For reference, this is based off This isn't goodbye, which in turn is based off an earlier part of this fic lol
Cw suicidal thoughts/ideation
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
There were swords in his legs. His swords. Drift stared numbly at the torn and crumpled metal around the blades. He'd missed them. Like a piece of himself was missing. He could hear Wing's voice whispering through the blades piercing him. How he missed it. A shaking hand reached out to touch the hilt lodged in his right leg. There was no pain where there should be unspeakable agony.
It was a dream. It was a dream, wasn't it? A familiar dream that he couldn't quite place, but a dream nonetheless. That must be why he felt nothing. He was tired of pain. And his subconscious thankfully agreed for once. The thought flickered across his mind that maybe he'd gained some scrap of control over at least one part of his life, however small.
It was dashed as quickly as it came when a pair of hands yanked his helm to the side.
Every sensation slammed him at once. The intense ache through his frame. The horrible numbness below his waist. Distant wails. Cries of agony beside him. Cruel laughter.
He saw Ratchet's hands. The same hands he'd held so tenderly, the ones he cherished above his own life. His last remaining treasure worth staying here for.
He saw the jagged blade. The energon. The wires torn free as the precious hands were violently mutilated. He wanted to scream. Drift lunged forward, grabbing the arm brandishing the knife, claws tearing, ripping, shredding, eliciting pained shrieks. Drift kept going, kept ripping, kept clawing. He didn't care. He wanted it to stop. And he didn't stop, not until the knife had clattered to the ground, not until the one destroying Ratchet's hands fell with it, unmoving.
He reached out, taking the barely recognizable hands in his own, the sensation of the torn metal against his fingers. He felt them twitch and he looked up into a pair of deep black chasms consuming his vision.
"…Drift? Is that you?"
He left the hands to cup the face connected to them instead, thumbs brushing up underneath curled metal where optics had once been. Ratchet's voice was so small and weak. It didn't sound right coming from him.
"I'm here. I've got you."
Drift felt the tears streaming down his face. This was his Ratchet. His Ratchet. His optics scanned over what they'd done to him. Burns, gashes, holes drilled all across his frame- his spark twisted so horribly in its casing.
Flashes across his vision of swords impaling Ratchet's lifeless frame- his swords- the cry of pain, the feeling of the spark below him sputtering out by his own hand.
"Oh? And what's that? You like him? Love him? Disgusting. So you decide to kill him. Might as well, not like he'd ever feel the same."
Froid's monster was just in the edge of his visual feed. Horrible blue optics searing their way into his spark, tearing their way through him, nothing left untouched. Every inch of him, every memory, every thought. Prying eyes violating every fiber of his being as he was torn apart and put back a billion times over.
Not again. Not again. He couldn't do this again. What the hell was he thinking? He wanted to die. He wanted to die, needed to die-
"Drift?" Ratchet whispered hoarsely. His frame trembled beneath Drift's hands.
"I'm here, I'm here. I won't leave you." Drift wrapped him up in his arms as best he could with his legs pinned where he sat. Ratchet simply lay draped over him limply, not moving.
Here he was, so completely absorbed with himself when Ratchet was suffering. He was horrible.
"Ooh wow! So much self loathing packed into one guy. We've got a lot to work through, don't we?"
Drift shut his optics as he held tight to Ratchet, blocking out the smirking eyes observing his every move. Ignore him, ignore him. He's not here.
Sharp rhythmic taps beside him. "Mmm. Still with your weird obsession. I suppose the hands being attached to something is a good start."
Drift began rocking back and forth in an attempt to soothe Ratchet, he had to be in so much pain. The movement made him light-headed. It was so hard to focus and his own vents were labored and heavy. Ratchet didn't move.
"Drift, put the corpse down. It's disgusting."
His fingers dug into Ratchet's plating as he continued rocking him. Froid didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He knew nothing at all. He knew nothing about Ratchet. And he knew nothing about Drift.
"Oh I know plenty about you, Drift. And we'll have all the time in the world to figure out what exactly is wrong with you very shortly."
Drift was sobbing. He didn't know why. Ratchet was cold against his frame and he rubbed his hands along the torn up back to help keep him warm. He tucked his face into Ratchet's shoulder as the tears pooled down. "I don't know what to do, Ratchet. I don't know. I'm so stupid. So, so stupid. I can't go with him. I can't do this. I can't. I can't-" Drift choked on his own tears.
With each movement the blades sliced deeper into his legs, severing energon lines and further mangling them into something unrecognizable. Drift didn't care. He felt nothing. They'd never serve him again, so what did it matter?
"Kill me…" Ratchet's voice came faint, barely heard.
"Don't say that. Please don't."
"Please… before they come back to finish the job. You know they will, Drift. You know what they'll do. You know how horrible it is. Please." The voice didn't seem to be coming from Ratchet, merely an eerie echo with a vague resemblance to the cold body in his arms.
"Stop it." Drift couldn't keep his voice from cracking.
"I don't want you to suffer anymore. Take us both. End it on our terms."
"No, no, no, no-" Drift sobbed. He took Ratchet's face in his hands again. "Tell me to keep going. Tell me to live. That's what you'd say. You wouldn't say this."
He was met with two pits of darkness and unbearable silence. Ratchet's brain module was lodged deep in his intake, wires once connected now dangling free from his mouth, still warped into a terrible grimace.
"Tell me there's something worth staying for. Please. Please, Ratchet-" Drift shook him by the shoulders, desperate for any kind of response, but Ratchet's helm lolled to the side, lifeless. Dead.
"Well someone's having a bit of a crisis, aren't they?"
"Get the hell out of my head. Now." Drift didn't even look up.
"I'm not the one who put me here. That's all you this time." Froid's hand traced the tip of his finial. "I'm not the one who killed him, either."
"Get out!"
Drift's chest heaved with pain and grief. Grief for Ratchet. Grief for what surely remained of his life. A life he didn't want to finish, but had once fought so hard to keep. He couldn't remember what he'd wanted out of it so badly.
He looked up to find himself alone, even Ratchet's lifeless form was taken from him. Shaking arms wrapped around himself in a lonely embrace. Drift shut his optics, praying he wouldn't wake back up.
alas... I'm addicted to adding in weirdass vague dream scenes when I'd sat down to actually further the story. but you can never have too much of drift fighting for his life in his own head. If I have to live in a state of constant stress and anxiety so does drift 🫡
I also just recently finished some missing scenes from earlier in this fic with Pipes if you're up for more angst >:D Signs of life
Thank you for reading!!