Perspectives

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

R
IDW/G1 (Forlorn Hope AU)
Jetfire, Optimus, Ratchet (implied Jetfire/Sixshot)
tactile/onanism


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

 

Ratchet was trying hard to master his anger.  He wasn’t mad at Optimus—of course not.  And it would be unfair to take it out on him. But he was unimaginably frustrated.  “He can’t be serious.” He did his best to ignore the waiting room full of mechs.  This was important.

“He is. And it’s our fault.”

“We got there as soon as we could, Optimus.  It takes a while to assemble a rescue team.”  Ratchet didn’t know the specifics—that was someone else’s job.  But he knew Optimus blamed himself for too much. Optimus, unlike Ratchet, didn’t let go of ‘someone else’s job’.

“Yes, but…perhaps we should not have sent him there alone.”

Ratchet shrugged. “Not sure how that’s supposed to work—maybe send him with someone who’s a better shot?”

“Ratchet.” Optimus’s tone held reprimand.

“Oh, come on, Optimus.  Jetfire. He hates fighting.”  It wasn’t a judgment, simply a clinical evaluation. Ratchet would say the same about himself.

“That does not mean he is not competent.”  Optimus’s blue eyes stared down at Ratchet.  Jetfire had proved his courage in combat.  But just like Ratchet, Jetfire’s greatest value was off the battlefield. And Jetfire had led the Calabi-Yau mission. He was not lacking courage.

“Fine,” Ratchet grudged.  “Still not sure how you think having someone else up there with him would have changed anything.”

“He’s been alone for too long. It can’t be good.” Optimus dropped his optics.  Jetfire had been through a lot.  They all had, of course, and the best he could do, as this war stretched onward, would be to try to accommodate their damages as best he could.  

And hope that in the end these deeper-than-physical scars would be worth it. 

“He asked to be stationed there,” Ratchet countered, “Didn’t he?”  His optics flicked to the window separating him from his waiting room.

“Yes, but…we should have had some scheduled contact with him, perhaps?”  Optimus rubbed a hand over his helm.  They had all been through a lot—himself included.  But he needed to stay strong.  They needed him.  “This is all…speculation, though.”

Ratchet gave a curt nod. “The matter is now.  And I’m telling you, that he can’t be serious.  Or really, that he’s hurt way worse than he lets on.”

“He insisted that it was not,” Optimus shifted, uncomfortable, “non-consensual.”

“Ridiculous!” Ratchet blurted.  He winced as his voice carried—one or two of the mechs in the waiting room turned.

“Something might have—must have happened we don’t know about.” 

Ratchet paused.  “There is…a condition.  Where someone develops some sort of positive affection toward their captor, provided the captor didn’t abuse them.”  He shrugged. “But it’s never gone so far as interfacing.” Another pause. “That I know of.”

“Hmmm,” Optimus considered. “If that were the case, what treatment is there?”

Ratchet’s optics went distant, researching.  “Patience,” he said.  “And not arguing with him. If we try to convince him that it was bad or that Sixshot is…Sixshot,” he faltered, “It could reinforce his attachment.”

Optimus nodded. “So, we should just let him alone.”

Ratchet looked unhappy. “The idea is if we treat him normally, he’ll start feeling safe, again, and not in that dangerous situation where he feels he has to side with Sixshot, and his own mind, as he comes out of it, will unravel the damage. Or…most of it.”

Optimus sighed. “We can do that. And let him know that we are here if he needs us.”

“And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he saw Sixshot in action.  Not told what he’s like, but shown. He’s smart. He can make his own judgments.”

Optimus nodded.  “He would dismiss our telling him anything, anyway.’

Ratchet nodded. “Trick is…not an awful lot of Sixshot footage available. You know.  Nature of his job and everything.” He looked torn between anger and illness. 

“I know.” 

“We can only fix the damage that comes in wanting to be fixed,” Ratchet said, pointing at his window.  “We can’t, not even you, be responsible for everyone.”

[***]

Jetfire scrolled through the repository’s holding list of history.  He’d had no such resource available at his research station—there simply hadn’t been room in the computer system. And he felt a strong need for knowledge, more powerful than before, as though he were seeking to fill an enormous void with words, facts, theories.

“What are you looking for?” A voice behind him startled him.

His wings jolted. Jetfire turned.  First Aid grinned up at him.  “I-I’m sorry.”  He gathered his datapad, stepping aside, gesturing First Aid forward. 

“Oh, no,” First Aid demurred, tucking a datapad behind his back. “I can wait. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Fine,” Jetfire said, automatically.  Each time it felt more and more like a lie. 

First Aid ducked his head. “I, uh, I read your file.”

Oh. Jetfire’s wings went rigid. 

“I’m really sorry,” First Aid said. “It was, I was on duty and I had forgotten to log in my report into your records and…,” First Aid spread his hands, guiltily.

“I understand.”  He did. 

“And, um, I…I think you’re very brave!” First Aid blurted.

Brave.  The word had not entered Jetfire’s processor. “I was not,” he said. 

First Aid seemed to ignore his reply. “And…if you want to talk about it, you know, off the record…I’m willing.”

Jetfire didn’t want to talk about it.  And he was beginning to feel guilty.  “Thank you,” he said, stiffly. “But that won’t be necessary.”  His hands balled, helplessly, as First Aid’s face fell.  “It is…very kind of you.” And I’m sorry, he added, feeling hideously clumsy, awkward, the way he never had around Sixshot.  Irony—Sixshot could kill him; First Aid would not, could not hurt.  Something was wrong, when the only mech you didn’t feel judged and awkward around was an enemy.

[***]

He had fought the rising tide of desire for days, savoring the shimmering tang across his net as a remembrance. But it had surged, rising more insistently, the tang resolving to a sharp ache. Wanting, needing release. Systems so long dormant resisted being returned to dormancy, firing at him when he most wanted to concentrate, or in idle moments when he let his thoughts slip.

With a certain sense of shame, he reached into his personal storage and tugged out the thin gloves.  He shivered, pulling them on, reaching over to lock the door to his impromptu lab.  It was kindness itself that they’d carved this miniature laboratory out of the base just for him, but…he could not help himself. He settled himself awkwardly on the ground, his wings already prickling with aroused heat against the cool floor.

He glossed a hand over his opposite shoulder, tracing his fingerpads over the espalier, feeling the touch like a stranger’s hand, light and gentle. His hand drifted farther back, skimming the top of the wingstrut, and then up. He tilted his head away, letting his fingers dip into the gap between his armor to the underlying mechanisms. 

His vent cycle stuttered, optics dimming.  And this was not his hand, but SIxshot’s, and the other mech’s optics were devouring his arousal.  If he dimmed his vid field enough, he could almost convince himself Sixshot was there and that the cool foreign touch of the insulated glove was Sixshot’s, and this whole thing was for Sixshot’s arousal, his desire a wanted display.

His other hand moved over his chassis, over the chest plating, before sliding down the blue glass of his cockpit canopy.  Sixshot had liked the canopy—or, at least, Sixshot paid it a lot of attention, curling his fingers around the blue glass, teasing at the insulated joins. 

Jetfire could feel the charge beginning to build, like stardust swirling over his sensor net, warm and cold both at once, tingling sharp and yet somehow soft, gentle. 

He let his hands continue to wander, as though they were not his, but visitors to foreign terrain, as though they were Sixshot’s hands.  He bent one leg, resting his foot on the ground, one hand delving into the armor of his thigh—the top surface, then over the edge to the thinner inner plates, then upward, slowly, tauntingly, toward the narrow gap.  He felt his mouthplates tense, a surge of arousal pounding through him. 

And, he thought, and.  And Sixshot’s watching this. Maybe…maybe he’s making me do this, just feeding off the display, wanting me to pleasure myself, to touch and tease myself while he watches, enjoys, desire building up behind those red optics. Maybe he’s…over there, in the shadow, and watching. 

Jetfire’s frame shuddered at the thought, and the charge seemed to double, imagining his performance was a display for someone else’s consumption.

His vents grew even more ragged, uneven, his wings shifting against the floor.  His EM field began to glow, faintly blue, sparkling with current over his white body. 

Sixshot liked his canopy: Jetfire flipped it open, arching his back into the touch, letting his fingers glide under the transparent glass.  The tempered underside was far more sensitive than the outside, kept protected from the elements of flight, but alive with sensors.  A moan escaped his vocalizer as he traced an intricate pattern on the glass, inside and out, the charge rising and tingling and eddying, pushing him, spinning, twisting, toward overload.  His body tensed, his EM field shimmering more brightly, silverblue sparks flashing across the field, anticipating, reaching for release.

“Jetfire.”

The voice cut over his comm. Jetfire jolted, startled back to the present place, the present moment, his systems howling in frustration.  He clawed his way up to his console, body trembling with need. 

“Jetfire, on,” he managed, his voice unsteady.

Optimus’s face resolved on the screen. “I didn’t—did I contact you at a bad time?”

“N-no,” Jetfire said, tightly.  “What can I help you with?” In his cortex, the image of Sixshot, watching, longing, needing him dissolved like a mirage, like a dream tearing itself from his grasp.

“We have a scientific data collection burst inbound for later. I was wondering,” Optimus said, with false innocence, “if you would be interested in being in the research team.”

It was worded as an offer, but it was a demand, Jetfire knew—there would be a penalty, a price, if he gave the wrong response. “Yes, sir. I would be honored.”

The moment stretched, and Jetfire could feel Optimus’s gaze on him, searching, probing. “I’ll,” Optimus said, finally, “let you get back to your…work.” 

The phrasing perplexed Jetfire, but Optimus had cut the connection before he could ask a question.  But when Jetfire looked down, he could see the shimmer of pre-overload dancing over his aroused frame, and the conspicuous angle of his canopy glass, and…one of the cuffs of his gloves had doubtless been within Optimus’s line of view. 

He blazed with shame: Optimus knew what he was doing here, had caught him in the act, trembling on the brink of release, mortifyingly alone. 

Jetfire dropped back, heavily, onto the floor, the aroused charge of his EM field suddenly going sour and flat. He stared at his gloved hands with distaste, disgust, wings drooping.

This was…ruining him.

Comments

[albinocthulhu.livejournal.com]

Opitmus, Ratchet, Firstaid. You fail at life.