Chapter Text
Drift tried to believe there was life after Ratchet.
It was what he would have wanted, right?
He would have wanted Drift to move on, to be happy, to be fulfilled. To find his own path, to live for something greater, and maybe they’d reunite in the well of all sparks. Even if Ratchet didn’t believe in that sort of thing, Drift ached to believe anything that would give him comfort. The universe felt empty without Ratchet, the stars too far away, and Cybertron too small.
Drift wanted to believe that losing his love didn’t mean that things were over. It was just a new chapter of his life. That he could carry on, find fulfillment in other things. Find answers in other places, live every moment like there was something beautiful to be adored everywhere around him. He could find joy in small things.
At least, he tried to.
He told himself he needed to.
Rodimus didn’t understand, and Drift didn’t expect him to. It was clear enough to him that his amica wanted to feel the rush of adventure again, and was hung up on finding a way to be a hero; to make a difference, so he never argued with him when he took off in search of other magical mysteries or chasing vague legends. They did argue after Rodimus arrived to Ratchet’s memorial drunk and messy.
Apparently the adventures weren’t going so well.
He wanted to reconnect—wanted to fix things—but the timing never felt right.
Rodimus was hurting in his own way, and as much as Drift wanted to reach out, he found himself lacking the wisdom to support his amica. Lacked the right words to comfort him, or the right way to reach through the armor of levity, false optimism, and sarcasm to reach the pained mech beneath.
What could he say, when the pain tearing his own spark apart made it difficult to think of some sagely answer to soothe the Prime’s wayward spark?
So he didn’t say anything.
He let him go.
And let him go again, and again, and again.
Drift threw himself into helping with the rebuilding of Vaporex. There was a temple just outside the city, and he took up residence there, offering what money he had and what work he could do in exchange for a place to recharge. He fell into a regimen of daily prayers and meditation, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he could clear his mind and find the peace he sought to help him move on.
He took up the duties of daily energon distribution to workers, scrubbing the floors, replenishing the candles, organizing medicines, gathering crystals, and tending to still-growing crystals in the garden. He threw himself helmfirst into any chore or wayward errand he could get in on, hoping that if he stayed busy, he could ease the endless disquiet in his struggling processor.
He began practicing devotee rights alongside the temple overseers, who saw his relentless efforts as pious dedication, rather than personal struggle. Drift gladly took them up on their offers of extra lessons and happily spent joors sitting with them long into the night, discussing the universe and spectralist idealolgy.
It kept his mind away from darker places.
So, of course, when he began training to become a cityspeaker, blazing through the trials with flying colors, and undergoing the rites, he didn’t feel any closer to enlightenment.
He didn’t feel… anything.
Besides, it was only a ceremonial title. There were no titans to see to, no great cities or flying spacecraft over cybertron that required such an attendant as a cityspeaker.
He tried talking to Rodimus about it, but again, the time was still not right. Rodimus clearly had too much on his mind, and… Drift just let it go.
He cared about Rodimus, but he couldn’t cling to him the way he was clinging to his memories of Ratchet.
Of the other half of his spark, now a void in his life.
Sometimes after morning meditation, he went out for long drives. He hoped to find his center once more in the thrill of the rush, the wind across his frame, as he sped faster and faster, but it still felt empty.
Out in the middle of nowhere, at the edge of the mountains, he transformed back into root mode to feel the wind settle around him and watch the dissipating vapor trails from jets passing by.
The landscape here was all blues and silvers and dull reds, boulders of natural metals and jagged outcroppings of rocks as the terrain grew mountainous. The rocks here reflected the warm morning light in arches of cascading prismatic colors, leaving ghostly lines of light across the ground.
Then, he felt it.
Something lingering, pulling at his spark. Carried by the wind itself, the faint scent of astringents for cleaning medical supplies, utility polish, and warmed energon with rust shavings mixed in.
Drift whirled around as the breeze blew by, circulation cycle caught in his vents.
That feeling it gave him. The warmth in his spark.
He distinctly felt like he wasn’t alone.
“...Ratchet?”
The solargrass at his pedes rustled in the wind, blowing bits of dust and flecks of rust ahead of him. They arched and swirled in the morning sunlight, like a twinkling sign guiding his way, and he was compelled to follow it.
He couldn’t explain this feeling with words if he tried. It was like a fragile voice, some vague whisper, a delicate strand floating on the breeze that might vanish at any moment. Something present, yet evanescent.
Stepping away from the road, he climbed.
The boulders here were scattered, growing larger as he ascended, but then, he reached a ridge. At the other side, there was dust, and windswept rust and sand, pushed here against the mountainside. It was here that he could see something sticking out of the mountainside. Many somethings. Silver, red, and yellow structures, concealed by the debris of the mountain, and the dust and wind of time.
His spark spun just a little bit faster.
Was it the ruins of a city?
Or perhaps a spaceship?
He found a door, what looked like a massive utility entrance. The keypad didn’t work—no surprise there, it had probably been vorns since any power ran through the place, but when he approached the bay door, it seemed to open of its own accord—just wide enough for him to slip inside.
A quick glance inside showed a massive, open hangar, barren and dusty, with sun filtering through broken panes and layers of space-glass above. Space-glass! Maybe this was a spaceship!
He could almost see them, the ghosts of the past in this big hangar, mechs loading and unloading cargo jets, cargo jets refueling and sharing jet grade, minibots directing traffic with light sticks, and a couple of playful seekers chasing each other around, lobbing cubes and laughing, while some Praxians leaned over a ledge above, one scolding the troublemakers below, while the others drank from cubes and chatted idly, their doorwings fluttering in their relaxed chatter. Minicons dipped between their legs as they pulled small wagons of parts, beeping and murmuring to each other in their own language. It was alight with life, and in the quickest flicker of a moment, the adjustment of his optic aperture, it was gone.
A wave of nostalgia crashed over him. It felt like this place was special.
Though now it was gray and empty, his footsteps in the open hangar hollow echoes throughout the open space, he knew this feeling.
Once, it’d been teeming with life and happiness.
Once upon a time, it was a home.
He stood there for a breem, taking the time for quiet contemplation and reining in his sense of awe. Such a massive facility needed to be excavated, but first; explored.
Something here felt different. Not only could he feel the echoes of the mechs who stood in this same place all around him, but barely, just barely, he could feel the vaguest notion of an EM field, and an aura. A faint, melancholy aura that he could barely decipher.
It was an aura he couldn’t understand the same way a turbofox couldn’t understand what Cybertron looked like from space.
Still, it piqued his curiosity, and the breeze beckoned him forth, but he was stopped by a ping to his comm.
>>Drift, I’ve been summoned out for the evening. Might I request your presence to help with evening energon distribution?<< Cyclonus asked.
>>Yeah, sure. I can be there in half a joor.<< Drift responded.
Tomorrow, he decided. He would explore this place then.