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Drift had learned, over the long course of his life, to take happiness where he could get it. But even then those fleeting moments that were few and far between, never seemed to settle into his circuits enough to warrant a purr.
The few times he could recall the feeling of his engine gently rumbling was a result to pain of one kind or another, not to any sort of joy. Not exactly the best correlation, he thought on some occasion, as he heard those on the Lost Light purr in their own delight, but it what was there and what he had. He was sure the others were familiar with that particular use of it, considering the long history of war and how almost no one on the ship had a perfect rumbling anymore.
They had that in common. It was a nice thought.
The camaraderie on the Lost Light , regardless of how little extended to him, was nice. There were ‘bots on board who had his back, despite his reputation and his past. It was a pleasant feeling, after all that had happened.
After a long day on the ship, an unusually quiet one where the lack of external adventure was replaced by the internal chaos of bored ‘bots finding their own fun (and Ultra Magnus desperately trying to keep things under control), Drift made his way to his habsuite. Exhaustion hovered at the edges of his processor, throwing a haze over his thoughts that at any other time he would have tried to stave off, in one way or another. But as it was, something approaching content had settled into him.
As his finials twitched sleepily, his engine rumbled, just a little. There was a soft, steady clicking in the noise, but an off kilter purr wasn’t out of place on the Lost Light . And there was a quiet part of his mind that said that maybe he wasn’t out of place there, either.