Two Sides

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW/G1, Forlorn Hope AU
Sixshot/Jetfire, also starring Optimus Prime and Banzaitron.
A/N Borrowing the idea of Banzaitron sort of being the Secret Service head from dfastback68 . 

PREVIOUSLY
FH-3
Relapse
Transgression
First
Rescue
Half Truths and Shadows
Coping Mechanism
Kiss
Of Mice and Terrorcons
Best Plan Ever!!

Jetfire scrolled down his datapad, through the research they had salvaged from his asteroid station.  It seemed like a different world, the data something like a vision from another dimension.  Unlike his usual research, reading over this, he could vividly recall moments of his life, and how they had intersected with his research.  He had just entered that sentence when Sixshot had pulled him away.  This part, the boring data upload, he had been telling Sixshot about one day in the Science Academy before the war.  The data seemed to sparkle with a life that was missing from the days he’d spent since his rescue.

It was like reliving, though, to revisit these memories. He half expected to look up from the table to see the Phase Sixer watching him, or searching through the locker for tools, or to feel the hot vents against his back just before the white arms would wrap around him. 

His wings quivered, optics dimming into the daydream. 

“Jetfire.” Optimus’s deep voice penetrated his reverie like a knifeblade.  Jetfire jumped. 

“Y-yes, Optimus.”  Jetfire shut down the datapad quickly, almost guiltily, but toyed with it in his hands like a talisman.

“May I speak with you?”

“Of course.”  Jetfire rose, clutching the datapad uselessly, wings going stiff behind him, wary. He knew what this was about, and it hurt.  It hurt to think about at all, much less to be forced to talk about it with Optimus, of all mechs.

Optimus looked around the small lab.  Jetire was crowded in here, a quickly-set up room, a temporary, stopgap research lab.  “I am sorry about these accommodations.”

“They’re fine,’ Jetfire murmured. He dropped his gaze to the floor, already bracing himself. 

“You must miss your own research lab,” Optimus said. 

Jetfire wished, sincerely, that Optimus would stop. The conversation was agonizing, as Optimus was trying to reach out, not realizing that the last thing Jetfire wanted right now was to be reminded of…that place. And all that had happened. “A lab is a lab,” he said, tightly.  “It is the point of science that it can be replicated anywhere.”

“Yes, but science does not happen without mechs to do it. And those are not replicable. Or replaceable.” 

Another painful attempt to throw a bridge across the gap between them.  And Primus help Jetfire, he was trying to catch hold. “Yes, sir.”

Optimus approached: Jetfire’s white fingers curled around the datapad.  There had been a time when he would have given anything to have Optimus look at him with that soft sympathy and warm regard.  Now it just made him uncomfortable, conjuring other possibilities that seemed dead to him now. “Ratchet sent me,” Optimus said.

“I know.” And I know why. And…I don’t want to have this conversation. Not yet. Not with you.

His transgression seemed enormous now, treason.  Or worse, if there was anything worse. 

“What do you feel comfortable telling me about it?”

Nothing. But Jetfire knew that would not do.  “I interfaced with Sixshot.” So much was in the medical reports.  It said everything and nothing and it did him nothing to deny it, other than losing his credibility. He could feel Optimus’s optics on him, studying him.  Was he ashamed?  Yes, of himself, of his own cowardice.  About what he had done…? He didn’t know.  He forced his gaze to meet Optimus’s.

He nodded, forcing his wings up. Yes. 

Optimus was silent for a long moment. “Did he threaten you?” 

A hesitation. He would not lie.  Not to Optimus. “Yes, but…not about that.”  Sixshot hadn’t needed to.  Jetfire had wanted it to happen. His wings began vibrating with emotion.

Optimus stepped back. “I am sorry, Jetfire. I did not mean to stir up unpleasant memories.”

They weren’t unpleasant.  And that was beginning to be the problem. It had felt so sure and certain and right when it had been happening, a warm thrill of desire, fascinatingly mobile.  It had been everything he’d ever dreamed, wanting and being wanted, being trusted, being needed, being…accepted, without any questions of the past or of loyalty. Simply, purely, all that had mattered was the moment and the other mech in front of him. 

“You did not,” Jetfire answered, quietly.  Not a lie. 

“He did, I heard, threaten to kill you.  At the end, as a hostage.”

“He had no choice,” Jetfire said. 

“He could have killed you.”

Yes.  That had always been there.  From the very first moment, the sure knowledge that Sixshot could, would kill him without a moment’s thought. And somehow, it had attracted Jetfire. Perhaps the same way that Starscream had attracted him—like playing with fire, toying with a loaded gun.  Since he’d joined the Autobots, he’d lost any chance of exercising that sense of adventure that he’d known before the war. Is this where it had gone? Is this it surfacing at last? Sublimated, repressed? And Jetfire had felt no real fear—not that he was certain that Sixshot wouldn’t ever do it, but that…it just didn’t scare him. He wasn’t brave, wasn’t much of a warrior, but he did not fear death.  If he had, he’d never have been an explorer. 

“He did not,” Jetfire said. If only that kind of lack of fear could translate to this kind of courage.  “Because the rescue team behaved admirably.” 

“Our mission is to preserve life. Even if it means Sixshot getting away.”

“Yes. They did well. I appreciate it.” The words felt hollow, though he meant them.  It wasn’t their fault. 

“It must have been…disturbing to think that he would have killed you.  The report said he threatened you at the ramp of the shuttle.” Pushing on the same point, trying to direct him into the correct narrative.

Jetfire groaned.  They had written an alternate interpretation of everything, hadn’t they?  He supposed it had looked like it from the outside, and easier to take than to think that he had wanted it, he had been willing to accept anything, even death, at Sixshot’s hands.

Which sounded…insane now.  Like the world of a dream, when you wake up, and the logic that had seemed so clean and clear and obvious, you realized upon waking violated every known law.  “He did not kill me,” Jetfire said, carefully, feeling as though the ground under his feet was heaving, unsteady.

 “And that is what matters, Jetfire.” Optimus nodded, almost relieved. “And we will do our best to help you recover.  But you must help us help you.”

Autobot ideals.  Jetfire heard the words seem to stir from the back of his cortex—Sixshot’s quiet rumble. Even in memory, it sent skirls of shivery sensation across his net.  But…Autobot ideals. He wasn’t the only one to live them, or believe in them. “Yes, Optimus.  I just…need some time.”  If time could do anything to straighten the confusion that was beginning to burn in his mind.

“Of course,” Optimus said.  And then, himself unsteadily. “I regret we left you so long up there.  Loneliness is a terrible thing.”

“Yes.”  The word hung between them like a shard of ice, brittle and glittering. How could he explain? It was the trust.  Sixshot had trusted him—not fast and cheap and thinly, the way the Autobots had—but making him work for it, making him earn it. Once earned, though,  it had been implicit, a foundation more solid and stable than tungsten. 

And Sixshot thought he had betrayed that.  He would never trust him again.

“A terrible thing,” Optimus echoed, and Jetfire discovered, in that instant, something even more terrible—pity from someone he admired. 

[***]

Sixshot stood in front of Banzaitron, glaring the smaller mech down. “Yes. A mission.” 

“You’re…asking for a mission.”  A hint of amusement in the smaller mech’s voice. 

Sixshot tilted his chin lower, sharpening his glare.  Banzaitron shrugged. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any systems currently on Phase Six Infiltration.”

“Phase Fives, then.” Sixshot had done Phase Fives before. There was precedent. 

“I have…,” Banzaitron consulted, “one. It’s supposed to go to Overlord.” 

“Overlord.”  A joke, a sick one at that.  Either that or Banzaitron was toying with him. Overlord was gone. As usual.  Possibly dead.  Not Sixshot’s concern. 

“Why do you want a mission?”

“My job.”

Banzaitron chuckled. “So eager. Thought the fun had gone out of it for you.”

It had. Long ago.  Never injured to the point of incapacitation, never exhausted, something had to give, and what had given was Sixshot’s formerly fierce pleasure in combat.  Loneliness and invulnerability somehow combined to leach all pleasure from the precise exercise of brutality. Sixshot’s vertical stabilizer twitched.  Don’t push your luck, Banzaitron, he thought. “Bored.”

Banzaitron’s optics glinted, needling Sixshot. “Yes. That’s why we give out missions.  To alleviate boredom.”

A little too close to the truth. He could feel it slipping from him, but…not from lack of practice.  From the specter of Jetfire, who seemed to haunt the margins of his consciousness. That surrendered look from those pale blue optics, willing to take anything from Sixshot’s hands, even death.

Even abandonment? 

Sixshot blinked, driving the image away. “Lose my edge.”

“You?”  Banzaitron laughed. A flash of movement, Banzaitron aiming a blow at Sixshot’s head.  Sixshot’s arm flew up, catching the fist on his heavy forearm armor.  “Not losing much of an edge,” Banzaitron confirmed. 

“Stupid to have me and not make use of me,” Sixshot parried.

“Stupid to waste you on things so far beneath your abilities,” Banzaitron countered.

SIxshot’s foot scraped on the deck in frustration, optics hardening.

Banzaitron was studying him. “So.”

“So.”

A snort. “Tell me about the Reapers.”

Sixshot, this time, was caught off guard.  Of course. Words. Combat, he could handle.  Words, he could not. Only Jetfire hadn’t seemed to notice or mind.  “Reapers.”  He shrugged. “Wanted me to go with them.”

“You didn’t.”

“Obviously.”  Uncharacteristic sarcasm.  Banzaitron was pushing too closely, deliberately.  

“And they…let you go.”  Banzaitron’s voice was dripping with amused doubt, as though he’d caught Sixshot in a lie.

“Ask the Terrorcons.” Sixshot refused to let Banzaitron get under his plating.  Bother them. Sixshot felt certain the gestalt would back him up, since it was, merely the truth.  Well, most of it.  The Terrorcons didn’t even know about the cybertoxin the Reapers had infected him with.

“Oh,” Banzaitron said, breezily. “I already have, trust me.” 

“Then stop wasting my time.”  Sixshot’s temper flared. 

“Your time. That’s an excellent point. Where did you go after Mumu-Obscura?”

Sixshot glowered.  “Better to split up in case the Reapers reneged.” That had been his thought…before the cybertoxin had taken over, before he’d blindly, feverishly, told the Devil King to lock on any sort of inhabited facility.  Before Jetfire.  Trying to flee entanglements. Ironic.

“Ah.” Banzaitron nodded, too easily.  He didn’t believe Sixshot.  “Must have been one hell of an evasive course you ran.  Switched ships and everything.”

Sixshot stiffened, then rolled it into a shrug. “Could have taken longer. Since there’s no mission.” He hated all these words, all this talking. He hated this dance of prevarication.  He missed Jetfire’s voice, the warm baritone rumble a soothing river of sound, washing over him.  This was discordant, jarring noise. 

Banzaitron grunted, turning ostentatiously back to his console. “Hnh. I’ll see if I can find something…suitable,” he said.  Simply, baldly. Sixshot was…dismissed.

But he knew this wasn’t over.

 

Comments

[albinocthulhu.livejournal.com]

For some reason my mind wants to spout some true love poetry carp.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Lol! XD