Twilight on Toska

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW
Axe/Wing
mid-canon
for tf-rare-pairing prompt Wing/Axe keeping secrets.

Axe’s confident stride slowed, faltering, as he headed down the Star of Hope’s ramp into the rose-orange of Toska’s sunset. They’d been here for a few decacycles, just long enough that things began t feel familiar, comfortable, if not quite like home.

But he’d seen Wing’s back, the tension in the high-held flightpanels. And that sucked some of the contentment from Axe’s stride, until he drifted to a stop beside the smaller jet.  “I don’t think we’re seeing the same sunset, lad,” he said, gently.

The spires behind Wing’s neck tensed, then loosened. “I wish we were, Axe, my friend.”

Axe could see the sharp silhouette of Wing’s mouth, shifting poast some pain into a smile.  He let his optic skim down the other’s frame, taking in a silver-worn edge on the jet’s wrist, a small waver of char down one shin. He reached over, rubbing his thumb down that worn line on Wing’s wrist.  Wing turned, optics revolving up to him. “And something’s happened.”

Wing gave a small nod, as if afraid a motion too large would set something irrevocable in motion.  “The war,” Wing said.  “It’s here.”

Axe said nothing, only a long, slow exhalation. The war had followed them once again, caught up with them. It seemed sometimes as if it was chasing them, hunting them on purpose.  It was a wild, mad thought to have, but he couldn’t stop thinking it.  It had happened so many times before, so frequently that they no longer debarked the ships they’d fled on.  Their first planet, they had debarked, become part of the populace--adding their skills in engineering, science, construction, art--trying to contribute, to make their way decently.

And then the war had come, and their small settlements destroyed, and the locals, who had welcomed them for their abilities before, turned against them, blaming them for the ruin that seemed visited upon them.

They’d not made that mistake again.

“The locals?” Axe asked, finally, after a long moment watching the purple shadow of twilight stretch before them.

Wing shook his head. “I ran into a reconnaissance patrol.”

“Autobot? Decepticon?” The factions were out of his mouth before Axe could tell himself it didn’t matter. Neither side was preferable. They were both complicitous in the war that had destroyed the world they knew.

“Autobot,” Wing said.  A ghost of a smile. “I wanted to know, myself.”

“And they spotted you.” Enough to shoot at him, it seemed.

“I was careless. I was flying.”  A tremor of guilt.

Axe shook his head. “And why shouldn’t you be able to fly, Wing?  If we are to be free?”  He could tell the words didn’t seem to help. He rallied, tried again. “It was a matter of time, Wing. If they are here, they will find us. At least we have notice, now.”

The jet’s optics were gold and intense, the brightness vying with the sliver of the sun slicing the horizon.  “You’re kind, Axe. Always.”

“I try to be, Wing. But I am also honest.” He held the gaze until Wing smiled.  “They didn’t follow you.”

The helm moved in denial. “They chased me: they had no flight capables. And I led them away, until I could get between them and the sun.”

“Smart lad,” Axe said, before his own grin faded.  “We’ll have to tell Dai Atlas.”

Wing gave a vacant, resigned nod. “We will. I will.  As soon as I...I can bring myself to.”  That glimmer of sorrow in the edges of his smile as he turned his gaze back to the spaceport city.  Axe preferred Wing’s happier smiles, himself. The mech held too much sorrow on those mouthplates, too often.

Axe gave another gusty sigh, his large hand coming over Wing’s shoulder, stroking down one restless flightpanel.  His EM field brushed against Wing’s left side, the close contact, he hoped, bringing some comfort, however small. “I liked it here,” he said, his voice heavy with finality.

The dusk overtook them, and Wing raised one hand to brush Axe’s hand on his shoulder, his optics lingering on the city of Toska’s central spaceport spread around them.  “I did, too.”

And they’d tell Dai Atlas. And they’d have to leave, probably tonight, fleeing in darkness, slipping away from the lives they’d half-built here, the bars and cafes they’d just begun to learn to feel at home in, and wander the stars once more as refugees, nomads with a goaded wanderlust, chasing after a freedom and peace that seemed to dart ahead like a swift animal, always just enough out of reach to tantalize.

The hand curled around Wing, drawing him close, as the darkness rustled its wings over the city, the stars beginning to shine overhead.  Wing turned into him, resting one cheek on Axe’s broad chestplate, as Axe stroked over the jet’s flightpanels.  “It’s always,” Axe said, quietly, a whisper in the dusk, “the hardest to be the first to know something.”

Wing nodded against him, smaller hands creeping around Axe’s broad chassis. “I feel like I ruined everything.”

“You ruined nothing, Wing.”  Axe tipped his chin up, meeting the gold optics with his own. “This was not a secret you could keep to yourself.” He smiled. “I will come with you to tell Dai Atlas, and share the weight of it.”

“How did you get so wise?” That smile, glimmering in the darkness, weak, but there.

“It’s not wisdom,” Axe said, simply. But despite those optics importuning in the darkness, he wouldn’t say what it was. Because it would do no good, because it would complicate more than it would clear. And though his mouth ached to press against that blossoming smile, he held it, and himself, in check.

Some secrets were the kind best kept to oneself.

Comments

[tainry.livejournal.com]

<3 Sad and sweet.