[fic] Night Terrors
5 March 2019 13:53![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wyntir_knightTitle: Night Terrors
Fandom: Transformers
Characters/Pairing: Smokescreen, Ratchet, Smokescreen/Ratchet
Rating: M
Summary: Smokescreen wakes from a very bad defrag that ends up dragging up something from his past that he does not want to remember or talk about.
Warning: Mentions of past non-con, PTSD, Panic Attack, verbal abuse.
Author’s Note: An LJ user (@bamshee) posted a prompt in January of 2016 that I just couldn’t help but fall in love with: “Fav trope: Severely traumatised Character A waking from a nightmare in Character B’s arms. Character B consoling and comforting panicky and upset Character A. Character A clinging to Character B. Character B cuddles Character A through a long, sleepless night.”
---
Ratchet had always recharged lightly. Even before his time as an intern he would online at the slightest sound. It was a habit that served him well in his personal life as well as with the Autobots. He didn’t want to think of the number of times the Terror Twins tried to break into his quarters to “cheer him up” after a particularly bad battle. Waking up at the slightest sound always helped in not getting surprised on those nights.
It was the soft moan that brought him out of recharge.
“Smokey?” Ratchet asked as he propped himself up on one elbow.
The Praxian had rolled onto his back, pressing his doors uncomfortably into the padding of the berth. His face was twisted in what could only be described as pain and pleasure all in one. He moaned again, arching up into an invisible touch, but his face was a mask of pain and fear.
“... please ... “ Smokescreen whispered. “... don’t …. I can’t …. “
As Ratchet watched, Smokescreen let out a pathetic whimper and his panel snapped open. He flung one arm above his head while he clutched at the bedding with his other hand, twisting the covers in what could only be described as a death grip.
“Smokescreen,” Ratchet said gently, “you’re having a bad defrag. It’s all okay, you just need to wake up.”
Smokescreen shook his head violently, his hips arching up as if meeting a thrust, his fans kicking on to cool his systems. It would be incredibly erotic if it wasn’t so very, very disturbing.
“Please don’t!” he cried out, still deep in his defrag cycle. “Please! … I can’t! ... No! … Stop!”
He began to thrash on the berth, twisting and arching, each movement risking serious damage to his door panels. Normally Ratchet wouldn’t touch Smokescreen when he had nights like this - he had been Special Ops for too long and would often wake up violently. But this was clearly no mere nightmare. This was something far more and possibly far worse.
“Smokey? Love, wake up. You need to wake up now,” he said in as soothing a tone as he could manage.
Preparing to be punched, Ratchet reached out and placed a gentle hand on Smokescreen’s shoulder.
“No!” Smokescreen shrieked, his vocalizer fritzing with the strain, and in what seemed like a single motion he was off the berth and crouched in the corner. “Please! Don’t make me anymore! Please, I promise I’ll be good! Please!” The last plea was drawn out into a keen of pain and agony finally choked off with a sob.
The words, the tone, the implication behind it - they were all spark-breaking. Ratchet approached slowly, making sure that his hands were well in sight. As he moved, Smokescreen watched him in a clear panic, but his optics were jet white. It wasn’t Ratchet he was seeing.
“You’re okay. Smokey,” Ratchet murmured. “You’re okay. You’re safe and no one is going to make you do anything. You’re safe now. Just come back to me.”
Smokescreen flinched and Ratched stopped his approach, choosing instead to squat down in front of him.
“I won’t come any closer. I won’t do anything you don’t want. I promise,” he said in a low monotone - it was a tone he had heard Smokey use on other mechs when he was talking them down from a panic attack.
A shudder passed through Smokescreen’s body and when he onlined his optics they were a pale, sickly blue.
“Ratch?” he asked, his voice staticky and broken. “What happened?”
“You had a bad defrag,” Ratchet replied. “Can I touch you? Would that be okay?”
A momentary flash of panic passed over Smokescreen’s face before he schooled his features.
“I’m okay,” he said as he stood, avoiding Ratchet’s optics. “But I’m not going to be able to get back into recharge. I’ll go to my office and get some paperwork done.”
Ratchet fought the urge to pull Smokescreen into a hug.
“You can stay here. We can talk, if you need to. I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”
Smokescreen’s hand hesitated at the door.
“I, uhm …” He vented shakily and shook his head.
When he looked up his mask was firmly back in place. A teasing smile pulling at his lips that didn’t quite reach his optics, his doors were high, loose and relaxed. To anyone else there would be no sign of the night terror he had just suffered.
“I’m fine, Ratch. You’ve had a long day and you need to get your recharge. There’s no point in you heading back to your quarters.”
“Smokey ...,” Ratchet began. He wanted to talk Smokescreen out of leaving, to try to get him to talk. But he knew on some level that it would do no good.
He sighed in defeat. “Your panel’s open,” he finally said.
That haunted look was back for the barest instant. But then Smokescreen reached between his legs and snapped his panel closed and he left his quarters.
Not willing to take no for an answer, Ratchet followed Smokescreen from the berthroom and into his attached office. He found the psychologist staring at his desk. His doors were low and trembling and he was tracing his fingers over the surface. For a long time he stood like that, barely moving, optics glued to something that may not have been there. Earlier in the night they had been in the office after their respective shifts had ended. They had been a little drunk and a lot frisky. Part way through their activities Ratchet had bent Smokescreen over the desk and all hell had broken loose. As soon as his chest had touched the desk’s surface and Ratchet had pressed up against his aft, Smokescreen had stiffened and immediately yelled out his safe word in a absolute and blind panic.
“This is about earlier, isn’t it?” Ratchet asked softly.
Smokescreen had insisted at the time that his doors were kinked and then proceeded to thoroughly distract Ratchet from asking any further questions. Ratchet should have known better than to take him at his word. It had clearly been time for some aftercare and he had completely missed it.
Smokescreen vented sharply but turned after a moment, an almost stepford smile firmly in place.
“No. Not at all, love. Things earlier were great, I just … uhm, just a glitch. That’s all. Nothing but a momentary glitch.” Smokescreen approached Ratchet with a seductive sway to his steps that only managed to come across as creepy with that smile in place. He took Ratchet’s hands and began to kiss the tip of each finger. “In fact, if you wanted to try again, I wouldn’t be opposed to-”
“Smokescreen, stop,” Ratchet said gently, pulling away and taking hold of the psychologist’s hands. “You don’t need to pretend with me. Something really upset you and you don’t need to act like it didn’t happen. Please, just talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. You don’t need to shoulder whatever this is on your own.”
Smokescreen pulled away both physically and emotionally as his field shrank down and his armour pulled in close to his protoform. He crossed his hands under his bumper as if holding himself together and turned his back on Ratchet.
“I can’t tell you,” he whispered so low that Ratchet was sure he wasn’t meant to hear. “You’ll hate me if I tell you.”
“Smokey, I won’t hate you. I could never hate you not matter what you tell me. I just want to help you. Please. Let me help you.”
Smokescreen’s doors stiffened at the request.
“Ratchet,” he said in a voice that was as cold as space, “this isn’t working out. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and I think that it’s more than past time that we moved on.”
Ratchet shook his head and sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Really? You’d rather break up with me than tell me what’s going on?”
“I've seen how the Twins look at you. And more important I've seen how you look at them,” Smokescreen snapped, never turning around. “So let's just end this farce, okay? It was fun while it lasted but we both know this is more than over.”
“Are you done?” Ratchet asked.
Smokescreen finally turned. He held his doors high, his armour was flared - all clear signs of Praxian aggression.
“Get out,” he growled. “We’re done. We’re over. Go warm someone else’s berth. I’m sure you’ll have no shortage of takers.”
“So you’re not done,” Ratchet said. “Fine. I can wait all night, Smokey. I’m not going to leave you alone like this.”
He took a seat on the patient couch and settled in. Tantrums weren’t Smokescreen’s style. But pointed and directed cruelty was. If he couldn’t talk his way out of a problem he’d push the problem away - always knowing exactly where to verbally strike a mech to do the most damage.
“Did you really think that this was going to last?” Smokescreen sneered and he began to close in on Ratchet, moving more like a predator than a lover. “I mean, look at you. What kind of a medic has that personality? Above all else, do no harm. Isn’t that how the pledge goes? And yet how many mechs have you-”
“Alright, enough!” Ratchet snapped, cutting Smokescreen off mid-barb. “You really want me to leave so badly that you’d drag up my losses and throw them at me? What next? Were you going to name all the mechs I’ve lost on the table? How many I’ve been forced to deactivate over the course of this war? You’re better than this and I honestly thought that you knew me better as well.”
“Then leave.” Smokescreen’s smile was a cruel slash across his face, but his optics were still haunted. “Don’t like the facts then run away from them. It’s what you’re good at. Go get overcharged or work yourself into deactivation. It won’t change a damned thing.”
Silence descended over the room.
“Okay. Fine.” Ratchet stood from the couch and headed toward the door. “You want to play things this way, then we can play things this way. I’m going to my bay to get some med-grade and a couple diagnostic tools. We can keep talking when I get back. Maybe by then you’ll be done with whatever this is,” he said waving vaguely in Smokescreen’s direction, “and we can discuss things like the millennia old beings we are.”
Smokescreen looked at Ratchet defiantly and said nothing, but his doors were starting to shake in a barely discernible quiver. One could always count on a Praxian’s doors to give them away eventually. With a shake of his head, Ratchet left the office, knowing that the door would be locked by the time he returned.
“Red Alert,” he said over a tight comm band to the security director, “I need you to keep an optic on Smokescreen and keep me updated if he does anything stupid. He’s in his office.”
“I don’t have cameras in the psychology office,” Red Alert replied stiffly.
“Smelter slag! This is a medical issue and I’m getting some supplies from my bay. Now activate those damned cameras and let me know if he tries to hurt himself!” Ratchet snapped back.
There was a long pause on the line.
“Acknowledged,” Red Alert finally said and shut down his end of the connection.
---
Red Alert turned the camera on in the psychology office and was immediately met with an image of Smokescreen stalking the space like a caged beast. There was no sound, but it was clear that he was talking to himself. No, judging by the doors and the flare of his armour, he was yelling at himself. It was an agitation that Red Alert knew well from his time with Prowl. Not that Prowl allowed anyone but him and Jazz to see that particular emotion.
Suddenly Smokescreen stopped his pacing and turned to stare at the desk. He grabbed a data pad and began looking through it, and it was clear that he was venting deeply as if trying to calm himself. Smokescreen’s back was to the camera but judging by the sharp angle of his doors, Red Alert was sure that he was squeezing the pad in his hands. For a long moment he didn’t move, and then with a silent scream, Smokescreen threw the pad against the far wall where it shattered under the impact.
Smokescreen turned and faced the camera giving Red Alert a good view of the anguish etched into his faceplates. It was a look Red Alert knew well from his own experiences recovering from his encounter with Starscream when the Negavator had exploded, and he felt his engine stall as his spark spun wildly.
“I’m back,” Ratchet said, startling Red Alert aware. “You can turn off the cameras.
He looked at the camera and Smokescreen was sitting on the couch, his head buried in his hands. Red Alert shook his head to clear away his own demons before responding.
“He’s fine. He hasn’t moved off the couch. And may I remind you that I am not your sitter, especially not during a lovers’ spat. The security system is to be used for security only.”
He snapped off his side of the communication and took a deep and cleansing breath before going back to his monitoring of the base and environs. He’d need to speak with Prowl about all this later.
---
The door was locked, just as Ratchet had thought it would be. He sighed and used his medical override to bypass it. As Red Alert had said, Smokescreen was sitting on the couch, head in his hands, doors shaking violently.
“Smokes? I’m back. I’ve got some energon and I want to run some scans. Would that be okay?”
Smokescreen looked up at Ratchet, his optics pale and his vents were running far slower and rougher than they should have been. He opened his mouth, but only static came out. After a few tries he managed to reset his vocalizer.
“Why are you back?” Smokescreen asked hoarsely. “I wouldn’t fault you for staying away.”
“I know you remember?” Ratchet said as he started to scan his friend and lover. “You were trying to get me to stop asking. And I will. If you don’t want to talk to me about whatever you went through, then I’ll respect that. But I need you to remember that I’m here for you. No matter what. All I ask is that you stop pushing me away.”
The scanner showed that Smokescreen’s energon levels were low and his engine could stand some re-tuning but other than that, he was physically fine.
“I know. I just …” Smokescreen shook his head and sighed - it was a miserable sound. “I’ve never told anyone. The only people who knew what happened to me are long deactivated. At least I think they all are.”
Ratchet opened one of the containers of medical high grade and handed it to Smokescreen before taking a seat in the chair opposite the couch.
“If you want, I’ll just stay up with you,” he said. “Or we could go to the rec room to watch some vids or play some cards once you’ve drunk that cube. Your levels are low.”
Smokescreen took a sip of the energon and made a face of disgust.
“This stuff is awful, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know it’s not up to your normal standards, but you can’t have any high grade until you’ve drunk that,” Ratchet replied gently. “And even then I might not let you. I don’t want it interfering with your defrag.”
Smokescreen made a rude noise as he took another sip of the energon.
“Yeah, defragging is the last thing I want right now. It just brings back the slag I don’t want to remember.”
“Yeah, but if you put it off too long you’ll start hallucinating,” Ratchet replied gently. “It happened to me once just after I graduated and started my first series of rotations. I had been ignoring the messages and the warnings, and then I started taking suppressors to put it off. In the end I started hallucinating right before I was set to assist on my first major surgery and I was put on mandatory leave.”
“I know that. Logically I know that,” Smokescreen replied. “But it doesn’t make it any easier. I think I may have partitioned myself too many times and every once in a while these memories bleed into those memories bleed into those patient files bleed into … you get the idea. When I’m online I can keep the barriers up properly but when I’m recharging? Sometimes the defrag cycle thinks it’s helping me by fixing what it views as errors.”
He leaned back against the couch and offlined his optics.
“And you know, I should have known that I was going to have a problem tonight,” he continued. “Even before the desk I knew that tonight might be bad. I should never have invited you to stay. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
“Smokescreen, this isn’t your fault,” Ratchet said. He moved to sit next to his friend, but kept his hands to himself. “Look at me. None of this is your fault. We all break down sometimes. There’s no shame to it.”
Smokescreen made a rude noise but he did look at Ratchet. His optics were a sickly blue and his colour was almost but not quite greying at the edges. Neither was a good colour.
“Quoting me back to myself?” he asked.
“You’re the best psychologist I know.”
“Liar,” Smokescreen replied, but there was some slight amusement in his tone.
After a long moment he shifted over and cuddled next to Ratchet, pulling the medic’s arm over his shoulder and rested his head against his broad chest.
They stay like that for a long time - Smokescreen drinking the med-grade and Ratchet silently monitoring his systems.
“It was a memory of something that happened during the Clampdown, only it drifted with stuff from this evening and it was you instead of- … instead of the person it really was. Actually it was a couple of memories combined from then.”
Ratchet pulled Smokescreen tight against his side. He had always been reticent to talk about what had happened to him during the Clampdown and Ratchet had never pushed. No matter how much he wanted to. Instead he held his friend and lover and … they’d never talked about more than that, but Ratchet had to admit that a part of him wanted to broach the subject eventually.
“I caught the attention of Sentinel Prime while I was … let’s just say ‘working’ for the Council’s spymaster,” Smokescreen said in an almost flat voice. “I was supposed to move around at parties, flirt a little, talk to people, hear things that no one thinks twice about saying in front of shareware.”
“Escort,” Ratchet said tenderly. “You were never shareware.”
Smokescreen’s laugh held nothing but pure bitterness.
“Yeah, Proteus changed all that. He took all the pleasurebots under his wings and promised that he would re-educate us and put us to work as productive members of society. Instead he just picked out the ones he found most useful and put us to work as spies in the berths of the elite and the Senate. The rest … I don’t know for sure but I suspect he had the rest deactivated.”
Ratchet kissed the top of Smokescreen’s head and held him tighter as if he could keep the past at bay with his presence alone.
“I am so sorry, love. … I had heard rumours that there was some kind of spy network but it was always the kinds of rumours you’d hear to keep people in line. I wish I’d know that it was his and that you were there.”
Smokescreen shrugged slightly, dismissively.
“I was at a party when Sentinel saw me. Apparently I looked just enough like Prowl to catch his attention.”
“Wait,” Ratchet said as he tried to turn to look at Smokescreen without actually letting him go. “Why Prowl?”
“Apparently Prowl was already an advisor to the Prime. And he had no problem telling Sentinel that he was being an idiot. … not in those words, of course. I’m sure it was far more Prowl-like.”
“And I’m guessing that Sentinel didn’t appreciate Prowl’s directness?”
Smokescreen actually chuckled at that. “Yeah, no one told Sentinel no and got away with it. But apparently Prowl was under some kind of protection from someone. Never did learn who that was, but I suspect that the Council appreciated his dedication to form and function.”
“I’m guessing that Sentinel didn’t want to talk when you said he took notice of you. I’m not trying to prompt you, just saying,” Ratchet added quickly. He had said he wouldn’t pry and he had meant that. He wanted to give Smokescreen all the time he needed.
“Yeah. At first he just screamed at me as if rehashing conversations he’d had that day. I knew enough to stay silent, to just take it and let it flow over me. That seemed fine at first; after all, he wanted Prowl to be cowed before him. I don’t know why things changed - if he started paying more or if my … handlers, I guess? Or if they had told him that they could repair any damage he did to my frame.”
Ratchet rested his head against Smokescreen’s and allowed their fields to brush against each other, allowing nothing by sympathy and love to be felt.
“Eventually yelling and beatings weren’t enough for his particular fantasies. He, uhm, … He’d request that I be repainted to match Prowl’s colours. And then he apparently decided that cowering wasn’t enough and he got creative. Bent over the desk so he could twist my doors was his favourite position.”
Ratchet felt his engine stall at that confession and he tightened his grip on Smokescreen as if he could take all that pain away with his presence alone.
“Oh, Primus, Smokey! I am so, so sorry! I’m sorry I ever put you in that-”
Smokescreen pulled away and placed a hand over Ratchet’s mouth.
“It’s not your fault, Ratch,” he said emphatically. “I never told you. I’ve always been very clear about what I don’t want and I never told you that one. You can’t be expected to read my processor!”
Ratchet offlined his optics and leaned forward to press his chevron against Smokescreen’s.
“I know that,” he said in a gentle near whisper. “It doesn’t change the fact that I hurt for you. The fact that a Prime of all mechs would do that to anyone. It makes me glad that Megatron crushed his spark.”
“Yeah. As twisted as it is, me too,” Smokescreen said.
He sighed softly and scrubbed his hands over his faceplates wearily before checking his chronometer.
“I think I’m feeling a little better, Ratch. We should probably try to get back to recharge. Our shifts are going to be coming up far too quickly.”
Ratchet smiled. “I already spoke to my team and to Prowl. I’ve had my shift and your patrol put off. I’m claiming a medical issue.”
Smokescreen chuckled at that. “They’re going to think that we’re fragging like petro-rabbits and that you’re using your position to get away with it.”
“Let them,” Ratchet said with a negligent shrug. “We both need our recharge.”
He stood and held his hand out to Smokescreen, pulling the other mech into a hug as soon as he was on his feet.
“Just try to remember that you can talk to me. You can tell me no. You can confide in me. Whatever you want. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Ratchet,” Smokescreen replied as they headed back to the berth room. “I’ll try to remember. I promise.”
They settled into the berth, Ratchet holding Smokescreen close as the Praxian drifted back into recharge.
“I’ll keep you safe, Smokey. Always.”
Fandom: Transformers
Characters/Pairing: Smokescreen, Ratchet, Smokescreen/Ratchet
Rating: M
Summary: Smokescreen wakes from a very bad defrag that ends up dragging up something from his past that he does not want to remember or talk about.
Warning: Mentions of past non-con, PTSD, Panic Attack, verbal abuse.
Author’s Note: An LJ user (@bamshee) posted a prompt in January of 2016 that I just couldn’t help but fall in love with: “Fav trope: Severely traumatised Character A waking from a nightmare in Character B’s arms. Character B consoling and comforting panicky and upset Character A. Character A clinging to Character B. Character B cuddles Character A through a long, sleepless night.”
---
Ratchet had always recharged lightly. Even before his time as an intern he would online at the slightest sound. It was a habit that served him well in his personal life as well as with the Autobots. He didn’t want to think of the number of times the Terror Twins tried to break into his quarters to “cheer him up” after a particularly bad battle. Waking up at the slightest sound always helped in not getting surprised on those nights.
It was the soft moan that brought him out of recharge.
“Smokey?” Ratchet asked as he propped himself up on one elbow.
The Praxian had rolled onto his back, pressing his doors uncomfortably into the padding of the berth. His face was twisted in what could only be described as pain and pleasure all in one. He moaned again, arching up into an invisible touch, but his face was a mask of pain and fear.
“... please ... “ Smokescreen whispered. “... don’t …. I can’t …. “
As Ratchet watched, Smokescreen let out a pathetic whimper and his panel snapped open. He flung one arm above his head while he clutched at the bedding with his other hand, twisting the covers in what could only be described as a death grip.
“Smokescreen,” Ratchet said gently, “you’re having a bad defrag. It’s all okay, you just need to wake up.”
Smokescreen shook his head violently, his hips arching up as if meeting a thrust, his fans kicking on to cool his systems. It would be incredibly erotic if it wasn’t so very, very disturbing.
“Please don’t!” he cried out, still deep in his defrag cycle. “Please! … I can’t! ... No! … Stop!”
He began to thrash on the berth, twisting and arching, each movement risking serious damage to his door panels. Normally Ratchet wouldn’t touch Smokescreen when he had nights like this - he had been Special Ops for too long and would often wake up violently. But this was clearly no mere nightmare. This was something far more and possibly far worse.
“Smokey? Love, wake up. You need to wake up now,” he said in as soothing a tone as he could manage.
Preparing to be punched, Ratchet reached out and placed a gentle hand on Smokescreen’s shoulder.
“No!” Smokescreen shrieked, his vocalizer fritzing with the strain, and in what seemed like a single motion he was off the berth and crouched in the corner. “Please! Don’t make me anymore! Please, I promise I’ll be good! Please!” The last plea was drawn out into a keen of pain and agony finally choked off with a sob.
The words, the tone, the implication behind it - they were all spark-breaking. Ratchet approached slowly, making sure that his hands were well in sight. As he moved, Smokescreen watched him in a clear panic, but his optics were jet white. It wasn’t Ratchet he was seeing.
“You’re okay. Smokey,” Ratchet murmured. “You’re okay. You’re safe and no one is going to make you do anything. You’re safe now. Just come back to me.”
Smokescreen flinched and Ratched stopped his approach, choosing instead to squat down in front of him.
“I won’t come any closer. I won’t do anything you don’t want. I promise,” he said in a low monotone - it was a tone he had heard Smokey use on other mechs when he was talking them down from a panic attack.
A shudder passed through Smokescreen’s body and when he onlined his optics they were a pale, sickly blue.
“Ratch?” he asked, his voice staticky and broken. “What happened?”
“You had a bad defrag,” Ratchet replied. “Can I touch you? Would that be okay?”
A momentary flash of panic passed over Smokescreen’s face before he schooled his features.
“I’m okay,” he said as he stood, avoiding Ratchet’s optics. “But I’m not going to be able to get back into recharge. I’ll go to my office and get some paperwork done.”
Ratchet fought the urge to pull Smokescreen into a hug.
“You can stay here. We can talk, if you need to. I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”
Smokescreen’s hand hesitated at the door.
“I, uhm …” He vented shakily and shook his head.
When he looked up his mask was firmly back in place. A teasing smile pulling at his lips that didn’t quite reach his optics, his doors were high, loose and relaxed. To anyone else there would be no sign of the night terror he had just suffered.
“I’m fine, Ratch. You’ve had a long day and you need to get your recharge. There’s no point in you heading back to your quarters.”
“Smokey ...,” Ratchet began. He wanted to talk Smokescreen out of leaving, to try to get him to talk. But he knew on some level that it would do no good.
He sighed in defeat. “Your panel’s open,” he finally said.
That haunted look was back for the barest instant. But then Smokescreen reached between his legs and snapped his panel closed and he left his quarters.
Not willing to take no for an answer, Ratchet followed Smokescreen from the berthroom and into his attached office. He found the psychologist staring at his desk. His doors were low and trembling and he was tracing his fingers over the surface. For a long time he stood like that, barely moving, optics glued to something that may not have been there. Earlier in the night they had been in the office after their respective shifts had ended. They had been a little drunk and a lot frisky. Part way through their activities Ratchet had bent Smokescreen over the desk and all hell had broken loose. As soon as his chest had touched the desk’s surface and Ratchet had pressed up against his aft, Smokescreen had stiffened and immediately yelled out his safe word in a absolute and blind panic.
“This is about earlier, isn’t it?” Ratchet asked softly.
Smokescreen had insisted at the time that his doors were kinked and then proceeded to thoroughly distract Ratchet from asking any further questions. Ratchet should have known better than to take him at his word. It had clearly been time for some aftercare and he had completely missed it.
Smokescreen vented sharply but turned after a moment, an almost stepford smile firmly in place.
“No. Not at all, love. Things earlier were great, I just … uhm, just a glitch. That’s all. Nothing but a momentary glitch.” Smokescreen approached Ratchet with a seductive sway to his steps that only managed to come across as creepy with that smile in place. He took Ratchet’s hands and began to kiss the tip of each finger. “In fact, if you wanted to try again, I wouldn’t be opposed to-”
“Smokescreen, stop,” Ratchet said gently, pulling away and taking hold of the psychologist’s hands. “You don’t need to pretend with me. Something really upset you and you don’t need to act like it didn’t happen. Please, just talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. You don’t need to shoulder whatever this is on your own.”
Smokescreen pulled away both physically and emotionally as his field shrank down and his armour pulled in close to his protoform. He crossed his hands under his bumper as if holding himself together and turned his back on Ratchet.
“I can’t tell you,” he whispered so low that Ratchet was sure he wasn’t meant to hear. “You’ll hate me if I tell you.”
“Smokey, I won’t hate you. I could never hate you not matter what you tell me. I just want to help you. Please. Let me help you.”
Smokescreen’s doors stiffened at the request.
“Ratchet,” he said in a voice that was as cold as space, “this isn’t working out. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and I think that it’s more than past time that we moved on.”
Ratchet shook his head and sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Really? You’d rather break up with me than tell me what’s going on?”
“I've seen how the Twins look at you. And more important I've seen how you look at them,” Smokescreen snapped, never turning around. “So let's just end this farce, okay? It was fun while it lasted but we both know this is more than over.”
“Are you done?” Ratchet asked.
Smokescreen finally turned. He held his doors high, his armour was flared - all clear signs of Praxian aggression.
“Get out,” he growled. “We’re done. We’re over. Go warm someone else’s berth. I’m sure you’ll have no shortage of takers.”
“So you’re not done,” Ratchet said. “Fine. I can wait all night, Smokey. I’m not going to leave you alone like this.”
He took a seat on the patient couch and settled in. Tantrums weren’t Smokescreen’s style. But pointed and directed cruelty was. If he couldn’t talk his way out of a problem he’d push the problem away - always knowing exactly where to verbally strike a mech to do the most damage.
“Did you really think that this was going to last?” Smokescreen sneered and he began to close in on Ratchet, moving more like a predator than a lover. “I mean, look at you. What kind of a medic has that personality? Above all else, do no harm. Isn’t that how the pledge goes? And yet how many mechs have you-”
“Alright, enough!” Ratchet snapped, cutting Smokescreen off mid-barb. “You really want me to leave so badly that you’d drag up my losses and throw them at me? What next? Were you going to name all the mechs I’ve lost on the table? How many I’ve been forced to deactivate over the course of this war? You’re better than this and I honestly thought that you knew me better as well.”
“Then leave.” Smokescreen’s smile was a cruel slash across his face, but his optics were still haunted. “Don’t like the facts then run away from them. It’s what you’re good at. Go get overcharged or work yourself into deactivation. It won’t change a damned thing.”
Silence descended over the room.
“Okay. Fine.” Ratchet stood from the couch and headed toward the door. “You want to play things this way, then we can play things this way. I’m going to my bay to get some med-grade and a couple diagnostic tools. We can keep talking when I get back. Maybe by then you’ll be done with whatever this is,” he said waving vaguely in Smokescreen’s direction, “and we can discuss things like the millennia old beings we are.”
Smokescreen looked at Ratchet defiantly and said nothing, but his doors were starting to shake in a barely discernible quiver. One could always count on a Praxian’s doors to give them away eventually. With a shake of his head, Ratchet left the office, knowing that the door would be locked by the time he returned.
“Red Alert,” he said over a tight comm band to the security director, “I need you to keep an optic on Smokescreen and keep me updated if he does anything stupid. He’s in his office.”
“I don’t have cameras in the psychology office,” Red Alert replied stiffly.
“Smelter slag! This is a medical issue and I’m getting some supplies from my bay. Now activate those damned cameras and let me know if he tries to hurt himself!” Ratchet snapped back.
There was a long pause on the line.
“Acknowledged,” Red Alert finally said and shut down his end of the connection.
---
Red Alert turned the camera on in the psychology office and was immediately met with an image of Smokescreen stalking the space like a caged beast. There was no sound, but it was clear that he was talking to himself. No, judging by the doors and the flare of his armour, he was yelling at himself. It was an agitation that Red Alert knew well from his time with Prowl. Not that Prowl allowed anyone but him and Jazz to see that particular emotion.
Suddenly Smokescreen stopped his pacing and turned to stare at the desk. He grabbed a data pad and began looking through it, and it was clear that he was venting deeply as if trying to calm himself. Smokescreen’s back was to the camera but judging by the sharp angle of his doors, Red Alert was sure that he was squeezing the pad in his hands. For a long moment he didn’t move, and then with a silent scream, Smokescreen threw the pad against the far wall where it shattered under the impact.
Smokescreen turned and faced the camera giving Red Alert a good view of the anguish etched into his faceplates. It was a look Red Alert knew well from his own experiences recovering from his encounter with Starscream when the Negavator had exploded, and he felt his engine stall as his spark spun wildly.
“I’m back,” Ratchet said, startling Red Alert aware. “You can turn off the cameras.
He looked at the camera and Smokescreen was sitting on the couch, his head buried in his hands. Red Alert shook his head to clear away his own demons before responding.
“He’s fine. He hasn’t moved off the couch. And may I remind you that I am not your sitter, especially not during a lovers’ spat. The security system is to be used for security only.”
He snapped off his side of the communication and took a deep and cleansing breath before going back to his monitoring of the base and environs. He’d need to speak with Prowl about all this later.
---
The door was locked, just as Ratchet had thought it would be. He sighed and used his medical override to bypass it. As Red Alert had said, Smokescreen was sitting on the couch, head in his hands, doors shaking violently.
“Smokes? I’m back. I’ve got some energon and I want to run some scans. Would that be okay?”
Smokescreen looked up at Ratchet, his optics pale and his vents were running far slower and rougher than they should have been. He opened his mouth, but only static came out. After a few tries he managed to reset his vocalizer.
“Why are you back?” Smokescreen asked hoarsely. “I wouldn’t fault you for staying away.”
“I know you remember?” Ratchet said as he started to scan his friend and lover. “You were trying to get me to stop asking. And I will. If you don’t want to talk to me about whatever you went through, then I’ll respect that. But I need you to remember that I’m here for you. No matter what. All I ask is that you stop pushing me away.”
The scanner showed that Smokescreen’s energon levels were low and his engine could stand some re-tuning but other than that, he was physically fine.
“I know. I just …” Smokescreen shook his head and sighed - it was a miserable sound. “I’ve never told anyone. The only people who knew what happened to me are long deactivated. At least I think they all are.”
Ratchet opened one of the containers of medical high grade and handed it to Smokescreen before taking a seat in the chair opposite the couch.
“If you want, I’ll just stay up with you,” he said. “Or we could go to the rec room to watch some vids or play some cards once you’ve drunk that cube. Your levels are low.”
Smokescreen took a sip of the energon and made a face of disgust.
“This stuff is awful, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know it’s not up to your normal standards, but you can’t have any high grade until you’ve drunk that,” Ratchet replied gently. “And even then I might not let you. I don’t want it interfering with your defrag.”
Smokescreen made a rude noise as he took another sip of the energon.
“Yeah, defragging is the last thing I want right now. It just brings back the slag I don’t want to remember.”
“Yeah, but if you put it off too long you’ll start hallucinating,” Ratchet replied gently. “It happened to me once just after I graduated and started my first series of rotations. I had been ignoring the messages and the warnings, and then I started taking suppressors to put it off. In the end I started hallucinating right before I was set to assist on my first major surgery and I was put on mandatory leave.”
“I know that. Logically I know that,” Smokescreen replied. “But it doesn’t make it any easier. I think I may have partitioned myself too many times and every once in a while these memories bleed into those memories bleed into those patient files bleed into … you get the idea. When I’m online I can keep the barriers up properly but when I’m recharging? Sometimes the defrag cycle thinks it’s helping me by fixing what it views as errors.”
He leaned back against the couch and offlined his optics.
“And you know, I should have known that I was going to have a problem tonight,” he continued. “Even before the desk I knew that tonight might be bad. I should never have invited you to stay. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
“Smokescreen, this isn’t your fault,” Ratchet said. He moved to sit next to his friend, but kept his hands to himself. “Look at me. None of this is your fault. We all break down sometimes. There’s no shame to it.”
Smokescreen made a rude noise but he did look at Ratchet. His optics were a sickly blue and his colour was almost but not quite greying at the edges. Neither was a good colour.
“Quoting me back to myself?” he asked.
“You’re the best psychologist I know.”
“Liar,” Smokescreen replied, but there was some slight amusement in his tone.
After a long moment he shifted over and cuddled next to Ratchet, pulling the medic’s arm over his shoulder and rested his head against his broad chest.
They stay like that for a long time - Smokescreen drinking the med-grade and Ratchet silently monitoring his systems.
“It was a memory of something that happened during the Clampdown, only it drifted with stuff from this evening and it was you instead of- … instead of the person it really was. Actually it was a couple of memories combined from then.”
Ratchet pulled Smokescreen tight against his side. He had always been reticent to talk about what had happened to him during the Clampdown and Ratchet had never pushed. No matter how much he wanted to. Instead he held his friend and lover and … they’d never talked about more than that, but Ratchet had to admit that a part of him wanted to broach the subject eventually.
“I caught the attention of Sentinel Prime while I was … let’s just say ‘working’ for the Council’s spymaster,” Smokescreen said in an almost flat voice. “I was supposed to move around at parties, flirt a little, talk to people, hear things that no one thinks twice about saying in front of shareware.”
“Escort,” Ratchet said tenderly. “You were never shareware.”
Smokescreen’s laugh held nothing but pure bitterness.
“Yeah, Proteus changed all that. He took all the pleasurebots under his wings and promised that he would re-educate us and put us to work as productive members of society. Instead he just picked out the ones he found most useful and put us to work as spies in the berths of the elite and the Senate. The rest … I don’t know for sure but I suspect he had the rest deactivated.”
Ratchet kissed the top of Smokescreen’s head and held him tighter as if he could keep the past at bay with his presence alone.
“I am so sorry, love. … I had heard rumours that there was some kind of spy network but it was always the kinds of rumours you’d hear to keep people in line. I wish I’d know that it was his and that you were there.”
Smokescreen shrugged slightly, dismissively.
“I was at a party when Sentinel saw me. Apparently I looked just enough like Prowl to catch his attention.”
“Wait,” Ratchet said as he tried to turn to look at Smokescreen without actually letting him go. “Why Prowl?”
“Apparently Prowl was already an advisor to the Prime. And he had no problem telling Sentinel that he was being an idiot. … not in those words, of course. I’m sure it was far more Prowl-like.”
“And I’m guessing that Sentinel didn’t appreciate Prowl’s directness?”
Smokescreen actually chuckled at that. “Yeah, no one told Sentinel no and got away with it. But apparently Prowl was under some kind of protection from someone. Never did learn who that was, but I suspect that the Council appreciated his dedication to form and function.”
“I’m guessing that Sentinel didn’t want to talk when you said he took notice of you. I’m not trying to prompt you, just saying,” Ratchet added quickly. He had said he wouldn’t pry and he had meant that. He wanted to give Smokescreen all the time he needed.
“Yeah. At first he just screamed at me as if rehashing conversations he’d had that day. I knew enough to stay silent, to just take it and let it flow over me. That seemed fine at first; after all, he wanted Prowl to be cowed before him. I don’t know why things changed - if he started paying more or if my … handlers, I guess? Or if they had told him that they could repair any damage he did to my frame.”
Ratchet rested his head against Smokescreen’s and allowed their fields to brush against each other, allowing nothing by sympathy and love to be felt.
“Eventually yelling and beatings weren’t enough for his particular fantasies. He, uhm, … He’d request that I be repainted to match Prowl’s colours. And then he apparently decided that cowering wasn’t enough and he got creative. Bent over the desk so he could twist my doors was his favourite position.”
Ratchet felt his engine stall at that confession and he tightened his grip on Smokescreen as if he could take all that pain away with his presence alone.
“Oh, Primus, Smokey! I am so, so sorry! I’m sorry I ever put you in that-”
Smokescreen pulled away and placed a hand over Ratchet’s mouth.
“It’s not your fault, Ratch,” he said emphatically. “I never told you. I’ve always been very clear about what I don’t want and I never told you that one. You can’t be expected to read my processor!”
Ratchet offlined his optics and leaned forward to press his chevron against Smokescreen’s.
“I know that,” he said in a gentle near whisper. “It doesn’t change the fact that I hurt for you. The fact that a Prime of all mechs would do that to anyone. It makes me glad that Megatron crushed his spark.”
“Yeah. As twisted as it is, me too,” Smokescreen said.
He sighed softly and scrubbed his hands over his faceplates wearily before checking his chronometer.
“I think I’m feeling a little better, Ratch. We should probably try to get back to recharge. Our shifts are going to be coming up far too quickly.”
Ratchet smiled. “I already spoke to my team and to Prowl. I’ve had my shift and your patrol put off. I’m claiming a medical issue.”
Smokescreen chuckled at that. “They’re going to think that we’re fragging like petro-rabbits and that you’re using your position to get away with it.”
“Let them,” Ratchet said with a negligent shrug. “We both need our recharge.”
He stood and held his hand out to Smokescreen, pulling the other mech into a hug as soon as he was on his feet.
“Just try to remember that you can talk to me. You can tell me no. You can confide in me. Whatever you want. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Ratchet,” Smokescreen replied as they headed back to the berth room. “I’ll try to remember. I promise.”
They settled into the berth, Ratchet holding Smokescreen close as the Praxian drifted back into recharge.
“I’ll keep you safe, Smokey. Always.”
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Date: 12 Mar 2019 11:00 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 Mar 2019 14:22 (UTC)