Drift shifted his hands uncertainly. It was an awkward motion, lacking the important dexterity the motion required, his blocky, dented fingers trembling with desire for something he couldn't quite afford at the moment.
"Here, no," Gasket laughed, and let go with his right hand to tug Drift's fingers back into place between his own. Drift left his left hand hovering awkwardly between them until Gasket took it back into his own, and slowly, carefully, over exaggerating the motion a tad, slid his thumbs over Drift's palms and inched his fingers up into the proper positions to say, 'Hello, friend!'
Drift took a deep breath and mimicked the motion, gritting his dentae in focus, tracing the pattern against the scraped metal palms of Gasket's hands, fingertips ghosting over his knuckles and the dents in them with far more care than could possibly be required. Gasket's face lit up bright and brilliant, and he clenched his hands around Drift's.
"There you go! See, it's not that hard, right? You did that perfectly!"
Drift shrugged, biting his lip and trying to reroute the heat from his faceplate at the praise. "How do I say, 'thanks?'"
Gasket grinned and twisted his wrists just so, and Drift's optics went back down to their linked hands and the lesson.
'See ladder?' Drift signed awkwardly, with one hand behind his back, fingers interlaced with Gasket's.
'Do see.' Gasket signed back.
'Other side has door for subway. Run?'
Gasket paused, hand still locked with Drift's, stepping away from the enforcers who were still searching a stranger who wouldn't have what they were looking, because Drift did. After a moment he signed a confirmation into Drift's fingers and squeezed, one, two, three, a countdown.
On the third they bolted, scrambling back to the wall and the hanging ladder. Gasket went first but heaved Drift over the wall and the enforcer's halo of lazer fire only clipped him, knocking off the end of his right finial. They vanished into the throes of the subway crowd, counting their stolen rations and laughing in the dingy corners down service tunnels with their hands.
'Your name what?' Drift signed into the red mech's hands. His signing had vastly improved, he knew, but he had his doubts he would ever be as fluent as Gasket. Gasket wasn't here, though, and this beat up leaker was, his voicebox as damaged as the rest of him. The damage was old looking though, and Drift had his fingers crossed that someone had taught him hand at some point.
'B-r-a-k-e-l-i-n-e," he signed, one sign for each glyph, slow, awkward, like he wasn't very good at it, and he was looking at Drift with this wonder, like he couldn't believe this was happening, 'but in sign, this,' Brakeline raised two inside fingers and squeezed with his thumbs- not a word, but a name, apparently. Drift repeated the sign and Brakeline smiled, which looked difficult with his rusted shut jaw.
'Is okay,' Drift said, before pausing at a sound from the end of the alley, 'you meet friend of mine, help you.'
Brakeline nodded and tried to push himself to his pedes, but his joints flaked rust with a shriek and Drift sighed, before withdrawing his fingers and picking the mech up, tossing him up piggyback. The mute mech's hands clasped around his neck, signing 'thank you, thank you' into his chest while he carried him back to Gasket's hideout.
It was late in the off shift, the dull navy glow of night piercing through the fractured ceiling of the condemned unit they were sleeping in, in a sort of pile, the lot of them, all of Gasket's ugly ducklings and black swans, the quiet hums of sleeping, dying engines, interspersed with the occasional hiccup or chug that they all ignored, because they couldn't afford to fix them, the only sound cutting through the stillness.
Drift was awake, watching the sky through the roof, searching for stars he wouldn't find through the light pollution and hoping the syk would finally let him down enough to recharge, when Gasket's fingers found his and he looked over to find his optics.
Drift moved his hand to position it for signing, but Gasket just squeezed his fingers and looked up at the sky with him.
It was another two hours before his energon stopped bubbling and his brain stopped popping and he finally slept, fingers still silently entwined.
Drift squinted, uncertain. The mech had frozen when they had noticed him, standing stock still in the alley, hovering over the dumpster they had obviously been digging through.
Drift had never seen an empurata victim before. He'd heard of them and he knew he was perpetually in danger of becoming one himself, but he'd yet to meet one in his tiny, closed circles. The mech stared at him, or at least, he thought he was staring at him, through one single bright green optic, eerie in its stillness. There was something familiar about them, though, about the rest of them, minus the claws and lack of face.
The mech scrambled out of the dumpster and tried to run, but they tripped over a discarded pole and went tumbling into the pavement.
Maybe it was something about the way he moved, or the way the light reflected off his still rusted joints, but Drift suddenly recognized him.
"…Brakeline?" He asked, and the mech froze. Drift stepped forward, hesitant, and knelt down, reaching his trembling hands toward Brakeline's claws, smoothing his fingers over the unjointed metal that could not sign.
Brakeline stumbled back to his pedes and bolted out of the alley, out of sight, and out of Drift's life forever.
Drift was lying on his back, staring through the space between his fingers and the cracks in the ceiling at the dull blue and starless sky above. He was signing one handed, lazily, shakily, into only air, letting his hand fist and hide the sky and uncurl, letting the dim light flood back into his optics.
Gasket rolled over and stared up at his hand for a moment, clenching and unclenching, before frowning.
"What are you signing?" He asked, quietly, and Drift wanted to answer him, but the boosters were messing with his circuitry and he couldn't quite remember how to online his voicebox. Gasket watched him for a moment, optics glazed over with a pleasant syk haze, before leaning up on his elbow and taking Drift's hand in his, feeling the sign against his palm. He looked troubled.
"What are you sorry about?" Gasket whispered, confused, but Drift couldn't remember, and just kept signing. Clench, wrist twist, circle, thumb out. Clench, wrist twist, circle, thumb out.
Deadlock laid back in his berth in the darkness, listening to the thrum of the ship and signing 'hate, hate, hate' over and over into his own hands, alone.