Title: and then he broke the world.
Prompt: Dead End, Any, symbols of death are everywhere (trick)
Continuity: G1
Characters: Dead End
Rating: T
Summary: He's not crazy. He's not depressed. He's not pessimistic. He is practical, realistic, and the only who can see how fragile the world really is.
The world is a crystal ball, he decides. Large, round, oddly foretelling, and most importantly fragile, Dead End knows this because he can see it. The signs. They were everywhere, staring back at him like a big, ugly, seeping wound, though he supposed he'd care more if it were a scratch on his finish.
The planet is a mass of calamitous natural disasters, crime, violence, disease, and the meddling disputes of a warring race that had traversed across the universe after ravaging their own planet, so that they could do the same to a new one. Parasites hopping from host to host.
In lieu of the terror, pain, and life ebbing away in a steady stream, everyone refused acknowledge the truth, leaving him to face the festering wound by himself, bearing the tiring weight of reality.
And they wonder why he's so depressed.
But he isn't. Okay, maybe just a bit, but why shouldn't he be. He's not crazy. He's practical, realistic, honest, and refuses to see the world through a rose-tinted visor, accepting what is inevitable—what is already happening—and accepting his fate, the world's fate, the universe's fate.
Because he himself was made an instrument of death, and Dead End figures the awful humour in that situation is evidence enough. Life creating death. The world is a funny place.
This glass world is so small, so fragile, and so insignificant that he feels that if some almighty force decided to do away with it all it really had to do was flick a finger. Primus was a child playing with a toy and, like all play things; it would be discarded once boredom set in. The crystal ball would fade out; the nothingness showing what was always present, always meant to be.
Primus would toss it aside, the impending doom transiting from slow to a lightning streak of destruction and terror.
Dead End wonders why people think he's depressed. Why his own team looks at him like he can't do much of anything except report on their inevitable ends. The truth is there really isn't anything else for him to do. Any other action would fade away through the passing of time, to reach the finish line that they'll all arrive at one way or another. The Decepticon cause is a sham. What is victory and power, when death with erode it anyways?
So he lets them live in ignorance. Because while the entire universe could fall apart around him without Dead End batting a servo, he figures that his team at least deserves a bit of happiness in the coming storm. They have Motormaster, so that naturally that can't ever be achieved—yet another sign. How fitting—but Breakdown's company, Wildrider's antics, and Drag Strip's competitive obsession can all be tolerated to let them have their pleasures while watches and dully joins in.
And all the while he's waiting. Waiting for Primus to toss the ball, for it to smash into a million pieces on the ground.
And then he'd have broken the world.