Title: Downrange
Author: hellkitty
Fandom: Transformers
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: pre-war slightly AU, robot kissing.



//I want you to teach me how to shoot.//

There was silence on the other end of the line, a dead silence that went on so long Perceptor began to wonder if the connection had soured. Then. //You don’t need to know that.//

//Deadlock. I want to be able to protect myself.//

//You’re safe enough.// The voice was familiarly flat and emotionless.

//Deadlock.//

Another long pause. Perceptor could practically hear Deadlock chewing back the words. //You don’t need to go back down there. //

//If you teach me how to shoot, I won’t .// It was a dirty bargain and he felt dirty saying it, but he wanted it. Badly. He couldn’t explain all the nightmares he’d had since…that time, how he felt unsafe, even in the upper levels, any time he couldn’t hide behind a lock.

An oath, and then. //Promise.//

The word took him by surprise. It seemed almost childlike, naïve and it seemed to pluck something in his spark. //Yes. I promise, Deadlock.//

//You won’t go down there again.// Flat and insistent.

//I won’t. I give my word.//

A pause, then, flatly, grudgingly. //All right.//

//All right?// He’d won? Against Deadlock? It felt…weird.

Deadlock grunted across the line, and Perceptor could almost picture the scowl, the way the plush mouth pulled down at the corners, forwarding coordinates and a time before cutting the line.

[***]
Perceptor waited, nervous, outside the building on the coordinates. It was on the edge of the city, just where the sun filtered down in a timid grey. There was no sign outside, nothing that showed the building wasn’t anything but as abandoned as the others around it.

And there was no sign of Deadlock. Had something happened? Or had Deadlock set him up after all? He paced, feeling suddenly conspicuous and foolish, well aware of the sidelong looks he’d gotten on his trek out here, where his sleek polish and bright enamel seemed to draw a wake of optics and murmurs. There wasn’t a lot of company out here, just a few mechs, who lingered in ways that seemed to say they didn’t have any place to go. It was so different from the world Perceptor knew, where even leisured walking had a purpose, moving to windowshop or meet a friend, or something. This was different.

Perceptor shifted from foot to foot, feeling a sort of anxiety build in his chassis, and he was just about to activate his comm when he saw a movement in the shadows. “Deadlock?” He heard a bit more fear in his voice than he was proud of, but he still couldn’t hide his relief when he saw the grounder step from the puddle of shadow.

Deadlock seemed to command the shadows, and this district, the other loitering mechs dispersing abruptly, before the familiar scowl.

“Where have you been? I was beginning to worry that—“

“I’m here,” Deadlock said, cutting him off, flatly, jerking his helm to the half-unhinged door to the building. For a moment, Perceptor hesitated, stung, but…that was Deadlock. He trailed after the other mech, into the darkness.

The first room still looked abandoned—plasglass and crete grated under Perceptor’s feet and his spark throbbed, wondering what Deadlock’s game was, but the Decepticon headed, with sure, steady strides, through the jumble of broken walls and rusted bits of pipe, to a door at the back, half hidden in shadow.

And through there…things changed. A blacklight picked out glowing shapes of bodies moving, and a mishmash of glowing optics. One approached them, optics bobbing in a nod of recognition. “You want the range.”

Deadlock nodded, and the mech wove them through a forest of tables, like a café, Perceptor thought, only strangely silent, mechs nodded off over dark tables, one or two twitching fitfully. One moaned as Perceptor passed, a hand groping blindly at him. He froze, until Deadlock turned, summoning him with an impatient gesture.

“They’re gone,” Deadlock said, as if that was an explanation, as if that actually made any sense. But Perceptor caught the basic meaning: they didn’t matter. He frowned, but followed after, ducking into another room that stung his olfactory sensors, stretching back into shadows. Deadlock nodded and the yellow-glow-striped mech gave one last nod before melting back into the other room.

Perceptor hovered as Deadlock set up around a small table, drawing one of the guns off his hip, checking its charge and laying it down before turning to Perceptor. He hesitated, hand reaching for the gun again, almost as if for comfort, and it struck Perceptor, suddenly, that Deadlock was nervous. It seemed impossible: Deadlock seemed to radiate calm, most times. He remembered, vividly, how calm Deadlock had been when he’d rushed to Perceptor’s rescue, in the face of danger and arrest. But here?

“Gun,” Deadlock said, finally, stupidly, holding it up. “Bore. Trigger.” He walked Perceptor slowly through the parts, seeming to find confidence in the cold steel. “Never point it at anyone you don’t want to kill.” For a moment, the bore swung toward Perceptor, but slid off, just enough for Perceptor to feel the cold weight of the bore’s eye staring at him. It was an effective lesson.

Deadlock turned toward the shadowed darkness, reaching to flick a switch in the wall, lighting up a distant target.

“I-I can’t possibly hit that,” Perceptor said. It was too far away, too small, a small series of glows in a circular shape.

Deadlock snorted, picking up the gun and, barely looking, sent a round downrange. It punctured the target, dead center. “Sure you can,” Deadlock said, and Perceptor couldn’t help but notice a glint of smugness in the smile. Was…Deadlock showing off? For Perceptor?

“Your turn.” A warm note that wasn't a challenge, was almost...gratified. Perceptor thought back to Deadlock standing over him, hauling him to his feet where he'd stumbled, fallen, snarling insults at the fleeing attackers. He'd been a fool, perhaps, to go down into the gutters without Deadlock, and he deserved the Decepticon's scorn for his naivete. Certainly not...this.

The thought warmed him as he stepped closer, reaching one hand to touch the gun, as Deadlock offered it over. He could feel the warmth of the grip against his palm, warm from Deadlock’s hand, the trigger worn smooth from use. It felt…intimate, somehow, touching part of Deadlock’s life, his world.

He felt Deadlock’s gaze on him, a smile lurking in the shadows of his mouthplates, almost as if he knew what Perceptor was thinking. And did Perceptor imagine it, or did he feel a brush of an EM field against his?

“Sights,” Deadlock said, abruptly, fingertips brushing the gun’s top rail. “Simple: sit what you want to hit on the front post, then bracket the post in the others.”

It took Perceptor a moment to decode the telegraphic instructions, then another to connect the words with the gun parts. He squinted, closing one optic, then the other.

“Both optics open,” Deadlock prompted. There was a strange soft thrill in his voice, a note of something almost like desire.

He hastily unshuttered his left optic, and the image seemed to shimmy and dance before him, until eventually it stabilized. He was ready for Deadlock to critique him, rush him along, but the other mech didn’t, waiting quietly, looking down range at the target.

“…pull,” Deadlock said, his voice almost a whisper, and the trigger seemed to jump against Perceptor's finger, the bolt of energy startling him, going wide.

He winced, embarrassed, as the shot charred part of the range walls, not even close to the target. Nothing like Deadlock's economical, almost elegant targetting.

"Practice," Deadlock said, mildly. "Try again."

He sucked a vent of air, bracing himself, and this time, the bolt was...still far off, but at least it made it to the end of the range, the noise echoing around the small space.

He didn't understand anything here, in this place, what those mechs were doing out front, what this place even was, but it was redolent with a tinge of the illegal, the illicit, and it sent a hot charge through him, building on the satisfaction of the second shot.

"Again?" he asked, waiting for permission. In so many ways, Deadlock was a guide to worlds he'd never known existed, even those he walked above them every day. Maybe one day he could return the favor. He could hope .

"Again," Deadlock said, but before Perceptor could re-aim the pistol, Deadlock leaned over, abruptly, his mouth finding Percptor's, gruff and hard and needing, and Perceptor realized that perhaps, perhaps, he had something to teach Deadlock as well.