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shadow_vector2011-02-17 05:29 am
niyazi-a.livejournal.com) wrote in shadow_vector2011-02-17 05:29 am
But if the Heart Lies
PG
IDW/G1
Perceptor, Verity
Spoilers for end of LSOTW, angst, ref canon character death
For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tf_rare_pairing weekly request response
Thanks in extremis to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wicked3659 for kickin' my ass (and generally kicking ass) as beta.
It was quiet. Even by Perceptor’s standards, it bordered on the cliché ‘too quiet’. He checked his chrono. He’d had enough recharge. Enough to function, if he set his power protocols to enable his alternator. And there were things to do…things to look after. Springer in the CR chamber, Ironfist in the repair bay, heavily sedated so that the Aequitas protocols did not, well, instantly kill him.
Mercy, wasn’t it? Perceptor found he envied the peace, even the false chemical peace that Ironfist had. It was more than he had.
He pushed off his berth, ignoring the twinges of pain, overriding the warning sensors from his damaged systems. He’d thrown himself in Overlord’s path more than once, to the point where he suspected the rogue Phase Sixer had divined his intent. Take me, instead of the others. Maybe, he thought, a hiss of pain slicing through the thick silence like a scalpel, maybe he’d hoped to be spared…this. Of all the Wreckers, he was the only one who’d known why the mission had really been approved. It wasn’t to free hostages—and good thing, because if that were their objective, they had failed so abjectly as to be court-martialed. It hadn’t been to take down Overlord—he’d been…irrelevant for so long he was off most Alpha Mission Profiles. It had been Aequitas. It has always been Aequitas.
And once again, Perceptor had been Prowl’s obedient lapdog. Just like with Kup, just like before, except this time, he was the mouthpiece, he was the puppet Prowl was controlling.
“I’m not telling you to lie to them,” Prowl had countered, when Perceptor had stood up—or tried to—on principle. “Simply to…ration the truth.” And he’d sat back, tapping meaningfully on the box of cy-gars Perceptor had come to pick up. Rationing. Yes.
Perceptor had had no choice. Or rather he had, but inertia had taken over, and he’d lacked—again, still, as always—the strength to resist. Still too weak. Still not enough.
But no. He’d traded in his science and such moral qualms along with it. He’d held illusions before about what he did and its effect, but...he could no longer. It was not his place. He was merely a tool. A weapon. He had no right to such things as principles. Ideals. Drift had seen. Drift had left. He’d had no right, even then, to say anything, already bound by his own hypocrisy.
He had a right to suffer, though. So he pushed toward the door, ignoring the intermittent flashes of pain from his damaged joints, heading down the hall to the medbay. He would check on Springer, check on Ironfist. Reports to write, file, and then the long, long-delayed comm to Prowl.
He didn’t know why he was hesitating, beyond that he didn’t even want the cool congratulations Prowl would offer up for having achieved...this. The end of the Wreckers. The destruction of the team that had accepted him, even back then, that embraced the outcaste and the unafraid to die. It tasted like betrayal.
But this is what war does. This is how war works.
The corridor was lethally silent. His home--the only place that had begun to feel like home--gutted, empty, and he was the only waking thing here: husks of Twin Twist and the others in the hold-bay, Ironfist and Springer under protocols so deep they might as well be dead. And home. Empty and hollow and dead. The medbay by contrast seemed almost thick with noise—the hum of the cryostasis generator, the cycling clicks of the autoventilator controlling Ironfist’s temperature maintenance subroutines, the soft push of fluids through dozens of tubes.A noise of the undead.
And.
Verity.
He’d…forgotten about her. How?
How…was that she hadn’t needed his help. Hadn’t wanted it, had sat in a sullen, burning silence all the way up to the ship and…disappeared.
Some leader you are, Perceptor. Lose sight of the only other survivor. When no one’s targeting her, she…disappears. Think on that, Perceptor. It means something. It may be the only last, twisted value you have left, and you should contemplate its ugliness, see what you have become.
But now….
“Verity.” Verity lay alongside Ironfist, her back against his orange chassis, one hand hooked over his upper arm, her face nuzzled in the join of his arm and his body. When she didn’t move, he risked a touch, a gentle prod with one finger at her shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here, Verity.”
The eyelids—thin tissue of human dermal plating that seemed impossibly delicate to him—flickered open, her eyes dark pools. So different from the comforting glow of Autobot optics.
Of which his was the only functioning pair in the Wreckers right now. Sobering thought, that he and she were the last ones standing. They were...the Wreckers now. For what that meant. A legacy neither seemed capable of filling.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated, and realized as the drowsy blink disappeared, replaced by a harder face, thinned lips, that he’d—again—said something wrong.
“Don’t tell me where I can or can’t be.” She pushed up to sitting, her long legs between them like a barrier. “Have a right to be here.”
“…it’s not about rights, Verity.”
“Then what is it, huh?”
“Safety,” he said, quickly. “Ironfist is sedated but not immobilized. In his recharge, he might—“
“Can it,” Verity said. “Slept with you twice. Didn’t seem a big deal to you then.” She tossed her head. “And after what we’ve slaggin’ been through you want to go off about ‘safety’?”
Yes. It made perfect sense. Protect what’s left. “I…that was different.”
“Oh, right.” Verity wrinkled her nose, in something like contempt.
It was different, he thought. We weren’t surrounded by death. We weren’t both scraped raw, both physically and….
“The atmosphere,” he said, quietly. “It isn’t good for you.”
“Garrus. Nine.” Verity folded her arms over her chest, thumping back against Ironfist’s numb, sedated side.
Perceptor faltered. “You…have your own quarters.”
“So do you.” Her face was hard, and even after a lifetime of looking at steel-span faces, hers seemed…unnerving.
“Came here to check on them.”
She rocked forward, dropping her knees down, gesturing widely with her arms. “Checked! See? Ironfist, still in the beep-boop. Springer, still ain’t got a face. Nothin’s changed. They’re both…the fraggin’ same.”
And it struck him, finally, like a crack of rifle fire. He hadn’t considered, really, how she was. He’d come to check on them, not her. Because they were physically damaged and that much...he could handle. It was a sharp lash of guilt, under which he flinched. He dropped down to one knee, his right knee, almost automatically, from so many times dropping into a sniper’s position. “Verity,” he said, quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry don’t fraggin’ solve much.”
He bowed his head. Only too true. And only this…again. “Yes. Got distracted.”
She snorted. “Distracted. Right.”
He picked his words, he hoped, carefully. “Have…too much on my mind.” Even that admission, that he couldn’t handle it, that he was struggling to cope, felt like a broad exposed wound. “I’m here now.” An excuse buried in a limping offer.
“Yeah, guess you finally have time for me, great.” Her face moved into something like a sneer, but somehow sadder.
That was…unfair. No, it was fair. “You didn’t…. Wanted to stay out of your way.” Out of where I’d have to confront my betrayal reflected from someone else’s gaze. Verity had been, was, the conscience of the Wreckers. She’d spoken up when no one else had and he had…shut her down. Or tried to. No wonder she’d disappeared.
“Yeah?” Verity snapped. “Kind of hard since we’re the only ones left.”
“No…yes.” Perceptor felt his hands flatten, open, empty, nothing to offer.
Verity looked over her shoulder at Ironfist, quiet, still, his entire systems scrawled on a monitor overhead, as though everything important, everything that mattered, could reduce to algorithms, blips on a screen. No, those screens missed…everything. “He’ll be okay, right?”
It was a test—or it felt like one. Whether she knew it or not. “No. He’s dying. He’s always been dying.” That was why Prowl had wanted him on the mission.
“Yeah, ain’t we all,” Verity shot back, trying to mask the way the news—confirming what she obviously already had felt—struck her.
“No. Not his way. It’s why I--,” he shut up abruptly, mid word.
“Why…why you threw him at me.” A light of illumination. Her mouth moved in a way he couldn't read.
Yes. That. Partly. Though now it seemed massively unfair—he’d wanted her to be happy and Ironfist to have…some enjoyment before he died. He hadn’t thought enough ahead. Hadn’t, probably, expected to have to deal with the fallout. Why he dealt with range weapons. Don’t have to be in the killzone.
Also because she deserved better than what he could give. Case in point: He’d forgotten about her. “I can’t be what you need.”
A flare of anger, but somehow, less hard, less hostile. “Maybe you don’t know what I need. Maybe you don’t fraggin’ know everything.” Her toes clenched over the edge of the berth.
“…what do you need?”
Her face seemed to crack, eyes glistening tears that spilled over her cheeks. “Just…someone. Someone still alive. Someone who, fuck it, who remembers, and can understand.”
“Don’t think anyone can understand,” he said, quietly. He didn’t. The empty silence of the place seemed to yawn around him, as if preparing to swallow him utterly.
“Well then...just to be confused as hell about it along with me,” Verity said.
He nodded, a surrender, giving in. Because in the end, it was all he dared ask for, himself.
IDW/G1
Perceptor, Verity
Spoilers for end of LSOTW, angst, ref canon character death
For
tf_rare_pairing weekly request response Thanks in extremis to
wicked3659 for kickin' my ass (and generally kicking ass) as beta. It was quiet. Even by Perceptor’s standards, it bordered on the cliché ‘too quiet’. He checked his chrono. He’d had enough recharge. Enough to function, if he set his power protocols to enable his alternator. And there were things to do…things to look after. Springer in the CR chamber, Ironfist in the repair bay, heavily sedated so that the Aequitas protocols did not, well, instantly kill him.
Mercy, wasn’t it? Perceptor found he envied the peace, even the false chemical peace that Ironfist had. It was more than he had.
He pushed off his berth, ignoring the twinges of pain, overriding the warning sensors from his damaged systems. He’d thrown himself in Overlord’s path more than once, to the point where he suspected the rogue Phase Sixer had divined his intent. Take me, instead of the others. Maybe, he thought, a hiss of pain slicing through the thick silence like a scalpel, maybe he’d hoped to be spared…this. Of all the Wreckers, he was the only one who’d known why the mission had really been approved. It wasn’t to free hostages—and good thing, because if that were their objective, they had failed so abjectly as to be court-martialed. It hadn’t been to take down Overlord—he’d been…irrelevant for so long he was off most Alpha Mission Profiles. It had been Aequitas. It has always been Aequitas.
And once again, Perceptor had been Prowl’s obedient lapdog. Just like with Kup, just like before, except this time, he was the mouthpiece, he was the puppet Prowl was controlling.
“I’m not telling you to lie to them,” Prowl had countered, when Perceptor had stood up—or tried to—on principle. “Simply to…ration the truth.” And he’d sat back, tapping meaningfully on the box of cy-gars Perceptor had come to pick up. Rationing. Yes.
Perceptor had had no choice. Or rather he had, but inertia had taken over, and he’d lacked—again, still, as always—the strength to resist. Still too weak. Still not enough.
But no. He’d traded in his science and such moral qualms along with it. He’d held illusions before about what he did and its effect, but...he could no longer. It was not his place. He was merely a tool. A weapon. He had no right to such things as principles. Ideals. Drift had seen. Drift had left. He’d had no right, even then, to say anything, already bound by his own hypocrisy.
He had a right to suffer, though. So he pushed toward the door, ignoring the intermittent flashes of pain from his damaged joints, heading down the hall to the medbay. He would check on Springer, check on Ironfist. Reports to write, file, and then the long, long-delayed comm to Prowl.
He didn’t know why he was hesitating, beyond that he didn’t even want the cool congratulations Prowl would offer up for having achieved...this. The end of the Wreckers. The destruction of the team that had accepted him, even back then, that embraced the outcaste and the unafraid to die. It tasted like betrayal.
But this is what war does. This is how war works.
The corridor was lethally silent. His home--the only place that had begun to feel like home--gutted, empty, and he was the only waking thing here: husks of Twin Twist and the others in the hold-bay, Ironfist and Springer under protocols so deep they might as well be dead. And home. Empty and hollow and dead. The medbay by contrast seemed almost thick with noise—the hum of the cryostasis generator, the cycling clicks of the autoventilator controlling Ironfist’s temperature maintenance subroutines, the soft push of fluids through dozens of tubes.A noise of the undead.
And.
Verity.
He’d…forgotten about her. How?
How…was that she hadn’t needed his help. Hadn’t wanted it, had sat in a sullen, burning silence all the way up to the ship and…disappeared.
Some leader you are, Perceptor. Lose sight of the only other survivor. When no one’s targeting her, she…disappears. Think on that, Perceptor. It means something. It may be the only last, twisted value you have left, and you should contemplate its ugliness, see what you have become.
But now….
“Verity.” Verity lay alongside Ironfist, her back against his orange chassis, one hand hooked over his upper arm, her face nuzzled in the join of his arm and his body. When she didn’t move, he risked a touch, a gentle prod with one finger at her shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here, Verity.”
The eyelids—thin tissue of human dermal plating that seemed impossibly delicate to him—flickered open, her eyes dark pools. So different from the comforting glow of Autobot optics.
Of which his was the only functioning pair in the Wreckers right now. Sobering thought, that he and she were the last ones standing. They were...the Wreckers now. For what that meant. A legacy neither seemed capable of filling.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated, and realized as the drowsy blink disappeared, replaced by a harder face, thinned lips, that he’d—again—said something wrong.
“Don’t tell me where I can or can’t be.” She pushed up to sitting, her long legs between them like a barrier. “Have a right to be here.”
“…it’s not about rights, Verity.”
“Then what is it, huh?”
“Safety,” he said, quickly. “Ironfist is sedated but not immobilized. In his recharge, he might—“
“Can it,” Verity said. “Slept with you twice. Didn’t seem a big deal to you then.” She tossed her head. “And after what we’ve slaggin’ been through you want to go off about ‘safety’?”
Yes. It made perfect sense. Protect what’s left. “I…that was different.”
“Oh, right.” Verity wrinkled her nose, in something like contempt.
It was different, he thought. We weren’t surrounded by death. We weren’t both scraped raw, both physically and….
“The atmosphere,” he said, quietly. “It isn’t good for you.”
“Garrus. Nine.” Verity folded her arms over her chest, thumping back against Ironfist’s numb, sedated side.
Perceptor faltered. “You…have your own quarters.”
“So do you.” Her face was hard, and even after a lifetime of looking at steel-span faces, hers seemed…unnerving.
“Came here to check on them.”
She rocked forward, dropping her knees down, gesturing widely with her arms. “Checked! See? Ironfist, still in the beep-boop. Springer, still ain’t got a face. Nothin’s changed. They’re both…the fraggin’ same.”
And it struck him, finally, like a crack of rifle fire. He hadn’t considered, really, how she was. He’d come to check on them, not her. Because they were physically damaged and that much...he could handle. It was a sharp lash of guilt, under which he flinched. He dropped down to one knee, his right knee, almost automatically, from so many times dropping into a sniper’s position. “Verity,” he said, quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry don’t fraggin’ solve much.”
He bowed his head. Only too true. And only this…again. “Yes. Got distracted.”
She snorted. “Distracted. Right.”
He picked his words, he hoped, carefully. “Have…too much on my mind.” Even that admission, that he couldn’t handle it, that he was struggling to cope, felt like a broad exposed wound. “I’m here now.” An excuse buried in a limping offer.
“Yeah, guess you finally have time for me, great.” Her face moved into something like a sneer, but somehow sadder.
That was…unfair. No, it was fair. “You didn’t…. Wanted to stay out of your way.” Out of where I’d have to confront my betrayal reflected from someone else’s gaze. Verity had been, was, the conscience of the Wreckers. She’d spoken up when no one else had and he had…shut her down. Or tried to. No wonder she’d disappeared.
“Yeah?” Verity snapped. “Kind of hard since we’re the only ones left.”
“No…yes.” Perceptor felt his hands flatten, open, empty, nothing to offer.
Verity looked over her shoulder at Ironfist, quiet, still, his entire systems scrawled on a monitor overhead, as though everything important, everything that mattered, could reduce to algorithms, blips on a screen. No, those screens missed…everything. “He’ll be okay, right?”
It was a test—or it felt like one. Whether she knew it or not. “No. He’s dying. He’s always been dying.” That was why Prowl had wanted him on the mission.
“Yeah, ain’t we all,” Verity shot back, trying to mask the way the news—confirming what she obviously already had felt—struck her.
“No. Not his way. It’s why I--,” he shut up abruptly, mid word.
“Why…why you threw him at me.” A light of illumination. Her mouth moved in a way he couldn't read.
Yes. That. Partly. Though now it seemed massively unfair—he’d wanted her to be happy and Ironfist to have…some enjoyment before he died. He hadn’t thought enough ahead. Hadn’t, probably, expected to have to deal with the fallout. Why he dealt with range weapons. Don’t have to be in the killzone.
Also because she deserved better than what he could give. Case in point: He’d forgotten about her. “I can’t be what you need.”
A flare of anger, but somehow, less hard, less hostile. “Maybe you don’t know what I need. Maybe you don’t fraggin’ know everything.” Her toes clenched over the edge of the berth.
“…what do you need?”
Her face seemed to crack, eyes glistening tears that spilled over her cheeks. “Just…someone. Someone still alive. Someone who, fuck it, who remembers, and can understand.”
“Don’t think anyone can understand,” he said, quietly. He didn’t. The empty silence of the place seemed to yawn around him, as if preparing to swallow him utterly.
“Well then...just to be confused as hell about it along with me,” Verity said.
He nodded, a surrender, giving in. Because in the end, it was all he dared ask for, himself.
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Despite all the sad, I really enjoyed reading it. ^_^ Thank you for sharing!!!
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But sometimes, it's not about being good at it as much as just...being.
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