Shadows of Doubt

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
IDW
Dai Atlas/Axe
Spoilers for Drift series? Ref to canon character death, angst
for tf_rare_pairing fall 2012 challenge

Axe knew  he’d find Dai Atlas here, his massive frame perched on the pinnacle’s ring, staring fixedly into the velvet of the night sky. Unfamiliar breezes stirred around them, not the still air of the City’s vault, but the sweet-scented tang from the sand of Theophany.

Axe gave one last lazy spiral around the tower, announcing his presence, before dropping down, shifting to his alt beside Dai Atlas. And waiting. Calmly, patiently, from long familiarity. Dai Atlas had always felt the burden of command drag heavily on his shoulders and Axe could practically see the weight now, the subtle, tension and pull. He wanted to lay a hand over one of them, flight-warmed and comforting. But not yet.  Patience had always been Axe’s virtue.

“I suppose it’s beautiful,” Dai Atlas said, eventually, when the silence between them pulled words from him.

“It is,” Axe said, his own voice solid and sure.  The night was beautiful: cool and serene, a placid moon gazing benignly down on them, casting silver light over the intricate spires and terraces of the raised City.

Dai Atlas shook his head, spreading his hands, before releasing a frustrated sigh.  “I think I’ve lost that. The ability to see beauty.”

“No.” 

“Perhaps I never had it.”  He cast his voice into the eddying night breeze, his optics lost in distance.

“No.” More firmly this time. “If you can’t see it right now, it will come back.”

A faint flicker of something like a smile on the corner of Dai Atlas’s mouth.  “You always were an optimist.”

“And I’ve always been right,” Axe replied.  An old joke between them, wrung out from any actual humor, but a bond between them nonetheless.  He reached over, resting the hand, now, on one broad shoulder. “This needed to happen. And change…hurts.”  He remembered standing in the Council floor, siding with Wing, agreeing to fight and die with the small jet. It had hurt, feeling the tearing roots of his long years with Dai Atlas. But he would be nothing if he did not stand by his principles, even if they defied his leader’s.

“Wing is dead.”

“Yes.” He could hear the flatness in Dai Atlas’s tone, repeating the words to wound himself. “What better death can we ask for than dying to protect our way of life?”

“We can not die at all.”

“Impossible.”A slight scoffing note, meant to brace Dai Atlas. “And you know better, of all mechs. Life without purpose and honor is not our way, Dai Atlas.”  He splayed his fingers wider, the touch meant to steady, to comfort.

“If I had to do it again…,”

Axe cut him off. “It doesn’t work like that, my friend. You know that, as well. The past is already written, and attempting to undo it will only tear up the page.”

Another flicker of the corner of the mouth. “You always have such a way with metaphor, Axe.”

“Aye,” Axe grinned, “That I do.”  The warmth of the moment flared between them, faded slowly.  “I’m sorry for what I had to do.”

“There’s no need,” Dai Atlas demurred, his gaze falling down into the city below. Up here, it was merely light and life, soundless but vibrant.  “You followed your spark. That’s what we’ve pledged to do.”

“For the hurt it caused you, then.” Because it had hurt. He knew better than most the mask Dai Atlas wore in public: stiff and harsh. And he knew the doubt and indecision that roiled beneath. And he’d felt, rather than seen, Dai Atlas’s sharp gouge of pain when Axe had spoken, siding with Wing.  His hand’s touch lightened, ghosting down the arm. “Just because something is right doesn’t make it easy.” Truer words, as they said.

“Do you remember when…,” Dai Atlas said, his voice trailing off. His gaze lifted now, to the planet’s surface, spread out before them.

“Most likely,” Axe said, a friendly gibe. “You’ll have to be a bit more precise.”

A long cycle of air, the sense of trying to start again, with the knowledge that Axe would allow it.  “Were we ever like that?”

“Idealistic to a fault? Emotional? Disobedient?”  A tilt of his gold-rimmed helm, his engine rumbling in a chuckle. “We still are.” 

“I betrayed your trust. All of you. I should not have been leader. If you had—“

Axe cut him off, sharply. “You know I’m not leader material.”

“You have the coding.”

“But not the spark for it.” He sighed. “If I were leader,” he said, playing along, “a mech named Dai Atlas would have spoken up against fighting, reminding us that violence begets more violence, pain, more pain. I know this Dai Atlas. And I know he would have spoken what was true to his spark, regardless of the consequences.” A gentle nudge of the other’s wing.

The aileron flicked in acknowledgement. “But Wing would have lived.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps we would have lost many more.  And we would almost certainly have lost our way.”

“You are too kind.”

Axe burst out laughing, the bass sound dancing in the night air. “Tell that to the slavers I killed today. I think they’d beg to differ.”

“Axe.” That cautioning tone, the one that said ‘you know what I meant’.

And he did. But what Dai Atlas meant was untrue and they both knew it. Axe would not lie, never to Dai Atlas. It was what had made him such an ally over the centuries: that he would speak his mind, and no more. No empty flattery, because he had nothing to gain by it; no hedged words, because he had nothing to lose.

A long silence, and he could feel things turning in Dai Atlas, the dreadful acknowledgement of time. He’d been up here for cycles, trying to freeze time, to not move beyond the moment. He’d made his speech, the nobility easy and sure, and sent Drift off with a warm promise, and then had come up here to…try and stop the future from rolling onto him.

“Drift was right,” Dai Atlas said, finally, “I am a coward.”

“Aren’t we all, in the face of our own mistakes?” Endless patience could be its own weapon. Axe hoped he wielded it benignly.

A soft sound, like a grunt, a blow landing, cracking something open.  “I am unfit to lead us.”

“We’ll talk about that in the morning, if you want. We’ll convene the Circle. Who knows? Maybe having one leader is not what’s best. I know it’s laid a terrible burden on you.”

Dai Atlas nodded, grimly. “In the morning, then.” There, acknowledging time, admitting it would move forward in its fast, betraying steps, filled with so many chances for errors. He looked over at Axe for the first time, red optics like uncertain stars. “I suppose they need me down there.” 

“Tonight, they can manage on their own.” Axe had been down there, the mix of mourning and rejoicing like being in the center of some strange magnetic storm.

“Then?”

“I was thinking we might go flying.” Get out, he thought, away from the city, try to rediscover the simple joy they had denied themselves for so long. “It is, after all, a beautiful night.”

“Obscenely so.” Yes, Axe thought. Always that horrid contrast when the world is beautiful and your spark is shattered. It seemed like an affront to one’s pain that anything like beauty and joy dare exist.  But Dai Atlas could see it, this time, at least.  “I suppose it is a memorial, perhaps an act of contrition, to fly in Wing’s sky.”

“In our sky,” Axe corrected, mildly.

Comments

[pl2363.livejournal.com]

You managed to evoke sympathy for Dai Atlas from me... Wow. Beautiful characterization and lovely handling of what the aftermath of their battle and loss of Wing might feel like for them.

[ultrarodimus.livejournal.com]

^_^ I love these two. You write them so well.

[tv-the-sue.livejournal.com]

Ahh, thank you. I've been needing more of these two. The way they interact is something beautiful. They seem to have this ageless friendship.

[tainry.livejournal.com]

It seemed like an affront to one’s pain that anything like beauty and joy dare exist. But Dai Atlas could see it, this time, at least. “I suppose it is a memorial, perhaps an act of contrition, to fly in Wing’s sky.”

“In our sky,” Axe corrected, mildly.

::does a dance::
<3