Drift’s venting had evened out somewhat, optics half shuttered. His hand trembled lightly in Ratchet’s grasp. Ratchet had to hold back the urge to run diagnostics on Drift’s condition. It would only distress him more. He already knew it was bad, with how the other mech seemed to be much more susceptible to the virus, weakening at a disturbingly rapid pace in comparison to himself.
Perhaps Ambulon’s theory wasn’t too far off. Medics were built to take a lot of punishment. A hard, sturdy frame that needed to be capable of lifting heavy patients and coming in direct contact with all sorts of sickness.
Although whether or not he was actually capable of getting back up at the moment was another story, considering he couldn’t feel his legs from his awkwardly crouched position anymore.
So he really needed someone to hurry the slag up and get them back down so they could prepare the antidote. Checking his comms once again, he found there was still no response. Another ping was hastily sent to First Aid. << In bad condition. Roof. Need assistance. Retrieved antidote>>
Someone should have come up to check on them by now.
Unless something happened.
If we aren’t okay. If they show up…
No. Absolutely not. He was not going to go there. Not now.
Please just promise.
Everything was going to be fine. He needed to get Drift’s words out of his head. Where was the offensively upbeat positivity when he needed it? Fake as it may be, Ratchet would almost prefer that over the cold acceptance of death. It too closely echoed the words he himself had given to Pharma just moments before.
He pushed down the feeling of dread creeping up.
It wouldn’t come to that.
It wasn’t until he felt something clawing at his arm that he realized he had nodded off at some point. Through the streaks of rust clouding his vision, he barely made out what appeared to be Drift, wild eyed and clutching Ratchet’s plating. There was an incoherent babble of words spilling from him that Ratchet couldn’t seem to follow.
Drift’s hand was fumbling around on the ground in a blind panic, trying to locate the sword. Startled, Ratchet pulled the blade back out of reach. “Now just hold on-”
Then he heard it.
Music.
Soft, ethereal music that seemed to echo all around and not at all at the same time. It was so faint, for a moment he thought he might’ve imagined it. But looking back at Drift’s face…. It was exactly what he thought it was.
No. No no no-
A hand tried to pull the sword away. Ratchet tugged it back easily, Drift’s grip far too weak to actually take it.
Heavy pedefalls shook the ground from somewhere below. Soft music grew louder. No, not soft. Not if his malfunctioning, fluid filled audials managed to pick it up…
The tune was unmistakable.
“ Ratchet . Ratchet-”
Processor frozen in shock, all he could do was stare down at the wide, panicked optics below him, unable to force any words out of his vocalizer.
They were going to be fine.
“They’re here-”
He had the antidote.
“Ratchet please -”
Up and out of there in no time.
“You promised-”
It wouldn’t come to that.
Shaking hands grabbed up at him once again and he felt his fuel tank twist. “Don’t let them- I don’t want you to- I can’t move - Ratchet please…”
The sword sat heavily in his hand.
He couldn’t stand the look Drift was giving him. Ratchet could feel the heavy pulse of his field mix against his own. Fear. Desperation. Sadness. Guilt.
The guilt stuck out the strongest. Guilt at requesting such a terrible thing from him most likely. Even worse, making him promise . It would tear Ratchet apart to do this and Drift was fully aware of that. If the roles were reversed, would Drift have…No. That idiot probably would’ve thrown himself at them in vain if he could so much as sit up. Hypocrite.
Truthfully it didn’t matter one bit what Drift would have done. The reality was he was as good as a bag of bolts on the ground and Ratchet was the only one capable of taking any action for either of them. Not that there were many options.
The DJD was here. They had minutes at the most .
He could ignore Drift’s plea. They would die horribly and slowly. Or he could end it now. Relatively quickly and painlessly. Cowardly, but when the DJD was involved… you either died quickly or you died slowly. There was no third option, not like this. Drift knew that. Ratchet knew that. But even still.
He couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Ratchet couldn’t look him in the optics. “I can’t.”
There was no response. The air felt still around him. The sword was plucked from his grasp.
It wasn’t Drift.
A sharp, heavy kick sent Ratchet tumbling across the floor, metal screeching and grinding. A blooming pain spread as his helm hit the ground, hard . Processor glitching and fuzzy, he tried to make out his surroundings, but couldn’t make sense of anything.
Attempting to prop himself up, he found his frame heavy as lead, unresponsive. Fluid filled his mouth as he tried to call out to Drift, words coming out as a garbled flood of rust.
Drift . He needed to get to Drift.
Rebooting his optic feed and audials and dialing them up as far as he could, Ratchet dragged his helm up to try and get a glimpse of what hit him. His surroundings came to him in broken fragments. Nothing was piecing together correctly. He couldn’t focus .
White, so much white. Wet and cold. Bitter cold. Red blotches. Everywhere. Rust. That’s right, it was rust-
Voices. Coming from somewhere. He couldn’t tell. They were saying something. He couldn’t tell.
Purple. Large and purple. It was towering over something. Drift. Tarn was towering over Drift. He had Drift.
A panicked voice. Pleading. It sounded so wrong. He hated it.
The large mech was crouched down. He couldn’t see Drift’s face. Cuffs. There were cuffs on his wrists.
Someone was speaking. A quiet murmur. Mumbling. Soft.
Drift was writhing.
A sob. Cries of pain that glitched with each punctuated whisper. An awful sound. He wanted it to stop.
The purple bot shifted his frame. He could see a clawed hand. It gently stroked one of Drift’s finials as he thrashed in agony. Soft caresses. Mocking. Wrong. It made his tank lurch.
An intense need to get over there- get Tarn’s claws off him came over Ratchet. But he couldn’t move.
Drift’s writhing died down as the whispers came to a stop. Tarn slowly rose from his perch over him and turned to face Ratchet. The swordsmech let out a strangled shout at that, cuffed hands grabbing desperately at the tank’s pede. They were shaken off with ease as he continued forward.
All he could do was watch in horror as the mech leisurely approached. The ground passed by in a blur as he felt himself being bodily dragged across it and dropped in a heap beside Drift. The feeling of the puddle of rust rapidly growing beneath them made his tank queasy and he let his helm drop backward on the ground in exhaustion.
It was his turn then.
Weak vents rattled as Drift fought to stay awake beside him. Ratchet reached out, placing his hand on the mech’s chestplate and pushed out a gentle pulse to nudge him fully into unconsciousness. He wouldn’t give Tarn the satisfaction of forcing Drift to watch.
Finally feeling the tug of sleep take over his own processor, he let his optics shutter as Tarn crouched down over them. Darkness overtook his senses as he hoped to wake from whatever nightmare he was trapped in.
comfort tried to pull up but is caught in major rush hour traffic..