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“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Axe stepped out onto the balcony above the Circle’s council chamber. The evening air was still warmed by updrafts from the stretch of city below, level under level. The lights were starting to glow in the encroaching darkness as the skylights dimmed, set to cycle on Cybertronian solar time, rather than the natural cycle of Theophany. It was one of those things they did, he knew, to make it more like home, but it also kept them out of synch with their new home.
But he hadn’t questioned Dai Atlas about it: it hadn’t seemed as important as safety and the feeling of comfort.
“It is,” Wing said, leaning on the balustrade, one foot resting on the lower rail. His head turned, tilting up, already showing a smile.
The smile was more for Axe’s sake than the city’s. Axe stepped closer, hands curling over the balustrade next to Wing’s. “All our work, to create peace. We’ve succeeded.” Despite their heated meetings--and he could feel the tension shimmer off his own kibble--they worked hard for peace. They all had that much in common.
Wing nodded. “We have.”
“You don’t seem happy,” Axe observed. He looked away, over the settling evening, the way the indigo shadows spread, like a fog of darkness, through the lower depths.
“I’m not unhappy,” Wing corrected, quickly.
“Ah, lad, but there’s a lot of room between those two words.” A world of hurt could hide in the boundary before 'happiness'. And he'd seen it, time and again, in moments like this, quiet and lost, when Wing set himself apart from the others, from what they'd worked for.
The smile flickered. “I can’t hide anything from you, Axe.”
Axe gave an easy laugh. “No one can. That’s why I am where I am.” Not that that was always a pleasant thing. But duty was duty and the price well worth it. It had led him to his tempestuous relationship with Dai Atlas, tempering the other's heat and severity.
“I just…,” Wing gave a helpless shrug. “The air here seems so thick, sometimes. Crowded and still.”
“It catches sound, yes,” Axe said. He hesitated—only for a moment—and then reached over, breaking the distance between them with a touch on Wing’s shoulder. “It is no surprise or shame that a jet should long for the sky, Wing.”
The flightpanel twitched under his fingers. “It just feels…selfish. I should be happy enough with what is, without reaching for more.” He looked down at his hands, on the balustrade, his mouth pulling into an upturned bowl of sorrow.
“It seems to me there’s no better selfishness than wanting to feel joy.” He sighed, looking over at the smaller jet, whose white seemed almost luminous in the artificial twilight.
“But Springarm always said—“ And Wing cut himself short, abruptly. He’d said the name; he’d summoned the ghost now. The one word, once springing so easily to his vocalizer, now a labyrinth of loss and grief.
“Springarm would have loved this,” Axe said, gently.
“He would have,” Wing said, the words woven through with threads of pain. “And that should be enough.”
And clearly it wasn’t. And clearly Wing hated himself for it.
They’d been through so much together, and Wing had never asked anything for himself, as though the loss of Springarm still weighed on him. He frowned, letting his hand glide over the shoulders, sensitized for any resistance. There was none, the flightpanels softening under his touch. “He’d want you to be happy, Wing. Truly happy. Even with him gone.” Not like this, struggling with a simple desire to fly, as though his natural essence was somehow bad.
Wing shook his head, tears glimmering like stars. Not arguing just…refusing.
“Springarm believed in freedom, Wing. That includes you. He’d never want you bound to his memory.”
“I know.” The sound of knowledge without faith, and grief in that failure to believe.
“Wing.” It hurt, the way it could only hurt to see a friend in pain. No, not a mere friend. There were so many times Axe had caught himself at this cusp, on the verge of something happening, and he’d always pulled back, fearful of being unwanted, of intruding in the footsteps of a ghost.
Wing turned, the gold optics glittering with emotion in the darkness. “He used to love watching me fly,” he said, softly, his voice thick with memory.
Who wouldn’t? Wing was a beautiful flyer, the kind that was forged, not trained, with a natural trust and delight in the air itself. He didn’t fly, Axe thought, as much as dance with the air. He felt his mouthplates tingle, goading him forward.
“It’s a shame,” Axe repeated, “to deny oneself joy.” And he realized the words were for himself as much as Wing, the wisdom that was born from life and pain and love, the kind of wisdom you deny yourself but give so fully to your friends. “And a sad thing indeed, to let that chance pass by.”
He pushed himself over that edge, tipping the jet’s chin upward with one finger, losing himself in those gold optics, lowering his mouth in a kiss that sealed the ache of lonely sparks.