Sunstreaker sat alone in the corner. Well, alone except for Bob, who was sprawled happily over his pedes.
He was starting to like Swerve. Swerve was loud, obnoxious, nothing he said was worth listening to, so he made great background noise to drown out Sunstreakers thoughts.
Even better, he didn't ask too many questions of him, and he didn't limit his Engex consumption. The stuff was potent as any bootleg slag the golden mech had gotten in Kaon, and he had enough credits stashed in remotely accessible accounts to pay for as much as he pleased.
Which is what he did, quietly drinking himself into oblivion.
Since talking with Rung, he had not been feeling better. Actually, he'd felt worse, because the lid was off the jar, and his memories tended to jump to the surface with very little prompting.
As a result he'd done a lot of painting to try and purge it from himself, but now he was finding it nearly impossible to recharge. When he tried, he got in maybe a few breems to a cycle before the replays began.
He'd discovered a decent overcharge could mute the memories enough to allow a little more recharge, so he frequented the place a little more often.
He took the fact no one questioned this or acted concerned for his welfare as a sign it was probably the best solution.
Anyway, he saw the same crowd in there so often he guessed that they thought he was doing what they were… enjoying the place as much as possible before Magnus got wind of it.
Occasionally he spoke to whoever sat their aft down at his table. It was mostly just bots he didn't know trying to see if he was like what the mechs he'd served with painted him as.
Sunstreaker was honestly indifferent to their opinion. He didn't need their approval, and he wasn't going to be a different mech to try and gain the 'friendship' from mechs he honestly didn't find a liking for.
So far his favourite was Cyclonus… because Cyclonus had made no attempt to talk to him other than necessary pleasantries, and he didn't make any indication that they need be any more familiar than a simple head nod of recognition on sight.
Odd how he'd probably trust Cyclonus at his back in a fight more than anyone he'd spoken actual sentences with.
The again, the mech may feel no obligation to HAVE his back in a fight, so it was just as well he had Bob, he supposed.
He reached down to scritch the insecticon on the helm, getting a pleased rumble in response.
He swirled the blue liquid in his glass and looked into it, automatically analysing the hue and working out what paints would most accurately match it. Noting the way the light of it bounced off the surface of the table.
He took a swig and let his eyes rest on the table, unfocussed.
"Enjoying yourself, huh?"
Sunstreaker didn't bother going to the trouble of lifting his helm and focussing his optics.
He recognised Trailbreakers voice. The mech was overcharged too. As badly as him. Though he wasn't sure how, since the black mech tended to gesture a lot, which meant half his drink exited the glass without entering his tanks.
"I was." He murmured neutrally, taking another sip and getting a look at Trailbreaker as he tipped his helm back. On his pedes, he felt Bob shift a little.
"So, sell anyone else out lately?" the Black bot slurred roughly.
"No, sacrifice yourself to a horde of insecticons lately?" He sniped back coldly.
"Don't act like that was any big favour. Once a traitor, always a traitor." The mech countered sourly, jabbing his finger at Sunstreakers faceplates.
"Oh, OK. Dying once isn't repentance enough. Well, I'm here, how 'bout you shoot me and make it twice. That should do it, right? Just don't miss, I like the job done properly." He sat back, arms open and faceplate set in a hard, defiant expression.
Trailbreaker seemed to seriously consider it for a moment before scowling, lips twisting into a sneer.
"Don't tempt me. You don't get off that easy."
"Obviously." Sunstreaker rumbled, disappointed as he picked up his glass and slogged the rest back.
"You don't even care, do you?" Trailbreaker snarled, fist clenching against the tabletop as the golden mech fixed that blank, cold look on him again.
"Not that I feel like I have to explain myself, but I didn't do it because I wanted the Cons to kick our skid plates. I did it to the humans. And I never said I was smart for thinking Starscream upheld bargains."
"You've got slag for processors if you think I believe you gave a flying piston about the rest of us. No one is that dumb, you knew exactly what Screamer would do with that information." the defence specialist scoffed.
"Amazing what anger does to your rationality circuits. Anyway, don't cry at me about it, I gave you your option. Kill me or go get an appointment with Rung, I'm not here to make you feel better about it."
"How bout I see how long it takes to kill you with my fists in your face?" Trailbreaker stood, looming over Sunstreaker, and immediately jerked back with a yelp as Bob rammed his shins, clicking furiously and making a loud buzzing sound with the plating on his back.
"Down boy." Sunstreaker murmured absent mindedly.
"Hey hey, 'Breaker, better watch your step, I hear Bob can get mighty frisky when he latches onto your legs, better keep em' outta his reach." Swerve popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, and Sunstreaker had to admit it was the first time he was actually HAPPY to have him up close.
Obviously he'd seen trouble a mile off and was intervening to make sure nothing happened to bring attention to his establishment from the higher ups.
The fact he disguised it with ridiculous banter told the golden mech that Swerve really had found his calling in running a bar.
Trailbreaker gave Sunstreaker and Bob a last, filthy look before stalking away.
"What was under his plati- Oh, wait, that was about that thing you did huh? Ouch… need another drink? Same as usual? I'll put it on your tab."
The golden twin didn't even have to say a word, nodding to Swerve as he leant heavily on the table, hanging his helm and watching Trailbreaker out of the corner of his eye as he rejoined Blaster, Powerglide, Inferno and Hound in the opposite corner.
By the time the golden mech was ready to leave, Inferno and Hound had long gone, visibly less and less able to deal with Trailbreaker's sour mood.
The black mech had gotten more and more aggravated as the cycles had stretched on, and it seemed from the looks Powerglide was giving his companion that even he was a little unsettled by the normally mellow mech's attitude when overcharged.
"Ooookaaaay Bob. Leeets go." Sunstreaker was exceptionally good at walking straight while nearly blind drunk, but he knew he'd only get about halfway to his quarters before he fell flat on his faceplate.
Which was where a neat little trick he'd taught his insecticompanion came in handy.
He attached Bob's lead to the stud on the bots collar fairing, then linked the other end to his bumper, and transformed in the hallway.
Enthusiastically, Bob scrabbled against the decking, getting purchase and dragging his master home.
Mechs still stopped on the edges of the hall to stare in puzzled amusement as the Lamborghini was towed along by the Insecticon.
All he had to do was steer so he didn't hit the walls… too much. Eventually they got to the right corridor, and he needed to change up to enter his code.
His transformation was sluggish, and he managed to snag the lead in something.
"Fffffraggin' slagger bloody pit spawn-"
As he finished yanking it out of his wheel-well, Bob whirred and hissed.
By the time Sunstreaker had looked at him to see what the matter was and turned around to face whoever was coming, he got shoved to the floor on his back with a loud clang.
Bob made an angry shrieking noise as he attempted to defend his master and found himself blocked by an invisible force.
Sunstreaker recognised the feeling, having been restrained like this when being subdued from a broken up fist fight more than once.
"What the SLAG Trailbreaker?"
"What the slag do you THINK?" The black mech rumbled, stomping slowly down the hall to loom over the pinned warrior.
Either Trailbreaker held his engex well, or he really hadn't gotten as much IN him as Sunstreaker thought, because he was coherent enough to keep his field generator going without it faltering or fluctuating.
"Don't you think it's about time someone gave you a little payback?"
"You're still on about that?" Sunstreaker growled, gritting his denta against one another as the force field was rippled across his throat tubing in a warning press.
The ripples moved out across his frame, concentrating, narrowing to pin just his legs and arms.
The golden mech snarled up at Trailbreaker, optics flashing when the mech raised an arm laser, but he didn't point it at his pinned quarry.
A shot put an end to the high pitched screeching behind him and Sunstreaker's head snapped back.
"BOB!"
"Relax, he's stunned. No point killing him, not his fault he's your friend."
The frontliner took his optics off the lump of spiky yellow and purple to glare at Trailbreaker as the defence specialist loomed over him.
He struggled, but he really had no means to break the field's hold.
"Funny, you care more about a dumb bug than anyone you shed energon with." Trailbreaker's faceplate contorted into an ugly, bitter scowl and Sunstreaker felt another field ripple, concentrating in on his shoulder joints.
He grunted as pressure built in the joints, the field expanding between the gaps to slowly tear the mechanisms apart.
"You think this is worse?" He spat, the overcharge and pain making his helm swim and his optics flicker.
"Than what? What we suffered from your betrayal? Oh no, this is just a ta-"
"Than what those filthy meat bags did to me." Sunstreaker snarled.
At that, the pressure held, Trailbreaker seeming to digest that information slowly.
Sunstreaker cried out, engine whining as the force field was expanded explosively in the joints before dissipating.
He refreshed his fritzing optics a few times, shoulder joints both having made sick popping and cracking sounds as they were wrenched open and ruined.
"You're… pretty s-slagging sick when you wanna be… Breaker. Could almost… believe you were… a pits mech… like me." He rasped as he cycled air hard, adjusting to the agony and getting control of it.
"So you think because you suffered… the rest of us had to as well, huh?" Trailbreaker rumbled, accent broad with the effect of the engex.
"And you figure torturing me some more will put me straight?" Sunstreaker snarled back coldly.
He cried out as pressure suddenly exploded through his knee joints, shattering them both and making his engine gutter.
"No, but it sure as pit makes me feel better." the black mech growled.
With his arms and legs handicapped by the injuries, Sunstreaker felt the force field narrowed in to simply keep him pinned to the floor. Less effort for Trailbreaker, and much easier for him to uphold indefinitely with his overcharge of fuel.
The defence specialist moved forward, looking Sunstreaker up and down with darkened visor, standing with his pedes either side of golden hips and crouching slowly, the pressure increasing over Sunstreaker's chest plates.
The frontliner, hissing his ex-vents through his denta as he tried to suppress the excruciating pain of his exploded joints, grunted as his windshield cracked under the force field pressure.
Trailbreaker's engine revved angrily, and the pressure slowly began to dent the golden chest plates, right in the centre of his auto brand.
"I could put a field around your spark and crush it y'know. Or just slowly constrict it and disrupt the natural pulse rate until it went into shock and collapsed… flash out… I hear that's an excruciatingly painful way to die." Trailbreaker murmured quietly, as if merely observing these things out-loud to himself.
"So why don't you already?" Sunstreaker spat, optics a little paler and brighter than usual.
"Because I'm not a Decepticon. I'm better than that." He rumbled, petulant tone underscored by the tiniest hint of hesitance.
"Oh sure, ngh!… because torturing… a defenceless mech… is totally Autobot- AGH!"
The golden mech panted, letting out small keens as he reeled from the sudden wrench against his chest plates where Trailbreaker had ripped out his Autobrand with his force field.
"So on a scale from one to humans, how am I doing so far?" the black mech sneered.
Sunstreaker struggled to get his engine under control, twitching slightly from the near-overwhelming barrage of pain signals from all points of his frame.
"Sorry… Br-reaker… you'll never… ha-ave anything on those… pit-slag spawned… flesh bags…"
"Of course… because they didn't just hurt you, did they? They got inside you… messed with your head… well guess what, that's how it felt for us… Prime nearly died 'cause of you. Lotta mechs shattered by you, in here."
He jabbed his chest plates. "And in here." He tapped his helm, engine whining slightly as it revved high with emotion.
"The distrust that infected us nearly tore us all apart. You know how it felt? We felt violated… I think I know how to share that feeling with you…"
Sunstreaker's optics widened as he felt pressure on his codpiece, giving a strangled cry as an internal expanding field popped it off.
"Breaker… don't… you're overcharged. You're not like this. You're going to regret it when you sober u-"
Sunstreaker grunted, vocaliser hissing with feedback as a micro-field paralysed it.
"Don't tell me how I'm going to feel as if you give a DAMN SLAG!" He snarled, baring his denta angrily, lip-plates squealing from being contorted in rage.
The muted mech gave him a last, intense look and shook his helm.
Trailbreaker growled and pulsed a field into the exposed valve, over-expanding the sensor-laden lining and causing the mech beneath him to convulse in agony, silenced by his other field concentration.
He mercilessly pulsed the field in the valve, as if pounding a far too large object into the golden mech, violating him hard and deep, and where it would hurt the most.
He heard lining tear, knew he'd crushed a few nodes, and only stopped once he heard the socket at the top of the port dislodge.
He had watched Sunstreaker's face with a painful sort of satisfaction the whole time, a knot of cold conviction forming in his tank.
Sunstreaker had purged his engex laden tanks the moment his valve had torn, and Trailbreaker let him turn his helm, looking behind once he was done to see a decent trickle of energon coming from the shattered interface equipment.
"Guess it'll be a while before you can bend over and take a frag from your pet over there." he sneered, giving a short, cold laugh and standing, looking over his handiwork.
"And in case you were wondering, I turned the camera that watched this hall when I came down, so don't think Red Alert is going to be coming to help your sorry aft. You can send your little friend off to fetch Ratchet when he wakes up."
Sunstreaker's frame still twitched and shuddered, systems in shock from the brutal, intense attack.
He didn't look at Trailbreaker, too busy shutting down parts of his emotional centre internally, most of his processing power spent on just handling and coping with the pain signals.
The black mech crouched by his helm and grasped a helm fin, crushing it slightly and making Sunstreaker's optics fritz as he forced him to meet his gaze.
"You just remember this feeling… this is the feeling you brought down on every bot fighting on earth… every single one… If we had to live with it, so do you."
He released his helm, smacking it against the decking as he shoved away and walked off down the hall.
Sunstreaker stared at the medbay ceiling, optics dim and faceplate blank.
It still wasn't as bad.
It… was bad, but it still wasn't AS bad…
"How you holding up?" Ratchet's voice had taken on that same, weirdly careful tone around him again… the same one he'd used when he'd woken up after being separated from Hunter.
He gave Ratchet a look and went back to staring at the ceiling.
"First Aid tells me you refuse to name the mech that attacked you."
That was better. That held that old gruff, irritated edge of the REAL Ratchet.
He didn't have any response to that though, so he just shuttered his optics once.
"You do realise I KNOW no mech but Trailbreaker could do this, right?"
Again, not really something he could respond to, but he was feeling oddly soothed by how Ratchet was getting more and more agitated.
Beside him, the old medic sighed, dragging over a stool and sitting heavily.
Sunstreaker turned his helm to look at him, slightly curious, silently questioning Ratchet's intention in making himself comfortable.
The red and white mech merely returned his questioning gaze with a calculating one.
"Look, I know bots are still angry at you for the Starscream thing… but you and I both know you've paid your dues for that. Why'd you let him do this to you? You could have taken him, I mean… It's Trailbreaker, not Grimlock."
"We were both slagged off our faceplates and he got the jump on me." Sunstreaker rasped blandly, giving a minute shrug since any large movement of his shoulders sent blinding pain shooting up to his processor.
He was in full traction to restrict movement as it was, mostly mag-locked to the med-berth to prevent him from ruining First-Aid's tedious and half finished repairs that had taken the young medic all night cycle.
"How's Bob doing?"
Ratchet sighed at the obvious question dodge, but answered anyway.
"He's fine, Hound took a look and declared his damage superficial. He's kinda sulky, but then he probably has a headache. Chromedome and Rewind volunteered to take care of him."
"Oh good, he likes them. Make sure they don't feed him too many energon goodies though, or he'll just get hyper and purge on them."
"Did he say anything to you? Or did he just attack you?"
Sunstreaker gave Ratchet a rather exasperated look.
"Why does it even matter? Aren't you supposed to, y'know, be a bit more thoughtful with rape victims?"
Ratchet scowled at him. "Yeah, except you already let me know how little you cared about that kind of violation several vorn ago. I know full well the resistances you build in the Pits, what I want to know is what frame of mind he was in to do something this slagging disgusting. He mighta been bottling his anger, and overchugged, but that doesn't excuse ANYTHING he did to you. This is the sort of damage I might expect from Vortex, never mind just a regular Con, and certainly not an Autobot."
Sunstreaker cycled his vents in a sigh, staring up at the ceiling again and remaining silent.
The medic gave a resigned huff.
"Fine, fine, I get it. If you're not gonna talk to me, you're still going to have to talk to Rung you know."
He got up with a slight groan, pistons hissing in a familiar way that Sunstreaker found comforting.
"I'm ok with that." He murmured. In fact, he had a fair few questions for the psychiatrist. Like how the slag he was supposed to recharge now when his meta wouldn't shut-up.
"Well that's great. You'll talk to a bot you're barely acquainted with, but not your CMO of how many millions of years who's pulled your aft back from the brink how many times?"
"Never said I didn't appreciate that." Sunstreaker responded quietly.
Ratchet turned a slightly less irritated look on him. "Yeah, well… he'll be in to see you in about a cycle or so. He's talking to Trailbreaker in the brig at the moment."
The red and white mech fetched some tools and returned, settling down to work on the shattered joints, muttering now and then about the finicky damage and cursing out the defence specialist.
"Ratchet?"
"Hmmm?" He glanced at the golden mech.
"You want me to paint those up for you when my arms are working again?"
Sunstreaker nodded at the predominantly blue servos buried about six inches into his shoulder.
Ratchet gave a soft rumble. "Yeah. That'd be good, thanks."
"He acted like he gave a slag about ME, when I wanted to make him hurt… as much as I could. What the slag is that even about? Some slaggy attempt to make me stop?"
Rung made a note of the lack of conviction in Trailbreaker's tone.
The mech was clearly at a stage somewhere between horrible self-loathing and trying to justify what he'd done to himself.
"Are you aware of his history as a gladiator?"
Trailbreaker shifted at the question, grimace tightening slightly in confusion.
"Yeah… every Bot and Con knows he and his brother were in the pits. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Just go with me here… how much do you know about the pits? What the conditions were, what the fighters would do to one another while incarcerated there?"
Another, more openly uncomfortable shift.
"I heard… things. Never knew anything for certain, never went there. Knew one bot that was. He only talked about it when he was tanked. No one liked to stick around because… all he talked about were the horrible things he'd seen happening there."
"Did you ever hear him talk about the frequent rape that occurred? That was in fact forced upon unwilling participants as a form of entertainment for those with much looser morals?"
Rung's voice was calm and unaccusatory, but his gaze on Trailbreaker was sharp and pointed.
"I… yeah, but…"
There was a very uncomfortable pause in which the black mech floundered for some kind of footing, the topic throwing him as far as how he was supposed to respond.
"I cannot reveal the history of my other patients, but you are an intelligent mech. I'm sure you can work out what I'm getting at here. Statistically, the likelihood that any mech who spent longer than an orn in the pits in Kaon was raped or forced to commit rape, or willingly committed it, is ninety-seven percent."
He let that figure sink in, a little colour leeching from Trailbreaker's visor.
"Now, in light of that, it may be concluded that you were not his first attacker in that capacity. It may also be possible that he was in a position similar to yours once, as an attacker. He and his brother were in there much longer than an orn. His… advice to you, was likely a genuine attempt to get you to reconsider for your OWN sake."
Trailbreaker buried his faceplate in his servos and shook his helm.
"Not that you ought not to feel remorse for your actions, which it's clear to me you do to some degree… but your attack was not something new to Sunstreaker."
"I… I still hate him… but I hate myself more… Primus, I'm lower than a Con…" He moaned into his servos, continuing to shake his helm, visor dim.
"My advice is to let go of your hate for him. Keeping in mind he has been in your position before, how well do you think he likes himself?" Rung stated quietly, still watching Trailbreaker with impartial intent.
The black bot dropped his servos from his faceplate and slumped with his elbows on his knees, the energon-bars of his brig cell throwing stark shadows across his grimacing faceplate.
Rung sighed softly and stood, making a last note on his in-built display before folding it against his frame again.
"I'll be back for another talk tomorrow, at which time Ultra Magnus will also be present to assess your re-offence likelihood. If you wish to talk to me again before that, you can call for me, but I may have other patients to see first."
"Tell him… tell him I didn't… I'm sorry." Trailbreaker blurted as the psychiatrist walked just beyond his cell.
Rung turned back momentarily to fix him with a neutral look.
"I'm afraid you'll have to tell him that yourself, for it to be truly meaningful Trailbreaker."