shadow_vector | First Binding 1/2

First Binding
IDW/G1
Wing, Drift
NC-17
sticky, pain/bondage ‘play’

“Teach me.” Drift tried to make it sound like a command, but Wing saw through it. As he always did.

“Why do you want to learn?” Wing asked, snapping the blue blades back into their housing. Drift had been watching him, at first arms folded, for the last cycle, run through an exhausting series of spins and slashes, dives and attacks and guards.

Why? Because Wing was exquisite precision when he wielded those blades. Because it was a weapon. Because it was something to do.

Drift shrugged.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Wing said, laughing. “I had to do far more to convince them I was worthy.”

Drift believed it, and could imagine a bit too easily Wing’s earnest, impassioned harangue about helping others and protecting the weak. He…couldn’t pull that off. Not with a straight face, not without purging. “Maybe I’m not ‘worthy’, then,” he snapped.

Wing tilted his head. “I think you are. But you don’t know it yourself.”

Sometimes Drift resented how beautiful Wing was, how easily he moved, how easily he smiled. It would be so much easier to hate him if he didn’t gift those smiles, that warm voice, so liberally on Drift himself, completely unselfconscious, unaware of his effect.

Wing considered for a moment, then snapped his blades back to life. He handed one to Drift with the easy gallantry that seemed to characterize everything he did. “I will teach you this much: the basic guards. So that you can defend yourself, if need be.”

And will I need to? Drift asked. Wing shrugged, sensing the question, his smile quirking ironically at one side. “And if you desire more,” Wing continued, as if Drift’s ironic look simply hadn’t happened, “We shall set about proving your worthiness to yourself.”

[***]

“Name a color,” Wing said. He was setting the Great Sword in some mounting in the ground of the small room he’d led Drift to, the sword’s hilt jutting nearly at optic level. He bent, swiftly snapping stabilizing bands closed around the blade. Drift blinked, unsure of the purpose. Blade seemed pretty well set enough.

Wing straightened. “Color?”

“Red,” Drift blurted, absently, his optics on a red swath of Wing’s armor. Wing nodded, with a wry snort, crossing over to a panel, and withdrawing a coiled length of cable or rope, red. He handed it to Drift, before holding out his hands, wrists close.

“What?” Drift held the coil awkwardly. What were they even doing here? Wing had said something about worthiness and demonstrating something to him. He’d thought Wing meant the weapons. Not…whatever this was.

“It’s the vigil,” Wing explained. “If I am to teach you further, you must undergo it. It is our way.”

“I’m not one of you,” Drift retorted.

“If you want to join the brotherhood of the swords,” Wing explained, patiently, “you must become one of us. At least this much.”

“By…tying you up.”

Wing laughed. “It’s the ritual. It’s required.”

Drift snorted. “Symbolism.”

“Not just that,” Wing said. He moved his wrists. “Now, please? I will show you what I am asking you to do.”

Drift stared at the wrists—slim yet powerful—then at the rope. He wanted to be bound like a common prisoner? With this archaic stuff? His choice. He took one end of the rope and began winding it in a figure-8 over and under Wing’s outstretched wrists until he’d made a sort of woven band covering most of the light armor, before flipping direction and wrapping a coil over the intersection, reinforcing the center of the binding. “There,” he said, whisking the end into a quick knot with the original end, the two long ends streaming like a tassel.

Wing surveyed it. “It’s a good sign,” he said, quietly, “That you took trouble to make it beautiful.”

“I wasn’t aware I was being graded on this.”

“Always,” Wing said, grinning. Then he dodged forward, lowering his bound hands between them, and placed a chaste kiss on Drift’s mouth, teasing away the sting of his words.

By the time Drift had recovered from the surprise, his mouthplates tingling, Wing had turned to where the sword was planted, fixed in its bracket. His broad backspan looked naked without it, Drift thought, bare and…vulnerable. Wing turned, raising his arms over his head, angling his elbows, and sank slowly to his knees, catching his wrist binding over the pommel of the sword, so that his arms were held, immobilized, over his head.

“And now what?” Drift said. This didn’t look like a very cute trick.

“We wait,” Wing said, his voice taking on the hushed reverence it did when they spoke of swords.

“How long?”

“Until morning.”

All night. They’d be here all night. “You’re…going to stay tied to a stupid sword all night.”

Wing smiled. “Yes.”

“Why.” Beyond that the Circle of Light’s ways were…fraggin’ bizarre. And he was not going to stoop to this idiocy himself. Part of him wanted to snatch one of Wing’s short blades, sever the binding. Just to prove how empty the ritual was. Just to desecrate. Just to destroy. But Wing’s next words froze him.

“For what it teaches me about myself.”

“That you’re an idiot who ties himself to his sword.” Half-hearted. What did his desire, knee-jerk, almost innate, to destroy teach him?

Wing laughed, possibly seeing the flash of dark emotion across Drift’s face. Drift rocked back, stung.

“I will remain here all night, as the ritual requires,” Wing said, softly, after a moment. “You do not have to stay with me. But I’d appreciate if you’d return come morning.” His smile turned rueful. “I cannot unbind myself without your help.”

Drift studied Wing, his face going through a half-dozen emotions. “I’ll stay,” he muttered, not entirely sure why.

Wing bowed his head. “I thank you. The ritual can be…disturbing. I want you to see it before I ask you to undergo it.”

Drift’s comment about how ludicrous it sounded that being tied to a sword was ‘disturbing’ died in his vocalizer in the face of Wing’s earnestness. He nodded, gruffly.

“You may talk to me,” Wing said, quietly, “But there is a good chance, after a while, that I may not hear. Please do not consider it rude.” His gold optics were importunate, wanting Drift to understand. Drift nodded again. Wing returned the nod, his version gentle, slow, and then his optics seemed to dim, his ventilation changing, slow and deep and even.

Drift hesitated, watching Wing, his optics mapping strain points. There was no way Wing would stay here all night. After a while, his shoulder gyros would begin to overheat from the upward pressure, his wrists’ energon lines compressed by the binding and by gravity would turn his hands into blazing nets of pain. His knees, the strain to his ventilation pumps…. Stupid, Drift thought. Silly thing to do for a little while. But for cycles? Wing will be in agony. Stupid, needless, pointless agony.

And he was supposed to agree to this?

He found himself studying Wing, his optics dipping from the serene silver face to the white and red armor, to the long red tassels of the rope behind his back, the broad line of the sword rising above Wing’s head, framed by his sleek elegant sweeps of his white arms. Wing was…beautiful. He’d seen Wing animated, active, the face lit with personality, optics gleaming with some merriment, but even now, even still, his optics dimmed, lidded, his face performing for no audience, he was…breathtaking. Especially because he was for no audience but solely breathing, thinking, being, for himself.

What did that feel like? What did it mean? Drift didn’t think he’d ever felt whatever it was Wing was feeling. Didn’t know if he even could feel at that level, that quiet, that peace.

The night stretched. Wing’s ventilations grew shallower, his face flickering with some ephemeral pain. Drift paced, restless, Wing’s still discomfort somehow making him edgy.

Wing whimpered, softly, his optic shutters flicking, flexing his hands helplessly in their bindings, squirming his shoulders, trying to loosen the joints, his wings slowly unfolding, shivering.

“Wing?” Drift whispered.

Wing mumbled something, head lolling to one side. His hips rose, thigh actuators firing into his knees, attempting to release the hydraulic compression. It was captivating to watch, almost sexual, Wing’s squirming helplessly for release, his entire body stretched, wracked, exposed, as though his pain were gorgeous, to be admired.

Drift’s sensor net tingled, wanting in sharp, short scintillant bursts. His hands burned, wanting to slick down those intricate white shapes, to pull out the wings again, examine them, soothe them.

Soothe. Drift soothing anyone? Ridiculous.

Wing writhed, his lashed hands twisting together around the sword’s hilt. The whimpering turned to moaning, the sound somehow vibrating right through Drift’s systems, like blazing oil. He undulated against the bindings, his wings scraping against the sword’s bracket, his thighs surging upward.

Drift dropped to a knee beside him, worried. This…had to be something going wrong. “Wing,” he repeated, stretching one hand out.

Wing mumbled again, turning his face blindly to the sound of Drift’s voice. “I want,” he murmured. “I want….”

“What? What do you want?”

Wing groaned, his knees firing, arching his entire body up, shoulders twisted behind him, for a handful of kliks before he subsided, sobbing.

“What?” Drift asked, louder. He touched Wing’s shoulder.

Wing hissed, recoiling, as though Drift’s touch was agony, nearly falling to one side, overbalanced, only the binding of his wrists keeping him upright. Drift jumped back, startled.

The gold optics flicked open, but they were hazy, unfocussed. “No,” Wing murmured. “Can’t touch. Please.” Drift watched as Wing hauled against his bindings, pulling himself up, righting his legs under him, burnt and bitter with apology.

The night dragged on, Wing…tormented. It almost defied belief that Wing—white, pure, serious, intense, smiling Wing, could have so many mental demons assault him, but Drift could find no other explanation for how or why Wing went through what he did—moaning rising to, at times, shrieks that rattled Drift’s audio, jarred him to the base of his cortex, tore at his spark, or heartrending sobs, half-coherent apologies and pleas. Drift felt a dull anger rise, unfocused, untargeted, on Wing’s behalf, wishing he had an enemy to strike, something to HURT, something to deliver Wing’s pain back upon.

Finally, Wing subsided, sagging in his bonds, head bowed, spinal struts curved, his tortured wrists and shoulders bearing the strain of his weight, his ventilation shallow ragged gasps, almost panting, that seemed to ebb even then.

A bar of the false-light the underground city used to mark daylight stabbed through the narrow room’s only window, touching Wing’s knee. Wing didn’t seem to notice. But, Drift thought, he said until morning. It was morning.

He knelt in front of Wing, careful not to touch this time. “Wing,” he said, insistently, pitching his voice, hoping to rouse the other. “Wing.”

Wing raised his head, optics bleary. He looked exhausted, wrung out, but the smile was trying, vainly, valiantly, to spread on his lips. “Morning,” he murmured.

Drift nodded.

Wing blinked slowly, clarity slowly returning to his gaze. “Help me rise?”

Drift scooped forward, catching his shoulder against Wing’s chassis, arms around the rib struts, stepping in and lifting. Wing struggled to get his legs under him, but the servos were weak, exhausted, depressurized from the night’s exertions. He curled toward Drift as Drift reached over, guiding the bound wrists over the top of the sword’s hilt as gently as he could manage. Wing’s face found a home against Drift’s throat, pressing in, seeking comfort.

Drift stepped back, one hand cupped around Wing’s back as the other mech wobbled. Drift reached for the binding, half turned away from Wing, Wing’s body leaned on his, as he worked over the knot swiftly, the red ends whipping through the air as he unwound it as swiftly as he could. Wing whimpered, lowering his arms gingerly, energon burning back through them. He felt Wing shudder against him, lean on him, press into him. The stabilizers on Wing's knees slid against his thighs, quivering, unsteady. Wing nuzzled into him, hands cold and stiff and numb, but his face was warm on Drift's shoulder. He half-carried Wing over to the narrow alcove, thinking...could I do this? Was Wing stronger than I? He didn't know, but he wanted to try.

Wing’s arms twined around him, the air around him electric, charged, his optics golden pools of some deep emotion Drift could not read as he pulled Drift down with him, laying his frame out along the alcove’s space, along Drift’s body. And Drift’s body responded, the pent up frustration and helplessness from the night before transmuting to desire. His hands were rougher than he might have liked on Wing’s body, pulling their bodies together, reaching for the folded wings, one leg pushing between Wing’s white thighs.

Wing’s mouth met his, hungrily, and it was not the gentle, meek Wing he knew, but something forceful, aggressive, and yet, still, somehow utterly Wing. Wing arched into Drift’s fingers as they pulled at his wings, pushing himself over on top of Drift’s frame. “Please,” Wing murmured, his hand snaking down to Drift’s interface hatch. Drift pushed his chassis up, making room between their bodies for Wing’s hand, the hatch opening smoothly, eagerly. He twitched at Wing’s fingers—hot from the returning power flow—on his valve cover, asking, entreating. He released it, without thought, not thinking of what it meant so much as just wanting to give Wing what he wanted, that somehow, that was important right now. Wing’s head bowed against his shoulder, a mute acknowledgement of Drift’s actions, like a gift, before he shifted his own body.

Drift gasped as Wing’s spike pushed into him, feeling a wash of association—flashes of pain, humiliation, rage, power and force, triumphant sadism. But Wing was none of those, none of that, and the flashes faded to a gentle, warm pleasure. Wing’s motion was slow, tender, not thrusting in as much as ebbing and flowing, surging and releasing, slow and careful, desire without urgency. And Wing’s hands were gentle on him, and Wing’s mouth was shy and wanting against his, and Wing’s body was a stress-heated satin-skinned presence riding over him. Wing’s EM field reknit itself slowly with the charge from their contact, his hands grazing Drift’s body, as though touch made him real.

Drift’s hands tugged at the wings, feeding his own need, the desire to touch Wing that had grown overnight into something like an absolute. Wing shivered , his overload not the hard burst Drift knew, but elongated, as if someone had taken the moment of overload and stretched it between their hands, keeping the same sharp sweet intensity. It was bliss, pure and so sweet it hurt, almost too much for Drift to bear, his hands clutching at Wing, his mouth falling away, stretched open as though he couldn’t contain it all. Wing’s face over his was the face of one long lost finding direction, his golden optics like twin suns.

Wing eased down onto Drift’s frame. “Thank you,” he murmured, but blocked any reply, his mouth drowsily seeking a kiss, nipping gently at Drift’s mouthplates before sliding off to one side, overtaken by exhaustion.

Drift held him, spike still warm and throbbing in his valve, folding his arms over the naked swordless backspan, as the white light of the false day played over Wing’s armor, making him blaze and shimmer like a mirage.

Part two

First Binding 1/2

no subject