Breaking Bread

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW AU
Springarm, Wing
no warnings
for tf_speedwriting prompt 'getting to know a new friend'
This is set sometime after "For I am but Mortal" and "Vessel of Memory".  It's turning into an AU omg. AU title suggestions welcome.

He never smiled. Springarm noticed that about the new Knight almost immediately: the white jet never smiled. Occasionally, when courtesy demanded it, he could flick his mouthplates up,  but the movement was reflex, and his optics never gave the bright shimmer of unfeigned happiness.

Springarm laid his tray down next to the jet’s.  “May I?”

A shy nod, and that flickering polite not-smile. “Of course.” 

Springarm stepped over the bench to sit down, his Great Sword sliding against the bench’s back.  The other’s gold optics flicked to the high jeweled hilt. Curiosity.  Envy. Some mix of want and longing and patience. 

“Wing,” Springarm began, “yes?” 

“Yes. And…,” The optic shutters lowered, apologetically. Whoever Wing had been before taking the vows, he had had, Springarm thought, impeccable manners. It spoke to some refinement, as did the gestures, each filled with an almost thoughtless grace.

“Springarm.”  Springarm offered a genuine smile, warm, glowing blue from his optics.

“Springarm,” Wing repeated. “My apologies.”

Springarm tilted his head, studying the jet with skills honed ages ago, in Rodion. “Do you want to talk?” One’s past, before the Knights, was private. One could refuse to talk about it.  This was the closest the strictures allowed.

The wan curl of the mouth. “There’s nothing to tell. Altihex.”

Ah. This one.  Springarm’s spark ached, and one hand reached over, covering one of Wing’s. “I know the facts, Wing.  But we both know that those are often only part—sometimes a small one—of the whole story.”

“Yes.” That quiet admission, the gold optics sliding off his.

After a gentle squeeze, Springarm released Wing’s hand. He wasn’t going to push. That’s not how you built trust.  There was a time, in Rodion, he would have but…his life was so different now. He turned his attention to his energon, and for a long moment they ate in peace.  He could feel the soft tension in the frame next to him.  Well, he thought, why not?

“I worked in Rodion,” he said. “Far before the war. Security.”  He smiled.  It wasn’t permitted to ask a Knight about his past: such things were private and if the Knight chose to forget, chose to have it forgotten, that was his freedom.  But there was no stricture against volunteering it.

“That must have been challenging,” Wing said, softly.  “Rodion was…dangerous.” 

Springarm nodded. “There were worse, but we had the Dead End.”  The shadow that flickered over his face was sincere:  the empties, the syk dealers, the hopeless. Some criminals because they were natural predators, others because they had no other choice.  Wing had never been a criminal: after all this time, Springarm could still read a mech that much. He tipped his head. “It was hard to feel, some days, that you were doing any actual good.”

“At least you have that, here,” Wing said, leaning forward, optics gold and intense. Beautiful, Springarm thought, the way the optics burned, the mouth quivered, nearly alive. 

“Yes,” he said.  “But I don’t have Wheelarch.”  The words hurt to say, and in a way he wanted it that way.  Right or wrong, he didn’t want to forget.  

A gentle touch, the smallest finger of Wing’s hand brushing his arm, offering a comfort the jet wasn’t sure was wanted. Springarm turned his hand over, welcoming the touch.  Comfort, honestly given, was always wanted. 

“I am sorry.” The Swordless back bent forward, wingpanels sliding together, susurrus and quiet.

“I am, too.”  Springarm gave an apologetic shrug. “But he would be unhappy here.  He was much too…vivacious.” A smile at the gouached rush of memories: Wheelarch’s boisterous smile, his spontaneous touches, his noise and enthusiasm.  And he knew the loss was written on his face; he could feel Wing’s empathy, the jet’s own loss, own sorrow, rising to meet his.

“Are you? …happy, I mean?”

Springarm  curled his palm around Wing’s hand.  Just the question he’d wanted. The skill had never left him, from his Security days.  “Yes,” he said, lifting his head, catching the amber gaze and holding it. “It’s not the happiness I would have chosen, but sometimes, fate chooses more wisely than we do.” 

“Fate…seems unkind.” 

Springarm’s optics glittered, tilting his . “A sword can be used to protect and harm, Wing. Our intent is what matters. Always.” One of the hearts of the Circle’s Creed and he saw the flash of recognition of the words on the other’s face.

Wing was silent for a long moment, watching his fingers weaving between Springarm’s. “I want to help.” His mouth set itself in a flat line. “I don’t want anyone to suffer—“ He cut himself off

“Then why let yourself suffer?”

The gold optics flared, startled.  “I…I’m unimportant.”

“That’s not true, Wing.” Springarm felt a lopsided smile curl over his face, one-sided, a twinned spark missing its other half. “You’re a Knight. You’re one of us.”

The optic shutters blinked, rapidly, the hand almost clutching at his, wanting to summon some refutation, but at a loss.

“When I first…arrived,” so much in that word, a story without agency, that he let hang between them for a klik, “I found some solace in racing. Marker after marker, just speed, just motion.” The memory was still strong: he’d thought he was fleeing his past, when really he’d merely been racing toward his future. “I could show you.”

The grip in his lost its desperation, and the gold optics glowed for the first time with some faint flicker of an honest smile. Springarm couldn't guess if that was what the mech's smile had looked like before, when he had been...whoever he had been before Altihex's fall. But it was a wobbly, newborn smile, that illuminated Wing like a sparkglow, the way Springarm felt when he saw the Matrix itself. “I’d like that.”

Comments

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

*wibbles* omg, I love this AU of yours... ;_;