Therapy

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
IDW, pre LSOTW
Rung, Impactor
maybe spoilers? Rung is a psychologist, in canon.
for tf_speedwriting prompt 4

Impactor was looking…himself, Rung decided. Meaning surly, violent and unresponsive.  And missing, very much, his right hand.

That? That, Rung would admit he was glad for.  Impactor was dangerous enough unarmed. Rung settled, gingerly, in his seat, aware that if this counseling session went as well as their past ones, he’d end up on the floor or pinned to the wall at least once. So, no sense getting comfortable.  “I won’t ask how you are doing,” he began, calmly. “Unless, of course, you wish to answer.”

“How you think I’m doing?” Impactor glared, throwing his shoulders back against the couch in a display of sullen pique. “In fraggin’ prison!”

“Yes.” Rung paused, looking down at the standardized form and checking the ‘situational awareness’ box.  Plus: Impactor knew where he was.  “And do you recall why you’re here?”

“Prowl.”

A blink. “Excuse me?” Not quite the answer he was expecting. Then again, this was Impactor.

“Prowl. And his stupid rules.”

Rung sighed. It was going to be one of those days. “You mean, with regards to Pova.”

“Squadron X.” 

“Pova.”

“That’s what they charged me with,” Impactor glared. 

Smart enough not to admit to anything, at least. Then again, self-preservation was one of Impactor’s specialities.  Rung nodded. “You don’t agree with the charges.”

Impactor leaned forward, abruptly, trying to startle. “Look, REMF.”

“Rung.”  An old argument. 

“Whatever. Look, we’re soldiers.  What soldiers do is kill Decepticons, right?” He sat back, a smug sneer on his face. “That’s what I did: kill Decepticons.”

“On neutral territory.”

“Frag that. ‘Neutral territory’.”  He said the phrase as though it, and not the curse words, were profane. “That’s the kind of slag you rear-action afts dink with.”

“It’s an important distinction.”

Impactor tossed his head. “Distinction, my aft.  Let me tell you something, Rearguard—“

“Rung,” he corrected, automatically, even as Impactor drowned him out.

“Point is.  Where Decepticons are? It ain’t neutral.”

A possible point, in a matter of speaking.”They may say the same of us.”

“Like I give a scrap what they say.” A rub on the stump of his wrist, like an old wound that ached.

“You could get that addressed,” Rung pointed out.

“They could give it back.”  A flat stare.

“Resistant,” Rung said, mildly. Still. Well, the plus side was that prison wasn’t breaking Impactor’s spirits. He wondered if anything did.  He placed a check in ‘resistant’ and another in ‘morale: stable’.

“Defiant,” Impactor corrected. “Get it right in your stupid little notes.”

“These notes,” Rung pointed out, “are going to be submitted as evidence in your trial.”

“Trial.” Impactor scoffed. “Put me on trial, you should put every fraggin’ front line Autobot on the docket, too.”

“Now, that’s not fair and you know it, Impactor,” Rung said, looking at him sternly from under his browridges.

“Fair.”  Impactor shifted, moving to the edge of his seat, his engine revving dangerously. “You want to lecture me about fair?” 

“This isn’t a lecture,” Rung said. 

“Words.  Words. Always words. All of you.” The good hand flailed ominously in the air, the truncated right pointing its empty socket balefully at Rung’s head.  “Words complicate things.”

“Words can solve,” Rung said, patiently. Which was what he was trying to do. 

“Solve.”  Impactor jumped to his feet. Rung jerked back, expecting a hand on his throat, but the other mech instead began pacing around the tiny office, optics raking over the scant decorations: Rung’s education certifications, a few models of the ships he’d served on.

 “The Wreckers solve things.  We finish them.”  A snarl and Rung could see the fraying self control of the other mech, the mouthplates grinding together hard enough to squeal.  “Squadron X.  Say they made it off Pova.  Because of Prowl.” He glared down at Rung, daring a correction. “Every life they took, every Autobot dead, or maimed, every building destroyed, all of it—ALL of it—on someone’s head.” He shook his head, as though he were trying to toss off some noxious substance. “Not mine, Rung.  Not. Mine.”

“You believe by killing them, you have saved the Autobots from greater losses.”

“Not ‘believe’,” Impactor sneered. “Not ’believe’. I know. And you’d know, if you ever got your scrawny orange aft out of this place and saw something real.”

“Impactor, I believe—“’

“I don’t care what you believe,” Impactor said. “Any of you. Maybe you—and Prowl—think it’s fun to fight a war with all these stupid rules.  I’m here to tell you it’s not fun. It’s NOT. FUN.  You can play your moral games all you want, draw your pretty little lines in the sand and try and tell me what’s black and what’s white and why.  But when it comes down to winning, fighting, actually getting things done?” His hand closed on Rung’s datapad, squeezing hard enough that the frame cracked.

“But surely you see,” Rung said, prying one finger off his pad.  “That black and white are hardly so clearly drawn.  That’s why we have rules, protocols, laws.”

Impactor snorted. “Surely you see,” he mimicked, “there is no black and white. And you aren't the arbiters of the line.  There's no line! It's all grey. Only grey. And,” he bent lower, orange optics blazing close, “Only some of us can see in the dark.”

Comments

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

Oooooo! Damn, you have such an awesome Impactor voice! This is fabulous!

[camfield.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with IDW, but I loved the interaction here.

I can see where Impactor is coming from. The people on the front lines have to see things way differently than the people who sit behind desks with graphs and charts.

Very interesting!

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

That was awesome :D

[kankon.livejournal.com]

Loved the contrast between the characters- Rung's black and white and Impactor's grey. It is strange how they are both right in their own ways. Impactor is so menacing in this, I feel sorry for Rung. There needs to be more Rung in stories :)

[kamiraptor.livejournal.com]

I snuck in to read this on my lunch break :O

And wwwooowww...! I really really love how you've got Impactor. Frustrated, and I don't blame him, and potentially all the more dangerous for it.

And Rung, so patient in the face of that, even though he's wary, too.

LOVED IT!