Other Ways of Healing

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
IDW MTMTE
Drift, First Aid
h/c, spoilers for MTMTE 4
for hc_bingo prompt ‘severe/life-threatening illness’  I was actually puzzling over what to do with this prompt when last night I had the NO DUH brainwave.  And this actually makes my first bingo for this card, but I'm going to keep plugging away!

 

“Where’s Ratchet?”  Drift turned on the berth, the movement tugging at one of the feed lines. He blinked, his optic shutters doing not much more than smearing the red ooze of the plague effluvia over the lenses.

“Drift,” First Aid bustled over, placing a gentle, but stopping, hand on the other’s white chassis. “Please lie down.”

“Where’s Ratchet?” Drift repeated. “He’s all right, isn’t he?”

First Aid sighed, glad, for the hundred-thousandth time for the mask that hid his facial expression.  Ratchet had transformed.  He’d infected himself.  Knowingly.   “He went after Pharma.”

“Pharma? What’s wrong? I heard arguing and then…,” he struggled again to sit up.

“Drift, please,” First Aid said, pushing against the shoulders. “Conserve your energy.”

“Why?”  A little resistance in the tone. “I’m dying. A little sooner won’t matter.”

“It might,” First Aid said. “There’s always hope.”

Drift shook his head, which sent drips from his optics sidewards down his cheeks. “Not for me.” 

“For everyone,” First Aid said.  Himself, as well. It was the only thing getting him through this. Especially right now. He looked over at Ambulon, who was grimly bent over Pipes, stony-faced, as always.  He wondered what kept Ambulon going. 

No, he didn’t wonder: he knew. And he knew the answer for himself. What kept you going was that you could help. Even if you couldn’t heal, even if you couldn’t cure, you could alleviate some measure of pain. And that, sometimes, was the best you could hope for.

He reached over, untangling the kinked fuel hose.  “Don’t give up on yourself. Or Ratchet.”

A strange crumbling smile. “This just isn’t how I thought it would be, you know? This isn’t how I thought I’d die.”

First Aid wanted to interrupt, to refute the ‘dying’ part, but he knew that sometimes, the best healing he could do was in listening. He nodded. And he understood. He didn’t know Drift, other than a few sidehand references in the Wreckers: Declassfieds, and the updated kill lists Agent 113 sent from the DJD.  He knew enough, though.

Drift, his entire frame stripped down, sleek and powerful, a frame designed for combat—heavily armored, powerful servomotors under the broad white span of his chestplate.  To be so used to power, so used to movement and strength, and now, crippled, weak, nearly blind and dull with pain.  And from something invisible, borne in the air. 

First Aid nodded, listening.

“I just…I’m not afraid to die. I just thought it would be meaningful. I wanted it to be.  I needed it to be.” Drift shrugged. “You probably hear this a lot.”

All the time. And it never hurt any less.  “That doesn’t mean it’s not true. Or valid.”

Drift nodded, the motion rippling the puddle of rust behind his helm.  He sighed, his optic shutters dropping closed for a long moment.  First Aid could hear him trying to control his ventilations: his clinical side cataloged the gurgle, his other side wrung with compassion.

 “I can get you more energon.” That, they had in plenty. Especially after the mass casualties. 

Drift shook his head, optics still closed. “You shouldn’t waste your time on me,” he murmured. “Others need you.”

But you need me, too, First Aid thought, stubbornly.  He refused to move.

Drift’s body went slack, the fingers uncurling, neck servos releasing.

“Drift,” First Aid whispered.  No. Not already. It was too soon. “Can you hear me?”

“…yes.”  A twitch of the mouthplates, a red line of rust trailing from one corner. First Aid watched it trace its slow line down Drift’s cheek. 

“Stay with me.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Drift said, and the mouth quirked into a humorless smile. The optic shutters lifted.  A stifled groan of pain.  “Maybe yes on that energon, if the offer’s still open.”

First Aid nodded, bustling off, returning with a drip-pouch, taking refuge in the smooth, practiced movements of fixing it to a tree, jabbing its line into the feed, thumbdialing the flow so that the thin, pinkish fluid eased into Drift’s systems.

“I was just…trying to make it all make sense,” Drift said.  “You know.  You look back over it all, where you started, what you’ve done. You kind of want it, at the end, to make it all add up to something, mean something.”  He gave a miniscule shrug.  “I’m not afraid of dying, but I guess I am afraid of it being…pointless.  That in the end, it all meant nothing. I meant nothing.” He blinked, rapidly, rust streaking faster down his cheeks.  “I guess not.”

“Maybe you’re not done yet,” First Aid said, in that tone every medic had learned to develop and that Ratchet had raised to an art form, that tone that brooked no denial, that tone of absolute confidence.  When a patient lost faith in himself, sometimes he clung to faith in another’s words. 

“Maybe I’m not,” Drift echoed, as though the words were food, more powerful than the energon. “I’m not,” he said. “I can’t be. I refuse to be. If this thing is going to kill me, it’s going to be on my feet.”  He cycled a galvanizing vent, and sat up, tearing the feed from his arm.  This time, First Aid knew better than to try to stop him.  “Going to find Ratchet,” he said, giving over his intent, halfway asking permission. 

He nodded, holding out his hands to steady Drift as he stood. “You’re a fighter, Drift. Fight.” First Aid could see, blazing in the blue underneath the streaky red of his optics, that this was important. And honestly, he’d done all anyone could for Drift. The rest was up to Drift.

Comments

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

*wibbles*

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

*squeeflail*! Yay First Aid being awesome - knowing when to listen, how to help even when he can't really help and letting Drift fight and live/die on his own terms. And poor Drift - that ooze sounds awful D:

[tainry.livejournal.com]

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