Relay

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW
Jetfire/Sixshot 
for tf_rare_pairing March Rumi Challenge: 

Jetfire twitched, one hand moving to close the cover of the crate quickly, before anyone else might see. Not that anyone was looking. Not that anyone cared. He felt his fuel pump hammer against his chassis, that mix of fear and arousal that always said ‘Sixshot’ to him. 

“Something wrong?” Lightspeed looked over from where he was calibrating one of the crystal cutters. 

“No,” Jetfire said, almost too quickly. “Just thought I forgot something.” He managed a smile. Sometimes, the reputation for being a little absent-minded could be useful.  He picked up the crate, turning so that the broad span of his wings were between him and the others, opening the crate again, surreptitiously pocketing the small device that had been planted on top of the Regenesis sample crystals.  They’d begun using remote survey scoops to collect the samples, and he and Sixshot had taken to using them as occasional message points: cryptic scratches on the packing crates, listing times, dates, and sometimes, just the message that one had been there, and had been thinking of the other.

He snatched a pair of gloves off their hooks, jamming his hands in them. A weak cover story, but he had to make his mumbled excuse plausible and no one would argue with caution when handling these crystals. Not after what they'd done to Kup. 

The device seemed to burn in his storage compartment, but he forced himself to finish the assay, putting the crystal samples through their battery of tests: a chromatoscan, ultraviolet fluorescence, acidic contact, the entire range. In a way he enjoyed the wait, the anticipation, knowing he had something to look forward to. Science was his first love, cool and constant and faithful, but this was something fiery and dangerous, and there was part of Jetfire, long suppressed, that wanted that, too, that simply couldn’t choose.

He drew it out, logging all of the results, until it was just he in the lab, Lightspeed and Nosecone retiring to the rec room. And the Calabi Yau hummed around him in the thick silence of ship nightcycle. 

Jetfire reached into his storage, pulling out the dark grey shape, just a little too regular to be a chunk of crystal. His fingers found the small hatch, opening it to withdraw the datapin.  He had a reader here in the lab, the large screen console, but it was always more intimate, more sensual, to slot it into the dataport in his arm, knowing it had come from Sixshot’s arm the same way.  It was pitiful, perhaps, this distant, proxy contact, but he allowed himself the small pleasure.

The message was brief, Sixshot’s usual brusque style, giving a time coordinate and then a short “You said you wanted to watch sometime.” And that was all.

He replayed the message a dozen times, letting the timbre of Sixshot’s  voice roll the series of numbers into a warm melody over his sensornet, holding the sound in his body like an exquisite vibration, a fine, cherished vintage.  The time could not come soon enough.

[***]

It wasn’t hard to make an excuse: the others accepted his explanation of needing some maintenance downtime without flicking an optic shutter. They were probably, he thought, locking the door to his quarters, glad for the break. He did drive them too hard sometimes, letting his own ethic dictate their schedules.

Without Sixshot, though, he found the cycles stretched, filled with longing, and science, his first love, became that too-noble partner he curled around for solace when his lover was gone, his intellectual solace when his physical desires ached too much. 

He settled onto the berth, pulling the device—the remote sensor relay—from his storage, and slotted it into his own relays, entering the access code.

His world seemed to expand, and his broad wings hit the berth’s surface as the sensor relay activated. 

//Jetfire.// That voice, real and strong, which made the voice on the recording he had fawned over seem weak and thin. 

//Sixshot.// Two words. Simple words, just names, but they held so much. 

//Ready?//

//Yes.//

Jetfire pushed everything aside, all his thoughts, all his reasons, as Sixshot moved.  He could feel, see, the cold of space as Sixshot dove from his ship, then the growing shield of heat of atmospheric entry, speed and moisture chemicals burning against Sixshot’s heavy armor. The sharp plummet—almost an assault itself—was exhilarating and familiar: Jetfire knew atmosphere himself, the rush of speed, the almost daring heat on one’s armor.

But this, he didn’t know: the alien motions of transformation, Sixshot dropping from his ship alt to his bipedal mode,

 He felt what it was like to move in those heavy limbs, the strange, fast grace, slicing through sky, to uncoil, landing on graceful feet to gallop, claws tearing up great gouts of ground.  The jolting of the ground traveled up the arms, absorbed in the powerful shoulders, energy turned into a sinuous wave, traveling down the supple spine, before he leapt up, rocketing up a cliff-face, and dropping from a barrel roll into a tank mode.

It was faster than he could process—he couldn’t think, couldn’t analyze, only feel the thousands of calculations of balance and thrust, the well-oiled slide of transformation plates.  He felt violence, like a second skin, burning and shifting around him, the fire of weapons like the steady throb of a fuel pump, the dark pulsating core of the fission cell of his spark chamber. 

It was…beautiful.  It was magnificent and powerful and something unleashed, untamed and wild. It was brutal and free and something beyond the comprehension of science and Jetfire felt himself swept up in it, frothing with its wildness.

It was over almost…too soon, and Jetfire hated to think what that meant: a city destroyed, thousands of lives lost, shattered, infrastructure damaged beyond repair, ground blasted beyond use. Ruin, utter and total. And it should have been hideous, and he should have felt regret for all the loss, the pain, the destruction.

Instead, he felt a quiet, tremulous awe. That one mech could do all of this, one mech could do so much, have such an impact.  It was a testament to the power of their species, unconstrained, atavistic yet noble—a warning and a glory too intertangled to ever be sorted.

He felt a huff of satisfaction, Sixshot over him, around him, through the relay rising to his feet, guns trained warily on the city from the small promontory. 

A long hesitation, the city burning below Sixshot’s feet, red and orange and black, fury transferred, unleashed upon the horizon.

//So.// Sixshot’s voice, still flat and calm, through the hot crackle of the flames around him. 

//So,// Jetfire said, swimming in the dual awareness, on the threshold—with Sixshot and still on the Calabi Yau, still and moving, powerful and weak, violence and peace.  Right and wrong could not touch this, this intimacy beyond morals, beyond faction, beyond everything but the sheer vulnerability and power, openness and release.  It was all he needed to say. 

Comments

[acidgreenflames.livejournal.com]

I thoroughly enjoyed this! So beautiful and well written!

[mieka-writes.livejournal.com]

whoa...

those two make such an interesting pair....

[wicked3659.livejournal.com]

I truly love the way you write these two. I get completely sucked into their world, their emotions, their obvious need for each other. It's nice to get lost in a fic like that.

This was a really clever the way you had them connected and the shared experience they had and what it really meant to them. Very nicely done indeed!

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's amazing. The emotions and the descriptions and the connection between them...breath-takingly beautiful.

[nan00kwrites.livejournal.com]

As usual, I absolutely adore this pairing. You've got me utterly addicted to the angst and beauty of their relationship. Great job!

[okkkkay.livejournal.com]

I have both the "this is so unreal" and the "this is how love goes" feels at the same time, and they're equally strong. Well written, very very well written. Thank you!