Title: Immolation (part 10/100)
Prompt: "Touch"
Verse: G1 (AUish)
Rating: NC-17
Words: 1079
Pairings: Inferno/Red Alert, implied Motormaster/Inferno, implied ?/Inferno
Other Characters: None.
Warnings: Sticky. Graphic and disturbing injuries from rape. Strong risk of serious squick*.
Summary: Red Alert performs some emergency first aid on Inferno.
Notes: A continuation of my series of vignettes on the theme of Inferno being raped, and how he and Red Alert deal with it, centred around prompts from slash_100.
Yay, 10% done!
Behold as I magically pull Cybertronian medical theories out of my aft!
Also, I mean it about the squick. If you are going to pick a prompt to skip, this is a good one. Really, if you read beyond this point and regret it, don't say I didn't warn you.
Groon: 1 hour
Orbital cycle: 1 day
*squick - a verb meaning to cause unease or feelings of revulsion, most often applied to a reader's reaction to a specific scenario, derived from the word "squeamish" and the slang term "icky." (blackraptor (dot) net / m7fic / contents / terms (dot) htm)
Touch
After some persistent yelling from Red Alert, the guard finally took the time to fling a very old, very expired medkit into the cell. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to do. Opening the kit, the security director uncertainly took stock of its contents – the modicum of battlefield first aid all Autobots were required to learn had never covered situations quite like this.
The kit was furnished with a generous supply of silicone rubber pressure bandages, typically used for tying off severed fuel lines, or shielding areas where the electrical system had been compromised and there was a danger of electric shock to those transporting the casualty. As he looked at the bandages, Red remembered Ratchet's suggestion of how to use them to deal with deep, leaking puncture wounds when the damaged lines couldn't be accessed. He picked up a bandage and began grimly rolling it into a firm tube shape.
A glance towards Inferno told him that the firetruck was still mercifully, although also somewhat worryingly, unconscious. It wasn't stasis, since his injuries were severe, but not life-threatening enough to have initiated such a state, so it was probably some sort of psychological reaction, which wasn't at all surprising. All in all, it was probably better this way, considering what Red Alert realized he would have to do.
He moved closer to Inferno, then hesitated, worried he would do more harm than good, not wanting to touch the horrific injuries lest he traumatize his lover further. On the other hand, he had no idea when, or if they were going to be released, so real medical care for Inferno might be groons, or even orbital cycles away, and while the energon leaking from his damaged ports was an amount small enough to not be an immediate danger, that could soon change if it wasn't brought to a stop.
Red Alert steeled himself. "I'm sorry, Inferno, but I can't just let you die." Very carefully he pressed the rolled tube of bandage up into Inferno's abused valve. Inferno flinched and whimpered, and Red froze, worried that the other mech would awaken and panic, but after a moment Inferno settled once again. Red resumed his painstaking work, cautiously moving the frayed and protruding inner lining back into place before securing the cylinder of bandage with a bit of electrical tape. The trickle of energon was immediately cut off, and he hoped that the pressure on the damaged areas would enable the internal repair systems to tend to the broken capillaries and seal them off.
He made another, slightly smaller roll and inserted it into Inferno's aft port, alarmed and sickened by how easily it went in. Inferno stiffened with a cry of anguish, his optics unshuttering as he tried weakly to scramble away. "Stop! Leave me alone! Please, no more...!"
"Inferno... Inferno, it's me, Red Alert." Red Alert spoke in a calm voice, and kept his distance, because even a weakened Inferno could cause some serious damage if he lashed out. "I'm just trying to help you. You have... you're badly hurt and losing energon and I need to do something to stem the flow."
After a moment Inferno stopped moving, and his gaze seemed to focus on Red for the first time. "...Red? Is that really you?"
"Yes, it's me." He wanted to say something comforting, to assure Inferno that he was safe, but the security director knew that until they were home again they were anything but. "I'm here. It's over now."
"...hold me..." the firetruck mumbled, lying back on the floor.
"I will," Red Alert assured his lover, "but I need to finish what I was doing first."
Inferno tried to sit up, presumably to take a look.
Red forestalled him with a hand on his chest, not wanting him to be upset further by the sight of his own damage. "Please Inferno, just lie down and keep still, if you jostle things around your self-repair systems won't be able to make inroads on the damage."
The large red mech lay back down again, but he was beginning to shiver so hard his frame rattled. "Do ya have ta stick it right in there?" he asked, shuttering his optics with a grimace of discomfort. "It hurts real bad."
"I know it does," Red Alert murmured soothingly. "But you're losing energon, and we can't let that go on. I'll be really careful, alright?"
Inferno bit his lip components and then nodded with clear reluctance.
Red Alert put aside the bandage that had fallen out and rolled a new, clean one, pushing it carefully inside Inferno, then taped it in place. "There that's it, we're all done." He rummaged through the rest of the kit, hoping for a shot of pain killer, even a module to dampen pain receptors, but there was nothing. It figured that the Decepticons would not go for such compassionate niceties as pain management.
"Red?"
"Yes, Inferno?"
"Do ya think ya could fix somethin' ta cover me? Motormaster... ripped off my panels an' he... he kept 'em as a souvenir..." The abject shame in his lover's normally proud, rich voice shook Red Alert to his core.
The bent and mangled edges of Inferno's pelvic armour took on a whole new meaning. So that was what the screaming had been about. He had guessed that Inferno, in a moment of defiance against the Stunticon leader, had shut his panels on him, due to the aforementioned Decepticon bellowing demands of "Open up!" The terrible, pained shouts he heard afterwards told him Inferno had paid dearly for his resistance, but not what had happened, precisely. "I'll see what I can do..."
The medkit yielded a thin, heat reflective blanket which Red Alert tore a strip of off, using it to cover Inferno's private areas and taping it down. He used the remainder of the blanket to cover up as much of the trembling crimson form as he could before lying down next to the other mech, pressing as close as possible.
At this point, had their situations been reversed, Inferno would have whispered that everything was going to be alright – a well-meaning, but very possibly incorrect platitude. Red Alert couldn't bring himself to do that, instead speaking the most comforting truth he could think of. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."