Title: Dark Horses
Warning: A relationship extrapolation from what Robots In Disguise (the comic) showed of Swindle and Blurr.
Rating: PG
Continuity: IDW
Characters: Swindle, Blurr
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.
Motivation (Prompt): Part 2 of 3 commission continuation for the delightful FlyFloyd. Thank you!
[* * * * *]
Part 5: Wherein Blurr tries to do the right thing.
[* * * * *]
Old habits died hard, especially ones that saved his life while enlisted in the Wreckers. Proximity sensors brought him out of recharge hard and fast as the ghost stirred, and Blurr had to repress the immediate urge to roll to his feet and sprint to open the distance. Swindle wasn't going to attack him.
"Leaving so soon?" he asked while forcing the tension from his gears. He kept his optics offline.
Swindle didn't do guilt, even caught red-handed. "It's probably better for your business if I'm not seen hanging around your place," he said smoothly.
"You're probably right." Bitterness thickened Blurr's throat, roughening the words. Getting caught talking to someone no one else could see would do nothing for him in the rumormill. It hadn't done Starscream any favors, at least. The Tankors had a betting pool going on whether or not he'd finally tipped over the edge into total insanity. The odds were 5-to-1 on Starscream talking out loud to a figment of his imagination just to make people pay attention to him. The next highest bet featured a hallucination of Megatron. Blurr, for obvious reasons, hadn't gone anywhere near the betting.
Hesitance touched the silence for a long minute, as if Swindle didn't know how to respond. "I'll be back," the dead conmech said at last.
"Yeah. Sure, whatever." A sense of relief swept through Blurr, although he wouldn't admit it. He hadn't expected the ghost to give him a promise of return. Uncertainty made closing the bar an exercise in common sense versus unreasonable hope that tonight the dead would visit.
Another hesitation, followed by the sound of footsteps limping across the room. "See you tonight."
He didn't roll over to watch Swindle leave him again. It hurt how much he didn't want to care. "If you say so."
The door clicked shut.
Optics stubbornly offline, Blurr fought the ache in his chest for another few hours. Recharge hovered out of reach. The protocols wouldn't take, spinning his processors up to full power. Sighing, he finally gave up on sleeping and sat up. It wasn't too surprising his processors wouldn't settle. The scent of burnt wiring lingered in the apartment, more of a memory than a reality, but electrical damage had a distinctive scent. It triggered a visceral fear in the depths of Cybertronian minds. Imagining it in the air would keep anybody awake.
As per usual, he felt like he hadn't slept at all. His joints creaked from poor maintenance. His fans rattled when he ran hot, which he was starting to do more often as he pushed through the metal-deep weariness to work every night at the bar. Scrubbing the heels of his hands against his optics helped somewhat. It pushed them open against a tired squint caused by optical receivers complaining of too much input and not enough downtime. Working the shutters around his optics scraped the metal, however. It was a telltale sign of someone running short on recharge, and it'd become an unflattering constant on Blurr's face in the last weeks.
Waspinator had been the only customer tactless enough to poke his nonexistent nose into why Blurr looked rundown lately, but the racer-turned-bartender's vents had flared open in unconscious preparation for the starting pistol, a warning sign that his temper was absolutely shot. Racing, combat, yelling; same difference. Both required a deep inhale to cool his engine right before launch. Windblade had hauled the buzzy mech out of reach a second later right as Blurr turned, ready to tear a strip off him.
Windblade had a fondness for Waspinator. She hadn't wanted to see him get his aft kicked by an irate bartender. Blurr had subsided, grumbling, and dropped the fight before it began. He'd settled for overcharging and underfueling Waspinator the rest of the night as petty revenge. Serving the mech overpriced weak engex spritzers was better than making a scene. Possibly. Maybe. Windblade had kept Waspinator away from the counter, just in case.
Come to think of it, there had been quite a few similar incidents throughout the past three weeks. Everyone in the bar kept their distance and fielded meddling reporters eager for a soundbite on Swindle's death. Blurr and Swindle's relationship hadn't been a secret, but nobody who didn't frequent the bar to see them together had known about it before the media decided the growing 'Swindle Lives' underground movement needed a famous face to spice up things. Suddenly, Blurr couldn't go a single night without some obnoxious newsie sticking a camera in his face, asking invasive questions about how he felt about Starscream executing his lover.
How he felt? How he felt?!
He felt like he wanted his nights back, driving circles around Swindle's slow altmode as they went home. He felt cheated of stolen kisses, laced by engex and wry humor as Swindle chided him for some financial faux pas, muffled by their lips. He felt hollowed out, arms colder for their emptiness.
What he felt toward Starscream didn't bear repeating in public. As a business owner on a Cybertron ruled by a vindictive ex-Decepticon, Blurr couldn't afford to speak his mind. Besides, as much as he blamed Starscream, he supported Windblade just as much. She firmly believed Starscream was the only reason Cybertron hadn't plunged back into war, and Wheeljack cautiously seconded the idea.
So Blurr kept his mouth shut whenever the questions started. His friends - or at least patrons whose loyalty had been bought for the price of a free drink - took care of the rest, usually by physically ejecting the pests from his bar.
The latest ban had been carried out by Slug. Last night, he'd thrown an annoying 'journalist' for East Iacon's gossip rag out after running him into a couple walls. Blurr didn't remember why the Dinobot had been in such a bad mood. He'd been too busy picking glass shards out of his hand to notice when or how Slug got involved in that little confrontation. He didn't know how the shotglass had shattered, either. One minute he'd been blowing the journalist's questions off, smiling his classic smile from back in his racing days, and the next thing he knew, Slug had exploded into roaring fury. Then the Dinobot had sat back down as if nothing had happened. By the end of the night, only reporter-shaped dents in his wall remained as proof of the incident.
It wasn't the first such incident, and based on how the month had been going, it wouldn't be the last. He really wasn't handling Swindle's death well at all, delusional conversations with a ghost notwithstanding, but being hounded by gossip-hungry reporters wasn't helping. Seriously, who thought harassing a grieving mech was a good idea? What was next, finding a mourning widower and asking when the endura anniversary was?
Blurr brooded on the problem as he drove to the bar. The speed limit seemed too fast. He lagged behind traffic, vaguely bothered as he was passed but unable to muster the energy to accelerate.
The whole day felt as though his processors mired in glue. Time crept. His optic shutters acquired more scrapes. People kept sending careful, worried looks in his direction. Both Tankors 'casually' asked how he was doing during the busy rush. He told them he was fine, but they didn't look like they believed him. Jazz would have slipped behind the bar, taking over as a tactful hint to take a break, but Jazz had taken up the Autobot badge again. He'd left the bar and Cybertron without a look back. It was Swindle all over again. If Jazz died while fighting a finished war, color Blurr unsurprised. Seemed to be a lot of that going around.
To top off a lousy day - in a series of lousy days, because realistically, it'd been lousy month - the ghost was a no-show. Blurr's spark compacted into a pinprick of grief in his chest by the end of the night, but he didn't delay closing time. Hope was futile. He knew that. Holding onto it only hurt him.
He refused to acknowledge the pain as he shut the place down. Standing in the door of the bar, hand on the lock, he looked out into the street in blank exhaustion. Nobody waited outside.
Tired enough to weave over the lane dividers, he drove back to his apartment.
The lights were on.
"Primus." Blurr transformed, stumbling as gears ground from the speed he shot upright, and his optics rounded as he stared up at his windows. He must have left them online all night. Was he so strung out he'd forgotten basic energy-saving regulations in place since before the war began? Frag him. He was lucky the neighborhood was abandoned. Nobody was around to call city authorities on his waste.
Maybe he did need to take a couple days off. Grimacing, he rubbed the back of his hand across his optics for the thousandth time tonight. "Too bad Rung's gone," he muttered to himself as he opened the door. "Might need the help."
He should ask Wheeljack to do a check-up on him. The engineer wasn't a bad sort, even if he kept associating with Starscream. The guy claimed Starscream liked him. Said he was lonely. Of course, Wheeljack also passed on the one-sided conversations he'd heard old Screamer having with thin air, so Starscream couldn't have him too fooled.
Shaking his head to banish the rambling thoughts, Blurr climbed the stairs. He had to brace one hand on the wall. His gyros shifted dizzyingly in the dark, and taking a tumble down the stairs would certainly be a spectacular end to the night.
He expected the light at the top of the stairs. The smell of burnt wiring filled the air, but he'd half-expected that. He'd been smelling it on his plating all day, his subconscious projecting something that wasn't there. Now, the yellow and purple plating curled on his bed, that he hadn't expected at all.
Swindle hadn't come to the bar. Blurr hadn't dared hope he'd be here in the apartment.
The small bundle of dull armor huddled in on itself like the ghost hurt even while recharging. Blurr swayed in the door, and a lump formed in his throat as he looked at his dead lover. He wanted -
He wanted to walk over to the bed, lean down, cup his hands around Swindle's face, and kiss the merchant awake. He wanted that moment right before huge purple optics lit. The moment proximity sensors registered another presence behind the pressure on slack lips, Swindle's jaw tensing in the predictable Friend-or-Foe? second as war-taught habit kicked in hard. Blurr wanted that moment as he wanted nothing else. It was a scarce second of uncertainty when he didn't know whether Swindle would come out of recharge ready to attack, but he pressed his lips to the merchant's anyway. He trusted, and from that trust came a tender, treasured moment as Swindle identified him. Returned trust softened Swindle's lips to his own even before those bright optics saw him. and a sharp pain throbbed in Blurr's chest as he stood in the doorway missing that trust.
Swindle had chosen to override learned wariness every time they kissed, trusting Blurr's intentions despite war and old history. Recent, shared events had lit something between them, and Blurr wanted it back. He wanted to kiss Swindle awake in long, slow kisses gliding his lips over that expressive mouth until it moulded to the perfect counterpart to his own mouth, meeting him kiss for kiss.
No, not a perfect counterpart. Blurr wanted to work for it. Their kisses had always been moving things, mouths seeking each other in a search for a better fit. He could imagine Swindle's head turning on the bed to meet him coming down. Blurr would duck down to move their lips together, a teasing slip of his tongue there, a taste of Swindle there. He knew exactly how far to tilt his helm to miss hitting their forehelms together, to slide their noses by each other, to breath the warm ex-vent from Swindle's fans in.
He missed fitting together that way. He wanted it again.
Well, he wanted a lot of things he couldn't have. Wishes won no one a race. Blurr banished the wistful ache stuck in his throat as he stepped into his apartment.
The sound of his throat clearing jerked Swindle awake, and dim lavender optics peered over a shoulder-tire in bleary wariness. "Blurr..?"
Blurr managed a listless wave. "Hi. You're still here."
"Yes?" Blinking recharge away, Swindle grunted as he levered himself upright. The hole in his chest didn't look any better than last night, but what had Blurr expected? Dead was dead. The mech wasn't getting any better or deader. "I said I'd come back," Swindle said once he was sitting up.
"I guess you did."
The bed tempted him, but he didn't think he could take breaking the fantasy. Sitting down on a cold, empty bed would hurt his spark. Plus Swindle was on his side of the bed, which he'd never done while alive. It was a stupid thing to get upset over, but Blurr couldn't bear the thought of using Swindle's side of the bed. He'd probably curl up, face buried in the dusty, salvaged bed pad as he sniffed for the slightest remnant of his lover, something real to remember, and it'd be both unbearably sad and terribly pathetic.
Instead, Blurr shuffled along the wall toward one of the seats by the north window, rolling his shoulders as he sat down. The joints where his boosters twisted around to set on his back in rootmode grated oddly. He really needed Wheeljack to take a look at him.
Swindle gave him a look. It held familiar worry. He was used to seeing it in Windblade's optics, not Swindle's, but it looked the same. "Are you all right?" the merchant asked.
"Fine," he said shortly. "Tired."
Swindle didn't look convinced but pressed his lips together as if cutting off further comment. Scooting over to his side of the bed, he opened his hand over the vacated area like an invitation. "Go ahead and recharge. You don't have to keep me company."
But the small gesture of concern made Blurr strangely reluctant to move. "The chair's fine."
"You're going to stiffen up if you recharge on that thing," Swindle snapped. Regret immediately filling his optics, and, wincing, he held up his hands. "Sorry. Do you, ah," his optics slid to the side, "would you rather I move? I can move, no problem. I can recharge on the floor if you want the bed."
Stubborn, Blurr folded his arms. "I said I'm fine." The merchant set his chin in the peculiar angle he knew meant Swindle wasn't going to let it go, so he changed the subject. "Why're you here?"
Annoyance disappeared beneath a sudden unreadable mask. "I told you, I haven't got anywhere else to go."
Evasion successful! Unfortunately, this was also a sensitive topic. Frag.
Blurr shored up his flagging willpower. Unpleasant as this conversation promised to be, it was still a conversation they should have. It'd been three weeks, after all, and...he was tired. So tired. He obviously wasn't coping well. Grief wasn't getting any lighter a burden to bear.
"You don't have to stay here," he said softly, looking down at his lap. Saying it out loud frightened him, as if the ghost would take this as permission to leave forever, but it wasn't fair to Swindle if he stayed for Blurr's sake alone. Blurr couldn't be that selfish. The dead were meant to return to the Matrix, not haunt the living. He forced himself to say, "I mean, you can leave. You can go on."
Swindle barked a laugh, but it stuttered in the middle. A burst of hot light from inside his chest heralded another fried wire. "Go where?" he asked through a gasp of pain.
Blurr ran his thumb over a smudge on his thigh. "There has to be somewhere you're supposed to be. You can't just wander Cybertron forever. Or follow me around." He turned his head to look out the window, not that he saw anything. He just wanted to avoid looking at the ghost. "It's not that I'm not…happy to see you. I'm grateful you came back, but you don't have to stay just because of that. That was," he swallowed against the lump, which wouldn't be cleared this time, "that was before. Things have changed, Swindle." Oh, Primus, it hurt to say this. He made himself meet Swindle's optics. "I miss you, but you have things you should probably be doing. I understand. It's okay. You can leave."
Swindle's motor sputtered as the merchant stared back at him, optics wider than usual. He seemed stricken.
Blurr picked his words with care. "I'm not making you leave or anything, but maybe it's time you just weren't here anymore."
"Are you throwing me out?" Swindle asked, voice oddly choked, and cold fear speared Blurr through the spark.
Don't leave him, don't leave him, don't leave him again - "No! No, it's just kind of weird having you here." He consciously throttled back, slowing his words. The corners of his mouth felt leaden as he risked a smile. "Having a dead mech in my apartment is weird." Weirder than having him show up at his bar nightly. More personal, at least, and definitely more stressful.
"Oh." Swindle swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat staring at the floor as he thought about it. "I thought you - hmm. Yeah, I guess you're not used to all this. It's not easy for me, but I didn't think about, well, you." He gave Blurr a sickly, lopsided grin. "Your business, but not you. Bad habit, I know."
Laughter hurt, and it came out wilder than Blurr intended, but he wanted the humor. He wanted to still be able to laugh. Of course Swindle had planned his haunting to minimize impact on Blurr's business. He'd shown up at the bar only when everyone else had left, appeared when no one else was around to overhear the bartender talking to thin air, and come to the apartment where no one else ever came. It was so Swindle that Blurr had to laugh.
Swindle lost the grin, blinking confusion at Blurr's gigglefit, but he pressed on after a disconcerted pause. "I think it's better that I stay dead. No sense in everyone seeing me. Word travels fast. Don't want the wrong people riding my bumper."
Chuckling, optic shutters half-closed in a tired squint, Blurr fell forward to brace his elbows on his knees. "Yeah, hallucinations are traffic hazards. They'd probably mode-lock me if I said I see dead mechs. 'Sorry officer, but I braked for the ghost. I swear, he was right in front of me. Sorry about the pile-up!'" He hung his helm until all he could see was the floor between his feet. "Heh. That'd go over well."
He was so tired it the circuitry in the backs of his optics crackled. The receptors registered complaints about their overuse, and he offlined them. Darkness felt good. He sent a wireless command to the apartment lights and brought his optics back online slowly, letting them adjust to night vision. The only light came from a neon sign far down the street outside.
And purple light from the optics across the room. They were wide and focused on him. "Are you okay?" Swindle asked, and his concern was audible.
The darkness made it easier to confess what Blurr didn't say to anyone else. "I've missed you. It's nice having you here, but I miss having you at the bar every night. I still leave a drink out for you."
"Kind of wish you'd bring it home for me."
A hard knot in his chest cracked at hearing Swindle call the apartment 'home.' Blurr fought to lighten his tone. "I thought you didn't want me to give you free drinks."
"I'm already a freeloader. Might as well get a drink out of it." Metal clanked as Swindle got to his feet. The purple optics across the room rocked a bit unsteadily, tightening Blurr's tanks, but the merchant stayed upright. "Are you sure you're okay with this? I can find somewhere else to go. Just give me a couple days to get in contact with, er, old friends, and I can - "
"I don't want you to go," Blurr interrupted, words rushed, and he tore his optics away. "I don't want you to, but if you have to, I understand."
When it came down to it, no. No, he didn't want to be alone. He'd rather have a ghost than nothing.
It had to be Blurr's overactive imagination projecting relief into Swindle's voice. "Well! That's decided, then." It dipped into the brittle charisma of a salesmech stretched to his limits. "Still, if it's all the same to you, I am going to go out for a bit. This is getting a little hard to handle, as you might be able to tell."
He might have been referring to the tension between them. He might have been talking about the ill gurgle of his damaged engine. He might even have been taking the excuse to vacate the bed in hopes Blurr would take it. Frankly, Blurr wouldn't put any reason past the slick conmech.
"Will you be back?" he asked, unable not to.
Swindle paused on his way to the door. "I don't have anywhere else to go," he said. It wasn't a convincing cover to the hope in purple optics turned toward him.
"You should," Blurr said. "You don't have to stay here." Not for his sake, he meant, but his voice held no conviction.
Swindle took a deep breath, fans rattling on their hubs, and turned to face him. "What if I want to?"
Blurr twitched. A full-body twitch, hands fisting on his thighs and spark jumping in his chest. It was too close to what he wanted, deep down where he was afraid to admit it. What he needed. "Then don't wake me up when you come in," he said, and if he shook, then he pretended the darkness concealed it.
Swindle smiled so wide the distant neon light caught the bright flash of white teeth.
Blurr sat in the dark shaking long after he'd limped away.
[* * * * *]