Coming to Light

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Coming to Light
PG-13
IDW/G1
Drift/Perceptor
ref to torture, maiming, etc.  Whut?  Decepticons are BAAAAAAAD guys!
Follows: 

Only the Strong (Perceptor, Drift, Turmoil)
In Darkness (Turmoil, Drift/Deadlock)
Caught (Turmoil, Perceptor)

For ravynfyre , as always. I only hope I do them justice! 

 

 

 

Darkness.  Moving through darkness and then a sound—grating of metal on plascrete. Then a heavy impact, limp weight hard on the ground, fatigued metal plates crunching under the strain.

My weight. My plates.  Perceptor’s thoughts were hazy.  He had retreated behind a veil of pain, a temporary, blessed numbness. Turmoil had been…thorough.  He had wanted Perceptor in pain; wanted Perceptor to beg.  He had, and he was unashamed.  Turmoil had promised him Drift if he begged.  Which rather gave the rules of the game away: Perceptor had known what he must do, the threat creating a promise between them—if he begged piteously enough, Turmoil would let him see Drift.

He had no pride. Pride was for warriors. Not those who got caught. Not those who were liabilities. 

And this was his reward—the blackness of a cell, hard, but solid ground beneath him, his overheated circuits finally cooling, without Turmoil’s methodical torment. 

His optics struggled to cycle down to lowlight, to bring the blackness around him into any sort of focus, any sort of contour. 

A sense of movement behind him. Not sound, not registering on his audios at all, really.  But that wasn’t necessarily a surprise—it was, Perceptor considered, quite possible he had blown his high-gain receptors with the screams that had torn from his vocalizer. 

The thought was distressing but it was, at least, a thought.  Clear, coherent.  Perceptor reached for it, as a sign of his returning faculties. 

The not-sound behind him again, the sense of weight or pressure moving.  Perceptor turned his head, trying to peer over his left shoulder into the murky dimness that was only now beginning to pixelate down into distinct shapes.  Vision, yes.  And something behind him, very close. 

“Drift,” he croaked.  His voice was raw, vocalizer sparking, buzzing with bad feedback. Turmoil would not have lied.  Would he?  Would he have let Perceptor fool himself, submit to his torture, yield to his agony, and all for nothing? Was that the greatest, worst, most ironic twist of the knife?

“Don’t talk.”  Drift’s voice.  But strange. Tighter, darker.  No, Perceptor thought.  Probably just a glitch in my audio.  He pushed suspicion aside, clinging to relief. Drift. He was here.  Turmoil hadn’t gone that far. 

A clumsy fumbling against Perceptor’s back, opening one of his maintenance panels.  “Level three code?”

“Unnecessary.”  Perceptor didn’t need to have the pain diminished. 

A snort that sounded much more like Drift.  “Code. Please?”

Perceptor hesitated—Drift’s formal courtesy was more than a little disconcerting. Not that the white mech was ever actually deliberately rude. He simply didn’t often feel the apparent need for manners.  Perceptor rattled the alphanumeric code, feeling blunt, awkward fingers punch it into the code panel.

His video lit up with yellow alarm codes—critical systems, dangerous levels, cascading failures. His audio blinked—damaged, but low on the repair-priority queue.  

“Did he tell you to shut down the buffers?” There was no need to specify who ‘he’ was. 

“No.”  Perceptor had shut them down himself.  He’d needed to have at least part of his mind clear from the crowd of messages, to remember what he was doing and more important, why he was doing it. 

A silence from behind him, then a muffled something that might have been a curse.  Then Perceptor’s access hatch was closed by careful fingers.  The hand moved to his shoulder as he lay as if comforting him.  “Who else did they get?”

“Else?”

“Who came with you?” Drift’s voice was tired, strained. It wasn’t all Perceptor’s audio glitch.  Perceptor pushed up, against the comforting hand.

“I came alone.”  It sounded…pathetic now. It was supposed to be, supposed to have been, grand, daring, brave.  It was supposed to have been heroic, Perceptor sneaking onto the ship to free Drift all by himself. Stealth and secrecy.  It had definitely been ill-advised.  No one even knew where he was. Perceptor could see a hundred tactical flaws in the idea now, things that simply defied logic, rationality, sense.

And he was supposed to have been the scientist.  Those were his stock in trade.

A strange sound. Then,  “Just you I have to worry about getting out of here, then.”

Perceptor bridled at the pronoun, and the implication. “I came to get you.”

The hand tightened over his shoulder, thumb grazing, by accident, into the gaping wound where his scope once sat.  “I’m already gone, Perceptor.”  The hand lightened its grip, allowing Perceptor to turn, finally.

Drift’s face…or what was left of it.  Perceptor could recognize the cheek armor, the crest.  He could even recognize the lopsided smile. But the metal was scored, dented, as if someone had had a grudge against Drift’s looks, trying to mar them. And the optics…baleful red.  Drift caught Perceptor’s expression, and the red optics dropped their gaze to the floor. 

Perceptor followed the gaze downward and…oh.  That’s why the hand had felt so awkward on his frame.  Drift only had one, the other arm ending in a brutal, torn stump. 

“Drift,” he said, quietly.

Drift shook his head, refusing the name.  “Deadlock.”

“I won’t…I refuse to believe it.”

A sad laugh. “I refused it, too.”  Drift waved the stump of his right hand.  “No more swords for me; no more Drift.” 

“It’s a…it’s a hand. We can get it replaced.”  Perceptor grabbed for it, feeling the metal rough, bumpy with cauterized lumps, under his palm.  Parts were replaceable. He knew this intimately. Parts were parts, and nothing to the mech inside.  A hand was a hand. It was not…Drift.  Never mind that it was the opposite of what Perceptor had tried to tell himself—that if he had the right modifications, the right adjustments, he could make himself a better soldier. A proper warrior.  That his outside would make his inside. 

That illusion didn’t matter now. What mattered was the brittle smile on the silver face before him.

Drift allowed the touch, and it struck Perceptor as the most intimate touch they had shared since the larger mech had pulled him, bodily, from Turmoil’s damaged ship.  He did not want to let go, fearing that if he did, Drift might not allow another. 

All Perceptor could think of were stupid words, dumb speeches about not giving up and being strong. Stuff that Drift would laugh at and Deadlock?  Deadlock would despise.  And that Perceptor wasn’t certain he believed in anymore. All that he did believe in was that Drift was in there, somewhere.  Wanting to be recognized.  And he flattered himself that he could do it. Not because he was the best, not because he was special.  Simply because there was no other choice. 

Not the best choice, but the only choice.  It was becoming all too common for Perceptor, this feeling. Never quite making the grade; always a stopgap. 

He reached his other hand for Drift’s face, his own black fingers trembling from the strain of his recent ordeal. He could imagine, all too well now, what had put those marks, those dents, on Drift’s armor, what had twisted one cheek lamé into that shape, seeping energon.  Drift flinched away from the first brush of his fingers, before holding himself still, letting Perceptor’s hand gloss over his cheek, down under his chin, tracing a half-moon with his thumb. The smile crumbled under his touch. 

“Did Turmoil lie, then?” Perceptor asked.  “He said that if I survived, if I endured, I would see Drift.” 

“Don’t ever trust Turmoil,” Drift said, voice thin and hard and attenuated, something stretched too far, threatening to break.  “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”  His good hand came up, curling into Perceptor’s elbow, but not—yet—pulling him away.  The red optics lidded, as if ashamed. 

“I don’t trust him,” Perceptor said. “But I do trust you.”  He let his thumb glide over Drift’s damaged face again, as if accustoming Drift to touch.  He could feel the other mech fight the desire to flinch, fight to hold himself still. He was, Perceptor thought, always a fighter.  Perceptor knew that—and he just needed to remind Drift of it. 

Drift tried to evade, turning his cheek, slowly, giving way to a shuddering sigh. “I’ll get you out of here, get you free. Don’t know how.” The optics were distant, calculating. “Don’t know how,” he repeated, “But I’ll manage. Somehow.” A flash of one side of his mouth. “I always do…until I don’t.” The flash faded, recalling some hard, past memory where even ingenuity and endurance hadn’t been enough.

“I am not--,” Perceptor said, tightly, knowing it was romantic and foolish bravado that spoke, and once again, not logic, nor tactics, nor reason, nor sense. “I am not leaving without you.” 

Drift’s optics met his, dim, exhausted, red wells of what he had endured. “I don’t have the energy to fight you, too,” he said, almost pleading. 

Perceptor felt a wan smile on his own mouth, a faint echo of Drift’s usual smirk. Who was he?  No one special.  But he believed in Drift, and would believe in him for him, if need be.  He could have faith where Drift had lost his.  He could do that much. 

And more: He leaned forward, ignoring the wild protest of his damaged knees, brushing his mouth over Drift’s, letting the vibration of his words carry through the metal of Drift’s still lips. “Then don’t.” 

Comments

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

awwwwwwwww.... *hugs them both* *carefully, on account of the pointy bits*

[sasuke-emosauce.livejournal.com]

;_; These two were just built for angst, weren't they?

[swift117.livejournal.com]

ahh... havent seen this coming.
Well a joke. Actually you built the whole arch for this moment and beyond. But i lacked to see how Perceptor's feelings got so big to kiss Drift.

Otherwise, it is beautiful. I enjoy and love every sentence. They are crafted carefully; i truly admire your writing skills. And its almost 4am... and i still linger over your fics. I think thats a proof... lol.