shadow_vector | Buying Rights

NC-17
IDW prewar
Perceptor/Drift
sticky, virginity, prostitution, angst
for

ravynfyre who really needs more than a stupid story right now. Sadly, it's all I can offer. ;_;

Perceptor was beginning to have doubts about the solidity of this idea. It had seemed so…sensible, a few cycles ago, when the taunting had stung him deeply. So he had never interfaced. The solution seemed simple: find someone. A clear, simple transaction, right? That way he could focus on the mechanics, without the fear and delay of building some sort of emotional attachment.

Which he wasn’ t sure was even feasible. Who would possibly…want to with him?

So this had seemed entirely reasonable, all the way down the tramways to the Red Zone. Even into the Zone itself. His resolve had lasted, in fact, until the first buymech had leered up to him, stroking a hand down his arm. Even that touch was more than Perceptor had had before: he’d stiffened, squeaking. And felt, if he were honest, vaguely disgusted by the leer over the tri-waved chassis. He’d pulled away, feeling his resolve shatter into something like fear.

The Red Zone suddenly seemed terrifying, strange smells and everyone was too close together and there was a strange tension in the air, some air of emotion like a thick fog that seemed to clot the atmosphere.

No. Bad idea. This was stupid.

He tried to push through the crowd, but he got turned around: he couldn’t remember which archway led to the grav tram he’d taken.

He clutched his hands together, looking frantically around the vaulted intersection. Mechs pressed around him, bumping into him, staring at him, leering.

A hand on his elbow, not sliding up like before but firm, almost neutral. He whirled, seeing another mech, the three waves of a working buymech on his chassis. The red optics tilted toward one of the corridors. “You came in that way.”

“Th-thank you.”

A grunt, almost lost in the murmur of the crowd, the buy/sell patter of the trade. “Take you there.” A tug on his arm, and he found himself pulled along. The buymech sliced through the crowd with a hip-twisting ease of long practice, Perceptor in his wake until the crowd thinned in the corridor. “No place for you,” the mech said, after a measuring look.

“I…know.” Perceptor drooped. They were right, at the lab. He was doomed to be intact, factory sealed, forever. “I just thought. I mean…I wanted…,” and suddenly he was acutely aware of the three parallel lines on the other’s chassis, the other’s fingers in his elbow join. He felt his facial plates heat.

“You wanted….”

“Uh. What….mechs want…who come here.”

A pause, considering. “Ten.”

“Ten?”

“Ten credits.” The mech cocked his head. “A good price.”

Perceptor realized he actually had no idea if that was true or not. But the mech had pulled him out of there. And he didn’t seem quite as…pushy. Ten credits was the price of a decent meal, he thought, and the thought struck him with force. Was the mech…that hungry? What would it take for him to sell himself for the price of a meal? “Yes,” he heard himself blurt. “If you share a meal with me first.”

The optics tilted, perplexed, before the other mech shrugged. “Whatever’s your thing.”

My…thing. “Perceptor,” he offered, holding out his hand. That’s how you completed a deal, right?

The other mech stared at his hand for a long moment before taking it with his own. “….Drift.”

[***]

He had no idea what to do, so he took Drift to a diner near his quarters. The mech had followed him, silently, refusing to walk beside him, and had trailed him into the diner, taking a seat gingerly, as though expecting at any moment to be asked to leave.

Perceptor felt self-conscious. He wasn’t good at small talk to begin with and the situation was just impossibly awkward. “I come here a lot,” he said, lamely.

Drift nodded, blandly, his optics never leaving the table. “Nice place.” There was a long silence, and then he added, “Quiet, at least.”

Perceptor leapt at the opening. “Yes. It’s quite nice to come here on my days off and catch up on journals.”

“Journals.” A flicker of interest.

“Science. I’m a scientist. I specialize in metallurgy and chemical engineering.” It was on the top of his vocalize to ask what Drift did. He barely quashed it, his mouth snapping shut, and he was grateful for the sudden arrival of the waitron.

The waitron stared, noting the triwaves on Drift’s chassis: Drift glowered back, hunching sullenly on the seat, staring at the menu.

Perceptor gave his order—what he usually had.

Drift jerked his chin at Perceptor. “What he’s having. I guess.”

The waitron sniffed, before retrieving the menus and turning back to the bar.

“I’m sorry,” Perceptor said.

“For what?”

“I didn’t mean to bring you some place uncomfortable.”

Drift shrugged. “Not your fault.”

“I just…I’m sorry.”

Another shrug, somehow even more uncomfortable, but if Drift had planned to say anything else, it was cut off by the waitron’s return, placing two glasses of Perceptor’s favorite energon blend, warmed, before them.

Perceptor took a sip, burying himself in the comfort of the familiar.

Drift followed suit, taking a cautious mouthful, seeming to pause and roll it around his mouth. He sighed, and Perceptor saw a palpable shiver run through the other’s frame.

“Is it…all right?”

Drift nodded. “Fine. It’s…really good.” He seemed surprised.

“Thank you. It’s my favorite. You could have ordered something else, though.”

A wry smile quirked over the other’s mouth and Perceptor was struck, suddenly, by the thought that if he wanted to, Drift could be…quite a striking mech. “Don’t know what to order. What we get? We’re just glad to get it. Any of it.” The smile faded, the optics dropping to his glass. Then back up. “Don’t say you’re sorry.”

Perceptor choked on the syllable in his vocalizer. “I—I am glad you allowed me to treat you.”

The red optics studied his face for a long moment. “Whatever you want. You’re paying.”

“I am.” The idea still felt strange, clumsy. He stared at his glass. “And…,” he said quietly, “I want you to enjoy yourself.”

He didn’t dare look, but he caught a flare of some unreadable emotion cross the other’s face.

[***]

“Here,” Perceptor said, pushing the door to his quarters open, letting Drift go ahead of him. “It’s not much, I’m afraid.”

A snort of something that might have been a laugh. “More than I have,” Drift said. And then stopped, looking around. Perceptor stepped in behind him, trying to see his quarters through the gaze of someone who didn’t have a home. It had never really occurred to Perceptor what it would be like to have nothing. And he felt a little sick, and more than a little guilty, that he’d never even thought of it before.

Drift wandered over to his vidscreen, tipping his head back to take it all in.

“We can watch something, if you’d like?” Perceptor felt suddenly nervous—half afraid, and half bold. He’d brought a stranger home, to his own quarters. A stranger he had paid for.

The mech turned, and in the lowlight the three stripes of his buy mark were almost invisible. Almost as if he were just a mech.

He was just a mech, Perceptor thought, firmly. In the fairest way—an equal. Not a possession.

Drift’s face was unreadable—that flat expression Perceptor was already expecting was merely a mask. “That what you want?”

“I told you,” Perceptor smiled. “I want you to have a good time.” Perceptor cued up the vidscreen. It was a nature program—xenobiology of another system, full of lush, blue-leaved plants spread under a green sky.

Drift just…stared, stepping back from the vidscreen.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Perceptor said, stepping next to him. “I always wanted to explore. Sometimes I regret having a lab job: every day, the same things, the same setting. We make important discoveries, yes, but sometimes…,” he frowned, and felt Drift’s gaze on him, silent, waiting. “…sometimes I think I want to be anyone other than I am.”

He felt an ache over his spark, something he hadn’t even dare articulate to himself, a truth so deep it hurt: he was…boring. His life was boring, a small circuit between a diner, a job, and a spartan apartment. He never went anywhere. He never did anything. He was…small. And the world was so much larger. Even Cybertron, so much larger. Until today, he honestly, stupidly, hadn’t considered that mechs like Drift existed, or wondered what their lives were like.

“Yeah.” Agreement, complete and utter, and for a moment the two stood there, played over by the soft colored lights from the vidscreen.

Drift stepped back, moving toward the inner door. “Berth’s in here, right?”

The connection between them seemed to shatter, and Perceptor wasn’t sure if he was grateful for it or not. “Yes. Why…?”

Drift grunted, hitting the door release. “What you paid for, isn’t it?”

Oh. That. The energon in his tank seemed to bubble with nervousness. “We…don’t have to.”

The optics narrowed. “Change your mind?”

“I….uh….,” he hadn’t. He just hadn’t thought about the whole thing: Drift had gone from being a buymech to a mech to him. “I’ve never done this before!” he blurted, helplessly.

A snort. “Figured that out back in the Red Zone,” Drift said. He stepped forward, taking Perceptor’s wrist, leading him into the berthroom. He took in the room at a quick glance, twisting his wrist to get Perceptor before him. “You want to or not?”

Perceptor felt a shiver travel over his whole frame. Drift was…awfully close to him, EM field against his. He felt painfully aware of a tight tingling in his interface array. He was here. He was offering.

Perceptor managed a nod.

Drift pushed him back, knees against the berth, guiding him until he lay on his back on his berth. How many nights had he lain here? How familiar was this ceiling, these walls, this cool metal beneath him? But this time, he wasn’t alone: Drift stretched himself next to him, hooking his ankle around Perceptor’s foot, hands stroking over Perceptor’s red chassis.

The shiver changed to a rushing wash of sensation over his body: circuits flooded with electrons, capacitors spilling over in waves of current. It felt…magnificent, every inch of his body awake, alive, longing for the next touch.

He cycled a breath, but before he could move one hand to try and reciprocate, Drift slithered down his frame, mouthplates forming a hot presence over his black pelvic span.

He gasped, his interface equipment pinging online. His spike could almost measure the distance between Drift’s mouth and itself, straining for contact.

Drift looked up at him, the orange-red optics nearly smoldering up his chassis, as he undid Perceptor’s interface hatch with one deft hand.

Perceptor felt his spike surge, the housing clicking open, and then the warm compression as Drift took it into his mouth.

Perceptor’s spike had never been in…anything. He scarcely dared to vent, his entire attention riveted to the exquisite pulling and flicking over his spike. His hands curled uselessly on the berth. A keening whimper escaped his vocalizer, his hip gyros twisting into the sensations.

Drift’s optics shuttered, concentrating, his glossa sliding over nodes, his lipplates squeezing and sucking the spike’s girth. He knew what he was doing, and a mech with more experience than Perceptor might have lasted longer. Perceptor barely had time to gasp a warning before he felt the tightness building in his interface array spill over, a scalding rush down his spike’s channels.

Drift stopped, one palm spread on Perceptor’s narrow thigh, slowing his movements, his glossa riding slowly, coaxingly, along the underside of the spike, swallowing the flood of transfluid.

Perceptor was silent for a long moment, letting pleasure, hot and electric, course through him, singing along his circuitry, pushing him into bliss. So this, he thought, was interfacing. He could see the appeal. Very much.

Only.

It was one sided.

“Drift.” He reached, hooking his hands under the other’s arms, pulling him up. “I want you.” He faltered, any expression he could think of being either too technical or too vulgar. He curled his hips up, his interface array sliding over Drift’s pelvic arch, inviting, begging.

Drift shot him another of those mysterious looks. He was so unreadable to Perceptor, but he seemed able to read Perceptor clearly—he reached between them, releasing his equipment and a moment later, Perceptor felt the alien presence against his valve’s rim. His fingers clutched into the shoulders, mouth shaping a surprised syllable, as Drift edged himself inside, the spike spreading the pleated lining, the calipers new and tight. Drift seated his spike, rim against rim, hands braced on the berth before he began, slowly, almost gently, rocking against Perceptor.

It was like the spike, but even more intense—the feeling of someone else inside you, someone touching things you’d never been aware of before, as they crackled to life from the friction. Everything seemed to move strangely, his own body new and mysterious, the valve fluttering and quivering around the other’s spike.

He wanted to kiss Drift, his lips aching for contact, but the other mech stayed propped on his arms, distant, though watching. Monitoring, it seemed, and Perceptor wondered what he looked like, like this—splayed out, desirable like the characters in the soapvids he loved, or some ghastly parody, someone so unsuited for this that the only way he could get it was to pay for it.

The slide of the spike against him became more insistent, a little faster, more forceful, sweeping those thoughts away, and then changed again, thrusting in hard, withdrawing slowly. Drift knew far more what he was doing than Perceptor did, who could do nothing other than to lie, helpless, washed over by the resonating waves of pleasure and desire and want.

It crested over him, suddenly, his hands clawing at the spaulders, valve seeming to grip like a fist against the spike which jumped inside him. And he felt the flood of transfluid from the other side this time, hot liquid washing over his sensitized valve lining, the sensation tingling, and inexpressibly delicious.

He shuddered, his whole body wracking with pleasure and then limp, drained, against the berth.

“Thank you,” he murmured, still half-blissed.

Drift’s face twitched. He wasn’t, apparently, used to any sort of gratitude.

“Please?” Perceptor tugged against the backs of the other’s arms, pulling him down against him. Drift complied, lowering himself slowly, spike still lodged in Perceptor’s body. “You were wonderful,” Perceptor murmured. He still wanted a kiss, but Drift had turned, tucking his head against Perceptor’s shoulder.

A snort. “Adequate.”

Perceptor shook his head. “You were wonderful. I’m glad you were my first.”

Drift went rigid in his arms, pushing back enough to turn, meeting his gaze. “Your…first.”

“Yes. I…never interfaced.” He blinked rapidly. Why did Drift look so upset? Was he wrong? Did he think Perceptor was lying? “I told you. I’d never done this before.”

“I thought you meant—!” Drift pushed off him, abruptly, spike jerking from the valve. He looked…horrified somehow. “I thought you meant with me, with this!” He thumped a hand on his chassis, next to his buymark. “Not…at all!”

“Drift!” Perceptor scrambled to sit up, twitching as the transfluid leaked from his valve. “Please. I didn’t know. I thought…it’s the only way I’d ever be able to.” Another shameful admission, raw and honest, on his face.

The optics raked his face. “No. It’s not. You’ve got a job. Money. A place. You’re…,” Drift nearly flinched away, “…nice. You could do better. You should have done better.” He seemed almost angry as he swiped a hand over his interface equipment, shoving it back into its housing.

Drift spun, off the berth and in an instant he was by the door.

“Drift!” Perceptor was desperate to keep the mech here, keep him talking. He’d told Drift things he’d never told anyone, barely dared admit to himself. He’d…enjoyed the other’s company. He wanted to know Drift better. But he couldn’t find a way to say any of that. Instead, he blurted, “I haven’t paid you yet!”

He realized, instantly, it was the wrong thing to say. Of all the things he could have said, it was the worst, the one that erected the largest, most impenetrable wall between them.

Drift’s hurt anger blazed hotter, the red optics flaring. “I don’t want your money,” he said. “Not for that.” He strode through, and a few kliks later, Perceptor heard the whoosh of his exterior door opening, then closing.

Drift was gone, and he sat, in his berth, body still tingling from pleasure, from the sweet ache of his lost virginity, his spark burning with regret.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

pl2363.livejournal.com

Wow, that was so sad and very well written. <33

kaekokat14.livejournal.com

Oh how lovely would this 'past' be when they meet again in the future, I would love to see Percy and Drift get shoved in a intimate situation, and realize who each other is finally. That would be flippin' epic.