Speed and Status part 12

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
IDW
Blurr, Drift, Kup

“Having fun?”  Blurr gave a winner’s smile as he sat down on the washrack bench, before turning to idly sweep a rag up the elegant lines of his lower legs, the housings over the powerful pistons.

A tilt of the white helm, uncomprehending.  “Rather be fighting,” he said, cautiously.  It was true. This sitting around waiting for a mission was tedious enough, without the tension among he and Perceptor and Blurr that has thickened and roughened the air between them.  Too much energy, swirling around, currents he couldn’t read or control. They needed to be directed at an enemy, unifying them against something they could work together against.

Drift was…tired. That was it.  Tired of trying to navigate an emotional maze knowing how blunt and awkward he was, tired of standing on the brink of wincing with every word, every step. 

A cocky shrug. “Told you he was boring, Drift.”  Blurr leaned in, giving a teasing swipe with his rag over Drift’s forearm.

Drift frowned. “Not that.”  He didn’t want to talk about Perceptor.  It seemed everywhere he went, his interfacing partners, his relationship issues, seemed to fill the air, like a sour stink of old transfluid.  He was getting tired of that.  Exhausted, worn down as thousands of years of war had never worn at him.

“You know I’m always available,” Blurr winked.  “And I can even be convinced to forgive you.”  The rag swept down, the end flicking over the white pelvic span.  “Or at least,” he purred, “it’d be fun to try, right?” 

 

[***]

Drift tossed on his berth.  Childish, he thought, optics flicking to where he’d braced his Great Sword across the door, some heavy-handed symbolic reminder to keep him here, keep him in his quarters. Keep him in here, with the sword and all it stood for, and Perceptor and Blurr and all the messy complications out.  

If only it worked.

He flopped onto his side, turning his back to the door, as if he could make it go away.  He still stung from the other’s rejection, hating that he’d pushed it, hating that he’d needed it to begin with. How selfish could he be? How awful, forcing his desires, his twisted needs, onto the other mech. 

His body was a tight curl that tried to shut out the world, same way, in the gutters, he’d tried to make the ugliness, the darkness, the smell go away.  But all his sullen will, all his hard resolve, did nothing against this, because he knew, deep down, that this was his fault, this knot of tension and emotion was entirely his responsibility.

This is what you get for trying, Drift.  Relationships, emotions, love? This stuff isn’t for you. Like the beautiful polishes and luxurious meals you’d glimpse on holovids, or on the upper class mechs slumming in the Red Zone.  Not for him.  Never. 

And here’s why.  You can’t handle it. 

A soft chime at his door. 

Drift stilled, trying to make himself…not exist, calm his engines, damp his EM field.  Not here not here noone’s here.  A coward’s trick, a guttermech’s trick. No prey here.  Nothing, just emptiness.   Emptiness which had stirred up so much rancor among what was once a functioning team.

Nothing here. No one. 

Another chime, and then a voice, as if he had any doubt: Perceptor’s quiet tone, “Drift?”  Coming to you, despite your vile selfishness.

 A hesitation, as if the mech on the other side of the door had done the same—trying to make himself smaller, invisible, withdrawing back into himself. 

And then nothing, a series of footsteps leaving Drift behind, leaving him with the shattered promise he’d made in ruins, stained by his cowardice, his inability, and he was left alone, utterly alone.

As he deserved.

 

[***]

Drift slunk to the refectory late into recharge cycle, padding past the other quarters like a thief, audios searching in the dark velvet of the humming ship around him.  He drew a ration, gulping it quickly, the way he had for ages, sucking down fuel before a battle, intent only on the upcoming, not the now.  The way a Decepticon fueled, or a guttermech; not the way an Autobot did—leisurely, looking around, spacing it with conversation.  No one to talk to, even if he did trust himself with words.

“Beginning to think you were a ghost, Drift.” The voice behind him startled him, shoulders flinching, bruising his mouth with the cube.

Beginning to wish I was, he thought.  “I’m here, Kup,” he said, softly, trusting himself only to facts.

 “So I noticed.” 

Drift turned around, slowly, lowering the cube. “I don’t belong here.” 

“What? In the ship?  In the chow hall?” Kup gave a sort of grin, deliberately misunderstanding.

“Here.  The Wreckers. The Autobots.”  

“Says who? ‘Cause I say you’re just fine.”

Drift shook his head.  “Messing things up since I got here.”

A tip of the battered green helm. “And by ‘things’, you mean your love life.”

The phrase rocked Drift back for a klik: ‘love’ life was hardly what he’d call it.  “That…whole thing. Yes.”

“Son. Lemme tell you something.  Wreckers thrive on conflict. We turn everything into a no-holds-barred, high stakes game. Everything.  You shoulda seen the time the twins had a drunken contest to see who could vomit the farthest.”  He pulled a face. “Okay, maybe shouldn’t have seen that. But you get the point.  Conflict. It’s what we do.”

Drift shook his head. “It’s not. Not in this case.”  If it were, he could handle it.  But one look in Perceptor’s optics, one brush against Blurr’s almost angrily possessive EM, told him otherwise. This wasn’t fighting for fun. 

Kup rolled his optics, moving to hook a chair with his ankle and drop down into it.  He gestured across the table at the other seat.  “Want to talk about it?” 

Drift hesitated, weight shifting forward, but not quite committing to the move. “Not really.”

A bark of laughter, and Drift winced, thinking how the sound must echo up the corridor and who—sleepless—might hear it.  “You gonna make me pull rank, then?”  Another point at the chair.

Drift lowered himself down, gingerly, almost as if he expected the chair to break under him.  

“So.”  Kup grinned. 

Drift stared for a long moment at the cube still in his hands.  “Ruining everything,” he murmured.  He raised the cube to his mouth, tossing the rest of it down.

“Only thing you’re ruining is some nice fuel by suckin’ it down like that,” Kup said.

Drift frowned, setting the cube down. 

“Little more precision, Drift. What are you ‘ruining’?”

Drift’s optics studied the cube, as though it were fascinating, as though in its pink dregs he could find some truth.  “Blurr. Perceptor.”  He knew that was an inadequate answer, even to his own thinking.  “Perceptor wants more than I can give.  Blurr…I don’t know what he wants.  Thought he just wanted no commitments.”  That he could have handled. But he’d become some pawn in a game he didn’t even know the rules of.

Kup gave a sage nod. “Nothin’ Blurr wants is that easy, though.” 

I was, Drift thought, sourly. Fell right into it.  “They’re at each other’s throats over…me.” He shook his head. It sounded ridiculous, something from a holovid advertisement he’d seen. And he knew—knew with every ion in his circuitry—that he was no romantic hero.  Case in point: how thoroughly he’d managed to destroy this. 

“Know what I’m not hearing?”  Kup reached into his storage for one of his cy-gars, clamping it in his mouth before continuing. “Not hearing what you want out of this.”

That threw him, and he rocked back on the chair’s hard edge for a moment.  “Don’t want anything,” he said, but it was a reflex, an instinct, millions of years of defense.

“Not buyin’ that slag, Drift.  Neither are you.”  A pointed look.  He pointed at Drift with the cy-gar.  “Problem is, you’re too busy worrying about what others want.  Can’t make everyone happy.”  His optics softened, as though this knowledge was hard won in his own life. “You’ll just kill yourself trying.  What you need to do,” another jab with the cy-gar, “is figure out what you want. “ He grinned. “You don’t look like a mech who’s used to not knowing.”

“…new territory for me,” Drift admitted, quietly.  His body and his spark were pulling him in different directions, and everyone around him was getting caught in the backdraft.

“Figured.”  Kup grinned, sitting back, chomping on the cy-gar.  “Truth is, son, we’re Wreckers. We’re survivors. Ain’t nothin’ you can do is gonna break us.” He gave a nod and something almost like a wink. “Now, stop tearin’ yourself up about it.” 

Drift nodded, bowing his helm over his cube.  “You’re right.”

Another bark of laughter. “Always am. Just ask Springer.”  Kup rolled a shoulder,  before pushing to his feet.  “You think on that, now. I gotta go deal with this cargo drop comin’ in in three cycles.”  He winked. “Keep all the privileges for the old timers, right?”

Comments

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

!

I love Kup's practicality and direct way of looking at the whole problem, and I really hope Drift thinks about what Kup told him.

The rest is gorgeous wallowing in angst, and I love how you write it.

[wind-on-wave.livejournal.com]

Oh, new chapter *____*
poor entangled Drift - he really does'nt know, how to behave himself -.=
but i hope Kap's advica will help him... somehow.
and Blurr is awesome asshole. Bu. He is incorrigible.

(sorry for bad engligh -_-'

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

....Kup as Ann Landers. OMG, that's so.... AWESOME!

Actually, he'd probably be a lot more like one of the advice columnists in Playboy or something, but, still... That's fabulous!

Poor Drift. I want to hug him. Perceptor needs to get his head out of his ass and quit being so selfish. Blurr needs to die in a fire. heh. That's my OTP talking, though. I hope Drift works things out for himself, though, so he can be... if not happy, at least more settled and content.

[acidgreenflames.livejournal.com]

I am loving this story more and more. I really liked how you showed us a little in site to Drift's thought process and a little of what it was like in the gutters for him.

Oh Kup, you are fantastic. Reminds me of an old mother hen tending to his chicks XD

loved it!