re_alignment_logs | [Closed] I touch the place where I'd find your face

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[Closed] I touch the place where I'd find your face

WHO: Drift and Wing
WHERE: One of the caves lining the walls of the gorge where Vector's temple is located.
WHEN: A short time after this.
WHAT: Drift is sulking over various things following his death and Wing has an apology to make because he's a big dumb.
WARNINGS: None yet.

He wasn't skilled at tracing signals, no, but he was definitely observant, a trait he's certainly thankful for right now.

He'd been needing to speak to Drift, but over the past few days capturing a moment alone with his lover and partner had proven difficult. And now, Wing understands why. He recognized the crystals lining the walls of the dark rock that formed the backdrop for Drift's earlier transmission. He didn't know which cave specifically it was, but he was fully willing to search them all if necessary.

This is not something he'll let wait.

In those first fragile moments just after Drift's return to life they'd both been to wary to really discuss what had happened. Toppling things that seemed unshakable was a talent this place seemed to have, and in those delicate moments it was better to just rejoice in being given Yet Another Chance.

But outside of the warm bubble of their dreamy reunion things were darker and more unsettling....

For Wing's part--a mech who feels everything very deeply--the tide of distress that avalanched in the form of Vandal's disappearance, Tarn's emergence, the Glyphless tragedy, Drift's death and fighting Prism, gradually wore him thin. Thin enough that it made him cringe and lash out more than was necessary when sore spots were struck.

But it's probably nothing compared to what Drift is going through.

And so Wing is here, feeling like he's failed the person who means the most to him in a moment of need, searching among the caves for that spark in the hopes to heal it.

He has a sense this is the right one. Whether it's intuition, perception or sensing Drift through the Great Sword he has no idea. And in truth it doesn't matter. The jet takes a few steps forward into the cave's mouth, his unique silhouette like a signature scribed upon the light. He wants to enter. But more than that, he wants to know he's welcome.

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"I can see how some might find it a little macabre." If he tries hard he can see it too, but not in a way that bothers him. "Not any moreso than carrying around a Great Sword with a piece of me in it though."

Wing's tone is soft, making light of it, though maybe it's still poor humor. Even so, it warms him, the notion that he didn't leave Drift completely alone in all the centuries since his death. The jet's arms close around Drift a little more, a hand stroking gently over the little winglets on his back. Wing's systems idle, content, while he watches as a few gold points of light wind their way into the cave towards them, Jetfire's insects drawn to their active systems.

It's nice to just share this, time and space together. And if Wing feels like he needs it, he can only imagine how Drift feels.

"Did it work? Did you add them both?"

"I noticed." The way Wing and Ambulon had shut him down when he'd first tried to broach the subject comes to mind.

"That was different." Mostly because Drift didn't know. If he had, he wouldn't have taken the sword from Dai Atlas.

He shakes his head. "I'd need help and...," well, no one's going to volunteer to help with that he figures.

"Was it? They say all bearers leave something behind with their Great Swords when they pass. You will too, eventually." Hopefully, sometime very, very far in the future.

The stroke up and down the inside of a white finial reaches a slow and steady pace, rhythmic like the cycling of air through their systems. He yellow pinpoints of light float nearer, one coming to rest on the tip on of his keen stabalizer.

"You know I'd help you with anything Drift." Wing's smile warms his voice. "I'd be honored, if you asked."

He gives a sad smile. "I don't want to think about that." Because he realizes it means Wing, all along, in the blade. It's much better to be here, with Wing alive, his systems purring softly against him.

"I don't know," he sighs. "Because it wasn't really Rodimus, was it? Nor Megatron. Not at the end. Maybe it's better to remember them, you know, before here." Some things were better before here. Some things better after, he thinks, shifting his head forward to place a kiss on one of the sleek, silver thighs.

"I like to think of it as collective wisdom, passed down to me." Maybe that was an oblique way to look about it, but Wing rather enjoyed the symbolism of it. "And it made me feel a little less alone sometimes."

"Not that that's an issue, now," he adds, rubbing his cheekplate affectionately over the red flare of his spaulder.

"Mmm, perhaps you're right. Nothing touched by that kind of corruption stays true." He'd shiver if he weren't otherwise so content: the sudden idea of putting that so close to one's spark. A soft noise as Drift's lips press to the silken armor, "What about...Gasket?"

"Wisdom." He gives a sheepish shrug. "I don't think it's given me any wisdom." Not with the stupid things he's done. "If it ever brought me any comfort," he murmurs, glad of the sheltering darkness, "it was thinking about you."

He shutters his optics, aware that that was a vulnerable, weak thing to say, and part of him, even after all this time, hates being seen as weak.

"Gasket." Drift sighs. "I was thinking of the pyres. He deserves the same commemoration as anyone else." It's more than he had a chance to give him in the past. Maybe that would lay his ghost to rest.

"I'm glad I could bring you comfort, even then." Because he'd always wanted, intended to do just that. It makes him wrap just a little more tightly around Drift, if that's even possible. And maybe what comes next is fishing for compliments, his tone going perhaps a little bit shy, but he'd been so uncertain of Drift's feelings back then. "Did you...think of me often?"

A nod, something that concours with Drift while also affectionately nuzzles against the mech's shoulder. "Why not both? You don't need a big piece right?"

"....yes." It's too obvious not to answer. "Every day." More than. It had started as regret, and sharpened into resolve, but every day, Wing's memory had been a constant companion.

"You're right. And he, at least, wasn't brought here by Unicron." He sighs, just to breathe more deeply into the comfort of Wing's body around his. "I'm sorry I left you alone, with Megatron."

It's more than he expected. Wing is quiet for a long moment, humbled and touched so deeply he's simply without words. But there's the pain of regret too, as his helm bows, and when he finally speaks those words come heavy with remorse.

"_{I'm sorry. That I never said anything. That I never came to you. ...before.}" There'd been a moment between them, the night before the battle in Crystal City' where he'd come so very close. It seems foolish now.

"I think it's perhaps the most fitting for Gasket anyway. If you want help, you have it." As for Megatron, Wing certainly doesn't blame Drift for any of it. "I managed. He knew, in the end, that I was grieving. ....he actually hugged me." It's said with more than a raw bit of amazement and confusion, as if he still can't wrap his processor around the idea.

"Don't apologize. I mean, maybe if you had, we wouldn't have had this second chance." With days and days ahead of them, rather than one night.

"Let me think about it. But if I want to, I won't ask anyone else." It's all he can promise.

His mouth twists into a shape, almost a smile of regret, pressed against Wing's thigh. "I'm sorry. For leaving you both alone."

"I would much rather have this, yes." His fingers travel down the finial and over the crown of Drift's white helm in compliment to his words. They could probably go without saying, but somehow saying them takes the sting out of the regret, leaving only the ghosts of 'what if' to wander the halls of memory. "I just wish you'd known...all this time."

A soft smile touches his face, the gold glow of his optics dimming. "Thank you." For allowing him, even just the opportunity, to aid in something so deeply personal.

"You did what was needed at the time." Even now it's hard to imagine choosing differently, not without knowing the true outcome. "I think he grieved you too, in his own way. But not more than the loss of his own goals."

"Spent too much time in regret already, Wing," Drift leans into the touch. "I don't want that for you." He's done enough regret for the pair of them.

He exvents, one hand moving down Wing's knee, in a touch that isn't meant to be sexual, just...enjoying the silky feel of the jet's enamel.

He gives a soft laugh. "Megatron didn't mourn anything as much as the loss of his ambition. We became numbers to him, statistics, all in pursuit of his victory." He doesn't sound bitter--he'd come close to that thinking, himself, in his own time.

There's nothing more true that that. "I don't want that for you either. You've had your share. You deserve some happiness." And Wing wanted nothing more than see it happen.

He tips into the touch for the same reason. Touch is like a communion of sorts, small exchanges that when put together add up into greater expression, like an undercurrent that does things words cannot. Wing's own hands are never still, always speaking soft notions of caring, love or encouragement.

"I imagine so. But then that's why he wanted us around." It's tragic, Wing feels, to reduce people down to something so base. "...I might have imagined it, but...he seemed sad, in the end."

Drift sighs. "He may have been good once. But he changed. And I don't even think he knew where or when." Much less that Megatron would want redemption.

"Megatron uses people, Wing. He always has."

"Good?" Wing thinks back to his last conversation with Megatron, and what the Decepticon leader had left with him. "He might have yes. A product of our society, the way we all were in our own unique ways."

Wing raises a hand off Drift's helm, fingers outstretched towards a few yellow points of light as they flutter over the two mechs.

"Even in his last moments you think? When he knows death is a fate he has to abide by?" Wing wonders, because it's true that it's hard for him to judge. It always had been. Which is why he favors Drift's perspective so much.

"Some of us were more a product of our world than others." Himself, Megatron, every freedom restricted, every facet of identity shaped by oppression.

He lifts his head, to see the fluttering golden lights.

"Wing. I...I don't know. Maybe as he was here, there was a moment. Maybe back when I knew him, he did believe. But he changed." He shifts, uncomfortably. "But he went back to our world, from here, and I know what he became."

He nods. "It was inevitable, civil war. Too much pressure in too many areas. Something was bound to break open eventually."

He lowers his arm to his side, those swirling lights chasing lazily after it, drawn to something, their warmth, their EM fields, who knows. Wing is just enchanted by their simple beauty, helm cocked to the side as one or two land on Drift's helm and his thigh.

"I guess we won't ever know. Not now." Wing loses a restive sigh. "At least he went out the way he wanted."

"The problem was that once it started, it was like a chain reaction. All that anger, on both sides. I...I really don't want that to happen here."

He watches Wing with the little floating lights. It's so like Wing, to find something like 'play' in every moment.

"I suppose that's important," he says, uncomfortably. Wing would have more experience with that than he had.

"Nor do I. But we can at least learn from those mistakes. See the problems earlier and prevent things from getting that bad?" He hopes, at least.

"I used to think that as an individual there was nothing I could do. How could one person make a difference? The war certainly proved me wrong." A soft smile against Drift's shoulder. "Then someone taught me that if you want to make a difference, succeed or not, you still try."

His hand floats around the little lights, fingers moving and hand turning slowly. It's hard to tell who's chasing who the way the little bugs float and shift, a few more choosing to settle down on the two mech's frames.

"He wanted to go down fighting. Optimus." Wing's voice is flat but tinged with a certain sadness. That in the end violence was still what defined the mech. "I can't say I'm happy with his choice, only that he managed to have one."

"Or," he speaks almost haltingly, as if afraid to question Wing's omniscience, "perhaps we can learn that forgetting, compassion, are more important than holding onto the grudges of the past."

"....Wing." He doesn't know what else to say, turning under the smile on his shoulder, not sure if he wanted a kiss, or wanted to see Wing's face. Just somehow, more, clearer contact.

The little light bugs alight on their bodies, and Drift thinks, for a moment, it's like being touched by hope. It's silly and sentimental, but, Wing brings that out in him.

He nods, almost knowingly. "It's like a monomania with him, bordering on obsession. It's how he is. It's why he never seemed to be able to stop."

Wing hums his assent, pleased. "Our people could certainly do with a great deal more compassion."

The smile spreads, growing brighter, as he dips his head towards Drift. "It's true," he murmurs, "not even the Circle taught me that." His hand moves, fingers ghosting over the side of Drift's face, bringing a halo of little lights with it.

Now that he's met Megatron, he can believe it. "It scares me, a little." More than a little, really.

Drift can't hide the pleased little rumble of his engines. It's embarrassing but getting Wing's approval was sort of exhilarating. "It has to be the root of peace. I've been thinking about it."

He tips his head back, afraid to move in and close for the kiss, but inviting one. "You taught me that," he breathes.

He doesn't want to talk about Megatron. Not right now. But... "He's half of what destroyed our planet. That monomania was not one sided." Even after the war, Optimus had clung to it.

Drift doesn't have to worry about the embarrassment, or at least Wing has its equal if the flux of his field at that deep grounder's rumble against his thigh is any indication. The jet is, well, more than pleased now. "Yes, it does. It's so common to think it's a thing that is earned or granted. When really, it should come at the start."

It's easy to be drawn to the memory of the two of them on the ledge overlooking the slaver base, the first time he extended his compassion to a Decepticon who was lost and alone. Something that, despite all that happened, Wing would never, ever regret. His smile can't really grow any bigger than it already is, so it changes into something else, a softer shape that dips low to brush gently over Drift's lipplates. It's an invitation yes, but more than that it's adoration, the way a person caresses a deeply valued thing.

An assenting murmur, but whether he's agreeing with Optimus sharing the blame or something else entirely, well, it's a little hard to tell.

"If you look at it that way, though, it's just another form of power, forgiveness as something you get to grant or withhold." He knows the underbelly of that all too well.

He could talk philosophy but right now, the kiss was better. His whole body shifts, turning into the kiss, like a petal cupping to hold precious dew.

And suddenly this place he'd come to get away, to wallow in his misery, was lit with little stars, Wing's EM field a velvety plushness above him, and he could think of no place else he would rather be.

"I wish more people would understand that," he murmurs.

It's a deep wish, and a old one, but really not at the forefront of Wing's mind anymore. Because the kiss is better: the unexpected fruits of that compassion.

Wing's hand cups the back of Drift's helm, supportive, drawing him further into the kiss, dark fingers trailing over the underside of a finial. There's no rush, no need for urgency. Only as much time as they want to share in each other, in this exquisite moment filled with light, from the brightness in each of their sparks to the golden lights that swirl about them and dot their frames like the pieces of an earthbound constellation.

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