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“And...done.”
Rodimus flops to the training mat exhaustedly as soon as Drift announces that they’re finished.
“Finally! How long were we at that?”
“...About eight minutes.”
Even though Rodimus has his eyes closed, he can practically hear Drift smiling. He tosses the blunt training sword vaguely in Drift’s direction and doesn’t open his eyes until he hears the vague scrape, thunk, and curse of Drift trying and failing to catch it.
“Getting a little tired too, huh? Thought you had sharper reflexes than that.” He grins up at Drift, who sits down beside him, setting both training swords neatly on the ground.
“I wasn’t exactly expecting you to throw a training sword at me.”
“And you say you know me.” Rodimus grins and is delighted when Drift laughs and gives in, flopping down to lay beside him. “Ha! You are tired!”
“I’m not tired,” Drift protests.
“Then why are you lying down?”
“Because you’re lying down!”
“...Fair point,” Rodimus concedes. He wiggles his spoiler a little, as much as it can wiggle while he’s laying on it. “Thanks for working with me on the sword stuff. Figure I might as well learn how to do close combat stuff.”
“You’re welcome, especially if it keeps you from routinely setting yourself ablaze.” Drift grins with just a hint of fang and laughs when Rodimus takes a lazy swipe at him.
“I don’t ‘set myself ablaze’ routinely! Primus, you sounded like Mags there. Anyway, it’s cool to get to practice this stuff without being pretty sure I’m going to have to immediately use it on some ‘Cons.” Rodimus looks over at Drift. “Not like you have anything left to learn. You can shoot and use cool ninja swords.” He mimes the swipe of a sword with an exaggerated ‘whoosh’ for effect. “Hah. Bet you didn’t think even after the war you’d still be doing this stuff.” He looks over at Drift, who looks thoughtful.
“I never really thought much about after the war.”
“What? That’s crazy! Everyone thought about after the war!” Rodimus rolls onto his side, ignoring the discomfort of having his spoiler squished so he can look at Drift properly. “You never thought about it, not once?”
“I mean...I guess once or twice. Never when I was a ‘Con. I just...I don’t know. Never thought about it.” Drift seems sad now, and Rodimus almost regrets bringing it up. He settles for flailing a hand in Drift’s direction.
“What, you didn’t sense your future as my SiC and on a ship bound for Cyberutopia and hunting down the Knights of Cybertron?”
That does make Drift laugh. “Somehow, I didn’t. I had other things on my mind.” He reaches out to gently swat at Rodimus in return. “And also I never quite imagined laying here on the floor talking to you after a whole eight minutes of training. I thought a Prime was supposed to be a good fighter.”
Rodimus squawks indignantly. “I’m a great fighter! Shut up!”
“Are you going to prove it?” Drift reaches over and grabs one of the training swords, gently tossing it in Rodimus’ direction.
Rodimus catches it with a huff. “Fine. Let’s go. I’ll prove it!” He hauls himself up, his plating rattling and fluffing out to release heat built up underneath. Drift stands much more gracefully, sword already held in his hand like the expert that he is. “Ready?”
“Ready.” Drift takes a defensive stance. “Try to hit me.”
“I don’t need to try! I’m going to hit you!”
Drift rolls his eyes, but it’s hard to be too annoyed about it when he’s smiling with just that little hint of fang. “Sure. Then hit me.”
He hasn’t moved out of his ready stance, so Rodimus attacks with an aggressive first swing. It’s easily sidestepped, as is the second swing and the third. After that, Rodimus loses count and it turns into a more even exchange until it ends, as the last one did, with Drift’s sword at Rodimus’s throat and Drift grinning with too much fang for any Autobot.
“You didn’t hit me.”
Rodimus is too busy venting out hot air to answer right away, and when he manages, it’s more breathless than he would like. “I got closer this time!”
“You did,” Drift allows. “You were definitely closer this time.”
“So let’s go again! Then I”ll definitely beat you!” Rodimus takes up a ready stance again, but Drift shakes his head.
“No, this time I’m actually tired.” He rolls his shoulders back. “You must be too.”
“Maybe I’ll hit you if you’re tired?” Rodimus suggests.
“You’ll just hurt yourself if I’m too tired to stop you.” Drift confiscates Rodimus’ sword before he can think to protest, so Rodimus goes for the next logical solution, which is clearly tackling Drift to the mat. Somehow Drift doesn’t see this coming and ends up on his back, Rodimus laying firmly on his chest.
Rodimus grins. “Thought we’d take a break.”
“...On the floor. With you on top of me. And me still holding our practice swords.”
“Yeah. I thought all of those things.” Rodimus folds his arms in front of himself and props his chin on them, grinning at Drift and waggling his spoiler.
Drift carefully reaches out to set the swords down almost out of their reach, and therefore out of the way of Rodimus’ antics, before he lazily drapes his arms around Rodimus’ waist.
“You know, normal sword fights don’t end like this.”
“Yeah, but I’m still in training. So you know, we have to practice. Now I know.” Rodimus gives Drift a winning smile.
“I find it very hard to believe that you had no idea that sword fights don’t normally end with forced cuddling.” Drift shows no inclination to stop said cuddling, so Rodimus proceeds to make himself exceedingly comfortable on Drift’s chest. There’s a moment of comfortable silence before Drift, staring straight up at the ceiling and pointedly not at Rodimus, speaks again. “I did occasionally think about the end of the war and what would happen afterwards.”
Rodimus blinks at him. “So, what’d you think would happen? If it wasn’t this journey to Cyberutopia, of course.”
Drift cracks a faint smile. “No, it still wasn’t that.” He absently pets at Rodimus’ spoiler. Rodimus twitches said spoiler to try and nudge it more into Drift’s hand so he can get the good scratches that he likes. “When I was with the ‘Cons, I thought it’d be a big ‘Con victory. Afterwards...I don’t know. I settled for hoping for peace and that...maybe I could find some way to make up for everything I did.”
“Hey, you’ve made up for whatever ‘Con stuff you did. You’ve been an Autobot for a long time now,” Rodimus protests, sitting up a little. “Has someone been telling you that you haven’t made up for it? Tell me who, I’ll deal with them.”
Drift gives him a soft look. “No, no one’s been saying anything. It’s nothing anyone says, it’s just something I feel.”
Rodimus considers this. “Well, stop that feeling things then. Or I don’t know. Feel things like how lucky you are to have me.”
Drift laughs. “I promise I feel that often. Now get off of me and let’s go get a drink.” He gently shoves at Rodimus, who dramatically rolls off of Drift to lay flat on his back on the floor.
“Hey. Drift. Really, though. You’ve made up for all that ‘Con stuff,” Rodimus says, looking over at Drift. Drift has paused mid-getting-up to look over at Rodimus. “I mean it.”
Drift softens. “Thank you. Now, come on. I really do want that drink.” He helps pull Rodimus to his feet.
“If we’re getting drinks, I need to ask Swerve how the Prime is coming along. He’s supposed to be working out a drink cool enough to be named after me. I think he’s supposed to have some samples ready soon. Wanna try them?”
Drift hesitates, making a slight face. “...No thank you.”
“Spoilsport.”
“I’ll let you poison yourself with Swerve’s experiments.”
“Then you won’t get to taste the finished product,” Rodimus decrees.
“That seems fair.” Drift is unfortunately unmoved by this threat. He’s already moving to put their practice swords away. “Shall we?”
“...Fine. But you at least have to rate how cool the drinks look.”
“Deal.”