Yeah… so I thought I was done with the Dropmix out of the closet series where Jeopardy learns Dropmix is a gladiator. I knew I had one other thing to cover but it’s kinda… escalated. And now I’m drafting a whole new mini arc to cover so that’s fun. Buckle your seat belts because it’s going to be quite the ride.
Anyway we are starting off strong by actually having to face the aftermath and emotionally wreaking Dropmix. My favorite!
This picks up more or less directly after the last one… which I will maybe link when I have the thought process to find.
@thebrokenmechanicalpencil
—
Jeopardy hadn’t spoken to Dropmix for the entire day.
Not really.
Not in any way that mattered.
He’d stayed in Dropmix’s arms until his frame stopped shaking enough for his vents to cycle again, until his optics dimmed with exhaustion and his whole body felt like he’d been hollowed out from the inside. Dropmix hadn’t dared move him. Hadn’t dared breathe too loudly or speak in case it disturbed what little peace the smaller mech was getting.
They had stayed like that for a long time, longer than Dropmix thought he would be allowed to hold him. Long enough that he had begun to worry that someone may stray into the medbay and find the medics curled on the floor. But he still didn’t move, didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t his place.
It was nice to just sit. To finally hold Jeopardy. To feel the weight of the mech he almost chased away pressed against him. Dare the gladiator admit it, it was a relief to not lie, to sit and just bask in the truth knowing he’d won. He got to keep Jeopardy.
But all good things come to an end.
Eventually the medic pulled away—slow, like peeling a bandage off an open wound—and whispered that he needed to sort inventory. Both of them knew it was a lousy excuse.
Dropmix let him go.
And the rest of the day passed in relative quiet.
Jeopardy had at one point switched on the music, something low and soothing, quiet tones filling the air. Another one of Theremin’s, one that he played on the quiet evenings they spent just being together, or when he was working and Dropmix had crashed in his office to nap. Dropmix said nothing, just offering a small appreciative nod. Jeopardy hardly acknowledged it, humming a soft response before he returned to reorganizing the drawers.
They went about their duties as if it had been any other day, like the world hadn’t nearly shattered in the brisk morning air. When a mech entered the bay both of them smiled and acted just as they would normally. But when the mech stepped out and they were left with simply each other the masks fell. It was quiet again. Not in that same suffocating and brittle silence that they had known since the gas. But it still wasn’t that easy and comforting silence that they shared before.
It was a simmering quiet.
Dropmix never tried to bridge the gap between them. He had said what he needed to and Jeopardy had listened. He had never considered what would come afterwards.
Jeopardy didn’t seem to know either.
When the lights dimmed to the familiar nighttime cycle and the relative buzz of the base around them had settled, Dropmix retired to his attached room. Jeopardy offered a simple farewell, nothing grand or close. He had smiled then, not the friendly but tight service smile he wore when a mech entered with an injury. It wasn’t the bright, wonderful smile that seemed to warm up a room. Rather, it was brittle and heavy and small, but not the blank emptiness that had been before.
Just weighed down. Still processing perhaps, tentative and trying. It was the only true sign Dropmix had that he hadn’t messed everything up.
Jeopardy had been swift to enter his room.
Dropmix stepped into his own.
The door had closed behind him and he was shrouded in the darkness of his private room. He didn’t bother turning on the lights. The dark felt safer. Softer somehow. The faint emergency lights illuminating just enough for him to navigate the familiar space. He sat on the edge of his berth and let himself sag forward, helm in his palms. His plating rattled beneath the oppressive armor—his cage.
The gladiator sighed, deep and low, heavy.
He wondered if Jeopardy was doing the same on the other side of the wall that separated their rooms. He wondered if he should say something. Knock. Offer… what, exactly?
Comfort?
Reassurance?
Himself?
Dropmix scrubbed a hand down his face, claws long since filed down into blunt, useless nubs. Nothing sharp left on him except the things he couldn’t tear out—instincts, memories, programmed needs. Things that he smothered with music and ancient programs, but still festered in his spark like a merciless rot deep in his soul.
It was seething deep within him, growling and clawing at his chest. He had been weak, he had given Jeopardy too much, let him in and now all that waited was pain. Loss. Humiliation. The self hatred didn’t bother taking the voice of his long dead lover tonight. It was simply his own criticizing him for letting Jeopardy take the reigns, for giving him that control. That option to leave—that choice that he still could make.
He could still be left alone.
Again.
Dropmix shoved it down, let the buzzing music wash over him like holy water and cleanse his mind from the venom. He did not need to twist and lure and deceive anymore, that was not how he would win Jeopardy, to make sure he stayed. He didn’t need to scramble to keep him close. There was no reason why his spark should be pulsing so quickly in his chest.
But the absence of the smaller mech gnawed at him like a fresh weld he couldn’t stop touching.
The gladiator lay down, biting at his cheek with the useless blunt teeth he traded his fangs for.
He didn’t sleep, didn’t even try.
He lay flat on his back, staring at the faint, trembling glow of the emergency strips along the ceiling. His vents kept cycling in uneven bursts, too shallow, too loud in the small room. The music looping in his processor buzzed and stuttered, a migraine slowly making itself known. His plates pressed into himself, a small obnoxious motion that made him feel sick. It was weak, pathetic, and submissive.
Unfit for him.
The anger and betrayal bled into something else now, a primal, young fear grew. Depending and sickly. He had stopped Jeopardy from leaving, he believed he did. But he had been so close to losing him and he hadn’t even known. Jeopardy had wanted to leave him and that alone left him uneasy.
What if what he did wasn’t enough?
Jeopardy could have just caved and let himself be held just to avoid the confrontation. That would be something his anxious mind would do. Or he could have been just pretending to get Dropmix off of his case—to make sure he didn’t do anything drastic—so he could slip away when he wasn’t looking. To leave and never come back.
Like right now.
Jeopardy could be packing his things and leaving at this very moment. No strings attached.
Just gone.
His spark pulsed too hard, too fast, each thrum echoing in his limbs. He could feel the energon buzzing through his frame, the hum of his engine, the tic of metal slowly warming up. His fingers twitched against the berthframe like they wanted to curl around something—someone. Dropmix growled into the open air, baring his teeth as he shifted to his side, jaw tightening. He hated that. Hated his inherent need for another.
Dropmix had no right to force Jeopardy to be that person, Primus knows that the young mech deserves someone better.
Just like Theremin did.
The gladiator snarled and twisted again, this time to glare at the door. An all consuming anger twisted in his chest like a coiling snake, constricting his chest and making it difficult to breathe. Perhaps it wasn’t anger at all, but something softer, more vulnerable and weak that he refused to name at the moment. Dropmix clenched his jaw so hard that it hurt.
Dropmix could hear someone shifting on the other side of the wall. Just faintly, only when he turned down the thrumming music and focused.
It was evidence that Jeopardy was still there. That he was awake.
Dropmix stared at the ceiling another long moment, letting the pressure in his helm build until it felt like it might split the casing. If he stayed here, he would go mad. If he went to Jeopardy too fast, he would ruin whatever delicate, tentative thing the smaller medic hadn’t yet walked away from.
But he still could.
The gladiator felt his breath hitch, spark fluttering, arcs of energy lashing at the confines of his chest.
He sat up slowly, pressing both hands to his face as though he could push the thoughts back in. He breathed hard, vents shuddering, and tried to listen to the music instead of the pounding of his spark. He had no reason to feel as though the world was ending. He had prevented it.
Dropmix stopped Jeopardy from leaving.
But the thought alone was finally settling onto his spark. Not just the fear and shock. The urgent need to stop it from happening had quickly consumed his mind when he had discovered the transfer. But now it is over. Now he could process what could have been. What still could happen.
What might be happening right now.
Some sorry sound shifted the air around Dropmix, a desperate whine.
Jeopardy could be packing. Rumbleclutch might have already signed the transfer papers behind his back. He could be leaving. Taking all of his love with him. Or things may stay like this. Cold and detached and Dropmix loses Jeopardy all the same. Left with a gaping void of what once was.
Like when Theremin left.
Dropmix held his breath, a deep pulse rushing through his frame. Absently he reached into that aching chasm in his chest. The place where theremin had once been, vibrant and full of life and love. Now it was empty, an open jaw that consumed whatever he threw into it. Cold and apathetic, mocking at times.
It was everything a gladiator should be.
Everything Dropmix was not.
The gladiator whined again, the keening sound grated against his mind. His plates flaring beneath his armor, vents hissing in warning. His blunt fingers dug into a gap, threatening to tear the plate off entirely. A familiar ritual that he couldn’t afford right now. He forced himself to be quiet, as much as he could at least, straining to hear the quiet footsteps from Jeopardy.
Who hadn’t left. Who had stayed with him—chosen to. He had said so himself, that he didn’t want to leave. Jeopardy was safe with him. He loved him. Still did.
Jeopardy wasn’t leaving.
Not yet.
He pressed his palms harder into his face, trying to force the world to stop tilting, but his vents only stuttered faster. The faint emergency lights seemed to dance in his vision, pulsing to the erratic beat of his spark. Like the twinkling stars above The Pits. Like the ones that fell and Theremin would wish on, whisper under his breath and hold Dropmix a little tighter.
Falling stars like comets.
Cometeater.
The slimy organic that hardly passes for a mech. Worthless and weak and pathetic. So desperate for love and affection that he would throw away his own health just in an attempt to remain pure. A disgusting excuse for a gladiator. And yet he was still worthy of Jeopardy’s love. Even after the attack, trying to tear Jeopardy’s chest open to feast on his spark like the greedy leech he was. But he was forgiven. Loved anyway. Never been denied Jeopardy’s affection.
But Dropmix had.
Dropmix had become unloveable and just barely managed to drag himself into the worthy.
His vents hitched, choking, skipping a breath.
The gladiator’s vocalizer clicked once—childishly—and he felt his plates press in further, like hundreds of hands. Touching and feeling. A choked cry was next, broken and cracked, static ghosting the edges. Weak. He glanced around the shadows, at the phantom feeling of thousands of eyes burning into him like acid dripping through his spine. Their judgement weighed down the very air that was so determined to deny him.
Shame curdled deep in his chest, making his fans kick up a notch to cope with the rising heat of embarrassment.
He needed to slow down, to think. To breathe. But his chest was tight. Too tight. Like he was being stepped on, forced into the ground. Like the air was thick with smoke and heat and a lingering radiation.
Because he was alone.
Unloved.
Dropmix growled so he would not cry.
His hands slid down to brace on his chest, blunt fingers grasping at the smooth glass that covered his core. The tips dragged over the smooth surface, finding no purchase. The room was too small. The shadows were too close. The music was too loud, a metronome counting down the seconds until something happened. His spark was too loud—too fast—like it wanted out of his chassis.
Wanted to leave him too.
He swallowed a sound—half a snarl, half a helpless keen.
“Just breathe,” Dropmix growled at himself, hardly aware that he had spoken aloud at all. “Just breathe, you useless thing, just—”
His vents hitched, stuttered, failed for a moment. The panic crept higher, a cold burn up the back of his throat. A rust creeping through his systems and eating him alive. His plating shivered, first a tremor, then a full-body shiver he couldn’t control. He could hear his plates rattle against his armor, pushing against his confines only to pull back and suffocate him. Like hands. Hands that touched and took and grabbed.
The relentless pounding rhythm of the music persisted mercilessly.
Dropmix pressed harder against the glass on his chest, begging the surface to give way, to give him access.
He had almost lost Jeopardy.
He could still lose him.
Jeopardy could still leave him.
A sharp, glitching whine escaped his vocalizer before he could stop it. It took everything in his power to not jam his blunt fingers into the traitorous device until he tasted blood and felt the delicate device buckle beneath the weight. Instead his hands just clasped onto his throat. Useless and clumsily trying to stop the sounds.
They spilled out of him like energon did a gutted mech.
Dropmix tried to suck in a gasping breath, tried to think of something else. Someplace else. Tried to strain and hear Jeopardy on the other side of the wall. He leaned against it, letting his rigid body sag against the wall, shivering at the contact. His vents were uneven and loud, his chest still compressed in some invisible thing’s grasp. A whine escaped him again before he managed to hold his breath, pressing his head into the wall until it ached with the pressure.
He heard nothing but the beating of his own spark thrashing against his chest.
Jeopardy was gone.
Something sharp shot through the gladiator’s spark, forcing his vents to hiss until there was nothing left. A pathetic sobbing breath was torn from him, quiet and broken.
The sound echoed through the room—small, strangled, wrong for a frame his size. It scraped out of him like metal dragged across stone. Too soft. Too vulnerable. A noise that should’ve belonged to someone else entirely.
Dropmix jerked backward from the wall as though the sound had physically struck him. His hands fumbled in the empty space between his chest and his throat, half-reaching for something he couldn’t name, half-fending off phantoms. Thousands of eyes watched the display with critical gazes. He could hear them laugh. It rang in his audials, chiming bells of laughter.
He was being left.
He was being left again.
Maybe silently. Maybe gently. Maybe right now, carefully, Jeopardy was slipping out his door or deleting the message drafts he had been too afraid to send.
The room felt smaller. As if the walls had shifted when he wasn’t looking. As if the shadows had crept closer, clutching at his seams with cold, prying fingers.
He pressed a hand to his chest again—hard, maybe the glass would give way and he could tear his spark out—feeling the faint thrum of the core beneath the glass. Too fast. Too frantic. Too loud. Each pulse hurt.
“Stop,” he rasped, the word shredded. He hated it. Hated the tone. “Stop—stop—Primus—”
His vents shuddered open, but it didn’t help. The air wasn’t enough. Couldn’t be enough. Dropmix squeezed his eyes shut, but the darkness behind his optics was worse. That old, festering place in him—the one he’d carved out by hand after Theremin—unfurled in his spark like a pit of acid. The ache that lived there crawled up his throat.
A shudder wracked through his frame so violently the berth creaked beneath him.
Another sound tore loose—thin, startled, helpless. It infuriated him, humiliated him, but he couldn’t swallow it back. His vents were skittering again, rising in pitch like a turbine falling out of sync.
Dropmix’s hands snapped to his helm, palms clamping over his audials as if he could crush the sounds back into silence. His claws scraped against the metal of his own skull, blunt edges dragging lines that didn’t cut, didn’t hurt enough, didn’t ground him enough. His vents fluttered too fast to pull air. Too shallow. His vision dipped. His spark hammered itself sick against its chamber.
Jeopardy was going to leave.
He should leave.
Why wouldn’t he? Why would he stay with a monster who could barely keep his own systems together? Who was outdated and needy and weak? Who was only tolerable when he lied or softened himself or stayed perfectly still—
He dragged his claws down the front of his throat, desperate to silence the next sound threatening to escape. It never came.
Something in Dropmix’s processor lurched sideways. The room flickered.
Not the lights—him.
The world didn’t go dark—no, that would’ve been mercy. Instead it went thin. Like he was looking at it through old, cracked glass. Through a window smeared with energon. Through someone else’s shattered optics.
Dropmix’s hand was still at his throat.
But it didn’t feel like his.
The gladiator watched it tremble. Detached. Separate. The joints flexed wrong, lagging half a second behind the command he gave. Or maybe he didn’t give any commands at all. Maybe it was moving on its own. Maybe it was never his hand to begin with. It didn’t have claws after all.
His vents weren’t cycling right—he heard the sound, but it was far away, tinny, distant. Like someone else hyperventilating in a room down the hall. He should check on that. Make sure it wasn’t Jeopardy or some mech stumbling in for aid.
He should get up.
He should stand.
He should move.
But the thought slid across his processor like a datachip across a slick table—no friction, nothing to catch on.
A mech was hyperventilating somewhere. A thin, high, desperate sound. The rhythm stuttered.
Skipped. Caught. It sounded painful.
Dropmix tilted his helm slightly, trying to locate the source of the noise, but his audials didn’t obey. One caught the sound early, the other late, and the delay made the world sway nauseatingly. He blinked hard, tried to at least. His optics stayed close for a little bit too long.
The sobbing breath happened again. That same pathetic, strangled little sound. A disgusting and desperate sound, like a sparkling.
He flinched.
It wasn’t the noise itself—it was the feeling that accompanied it. A distant sting. A gutting familiarity. But it didn’t belong to him.
It couldn’t.
Dropmix wasn’t the one making that noise.
The mech making that sound was weak. Small. Broken in a way that Dropmix refused to be. A creature cornered and keening. A thing waiting for the blow. A thing begging for the blow just to end the suspension of terror.
Dropmix didn’t beg.
Dropmix didn’t—
The noise came again. A cracked, skipping sob.
The room expanded. Or shrank. He didn’t know. Shadows coiled around the corners like liquid smoke, licking up the walls and crawling across the ceiling, whispering static-laced promises and threats. A glitch shivered across his optics, lines of static carving the room into warped silhouettes. The berthframe blurred. The wall behind him pulsed with faint, sick light.
The sobbing stopped.
That was good. It was getting annoying anyway.
And then—nothing.
Not silence. Not stillness. Not even peace.
Just a drifting, endless wash of something between sound and thought, like static bleeding through the air vents, like a song played backward through warped speakers. Dropmix felt his own frame tilt sideways, not physically. At least he didn’t think so.
It was hard to tell.
He tried to count his breaths. They weren’t his. Not really. They belonged to someone else—or no one at all.
The sobbing had vanished, but the hollow pulse remained. Somewhere in the void between walls a spark thrummed—faint, almost too quiet to hear. Dropmix could feel it flitting across the gaps in his plating, brushing against the edges of his circuits, teasing the hollow place where something belonged.
Not warmth. Not closeness. But a memory of it.
He wasn’t in his room. He wasn’t in the base. He wasn’t anywhere at all.
