#i refuse to change his armor i love the splint armor so much

[voltaical-art]

some bishop sketches,,,

[nuricurry]

Saint Seiya | Ikki/Hyoga PG-13; “all i’ll ever be to you is someone else”

It’s strange, the way things change between them. When they become ‘something else’ rather than just associates or comrades, or even just friends. There are things that are different, but things that stay the same, and maybe that’s why the transition feels so awkward and stilted and incomplete, because they were picking up things in the middle. 

They had known each other since they were children, they had begun a lifetime of conflict and rivalry at an early age, but now that they’re older, it’s all a little different. Childhood spats about deciding who got to pick the game they played are different now at age seventeen, when their responsibilities are greater, the costs higher, the risks more steep. Now they fight about making the hard choice in sparing their enemy mercy or not, they fight over the fact that Ikki wants to dive into danger all on his own, while Hyoga chases after his shadow, picking up broken pieces left in his wake. That much will probably never change, the chasing, the fighting, the bickering. But there are new fights now, ones that Hyoga still doesn’t quite know how to navigate. He knows what arguments to give when Ikki pushes him away during a fight. He knows what to expect, when a new enemy rises and they haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in over a month. What he doesn’t know is how to tell Ikki that he wants him to stay the night, not because he’s afraid he’ll get hurt, but because he likes his company. He doesn’t know how to tell him that he wants to touch him in a way that isn’t meant to hurt-- no punching, no grappling, no shoving or hitting. What he wants is for the two of them to hold hands. He wants them to kiss. He wants to look at Ikki and not see anger there, not see a scowl or frustration. He doesn’t know how to argue that telling someone that he’s in love with him isn’t about manipulation or coercion, sometimes it’s just conveying emotion and affection and it wouldn’t kill Ikki to say those words back, once in a while.

There are times when they are lying together on his bed in the apartment in Omsk and he feels as if he’s choking on memories, yet it’s still when things are so incredibly new. Something about the way that Ikki looks lying on his side across the bed from him, just looking at him, it feels like something that Hyoga’s seen before. Something in the unguarded rawness between his gaze and Hyoga’s is familiar when it shouldn’t be. The first time they have sex, when Ikki is pressing his back into the mattress and he has his hips pushed upwards with his legs around his waist, it feels like they’ve done this a dozen times before. It feels like they don’t need to ask, don’t need to test waters about what will and won’t work, what they do and don’t like, because their bodies already know. He has doubts that they could possibly be so compatible-- no one ever really is, not the first time, not the first dozen times-- but Ikki doesn’t want to talk about it when it’s over. He just wants to roll over and sleep, and so that’s what they do.

That night, and every night after, when Ikki is beside him, Hyoga has dreams he can’t explain. Dreams about a boy with bright blue eyes and a secret smile, about a childhood that isn’t his. Fields of wheat and aquamarine seas, completely unlike the cold tundra and black waters he knows best. In his dreams, his hands hold bows and pots and small childrens’ hands. In his dreams, he lies on the grass in hot summers, and that boy with his blue eyes and infectious laugh lies beside him. He wakes up after those dreams with his heart full and heavy in his chest, and he never knows why, because they’re just dreams. He compares their fights to broken bones. It’s a fracture born of trauma, a result of pressure building and building until finally parts of their bodies snap. It’s a wound that isn’t immediately obvious on the surface, it’s felt more than it’s seen, and it’s not something that can be easily healed. It takes time for things to be stitched back together for them, it takes them setting things into place and letting it heal over, hoping that the bones fuse together the right way, that they won’t just break again with the next slightest bit of pressure. But like broken bones, those cracks remain, and they never go away. They calificy, they get harder and crust over, but they can’t ever return to their previous state; the memory cannot be erased and its effect on them will remain, for the rest of their lives. Their relationship is like a mirror, chipped and cracked and broken, then put back together again. It can be fixed, but it can never be perfect, it will always be just a breath away from shattering again, into even smaller pieces the next time. The first time they really break is when they fight about dying. When Ikki throws himself headfirst into a fight he can’t win, and he doesn’t come back out. For months, Hyoga walks around, feeling like there’s something lodged in his chest, a huge sharp knife sinking deeper and deeper into his heart, painful enough that he feels like he’s splitting into two. He feels like he’s half-dead the whole time, like his soul was sucked out of him when he heard that there’s nothing that remains of Ikki’s body, and they’re sure he’s gone this time. 

He dreams of stormy seas, of his hand desperately reaching for someone else’s. He dreams about blue eyes and a bottomless pit, of hands touching his face and promising him that he’s not alone, that death isn’t the end, it is just a bump in the road. Trying to hold onto that voice, that feeling of warm and comfort, is like trying to grab onto smoke. It slips through his fingers like it doesn’t exist at all, and he just wakes up every day with tears on his face, and a name he can never remember on the tip of his tongue. 

When Ikki comes back, whole, reborn, it’s the splint put onto their relationship. It’s the morphine that blinds Hyoga to the pain, makes it all a little more manageable, a little fuzzy on the edges. He forgets about the nightmares and the loneliness and the knife in his chest. Until he asks that Ikki never does that again, and Ikki refuses to promise him. 

He knows his duty, he says, he agreed to accept this life and all it’s dangers, all it’s trails, when he agreed to put on the armor. He’s not going to back down because Hyoga’s afraid, because Hyoga can’t commit to anything that might end up being difficult. 

Their fight is less about dying, and more about commitment, because Hyoga tells him that Ikki is only so quick to offer his life because the risk is negligible. Because it’s easy to die and harder to live, because Ikki doesn’t have to face consequences if he dies, he doesn’t have to see the damage he leaves behind when he does. 

They have angry, furious, violent sex on the couch, not even bothering to try and make it to a bed. They push and bite and dig their nails in because it hurts but it’s real, it’s a screaming neon sign that tells them that they’re alive, they’re both here, and they can afford to do something so stupid and selfish again. 

For a week after, Hyoga dreams of soft, gentle kisses, of a warm body wrapped around his late at night. He dreams of words of praise, words of comfort whispered into his ears, of an arm heavy and familiar draped over his waist, and fingers tracing indistinct symbols into his stomach. He wonders if those dreams are all in his head, or if maybe Ikki is the one prompting them, late at night after he’s fallen asleep. Ikki denies it, he tells him to stop talking about his dreams because they’re blinding him to reality, but there’s a fear in his eyes when he says those words that Hyoga has never seen before. 

It becomes a loop, the structure of their relationship. A cycle that they don’t know how to break. They fight. They break. They make up. They fight. They break. They make up. The same three steps over and over again, in varying degrees, in different lengths. The breaks are shorter when the fights are longer. Because when they’re fighting over Ikki never giving Hyoga a key to his apartment, it’s not about keys, it’s about trust and establishing Hyoga in his life. That’s a long fight, a fight that lasts months, and is fixed with a slapped on band-aid of a copy of Ikki’s key but instructions to never be there when Ikki isn’t. But that also means that when the fights are shorter, the breaks are longer, they’re one of those deep bone breaks, the crack right down the center of the mirror’s reflection. When they fight about Shun, it’s a short fight, but it’s short in the way a bomb denotation is short. It only takes seconds for their worlds to completely fall apart, with an accelerant in the mix. 

He doesn’t know why he never said anything before. That’s a lie; he knows why. He knows it would break things and that’s exactly what it did. Explanations meant nothing when they came under duress. Words like <i>before</i> and <i>different</i> and <i>why are you holding this against me? we weren’t together</i> fall on deaf ears. Arguing that it’s not a betrayal when there was nothing between them to break doesn’t work because Ikki wants to be angry, and Hyoga can’t take those things back. “When were you going to tell me you fucked my brother?” Ikki says with his whole chest, and Hyoga can only plead for him to understand. 

He can’t lie and say it didn’t mean anything, because it did. Because he does care about Shun, and they did share things together. But feelings are not a zero-sum game; it doesn’t take away from his feelings for Ikki, for Hyoga to have feelings for Shun. They both have their pasts, they both have histories outside of each other, but Hyoga knows that it’s different, it’s different because it’s too close, it’s a line that’s far too easily blurred. 

And so they break, and they crumble, and they turn to dust. Finally they’ve reached the point where there is nothing left to mend. 

Hyoga dreams of fire, of a city razed to the ground. He dreams of cold air on his neck, of arms around his waist, but no comfort in that embrace. He dreams of apologies and cries for help trapped behind his teeth, unable to be said because there is no one there to say them to. He dreams of Ikki beside him, standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the precipice of their misery. He dreams of them letting go, and falling into the abyss together, dying over and over again hoping to be reborn the right way, in the right time 

They return to the earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

[black-strike-otp]

part 53

//turns tf up some Chillstep and pretends to act like I Am Chill(TM) //

It was a lot easier getting things done around the transport vessel again. With Blackout back on duty, bots were more at ease and willing to listen to orders. Novastrike found herself instantly recharging better when curled against the side of the butcher of bots she called her darling suitor. Better quality of sleep made for better work; and exchanging blows in the small excuse for a training room settled in a more damaged and irreparable sector of the ship with Blackout and Scorponok and so near once again put her more at ease.

She still would find herself coming to a pause time and again. Hesitating her attacks, tasting death in her mouth, seeing flickers of a ghost in her vision. But with a cocktail of conviction and willpower; wanting to please those who believe in her and please herself, she found the strength to continue her daily assigned jours as told.

Quite frankly, she’d rather deal with the sour bite of trauma than Neutroboost. Every time she passed that mech no matter where they went, he was always giving her a dirty look. It probably didn’t help the new method of reviewing the energon stock was likely making it harder for him to sneak off with his stolen rations. Blackout offhandedly brought it up to her on a few occasions that the jours would shift when the numbers seemed to change the most drastically. For now however kept a constant vigilant count to rectify any missing cubes.

They had to be close to Neutroboost’s door. No matter how large or small the pool of suspects were; even if they didn’t take him seriously as a candidate for thievery, he was likely upon it.

Sometimes she just wanted to open her trap and tell Blackout or Guard what she knew was happening. Just when she thought that she’d built up enough courage to do so though, she’d run into Neutroboost and he’d give her that livid glare. All over again, she’d be reminded of his furious raving; the hot-helmed wrathful spouting he gave to her in the cargo bay. If not that, the pity she felt would remind her from the days prior to that how defeated he looked. Alone in his room, overcharged, babbling nonsense about how no bot liked him, believed in him, trusted him or followed his orders.

This was the same mech who once argued for her to stay long ago. She just had to remind herself he was still in there, somewhere. No matter the loss of his close ties with Crookedwing, Neutroboost had to still be in there, underneath all that hurt and bitterness. Maybe one day he’d even have his own opportunity to break free of the chains that battled him into the depths of his own inner strife too.

Until then, all she could do was hope and pray for him.

Just as she did for Guard. He barely could be found walking around the ship anymore. The medic managed to speak with Blackout and have something scrounged up to give the elder mech a larger, more sturdy cane to walk with. Sections of spare metal that had been set aside for repairs on the ship were manufactured into what had to be an uncomfortably stiff splint. The joint of his knee was completely without function now for all it appeared to Nova from the way he walked; rigidly swinging his pede in an arc with each step.

There was still good in the cosmos. It was visible in most of those on board the Rising Star. She believed that. She had to believe that. There was still aspirations that everything would get better. Cybertron would heal and they could return home. The war would end. Bots could get better and rekindle friendships long thought lost, sparks would grow fonder and apologies and love far more plentiful.

After all, Novastrike already got the chance to witness growth in one bot thought too hard and filled with revenge and hate to ever possibly be redeemable. Rogues called him a friend; she called him beloved.

Time passed; jours, days, a week, then two. Sparks could heal. Minds could change.

~

“I’m starting to think you just like buffing and glossing my armor for the sake of touching me,” Blackout pondered aloud with a sneaky smile on his face.

“Now that doesn’t sound like me at all!” the little femme retaliated whilst placing a servo to her chassis in a false show of hurt.

Blackout raised an optic ridge with disbelief. Novastrike couldn’t stop herself from giggling a little at his otherwise bare complexion.

“Uh-huh,” he gradually droned in response with a nod of his helm.

“I thought you enjoyed looking your best.”

“I enjoy looking more than sub-par, yes. But I’m fairly certain there’s an alternative motive to all this scrubbing you do.”

“Careful there,” Nova chimmed with a waggle of her digit. “You wouldn’t want to misjudge a poor, unblemished, sweet, innocent, naive little femme. It may break a poor femme’s spark.”

A snort of laughter resonated through the mech. “I might have believe that once, but I’m not totally dense. You have some fiendish tricks in your subspace.”

Giving a cat-like grin and a flash of pointed derma, Novastrike narrowed her optics slightly up at the towering mech playfully. Pulling her arm back with rag in hand, she whacked the fabric against his arm and pressed her glossia between her lips as she expelled a breath.

Blackout’s optics widened with surprise. “Did you just razz at me?”

“I did!” Nova stated proudly, placing her servos against her hips.

“You know the last bot to razz at me lost their glossia,” Blackout threatened, pointing out his index digit to proke the small femme in the tummy.

“What’d you do? Bite it off?” Nova challenged, and instantly made a face of disgust. “Ew wait- nevermind, I don’t need to know.”

“Gross Nova, really?”

“I’m sorry it just came out!”

“Do we need to have your processor to mouth filter scanned for?” Blackout teased, snickering.

Taking a step back from the mech’s prodding digit, Nova flicked her towel to whack him in the servo once more.

“Like you never get glossia-knotted and say the wrong thing!”

“That’s practically me on a daily basis, darling,” admitted the large mech with an agreeable nod. “Especially if it’s an unpleasant thought. The more unpleasant, the more likely I am to say it.”

“That’s because you got a bad attitude,” she pointed out in a snooty tone.

“I won’t disagree with that. Stupid bots deserve equally stupid responses.”

“You don’t say stupid things,” Novastrike disagreed with panic, dropping the rag in her servo as she stepped closer. Reaching out for his digits, she gently grasped his pointer and went to lightly pat him with reassurance.

She’d never seen such an instantaneous look of ‘oh really?’ in all her life. Optic ridge cocked, slight thoughtful frown on face.

“Okay, I’ll grant you that we all stay stupid things from time to time.”

A smile replaced the frown on Blackout’s faceplate and he dropped his optic ridge. “Your very thoughtful dear, but honesty goes a long way.”

“I just don’t like to see you beat yourself up.”

Her lip wobbled slightly as she spoke against her own will. Novastrike went to gnaw on her lower lip lightly to stop the slight quivering before Blackout could notice.

A vent escaped the big mech, and he maneuvered his digits carefully and slowly around her. His index digit pulled free of her servos as he moved, sliding partly beneath her chin to keep her helm pressed back to look up at his faceplate as he rubbed along her right audio.

“You worry too much about how I see myself,” Blackout commented shortly. “I’m fine, dear. Nothing’s bothering me. You’re much too good to me.”

“Well I’m going to continue worrying all I want,” Novastrike responded, doing her best to ignore the heavenly feeling of his finger along her ear. “Until you see yourself more like I do. Because you have good inside you, and you are worthy of praise and happiness.”

“That just means I’m qualified to spoil the frag out of you too, you know that right?” Blackout teased.

Turning her helm slightly, Novastrike pulled her chin off of Blackout’s digit. A brief flicker of concern lit up in his optics as she pulled away from his servo for a nanoklik. As she stepped back, she grabbed his digits and yanked downward. He seemed to get the notion easily, and lowered his arm down against the berth.

Reaching over his arm, Novastrike smothered her servos over the area of his forearm currently missing a panel of armor. The scars that ran from his wrist up towards his elbow joint on his protoform were visible; and she rubbed her servos all over them.

“See these?” she demanded fiercely. “These may be a part of who you are, but they are not all you. You are a survivor who has endured, a fighter, a legacy, a hard-worker. You are all these things, but you are more. You are careful and cautious. You are gentle and kind. You can weigh the options with your own mind and make your own decisions in life. Some bots only see the parts of you they want, or the parts that they fear, but what they say about you is not the whole you. Just as you refuse to see all that you are.”

Blackout spoke in a profoundly thick voice; eeriely quiet and missing the gravely tones but still profound as he inquired: “And what is it that I am that I do not see? What is it you see?”

She instantly felt breathless. Fidgeting in place, Novastrike glanced down at the discolored lighter marks on Blackout’s protoform that ran along to the metal that surrounded his wrist still. She see the reflecting glow from her blushing audios bouncing off the metal, giving a luminescent indigo fractured light.

Nervously rubbing her digits against Blackout’s protoform, Nova bent forward just enough to brush her lips against the scarring upon his arm. A slight shiver moved through the dark-armored mech’s frame as his chassis rumbled.

Glancing back up to the mech’s shadowy vermillion colored optics, Novastrike spoke softly: “I like to think I see all that is inside you. The old and the new; the bad and the good, the dangerous and the benevolent. All that I said before and so much more. No bot is just one layer of black and white, and you are no exception. You are both destructive and kind. A murderer and a savior. Someone to fear and someone to idolize.”

“And what do you want of me?” Blackout asked softly; his voice persuasive and powerful. “What if I want to be what you desire; what you deserve?”

A smile curved along her mouth swiftly. “It’s not about deserving. I want you, all of you, just as you are. All of your darkness and light; all you’ve done and are doing, and will do. You wouldn’t be as you are without all pieces that make you who you are.”

Novastrike let out a sudden shriek as someone grabbed her from behind. She felt her legs lift up from the floor and she dangled awkwardly in a pair of strong arms.

By the Primes, she must have been really distracted if she didn’t even sense Blackout’s holoform manifesting behind her.

“Blackout, you’re going to break my spinalstrut,” she wheezed, kicking her pedes out in front of her.

“Sorry,” he murmured quietly, placing her back upon the berth.

Taking a few steps away from him, Novastrike turned around and brushed herself off. Her optics dared to glimpse up at his holoform’s faceplate, and the gleaming red light. There was a hint of blue too; reflecting from her shimmering ears and glittering optics.

Giving an insecure shuffle of his pedes, Blackout rumbled quietly in his chassis as he commented, “If I startled you I apologize, I didn’t mean to. I was... a bit overcome.”

Moving forward, Nova reached out to place her servo on the holoform’s chassis, just over the spot his spark would lay. She gave a bashful smile as she met his gaze through slightly lowered optics. Heat was spilling out of her frame. She couldn’t determine how much of it was from humiliation and how much of it was the humming energy of excitement to how close he was now.

“Overcome, hmm?” she mimicked quietly, caressing her digits along his chassis.

A rumble moved through the holoform. Reaching down, Blackout grabbed her free servo between his digits. Bringing her arm up, he brushed a kiss against her hand and then slowly turned her arm over to do the same to her wrist.

His optics were twinkling with warmth as she hitched her breath. Tingles followed wherever he pressed his wicked mouth.

“If I am a better mech at all, it’s because of you,” he expressed fondly. “I know I’ll never be free of my faults and flaws, but I swear to you I’ll do everything in my power to be the best mech I can possibly be for you.”

Offering the sweetest small smile she could offer, Nova took her other servo off his chassis and reached up to cradle Blackout’s face. He leaned into her servo, smiling a little further in return as the humming in his chassis grew louder.

“You were always the best mech you could possibly be, and more than enough for me. More than I deserve, probably,” she admitted.

Blackout released a faint growl, placing his other servo along her waist and pulling her against his frame. The sharp points of and edges of his armor and kibble lightly poked and prodded against her softer armor and the ever present areas of her protoform. A slight shudder ran along her backstrut in response.

“A lie,” Blackout snarled quietly, leaning down. “You could win the sparks of dozens of better bots than me with a single glance if you wanted.”

“And you could easily have a hundred femmes or mechs at your doorstep in a nanoklik if you breathed the word.”

“I don’t want any other bot.”

“And I don’t want any other, no matter their grand status, species, or gender.”

The rumbling in Blackout’s chassis grew louder still, leaving his chassis armor to visibly vibrate from the low notes that rang through him. His servo released her own and moved to carefully cup her chin.

Novastrike’s pupils grew a fraction wider as Blackout leaned in to her more. The light of her optics dimmed and shuttered as he pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

The feverish heat of Blackout’s frame pressed against her own was intoxicating. Scents of darkness and light mingling; whispered threats of trouble and sighs of relief and devotion.

Moving her free servo, Nova placed it gently upon Blackout’s. He allowed her to move his servo from her face and hold it as a quiet growl echoed in his throat, deepening the kiss as his glossia swept against her own.

Groaning weakly, Novastrike’s digits gripped Blackout’s servo tightly. His arm moved as she lowered her own down without resistance.

The kiss broke suddenly as Blackout pulled away with shock.

Clearing his vocalizer sharply, the large mech leaned back a small fraction. His optics flashed down her chassis and back up to her faceplate as she pressed his servo against her interface panel.

“Are you sure-?” he barely managed to strangle out with confusion and shock.

“I’m sure,” she whispered, pressing a kiss against his jaw.

A rapid rush of hot air escaped Blackout in a rush, leaving a brief shimmering around his frame from the heat billowing out of his frame. Curling his digits very lightly along her inner thigh and interface panel, he shifted his helm to kiss her once softly once more.