CHARACTERS: Drift and VARIOUS LOCATION: around the station DATE: Mid February CONTENT: That post-mission funk WARNINGS: EDIT: ah shit the robots are fucking again
[ Less than seventy-two hours had passed since they returned from Scorpion's Bend. Barely enough time to process what had happened, but just enough, the skeletal framework of a routine started to establish itself. Entirely possible, if not the most likely explanation, was that everyone was in various states of shock and just going through the motions on some hindbrain instinct for self-preservation. Drift couldn't claim to be above the median there. Having had only recently emerged from his vigil in the infirmary and not entirely of his own volition. ]
This is irony in its worst iteration. [ He and Megatron were in Drift's quarters having what could only be described as a debriefing. Neither of them had been present for the last leg of the journey, and only now had they found the time to convene. Drift had just finished replaying Vivica and the Commander's words to the crew and stood staring at a blank wall. His posture pulled taut like he wanted to throw something. ]
How many planets have you or I destroyed without lifting a finger, if you had to guess? [ Drift turned and looked at Megatron, at first the question coming off as non-sequitur before he continued. ]
The one time, the only time nuking that rock until only dust and echoes remained in the vacuum of space would be a mercy โ and we don't have the wherewithal to do it. [ He sneers, arms crossed tight across his chest as though holding himself back from doing something he'll only regret later. ]
[ The only thing had descended into chaos. Megatron, by virtue of being one of the only medically inclined members of the team still standing, had been working overtime even before they were dragged back to the station. Then it had been touch and go trying to get everyone settled, fed, and looked after. It was only now, after too brief a rest, that he was beginning to process all that had happened. Megatron's broad frame rests uneasily in a chair that really shouldn't hold a couple tons of metal and yet it does. She leans back, peering down at the datapad in his hands as if it held answers. It doesn't, of course. ]
Dozens, at least. Perhaps hundreds, though it depends on if we count inhabitated worlds with native populations or also lifeless husks that had significant energy sources as well.
[ He says it with a morose sort of detachment. It's not clinical, more like he's reciting the numbers from an obituary column. Resigned, and still heavy with a sense of grief and responsibility. ]
I count it a small mercy that everyone made it back alive, though I can't say one piece. I can only hope we never have another like that again. Organics are remarkably difficult to repair.
[ He sounds even more tired when he says that. ]
Perhaps we should take this as instructive. What price will be asked of us, when it finally comes our turn to have a regret undone?
I can't help but feel like we just got a front-row seat of the old infiltration protocol and barged in on act three of phase six. [ Drift doesn't make the comment to hurt or dredge up old memories. The established tone of the conversation was mutually detached.
Drift visibly stiffens with a flush of shame coursing through him he's not yet prepared to process at the mention of organics. If he let his concentration slip, he could still feel the thrum of the lives being snuffed out in his grasp or feel one in particular nearly slipping away. He tellingly drops that thread of the conversation before doubling down on an argument they must have had a dozen times over by now. ]
No one's dropped out of the race yet. I'm trying not to hold one orb's malicious intent as the standard once they're all together.
[ Megatron simply sighs. To tell the truth, there's relief in the fact that Drift is changing the subject. He really has no dsire to go over the details of the infiltration protocol or the particulars of what both of them did on the dusty surface of the planet. ]
We have only the evidence of our experiences in this case. I'm not telling you to give up. I'm merely asking you to consider what you're willing to pay just for another coin-toss.
[ Megatron considers himself essentially dead already, so he of course doesn't need to worry. ]
[ That sigh may as well have been the nail in the coffin on the conversation. Neither of them necessarily wanted to 'reminiscence,' but it was hard when, really, Megatron was all Drift had for a contemporary.
What doesn't help is Drift isn't sure what he wants. Either out of this discussion or from Megatron being here. They pointedly had yet to bring up Drift's reaction to McCoy being shot or Megatron's relation to Drift nearly being killed himself.
Instead of arguing, Drift only shakes his head and looks back at Megatron with resignation that mirrors the other's. ]
We both know there's no answer I can give you that will have you leaving here satisfied.
And there's no argument that I can make that will make you consider an alternative course of action.
[ Megatron taps his datapad against his knee. He feels worn down, tired. He should really try and get some more rest and yet here he was. Talking with Drift. A mech who... hated him? Tolerated him? He couldn't be sure where exactly they stood any longer. ]
We were fortunate you didn't come back from that place with more serious injuries. I already had to put a patch on your tendon. Have you been keeping off that leg at least a little?
[ And just like that, Megatron switches to concerned doctor. ]
Hasn't stopped you. [ Tired as he was, Drift doesn't have the self-possession to stifle the dismissive grunt that rises out of him. ] Forgive me if it's difficult to take any attempts you have at persuading me at face value when you exist in living contradiction by simply being here.
[ To his credit, as sour as his mood was turning, Drift had the good graces to look properly chastised when Megatron brought up his leg. Without even thinking about it, Drift moves to sit at the end of his berth. The truth was he hadn't rested, not properly, since they came back. ]
[ Drift sets his jaw out in a hard line as though he was physically biting back something vitriolic. Eyeing Megatron with a cornered look, he eventually acquiesced. Only after several tense moments of complete stilness where it looked like Drift could either comply or lash out.
The trust was there, otherwise Drift wouldn't have turned and followed instructions, but his petulant silence projected that neither was he happy about it.
Worst of all, Megatron wouldn't even need to use his medical expertise to see that Drift had thoroughly neglected to let his wounds heal. ]
[ Megatron leans over the berth from his chair. He gingerly, firmly turns Drift's leg slightly so he can get a look--and a deep scowl creases his face. His gaze shifts up towards Drift's own optics and there's a disappointed glare. ]
You haven't been changing the patch. I told you, change it every day.
[ None-too-gently he tugs the old patch free and pulls a new one from his medical, which he slaps into place. ]
First you go charging off and losing your head over an organic and now you aren't even bothering to take care of your injuries. Do you want to have a stiff ankle next time you have to do your fancy swordwork?
Ah- ! [ Pain shot up Drift's leg and hit the sensitive bundle of circuitry at the base of his spinal strut with a tight-fisted blow. A sharp reminder that concepts like 'gentleness' and 'duty of care' were relatively new concepts to the one mech-handling him.
Through gritted teeth, it took everything for Drift not to rear his leg back and deliver a mule kick to Megatron's head. Ankle be damned, the patronizing ass deserved a new dent in his helm. ]
That's what this is about?! [ Drift glared over his shoulder, pain and frustration hitching his voice to a near-shriek. ] You're quicker than I gave you credit for to veer right back into xenophobia. Or did you forget who 'that organic' was?
It's not about him being an organic. [ Megatron glowers at Drift as he runs a scanner over Drift's injury. ]
Stay off the ankle as much as you can. It needs time to heal. And change the patch. [ He interrupts his own reasoning to give more instruction in a sharp, commanding voice that suggests arguing is a poor decision. ]
It's about you using him as a stand-in for Ratchet. They're entirely alike. Don't think I haven't noticed the way you hover around him.
[ Against all expectations, Drift says nothing. Confronted with the truth, he had wilted against its intense focus. The pain in his legs was an aperture that snapped closed, and all he felt was the cold awareness of himself.
Drift was half-lying on the berth, his upper body propped on his hands while his legs lay limp and compliant to Megatron's examination. He bowed his head and turned away, voice hollow. All the fury that leveled buildings and crushed lives under the unrelenting heel gone. ]
[ Drift submits himself to being cared for until it makes his derma crawl. Megatron replaced his patch and left Drift free to curl in on himself. Pressed into the corner where the berth met the wall, back turned as Megatron let his spark bleed. ]
'Fair'... [ Spitting the word like a curse, hiking up his shoulders as though reading for a blow that would never come, or winding up for a strike of his own.
On shaken legs and with barely enough reserve in his tank to avoid swaying, Drift pivoted on the berth to face Megatron. ]
Fine. Let's debate 'fair' with our didactic leader Megatronโ [ Drift's voice and was rising with the energy of a mountain either about to turn into a volcano or crumble in an avalanche.. ] You're so afraid of what I might do that you don't even stop to consider what you've already done in an effort to 'save' me.
[ Drift wasn't in a place to stand, but the mass-shifting let him crowd over Megatron. ] You want to know what's really ironic? That the only reason you're even here is, for once, the one death you're ready to stand up and take responsibility for wasn't even your fault.
โ You want to 'save' Ravage like you want to save me, but you condemn my efforts not to rewrite the past, but just another chance at the table. Another toss of the coin. I'm so tired of you pitying me as if you're in any position to know what it means.
What are you even saving us from? Ambus needed you, and now he buries his head in the sand on Luna-1, unregarded and forgotten. Rodimus needed you, and now he's a drunk slowly becoming another unforgotten speck of detritus floating in space.
If you're just so content to stay here and rot, then do it! Just stop telling me not to at least try!
[ Megatron refuses to flinch back from the heat of Drift's outrage and anger. Instead he faces it head on, a rock refusing to bow in the face of howling wind and crashing thunder. He doesn't waver, lets Drift spit out his invective. There had been times where Megatron might have shrugged it off but the mentions of Ravage, of Rodimus, of Minimus land just as harshly as Drift no doubt means them. Megatron's optics flash. ]
I've taken responsibility for every single one of the actions I've taken during the war, Drift. I've never denied my crimes or the excesses of my army or the orders that I gave the soldiers who followed me. When we finish here I look forward only to a long, slow death in a solitary prison.
Yet somehow my deadliest assassin has escaped justice. Let us not talk of taking responsibility.
[ He sneers the words, his sympathy evaporating in a flash of red-hot anger. ]
I had a responsibility to fight! If I had been able to make myself take up arms then Ravage would still be alive! I didn't make that mistake with you down there and I won't let myself make it ever again! Not when I could save someone!
[ He slams a hand into the wall with a metallic clash of metal-on-metal. ]
I did what I had to do to take responsibility as you put it. Do you think Minimus would have thanked me for somehow escaping what was coming to me? Would that have made him happy? You don't know a damn thing about the mech and you're going to try to lecture me about what he needs?
[ He stands, looms upwards in an effort to keep Drift from crowding him. ]
I will not be made responsible for Rodimus' inability to cope! He doesn't need me! He needs a purpose and I was never the mech who could give him that, as badly as I wanted to at the end of it!
[ He can feel a pressure in his head, as if all of the anger and grief and frustration might blow through the back of his optics and simply pour out onto the berth. He clenches his hands into fists, trembling. ]
If I could be with Minimus and Rodimus, then I would. It's not as if I didn't--don't--want that. If I could be there to support them, I would but it's not that simple. Without my punishment, there's no peace. There's no way for our people to ever be accepted by the others in the galaxy.
[ He ex-vents, a trembling sound that seems like all the weight of the world settling onto his shoulders. ]
You don't understand. You're all that's left.
[ Of the Lost Light. Of the Conclave. Of the hopes and aspirations that Megatron had once held in his spark. ]
It's not your trying that bothers me, it's that you're happily destroying yourself in the effort! You don't even know if the jump works!
And just like that, you're flagellating yourself by removing yourself from the equation, again. [ Drift's voice drops with the weight of a heavy stone sinking to the bottom of dark, icy water. ]
You're forgetting that I, alone and apart, spent ten thousand years trying to make up for my crimes. I'm not going to let you turn that against me or diminish what I've done. That might have hurt me then, but it won't work now.
โ Because then someone gave me a chance, and made me work for it.
[ He couldn't stand his ground, but Drift could stare stolidly back at Megatron with unbending certainty and feel just as tall. ]
This can never be just about them. This is about Optimus, about Soundwave, and Starscream. All these months and all these claims about how I'm all that's left and not once have you even said their names. You were a figurehead for eons, and now you're trying to make one life the monument to all your grief. While treating the souls you left behind like they're already gone while all I'm left with is memories and a grave.
And no, I won't know if it worked or if it would work again. But you're finding it so hard to fathom that I want to try, want to at least hope.
That it has never once crossed your mind that I want to save you, too.
They may as well be gone, Drift-- [ Megatron begins, anguish rising in his chest. They were gone, because he could never touch those lives again. Not the way he wanted to. Not in the way that would give him anything like that brief happiness that had surrounded him in his time on the Lost Light. He had had surety there. Peace of mind. Peace of self.
But before he can really say anything else, that last line from Drift hits him in his chest. It almost feels like a physical blow, driving straight at him as if it might piece through to his spark. ]
Why?
[ His voice is no longer booming and angry. It's a grief-laden question, uncertain for once. It's all he can think to ask in the moment. He is so sure of his own unfathomable guilt and his own well-deserved misery that the idea of Drift wanting to save him from that fate just cannot find purchase on his mind. ]
You and I both can't let go of the past, but at least I'm not pretending it's gone.
Megatron, you spent centuries playing the hero on the alternate Cybertron. Why now do you write off any chance of a clean slate, a second chance, as impossible?
[ Drift holds the other for a very long moment be before turning away. Showing Megatron his back as he turns into himself like he was tucking into a tight ball, ready to slip off into oblivion. ]
It's what I have to do. I've been locked away and for good reason. I know I'll never be released. If I let myself think there's a real possibility of a second chance I'll go mad from the isolation and the thought of what I can never actually have.
I have to believe that that's all there is for me.
[ Megatron seems very weary and very diminished all at once and he slumps back into his chair with a defeated sounding groan. He stares at Drift's back, grim and silent. ]
[ A defeaning silence suffused the room after that. Knowing Megatron would stop trying to talk him out of regret wasn't the victory Drift hoped it to be. Gratitude certainly isn't the right word for what he felt either.
All he could conjure was a hollowed out ache deep in his chest. Swallowing him whole with the suffocating awareness of his non-zero chance for failure. Continuing on without the other half of his spark while Megatron returned to his own terrible fate.
Drift shifts on the berth, turning just enough that he and Megatron lock eyes. Regarding each other in the heavy press of grief and silence.
Quietly, just above a whisper as though unsure if he should break the silence, Drift asks a terrible question. ]
[ The question is horrid and heavy. It holds within it all the unspoken grief and anger and hideous feeling that has brought them both here. Megatron knows that Drift wouldn't ask him under normal circumstances. Knows that he wouldn't accept under normal circumstances. No, this is two horribly unhappy people desperately grappling to find something, anything that helps them feel stable. Like they have a hope of success. Like something matters.
Megatron should say no, for all those reasons and so many more. He knows he should. The desire for comfort, though, overrides those coldly logical concerns. What else has he to lose? ]
If you like.
[ He says it in a quiet voice and then slowly heaves himself over to sit at the edge of the cramped berth, his head bowed and frame stiff. ]
Thank you.
[ For talking to him. For inviting him to say. For even bothering to look at him when he has every right to tell Megatron simply to leave him alone. ]
[ Hope hangs heavy around both their necks as a noose woven by what they're too proud and too afraid to say. Neither of them was going to admit that they needed the other. Or that they factored into their own private 'ideal' outcome if the impossible happened and they wound up on the right side of the coin toss.
It was unnerving to think after every terrible thing to pass between or how their minds wandered to different faces in moments like these that something remained. A memory of a feeling that was never given time to be given a name.
Instead, Drift and Megatron pretend to be doing each other a favor by scratching an itch. Chasing a hollow bliss as they think of different people while in each other's grip. ]
I'm sorry, [ For so much he can't say, but most of all using a broken heart to momentarily distract from his own.
Drift's hand slides across berth and gingerly runs up the length of Megatron's thigh. Testing the waters before looping around his waist in poor facsimile to an embrace. ]
[ Megatron sits stiff and uncomfortable for a moment, seemingly unsure of what to do with himself. Then, slowly, he leans into the half-embrace that Drift has offered him. It's scant comfort, but better than having none at all, isn't it? His optics dim, and his voice is quiet. Almost soft. ]
You're not who I want, [ Drift confessed with the tired resignation of someone who hadn't quite given up but teetered on that edge of numbing oblivion. His words were incongruous with how his hand gentled over the space between Megatron's thigh and waist. As though the living metal could be smoothed like rumbled fabric or the prickled hair of a cat's back. ]
I can still be glad you're here even if I'm not who you want, either.
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ximilialog2022-02-13 07:36 pm
CLOSED to Megatron
This is irony in its worst iteration. [ He and Megatron were in Drift's quarters having what could only be described as a debriefing. Neither of them had been present for the last leg of the journey, and only now had they found the time to convene. Drift had just finished replaying Vivica and the Commander's words to the crew and stood staring at a blank wall. His posture pulled taut like he wanted to throw something. ]
How many planets have you or I destroyed without lifting a finger, if you had to guess? [ Drift turned and looked at Megatron, at first the question coming off as non-sequitur before he continued. ]
The one time, the only time nuking that rock until only dust and echoes remained in the vacuum of space would be a mercy โ and we don't have the wherewithal to do it. [ He sneers, arms crossed tight across his chest as though holding himself back from doing something he'll only regret later. ]
Pyrrhic doesn't even begin to describe it.
Re: CLOSED to Megatron
Dozens, at least. Perhaps hundreds, though it depends on if we count inhabitated worlds with native populations or also lifeless husks that had significant energy sources as well.
[ He says it with a morose sort of detachment. It's not clinical, more like he's reciting the numbers from an obituary column. Resigned, and still heavy with a sense of grief and responsibility. ]
I count it a small mercy that everyone made it back alive, though I can't say one piece. I can only hope we never have another like that again. Organics are remarkably difficult to repair.
[ He sounds even more tired when he says that. ]
Perhaps we should take this as instructive. What price will be asked of us, when it finally comes our turn to have a regret undone?
no subject
Drift visibly stiffens with a flush of shame coursing through him he's not yet prepared to process at the mention of organics. If he let his concentration slip, he could still feel the thrum of the lives being snuffed out in his grasp or feel one in particular nearly slipping away. He tellingly drops that thread of the conversation before doubling down on an argument they must have had a dozen times over by now. ]
No one's dropped out of the race yet. I'm trying not to hold one orb's malicious intent as the standard once they're all together.
no subject
We have only the evidence of our experiences in this case. I'm not telling you to give up. I'm merely asking you to consider what you're willing to pay just for another coin-toss.
[ Megatron considers himself essentially dead already, so he of course doesn't need to worry. ]
no subject
What doesn't help is Drift isn't sure what he wants. Either out of this discussion or from Megatron being here. They pointedly had yet to bring up Drift's reaction to McCoy being shot or Megatron's relation to Drift nearly being killed himself.
Instead of arguing, Drift only shakes his head and looks back at Megatron with resignation that mirrors the other's. ]
We both know there's no answer I can give you that will have you leaving here satisfied.
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[ Megatron taps his datapad against his knee. He feels worn down, tired. He should really try and get some more rest and yet here he was. Talking with Drift. A mech who... hated him? Tolerated him? He couldn't be sure where exactly they stood any longer. ]
We were fortunate you didn't come back from that place with more serious injuries. I already had to put a patch on your tendon. Have you been keeping off that leg at least a little?
[ And just like that, Megatron switches to concerned doctor. ]
Have you had any rest since we got back?
no subject
[ To his credit, as sour as his mood was turning, Drift had the good graces to look properly chastised when Megatron brought up his leg. Without even thinking about it, Drift moves to sit at the end of his berth. The truth was he hadn't rested, not properly, since they came back. ]
A bit. [ He lied. ]
no subject
Put your leg on the berth. I want to get a good look at it to see how it's healing.
[ This isn't the infirmary, but he might as well check in on how his patient is doing. ]
no subject
The trust was there, otherwise Drift wouldn't have turned and followed instructions, but his petulant silence projected that neither was he happy about it.
Worst of all, Megatron wouldn't even need to use his medical expertise to see that Drift had thoroughly neglected to let his wounds heal. ]
no subject
You haven't been changing the patch. I told you, change it every day.
[ None-too-gently he tugs the old patch free and pulls a new one from his medical, which he slaps into place. ]
First you go charging off and losing your head over an organic and now you aren't even bothering to take care of your injuries. Do you want to have a stiff ankle next time you have to do your fancy swordwork?
no subject
Through gritted teeth, it took everything for Drift not to rear his leg back and deliver a mule kick to Megatron's head. Ankle be damned, the patronizing ass deserved a new dent in his helm. ]
That's what this is about?! [ Drift glared over his shoulder, pain and frustration hitching his voice to a near-shriek. ] You're quicker than I gave you credit for to veer right back into xenophobia. Or did you forget who 'that organic' was?
no subject
Stay off the ankle as much as you can. It needs time to heal. And change the patch. [ He interrupts his own reasoning to give more instruction in a sharp, commanding voice that suggests arguing is a poor decision. ]
It's about you using him as a stand-in for Ratchet. They're entirely alike. Don't think I haven't noticed the way you hover around him.
no subject
Drift was half-lying on the berth, his upper body propped on his hands while his legs lay limp and compliant to Megatron's examination. He bowed his head and turned away, voice hollow. All the fury that leveled buildings and crushed lives under the unrelenting heel gone. ]
Don't worry, he knows now. I told him everything.
no subject
[ If Megatron sounds sharp and harsh, it's only because he feels he needs to be. ]
It's not fair to him and it's not healthy for you to treat him like that. It could have gone worse. For all of us.
[ Megatron's voice softens, a touch of resignation seeping into his voice. ]
I don't want to bury you, Drift.
no subject
'Fair'... [ Spitting the word like a curse, hiking up his shoulders as though reading for a blow that would never come, or winding up for a strike of his own.
On shaken legs and with barely enough reserve in his tank to avoid swaying, Drift pivoted on the berth to face Megatron. ]
Fine. Let's debate 'fair' with our didactic leader Megatronโ [ Drift's voice and was rising with the energy of a mountain either about to turn into a volcano or crumble in an avalanche.. ] You're so afraid of what I might do that you don't even stop to consider what you've already done in an effort to 'save' me.
[ Drift wasn't in a place to stand, but the mass-shifting let him crowd over Megatron. ] You want to know what's really ironic? That the only reason you're even here is, for once, the one death you're ready to stand up and take responsibility for wasn't even your fault.
โ You want to 'save' Ravage like you want to save me, but you condemn my efforts not to rewrite the past, but just another chance at the table. Another toss of the coin. I'm so tired of you pitying me as if you're in any position to know what it means.
What are you even saving us from? Ambus needed you, and now he buries his head in the sand on Luna-1, unregarded and forgotten. Rodimus needed you, and now he's a drunk slowly becoming another unforgotten speck of detritus floating in space.
If you're just so content to stay here and rot, then do it! Just stop telling me not to at least try!
no subject
I've taken responsibility for every single one of the actions I've taken during the war, Drift. I've never denied my crimes or the excesses of my army or the orders that I gave the soldiers who followed me. When we finish here I look forward only to a long, slow death in a solitary prison.
Yet somehow my deadliest assassin has escaped justice. Let us not talk of taking responsibility.
[ He sneers the words, his sympathy evaporating in a flash of red-hot anger. ]
I had a responsibility to fight! If I had been able to make myself take up arms then Ravage would still be alive! I didn't make that mistake with you down there and I won't let myself make it ever again! Not when I could save someone!
[ He slams a hand into the wall with a metallic clash of metal-on-metal. ]
I did what I had to do to take responsibility as you put it. Do you think Minimus would have thanked me for somehow escaping what was coming to me? Would that have made him happy? You don't know a damn thing about the mech and you're going to try to lecture me about what he needs?
[ He stands, looms upwards in an effort to keep Drift from crowding him. ]
I will not be made responsible for Rodimus' inability to cope! He doesn't need me! He needs a purpose and I was never the mech who could give him that, as badly as I wanted to at the end of it!
[ He can feel a pressure in his head, as if all of the anger and grief and frustration might blow through the back of his optics and simply pour out onto the berth. He clenches his hands into fists, trembling. ]
If I could be with Minimus and Rodimus, then I would. It's not as if I didn't--don't--want that. If I could be there to support them, I would but it's not that simple. Without my punishment, there's no peace. There's no way for our people to ever be accepted by the others in the galaxy.
[ He ex-vents, a trembling sound that seems like all the weight of the world settling onto his shoulders. ]
You don't understand. You're all that's left.
[ Of the Lost Light. Of the Conclave. Of the hopes and aspirations that Megatron had once held in his spark. ]
It's not your trying that bothers me, it's that you're happily destroying yourself in the effort! You don't even know if the jump works!
no subject
You're forgetting that I, alone and apart, spent ten thousand years trying to make up for my crimes. I'm not going to let you turn that against me or diminish what I've done. That might have hurt me then, but it won't work now.
โ Because then someone gave me a chance, and made me work for it.
[ He couldn't stand his ground, but Drift could stare stolidly back at Megatron with unbending certainty and feel just as tall. ]
This can never be just about them. This is about Optimus, about Soundwave, and Starscream. All these months and all these claims about how I'm all that's left and not once have you even said their names. You were a figurehead for eons, and now you're trying to make one life the monument to all your grief. While treating the souls you left behind like they're already gone while all I'm left with is memories and a grave.
And no, I won't know if it worked or if it would work again. But you're finding it so hard to fathom that I want to try, want to at least hope.
That it has never once crossed your mind that I want to save you, too.
no subject
But before he can really say anything else, that last line from Drift hits him in his chest. It almost feels like a physical blow, driving straight at him as if it might piece through to his spark. ]
Why?
[ His voice is no longer booming and angry. It's a grief-laden question, uncertain for once. It's all he can think to ask in the moment. He is so sure of his own unfathomable guilt and his own well-deserved misery that the idea of Drift wanting to save him from that fate just cannot find purchase on his mind. ]
no subject
Megatron, you spent centuries playing the hero on the alternate Cybertron. Why now do you write off any chance of a clean slate, a second chance, as impossible?
[ Drift holds the other for a very long moment be before turning away. Showing Megatron his back as he turns into himself like he was tucking into a tight ball, ready to slip off into oblivion. ]
Why not?
no subject
I have to believe that that's all there is for me.
[ Megatron seems very weary and very diminished all at once and he slumps back into his chair with a defeated sounding groan. He stares at Drift's back, grim and silent. ]
I won't try to talk you out of it again.
no subject
All he could conjure was a hollowed out ache deep in his chest. Swallowing him whole with the suffocating awareness of his non-zero chance for failure. Continuing on without the other half of his spark while Megatron returned to his own terrible fate.
Drift shifts on the berth, turning just enough that he and Megatron lock eyes. Regarding each other in the heavy press of grief and silence.
Quietly, just above a whisper as though unsure if he should break the silence, Drift asks a terrible question. ]
Please stay the night?
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Megatron should say no, for all those reasons and so many more. He knows he should. The desire for comfort, though, overrides those coldly logical concerns. What else has he to lose? ]
If you like.
[ He says it in a quiet voice and then slowly heaves himself over to sit at the edge of the cramped berth, his head bowed and frame stiff. ]
Thank you.
[ For talking to him. For inviting him to say. For even bothering to look at him when he has every right to tell Megatron simply to leave him alone. ]
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It was unnerving to think after every terrible thing to pass between or how their minds wandered to different faces in moments like these that something remained. A memory of a feeling that was never given time to be given a name.
Instead, Drift and Megatron pretend to be doing each other a favor by scratching an itch. Chasing a hollow bliss as they think of different people while in each other's grip. ]
I'm sorry, [ For so much he can't say, but most of all using a broken heart to momentarily distract from his own.
Drift's hand slides across berth and gingerly runs up the length of Megatron's thigh. Testing the waters before looping around his waist in poor facsimile to an embrace. ]
I'm glad you're here.
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Are you? Tell me the truth, Drift.
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I can still be glad you're here even if I'm not who you want, either.
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