Restraint

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Restraint
R (for icky stuff)
IDW/G1
Drift/Perceptor
graphic description of cutting/self-harm, bondage/restraint, minor, minor bloodplay
Yeah one of those things I wrote like a week ago and it's time to shut down the laptop for a reboot and knowing me, I'd probably lose/forget about this entirely.  A continuation or whatever of the notion that Perceptor's self-blame leads to 'cutting'.  It's a bit...extreme so if you're squeamish, skip it. I won't mind.  

 

 

He’d gotten sloppy, lazy.  Or…perhaps he’d wanted to get caught. 

No.  He hadn’t wanted to get caught.  Because nothing he’d done to himself hurt as much as the expression on Drift’s face, standing in the doorway, looking down at Perceptor, on the floor, picking apart his left thigh. 

“Maintenance,” he’d bluffed, feebly, trying to cover the spill of energon with one hand.  It had fascinated him, moments before, the slow hot trickle of fluid, dripping through his interior cabling, running and sliding, like guilt.

Drift’s mouth tightened, his hand curling into the doorframe for a long moment.  And then he moved, as fast as he did in combat, and was on Perceptor before Perceptor could do any more than stiffen, snatching his hands up, forcing the arms over Perceptor’s head, forcing Perceptor’s gaze to meet his own as he straddled the silver legs.

“Don’t lie to me,” Drift said, quietly, holding a world of menace, everything Perceptor feared.  Perceptor jerked his head to the side, breaking the gaze. 

Words swam through Perceptor’s cortex—mostly, he realized, lies.  ‘I can explain’? No, he really couldn’t.  ‘It’s not what you think’? It probably was.  ‘It doesn’t hurt’? Pain was the entire point of the exercise.  He nodded, tugging at his wrists. 

Drift shook his head, tightening his grip on Perceptor’s wrists.  He stepped back over, and began walking, dragging Perceptor bodily along the floor, metal scraping on the decking.  Perceptor saw the long streak of energon reaching for him from the puddle, like an accusing hand pointing directly at him.  His feet scrambled, but Drift seemed to have no interest in him getting upright. 

“Up,” Drift said, stopping abruptly, tugging on the wrists.  Perceptor managed—somehow—to get his legs under him, and pushed up just long enough for Drift to force him back, folding heavily into a chair. 

Drift dropped his weight across the silver thighs, optics cold and hard and unavoidably close as Perceptor winced.  He tilted his head. “What?”

“Hurts.”  Perceptor tried to shift—Drift’s weight ground into the exposed systems, pressed on the open armor.

“Thought that was the point,” Drift said. He kept a hard grip on Perceptor’s wrists.  “Or doesn’t it count if you’re not doing the hurting?” 

“Drift, I…,” Perceptor forced his gaze to meet Drift’s.  He fell silent. 

“Why.”  Not a question, a demand. 

Perceptor ducked his head down. “I can’t explain.” 

“Look at me,” Drift said. Perceptor didn’t move.  Drift adjusted his hands, digging his thumbs into Perceptor’s wrists. “Look. At. Me.”

Perceptor raised his head.  “Let me go,” he said. 

Drift’s face rippled with emotion. “No.” 

“Repairs.  Line’s cut.”  He tried to rotate his wrists, just enough to get Drift’s thumbs from the neural relay. 

The corner of Drift’s mouth twitched. “You’d know.” 

Perceptor flinched at the accusation. Nothing more than truth, though.  “Please,” he said. 

Drift shook his head.  He pulled the hands together, hooking both wrists in one hand, as he reached into one of his smaller scabbards.  He pulled out a length of some sort of cord.  “Red,” he snorted, ironically, to himself.  “Fitting.” 

Perceptor tried to pull his wrists apart but…Drift had a swordsman’s hands, fingers strong and powerfully calibrated.  “What are you doing?”

Drift shrugged, dropping the rope in a loop around Perceptor’s wrists. “Stopping you.”  His gaze left Perceptor’s face, occupying itself with weaving a fast, tight knot over the wrists.

Perceptor fought back, trying to pitch Drift off his legs, tearing at his arms, optics flat and feral.  Drift merely rocked back against the bucking frame, his hands sure and tight on Perceptor’s wrists, waiting him out, letting him exhaust himself.

 He paused for a moment, then pushed up, his weight leaving Perceptor’s legs, leaning over. His chassis bumped Perceptor’s face, bruising his mouth, filling his olfactory sensors with Drift’s scent of heat and oil, as he reached and caught the rope in the back slats of the chair, tying Perceptor’s wrists behind his head, elbows jutting into the air. 

Drift stood back, shrugging again, but satisfied. 

“Let me go,” Perceptor jerked at his wrists.  The rope had been looped to form a cuff, so that no one strand dug in, cut into the inner armor.

“When you’re ready.”  Drift turned away, looking for a long moment at the smear of energon on the floor, then down to Perceptor’s oozing thigh.  His face flickered, before he stormed off. 

“Drift!” Perceptor called out. “Let me go! Now!”

Drift’s shoulders twitched at the threshold. “No,” he said, flatly. 

Perceptor jerked at the bonds, frustrated, his blind fingers trying to pick at the knot, trying to make sense of it, trying to loosen a loop at least.  He pushed against the floor, but his left foot slipped, a combination of weakness from his damage and slipping in the energon that had begun pooling on the floor.  He’d get out of here, figure this out. It just took time.  And who knew when Drift would return?  That thought…chilled him. That he’d be found here by someone else—eventually. 

Drift returned, pausing in the doorway, head tilted, observing Perceptor’s struggle, a repair kit in his hands.  He snorted. “Not going to untie it,” he said, coming closer, kneeling by the chair, cracking open the repair kit.

Perceptor cursed. Drift smiled, mildly, plucking a blotting cloth from the supplies, bending over Perceptor’s exposed thigh.  He swabbed the dripping mass, reaching back for an irrigation bottle, squirting the cold cleanser over Perceptor’s open systems.

Perceptor hissed at the unexpected stimulus, jerking at the bonds, rattling the chair beneath him. 

“I’d apologize for the pain,” Drift murmured, “if that wasn’t what this was all about.” 

Perceptor snarled, trying to swing his right knee across his body, blindly aiming at Drift’s head.  Drift dodged, easily, simply ducking down over the repair kit, coming up with a small temporary hoseclamp. 

“I can do this myself,” Perceptor spat.

Drift made a neutral, humming sound of agreement, but didn’t stop, pinching the hoseclamp above the wound.  He ducked down over the repair kit, covering the wound with one hand, turning his head and…licking at his other hand, systems purring online.  Perceptor squirmed.  “Let me go,” he said, dropping his voice to a murmur.  “Please. I won’t do it again.”

Drift looked at him over his shoulder. “I said don’t lie to me.”  His glossa flicked over his lips.

“Drift,” Perceptor pleaded, shifting his legs on the chair. “Come on.  Let me take care of it.  Thank you. Really.  Thank you.”

Drift shook his head, a wry smile spreading on his mouth. “Not stupid, Perceptor,” he said.  He reswabbed the wound, the energon only a sluggish pulse now, and squeezed some patching compound over the cut.  It had been a clean cut, at least, so the patch sealed easily, Perceptor whining at the gentle touch down the energon line.

“Please,” he murmured.  “Drift, please.”  He curled his hands over the back of the chair, gripping into the metal.

Drift finished cleaning the other lines wordlessly, his white helm bent over the open thigh, ventilations caressing the open mechanisms.  Perceptor squirmed at the mix of sensations—pain and the gentle almost tickle of Drift’s ministrations and the hard chair underneath him, and the compression in his elbow joints from his position, the bindings like hot bars around his wrists.  Drift finally clamped the armor closed, flicking the exterior armor locks with sure, nimble fingers, patting the silver plane with an air of satisfaction.  He pushed back to a squat.  “No,” he repeated, his hand gentle on the silver armor, sympathetic. 

“You’re not going to leave me like this,” Perceptor challenged, trying to make it an order.

Drift shook his head, indicating the desk in the corner.  “Be right over there.” 

“Until when?” Perceptor’s hands tightened on the metal again, trying to fight a rise of panic. 

Drift pushed to his feet, bending over Perceptor’s frame, bending over for a brief, startling kiss.  “Till you’re ready,” he whispered, his mouth close enough that Perceptor could feel the lips move on his. 

“When?”

Drift shrugged. “No begging. No threatening.” He tilted his head, letting his glossa, tangy with Perceptor’s own energon, ride over Perceptor’s mouth, his optics blazing blue and intense. “When you understand.” 

 

Comments

[gatekat.livejournal.com]

*purrs* I love this variant on what Drift went through. Nice to see him taking those lessons and using them in his own way to help others. I don't think Percy's going to have as short a lesson though.

[eerian_sadow]

gods, you have the mentality of a cutter down so well. they don't know (usually) why they do it, just that it helps. or, at least they think it helps. it was my experience as a mentor to two kids that were cutters that it didn't really.

and then Drift is just so... perfect in his execution of assistance. what he's doing is what Perceptor needs, whether Percy will admit to it or not.

this is a great piece, hon. wonderful in its contracts and saying so much more than just the surface level.