Drift (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sword_redemption) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
re_alignment_logs2012-12-02 07:02 pm
sword_redemption) wrote in re_alignment_logs2012-12-02 07:02 pm
Entry tags:
stripping away fear
Who: Drift, Wing, Ambulon
What: Stopping Drift from being...Drift.
Where: Vector's, the Hub.
When: Today
Warnings: Probably a lot of yelling. Mostly at Drift.
What the hell is going on here?: Collapsing a locked post and actiony things into one so as not to spam the game with Driftidiocy.
There are caves under Vector's palace. He'd seen them before, catching glimpses as he drove over the bridges--little mouths of darkness in the crystalline walls.
And he's found one, now, where the wind through the chasm pulls a pure, beautiful note out of the stone, and at night, lights glimmered in soft, will-o'-wisp pastels, piezoelectric in the crystal. It's beautiful. And it reminds him of Crystal City, in ways that make sense probably only to him. Beauty, peace, and the knowledge of how precious life is when you realize you're about to die.
He didn't want to do this. But there was no other choice. He couldn't live in fear, any more than he could expect others to die in his stead. So he sat, day and night, holding that fear, studying, peeling it back, layer by layer, laying himself bare, good and ugly, bad and beautiful. He studied fear, how it moved through his body, copperwire and tight. He asked it questions, until he understood.
He'd been afraid on Cybertron, but here, he'd realized that fear of death is a selfish thing. It had been new to him, anyway: Deadlock hadn't feared dying. He'd gladly die, if it served a purpose, if it advanced the side of right.
He'd been on the wrong side, then, but that thought was still in him.
The fear he'd felt on Delphi was the fear of dying...for nothing. Fear of being trapped by his past, dying unable to escape who he'd been.
That was another world. That wasn't here.
He wasn't afraid of pain. A mech didn't stab himself through the chassis if he feared pain.
What he did fear, in the end, was hurting others. This was new to him, here. On the Lost Light, he had to say no one would miss him. Perceptor barely spoke to him. Rodimus was his one friend, but he knew no one could replace Rodimus in Rodimus's own spark.
Here...though.
And he couldn't shake that fear. He couldn't make the hurt of that go away. But he had to say good bye. Because Wing deserved, in the end, to know how he'd felt and what he meant.
He cycles one last vent of air, and turns on the comm.
"Wing.
There's something I have to do. Please believe me when I say there's no other way." He sighs, struggling for words. They're going to be his last ones, or the last ones he wants to be remembered by, not whatever puling weak sobs Tarn would probably pull out of him in his last moments.
"It's Tarn. He's going to want to kill me. He thrives on fear. It's what he lives for. He's the worst of what the Decepticons became--what you saved me from becoming.
"We need to know how he works, so we can stop him. We need--I need--him not to go after anyone else. And I can't let anyone 'protect' me. I...can't. I can't have someone else risk themselves. Not for me.
"I can find out how he works, how he kills. If the worst happens, I'll come back. Believe this. We've seen the dead return, and no one--no one--has more of a reason to want to come back." Because he has Wing, which he never had back in their world.
"Don't be upset, Wing. Please. I--I can't bear it. The thought of hurting you is what kept me from going after him the first time I saw him on the network. But he'll hurt you more, if we let him. He'll try to twist you up, make you live afraid of the future. I don't want that for you. Not about me."
He looks up, off camera, at the night sky, beyond the cave's mouth and gives a fond, almost tearful smile. "I used to look up, you know. Wherever it was, when everything seemed the most hopeless, I used to look up into the stars and find the brightest one and say 'There. That one is Wing, looking over me.' You've always been my brightest star. Please don't let this dim your brightness."
He pauses, for a long moment, whispering "I love you," before he cuts the feed. He's delayed long enough.
What: Stopping Drift from being...Drift.
Where: Vector's, the Hub.
When: Today
Warnings: Probably a lot of yelling. Mostly at Drift.
What the hell is going on here?: Collapsing a locked post and actiony things into one so as not to spam the game with Driftidiocy.
There are caves under Vector's palace. He'd seen them before, catching glimpses as he drove over the bridges--little mouths of darkness in the crystalline walls.
And he's found one, now, where the wind through the chasm pulls a pure, beautiful note out of the stone, and at night, lights glimmered in soft, will-o'-wisp pastels, piezoelectric in the crystal. It's beautiful. And it reminds him of Crystal City, in ways that make sense probably only to him. Beauty, peace, and the knowledge of how precious life is when you realize you're about to die.
He didn't want to do this. But there was no other choice. He couldn't live in fear, any more than he could expect others to die in his stead. So he sat, day and night, holding that fear, studying, peeling it back, layer by layer, laying himself bare, good and ugly, bad and beautiful. He studied fear, how it moved through his body, copperwire and tight. He asked it questions, until he understood.
He'd been afraid on Cybertron, but here, he'd realized that fear of death is a selfish thing. It had been new to him, anyway: Deadlock hadn't feared dying. He'd gladly die, if it served a purpose, if it advanced the side of right.
He'd been on the wrong side, then, but that thought was still in him.
The fear he'd felt on Delphi was the fear of dying...for nothing. Fear of being trapped by his past, dying unable to escape who he'd been.
That was another world. That wasn't here.
He wasn't afraid of pain. A mech didn't stab himself through the chassis if he feared pain.
What he did fear, in the end, was hurting others. This was new to him, here. On the Lost Light, he had to say no one would miss him. Perceptor barely spoke to him. Rodimus was his one friend, but he knew no one could replace Rodimus in Rodimus's own spark.
Here...though.
And he couldn't shake that fear. He couldn't make the hurt of that go away. But he had to say good bye. Because Wing deserved, in the end, to know how he'd felt and what he meant.
He cycles one last vent of air, and turns on the comm.
"Wing.
There's something I have to do. Please believe me when I say there's no other way." He sighs, struggling for words. They're going to be his last ones, or the last ones he wants to be remembered by, not whatever puling weak sobs Tarn would probably pull out of him in his last moments.
"It's Tarn. He's going to want to kill me. He thrives on fear. It's what he lives for. He's the worst of what the Decepticons became--what you saved me from becoming.
"We need to know how he works, so we can stop him. We need--I need--him not to go after anyone else. And I can't let anyone 'protect' me. I...can't. I can't have someone else risk themselves. Not for me.
"I can find out how he works, how he kills. If the worst happens, I'll come back. Believe this. We've seen the dead return, and no one--no one--has more of a reason to want to come back." Because he has Wing, which he never had back in their world.
"Don't be upset, Wing. Please. I--I can't bear it. The thought of hurting you is what kept me from going after him the first time I saw him on the network. But he'll hurt you more, if we let him. He'll try to twist you up, make you live afraid of the future. I don't want that for you. Not about me."
He looks up, off camera, at the night sky, beyond the cave's mouth and gives a fond, almost tearful smile. "I used to look up, you know. Wherever it was, when everything seemed the most hopeless, I used to look up into the stars and find the brightest one and say 'There. That one is Wing, looking over me.' You've always been my brightest star. Please don't let this dim your brightness."
He pauses, for a long moment, whispering "I love you," before he cuts the feed. He's delayed long enough.
no subject
But the other part is frustrated beyond all means with the situation at hand. He sidesteps Ambulon and turns to Drift, an open hand thrust into the air between them, both pleading and accusing.
"No one's doing anything because you haven't given us a chance to! I gave you plenty of more constructive ways to come at this tactic and you shrugged them all off!" He's fraying around the edges now, voice high and strained with a collision of anger and fear. "Why not ask Perceptor what he thinks? He's analytically minded, surely he can run all the variables and tell you the chances of success better than I. Or why not Vector, the one who has to fetch you back if--WHEN--you die. Except, no wait, you don't trust him and he's probably still lying unconscious in a medbay somewhere right now!'
The gold optics flicker with a tangle of emotion, searching Drift's face as he pants softly through his vents. When Drift reaches for the Great Sword, Wing almost stops him. But no.
"You don't want me that close, fine. But do you even know how much you're sacrificing if you do this? And for what? Information you can't even guarantee we'll get?"
no subject
The pile of accusations is too much. He tears the Great Sword from its bracket, wincing as he snaps one of the bracer hooks from the force of it. He thrusts it at Wing. "Take it, then. If all it is is some new way to control me, tell me you know better than I do, then I--I don't want it."
"If you cared about me half as much as you say you do, you'd give me some respect for making my own decisions instead of using the fact that you care as a way to manipulate me." He's shaking, the words pouring out of him, with that sense that he knows he's going to regret them, but he can't stop them even so.
God I'm sorry TEAL DEER META /faceinhands
"To control you--!?" He looks shocked, optics darting between Drift and the hand holding out the sword, the weapon suddenly a terrible omen, not just a symbol of his greatest failure but a sign of Drift's rejection.
With Drift's last strident words he's twitching back, both hurt and appalled. His mouthplates work but the sounds are a jumbled and staticky sputter at first. "M-Manipulate you! Drift, I... What am I supposed to do?" he begs helplessly, "there's no right choice for me here!"
"Either I keep your respect and send you to die or I lose your respect and keep you safe!" The words come out high strung, desperate and frustrated, until he seems to cave, as if realizing there have been too many casualties in this battle. "...or am I too late for that already? Do I even have your respect still?"
Because it does feel selfish. Maybe this was never meant to be. Maybe sacrifice is what binds, defines, and ends them again. Is that their fate?
He shakes, visibly, a shadow falling over his face as he struggles for control. It's not lost to him, the irony, that the emotional devastation of Drift's loss is acceptable but the second hand physical torture is not. Wing will feel pain regardless, but without the sword, he can be of no comfort either. And there's pain here, even now, before the thing has even begun. In a way, this is worse torture. Harder to bear than any physical suffering. And beyond that, harder to repair.
But how much of this is concern for Wing's suffering and how much is guilt for being the cause of it?
He shudders, near violently, biting back words, the cutting kind, because there's enough pain in this already. He has to do something decisive, and soon, or this was going to end more terribly than it began. He has a notion now, what it should be...
no subject
He frowns. "What I don't understand is that it's all right for you to sacrifice yourself, for me, for your city, but I can't do the same. How is that not hypocrisy? How is that even sense?"
no subject
But he knows one thing for certain.
"Drift." His voice is quiet, tired now, but no less sure. "I never said you couldn't. I just want a chance to make sure it's worth it. I don't want you giving up your life for a maybe."
"You argued with Dai Atlas to the bitter end, not willing to give up until all your options were exhausted."
Wing raises a hand to place it over Drift's, on the Great Sword's hilt, the contact tingling strangely in his palm as he presses it back towards Drift's chest. His tone hardens slightly, still weary, but like a mech offering up his last defense.
"Give me two days. Megatron can afford us that much, no one will be hurt in that time. Two days to improve this, make the plan more solid, to make your chances better." He softens, the words imploring as they slip past his lipplates, "Please Drift. Your life is worth everything to me. Let me make it so we gain everything we can."
no subject
"Two days. After that, I handle this myself." He hates that he's giving in, but he knows he can't refuse Wing.
no subject
He was too close to giving up and walking away, something without a doubt that he'd regret. So when he's pulled closer--that physical acceptance far more than the verbal--is welcome beyond words. Some of the tightness over his aching spark loosens, emotion moving over his face with a strange relief.
A solemn nod.
"If I can't in two days... Then regardless, you can go to him. I won't stop you." The pinch of worry still creases his face, but his words are deeply earnest. "I'll help you, however I can."