Mabaya 24 Hiding and Hesitation

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW Mabaya AU
Drift/Deadlock, Perceptor, Turmoil
no warnings

Deadlock knelt on the floor of his quarters, the whetstone’s rhythm filling his attention—the sound of it, the feel of the smooth rasp against metal, the slow revealing of the silver edge, the smell of sparks and shavings.  It was the only thing that soothed him, now, and touching the blade was like touching Wing, touching that memory, that phantasm of a dream.

That’s all it had been. A hopeful dream.  Wing was dead.  You saw him. Wing was gone and you’re gone. If he were here he’d turn his back on you in disgust, wish he’d never known you.

I wish I’d never known him. 

No.  Wing was…the touchstone of everything.  

He ruined everything. I knew who I was, what I wanted, before him.

Another schuss down the blade, echoed by a sigh from Deadlock’s vents. If I was so weak that one mech could topple that…. 

Disarrange.  And Turmoil knows you. Turmoil’s putting you back together. Reminding you who you are.

In his image. In what he wants me to be.

The whetstone stilled in his hand, his systems roiling with emotion.  He wanted to do. He wasn’t a thinker, a philosopher. He wasn’t made for this.

You weren’t made for anything. Useless. Scrap. Surplus.  Every part—or just about—salvaged or stolen. That’s who ‘Drift’ is. Patchwork, mosaic.  Lumps and chunk of others pretending to be whole.  That’s what you are.  That’s who you are.

‘Don’t leave yourself’.  The…hallucination’s last words floated back to him, thin, gauzy, insubstantial and yet unbroken. Don’t leave yourself.  Wing had believed in Drift. In one Drift, at least, one fragment in all that twisted mass.  And that fragment had been beautiful and strong, and sustained him.

So he’d thought. So he’d hoped.

His other hand tightened on the blade, strong enough that he felt the edge bite into the metal of his fingers.  Weak.  Always had been.  He’d just hidden it so well.

The door behind him opened.  He forced himself not to move, not to shift.

“Busy?” Turmoil’s voice floating over him, catching at him like a net. 

“No.” Not a lie.  Not the truth. He couldn’t even narrow down to one, there, either.

“Ah,” Turmoil said, stepping closer, letting his shadow fall over Deadlock’s  white shoulder. “Your sword.” 

“Yes.”  The less said, the better.  He could try to coalesce around monosyllables. 

“It comforts you.” 

Deadlock forced the tremor from his shoulders.  Too close. Physically, emotionally. Turmoil was always too close.  “Metal,” he murmured. “Just dumb metal.”   If only it could comfort him. If only. 

Turmoil hung over him for another long moment, enough that his wry doubt filtered down through the air.  “Come with me,” Turmoil said, abruptly.  Deadlock frowned at the tone.  Like a possession, he thought, like he owns me. 

He does.

No.

“Where?” 

“Does it matter?” A hint of amusement.

Deadlock’s optics shuttered closed for a moment, trying to block out reality. “No.” He rolled to his feet, hands placing the sword in its brackets with long practiced ease.  He felt, as much as saw, Turmoil take in the gesture, a sign of difference, distance, change between them.  He stood, numbly, a glower kindling in his optics. Resentment at Turmoil for calling attention to his hollowness; resentment at himself for being so hollow.

“You won’t need that where we’re going,” Turmoil tipped his chin at the Great Sword, cresting over Deadlock’s helm. 

Deadlock shrugged, his one resistance.  His sword.  Inert or not, silent or not, dumb metal or not, it was his. Turmoil had stripped away, already, so much. He would not let this go.

It wasn’t much, he consoled himself, as Turmoil quirked his helm, turning  and gesturing Deadlock to follow him. It wasn’t much, but perhaps it was a start.

[***]

It had taken…decacycles, each klik an eternity too long. It seemed strange that time seemed to crawl, agonized, even more slowly after Perceptor had decided on a plan than when he had drifted aimlessly, just floating in a sea of worry about Drift.

Drift.  His spark seemed to burn colder at the name, refusing to believe, despite the evidence.

No. Deadlock had turned away. If Drift, if every trace of Drift had been truly eradicated, Deadlock would have stood his ground, laughed, mocked me.  He would not have turned, his face such a mask of stiff horror.  Drift.  I will…I will never call him Deadlock. I will never believe that. 

But, he and Turmoil, writhing together like serpents, his body heaving and twisting with black ecstasy.  Drift would not…could not…?  But he had.  Perceptor had seen it.

Turmoil had made sure.

Perceptor’s hands stilled on the detonator he was cobbling together.  It had taken ages, it seemed, but his single-minded focus had numbed the guards, to where they found his want to spend every moment not in recharge working through boxes of damaged components, his optics shifted to microscopy repairing the infinitesimal integrated circuits,  testing resistance, capacitance, everything as though electricity were a metaphor, almost amusing.  Certainly non-threatening. Their tame little Autobot.

“Guess you don’t have much else to look forward to,” one had murmured, shifting another box of damaged parts onto his workbench.  And Perceptor realized he’d meant it…as a kindness.  And for a moment his spark had ached—that these mechs were all so damaged that even sympathy, even mercy and understanding, came out twisted, wrong, charred. 

“No,” he’d agreed.  And the moment of connection passed.  He could not save everyone. He was likely not going to be able to save himself.

Acceptable losses. If it took out the Mabaya, if it took out Turmoil, no price was too high. If it ended…this.

Not true: Drift was too high a price, if Drift was alive.

Perceptor ground his optic shutters together.  Doubt.  In that slim word ‘if’. So much doubt. And scientists did not like doubt, uncertainty.  He wanted surety, not speculation.

He looked up, the room almost gaping in silence.  He had to know.  What was one day more? Everything, nothing?

It didn’t matter. He had to know.

 

Comments

[eerian_sadow]

from the outside, the tension here is so thick you can cut it with a spoon but the characters are so unaware of it! it's awesome!

oh, i ache for them though.

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

Eerian said it, you just ache for them both. And even the guards, that one little moment where Perceptor realizes they're trying to be...kind, sort of. Your writing has such a deft touch to it, through all these emotions and shifts of thought. Kind of reminds me of flying in a little twin engine airplane with my Grandpa - always knew I was in very good hands :)