"Phantom Pain"
Continuity- IDW continuity, post-Maximum Dinobots.
It started out slowly, quietly for Sunstreaker. At first there were only words that popped up in unguarded moments, echoing briefly in his head and then dissipating. He refused to acknowledge them, certainly didn't speak to anyone about them, and continued on with his day-to-day.
help. please. stop. can't.
Soon, these phantom words began convalescing into key phrases and eventually into cogent pleas. Sunstreaker certainly wasn't going to entertain the thought of answering back or even admitting to himself that they were real. They were ghosts, nothing more or less, unwelcome reminders of…The Ordeal…he had suffered and would never revisit as long as he lived.
why. answer. please. you hear? help. stop him. Sunstreaker!
Time passes, the voice gets worse, is heard in his mind more frequently. Prime calls in reinforcements, specialists. Trailbreaker, Cliffjumper, Mirage…
Sideswipe.
Sunstreaker half-smiles and listens to Sideswipe's inane chatter and forced bravado. He grits his teeth as Sideswipe laughs like an idiot and unintentionally reminds him of…The Ordeal. Sunstreaker hates him, but at least Sideswipe keeps the voice away. When he listens to Sideswipe, he doesn't have to hear the voice.
He volunteers for communications-monitoring duty with an increasing regularity. Sunstreaker carefully deletes incoming messages that acknowledge the voice, messages that ask for Ratchet or Ironhide or Jazz or someone who can provide answers and/or closure.
He doesn't feel badly about it. After all, the voice doesn't exist.
The voice has become insistent in its scattered pleas of late, ever since he met with Starscream.
don't trust. warn them. not too late. not you.
Sunstreaker ignores it with practiced ease. It won't be long now. He won't have to hear it anymore. He'll be whole again. He'll be home.
Hope has become bitter ashes and Sunstreaker's body hurts all the time. Home is now poison to him and it is harder to focus on anyone or anything. At least the voice has stopped reverberating inside Sunstreaker's head. But it isn't much of a trade-off.
He sticks with Sideswipe, Ironhide, anyone who'll give him a chance to be distracted. But Ironhide is centered on something else and Sideswipe has become uncharacteristically reticent around him.
Sunstreaker thinks it was Ratchet. Ratchet told Sideswipe about…The Ordeal. And now Sideswipe thinks he understands, but he doesn't. How the hell could he?
Ratchet and Sideswipe didn't know about the voice. No one did. And Sunstreaker will keep it that way.
There's nothing to do but sit around and wait and wait and wait some more. Sunstreaker finds himself thinking about the voice and starts to imagine a face to it.
But the face is twisted in agony and Sunstreaker stops thinking about it because the voice never existed and he shouldn't be thinking about it anymore.
Sunstreaker is dragged to the ground and assailed from all angles.
Even with the neuro-poison flowing through his system, he feels the creatures tearing through his armor, rapidly picking his body apart. He understands it is a mercy compared to what the boy went through...is still going through. Sunstreaker can't help him now. He didn't think that far ahead.
There's a bomb at eye-level. Sunstreaker raises his gun and aims at it. Before he fires, Sunstreaker offers up a prayer to a deity he doesn't believe in and an overdue apology to a human boy he's sure doesn't believe in him anymore.
He's stunned when he receives a fragmented response.
not too late. understand. remember. we're still same.
Sunstreaker feels something stab through his abdomen and gives voice to his pain as he squeezes the trigger.
"Hunter."
