Memorial

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Memorial
Bayverse
Mindwipe/Skystalker
PG-13
refs to character death

for tf_speedwriting  prompt "memorial" on Wednesday.  

 

 

Skystalker knew this was a doomed enterprise. He had no idea why he’d invited Mindwipe to come.  No idea what he expected from the bomber.  Maybe just some comfort.  It was stupid—he was achingly aware, both of him, how stupid—to expect Mindwipe to remember anything. Much less his old frame.

But he’d asked and the larger airframe had agreed to come to the recycling section, to try to find his old frame.  He had no idea why he wanted to find it, himself. But he wanted to. One last time. He wanted to see himself. Wanted to look at the frame he had inhabited for so long, touch it.  See it as he’d never seen it before: from the outside.

Maybe then he’d understand. Maybe then he’d be able to put it to rest—put something to rest.  Maybe then he’d feel at home in this tiny, twinned body. 

No. It sounded stupid.  But it was too late now. Mindwipe strode down the corridor between his two components, his face serene, movements at ease.  A stark contrast with Skystalker’s small, quick, nervous gestures, joints tight and stiff.  Mindwipe didn’t ask uncomfortable questions, probing as to Skystalker’s motives, intent.  Mostly, Skystalker realized, because Mindwipe had probably already forgotten where they were going, much less why.

Sometimes, it was better that way.

Skystalker hitched himself up as they reached the recycling station. 

“Are you all right?” Mindwipe asked.  A question with no context behind it, other than he’d noticed an immediate body language response.

“Fine.”  It was becoming Skystalker’s default response.  One that didn’t remind Mindwipe of his problem. One that didn’t worry him.  “We’re here to find my old frame,” he said, as much to steel himself for it as to remind the larger mech.  He could feel one of him—Stalker—stir with unease. Because it probably was a bad idea.  But…closure, right? One way or the other.  It had to be done, if only because it would haunt him more if it wasn’t.  He’d regret not doing this more.

“Of course,” Mindwipe said, cheerfully. As he said everything.  Skystalker was really beginning to think that Mindwipe was the happiest mech he knew. …when Mindwipe wasn’t considering his own situation. “It was yellow and purple, yes?” 

And he was so strangely proud—and yet tentative—when he did remember something, when something had etched its way into his long-term recall.  Stalker nodded as the door opened, and they stepped into the dim lit space, piled with jagged mounds of metal. 

Garbage.  Junk.  Stuff being painstakingly sorted by dronelings, who could look at a bit of metal and analyze it for fatigue or wear, decide if it were salvageable or to be thrown in a refabber to be torn down to its base elements and remade.  That’s all it was to them—metal to be put into one or another pile. 

Probably because they’d go mad if they looked at it any other way—sorting through limbs and faces and chassis that had once had animation, feeling, emotion. 

Mindwipe nodded brusquely, and turned to one of the drones.  “Old frame,” he muttered, to himself, and then dropped into the clicking, beeping language drones used.  One drone detached itself from its line, and walked over, scanning the piles.  It stopped in front of one, standing numbly, patiently.  The debris had always been lumped in piles until battle analysis had been completed. 

“Here,” Mindwipe said, translating. “From that battle. It hasn’t been sorted yet.”  He looked back over his shoulder. “We are…fortunate for that?” 

Sky and Stalker looked at each other.  It was…really the question, wasn’t it?  Sky nodded. “Yeah. Let’s…find it.” 

The search didn’t take long.  Sky had set himself up near the edge of the pile, helping to shift the debris out of the way while Mindwipe and Stalker worked. He could see, from time to time, the little yellow blip in the corner of Mindwipe’s visor—one of Mindwipe’s reminder routines, doubtless prodding him with what he was looking for.  Until the wings had quivered, and he’d bent, hauling at a bit of yellow armor. 

Stalker had clambered up the side, clearing junk of the top. “Sky,” it said, unnecessarily. Sky clawed up, wordlessly assisted by Mindwipe, as Stalker cleared even more of the junk.

Oh, frag.  Well.  He had been ruined.  The wreck that had once been Skystalker was a charred, shattered mess of twisted metal, armor buckled and, in some cases, the impact had been so severe as to split the metal into layers.  Sensor cilia were blackened and brittle, filling the air with a sharp scent. The scent of death, numbness.  The…thing wasn’t even recognizable as a mech.  It looked like…some artist’s punchline of what a mech trying to pass through a black hole would look like.  It was horrific.  It was impossible to imagine ever being alive.

Sky tilted back, Mindwipe’s hands automatically coming up to catch his narrow shoulders.  He’d hoped, he’d wanted to see a face. He wanted to see, one last time, what he’d looked like, what…death looked like. He couldn’t even FIND the face on this thing—a flattened bit of metal, spurting dead circuitry and something that might have been an optic—shattered red glass splinters embedded in dried energon—but it might have been…anything else, any other landing light smashed against an aileron or…anything. He grabbed at it, touching it, as if he could comprehend, map it better with his hands than with his cortex.

Stalker locked down, an automatic reflex at this point, from an overload of stimulation.

“Enough?” Mindwipe asked, his voice gentle.  One hand stroked Sky’s wing.  For all of Mindwipe’s memory issues, he somehow always knew the simple comfort of touch. 

“This is me,” Sky said, clutching at the mangled mass. “This is me.” 

“No.  This was you.  This,” Mindwipe tapped his shivering wing, “is you now.”

Truth, brutal but inexorable.  “Yes,” Sky murmured. “I’ve had enough.”  He dropped the twisted metal with something halfway between reluctance and disgust.  He turned, shakily, to descend the mound of wreckage he could no longer call garbage or debris.  “C-could you get Stalker?”

 

Comments

[eerian_sadow]

aww, poor Skystalker. i love how caring Mindwipe is here, though. it's so bittersweet.

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

I keep not having anything intelligent to say about these guys, because I keep getting knocked over by *wiiiiiiiibbbble.* ;___; Poor poor bots... I finally looked up how to upload more icons on account of I'm going to need the wibble icon for your fics!

[crimsonseastorm.livejournal.com]

*sniffs* poor Skystalker and it's so awesome how much effort Mindwipe puts into helping him; I can't imagine that it's easy for him poor thing ;_;

I b'awwwwwwww about Mindwipe every time I read a fic with him =D He's like so adorable especially with Skystalker just makes me want to pass out cuddles XD

You can take your headcanon as far as you want 8DDD I love reading about them :3