Forlorn Hope 5/? Rescue
Dec. 4th, 2010 09:33 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_vectorPG-13 (violence)
IDW/G1
Sixshot/Jetfire, nameless Autobots
Ummm, I'm gonna have to say Death of Nameless Autobot for warning. And, yeah, probably some angst. Delicious, delicious angst. And this was technically the end of the story arc but...it keeps coming! ;_;
ch 2: Relapse
ch 3: Transgression
ch 4: First
They fell into a routine that Jetfire would have described as heaven had he put any stock in such a concept. While Jetfire worked on his research projects, Sixshot spent cycles per day repairing the damage he had done to the base, from the nearest blast doors outward, as though trying to wrap this idyll they both knew could not last in safety and illusion for as long as possible. It would end—they both knew it had to end—but both seemed to push the idea, and the reality, further ahead, willfully.
And the other cycles they spent per day were, even then, precious, rare gems. Jetfire told his history, again, to the reticent Decepticon, laughing bitterly at his own weaknesses, as if to disarm laughs from Sixshot—mocking laughs that never came. And Jetfire’s laughter became less bitter, more genuine, and Jetfire felt unjudged and somehow…freer and happier than he had ever felt. And Sixshot, for his part, said quiet, enigmatic things, little blurts of stories that hinted at something much worse than Jetfire could imagine anyone enduring.
A handful of times, he’d mentioned his visions, the flashes of brutality, the urge of violence made manifest on his cortex, folding the future into the present, taunting Sixshot with madness.
Once, he’d mentioned that he’d thought he was going mad, that the visions were devouring him and would one day take over his autonomy altogether. Jetfire had ached with his own helplessness, finding himself wordless before the vulnerability of trust as much as the secret itself.
And those other cycles, more than any other kind, were spent in silence, without words, their bodies doing all the communicating that needed to be done, tangled tenderly in each others’ arms, both shy and awkward, exploring or just seeking some mute comfort in the hum of another system, the touch of another frame. And sometimes it was ungentle, Sixshot’s desires insistent, pulling Jetfire from his research, driving him against a wall, his hands insistent, optics demanding, his touches verging on the edge of pain, driving Jetfire from his sheltered safety into heights of ecstasy he had never known. It grounded Jetfire, he knew, as nothing else had done. And he felt the other mech draw some comfort, some solace, from his own solitude, by the contact.
Until.
Until it all shattered, like splintered glass.
The self-appointed rescue team.
They battered their way in the middle of recharge cycle, the near blast doors buckling from sudden force.
Sixshot bolted upright from where he had draped on the berth, Jetfire pulled against him. He swore, shoving Jetfire behind him, hand slamming on the table where Jetfire’s gun, now long since discarded, had languished. Only Sixshot would note where it was, remember it in the sudden rush of an assault.
“Jetfire!” The voice was muffled from the layers of steel and plascrete. “Respond!”
“I’m fine,” Jetfire said, staggered, slow, by the sudden slam of reality back upon him. The Autobots here. And there would be no easy answer this time. Sixshot would be killed, or he would kill Jetfire’s supposed rescuers.
“Let us in! We need to clear the base.”
His optics flew to Sixshot, who had taken a position where he could get a clean high shot on anyone coming through the door, the gun’s barrel balanced on one forearm with an absolute, perfect steadiness.
“I, uh. I’m fine. It’s clear.” Trying, he knew, to merely delay the inevitable. He thought, wildly, of asking Sixshot not to shoot. To surrender. To give in peacefully.
But then he realized that that would be asking Sixshot to be other than he was. Other than who Jetfire wanted him to be. And he was terrified that if he said the words…Sixshot might obey. Jetfire did not deserve this kind of power. He was unworthy. He did not have the right to ask, even so.
“Open up.” Jetfire could hear the mistrust in the voice. They were worried, thinking he was held at gunpoint, perhaps, and forced to speak. If only they knew that they were the ones at gunpoint.
I can’t, he thought, weakly, something like a sob building in his chest. I can’t. And that’s the problem. Because the one time I did open up….
And he hated himself that he hadn’t thought of this sooner, hadn’t come up with a strategy, a solution. A terrible soldier, without even the rudiments of strategy, but a terrible scientist as well, the most important variable escaping him.
“Sixshot,” he breathed rising to his knees on the abandoned berth. “I’m sorry.”
The Phase Sixer’s head twitched at the words. Jetfire jumped to his feet but it was too late—Sixshot stormed the door, slapping the side panel open. He’d taken Jetfire’s apology as an admission of complicity, that the whole thing had been a delay, a set up, keeping Sixshot tamed and captive until an attack could be mounted. Jetfire hadn’t thought—though he should have—that the attack would have sent a beacon of distress through the communication channels.
So…wrong. So awfully dreadfully wrong. Jetfire knew why they spent so much time without speaking. Silence told fewer lies.
“Thank Primus you’re all ri—“ The rest of the word was blasted from his head as Sixshot opened fire, the helm evaporating into an energon-pink mist. The acrid pall of spark-burnt energon and coolant filled the room.
The other rescuers fell back behind the door as it closed, the fallen mech’s corpse collapsing outside, flames licking fitfully at the power severed power cables. Jetfire raced to the door, but found himself hauled back, out of the way, by Sixshot. “They’ll kill you,” Sixshot hissed. At that moment…Jetfire found it hard to care.
The rustling outside subsided into a taut silence as they waited, setting some trap. Jetfire felt Sixshot’s arm slide over his shoulder, and he relaxed into the gesture, the familiar contact. Nothing would happen if they were together, he thought, even as another part rejected that notion as terrible, naïve foolishness.
Foolishness compounded: Sixshot’s arm curled forward the forearm snaking around his throat, until Jetfire found himself a hostage. Sixshot kicked the door open again. “HOSTAGE,” he bellowed just before the doors opened.
They held their fire. Like good Autobots, Jetfire thought, they held their fire, not willing to damage, even a poor excuse for an Autobot like Jetfire.
Sixshot pushed him ahead, the white arm firm around his throat, leading him through the squad of rescuers, who froze, barely daring to move. The threat was unmistakeable, Sixshot’s gun swinging in a calm, steady arc over them in case any of them dared to move.
Sixshot pushed him through the small base, back through the damage he had wrought on his way in, half-finished repairs, as if undoing, unknitting their bond. Jetfire whimpered when Sixshot’s chassis wing bumped his, or at the too-intimate slide of the thighs against the backs of his.
Sixshot must know, Jetfire thought, that rescue teams all left the ship, that their shuttle would be unarmed, empty. He led Jetfire right to the verge. Jetfire struggled for something to say, but nothing he could think could make it any better. No words could undo the damage. And all this time he had been afraid of physical clumsiness, of hurting the Phase Sixer’s body. He had not thought he could do so much injury to something less visible.
Sixshot swung around, his heel plates ringing against the shuttle’s deck, Jetfire still outside. The arm over his throat loosened. He stepped away, turning importunate eyes to Sixshot.
Only to be met by the sole, harsh black eye of the gun.
Jetfire shuttered his optics briefly. Yes. He was ready. He deserved this. His optics opened, clear, deep pools of everything he wanted to say, but couldn’t.
The gun barrel stared him down. He remembered the head exploding, the spray of silver splinters of metal flying, the cortex shattering, the soundless whine of death, the buzz-burst of the gun’s discharge. He could handle it. The mech had died before the pain could hit. He would get the same. He deserved no better. Probably worse.
Sixshot growled, the optics hot and coruscating with some unreadable emotion, over the gun, and suddenly the barrel was gone, and Skyfire was left blinking as the Phase Sixer stormed inside the shuttle, slapping the doorlocks.
Jetfire stood numb, still only half sure he wasn’t already dead, as the shuttle’s engines blasted to life, tearing the small craft free of the planet. He heard the Autobots, his rescuers, assemble around him, some cursing, some blaming him, some pitying him what they thought was his ordeal. He deserved it all. He wasn’t up for it, not when his spark gaped with pain at the worst thought of all—that Sixshot thought he had betrayed him.
Take me with you, he mouthed at the departing engine. The words he’d wanted finally coming to him, but late, too late. Take me with you, away from this. Away from…me.
The rescue team broke around him like a wave, bustling with noise—after all of Sixshot’s silence, and questions he didn’t want to answer. And life lurched forward again, the beautiful, frozen span that had been happiness and, and…not-loneliness and acceptance and the closest he had ever dared to love…melted and smeared in the hot light of reality.
Next: Half Truths and Shadows
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-04 04:06 pm (UTC)Omygosh so sad.
-dies-
I don't even- I... gahh.
-incoherent-
;-;
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 12:13 am (UTC)(now you see why I kind of want to continue it?)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 02:51 am (UTC)I'm a sucker for angst as well. I can see why you want to continue it, though the angst-monger in me is screaming to leave it there and let it be angsty and sad for all time.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-04 04:34 pm (UTC)...Well, obviously we're just gonna have to go after the fragger. C'mon, Jetfire, you can figure out how to track other mechs, yeah? Try this button right here. What's that do?
<3
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Date: 2010-12-05 12:14 am (UTC)Thanks for reading!
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Date: 2010-12-04 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 12:15 am (UTC)Jetfire: Unlucky in love since 1984.
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Date: 2010-12-04 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 12:17 am (UTC)Thanks for reading!
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Date: 2010-12-04 11:35 pm (UTC)(glad the bunny is still biting, because I really don't want it to end here!)
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Date: 2010-12-05 12:18 am (UTC)I have no idea how this will end up, but...we'll find out, I guess. :D
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Date: 2010-12-05 03:36 am (UTC):'(