Forlorn Hope 2/4 Relapse
Nov. 26th, 2010 08:36 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
niyazi-a.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
shadow_vectorContinuity: IDW/G1
Characters: Sixshot, Jetfire
No warnings
A/N Yyyyyyyyyeah. This pairing's eaten my brain. So, have a continuation of this, and then expect 2 more chapters. Eventual angst! :D for tf_rare_pairing prompt 'control isn't everything'.
Sixshot had relapsed. Whatever cybertoxin that had afflicted him, Jetfire had failed at finding it, failed at purging it. The white shuttle felt the failure painfully, watching every spasm and writhe as though it should have happened to him, instead. It seemed unfair that Sixshot be punished for Jetfire’s failing.
Sixshot’s core temperature had spiked alarmingly, and Jetfire had been, for once, pleased for his own strength, that allowed him to lever the large mech—who was heavier than he seemed—off the workbench that had become an ersatz repair table, and into an equally impromptu cooling tub.
Sixshot had only groaned, then, his white hands clutching on air, gasping as the icy saline bit into his systems, dissipating his dangerous heat.
Jetfire had sat a worried vigil by the tank, monitoring the other mech’s vitals. The faction marking did not matter to him, only that another mech was injured.
And, if he were completely honest, the cybertoxin intrigued him. It was something he’d never seen before. Unique etiology. Unknown course. He had done everything he could, trying to be respectful of boundaries, not to transgress too far into Sixshot’s privacy.
And he found himself, sadly, strangely, talking to the half-delirious mech. At first simply telling him what he was doing, so that Sixshot would not perceive his ministrations as an attack. But then, as the cycles passed, he began talking more and more, words spilling out of him. It felt…safe somehow. Partly because he felt that here was someone who would not hate him for his doubts, would not find his prattling about his discoveries tedious. Mostly, he thought, wryly, because Sixshot likely wouldn’t remember any of it.
So he told the feverish form, as he monitored the core temperature, or changed the cooling bath once again, his entire life. Why he pursued science, his more recent doubts about its purity and integrity. His hatred of war, his belief in peace, his friendship with Starscream, his admiration for Optimus, and how unrequited and hopeless he felt both his desires were. All the little inconsequentialities he had been gathering for years he poured over the Phase Sixer. And he felt foolish enough, and he knew that the odds were still not settled, that Sixshot was just as likely to kill him at any moment as before. But it felt like a relief, like a dam bursting, to get those words out of him first.
“And so,” he said, “that’s how I ended up here, on a research station. A-a compromise of ethics, I suppose.” He leaned over to swipe an ethyl alcohol damp rag over Sixshot’s face, cooling it, cleaning away some of the black smudges.
Unconscious, Sixshot was…not unattractive, Jetfire thought, and then suddenly found himself hot with embarrassment. He should not be having these thoughts. At all.
“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly, apologizing to the air for his treacherous thoughts.
The optics glowed, dimly. “Don’t compromise,” Sixshot murmured. One hand flexed experimentally in the water.
Jetfire stiffened, his wings going rigid. “I-I am sorry,” he stammered.
“Said that already.” The head turned toward him, optics focusing like targeting lasers. No, they probably were targeting lasers. “What for?”
“Talking so much about myself.” Jetfire ducked his head. He busied himself folding and refolding his damp rag.
Sixshot shifted, rolling his shoulders in their joints, armor rippling. Liquid slopped over the tank’s rim. He huffed, frustrated. “Still sick.”
“I know,” Jetfire said. “I’ve done my best to stabilize you, but to counteract the toxin I’d need access to your cortical systems and a sample of your energon. And I didn’t, well….”
Sixshot snorted. “Bad idea. Deadman bomb in my cortex.”
“Oh.” Jetfire felt abashed. He could have, probably should have, thought of that contingency. Another reason he was not a warrior. He simply could not, try as he might, make himself think that way.
He felt Sixshot’s optics on him, weighing him, measuring something he could not figure. “All right,” he said. “You can have your sample and…access.”
It struck Jetfire suddenly that this was the first thing he’d heard Sixshot say that didn’t have some sort of negation in it. He nodded, and hurried to gather the scanner and the hypodermic, feeling a strange warmth at Sixshot’s display of trust. He found himself chattering again, this time from nervousness. “Your core temperature has stabilized, finally,” he reported, despite the fact that Sixshot probably already knew that. “And this might be the last of it clearing your system, but I’d rather know than guess.”
A non-committal grunt, and some splashing and slopping noises. When he turned, he saw Sixshot hauling himself upright. Water glistened over his limbs, falling like crystals. The other mech saw him, stopped. “Problem?”
“No,” Jetfire said. He clamped his optics shut. He had not been staring. He had not.
…except he had been. The salinated water ran in intoxicatingly complex rivulets over the white and purple and green armor, drawing lines like feather caresses over the broad metal. “I-I was just uncertain what that sound was.”
Another grunt, and Sixshot began moving again, raising one leg over the edge, placing it on the ground, then the other. Fighting against his weakness, trying to push past it, through it. Trying to regain control, at least of himself.
Jetfire wished he had that much self-control. He could barely stop the treacherous thoughts from forming, from hijacking his rebellious optics, his errant thoughts. Jetfire tore his optics away, self-conscious, concentrating on gathering his tools. When he finally allowed himself to turn back around, Sixshot had propped himself against the workbench, watching him. Closed off, inscrutable, saline pooling around his footplates. The open laxness of his unconscious body had been replaced by a subtle tension—servos primed to fire. What was it like to be always on edge?
He came closer. “The sample first, perhaps?”
Sixshot nodded, holding out one of his arms. “Autorepair’s better in this one,” he said—an explanation that asked more questions than it settled. Jetfire nodded, and took the syringe, loading it with a sample capsule as Sixshot sent the code that sprang his armor locks, revealing the bare cables of his systems underneath. Jetfire found the blue-mesh of the energon line, placing the plasmaneedle’s edge against it. He waited for a flinch, for any sign of pain from the mech as the plasmaneedle bit into the mesh, punctured the hose, and began drawing the pink-purple fluid out. Sixshot’s arm was rigidly still, his optics studying…Jetfire. Jetfire ducked his head back to studying the exposed systems. Even with the prolonged saline soak, the lines were gummed and smeared, nicked and dented.
“You could use a refit.” The words escaped before he could even think them through.
A strange grating sound. It took Jetfire a full klik to realize that that was Sixshot’s laugh. “Never time for it,” he said.
The capsule pinged its fullness. Jetfire drew out the needle, the prepared daub of hose sealant on his other finger stroking gently over the cut. “You have time now.”
A long moment, and Jetfire could feel the building tension in Sixshot’s servos, actuators building charge. He could feel the rising tension, but, even so, he was taken off-guard when Sixshot moved, one white hand slamming under his chin, digits closing around his throat.
The red optics were a handspan—or less—away from his own, wide and blaring. “What’s your game, Jetfire?” the voice rasped near his.
“No game,” Jetfire said. He felt, strangely, no fear. Only a rush of startlement. His processor traced the vulnerable lines and pressure points—unerringly found by the white fingers. Any control he had, over the situation, over himself, evaporated. Even so, he felt a strange, quiet faith that Sixshot wouldn't kill him, if for no other reason than if that were his intent, Jetfire would already be dead.
“Aiding the enemy,” Sixshot said, slapping Jetfire with the words, staring into Jetfire’s wide blue optics. Yes, that’s what he was doing. Exactly. “Or,” Sixshot continued, “You’re planning on killing me.” He watched Jetfire’s face, keenly. The fingers released from around his throat, abruptly. Jetfire’s cables still throbbed from the compression. “Not planning on killing me. Would have done it before.” He twitched his head to one side, as if shooing off the unpleasant memory of having been so vulnerable.
Jetfire’s hand curled over the plasmaneedle. A weapon, if only he’d thought to use it. “A mech is a mech,” he said, simply.
“Autobot ideals.” Sixshot scoffed. “Seems you’re the only one who actually tries to live by them.”
It was tempting to agree. Tempting to hold himself above his fellow mechs. But Jetfire couldn’t do it. “Not true.” He left it at that. He wondered how Sixshot’s processor worked. The whole system seemed entirely foreign to him. A mystery. “But it is an offer.”
Part of him trembled with excitement at the words, imagining stripping down the armor, scrubbing down the gummy mesh, revealing stark clean hoses and metal. Knowing Sixshot’s systems, slowly, carefully, methodically. It was science and mystery and desire combined. So different from Starscream’s fire; so different from Optimus’s calming presence. Sixshot was wild, dangerous, and yet…somehow open. Somehow wanting something outside himself, but helpless to name it, much less seize it.
And he could feel that yearning charging the air between them, as Sixshot’s hand came up to rub where Jetfire had smeared the liquid hose patch. “First fix the cybertoxin,” Sixshot said.
Which was, Jetfire realized, a stumbling, halting ‘yes.’
Next: Transgression
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Date: 2010-11-26 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-28 04:57 pm (UTC)Oh great, *another* OTP.
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