Rusthands

“You made all these?” Drift asked, looking over Ten’s impressive menagerie of Lost Light crew-member figurines. 

“Ten.” A nod.

Drift looked at Ten, considering. “Do you like drawing more, or sculpting?” he asked.

Ten paused. Drift realized he didn’t leave the legislator a way to answer.

“Sorry, I didn’t make that very easy for you. Let’s try this.” Drift lifted his right hand in the air. “Do you like drawing more, or—” Drift put down his hand and lifted the other, “sculpting more?”

Drift left both of his hands on the table, palms up. After a moment, Ten tapped the center of Drift’s left palm.

“Sculpting, huh? Well you’re certainly skilled at it.”

“Ten.” The word hadn’t changed, but Ten’s inflection was happy. He looked happy.

A thought occurred to Drift.

“Ten, do you know what chirolinguistics are?” Drift asked.

Ten shook his head immediately.

“Give me your hands,” Drift said. Ten seemed startled when Drift slotted their fingers together, palm-to-palm. Drift gave him a smile that seemed to reassure him. “Chirolinguists is a touch-language. Where I’m from, we called it “speaking hand”. Here—” Drift released one of Ten’s hands so he had it free to gesture with, “—point to something you want to learn how to say the name of.”

Ten looked around the bar excitedly. He seemed uncertain of what to ask. After a moment, Drift realized he was weighing his options, trying to decide what he wanted to know more.

“I’ll show you more words after this first one,” Drift said with a laugh. “Just one at a time.”

This seemed to ease Ten’s conundrum. After a moment, he pointed to Drift.

“My name?” Drift asked.

Ten nodded.

“Alright. This is how you say my name in hand.” Drift showed Ten the gesture — names were never a direct translation, each being their own unique gesture that denoted the person in question. It occurred to Drift how long it had been since he’d gone by this name. “Now you try.”

Ten mimicked the gesture easily — just as Drift suspected, Ten’s skill with his hands made him quick to pick up on hand-speak.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Drift said with a grin.

Ten repeated Drift’s name again, then pointed at Ratchet, where he was lingering near the bar, speaking with First Aid.

“Ratchet,” Drift sounded out as he went through the motions of Ratchet’s name. Drift wasn’t sure how Ratchet would say his name in chirolinguistics — the motion Drift made was one that the residents of the Dead End used for him, built of pieces of the gestures for doctor and trustworthy and safe. It choked him up a little — he hadn’t expected to find himself thinking of people and places that hadn’t crossed his processor in millennia when he offered to teach Ten some words.

Thankfully, after testing the motions to Ratchet’s name a few times and repeating Drift once more for good measure, Ten pointed to the table, letting Drift turn his thoughts to sounding out more innocuous words. Ten learned the gestures for table, engex, figurine, bar, cup, chair, sword, hand, and flower, with Ten pointing at the ones painted on his own plating to indicate that last one. With each new word, Ten would run through the last few he’d learned, determined to commit each to memory. At the fifteenth word, Drift suggested Ten continue practicing those for the evening.

“I can show you more words tomorrow,” Drift offered. “And we can work up to full sentences from there.”

Ten paused for a second, then seemed to become flustered, even though he had no EM field that Drift could feel. He gestured with his free hand, pressing it to his mouth, then holding it out, then back to his mouth. After a moment, Drift realized he was trying to work through how to say something — and what it was he was likely trying to say.

“Thank you,” Drift sounded out as he pressed the words for the sentiment into Ten’s hand.

Ten immediately repeated it, then again, then again. 

Thank you thank you thank you thank you—

On the fourth repetition Drift covered Ten’s hand with his other hand to still it.

THE TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #1 (2012)