[WWE] The Lucky Ones
a/n: So here's a little in-canon piece of fluff to tide readers over until I get Sideswipe and the Epilogue back from my increasingly busy beta. :) This is mostly SFW and self-edited.
Title: The Lucky Ones
Universe: War Without End, Bayverse, pre-Drift
Characters: Drift/Ratchet, refs past Drift/Blurr
Rating: T
Warnings: some kissing, lots of fluff
Description: Drift can't afford any more mistakes. So he takes a leap of faith.
He doesn't have to spend much time looking. Drift already knows where Ratchet will be: in the medbarn, obsessively seeing to the hatchlings, worrying himself to a processor overload as he tends to their tiny, tiny systems.
For once, the medic doesn't seem to notice that he's being observed. That Drift is standing here, watching Ratchet sit on a crate, idly massaging the cables in his right shoulder, frame slumped with weariness. There's grief in there, too. Regret. Guilt.
Drift's spark tightens.
For months, he's danced around this idea. For weeks, he's entertained all sorts of options and actions and settled on none of them. He's endured Thundercracker's implications and Skywarp's outright teasing. He's watched a mech he's admired and wondered if he's making a big mistake.
After Prowl's story, Drift's certain he can't afford any more of those. Mistakes that is.
Ventilating slowly and deeply, Drift gathers up his courage, quiets his squirming internals, and approaches the storm of guilt and angst.
“Bothering you again?” Drift asks, careful to keep his tones soft as not to startle Ratchet. He's learned that the medic's reaction errs toward throwing first and checking later. And his aim never fails.
Ratchet huffs, dropping his hand from his shoulder as though his plating had suddenly burned him. “Never bothered me in the first place.”
“Liar.” Drift knows good and well that shoulder hasn't set right since Ratchet grappled with Sideswipe all those months ago.
He steps up behind the medic. Ratchet's helm comes up to Drift's chestplate while seated and it's a novel feeling. Drift is used to looking up at Ratchet. And, well, everyone in their cadre actually. He's the shortest among them.
“What is the saying?” Drift asks, trying to calm the tremble in his own plating. “That medics are the worst patients?”
Ratchet shifts as though to rise and Drift lays a hand on the sore shoulder, softly but firmly preventing him from doing so.
“I'm not leaking or in serious pain,” Ratchet retorts, though the tension in his frame noticeably melts away as Drift's long fingers dip between his armor plates and massages the tense cables beneath.
“But our energon's been slag so your self-repair isn't touching it yet,” Drift finishes. He's not a medic by any means, but he's picked some basic field repair over the war. “That and I'll bet all the credits in my subspace you haven't had a full recharge or defrag since we left Chicago.”
“... You don't have any credits,” Ratchet grumps.
A light smile curves Drift's lipplate. “Doesn't change the fact that I'm probably right.” his fingers sweep down, pulsing light bursts of charge against kinked cables. Beneath his ministrations, he can feel the loosening of stressed lines.
Ratchet relaxes marginally, but to Drift, it's a shout of victory. “Fine,” he grudgingly concedes. “You'll do what you want anyway.”
Amusement bubbles up in Drift's chassis, but he works it back down. He suspects Ratchet wouldn't be happy to know that Drift considers his ire just this side of adorable. Beneath the gruff exterior lies a spark of gold with more compassion than it seems logical for a mech to possess.
“Primus, Ratchet,” Drift says. “Don't offer any gratitude on my behalf.”
Ratchet slumps a little further, a small measure of trust in the simple motion. “You get what you ask for, bratling.”
Drift's hands work down, moving on from the stressed shoulder and down the length of Ratchet's arm, spark spinning a stressed whirl. Scrap, but he hopes he's not fragging this up!
“Older than you think I am,” Drift replies, but his tone is quieter than it should be. It's an off-beat to the previous teasing cadence of their conversation.
His fingers work further down, ghosting over Ratchet's wrist, before they close around Ratchet's hand. His thumb sweeps a soft pattern over Ratchet's palm and he tries not to notice how badly he's shaking.
Ratchet doesn't try to jerk his hand away, is strangely pliant even, as Drift pulls his hand up, draws it toward his mouth, pressing the gentlest kiss he can muster to the sensitive components. Ratchet's plating is warm against his lips, the medic's hand scenting of medical-grade energon and welding residue.
Ratchet's ventilations stutter. “Drift...?”
“Don't act like you don't know what I'm doing,” he responds with more bravado than he feels.
He takes a chance, ex-vents a warm puff of air over Ratchet's hand, watching his fingers twitch. More telling is the soft spike in Ratchet's energy field and the fact that he doesn't pull away, doesn't flinch or instantly jerk away from the tainted once-Decepticon.
“I'm not,” Ratchet says, his vocals still carefully soft. “I'm questioning your judgment.”
Drift's answer is to press another kiss to Ratchet's palm, glossa flicking against the dermal plating, feeling the gentle turn of gears underneath. Ratchet's hand is shaking, ever so subtly, and the quiet revs of the medic's engine are all the proof Drift needs that his touches aren't entirely unwanted.
“I know what I want,” Drift says, letting his energy field unfurl, allowing Ratchet to get the first taste of the desire and hope resonating within it. “Do you?”
Ratchet's field spikes with indecision. “How can you...?” He struggles to control himself, letting loose a shaky ventilation. “What about Blurr, Drift?”
The designation does not bring the lance of pain that Drift expects. There is still a surge of grief, an ache of lingering sadness, but the pain is no longer like a knife, cutting him down to the quick. It is a pulse of memory in his spark.
Without releasing Ratchet's hand, Drift circles around so that he can face Ratchet, speak his piece to the medic's bright optics. He lowers himself to one knee, forcing Ratchet to look down at him, his other hand resting on Ratchet's knee for balance.
“Blurr is dead,” Drift says, and surprises himself by the lack of static in the statement, the lack of throbbing pain in his spark. “And I am not.”
Ratchet's fingers curl against his, but they don't retract. The silence is all too telling, screaming of Ratchet's indecision.
Drift takes a calculated risk, brushing his lips over Ratchet's palm again. “Tell me to stop and I will,” he says, though he hopes - prays - that his feelings are returned. “Tell me you do not want me and I will walk away. But do not toss Blurr at me and expect that to be your answer.”
He turns his helm, letting his cheekplate slide against Ratchet's palm.
Ratchet makes a sound, one Drift cannot designate, a cross of pain and relief and broken things. His fingers twitch into motion, shifting from Drift's hold, only to cup his helm instead.
“Why?” he asks, the simple syllable laced with static.
“Because I want to.” Drift lifts his optics, meeting Ratchet's, hoping that his honesty shows through. “I want to.”
The moment of truth.
Something passes through Ratchet's energy field, like an old engine struggling to turn over.
“You have terrible taste,” he half-growls, half-whispers, but his grip on Drift's helm tightens and he pulls.
Drift rises to his pedes at the non-verbal request, static crackling between them, Ratchet's energy field crashing down over him. Their mouths come together with much the same, a lick of charge leaping from Ratchet's lips onto his own.
Relief floods Drift's spark, desire spilling from his energy field. One hand flails, grasping onto Ratchet's shoulder for balance. The medic's plating is warm beneath his fingertips, the thrumming of Ratchet's engine so tangible.
Ratchet's glossa flicks against his own, a tentative greeting, and Drift responds in kind, glossa plunging into Ratchet's mouth. The medic tastes of that terrible energon they're all forced to consume, but Drift can't be bothered to care. A soft sound escapes his vocalizer, his frame surging forward, trying to press against Ratchet's, get closer.
His hand flails off Ratchet's knee, reaching for Ratchet's helm, thumb sweeping across the tempting spurs on Ratchet's faceplate. The thin plating thrums beneath his haptic sensors.
Ratchet makes some sound, another undefinable noise, and Drift eases off the kiss, leaving with a parting nip to Ratchet's lower lip. He does not go far, however, resting his forehelm against Ratchet's, his optics offline.
Silence descends, Drift bathing in the reciprocating push of Ratchet's energy field, the realization that his affection has been returned.
He is now bereft of words. It had been hard enough, before, to speak his desires. Now, he hasn't the slightest idea of what to do or say next.
That he wants to push Ratchet down onto the nearest berth and interface the overworked medic until he offlines is par for the course.
“Well,” Ratchet finally says. “What now?”
Drift's thumb strokes the medic's faceplate. “I suppose that's up to you,” he says, aiming for caution and hoping he lands somewhere nearer to optimism. “Recharge is not out of the question.”
Ratchet cycles his optics, amusement stream-lining his field. “You've spent all this effort to confess to me and now you want to recharge?”
“Well, you could use it,” Drift points out, free hand tracing the outline of Earth-mode kibble on Ratchet's chestplate.
Ratchet's arm circles him, pulling him flush with the medic's frame. Close enough that he can feel the spin and dance of Ratchet's spark behind his kibble.
“That I could,” Ratchet murmurs before warm ex-vents caress Drift's intake as Ratchet kisses him again.
Drift hums into the kiss, delighting in the closeness, the embrace of Ratchet's field and arms. The press of their plating together.
“Is that a 'no' on recharge?” Drift manages, between one kiss and the next.
The rumble in Ratchet's chassis is best defined as amusement. “Call it what you like,” Ratchet says as he leaves Drift's lips, only to nibble at his audial. “We will end on the berth one way or another.”
Happiness skips through Drift's spark, blossoming across his frame in a flush of heat. He presses hard against Ratchet. “Whatever you want,” he says on the edge of a gasp.
Ratchet's field slides into his, filled with desire. “You might regret allowing me so much latitude.”
“I could never regret you,” Drift replies honestly.
Ratchet stutters, pulling back to look him in the optics, his field wavering between amusement and affection.
“What?” Drift asks.
“You,” Ratchet replies with a shake of his helm. “You just... Never mind.”
He cuts off Drift's confusion with another kiss, not that Drift's complaining. And he's especially not complaining as Ratchet's hands start roaming, igniting his sensory net in a bright burst of pleasure.
Some times it pays to be bold.
****
a/n: This had been sitting in my To Do folder for months and I finally managed to pull it up and finish off the last bit of it. I hope it's enough to tide everyone over until the rest comes. Or I manage to finish Megatron's side piece. :)
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
This entry was originally posted at http://dracoqueen22.dreamwidth.org/282197.html. Feel free to comment wherever you find most convenient.
Title: The Lucky Ones
Universe: War Without End, Bayverse, pre-Drift
Characters: Drift/Ratchet, refs past Drift/Blurr
Rating: T
Warnings: some kissing, lots of fluff
Description: Drift can't afford any more mistakes. So he takes a leap of faith.
He doesn't have to spend much time looking. Drift already knows where Ratchet will be: in the medbarn, obsessively seeing to the hatchlings, worrying himself to a processor overload as he tends to their tiny, tiny systems.
For once, the medic doesn't seem to notice that he's being observed. That Drift is standing here, watching Ratchet sit on a crate, idly massaging the cables in his right shoulder, frame slumped with weariness. There's grief in there, too. Regret. Guilt.
Drift's spark tightens.
For months, he's danced around this idea. For weeks, he's entertained all sorts of options and actions and settled on none of them. He's endured Thundercracker's implications and Skywarp's outright teasing. He's watched a mech he's admired and wondered if he's making a big mistake.
After Prowl's story, Drift's certain he can't afford any more of those. Mistakes that is.
Ventilating slowly and deeply, Drift gathers up his courage, quiets his squirming internals, and approaches the storm of guilt and angst.
“Bothering you again?” Drift asks, careful to keep his tones soft as not to startle Ratchet. He's learned that the medic's reaction errs toward throwing first and checking later. And his aim never fails.
Ratchet huffs, dropping his hand from his shoulder as though his plating had suddenly burned him. “Never bothered me in the first place.”
“Liar.” Drift knows good and well that shoulder hasn't set right since Ratchet grappled with Sideswipe all those months ago.
He steps up behind the medic. Ratchet's helm comes up to Drift's chestplate while seated and it's a novel feeling. Drift is used to looking up at Ratchet. And, well, everyone in their cadre actually. He's the shortest among them.
“What is the saying?” Drift asks, trying to calm the tremble in his own plating. “That medics are the worst patients?”
Ratchet shifts as though to rise and Drift lays a hand on the sore shoulder, softly but firmly preventing him from doing so.
“I'm not leaking or in serious pain,” Ratchet retorts, though the tension in his frame noticeably melts away as Drift's long fingers dip between his armor plates and massages the tense cables beneath.
“But our energon's been slag so your self-repair isn't touching it yet,” Drift finishes. He's not a medic by any means, but he's picked some basic field repair over the war. “That and I'll bet all the credits in my subspace you haven't had a full recharge or defrag since we left Chicago.”
“... You don't have any credits,” Ratchet grumps.
A light smile curves Drift's lipplate. “Doesn't change the fact that I'm probably right.” his fingers sweep down, pulsing light bursts of charge against kinked cables. Beneath his ministrations, he can feel the loosening of stressed lines.
Ratchet relaxes marginally, but to Drift, it's a shout of victory. “Fine,” he grudgingly concedes. “You'll do what you want anyway.”
Amusement bubbles up in Drift's chassis, but he works it back down. He suspects Ratchet wouldn't be happy to know that Drift considers his ire just this side of adorable. Beneath the gruff exterior lies a spark of gold with more compassion than it seems logical for a mech to possess.
“Primus, Ratchet,” Drift says. “Don't offer any gratitude on my behalf.”
Ratchet slumps a little further, a small measure of trust in the simple motion. “You get what you ask for, bratling.”
Drift's hands work down, moving on from the stressed shoulder and down the length of Ratchet's arm, spark spinning a stressed whirl. Scrap, but he hopes he's not fragging this up!
“Older than you think I am,” Drift replies, but his tone is quieter than it should be. It's an off-beat to the previous teasing cadence of their conversation.
His fingers work further down, ghosting over Ratchet's wrist, before they close around Ratchet's hand. His thumb sweeps a soft pattern over Ratchet's palm and he tries not to notice how badly he's shaking.
Ratchet doesn't try to jerk his hand away, is strangely pliant even, as Drift pulls his hand up, draws it toward his mouth, pressing the gentlest kiss he can muster to the sensitive components. Ratchet's plating is warm against his lips, the medic's hand scenting of medical-grade energon and welding residue.
Ratchet's ventilations stutter. “Drift...?”
“Don't act like you don't know what I'm doing,” he responds with more bravado than he feels.
He takes a chance, ex-vents a warm puff of air over Ratchet's hand, watching his fingers twitch. More telling is the soft spike in Ratchet's energy field and the fact that he doesn't pull away, doesn't flinch or instantly jerk away from the tainted once-Decepticon.
“I'm not,” Ratchet says, his vocals still carefully soft. “I'm questioning your judgment.”
Drift's answer is to press another kiss to Ratchet's palm, glossa flicking against the dermal plating, feeling the gentle turn of gears underneath. Ratchet's hand is shaking, ever so subtly, and the quiet revs of the medic's engine are all the proof Drift needs that his touches aren't entirely unwanted.
“I know what I want,” Drift says, letting his energy field unfurl, allowing Ratchet to get the first taste of the desire and hope resonating within it. “Do you?”
Ratchet's field spikes with indecision. “How can you...?” He struggles to control himself, letting loose a shaky ventilation. “What about Blurr, Drift?”
The designation does not bring the lance of pain that Drift expects. There is still a surge of grief, an ache of lingering sadness, but the pain is no longer like a knife, cutting him down to the quick. It is a pulse of memory in his spark.
Without releasing Ratchet's hand, Drift circles around so that he can face Ratchet, speak his piece to the medic's bright optics. He lowers himself to one knee, forcing Ratchet to look down at him, his other hand resting on Ratchet's knee for balance.
“Blurr is dead,” Drift says, and surprises himself by the lack of static in the statement, the lack of throbbing pain in his spark. “And I am not.”
Ratchet's fingers curl against his, but they don't retract. The silence is all too telling, screaming of Ratchet's indecision.
Drift takes a calculated risk, brushing his lips over Ratchet's palm again. “Tell me to stop and I will,” he says, though he hopes - prays - that his feelings are returned. “Tell me you do not want me and I will walk away. But do not toss Blurr at me and expect that to be your answer.”
He turns his helm, letting his cheekplate slide against Ratchet's palm.
Ratchet makes a sound, one Drift cannot designate, a cross of pain and relief and broken things. His fingers twitch into motion, shifting from Drift's hold, only to cup his helm instead.
“Why?” he asks, the simple syllable laced with static.
“Because I want to.” Drift lifts his optics, meeting Ratchet's, hoping that his honesty shows through. “I want to.”
The moment of truth.
Something passes through Ratchet's energy field, like an old engine struggling to turn over.
“You have terrible taste,” he half-growls, half-whispers, but his grip on Drift's helm tightens and he pulls.
Drift rises to his pedes at the non-verbal request, static crackling between them, Ratchet's energy field crashing down over him. Their mouths come together with much the same, a lick of charge leaping from Ratchet's lips onto his own.
Relief floods Drift's spark, desire spilling from his energy field. One hand flails, grasping onto Ratchet's shoulder for balance. The medic's plating is warm beneath his fingertips, the thrumming of Ratchet's engine so tangible.
Ratchet's glossa flicks against his own, a tentative greeting, and Drift responds in kind, glossa plunging into Ratchet's mouth. The medic tastes of that terrible energon they're all forced to consume, but Drift can't be bothered to care. A soft sound escapes his vocalizer, his frame surging forward, trying to press against Ratchet's, get closer.
His hand flails off Ratchet's knee, reaching for Ratchet's helm, thumb sweeping across the tempting spurs on Ratchet's faceplate. The thin plating thrums beneath his haptic sensors.
Ratchet makes some sound, another undefinable noise, and Drift eases off the kiss, leaving with a parting nip to Ratchet's lower lip. He does not go far, however, resting his forehelm against Ratchet's, his optics offline.
Silence descends, Drift bathing in the reciprocating push of Ratchet's energy field, the realization that his affection has been returned.
He is now bereft of words. It had been hard enough, before, to speak his desires. Now, he hasn't the slightest idea of what to do or say next.
That he wants to push Ratchet down onto the nearest berth and interface the overworked medic until he offlines is par for the course.
“Well,” Ratchet finally says. “What now?”
Drift's thumb strokes the medic's faceplate. “I suppose that's up to you,” he says, aiming for caution and hoping he lands somewhere nearer to optimism. “Recharge is not out of the question.”
Ratchet cycles his optics, amusement stream-lining his field. “You've spent all this effort to confess to me and now you want to recharge?”
“Well, you could use it,” Drift points out, free hand tracing the outline of Earth-mode kibble on Ratchet's chestplate.
Ratchet's arm circles him, pulling him flush with the medic's frame. Close enough that he can feel the spin and dance of Ratchet's spark behind his kibble.
“That I could,” Ratchet murmurs before warm ex-vents caress Drift's intake as Ratchet kisses him again.
Drift hums into the kiss, delighting in the closeness, the embrace of Ratchet's field and arms. The press of their plating together.
“Is that a 'no' on recharge?” Drift manages, between one kiss and the next.
The rumble in Ratchet's chassis is best defined as amusement. “Call it what you like,” Ratchet says as he leaves Drift's lips, only to nibble at his audial. “We will end on the berth one way or another.”
Happiness skips through Drift's spark, blossoming across his frame in a flush of heat. He presses hard against Ratchet. “Whatever you want,” he says on the edge of a gasp.
Ratchet's field slides into his, filled with desire. “You might regret allowing me so much latitude.”
“I could never regret you,” Drift replies honestly.
Ratchet stutters, pulling back to look him in the optics, his field wavering between amusement and affection.
“What?” Drift asks.
“You,” Ratchet replies with a shake of his helm. “You just... Never mind.”
He cuts off Drift's confusion with another kiss, not that Drift's complaining. And he's especially not complaining as Ratchet's hands start roaming, igniting his sensory net in a bright burst of pleasure.
Some times it pays to be bold.
****
a/n: This had been sitting in my To Do folder for months and I finally managed to pull it up and finish off the last bit of it. I hope it's enough to tide everyone over until the rest comes. Or I manage to finish Megatron's side piece. :)
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
This entry was originally posted at http://dracoqueen22.dreamwidth.org/282197.html. Feel free to comment wherever you find most convenient.