Dross

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
IDW
Wing/Drift
ref to canon character death, angst
for dark_bingo prompt 'trapped between realities'

He’d thought dying hurt.  And it had, his spark rupturing at the tip of Braid’s lance, the energy immolating him, burning outward, charring and bubbling the metal, blasting through the armor of his chassis. It had hurt more than he’d ever imagined a thing could hurt, the very core of himself, the very heart of his being, exploding outward like a supernova.

He’d thought that was the ultima thule of suffering.

He’d been wrong. 

Because instead of dissolving, utterly, instead of a final melding with the great Spark that he’d been taught united them all, Wing found himself undissolved, not unmade, aware and awake and…helpless, isolated and cut off. He could see, hear, everything around him—the rest of the battle, whirling and dizzying, and then the aftermath, the others grave and mourning over his ruined body. But they could hear nothing from him—not his desperate calling of their names, begging for attention, nor his soft words of poignant consolation.

He ached to comfort them, even while he felt the hollow of loneliness himself, his spectral, insubstantial arms yearning for contact, for touch, to be acknowledged as real.  He wanted to tell them that the worst was over, that it didn’t hurt anymore, that seeing them grieve over his body hurt worse than dying.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t make them see, make them understand. And their grief felt like a weight of stones on his intangible body. It was the only thing that seemed to touch him.

He was bound to the sword, of course. He’d been holding it when he died, and whatever power of the ancient artifact had drawn him into the hilt’s gem, a blue crystalline prison, from which he could see the world—Crystal City receding, step by step, then mile by mile, lost to him forever, as he hung, unnoticed, on Drift’s back.

Wing had no choice: he followed Drift, linked to him by the Sword. He was useless to comfort or guide him: he could only hover, wringing his ghostly hands as Drift floundered, night after forlorn night, whimpering in his recharge for some guidance, that Wing would give anything to be able to give.  Or just to hold Drift in his loneliness. They both suffered, every aching desolate moment of those endless-seeming nights, consolation an unbridgeable gulf between them.

But Drift found his way, and then Wing had to endure watching, trying to convince himself that Drift’s new happiness, the lover he took to whom he gave what Wing would have given the world for, if only Drift had been able to give back then, made him happy as well.

He failed, every time, and viewed each new day as a new test, a new opportunity, as though if he could get it right, be selfless enough, happy enough for Drift, it would finally end, he would finally earn peace.

He earned nothing, for all his agonies. And all those days and nights of pain yielded, like a world revolving, to another torment: Drift, one day, after long ages, succumbed to the violence he had always known.  And he’d felt, through the Great Sword, the almost welcoming release of Drift’s spark, as though he was greeting death as a friend, letting himself be unmade as though shedding a burden of pain. Drift greeted death as a reward he had earned, a sign he could finally stop fighting, could finally just....be, let go, even as the sword held Wing still, pinioned like a specimen

And then Drift was beyond him, in the beautiful peace Wing had wanted for aeons now, and he was gone forever, and Wing found himself utterly, inconsolably, alone, a coruscating liquid trapped in the gem of an abandoned sword.