It's that time of year again, and today is my last day of summer vacation. Except I don't feel like I've really accomplished anything. I blame the rainy weather for making me so apathetic. Bleh. I've hit some blocks on my other stories too, so I'm trying to get back into the swing of things by forcibly making myself write each and every day. It's proving more painful than I originally thought, just for the record. I needed some help to get motivated, and that was when Arcane-Angel on Deviantart came forward and proposed that we do something called a three-shot fanfiction trade. Basically, both authors pick a main topic to write about and three themes to go with it. Then they write three oneshots with the topic and one of the themes as a present for the other author. Our main topic was Terrorsaur/Waspinator and this was one of the three themes she asked me to write. Writing this seems to have helped my motivation some, so yay. Transformers and Beast Wars are not mine.

Claustrophobia is the fear of having no escape, and being closed in. It is typically classified as an anxiety disorder and often results in panic attack. One study indicates that anywhere from 2-5% of the world population is affected by severe claustrophobia, but only a small percentage of these people receive some kind of treatment for the disorder.

~Wikipedia

Part one of a three-shot fanfiction trade with Arcane-Angel: Terrorsaur/Waspinator & Claustrophobia

i

He was either going to scream or go insane. Possibly a combination of the two. Either way, Terrorsaur's panic attacks were better of being avoided.

Except, at the rate time was moving, he was going to have one sooner than later.

Terrorsaur glanced nervously at the holographic display of the time that flickered from the holo-clock on his berth's bedside table and he stifled an indigent squawk of suppressed anxiety. It was only fourteen hundred megacycles military time and he'd only been in the dark refines of his quarters for nearly two megacycles or so, but that same megacycle felt like a ridiculously lengthy eternity. Terrorsaur turned sharply on his heel and continued pacing stiffly back and forth across his room's floor with the threat to wear an indented path straight down the middle while he eyed the clock spitefully.

"One megacycle down," Terrorsaur thought, "just about twenty-three left to go."

It had started simply enough. Terrorsaur had tried for another takeover attempt against Megatron when the rat Maximal, Rattrap, seemingly wandered aimlessly into their territory. When his energy signature was detected on radar, Megatron immediately sent the crimson flier to engage him. Terrorsaur was more than surprised to learn upon cornering the rat mech that he had defected from the Maximals, but that much did not stop him from seizing the rat's offer to become a Predacon by making him his appointed lieutenant. He took the ex-Maximal back to base and locked him temporarily away in a cage to reveal to his capture to his other Predacon comrades, and that was when he made his proposal for them to accept him as their new leader in exchange for his 'gift' - although Rattrap was hardly much of a pleasant present to begin with. That much was beside the point. Megatron became enraged with Terrorsaur's show of treachery of course, and that was when the red flier's plan move further into motion. Rattrap quietly exited his cage and shocked Megatron from behind with an electrical prod that temporarily disabled the tyrant to transform into robot-mode. Trapped in his alternate form and helpless, Megatron was unable to stop Terrorsaur from seizing control of the Predacon operations. Tarantulus, Blackarachnia, and Scorponok voiced how unwilling they were to comply - regardless of the fact they still mostly accepted him as their new leader anyways - but Waspinator had remained silent. During Terrorsaur's attempts at usurping their leader, he always was.

Tarantulus had requested that they discuss the terms of Terrorsaur's conquest in private and not in front of the Maximal so, while Terrorsaur personally locked Megatron away in a cage to be stored underneath the hanger, they had Rattrap in another. This ended up being a mistake as the both of them ended up escaping. Megatron's voice commands had not been disabled and he was able to unlock the cage and exit the hanger via a hover pad just by asking it to. Then Rattrap managed to get away into the vents where he stole the Maximal decoder chip they were using to hack the Maximals' communications, as Rattrap had only been a spy pretending to defect. Of course, Terrorsaur had not been the wiser when the Maximals attacked by Rattrap's silent signal, and the red pterosaur had panicked at how quickly things seemed to spiral out of his range of control. He all but had a spark attack when Megatron came up from behind to deviously ask what their course of action would be in a voice that was nothing but malevolent, although the tyrant's proposal still left him in charge. He was not sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He gave the order for everyone to counter attack, but things quickly turned to slag when they had their skid plates handed over to them by their enemies. More embarrassing still was the fact that Terrorsaur, still oblivious to Rattrap's treachery, had ordered him to shoot and kill Dinobot. He was answered back with a blast of plasma to the face that jarred his head right off his shoulders. The Maximals retreated with Rattrap in tow afterwards and Terrorsaur, quick to realizing inevitable punishment was unboundedly going to come to him, had his body frantically feel along the ground for his misplaced head. He only just found it when Megatron came over to address him about how much trouble he was in. When the tyrant asked the other Predacons - excluding Blackarachnia, who had curiously gone missing after the firefight - if they would still follow their "glorious victor" as a leader, they all backed up as a silent decline. This, to Terrorsaur's dismay, included Waspinator. The other flier did not seem inclined to speak up in Terrorsaur's defense despite being his wingmate.

After scolding Terrorsaur for his failure as a leader - and after his loose head accidentally fell from his shoulders again - Megatron delivered him the worst punishment he could have dreaded to receive. To Terrorsaur, it was a fate worse than death.

"As of right now, you're on house arrest for the next twenty-four megacycles. Don't get any ideas either, traitor. I'll have Scorponok board up the window and Tarantulus install a spy-cam so you don't try to evade punishment by taking the barricade down and sneaking out, yesss."

Terrorsaur had only been in lockdown for an megacycle, but it felt like forever. To imagine that he had to endure another twenty-three megacycles of Megatron's sick version of torture made the flier wish he had thought twice about bringing Rattrap into their base. How could he have been so stupid as to think that the Maximal had been serious about switching sides? He was a rat for spark's sake.

On the clock on the bedside table, the timer suddenly moved up a single minute and Terrorsaur gave a loud shriek in impatient exasperation. He threw his arms into the air, stomped over to his berth, and he flopped down onto it angrily while still maintaining his glare on the clock. Fine, so now he had twenty-two megacycles and fifty-nine cycles left to endure, but that still did not stop him from rapping his fingers nervously on the side of the berth. At most, being in lockdown in his dark room would have at least been more endurable if his window was not blocked off by a sheet of metal that was bolted to the wall to prevent its removal. As a flier, if he could not be in the sky, he at least had to see it. If not…

Terrorsaur glanced around the room anxiously. He had to deactivate his optics and inhale deeply several times to keep himself from panicking. "Primus damn claustrophobia," he muttered.

The door to his room hissed open. "Terror-bot sure knows how to screw up, doesn't he?"

Terrorsaur looked up from his place on the berth to see Waspinator walk in. Whereas Megatron made it very clear that Terrorsaur couldn't leave without having worse punishments forced on him - in his case, more lockdown time - he never said anything about visitors. Waspinator was certainly no exception to the rule, since Megatron did not clearly specify that Terrorsaur's wingmate couldn't see him. The door hissed shut behind Waspinator and the wasp made a disapproving razz. "Why so dark? Wazzpinator can't see!"

"Don't turn the light on," Terrorsaur groaned. He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his arms. "It will just remind me about how tiny this place is."

Waspinator scoffed irritably. "Tiny? Room is huge! Is second largezzt quarter on entire ship!"

Terrorsaur detected Waspinator sitting himself on the edge of the bed by his feet, and the red flier unconsciously curled into a ball. "You know what I mean, Waspy. You're not as bad off as I am, but you know how I feel about being caged like this."

"Like Megatron and Rat-bot?"

"Shut up."

Waspinator sighed heavily. Terrorsaur collected his bearings and spared himself a moment to look up and over his shoulder to regard the other mech with weary scarlet optics. Waspinator was leaning on the wall behind him where the bed was pushed up against it and the wasp was looking at the ceiling thoughtfully. Terrorsaur had to look away from the roof of the room feeling like it was going to slowly compress down on top of him. He deactivated his optics and focused on his shaky breathing, but the darkness that met him only seemed to enhance his feeling of entrapment. Regardless, Waspinator's voice broke through his rising sense of panic. "At least Megatron did not decide to put Terror-bot in actual cage, right?"

"Can we please stop talking about small enclosed spaces?" Terrorsaur couldn't stop the strain from showing through his voice.

"What does Terror-bot want to talk about?"

"Preferably nothing. Why don't you just let we wallow in my own self pity already? I don't recall inviting you to rub slag in my face, buzz brain."

Waspinator blew a raspberry and Terrorsaur felt the wasp change positions on the berth. He detected the other mech lying on his side behind him and, out of instinct, Terrorsaur moved aside slightly as to make room for the other flier. At that, Waspinator settled beside him and threw and arm over his upper back in an almost protective manner. If the wasp Predacon had been anyone else, Terrorsaur would have perhaps felt even more constricted than before. Of course, seeing as he and Waspinator shared a relationship that was far more personal than the rest of their relations with the other residents of the Darkside, Terrorsaur felt far more safe than trapped. Despite himself, Terrorsaur forced himself to relax. His wingmate started speaking again from behind him in the dark. "Talking makes time go by. Look."

Terrorsaur cracked an optic online to glance at the clock on the bedside table. True to the wasp's word - and to Terrorsaur's immense surprise - ten entire cycles had gone by. Now he only had to endure twenty-two megacycles and forty-nine cycles, not fifty. The red flier sighed lightly with minor relief and he deactivated his optics again. "So… Blackarachnia. Think she's cute?"

Waspinator buzzed tetchily. "Not nearly as cute as Terror-bot when he pouts," he said before reaching for Terrorsaur's hand and gripping it.

Terrorsaur grinned to himself and he held Waspinator's hand back.

Despite being claustrophobic, he at least had a better chance of not screaming or going insane with Waspinator distracting him.

Fin