RSC

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
IDW
Cosmos, Jetfire
mention of character death
fo dark_bingo nbsp; prompt 'severe or life threatening illness' I am going to get a bingo on this card OR ELSE. 

It was after Earth.  He remembered sitting in the lab, his chunky hands curled over the table, while Jetfire held a datapad that looked almost miniaturized next to the shuttle’s bulk, frowning at the screen as though if he stared long enough, the right words, the easy way to say it, would appear.

They didn’t, of course. So the two of them—never socially adept in the first place—fumbled through the bad news, stumbling over who would be more apologetic, even though it was neither’s fault. 

Radiative spark corrosion.  Even the name, even the abbreviation, RSC, struck like a cold lance through the body.  And Jetfire’s almost apologetic little ‘but science is making new breakthroughs every day’ only made it worse, more hopeless somehow. 

He was dying.  Slowly, but certainly; every day, every hour bringing him another moment closer to dissolution. And it wasn’t death as the abstract, like it had felt before the war, when he and his friends used to contemplate, after a night of drinking, staring at the stars, about how every day was living was, in a philosophical sense, a day of dying.  He wished he could go back to the almost delicious shudder of those young contemplations, where life was just…full and boredom was the biggest enemy. 

Nor was it death as they’d faced it during the war—the possibility of dying in combat, giving your life in exchange for your cause. That was a transaction. That was almost voluntary—just by picking up a gun you acceded to the possibility.

This was random and slow and awful, and he swore he could feel it sometimes, degrading his spark like little bites or claws.  It worried him when he tried to recharge—not the fear that he might not wake up, but that while he slept, it was doing its work, eating away at him, breaking him down in tiny insensible ways, marching towards its lethal goal while he slumbered away.

It was a nasty disease, nibbling away at the spark’s casing, corroding it, pitting it, until one day it broke through and then…the end. Abrupt and agonizing, a time bomb without audible ticks.

It seemed cruel to believe in hope, so he didn’t hope. It seemed awful to make friends, knowing he’d inevitably hurt them with his death.  So he kept to himself, staying on the fringes of the little festivities at Swerve’s bar, trying to enjoy from a distance, a watcher, living life at one remove, laughing at their laughter, listening to their stories, and trying not to worry that no one ever asked his.

His story was unimportant. His story held no suspense anymore: it was a thing already written, already done.

Cosmos found himself envying them, all of them. Even Fortress Maximus. Even Whirl.  Because however damaged they were, they had hope, they had futures they could tilt up to light and life.  He had an ever narrowing tunnel into darkness, a steady, if slow, downward slope.

“Are you sure about this?” Jetfire, again, still trying to reach out, clumsily. And it meant, well, everything that he even tried.  Cosmos wished he could say no, wished he could drop the heavy payload of supplies he was drawing for this mission. He was glad for his facemask, not for the first time.

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Cosmos.” A clumsy pause. “We have no research about RSC and interstellar travels. The intersection with gamma radiation alone could—“

“You’ll get some data now, right?” He didn’t mean it to sound as hard as it probably did. Sometimes he overshot trying not to sound weak and soft and on the verge of tears.

“I’d rather not get it this way.” Jetfire’s voice was soft, almost a whisper, as though any louder volume and the sincerity in the words would shatter something that they both needed to be held together. 

Cosmos cycled a vent. “Me neither. I’d rather not…a lot of things.”  Too close. Too close and too painful. He turned away, calling up a supplies manifest, just to busy his hands. 

“Cosmos.” A helpless spread of a white armored hand, reaching out. If only. If only Cosmos could be so cruel as to take it, to drag the shuttle into this morass of loss and suffering with him.

“Jetfire. Please. Let me do this. I can’t just…sit here like an invalid.” Like the invalid I am.  But Jetfire heard what was under the words—the need to be useful, the need to pull out of himself and serve others. 

The shuttle nodded, stepping away.  “Please come back,” he said, almost, but not quite, the farewell a flyer might give another. 

Cosmos nodded, stepping to the airlock, but deep inside, part of him hoped that it would all end out there, alone in the silence of space.

Comments

[tainry.livejournal.com]

;_;
Well done, though, with Cosmos not wanting to draw anyone else into his suffering, even those who would like to at least be with him, but are too awkward themselves to know how to convey. Poor Jetfire.
<3

[eerian_sadow]

T__T

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

*sniffle*
<3