Swerve stands behind the bar, washing out a set of whiskey glasses. Brawl is seated at the end of the bar counter, nearest the wall. For the third day and night in a row, his armor is dirtied and his right forearm is covered in faded, crusty, dried energon. Swerve watches him closely, pulling glasses out of the sink and drying them off.
"You alright?" Swerve asks, trying to catch Brawl's gaze. Brawl's unnerving, deep red eyes are fixed on the back wall of the bar.
Brawl doesn't answer, but his optics do find Swerve's.
"Heya, Swerve!"
Brawl drops his gaze, studying the counter.
"Hey, Bluestreak," Swerve says, turning to face the Praxian, plastering a grin all over his face. "What can I getchu?"
"Just a tray of something fun," Bluestreak begins, gesturing to his group. He is accompanied by a grouping of younger-looking mecha. "We're just here to have fun and talk! Prowl said I needed to get out and meet some new friends, so I started going to the shooting classes and met some new people and we're all really interested in guns and stuff and-"
"Alright, Blue! One tray of fun coming up," Swerve interjects with a grin, moving to his wall of energon cubes, grabbing a few cubes and then a flask. "I'll bring it out to ya."
Bluestreak and his group move off, giggling and chatting. Swerve turns back to Brawl, but the tank has receded further into his corner.
"Brawl... really," Swerve murmurs, stepping closer.
Unable to tease out a verbal response from Brawl, Swerve leaves him to his own devices as he prepares the tray of drinks and delivers it to Bluestreak's table. When Swerve returns, Brawl is standing up, high-grade cube emptied. He slouches over to the door, wobbling a little. Steadying himself on the counter, he slinks out of The Cube, entering the hallway.
Swerve watches him leave, slowly deflating. He activates his com, stepping back behind the bar and turning his back to the patrons.
"Hey, uh, Rung," Swerve begins. "You told me to tell you when Brawl, uh... when he has issues? Yeah, well... I think he's in the middle of it."
"I see," Rung replies gently. "Well, thank you for telling me, Swerve. I will look into this."
...
Rung ends the com, moving over to the desk in his quarters. He pulls up a small handheld computer, unfolding it and propping it up on his desk. Pulling up the Autopedia, he locates Brawl's file, bringing it up and glancing through it.
Brawl was... an uncooperative patient. He submitted to the mandatory requirement decreed by the Prime, but supplied the most minimal responses required. He had just lost a second member of his combiner team, so no one thought too much about it.
Rung activates his com as he reads over Brawl's past responses. The com is picked up, Brawl silent on the other end.
"Brawl, this is Rung," he begins. "How are-"
Brawl ends the com. Rung sighs, and stands up. Best to find this problem at the source. Locking up his office, he walks quietly down the hall, nodding to the guard in the mainbay before continuing on. Rung knew the location of everyone's quarters on base, since he needed to be able to check the quarters of any Mecha at request.
...
In his quarters, Brawl held his knife close, thumb running over the hilt. This knife wasn't always his—it used to belong to Vortex. Both of Brawl's arms already bore the marks of previous days' worth of suffering, oozing coagulated energon. Bringing the knife to his wrist, Brawl sighs. He could see Vortex and Blast Off in his mind's eye. Onslaught, Swindle... all of them together again. Bringing the blade to his wrist, Brawl prepares to slice open the tubing containing his life-blood.
Someone knocks on the door.