"An obstacle; some succumb, some overcome."
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Title: Fear
Warning: None
Rating: G
Continuity: G1
Characters: Thundercracker, Mirage
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): Task: Write the most intense scene you can write in 500 words.
[* * * * *]
"You're afraid."
He meets crimson optics steadily. "Of heights, yes," Mirage concedes, refusing to look at the empty gap waiting for misstep.
Thundercracker balances on fire, considering the unnaturally still optics. Flames cut off, gracefully placing hot thrusters upon the railing. He kneels, deliberately lowering himself to meet the blue gaze, but the Autobot concentrates too single-mindedly, not-watching hungry sky behind his wings.
The gun clicks under his bumper, unnoticed threat. "Come here."
"No."
"You have nothing to fear from heights." One hand opens, an offer beside a loaded gun. Mirage bares his teeth in what could charitably be called a grin as he acknowledges the lack of choice. When he reaches, however, the hand dips away, curls around his wrist, and trails delicately up his arm, tracing abstract patterns. The cold armor of a flyer hums subsonically against his thinner, hotter metal, calling his engines to vibrate with fear. Cold like the air around them, like the rail he grips with his other hand, slipping from his desperate grip and leaving him helplessly groping after what won't save him.
Palm flat against his shoulder, gun pressed under his bumper, the Decepticon adeptly pulls him up. Thundercracker doesn't step back, and when he releases Mirage, the Autobot clutches him in turn. Chest to chest, feet staggered on the narrow railing so their thighs intertwine, only their counterbalanced weight keeps them from tumbling off the balcony into open, empty air.
Terror races his engine, rattling his elbows against the relaxed, air-chilled hands that slide down to cup them. They don't sooth with a firm grip but tease his fear further with fleeting caresses. The gun's disappeared, but he can't let go to take advantage of that fact. Mirage is smaller, lighter, and he can feel them tilting toward open air. His foot shifts, scraping smooth railing for something — anything! - to brace against, and the flyer's thrusters burn him as they ignite.
He yelps in pain, then sucks air through rictus-frozen lips as his feet leave the railing. He thrashes for purchase that isn't there.
Thundercracker gasps as Mirage clamps onto him. Sudden, sick fear overwhelms the blue optics staring with mindless, horrorstricken shock over his shoulder, mouth pressed to the edge of an air vent and teeth set in the metal as if it could provide solid ground. Red optics study the developing panic, looking at the ground far below sidelong through the blue as if to share the Autobot's petrifying fright. What must it be like to never feel the rush of flight? If the only taste of open sky felt like freefall, acid-scarring the experience into memory so that heights inflict, not ecstasy, but agony? It is a pity…and a challenge.
The fear is an enemy to defeat, burning terror to ash under thruster fire and pleasure's heat. Cold hands wander purposefully, offering no reassurance but holding them against the fall beneath their feet. There is sanctuary in his arms, and without it, Mirage is powerless to fight gravity.
