics. Hmph. Something for another time. “Rooming preferences.”
“Alone.”
A smile quirked. “We’re a little tight for space here, Drift. Not going to happen.”
A shrug. “You asked my ‘preference’.” And then a soft snort. “Probably preference of a lot of other mechs, too.” He looked aside, mouth twitching into a frown.
So. Not popular. Unsurprising. “I’ll see what I can do.”
[***]
So that was Red Alert. Drift left the room, knowing when he was dismissed, angling down the hallway. He passed the rec room, noticing, as always, the way the laughter cooled as he walked past, hostile optics tracking him. It had been the same the entire trip from Cybertron. He was…used to it by now. And used to the sharp bite of regret. He’d left Perceptor…for this. For this hard rejection at every turn. And no one to turn to, no one who accepted his choice, even gave him a chance.
But you made your choice, Drift. Now you live with it. Living with it’s always been the hard part.
And Red Alert was no different. Another mech who’d shut down the wall, locked the door before Drift had even knocked on it. How had he thought this would work? Stupid. Stupid Drift.
But Red Alert was different—he knew Deadlock, immediately, had the file—more complete than Drift would really have liked. It was like having his history thrown back in his face. And it would be, every time Red Alert looked at him.
Well, I know your history, too, Drift thought, or at least history as the military defined it—deployments, armaments, unit allocation, functional specialities. He settled into a corner, where the rock-cutting into the mountain had just…stopped. No one came here, swathed in shadows. It was safe. Quiet. He dredged his memories, old memories. Red Alert. Turmoil had raged against the mech, the way his plans were methodically dismantled, every time he ran into a grid under Red Alert’s command. It wasn’t that the Autobot was a brilliant tactician. He just knew where to place defenses, in places most mechs never thought. His flanks were never uncovered, his supply lines ruthlessly secure.
And Turmoil, always, too cautious. What few victories they had had against him had come solely from Deadlock and his wanton disregard for tactics, the manuals, and common sense.
Still. Red Alert. Just for being the bane of Turmoil’s existence.
Drift felt something like a smile spread over his face.
[***]
Drift, Red Alert discovered, wasn’t so much unpopular as ruthlessly aloof. He ghosted to the refectory, snatching energon when no one else was there, avoided the rec room almost entirely. It was so rare to see him that it was easy to forget he was even there, until you caught a glimpse of a white phantom on the monitors.
In fact, Red Alert only caught him once by accident, late one sleepcycle, in the rec room, when the soft blue flicker of light caught his optics. And he’d crept to the door, to see the white helm intent, curious, silhouetted in front of a holovid. It struck him as…almost sad, and he’d stood there for half a cycle, watching the helm, tilt and shift, the white mech utterly absorbed in the history program, volume nearly muted. Not dangerous, he’d decided. No harm, just a little odd.
Then again, Red Alert, assigned himself night shifts for…the same reason—just to be away from others, and their judgment.
But it made him wonder. Was he up to something? Red Alert put a second level of encryption on comms, and the rest of the night checking on the armory. Something…wasn’t right.
[***]
“You wanted to meet with me.” Red Alert frowned. “Is something wrong?”
Drift shook his head. “You mentioned my service record—Deadlock’s.” He shrugged. “I can fill in what you’re missing.” It was clumsy, he knew, but he wanted to see what Red Alert knew, what the other mech thought. He figured it couldn’t be any worse than Bumblebee.
“And you’re just…volunteering it.”
Drift tilted his head.”We’re on the same side.” A hint of a smile. “Would it be better if you interrogated me for it?”
Red Alert’s frown took on more of a glower. “No.”
The smile faded, the attempt failed. This was all he really had, the only token to offer. “I’m trying to help.”
“Why?”
“To win the war.” Drift frowned. That had always been his answer, no matter what side he’d been on.
Red Alert’s optics traveled over his face, cold, searching. “All right.” He pulled out a pad, opening a new file. Not, Drift noticed, Deadlock’s. So he didn’t trust anything Drift would say to be true. Still, he was listening, and that was a start.
And you’d committed to this, Drift. Going to lay yourself open, in front of one of your former worst enemies. A sigh rattled through him. “Where should I start?”
“At the beginning.” A pat, flippant answer, flung at him to see what he’d do.
Drift looked down at his hands. “You’re going to know everything about me by the time this is over.”
“Yes.” The word cold, a wall of ice. “Is that a problem?”
For a mech whose only two ‘friends’ had died, and because of him? Who had fled Perceptor because he couldn’t bear for it to happen a third time? “No.” He looked up. “It starts in the gutters. So deep underground that no city claims them….”
[***]
Red Alert stared at the file. If Drift had left anything out, it was…most likely an accident. The swordsmech had spared nothing—not trying to make himself look good, not trying to paint himself a victim. It was…almost frightening how neutral, almost cold, Drift was about his own past. As though it didn’t quite belong to him.
This, he thought, couldn’t go in Drift’s service record. Not the official one. This was his. And Drift was right. Red Alert knew everything.
And…it was hard to hold onto that edge of hate, the wariness, in the face of that quiet voice, recounting horror after horror, bowing his head, knowing the weight of the words were stones, well deserved, condemning him.
[*]
And so a deca later, when the others had put together some party, some flimsy excuse to celebrate, just to lighten the mood, to make morale seem something other than a black mist, he’d hunted the white mech down. It wasn’t natural. It was…even more antisocial than Red Alert was. Was it enough to admit what you’ve done? Try to make it right? The quiet, earnest voice of a deca ago still came to him, knowing how damning each word, each admission would be, and speaking anyway.
Did Drift think that admission was redemption? It was something Red Alert couldn’t understand. Which meant he’d be restless until he sorted it.
He tapped the chime to Drift’s quarters, no larger than a closet, but the best he could manage in the small, rock-hewn base.
“Open,” the voice came, through the metal. He tapped the code and the door whisked aside. Drift sat, crosslegged, on a small patch of floor, next to the berth, one of his short swords across his thighs. The mech looked up, expectantly.
“There’s a party,” Red Alert said, jerking his head back down the corridor. The sounds of it—music, bursts of laughter, echoed down the hall.
“I know.”
“You can come.” A hint.
A shrug. “I’m fine here.” They both knew what would happen if Drift did go. The sudden, hard silence, laughter dying, masks slamming closed. And Red Alert couldn’t say it was entirely undeserved for who Drift had been.
Deadlock, Red Alert thought. This was Deadlock, the mech responsible for thousands of Autobot deaths. And he sat, on the floor, alone, accepting his ostracism. Taking what he’d earned without complaint. Red Alert tilted his head. “Can I come in?” It wasn’t really a request. More like a test.
Drift nodded. There wasn’t much to the room, not even space for a chair, so Red Alert found himself perching on the edge of the berth. Drift watched him for a moment, and then turned his attention back to the blade on his lap. Drift probably had run out of words. He picked up a stone and began sweeping it, lightly, down the metal. The sound was a soft, soothing whisper, metal on stone.
“Deadlock didn’t use swords,” Red Alert murmured, his optics tracking the stone and its rhythmic progress.
“No.” No pause, no hesitation. Red Alert studied the helm—the catlike finials bent over the blade, the way the buccal armor nearly blocked the face, the hint of the flat expression Drift pressed onto his mouthplates. If Drift was expecting more, deeper questions, probing questions, he gave no sign.
Red Alert let the moment pass. It was quiet here. Somehow, despite, or perhaps because of, that naked history, Drift seemed…at peace. More at peace than Red Alert was with himself. Calm, as though Drift somehow had radiated, filled, the space with the sort of placid acceptance until it echoed from the very stone. It was very peaceful here—ironic that Deadlock would ever be associated with that word. But Red Alert found—and didn’t fight—his systems slowly cycling down, lulled by the song of blade on stone, on the hypnotic movement of the hand over the blade.
He jerked awake.
The room was dark, the sounds of the party long dead. And he was slumped on his side on Drift’s berth.
“Bad memory purge?” Blue optics glowed from the floor, where Drift had curled against the wall.
“N-no.” And that was the weird thing about it, that fogged his memory. He had nightmares all the time—flashes of violence, emotion, trauma. And here, in a strange room, with…with Deadlock of all mechs…he’d fallen into a dreamless sleep. “I should go.”
“No point,” Drift murmured. “Nearly dawn.”
“I’m on your berth.”
A sound, and a movement of white in the shadow. “Didn’t even have a berth for half my life.” A snort of something like laughter. “I’m fine.”
Red Alert wanted to go, but sleep, with long, sensuous fingers, combed over him, and Drift’s voice was soothing, and the hour really was late. He found himself squirming out along the berth, barely fitting, lying on his belly, as he always slept. Drift’s berth, he thought, and he could almost feel the smaller mech’s body, lying along this cool metal. Did he sleep on his belly? Or did he always curl himself, half seated, head bowed between his upraised knees? Another piece for the file.
Thoughts for another time, and things he shouldn’t be thinking, he thought, dimly, as recharge overtook him again.
[***]
You could kill him right now, a voice whispered in the back of Drift’s sleep-drowsed cortex. Red Alert, Turmoil’s nemesis. The grand master of paranoia, lying open, exposed. Be the matter of a klik. One blade, right where his helm joined his neck. Easy.
Right. Fine time to develop a sense of humor, he thought, his blue optics cycling lowlight and studying the larger mech, sprawled bellydown on his berth. Part of him ached with a cold longing: he missed Perceptor. Always did in the long hours of the night, even just the times they’d lie together, doing nothing, saying nothing, just engine vibrating against engine, EM fields knitted tamely together.
Red Alert was not Perceptor, but he was here. And listened. And judged, but kept it to himself. Not a word of his confession had leaked. And Red Alert had come here tonight, seeking him out. Drift had braced for…something. Insult, recrimination, whatever might have been brewing in the intervening interval. Red Alert must have had…theories. Accusations. Something. But he’d given no sign. And staring at Drift? Drift had endured worse.
Drift fought the urge to get up, to lever himself onto the berth, wedge himself between the wall and the larger white mech. He wanted the contact, wanted the acceptance that came with it. Even from Red Alert. Even from the bane of Deadlock’s existence.
No, especially from. Because it was respect, and not pity. Not fear.
But…that was no way to earn it. He gave a quiet growl at himself, bowing his head, forcing his optics dim.
[***]
He said nothing, but Red Alert was aware of the rumors. Being who he was, he was aware of rumors before rumors even happened: Red Alert, leaving Drift’s room in the pre-dawn, after having disappeared for hours? It didn’t take a security specialist to figure out what they were saying.
And part of him wished the rumors were true. His systems began spinning at the rare glimpses of Drift, remembering the frame, bent over his sword, when he’d been able to take Drift in, study him at leisure—the dark thighs, the white greaves, the broad white scabbards on his hips, flaring from his narrow waist. He did his best to deny the rumors, but he wasn’t sure he was really that convincing, or that he wanted to be.
Until now.
“Well, fine. You pull duty with him, then.” Bumblebee, his voice harried, flat. Leadership had not sat well with the minibot, souring his optimism even further than it had on Cybertron. Some bad blood between Bumblebee and Drift back then, Red Alert had heard, and it had only festered.
“I just want to know your reason.”
“Right. Look. Everyone knows you’re tight with Drift.”
“Tight.”
Bumblebee tilted his head in challenge. “Losing your touch, Red Alert.”
Red Alert bridled. “Is there a problem?”
Bumblebee’s glower was hot and hostile, making Red Alert wonder what had happened to the warm, kind mech he once knew. The war had sunk its teeth into all of them, but Bumblebee had been unscathed, sustained by some inner faith or optimism. Or so Red Alert had thought. “Then you shift with him.”
[***]
Drift settled into the chair, sideways, so that the Great Sword that hung from between his shoulders didn’t snag in the chair’s back. “Spent most of my life in the military,” he said, softly, cutting off the explanation Red Alert was spilling. “I know what night watch is.” But there was no edge to the words, almost a quiet amusement.
Red Alert stopped himself. Right. Of course. Idiot.
“…sorry.” A roll of the shoulder, almost nervous.
“What are you apologizing for?”
“Just…going to be a long night if neither of us talks.” A glint of a blue optic.
“True.”
A long moment, broken by a bark of a laugh from Drift. “Point proven.”
“How do you find us?” Red Alert blurted. “Autobots? Are we different?”
Another laugh. “Better question might be how do they find me.”
Red Alert tilted his head. “You have…a past.”
“It’s the past,” Drift said. Even his tone said he didn’t quite believe it himself.
“The past isn’t that easy to let go of.”
“I’ve noticed.” A pointed look. And then…waiting. Patience.
Red Alert sighed. Well, it was all in his records. He tapped his chassis. “Rebuilt. After…after a battle. Smaller frame.” He shrugged.
“A battle.” Dubious.
Red Alert frowned. “Ambush. I was taken prisoner. And….” His optics shadowed.
Drift grunted. “I can fill in the rest.” His mouth twisted. “Doesn’t help but…I’m sorry.”
You’re right, Red Alert thought. It doesn’t help.
Drift shifted, awkwardly, the Great Sword thudding against the chair. “We hated you.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Red Alert answered. Drift gave a soft sound that might have been a chuff of laughter, and subsided. The moment stretched, and Red Alert could feel it building in him—the need to know, to hear what they’d said about him, what they knew. What was true, what was a lie.
Drift turned his head, bending to study the night log, listing the checks they had to do and when, all neatly laid out to a timetable.
“What—what did you say? The, uh, the Decepticons?”
Drift shrugged, optics going distant with memory. “You had…spies everywhere. In the maintenance facilities. You channeled some spirit or scryed in the sparks of dead Decepticons.”
“…really?”
Drift nodded. “There was no way you could be that good.” A quirk of a smile.
“And did you believe that?” Red Alert’s optics focused keenly, trying to strip off the armor, see Deadlock under the white armor.
Drift shook his head. “Was too busy trying to outthink you to care where it came from.” Another quirk of the mouth.
“You.”
Another shrug, and Red Alert realized he was filing away an alphabet of small gestures. This one was bemused. “Turmoil was too conservative.”
“You,” Red Alert repeated. “You.”
Drift snorted. “Yes. And Turmoil hated me for it.”
“So did I.” And the past tense hung between them.
[***]
The night shift was over, and he had a blessed day of sleep to look forward to. The rest of the shift had passed in an almost companionable silence. Whatever Bumblebee’s problem was with the white mech, Red Alert didn’t see it. And he’d been looking. Instead a quiet, charged intimacy, both having bared some scars, both having shown pain, nodded in respect, not competing, not comparing. “I should let you go recharge.”
“You should.” Drift’s optics glowed in the dimness of the hallway leading to his quarters, walking beside him.
“It’s been a long night.” Red Alert shifted at the tension between them, an energy, swirling, sucking him in. He wanted to go, but he couldn’t.
“It has.” Drift turned, one hand on the keypad to his room. He didn’t tap the code. Just waited.
“Drift, I…,” …ran out of words, apparently.
Drift moved, fast, forward, one hand coming up, pulling Red Alert’s face down, his mouth seeking the larger mech’s in a quiet, passionate kiss. Red Alert stiffened, for a moment, head spinning, mind seeking motives, before his body overrode those concerns and his hands found the broad spaulders, his mouth opening against Drift’s.
Drift pulled away, turning to enter the code, his hand still stroking Red Alert’s helm.
“This is a bad idea,” Red Alert murmured, kiss still hot on his lips.
“Probably.” The door opened. Drift tugged gently. Red Alert followed.
“We’re both going to regret this.”
“Most likely.” Drift drew him the two steps to the berth, propping one knee on it.
“I don’t trust you.” As open and raw and honest as he could be. The last bastion of his defense.
“Don’t expect you to.” Drift rolled to his back, pulling Red Alert on top of him, their mouths meeting again, swallowing the larger mech’s bleat of protest. Drift broke the kiss with a series of gentle nips. “You’re not leaving,” he murmured, voice husky with desire.
Red Alert shivered. No, he wasn’t leaving, and didn’t want to. Beneath him, the exotic helm, with its intricate metalwork, the optics lidded with lust, and the mouth—Deadlock’s hard mouth—softened, warmed from contact with his own. And the white body, sliding against his own. This was a bad idea. No: the worst idea. The worst idea ever and all he could do was feel his body grind over Drift’s, his weight balancing on one palm as he stroked his other down the sleek sides.
“We shouldn’t.”
“Too bad,” Drift said, one corner of his mouth quirking into a smile. “We are.” He bucked his hips up, bumping his pelvic span against Red Alert’s. The larger mech groaned, succumbing. His hand pushed between them, tangling for a moment with Drift’s, intent on the same goal. He pushed Drift’s aside, snapping open his hatch, his spike jutting from its housing, mindless and eager. He whimpered as the cool air struck against it, his hand moving to Drift’s hatch, opening it, circling around Drift’s spike cover. Drift growled, arching and rolling his hips, under the touch until his spike released.
Red Alert pressed down, lowering his body onto Drift’s, spike against spike, their lubricants mixing, slippery and cool. Drift gasped, as Red Alert moved forward, sliding, grinding his spike’s underside against Drift’s. Red Alert could feel the heat from their bodies, the wetness of the lubricant as he rode his spike slowly over Drift’s, gathering charge. He dove down, mouth fierce against Drift’s lip plates, pushing them open, moaning into the kiss.
Drift’s EM field flamed against him, licking over his chassis, ardent and fierce as the white frame beneath his, mouth willing under his, as Red Alert’s hands traced the line of the chassis, thumbs sliding into the gap of the shoulder armor. Charge built slowly this way, over only a fraction of the nodes, but Red Alert liked it. More control, more time. And the slide of armor over armor was intoxicating. Drift was trembling with lust, whimpering at each forward thrust, as the spikes slid against each other, lubricant warming.
It still came all too soon, Red Alert hissing into the release, charge jolting between the two spikes. Transfluid spattered between them, slicking their chassis as Red Alert slowly rocked to a halt, silver fluid smearing between them. Drift twitched beneath him, and Red Alert could feel the sharp, delicious prickle of excess charge jumping the nodes between them.
Red Alert broke the kiss, tearing his mouth from Drift’s, panting over the smaller mech. “We,” he said, shakily, “should not have done that.” Still, his optics raked over the desire-wracked face, the lidded optics, the body trembling with ecstasy beneath his.
The gaze in the optics sharpened. “We should do more,” Drift murmured. “Why regret only halfway?” A quirk of amusement across the mouth as he slid his pelvic plating against Red Alert’s in open invitation.
Oh. That. “I…I’m a little big for most mechs. From the downframing. That’s why I…I do it this way.” Not something he planned on admitting.
…Like he’d planned on any of this.
Drift curled up, peering down their bodies. “I see.” He lay back. “I’m not most mechs.” Another barbed smile, optics glinting with challenge. He pulled Red Alert’s helm down to his, licking the audio, as he whispered, “I’ve had Megatron.” A soft, wicked laugh as the words jolted through Red Alert’s frame.
Oh, that was…entirely, impossibly wrong and Red Alert did not want that mental image: Drift writhing, moaning underneath the blocky, massive bulk of Megatron. That was…oh Primus. His spike surged to life again, sliding back against their lubricant slicked bodies, finding Drift’s valve, open, tipped up, wanting. He pushed in, groaning as the pressure and the heat of the valve enveloped his spike—the sensitized underside and the rest. It had been…ages since he’d risked this, and it took every fragment of control to push in slowly, feeling the calipers release, the lining stretching sleek and taut around him. The image taunted him: Megatron, fierce, brutal, slamming into the small frame, grunting with open lust. He could not have been a gentle lover. And here, now, Red Alert’s spike, traveling the same narrow space.
Drift purred, hands gliding to the hips, coaxing, goading Red Alert inward. The purr seemed to ravage Red Alert’s already shredded self control and he found himself thrusting, less gently than before, driving his spike into the exquisite cocoon of the valve, feeling it grasp and release as he moved, feeling Drift’s thighs flare out along his scabbards, opening himself, wanting, demanding more.
Drift arched up, suddenly, a high keen ripping from his vocalizer, and Red Alert felt a hard rush of fluid along his spike. He stopped, puzzled, until Drift’s head snapped up, optics flaring. “More,” Drift demanded, hooking around Red Alert’s thighs with his ankles. Red Alert moved and Drift whimpered, with each rising thrust, “Just…keep…going.”
Red Alert heaved, body pushing hard and fast against the smaller frame, white on white, riding the crest of desire. The shock and the sudden heat, wetness happened twice more, liquid spilling against his body, trailing down his thighs, his pelvic armor, as his own charge built. He whined, this time, his entire body jolting as the overload seized him, wringing sound and desire from him, his spike’s baseplate grinding against Drift’s rim. Transfluid, hot and hard, burst from his spike, mirroring the blast of the overload across Red Alert’s systems.
Drift gave a sated squirm underneath him.
“Megatron,” Red Alert mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face, as though wishing he were hallucinating. “You’ve…?”
A nod.
“That…wasn’t in your file.”
Drift grinned. It looked so out of place that for a moment Red Alert was startled. “So then…you can consider this intel gathering.” He sent a ripple through his valve calipers, down the spike. Red Alert whimpered, pushing back on his knees to reclaim the spike. It slid out, silver streaked and glossy, Drift whining, hips up to chase the spike. Drift’s berth was a puddle of fluids. He looked up. “And all this is?”
Drift shrugged. “It happens. Big spikes.” Another flash of a grin. “More for your files.” A bad joke, a thin one, but it was honest and genuine in intent. And suddenly history fell away, and Red Alert’s armor didn’t—for once—feel alien and strange, and faction didn’t matter and the past didn’t matter, just one mech, trying to reach past all of those barries, to have something worth fighting for. Red Alert rose up on his knees for a moment, studying Drift, the smeared mess of their tryst.
“You can stay,” Drift said, the smile wavering from his face, as though that were the true vulnerability.
Red Alert hesitated, his own mouth twitching. “I shouldn’t…,” he murmured, even as he lay back down, stretching his frame along the berth, curling one arm over Drift’s chassis. “This won’t end well,” he said, his mouth pressing into the audial finial.
“For once,” Drift said, turning to face him, sliding a thigh between Red Alert’s. “Let the future worry about itself.”
IDW
Red Alert/Drift
sticky, size kink, frot
Red Alert slotted the input rod into the datareader. New arrivals. He hated new arrivals. So many variables. So many unpredictable combinations of personality and history. These, better to be called refugees. From a Cybertron nearly swallowed by the Swarm. They’d be…scarred. Just what he needed: there weren’t enough issues here on Earth. He needed more tension, drama, needed the bad memories of Cybertron stirred up again. There’d be too many questions, half of them unanswerable, the other half with…answers they didn’t want to hear.
But that wasn’t his concern right now. Now was the tedious sorting into teams, rummaging through personal datarecords, looking for potential problems—personality conflicts, bad blood. He hated the job, but he was the best at it, having sorted out the disaster that had happened when Bumblebee had tried to lead…everyone.
This one. Drift. He studied the ident picture. Different-looking. Which was enough to get Red Alert’s hackles up. He tilted his head, trying to find what was…off about the frame. Just something about the lines, the aesthetic.
Eh, seeing shadows. He tore his attention from the blue optics, the intense, serious face, the strangely jutting white helm, to the file itself. Cybertron. The Axion. And before that…nothing. The file was blank.
Red Alert ran a scan for data corruption, but no, the file was intact. But…this only covered months. Not the years—centuries—of the average service record.
Something was wrong here. Very wrong. Red Alert flipped to the front of the file. Losing unit commander: Springer. Right.
He reached over tapping the code into his comm. Springer’s face resolved onto the screen. “What?” He never looked happy to see Red Alert. Which was fine: the feeling was mutual.
“Drift.”
A sharp look, guarded. “What.”
Red Alert frowned. “His record. It’s…short.”
“All I have,” Springer snapped. “You want more, you talk to Kup.” He cut the connection.
Oh, that was comforting, Red Alert thought, staring at the dark screen. He flipped through the file, scouring it for why—or what—Springer might be hiding. Nothing. Springer seemed…not fond of Drift but there was nothing in the record to indicate why. And Springer was normally pretty transparent.
Frag.
Red Alert cycled a deep vent of air. Then another. No choice but to contact Kup. He hated this job.
[***]
After only a cycle yammering out entirely irrelevant stories—and the effort of sifting some sort of meaning from them, like clues to a puzzle, had entirely exhausted Red Alert—the only good he’d gleaned was that he’d ‘have to ask the kid himself.’ Great. Fantastic advice, Kup. He’d never have thought of that on his own.
At least, he thought, as some consolation, this Drift was punctual. The white mech stepped through the door, pausing, letting Red Alert study him.
“Sit down.”
“Rather stand,” Drift said, moving forward, voice and movements hushed, quiet. He moved in front of the desk. Red Alert could read, in the lines of his posture, a mech who had spent a long time in the military, under rigid discipline. That short, slim record? Oh no. It was missing a LOT.
An argument worth having? Not yet, Red Alert decided. “Swords,” he began, neutrally. “An unusual weapon.”
“Don’t run out of ammunition or charge.”
“No range,” Red Alert countered.
“Range enough.” A shrug broke the military bearing.
Right. Very chatty, this one. Red Alert pulled up the file. Might as well get to it. He flipped the pad over, so Drift could see the screen, and scrolled it to the end. Drift’s optics lingered just long enough to recognize the document for what it was.
“A little short,” Red Alert said.
“Yes.”
Well, agreement at least. “Any reason why that is?”
Drift’s head moved, a tiny gesture. “Autobot service record.” His voice went flat. Telling.
“And before that?”
Guarded. “I wasn’t an Autobot.”
“I’d surmised.” Red Alert swung the pad back around. “And what, then, were you?” Let’s see how long Drift will drag this out.
A pause, hesitation, the mask seeming to slip. “Deadlock,” Drift said, his voice quieter than a ghost’s. “I was Deadlock.”
Deadlock. Red Alert blinked, twice. Three times. He stared at Drift, his memory overlaying the two. Yes. The buccal armor was different, but the same audial finials, and the same lines of the face. Even, now that he thought about it, the same slightly-arrogant posture. And the voice. Yes.
“I see.” He did. He tapped out the code, brought up Deadlock’s file and swung it over. “You.”
A longer look at the file, one finger reaching to scroll down. “Missing some things. But yes.” He pushed it back across the console.
“And you’d be willing to supply the ‘missing things’?” Open challenge.
“Yes.”
Well, that was a little unexpected. It took Red Alert a moment to regain his ground. “And now you’re an Autobot.”
The blue optics flicked to the Autobot insignia on his shoulders as if pointing them out. “Yes.”
Red Alert studied him, head tilting. And Drift merely…stood, knowing what must have been going on behind Red Alert’s keen optics. Hmph. Something for another time. “Rooming preferences.”
“Alone.”
A smile quirked. “We’re a little tight for space here, Drift. Not going to happen.”
A shrug. “You asked my ‘preference’.” And then a soft snort. “Probably preference of a lot of other mechs, too.” He looked aside, mouth twitching into a frown.
So. Not popular. Unsurprising. “I’ll see what I can do.”
[***]
So that was Red Alert. Drift left the room, knowing when he was dismissed, angling down the hallway. He passed the rec room, noticing, as always, the way the laughter cooled as he walked past, hostile optics tracking him. It had been the same the entire trip from Cybertron. He was…used to it by now. And used to the sharp bite of regret. He’d left Perceptor…for this. For this hard rejection at every turn. And no one to turn to, no one who accepted his choice, even gave him a chance.
But you made your choice, Drift. Now you live with it. Living with it’s always been the hard part.
And Red Alert was no different. Another mech who’d shut down the wall, locked the door before Drift had even knocked on it. How had he thought this would work? Stupid. Stupid Drift.
But Red Alert was different—he knew Deadlock, immediately, had the file—more complete than Drift would really have liked. It was like having his history thrown back in his face. And it would be, every time Red Alert looked at him.
Well, I know your history, too, Drift thought, or at least history as the military defined it—deployments, armaments, unit allocation, functional specialities. He settled into a corner, where the rock-cutting into the mountain had just…stopped. No one came here, swathed in shadows. It was safe. Quiet. He dredged his memories, old memories. Red Alert. Turmoil had raged against the mech, the way his plans were methodically dismantled, every time he ran into a grid under Red Alert’s command. It wasn’t that the Autobot was a brilliant tactician. He just knew where to place defenses, in places most mechs never thought. His flanks were never uncovered, his supply lines ruthlessly secure.
And Turmoil, always, too cautious. What few victories they had had against him had come solely from Deadlock and his wanton disregard for tactics, the manuals, and common sense.
Still. Red Alert. Just for being the bane of Turmoil’s existence.
Drift felt something like a smile spread over his face.
[***]
Drift, Red Alert discovered, wasn’t so much unpopular as ruthlessly aloof. He ghosted to the refectory, snatching energon when no one else was there, avoided the rec room almost entirely. It was so rare to see him that it was easy to forget he was even there, until you caught a glimpse of a white phantom on the monitors.
In fact, Red Alert only caught him once by accident, late one sleepcycle, in the rec room, when the soft blue flicker of light caught his optics. And he’d crept to the door, to see the white helm intent, curious, silhouetted in front of a holovid. It struck him as…almost sad, and he’d stood there for half a cycle, watching the helm, tilt and shift, the white mech utterly absorbed in the history program, volume nearly muted. Not dangerous, he’d decided. No harm, just a little odd.
Then again, Red Alert, assigned himself night shifts for…the same reason—just to be away from others, and their judgment.
But it made him wonder. Was he up to something? Red Alert put a second level of encryption on comms, and the rest of the night checking on the armory. Something…wasn’t right.
[***]
“You wanted to meet with me.” Red Alert frowned. “Is something wrong?”
Drift shook his head. “You mentioned my service record—Deadlock’s.” He shrugged. “I can fill in what you’re missing.” It was clumsy, he knew, but he wanted to see what Red Alert knew, what the other mech thought. He figured it couldn’t be any worse than Bumblebee.
“And you’re just…volunteering it.”
Drift tilted his head.”We’re on the same side.” A hint of a smile. “Would it be better if you interrogated me for it?”
Red Alert’s frown took on more of a glower. “No.”
The smile faded, the attempt failed. This was all he really had, the only token to offer. “I’m trying to help.”
“Why?”
“To win the war.” Drift frowned. That had always been his answer, no matter what side he’d been on.
Red Alert’s optics traveled over his face, cold, searching. “All right.” He pulled out a pad, opening a new file. Not, Drift noticed, Deadlock’s. So he didn’t trust anything Drift would say to be true. Still, he was listening, and that was a start.
And you’d committed to this, Drift. Going to lay yourself open, in front of one of your former worst enemies. A sigh rattled through him. “Where should I start?”
“At the beginning.” A pat, flippant answer, flung at him to see what he’d do.
Drift looked down at his hands. “You’re going to know everything about me by the time this is over.”
“Yes.” The word cold, a wall of ice. “Is that a problem?”
For a mech whose only two ‘friends’ had died, and because of him? Who had fled Perceptor because he couldn’t bear for it to happen a third time? “No.” He looked up. “It starts in the gutters. So deep underground that no city claims them….”
[***]
Red Alert stared at the file. If Drift had left anything out, it was…most likely an accident. The swordsmech had spared nothing—not trying to make himself look good, not trying to paint himself a victim. It was…almost frightening how neutral, almost cold, Drift was about his own past. As though it didn’t quite belong to him.
This, he thought, couldn’t go in Drift’s service record. Not the official one. This was his. And Drift was right. Red Alert knew everything.
And…it was hard to hold onto that edge of hate, the wariness, in the face of that quiet voice, recounting horror after horror, bowing his head, knowing the weight of the words were stones, well deserved, condemning him.
[*]
And so a deca later, when the others had put together some party, some flimsy excuse to celebrate, just to lighten the mood, to make morale seem something other than a black mist, he’d hunted the white mech down. It wasn’t natural. It was…even more antisocial than Red Alert was. Was it enough to admit what you’ve done? Try to make it right? The quiet, earnest voice of a deca ago still came to him, knowing how damning each word, each admission would be, and speaking anyway.
Did Drift think that admission was redemption? It was something Red Alert couldn’t understand. Which meant he’d be restless until he sorted it.
He tapped the chime to Drift’s quarters, no larger than a closet, but the best he could manage in the small, rock-hewn base.
“Open,” the voice came, through the metal. He tapped the code and the door whisked aside. Drift sat, crosslegged, on a small patch of floor, next to the berth, one of his short swords across his thighs. The mech looked up, expectantly.
“There’s a party,” Red Alert said, jerking his head back down the corridor. The sounds of it—music, bursts of laughter, echoed down the hall.
“I know.”
“You can come.” A hint.
A shrug. “I’m fine here.” They both knew what would happen if Drift did go. The sudden, hard silence, laughter dying, masks slamming closed. And Red Alert couldn’t say it was entirely undeserved for who Drift had been.
Deadlock, Red Alert thought. This was Deadlock, the mech responsible for thousands of Autobot deaths. And he sat, on the floor, alone, accepting his ostracism. Taking what he’d earned without complaint. Red Alert tilted his head. “Can I come in?” It wasn’t really a request. More like a test.
Drift nodded. There wasn’t much to the room, not even space for a chair, so Red Alert found himself perching on the edge of the berth. Drift watched him for a moment, and then turned his attention back to the blade on his lap. Drift probably had run out of words. He picked up a stone and began sweeping it, lightly, down the metal. The sound was a soft, soothing whisper, metal on stone.
“Deadlock didn’t use swords,” Red Alert murmured, his optics tracking the stone and its rhythmic progress.
“No.” No pause, no hesitation. Red Alert studied the helm—the catlike finials bent over the blade, the way the buccal armor nearly blocked the face, the hint of the flat expression Drift pressed onto his mouthplates. If Drift was expecting more, deeper questions, probing questions, he gave no sign.
Red Alert let the moment pass. It was quiet here. Somehow, despite, or perhaps because of, that naked history, Drift seemed…at peace. More at peace than Red Alert was with himself. Calm, as though Drift somehow had radiated, filled, the space with the sort of placid acceptance until it echoed from the very stone. It was very peaceful here—ironic that Deadlock would ever be associated with that word. But Red Alert found—and didn’t fight—his systems slowly cycling down, lulled by the song of blade on stone, on the hypnotic movement of the hand over the blade.
He jerked awake.
The room was dark, the sounds of the party long dead. And he was slumped on his side on Drift’s berth.
“Bad memory purge?” Blue optics glowed from the floor, where Drift had curled against the wall.
“N-no.” And that was the weird thing about it, that fogged his memory. He had nightmares all the time—flashes of violence, emotion, trauma. And here, in a strange room, with…with Deadlock of all mechs…he’d fallen into a dreamless sleep. “I should go.”
“No point,” Drift murmured. “Nearly dawn.”
“I’m on your berth.”
A sound, and a movement of white in the shadow. “Didn’t even have a berth for half my life.” A snort of something like laughter. “I’m fine.”
Red Alert wanted to go, but sleep, with long, sensuous fingers, combed over him, and Drift’s voice was soothing, and the hour really was late. He found himself squirming out along the berth, barely fitting, lying on his belly, as he always slept. Drift’s berth, he thought, and he could almost feel the smaller mech’s body, lying along this cool metal. Did he sleep on his belly? Or did he always curl himself, half seated, head bowed between his upraised knees? Another piece for the file.
Thoughts for another time, and things he shouldn’t be thinking, he thought, dimly, as recharge overtook him again.
[***]
You could kill him right now, a voice whispered in the back of Drift’s sleep-drowsed cortex. Red Alert, Turmoil’s nemesis. The grand master of paranoia, lying open, exposed. Be the matter of a klik. One blade, right where his helm joined his neck. Easy.
Right. Fine time to develop a sense of humor, he thought, his blue optics cycling lowlight and studying the larger mech, sprawled bellydown on his berth. Part of him ached with a cold longing: he missed Perceptor. Always did in the long hours of the night, even just the times they’d lie together, doing nothing, saying nothing, just engine vibrating against engine, EM fields knitted tamely together.
Red Alert was not Perceptor, but he was here. And listened. And judged, but kept it to himself. Not a word of his confession had leaked. And Red Alert had come here tonight, seeking him out. Drift had braced for…something. Insult, recrimination, whatever might have been brewing in the intervening interval. Red Alert must have had…theories. Accusations. Something. But he’d given no sign. And staring at Drift? Drift had endured worse.
Drift fought the urge to get up, to lever himself onto the berth, wedge himself between the wall and the larger white mech. He wanted the contact, wanted the acceptance that came with it. Even from Red Alert. Even from the bane of Deadlock’s existence.
No, especially from. Because it was respect, and not pity. Not fear.
But…that was no way to earn it. He gave a quiet growl at himself, bowing his head, forcing his optics dim.
[***]
He said nothing, but Red Alert was aware of the rumors. Being who he was, he was aware of rumors before rumors even happened: Red Alert, leaving Drift’s room in the pre-dawn, after having disappeared for hours? It didn’t take a security specialist to figure out what they were saying.
And part of him wished the rumors were true. His systems began spinning at the rare glimpses of Drift, remembering the frame, bent over his sword, when he’d been able to take Drift in, study him at leisure—the dark thighs, the white greaves, the broad white scabbards on his hips, flaring from his narrow waist. He did his best to deny the rumors, but he wasn’t sure he was really that convincing, or that he wanted to be.
Until now.
“Well, fine. You pull duty with him, then.” Bumblebee, his voice harried, flat. Leadership had not sat well with the minibot, souring his optimism even further than it had on Cybertron. Some bad blood between Bumblebee and Drift back then, Red Alert had heard, and it had only festered.
“I just want to know your reason.”
“Right. Look. Everyone knows you’re tight with Drift.”
“Tight.”
Bumblebee tilted his head in challenge. “Losing your touch, Red Alert.”
Red Alert bridled. “Is there a problem?”
Bumblebee’s glower was hot and hostile, making Red Alert wonder what had happened to the warm, kind mech he once knew. The war had sunk its teeth into all of them, but Bumblebee had been unscathed, sustained by some inner faith or optimism. Or so Red Alert had thought. “Then you shift with him.”
[***]
Drift settled into the chair, sideways, so that the Great Sword that hung from between his shoulders didn’t snag in the chair’s back. “Spent most of my life in the military,” he said, softly, cutting off the explanation Red Alert was spilling. “I know what night watch is.” But there was no edge to the words, almost a quiet amusement.
Red Alert stopped himself. Right. Of course. Idiot.
“…sorry.” A roll of the shoulder, almost nervous.
“What are you apologizing for?”
“Just…going to be a long night if neither of us talks.” A glint of a blue optic.
“True.”
A long moment, broken by a bark of a laugh from Drift. “Point proven.”
“How do you find us?” Red Alert blurted. “Autobots? Are we different?”
Another laugh. “Better question might be how do they find me.”
Red Alert tilted his head. “You have…a past.”
“It’s the past,” Drift said. Even his tone said he didn’t quite believe it himself.
“The past isn’t that easy to let go of.”
“I’ve noticed.” A pointed look. And then…waiting. Patience.
Red Alert sighed. Well, it was all in his records. He tapped his chassis. “Rebuilt. After…after a battle. Smaller frame.” He shrugged.
“A battle.” Dubious.
Red Alert frowned. “Ambush. I was taken prisoner. And….” His optics shadowed.
Drift grunted. “I can fill in the rest.” His mouth twisted. “Doesn’t help but…I’m sorry.”
You’re right, Red Alert thought. It doesn’t help.
Drift shifted, awkwardly, the Great Sword thudding against the chair. “We hated you.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Red Alert answered. Drift gave a soft sound that might have been a chuff of laughter, and subsided. The moment stretched, and Red Alert could feel it building in him—the need to know, to hear what they’d said about him, what they knew. What was true, what was a lie.
Drift turned his head, bending to study the night log, listing the checks they had to do and when, all neatly laid out to a timetable.
“What—what did you say? The, uh, the Decepticons?”
Drift shrugged, optics going distant with memory. “You had…spies everywhere. In the maintenance facilities. You channeled some spirit or scryed in the sparks of dead Decepticons.”
“…really?”
Drift nodded. “There was no way you could be that good.” A quirk of a smile.
“And did you believe that?” Red Alert’s optics focused keenly, trying to strip off the armor, see Deadlock under the white armor.
Drift shook his head. “Was too busy trying to outthink you to care where it came from.” Another quirk of the mouth.
“You.”
Another shrug, and Red Alert realized he was filing away an alphabet of small gestures. This one was bemused. “Turmoil was too conservative.”
“You,” Red Alert repeated. “You.”
Drift snorted. “Yes. And Turmoil hated me for it.”
“So did I.” And the past tense hung between them.
[***]
The night shift was over, and he had a blessed day of sleep to look forward to. The rest of the shift had passed in an almost companionable silence. Whatever Bumblebee’s problem was with the white mech, Red Alert didn’t see it. And he’d been looking. Instead a quiet, charged intimacy, both having bared some scars, both having shown pain, nodded in respect, not competing, not comparing. “I should let you go recharge.”
“You should.” Drift’s optics glowed in the dimness of the hallway leading to his quarters, walking beside him.
“It’s been a long night.” Red Alert shifted at the tension between them, an energy, swirling, sucking him in. He wanted to go, but he couldn’t.
“It has.” Drift turned, one hand on the keypad to his room. He didn’t tap the code. Just waited.
“Drift, I…,” …ran out of words, apparently.
Drift moved, fast, forward, one hand coming up, pulling Red Alert’s face down, his mouth seeking the larger mech’s in a quiet, passionate kiss. Red Alert stiffened, for a moment, head spinning, mind seeking motives, before his body overrode those concerns and his hands found the broad spaulders, his mouth opening against Drift’s.
Drift pulled away, turning to enter the code, his hand still stroking Red Alert’s helm.
“This is a bad idea,” Red Alert murmured, kiss still hot on his lips.
“Probably.” The door opened. Drift tugged gently. Red Alert followed.
“We’re both going to regret this.”
“Most likely.” Drift drew him the two steps to the berth, propping one knee on it.
“I don’t trust you.” As open and raw and honest as he could be. The last bastion of his defense.
“Don’t expect you to.” Drift rolled to his back, pulling Red Alert on top of him, their mouths meeting again, swallowing the larger mech’s bleat of protest. Drift broke the kiss with a series of gentle nips. “You’re not leaving,” he murmured, voice husky with desire.
Red Alert shivered. No, he wasn’t leaving, and didn’t want to. Beneath him, the exotic helm, with its intricate metalwork, the optics lidded with lust, and the mouth—Deadlock’s hard mouth—softened, warmed from contact with his own. And the white body, sliding against his own. This was a bad idea. No: the worst idea. The worst idea ever and all he could do was feel his body grind over Drift’s, his weight balancing on one palm as he stroked his other down the sleek sides.
“We shouldn’t.”
“Too bad,” Drift said, one corner of his mouth quirking into a smile. “We are.” He bucked his hips up, bumping his pelvic span against Red Alert’s. The larger mech groaned, succumbing. His hand pushed between them, tangling for a moment with Drift’s, intent on the same goal. He pushed Drift’s aside, snapping open his hatch, his spike jutting from its housing, mindless and eager. He whimpered as the cool air struck against it, his hand moving to Drift’s hatch, opening it, circling around Drift’s spike cover. Drift growled, arching and rolling his hips, under the touch until his spike released.
Red Alert pressed down, lowering his body onto Drift’s, spike against spike, their lubricants mixing, slippery and cool. Drift gasped, as Red Alert moved forward, sliding, grinding his spike’s underside against Drift’s. Red Alert could feel the heat from their bodies, the wetness of the lubricant as he rode his spike slowly over Drift’s, gathering charge. He dove down, mouth fierce against Drift’s lip plates, pushing them open, moaning into the kiss.
Drift’s EM field flamed against him, licking over his chassis, ardent and fierce as the white frame beneath his, mouth willing under his, as Red Alert’s hands traced the line of the chassis, thumbs sliding into the gap of the shoulder armor. Charge built slowly this way, over only a fraction of the nodes, but Red Alert liked it. More control, more time. And the slide of armor over armor was intoxicating. Drift was trembling with lust, whimpering at each forward thrust, as the spikes slid against each other, lubricant warming.
It still came all too soon, Red Alert hissing into the release, charge jolting between the two spikes. Transfluid spattered between them, slicking their chassis as Red Alert slowly rocked to a halt, silver fluid smearing between them. Drift twitched beneath him, and Red Alert could feel the sharp, delicious prickle of excess charge jumping the nodes between them.
Red Alert broke the kiss, tearing his mouth from Drift’s, panting over the smaller mech. “We,” he said, shakily, “should not have done that.” Still, his optics raked over the desire-wracked face, the lidded optics, the body trembling with ecstasy beneath his.
The gaze in the optics sharpened. “We should do more,” Drift murmured. “Why regret only halfway?” A quirk of amusement across the mouth as he slid his pelvic plating against Red Alert’s in open invitation.
Oh. That. “I…I’m a little big for most mechs. From the downframing. That’s why I…I do it this way.” Not something he planned on admitting.
…Like he’d planned on any of this.
Drift curled up, peering down their bodies. “I see.” He lay back. “I’m not most mechs.” Another barbed smile, optics glinting with challenge. He pulled Red Alert’s helm down to his, licking the audio, as he whispered, “I’ve had Megatron.” A soft, wicked laugh as the words jolted through Red Alert’s frame.
Oh, that was…entirely, impossibly wrong and Red Alert did not want that mental image: Drift writhing, moaning underneath the blocky, massive bulk of Megatron. That was…oh Primus. His spike surged to life again, sliding back against their lubricant slicked bodies, finding Drift’s valve, open, tipped up, wanting. He pushed in, groaning as the pressure and the heat of the valve enveloped his spike—the sensitized underside and the rest. It had been…ages since he’d risked this, and it took every fragment of control to push in slowly, feeling the calipers release, the lining stretching sleek and taut around him. The image taunted him: Megatron, fierce, brutal, slamming into the small frame, grunting with open lust. He could not have been a gentle lover. And here, now, Red Alert’s spike, traveling the same narrow space.
Drift purred, hands gliding to the hips, coaxing, goading Red Alert inward. The purr seemed to ravage Red Alert’s already shredded self control and he found himself thrusting, less gently than before, driving his spike into the exquisite cocoon of the valve, feeling it grasp and release as he moved, feeling Drift’s thighs flare out along his scabbards, opening himself, wanting, demanding more.
Drift arched up, suddenly, a high keen ripping from his vocalizer, and Red Alert felt a hard rush of fluid along his spike. He stopped, puzzled, until Drift’s head snapped up, optics flaring. “More,” Drift demanded, hooking around Red Alert’s thighs with his ankles. Red Alert moved and Drift whimpered, with each rising thrust, “Just…keep…going.”
Red Alert heaved, body pushing hard and fast against the smaller frame, white on white, riding the crest of desire. The shock and the sudden heat, wetness happened twice more, liquid spilling against his body, trailing down his thighs, his pelvic armor, as his own charge built. He whined, this time, his entire body jolting as the overload seized him, wringing sound and desire from him, his spike’s baseplate grinding against Drift’s rim. Transfluid, hot and hard, burst from his spike, mirroring the blast of the overload across Red Alert’s systems.
Drift gave a sated squirm underneath him.
“Megatron,” Red Alert mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face, as though wishing he were hallucinating. “You’ve…?”
A nod.
“That…wasn’t in your file.”
Drift grinned. It looked so out of place that for a moment Red Alert was startled. “So then…you can consider this intel gathering.” He sent a ripple through his valve calipers, down the spike. Red Alert whimpered, pushing back on his knees to reclaim the spike. It slid out, silver streaked and glossy, Drift whining, hips up to chase the spike. Drift’s berth was a puddle of fluids. He looked up. “And all this is?”
Drift shrugged. “It happens. Big spikes.” Another flash of a grin. “More for your files.” A bad joke, a thin one, but it was honest and genuine in intent. And suddenly history fell away, and Red Alert’s armor didn’t—for once—feel alien and strange, and faction didn’t matter and the past didn’t matter, just one mech, trying to reach past all of those barries, to have something worth fighting for. Red Alert rose up on his knees for a moment, studying Drift, the smeared mess of their tryst.
“You can stay,” Drift said, the smile wavering from his face, as though that were the true vulnerability.
Red Alert hesitated, his own mouth twitching. “I shouldn’t…,” he murmured, even as he lay back down, stretching his frame along the berth, curling one arm over Drift’s chassis. “This won’t end well,” he said, his mouth pressing into the audial finial.
“For once,” Drift said, turning to face him, sliding a thigh between Red Alert’s. “Let the future worry about itself.”
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Date: 2011-09-07 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 01:17 am (UTC)