Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There were some things that were becoming almost expected where Whirl was concerned.

It was expected that Whirl would drink too much and cause trouble at Swerve’s.

It was expected that Whirl would find new and interesting ways to bend or break the rules.

It was expected that if things weren’t bolted down, Whirl would steal them.

It was expected that Whirl would be at least an hour late for his therapy sessions… what was unexpected was Whirl missing them completely. Mostly because it was the only thing keeping him out of prison. He and Ultra Magnus had made an agreement ages ago, and Whirl did his best to comply in his own way and on his own time.

When the rotary didn’t show up, Rung waited in his office. An hour passed. Then two. Then it was time to see another patient and Rung tried to focus without worrying.

Nothing if not professional, Rung waited until his last patient had left before checking his messages.

There was a message from Rodimus asking him if there was ‘anything he needed to worry about this week.’ Rung couldn’t bring himself to politely word a reply to that at the moment so he set it aside for later.

There was a message from Fortress Maximus, asking very simply how he was doing and whether or not he would have time to speak soon.

The rest of the messages, all thirteen of them, were from Whirl.

Rung’s tank churned as he read through them, his spark beginning to pound. Most were one or two words only, and the recurring theme was ‘Help me.’ The last message said ‘I think he’s dying.’ There was one that was far longer than the others… by the time he got to the end of it, Rung raced out the door while sending a frantic message to Ultra Magnus, hoping he wasn’t too late to fix this situation before it got worse.

Eyebrows

It’ll be too late when you get this, but if I gotta confess to someone, it’s gotta be you. You’re the only one I trust. The only one who trusts me.

I’m turning myself in because they’re going to not only suspect but accuse me of it anyway and no matter how hard I protest, they’re not gonna care.

I didn’t do it. I didn’t do what they’re gonna say I did. I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want it.

I was chasing some piece of slag who pissed me off. It was good natured, of course, we were having a good time. I came around the corner and Swerve he was on his face on the floor just outside the door to his hab. I didn’t see him. I didn’t see him and couldn’t avoid it when he grabbed me.

He grabbed me. My leg, he grabbed my leg. He touched me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to do it. And I don’t think he really wanted me to do it either. He was sick when I got here that’s why he was on his face on the floor when I passed by. When he grabbed me. It coulda been anyone passing by. But it was me.

And by the time I realized what was happening, said piece of slag I was chasing caught wind of it and was coming back up the hall and I did what my processor dictated and I picked Swerve up off the floor and I took him into his hab suite and I closed the door behind me.

He could barely talk but he got his point across. I think he’s been in heat for a long time, Eyebrows. Either that or he’s sick with something else and maybe I’m sick now too cause I

I’ve never been in heat before. Never been around a mech in heat either. I didn’t know what to expect and trying to resist it was impossible. It was eating me alive. I didn’t want to do it.

Swerve begged me to do it and I couldn’t say no. He begged me. He touched me. His hands were all over me.

The damn coding was too strong and I couldn’t fight it so I did it. I did him. I fragged him until he stopped begging cause he was too exhausted to talk.

You gotta believe me when I say I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for the fragging coding.

Help me, Rung. Help me. You have to help me. You’re the only one who can help me. Help me. Please, for the love of Primus, help me. Don’t let them tell everyone I’m something I’m not.

They’re gonna say I did things I have never done to anyone. I know what consent is. I know what consent is! I had Swerve’s consent.

HE DID NOT HAVE MINE. I DID NOT WANT THIS. I DID NOT WANT TO DO THIS PLEASE HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME

Rung’s hands were shaking too badly to input his medical override properly the first time. It took three tries to get it right, and when the door finally slid back, the small mech stopped.

There was a good chance that in his state, Whirl could attack. Especially since the heat scent in the room was so strong still. There was no time now to turn back, so Rung closed the door behind him and found himself plunged into darkness.

There were no lights, there was little sound. Rung could hear someone venting in a labored manner, much too slow to be healthy. He could hear cooling fans running on a low setting. He heard two distinct fuel pumps pulsing. He could hear a single voice speaking so softly it was almost lost in the other subtle noises.

Through the heat smell, he could make out the scent of what was likely purged energon and past that, he caught hints of rust and waste fluid.

This entire room reeked of neglect.

“Whirl?” Rung called out softly, hearing no shifting or movement further within the room. “I came as quickly as I could. I am sorry I didn’t get your messages sooner.”

When there was no answer, Rung reached out a hand and felt the wall for a light switch. “Whirl, if you can hear me, I am going to turn the light on.” He said, for the rotary’s benefit. There was still no response but the muttering across the room hadn’t ceased either, so with a short vent inwards, Rung flicked the light switch.

Seeing the state of the room made everything worse. Swerve was on the berth with a blanket tucked awkwardly over him, his color faint. The remnants of fuel cubes and several empty bottles of engex lay on the floor amidst lubricant stains and a great deal of semi processed energon. The mini bot’s visor was dark, oral lubricant drooled from the side of his mouth and his little frame was the source of the labored venting.

Across the room, Whirl was sitting with his back to the wall, slender legs pulled up against his frame and claws clutching at his helm. Rung hardly hesitated before approaching, making sure to keep his distance and not move too quickly.

“Whirl?” He said, crouching down just out of reach. “Can you hear me?”

“Get out.” Whirl’s voice was rough and he didn’t move when he spoke. “I’ll kill you.”

“We both know you won’t.” Rung said, voice soft and field gentle.

“Mine… mine…” Whirl’s claws tightened and he began rocking slightly. “Swerve’s mine. Can’t have him.”

“I’m not here to take Swerve away from you.” But the mini bot definitely needed to be in the med bay. Rung wasn’t a doctor in the same way that Velocity or First Aid were, but even he could tell that Swerve needed medical attention. “I came to make sure you were alright. Are you alright, Whirl?”

“Gonna kill you.” Whirl began rocking harder, his helm thumping against the wall and his armor flaring suddenly in aggression. “Gonna kill you, Eyebrows.”

“You’re not going to kill anyone, Whirl.” Rung said, holding his position.

“Can’t think. Head’s foggy.” Whirl whispered, his optic suddenly focusing on Rung with alarming intensity. He slid away from the wall, propping himself up on his knees, and the smaller mech made sure he was in the position to run if he needed to.

Whirl shoved himself to his feet, discarded fuel containers being kicked unceremoniously out of the way as he stalked across the room. He never let Rung out of his sight, which meant that the smaller mech was watching when the rotary leaned down and began dry heaving over a waste in next to Swerve’s small desk.

Thin strings of partially processed fuel escaped the intake port in Whirl’s faceless helm, Rung feeling his own tank lurch as he hastily looked away.

Was Swerve’s sickness contagious? Had Whirl gotten it because of their carnal contact? Was Rung himself infected because he came into the room?

“How come you’re not trying to take him yourself?” Whirl asked weakly. “You should be trying… I only stopped because Swerve stopped asking me to frag him. I don’t think the heat’s done yet. You should be all over him.”

“I don’t have the drives to want such a thing, Whirl.” Rung said. He felt rather ill himself, hoping it was just the smell and the sight of the rotary vomiting that was making him feel that way. “I’ve never had them. You’re both safe with me here.”

“Is Ultra Magnus coming?” Whirl asked, optic blinking out and helm hanging.

“I told him to stay away until I was certain of the situation.” Standing slowly, Rung waited to be sure it was safe to approach the rotary. Whirl was still under the influence of pheromones, after all. “Whirl, I think Swerve needs help. I think we need to call a medic to see him.”

“Do you have fuel?” Whirl said, though his armor was lifting again and his field was reaching out towards Rung while filled with venom. “We need fuel. I haven’t had the chance to get any. Couldn’t leave. Didn’t want to call for help.”

His claws began to click open and closed and Rung felt the warmth of the rotary’s frame rising.

“I have some.” Rung said. “I have it in my subspace. May I retrieve it, Whirl?”

“Hurry.” Was all Whirl said in response, a low, growled command.

Fishing through his compartments, Rung pulled out all the energon he was carrying. Most of it was in the form of the candy sticks he offered to people when tensions were high, but there were a few half finished cubes that had obviously been put in subspace and forgotten.

“Put them on the ground in front of you.” Whirl said. Rung did as instructed, still moving slowly. “Back away. If I get too close to you, I might-”

“I know.” Rung murmured, holding up his hands and taking several steps back. He watched as Whirl crouched and began trying to gather the fuel from the floor, his claws awkwardly scrabbling, and the urge to help was nearly overwhelming.

Swerve didn’t move when Whirl went to his side, hooking an arm under the mini bot’s shoulders and propping him up against his chest so that he wouldn’t choke on the energon. The rotary was very careful, making sure not to put too much in Swerve’s mouth at a time and waiting a moment to make sure it went down before giving him more.

Based on what Rung knew of heat cycles, it looked like Swerve was experiencing stupor. It was difficult to tell for sure considering the mini was very obviously sick, though the purged energon on the floor may have been from Whirl if the rotary’s recent display was any indicator.

“Don’t forget to fuel yourself. Your levels must be low.” Rung said softly, Whirl giving a slight shrug of his shoulders as he lowered Swerve back down on the berth and tucked him in again.

“Can’t.” Whirl murmured. “I’ll just puke it back up again.”

Knowing better than to ask Whirl whether or not he was sick (the question had always been met with aggressive protestations that he was perfectly fine and just like other mechs even if his head wasn’t quite screwed on right,) Rung waited in silence and hoped that the rotary was coherent enough to elaborate.

“I didn’t want this. Didn’t want this.” Whirl’s claws began digging furrows in the berth, the large mech rocking in place again. “Didn’t want this didn’t want this didn’t want this-” Falling back into feverish muttering, Whirl let his armor pull tight against his protoform and bowed his head.

“It’s over now, Whirl.” Rung said, and he gave himself credit for not crying out when the very large, very dangerous mech suddenly surged to his feet and turned on him. He was grabbed by the throat and driven backwards into the wall next to the door, his entire field of vision filled with the angry amber of Whirl’s single optic.

“Oh yeah? Oh yeah?! You think this is over just because I stopped fragging him?!” Whirl snarled, claw tightening around Rung’s slender neck. “You think they’re gonna listen to me? To you? Think they’re gonna forgive me for this? You know what they’re going to call me! You know what they’re going to do! This is it for me and it wasn’t even my fault this time! I’m going to rot in that little shit hole of a cell that I frequent so much they put my damn name on the door!”

Whirl pulled him away from the wall then slammed him into it again, knocking his glasses off and making stars erupt in his vision. Rung choked, scrabbling at the rotary’s arm with shaking fingers.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is over and by it I mean my life because there’s no coming back from this sort of thing! They’re gonna look at Swerve and they’re gonna look at the mess here and they’re gonna shake their heads and say ‘I always knew it would come to this.’ Then they’re gonna throw me in the brig but they’re not gonna forget about me. No, they’re gonna tell stories. They’re gonna tell everyone what a monster Whirl was, raping a poor, sick, helpless mini bot like that!” Whirl’s grip tightened again, Rung’s optics rolling back as he gasped.

“D-doing… this… won’t help.” He tried to say, his words mostly static. “I c...can help you!”

“I. Didn’t. Want this!” Whirl said, optic wild and over bright. “I have never wanted this! Not with anyone! If you really wanted to help, you useless piece of slag, you would have let them kill me a long time ago! You never should have saved me! I didn’t want any of this!”

All at once, Rung was tumbling to the floor, coughing and sputtering, and Whirl was stumbling back across the room.

“You don’t mean that.” Rung put a hand to his throat, wincing at the dents and the energon that stained his fingers when they came away. “This is not the end of it, Whirl, not the end of you. You are stronger than this!”

Snarling, Whirl tore a console out of the bulkhead and hurled it across the room at him. Rung dove out of the way, sprawling awkwardly on the floor. He scrambled to his feet again, spinning to face the larger mech with wide optics.

Pacing slowly back and forth, optic never leaving Rung, Whirl had drawn himself up to his full height.

“You’re not making this any easier on yourself.” Rung said in a low voice. “Now it looks like there was a struggle in here. If you stop now, if you let me take Swerve to First Aid, we can lay all this to rest. The doctors will be able to tell the truth of the matter. They will be able to see.”

Whirl said nothing, bristling further and continuing his pacing.

“We will get Ultra Magnus and Rodimus to look at the security footage from the hallway. They will see there are no aggressors in this situation. Only victims.” Rung held his hands up in a placating gesture.

“I’ve been a victim before. I’ve been a victim so many times in my long life and do you think any of them care about that? They’ve never cared about it before, they won’t care about it now.” Whirl said, jabbing a claw towards the door. “All they see is the constant aggressor. All they see is the instigator. All they see is the crazy. They won’t care about me being the victim now any more than they did all the previous times I got the slag kicked out of me and was fragged against my will!”

“You didn’t have me there before. I am your voice of reason, Whirl. Please let me help you.” Rung wasn’t pleading. He wasn’t demanding. He was speaking calmly, using the same tone he did during their sessions when Whirl started getting agitated.

There was a ping on his private comm. and Rung very cautiously answered.

:: Give us the word and we’ll come in. :: Ultra Magnus’ voice was stern. Likely, they were already waiting nearby and could hear the shouting and the the crashing.

:: I need another moment to calm him. How much of that did you hear? :: Rung asked in response, aware that Whirl had stopped pacing and was staring at him.

:: I’m pretty sure everyone on this deck heard it all. Probably even the decks above and below this one as well. :: Ultra Magnus said dryly.

:: He’s not going to give up without a fight. :: Moving slowly so that he placed himself between the rotary and the door to the hab suite, Rung met Whirl’s intense gaze. :: He’s more frightened than he is furious, and a frightened mech is more dangerous when cornered than an angry one. ::

“You’re going to let them take me.” Whirl said, a mournful note in his voice.

“No. I’m going to let them take Swerve.” Rung told him, Whirl looking at the mini bot on the berth and immediately bristling again. “You don’t want Swerve to die, do you?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know!” Whirl reached up and clamped his claws around his helm again. “He’s m-mine! And I don’t want him! I just… I just-” The words gurgled into silence as Whirl doubled over again. The sickness must have been the result of the rotary’s horror at the situation… it was a physical reaction to the contradicting things that Whirl was feeling.

:: Whatever you do, don’t hurt him. Try your very hardest not to. It will be harder to mend him if you do. :: Rung said to Ultra Magnus, knowing that the rotary’s current state would make it easier for them to restrain him.

The door burst open and Whirl jerked upwards with a choked groan. Rung stood clear as several large figures rushed towards the rotary, his optics closing weakly.

Whirl screamed and cursed as they took him to the floor and put him in stasis cuffs. The whine of his weapons powering up cut off abruptly when the cuffs deployed, but it didn’t stop him from kicking and struggling as they dragged him out the door. Everyone was wearing expressions of discomfort, conducting themselves in grim silence.

It was fast. No one wanted to stay there longer than they had to.

First Aid and Velocity waited until the coast was clear to enter the room, very gingerly placing Swerve on a hover cart and removing him to the med bay.

Ultra Magnus approached Rung, laying a hand on his shoulder and drawing his attention.

“Your glasses?” He asked.

“Knocked off during the altercation. I believe they may have been crushed when Whirl threw that console at me.” Rung said, gesturing to the device that lay smashed at the base of the wall by the door. “It’s fine. I’ll just get new ones.”

“Are you alright?” Ultra Magnus didn’t let more than a professional amount of concern touch his voice, but his field was compassionate.

“Ask me again when this is over.” Rung whispered.

Chapter Text

Ultra Magnus had always seemed to be a reasonable mech if not a touch overly concerned with rules and organization. He had a tendency to make sure things were seen through to the finish. Rung appreciated that about him.

Which was why the slender mech was sitting behind his desk that morning, drumming his fingers on his datapad and trying very hard not to to fill the message he was sending with profanity.

His last three requests to see Whirl had been declined. Even after Rung had explained the importance of routine when it came to dealing with those in poor mental health, Ultra Magnus had politely denied him visitation rights.

There was no explanation, and really no reason for it. Rung was beginning to suspect it was Rodimus’ doing more than Magnus’. Nevertheless, Whirl was his patient. Whirl trusted no one but him. Rung had to see him.

It would hardly be professional to tell Ultra Magnus to remove his shoulder extensions and shove them up his aft, especially if it wasn’t even his fault that the requests were being turned down, so Rung chose not to respond to the message at all.

Tossing the datapad into a drawer, Rung got up and left his office. There were no more patients to see today, not here in any case, but if he allowed himself to be idle he might go mad.

If he couldn’t go see Whirl, he could always go see Swerve. Velocity had been kind enough to let Rung know when Swerve woke after his treatment and after the stupor wore off. The metallurgist had been treated for a rust infection in his shoulder and was reportedly on the mend. Extra rations had fixed the issue of Swerve’s malnutrition and Velocity was working on something to help ease his minor form fatigue.

As soon as he’d had the mind to, Swerve had asked about Whirl. No one had really known what to say so they left it to the only qualified professional aboard. To say that Swerve wasn’t exactly happy to see Rung was a touch of an understatement. He returned the smile that Rung offered him as he entered the room Swerve was occupying in the med bay, but it was rather frayed around the edges and it was easy to read his tense body language.

“I figured someone would get you in here to talk to me.” Swerve said, trying to shift on the med berth to offer Rung a seat next to him. “I guess I can’t skive off those visits now, can I?”

“You haven’t been assigned to me, so your presence in my office remains entirely voluntary.” Rung said, offering a reassuring smile. “Of course, if you want to start scheduling sessions, I have the time.”

“Maybe.” Swerve nodded slightly. It was a better response than Rung had gotten in the past. That was either a good sign or a very bad one. “Are you here to tell me what’s happening with Whirl?”

“I suppose it’s been left to me, yes. But first, how are you doing?” Rung asked, Swerve shifting slightly in discomfort.

“Foggy. Disoriented. Not used to being so… awake?” He muttered. “Still a little sore, but I’m told that’ll pass when the form fatigue does.”

Rung made an encouraging sound and gesture, and Swerve grimaced.

“Whirl… is he in trouble? Cause it wasn’t his fault I was in such rough shape. Sure, he was rude and dismissive and sort of violent, but it’s not his fault.” Swerve blurted, Rung blinking at him in surprise. “I was just… I couldn’t… I was really hurt that no one seemed to want me around. I didn’t want to burden anyone so I sort of removed myself. Took myself out of the way. Whirl didn’t hurt me.”

“You seem to be under the impression that Whirl was blamed for your condition before the heat took hold.” Rung observed, Swerve’s field giving off a sharp spike of fear before he pulled it back against his frame and moved a few inches further away from Rung.

“Is Whirl in trouble?” The minibot’s tone was rather mournful, and Rung slowly nodded in response. “Primus. That’s total slag.”

“You have to understand how the whole situation looked, Swerve.” Rung sat up a little straighter. “Given Whirl’s reputation for violence, his lewd nature, his constant disregard for personal space-”

“I gave consent!” Swerve said hurriedly. “Yes, very clear consent! I remember saying yes. I remember telling him to do it. And telling him not to stop.”

There was a great deal of relief, hearing Swerve say that. It put at least one side of all this to rest. Now it was time to deal with the other side of it. “You gave him consent, then. But he didn’t give you his.” Rung said gently, Swerve’s reaction much stronger this time.

Expression crumpling, optics screwing shut behind his visor, Swerve made a mortified little noise. His field flared out, filled with anguish/guilt/regret, the force of it enough to make Rung subtly cringe.

“Oh frag.” Clutching his hands to his face, Swerve’s armor rattled. “Frag frag frag… I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what else to do! It wasn’t like I could just get up and put myself somewhere on display and let people fight it out. N-no one would have even showed up! Not for me! I was in heat for days before I managed to crawl to the door and wedge myself in it so someone might notice me!”

“Why didn’t you call for help?” Rung asked with a frown.

“No one would have come. No one would have cared.” Swerve was clenching his hands so tight, his knuckles creaked. His mouth wobbled as he looked up. “I wanted to fade away, Rung. I wanted to disappear, but when I realized I was probably going to die, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to die.”

Reaching out, Rung put his hands over Swerve’s, his EM field brushing against the minibot soothingly. He pulled them from Swerve’s head, held them tightly.

“I’m glad you came to such a realization, Swerve, but you need to tell Ultra Magnus all of this.” He said.

“I did.” Swerve’s voice was very small. “Him and Rodimus. And they had Chromedome come in and stick his-”

“They did what?!” Rung interrupted, bolting upright.

“They said they ‘needed to be sure’ and that there was nothing to worry about-” Swerve stammered into silence, looking very concerned. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Rung said firmly. “You were in a dark place. Your actions were dictated by a force you had no control over.”

“Did I rape Whirl?” Swerve whispered. “Is he in jail because of me?”

“Why don’t you let me figure all that out?” Rung reassured him, still touching his hands. He got to his feet. “I don’t want you to worry, Swerve. I want you to concentrate on getting better.”

“That’s what Rodimus said.” There was a hint of betrayal in Swerve’s voice now, but there was nothing further Rung could do until he talked to Rodimus. Until he talked to Whirl.

“Doctor’s orders.” Rung said, squeezing Swerve’s hands and moving towards the doors.

“Okay.” Swerve called after him. “I’ll try.”

As he exited the room, Rung called Skids and asked him to make sure someone stayed with Swerve at all times. It was a bit of a relief that the minibot was still too exhausted to make it very far if he tried to leave.

The last thing anyone needed was another suicide attempt aboard the Lost Light.

Rodimus was just leaving his office when Rung came up the hallway. He called out the Captain’s name, watching with a sick sense of satisfaction as Rodimus jumped and turned to face him with a guilty, annoyed expression.

“I need a word, Captain.”

“I gathered.” Rodimus looked uncomfortable as Rung came right up to him, avoiding optic contact. “I also believe I told Velocity to warn me when you were leaving the med bay.”

“I believe this conversation would be better held in your office rather than out in the hallway.” Rung said, managing to keep his tone even and his voice a respectable volume.

Rodimus gave him a long suffering look. “I was just on my way to do something important.” He said.

“Trust me when I insist that whatever it is can wait.”

Rung gave Rodimus credit for not rolling his optics as he turned back to the office door and opened it. The smaller mech waited for the Captain to enter, moving in on his heels and seeing that the door closed behind him.

“You’re probably going to have as much luck getting me to give in to your moody temper tantrums as Whirl, y’know?” Rodimus said as he seated himself on his desk and stared down at Rung, who frowned up at him. “I can’t just let people get away with that sort of slag.”

“I’m not the type to have ‘moody temper tantrums,’ Rodimus. That’s more your strength.” Rung said, Rodimus looking at him in shock. “Why in the pit of Unicron’s spark did you decide to subject Chromedome to all of this?”

“I’m pretty sure some sort of crime has been committed and even with Chromedome’s help, I can’t figure out which one of them committed it.” Rodimus said bluntly. “He says it’s not Whirl’s fault, Whirl says it’s not Whirl’s fault, Swerve almost died so I’m inclined to believe it wasn’t his fault either, and if it’s no one’s fault then whose fault is it?”

“You are being unforgivably stupid.” Rung informed the brightly colored mech, who looked rather affronted at his statement.

“There’s no such thing as a crime without a criminal, Rung.” Rodimus said, slipping off his desk.

“This wasn’t a crime, Rodimus. It’s a damn tragedy.”

Rodimus let out a short ex-vent and pinched the bridge of his nose. “People want answers. I’ve been trying to find some that make sense.” He argued.

“You’ve imprisoned Whirl for being a victim.” Rung could feel his frame tensing and tried to force himself to relax.

“I’ve imprisoned Whirl for attacking people. Which he has been.” Rodimus countered. “He attacked his guards, he attacked you, I’m told. He attacked himself a few times too, so now we’ve got him in jail, in stasis cuffs for his own protection.”

“This is why I need to see him.” Rung felt alarm rising and clenched his hands into fists. “If he’s become more suicidal than usual, I need to speak to him. To treat him! He’s not acting out to get attention, Rodimus, he is crying out for help!”

“Trust it to Whirl to cry for help by being violent.” Rodimus muttered. He drummed his fingers on his desk, letting out another ex-vent and meeting Rung’s optics. “Can you help him? Can you fix this?”

“I don’t know. I won’t know unless I’m allowed to try.”

“Alright.” Rodimus nodded. He paused, straightening and looking away again. “Chromedome said it was pretty sad. Apparently Whirl was the one saying no the whole time.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. And it shouldn’t have surprised you either. I did submit a report to you in regards to the situation, after all.” Rung said in a cool tone.

“We probably shouldn’t keep Whirl waiting.” Rodimus replied immediately, without looking at him. “I bet everyone’s pretty eager to put this all behind us.”

Apparently, no one had thought it important to clean Whirl up before locking him in his cell. His frame was dented and scuffed, and he was covered in the dried remnants of various fluids, including his own purged energon.

Rung couldn’t remember the last time he felt so disgusted.

“Hey Eyebrows.” Whirl said with the fake enthusiasm that Rung had become very familiar with all these long years he had been treating the rotary. “Thought you forgot about me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Rung said with a short smile. “Excuse me.” Turning to Aquafend, he gestured to the cell. “I’d like to take him to the washracks.”

“I bet you would.” Aquafend said in response, not moving from where he leaned against the wall nearby. “But we were instructed not to let him out till the Captains give the okay.”

“I will be with him the whole time. We’ll keep the cuffs on him.”

“That doesn’t exactly fill me with reassurance.” Aquafend straightened. He looked down at Rung, who was frowning in disapproval, and after a few seconds he turned away and put his hand to his audio receptor. “Gimme a second.”

Turning to look at Whirl while Aquafend had a conversation with someone over his comm, Rung made very sure he didn’t let pity touch his optics or his field. He didn’t want to offer that to Whirl right now, knowing very well that it would do more harm.

“Dunno why they’re worrying so much.” Whirl said, his optic swiveling away from Rung so he could watch Aquafend. “I don’t have the energy to run. Besides… does he have any idea how hard it is to run with legs like mine and big ass wings on my back while my hands are cuffed behind me?”

“Have you not been recharging?” Rung asked, folding his arms.

“Oh sure. That’s all I do.” Whirl rolled awkwardly on the berth in his cell and shoved himself to his pedes. There was a tremble in his wings and his legs that he ignored as he approached the bars. “Just haven’t been fuelling all that well. No one wants to stand here and feed me. I think it embarrasses them. I mean, I’d say they’re afraid my bite’s worse than my bark, but… y’know.”

Rung made a soft noise of understanding, looking over when Aquafend turned back to him.

“Alright, I did you a solid and told the Captain that you were using your authority as a medical professional.” The large mech moved to unlock the cell. “But I’ll be standing watch just in case Whirl gets any funny ideas.”

“I love it when they talk about me like I’m not here.” Whirl said as he was tugged out of the cell, leaning down towards Rung with his own unique approximation of a smile, optic squinted and helm extensions tilted to give off the impression of mirth.

It seemed to take the rotary a great deal of effort to keep pace with Aquafend as they moved to the washracks, and by the time they arrived, Whirl was panting lightly and the trembling had become rather apparent.

“When was the last time you fueled, Whirl?” Rung asked in concern, the large blue mech looking over at him and offering a flippant shrug.

“Mm. Sometime last night? Maybe?” Whirl murmured. He was shuffled into one of the stalls and he slumped gratefully onto a stool that had been left there.

Rung only had to turn to Aquafend and open his mouth, the guard holding up both hands in surrender. “I’ll go get a couple cubes. And for the record, we’ve been offering him fuel, he’s just not that keen on it. Keeps getting sick.” Aquafend said hurriedly. “Just… hold the fort.” The mech shuffled out of the washracks, leaving the two of them alone.

Nodding, Rung moved into the stall and looked Whirl over, trying to figure out the best way to do this. The rotary had leaned sideways and was resting his helm against the wall, his venting only slightly less labored than before.

“Are you trying to starve yourself?” Rung asked softly, Whirl lifting his head and fixing his gaze on the smaller mech. “That’s an incredibly slow, painful way to die, Whirl.”

“Stasis cuffs make it hard to speed up the process, doc.” There was no apology in Whirl’s words. “I thought I was rid of you at last. You just had to come and save me again, didn’t you?”

“I haven’t given up on you, Whirl.” Rung reached up and turned on the shower above Whirl’s head, the rotary fluffing his armor in surprise when the cold stream hit him. “I’d like to help you wash. Is it alright to touch you?”

“Yeah.” It made Rung relieved that there was no hesitation, and that there was a grateful brush of Whirl’s field against his own. “I feel pretty gross. ‘Sides, if I had known this was how to get you under my plates at last, doc, I woulda puked all over myself sooner.”

Gathering some cleanser in his small hands, Rung started in on Whirl’s back. He ignored Whirl’s comments, knowing they were a classic deflection tactic that the rotary used heavily during their sessions. He was sadly used to Whirl propositioning him rather crudely, and he had heard his tricky patient doing the same thing to others in the bar.

Rung was pleased to watch as the flared armor didn’t clamp down on his fingers, and in fact, Whirl flared his plates further to give him better access.

“I feel pretty gross.” Whirl repeated, this time much more softly. “Been sick. I recharge, but don’t feel rested.”

“I can imagine sleeping in a jail cell while your arms are cuffed behind your back can’t be comfortable.” Keeping the pressure of his hands even as he worked the cleanser over Whirl’s faded blue paint, Rung ex-vented quietly. “I’m not a medical doctor, I’m not sure I’d be able to tell you if you had some sort of virus, Whirl.”

“Don’t think it’s a virus, Eyebrows.” Whirl let out a short, derisive laugh. “Probably just some good old fashioned self destruction.”

Moving around to Whirl’s front to continue washing, Rung met the rotary’s optic. For all of Whirl’s protests and insistence that he didn’t want to be saved, he seemed to be asking Rung to do just that.

“Has Rodimus been to see you?” He asked, Whirl snorting rudely and leaning back. Rung stopped, lowering his hands and waiting until he had the rotary’s permission to continue.

“Yes, he has. Brought Chromedome with him, too. They were demanding answers… I swore up and down that if he let Domey touch me with those needle fingers of his, I’d kill every last one of them. They were nice enough to listen.” Whirl bristled, his cooling fans bursting to life and his vents beginning to work hard again.

“You’re going to exhaust yourself. Please calm down.” Rung urged, Whirl looking at him in silence. “They respected your wishes, Whirl. Did they ask you any questions? Did they try to hear your side of the story?”

“They asked me what happened to Swerve, before I had him, of course. I told them I didn’t know. Then after I threatened their lives, they left. Didn’t bother coming back after that.” Whirl’s voice was becoming slurred, Rung hoping that Aquafend came back soon so he could try and get some fuel into the rotary before he went into stasis. “Hey, my guns need some attention. You mind, Eyebrows?”

“Of course not. May I continue?”

Whirl made a noise of affirmation, so Rung placed his hands back on the battered blue frame and resumed cleaning it. He paid careful attention to Whirl’s body language when he finished with his chest plates and moved his hands a little lower. The last thing he wanted was to provoke a negative reaction.

“Brought some fuel.” Aquafend suddenly said from outside the stall.

Whirl’s field spiked and Rung immediately removed his hands from the larger mech’s frame again.

“Thank you. We are almost finished in here.” Rung called, looking up at Whirl. “I will try to make this fast, alright? You said you trusted me… I am asking that you give me a chance to finish this. It will make you feel better.”

“Then just do it.” Whirl hissed, turning his helm away. He trembled the entire time Rung worked, his field pulled tight to his frame and his wings held high. There was no flirtatious deflection now, the rotary pointedly avoiding looking in Rung’s direction. There were a few times, just before the smaller mech began washing the residue from Whirl’s thighs, that the ex-Wrecker began muttering very dark things under his breath that Rung could barely make out.

He counted himself lucky that the rotary was wearing stasis cuffs, no matter how much Whirl said he trusted him.

“There. Done.” Rung said after a few more very tense moments. “You’re nice and clean now.”

Whirl stood from the stool very quickly, turning away from Rung and looking down at himself. His armor slowly began to settle, Rung making sure he kept his distance while he waited for Whirl to calm down.

“Self care.” Whirl glanced over his shoulder, his optic a little less dim than before. “Very important, right doc?”

“Very important, Whirl. And that includes fueling.” Rung insisted, Whirl’s claws clicking in irritation.

Eventually, he turned back and sat down again, the smaller mech slipping out of the stall to get the fuel that Aquafend had brought. Since he didn’t want another incident like the one at Maccadam’s during their time traveling adventures, Rung had taken to carrying straws around in his subspace. He retrieved one when he noticed that Aquafend hadn’t thought to bring one along.

Whirl leaned down towards him almost immediately, Rung reaching up and putting a hand very gently on the side of the rotary’s helm. Whirl went still, fixing his gaze on Rung with the same intensity he had when he first looked at the smaller mech in Swerve’s room.

“Please… I want you to try your very best to keep this down. Alright?” Rung asked in a soft voice.

Whirl stared at him, then narrowed his optic and leaned a little closer. “Why do you even care?” He hissed. “Why do you care so damn much what happens to me? Is it just your duty as my shrink?”

“I care a great deal what happens to you, Whirl. I always have.” Rung said simply, his hands steady as they raised the cube of energon he held to where Whirl could reach it.

“Doesn’t answer my question, Rung.” Whirl muttered, his intake port sliding open. Steadying the straw for the rotary, Rung remained silent.

His patients weren’t supposed to be his friends. He had to maintain a professional relationship with them in order to do his job. He could never say out loud that Whirl was his friend or that he was doing all this because he cared about him as more than just a patient.

He didn’t say it. As Rung reached out a hand and placed it on Whirl’s cockpit, steadying him as he wobbled on the stool, the slender mech realized he didn’t have to.

Chapter Text

Outside of the usual sessions with his patients, Rung found his schedule unusually full of meetings. He hadn’t been going out of his way to seek them, and as he moved through his usual routine that day, he found a hint of discomfort lingering in his tanks.

The first came in the early afternoon, Rung arriving at the door to Ultra Magnus’ office just as the much larger mech did. They exchanged polite greetings before Magnus ushered him inside with a stony expression on his face.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Rung. It’s been some time since we had a chance to speak in person.” Sitting back in his large chair, Ultra Magnus let out a barely audible ex-vent. “I wanted to start by apologizing to you for the inconvenience Rodimus asked me to inflict upon you. I, personally, understand the importance of-”

Rung held up a hand with a gentle smile and Ultra Magnus fell silent. They had a good working relationship and Rung personally considered Magnus a good friend, so he was afforded some leniency when it came to things like interrupting the larger mech when he was speaking.

“You don’t need to apologize for that. I suspected as much anyway.” He said, folding his hands in his lap.

“Yes.” Ultra Magnus nodded, shifting in his chair slightly. There was a weight to the single syllable, a subtle brushing of the larger mech’s field against his own that Rung could translate as Magnus’ way of saying he was grateful without having to speak the words aloud. “Following your lead in regards to clean up, I wanted to let you know that I had several trouble makers sent to clean the mess in Swerve’s room as punishment for their transgressions. Two birds with one stone.”

“That sounds like a productive and thought provoking way to serve a punishment.” Rung said, feeling a great deal of relief. He had wondered, after seeing the state of Whirl, what had become of Swerve’s hab suite and the mess that had been left there during the incident.

“Swerve’s been cleared for release from the medical bay.” Ultra Magnus looked down at him, his discomfort becoming apparent. “I asked Velocity to check with you about whether it’s safe to send him home.”

“She hasn’t yet, but I am scheduled to meet her later today.” Rung pushed up his glasses. The new set didn’t fit him as well as the old ones had and he intended to see if Perceptor could adjust them for him later so he didn’t have to worry about them slipping off his face. “... I am going to advise her to keep him a little longer. I need more time to make sure he’s going to adjust after everything that’s happened.”

“I’m growing concerned about morale.” Ultra Magnus confessed. “This situation hasn’t been easy on anyone aboard. There are a lot of questions and even more rumors. I’ve been working hard to set the record as straight as I can given how little I know about it and how hard it is to talk about it.”

“Has Rodimus left it to you, then?” Rung asked, arching a brow.

“Yes.” This time, Magnus’ ex-vent was clearly audible and he let his shoulders slump minutely. “I wish I could say it was a relief.”

“It is to me.” Rung had no trouble speaking ill of their Captain, not right now. “You’ve got more tact and some sense to know when a course of action should or should not be taken.”

“For the record, Rung, I tried to talk him out of involving Chromedome.” Ultra Magnus’ mouth pulled into a tight line.

“I’m sorry he didn’t feel it necessary to trust you.” Rung’s hands tightened into fists briefly before he forced himself to relax.

“I was wondering if you could talk to Chromedome. I have a feeling he needs someone-” Ultra Magnus’ expression softened. “Someone who understands and can empathize.”

“I will seek him out. Whether or not he chooses to speak to me is up to him, however.” Rung replied.

“Of course. How are you doing, by the way?”

They degenerated into a polite amount of small talk, and by the time he was dismissed, Rung felt at once lighter and more burdened.

The second meeting, the one with Velocity, was delayed by a medical emergency involving a touch of over-zealousness in the training room and Jackpot’s luck turning on him.

Rung sat in the waiting room and filled out some paperwork, filed some reports, kept himself busy. He felt an EM field brush against his in surprise and looked up to see Swerve standing in the doorway, visor bright and a slight smile on his face.

“Hey.” The minibot raised a hand in greeting.

“Hello Swerve.” Rung shut off his datapad and tucked it into his subspace, standing. “You’re looking well.”

“Thanks. Lotty says it shouldn’t be long before I can go home. Mags told me they cleaned the place up… pretty embarrassing that a bunch of guys had to go in and clean my room for me, huh?” Swerve rubbed the back of his head, letting out a mirthless laugh.

“Now that it is clean, however, it’ll be easier to keep it that way.” Rung reassured, offering the minibot hope/calm/cheer. Swerve’s field almost clung to his and the stout mech nodded. “Were you out for a walk?”

“Yeah.” Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, Swerve grimaced. “Didn’t really want to watch someone having a metal rod extracted from their thigh, so I thought some exercise would do me good. You here for a visit?”

There was such a hopeful note in Swerve’s voice. “I’m here to meet with Velocity, but she’s busy at the moment, so why don’t we visit while I’m waiting?” Rung asked, Swerve nodding at him and sitting in the chair across from where he was standing. Seating himself again as well, Rung adjusted his glasses. “You seem to be having a good day.”

“It hasn’t been bad.” Swerve nodded a few times. “Nautica came to visit earlier with Skids. It was nice to see them. Actually, I found out that a few people left me some offerings while I was out. Lotty had to move them and forgot about them for a few days. I was hoping to put them up on a shelf in my room or maybe in a cupboard for safe keeping.”

“That’s very sweet.” Rung smiled.

“So!” Swerve looked up at him, holding his hands out to the side. “I was thinking. Those head doctor sessions you offered? That still an option?”

“Of course, Swerve.” Rung straightened a little. “Would you like me to schedule you in for-”

“Soon?” Swerve interrupted, lowering his hands. They shook lightly and he immediately shoved them down into his lap and chewed on his bottom lip plate. “I mean, not immediately if that’s not possible, but soon would be good. I dunno… I just thought maybe I ought to talk about stuff. It might make it easier. Everyone tells me it’s easier if you just talk about things that are bothering you and I figure you’d at least listen for sure if I came to you.”

“Listening is what I do best, Swerve. And while I listen, I will try to help make sense of the things that are bothering you.”

“Great.” Swerve nodded enthusiastically, hopping off his chair. “I’m gonna go and… go over there. Yes. Thanks. I’ll talk to you later, Rung.”

“Swerve.” The minibot turned to look at him and Rung stood once again. “I’ll be free as soon as I’m finished speaking to Velocity. I have no plans for the afternoon… would you care to join me in my office when my business here is done?”

Freezing in place, Swerve looked over at Rung with a hint of terror on his face plates. It took him several long, silent minutes to debate what he wanted, but eventually he gave a single nod and a muttered affirmative, hurrying on his way.

When Velocity finally finished with her task, Rung let her know that he would be assessing Swerve further and would give her his verdict once their session was done. Velocity seemed relieved.

“He cries a lot when he thinks no one can hear him.” She said quietly, watching as Swerve sat on his berth across the room and toyed with one of the vials that had been left for him. “As touched as he is that there were offerings, I think he’s disappointed there weren’t more. I’m glad you’re going to be talking to him, er… I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“It’s Rung.” He said automatically, shoving his glasses up once again with perhaps a little more force than he intended in his irritation.

There were tiny hands on his guns. Fingers slid around the end of the barrels, pushing along the length of them. Need burned through him unbidden, need that he couldn’t ignore.

Fingers squeezed lightly, moving all the way to the base of his guns and making arousal lick like hot flames at the junction of his thighs.

His cooling fans were roaring…

“No.” He choked out, the word being followed immediately by a softer voice speaking barely above a whisper, pleading, begging, and the hands on his guns tugged him forward. “I don’t-”

He didn’t want this, but his body had other thoughts on the matter. Frame rebelling against him, he felt his panels heat and loosen as those hands stroked and pulled.

“No.” He repeated, a little more firmly. “No!”

There was a tightening in his gut, a pressure at the base of his spine.

There were tiny hands on his guns… Tiny hands…

“No! No no no! Don’t want this!”

Hot mouth pressed to the glass on his chest. Deep, frantic vents fogging it.

“Stop! I don’t-”

Sharp pain jolted through Whirl’s frame and his optic flared to life. He was immediately disoriented, his vision filled with grey and his audio receptors ringing. His cooling fans really were roaring, the sound of them making disgust burn through him so fiercely that he almost purged.

His neck was at an uncomfortable angle, a great deal of weight on it, and for a moment he thought he had been pinned to the floor by someone. He realized the weight was his own and that he had fallen from his berth and was sprawled on the floor of his jail cell.

The sluggishness of recharge shook away from him as he fought to right himself, his arms still being cuffed behind him making it difficult. As a result, he tumbled head over heels and landed with a resounding crash. Now laying on his back with his arms and wings pinned beneath him, Whirl let out a long string of curses that were full of static and had more than a hint of desperation in them.

He rolled onto his front and started trying to get his legs under him, fighting for all he was worth to keep his evening ration from making a reappearance.

He didn’t want to disappoint Eyebrows. And he was stronger than this, just like Eyebrows said.

Someone was shouting at him, but Whirl didn’t care enough to bother listening to what they were saying. He was vulnerable like this… it was a bad position to be in, laying on his face with his aft in the air and his long legs bent at strange angles.

Heaving himself to his pedes, Whirl stumbled forward and cracked his head against the wall of the cell. He flared his plating to let the heat that was building up beneath it to escape. His traitorous body was burning up, his cooling fans wouldn’t slow down and he could feel… he could feel… There were still lingering sensations from the memory flux that were making his body react in ways that made his protoflesh crawl.

Slamming his head into the wall again, Whirl let out a snarl. The pain made it easier to ignore the arousal, so he kept doing it.

Figuring that Swerve would likely attempt to duck out on him, Rung escorted the metallurgist back to the office once he was finished speaking to Velocity.

For once, Swerve was silent. He responded with one or two words when Rung spoke to him, but didn’t try to initiate any conversations himself. He actually stopped outside of Rung’s office door, his shoulders hunched and his head down.

“Swerve?” Rung said softly, turning to face him. “Are you alright?”

“M’scared.” Hunching further, Swerve’s visor dimmed and his mouth wobbled. “I can’t do this.”

“There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.” Rung reached out slowly and touched one of Swerve’s hands, finding the minibot closing his fingers over the taller mech’s almost immediately. “I am here to help.”

Reaching up his free hand, Swerve pushed fingers beneath his visor to swipe away the fluid that was pooling in his optics. He was shaking, and his fingers tightened on Rung’s. “I’m so scared.” He keened, Rung very cautiously stepping back and coaxing Swerve forward.

The office door was open. It took only a few more steps to usher the minibot inside

The door to his cell opened and Whirl whipped his head around to see who was trying to enter. He recognized Ultra Magnus’ security goons but didn’t bother trying to recall their names. They weren’t important. Weren’t a threat.

“Get the frag away from me!” Whirl growled, backing away from them and finding himself wedged into a corner before too long. Someone reached out for him and Whirl pressed further into the corner, leaning away from the hand as best he could. “Don’t fragging touch me!! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill every last one of you!”

He lashed out with one leg and fell again. Now he was crouched in the corner with his chest pushed against the wall, his head tilted down to protect his neck and his legs drawn up close to his chassis so the long limbs framed him like a cage.

Energon was dripping down onto the floor. While he wasn’t in agony, Whirl could feel pain burning through him that was eating away at the arousal. Good. He’d rather hurt. At least he could deal with that.

Once the door was closed, it was like the floodgates opened. Rung sat next to Swerve, holding his hands as he spoke. The stout mech clung to him as though he were a lifeline, all of the pain and the hurt that was flooding forth making Rung wish he had insisted on Swerve coming to him sooner.

“People don’t like me.” Swerve said in a voice thick with static. “They just laugh at my jokes. There’s a difference. I didn’t ever try to trick myself into thinking that any of them actually thought I was more than an annoying, overly friendly guy who told funny jokes.” His grip tightened and Rung didn’t try to loosen it. “I know they were talking about me behind my back. Making fun of me. Having a laugh at my expense. They only came to my bar because there were no other choices back then and Mirage knew that and took advantage of it and even after people started coming back to my bar again they still went there, to “Visages” and I… I…”

“Don’t forget to vent.” Rung urged gently, Swerve gasping weakly as he had indeed forgotten that venting was important.

“Oh Primus, then of course it just had to be Whirl that walked past slowly enough for me to actually get hold of him.” Swerve said, squeezing his optics shut as tightly as he could.

“Did the two of you have problems before all of this?” Rung asked. Normally, he would let Swerve continue venting for some time, but this seemed an important thing to delve further into.

“No more than the problems Whirl seems to have with everyone.” Swerve admitted, his hands once again tightening on Rung’s. “I mean… I didn’t… We weren’t…”

“Vent. Deeply. Come on, Swerve.” Rung pulled one of his hands free and worked on calming Swerve down enough for him to breathe.

“He couldn’t help but want me cause of the heat but even then he didn’t want me. He kept telling me… telling me he didn’t want it. He kept saying ‘no, please don’t do this,’ but I kept begging.” Swerve’s voice dissolved into static and he leaned forward until he could push his face into Rung’s shoulder. Rung placed a hand on the back of Swerve’s helm. “N-nobody wants him either, and what does it say about me that he didn’t want me? What did I do wrong? What is it about me that makes them hate me that much?”

“I’ve been talking to Whirl, Swerve, and I don’t think it was hate that drove him to say the things he did. He told me he didn’t want it from anyone, Swerve.” Rung said very softly, close to Swerve’s audio receptor. “Not once did he speak about you with hate. Neither did Velocity. Neither did Skids, or Ultra Magnus, or even Rodimus. All the terrible things that Rodimus did were in a misguided attempt to paint Whirl as the villain in all of this. That is not hate, Swerve.”

His comm was buzzing and Rung didn’t know if he had it in him to ignore it. Not right now. At the same time, he couldn’t leave Swerve in this state.

“I made a mess. I made a mess again, of everything.” Swerve sobbed. “If I had just let myself be forgotten about, just let myself die in that dingy little room alone, you wouldn’t have to be here listening to me whine about all this. Whirl wouldn’t be in jail. You wouldn’t have to be angry about Rodimus being a terrible person. Chromedome wouldn’t have-”

“Stop that this instant.” Rung scolded, letting Swerve lift his head so their optics could meet. “You made the right choice, fighting for life the way you did. I, for one, am happy you’re here with me right now, Swerve.”

“You’re just saying that.” Swerve mumbled, Rung shaking his head and rubbing some of the moisture off of the shorter mech’s cheeks.

“No. I don’t offer platitudes that way. That’s not part of my job. My job is to tell you the truth and to help you come to understand it.”

“Whirl’s not a villain.” Swerve looked up at him with a frown. “You have to tell Rodimus that.”

“I did. He knows.” Rung couldn’t ignore the buzzing of his comm any longer. “Swerve, give me just a moment, I need to answer a call, okay?”

“Oh. Okay.” Sitting back and taking a moment to collect himself, Swerve watched Rung with bit more of his nosy curiosity. It gave Rung a great deal of hope that no matter how sad the minibot felt, he still wanted to know the gossip.

On the other end of the comm, Broadside launched into a tirade about Whirl, using language that Rung wished people wouldn’t feel the need to when describing the rotary. The theme of the message was clear, however.

Pushing his glasses up and very briefly dragging his hand down his face, Rung turned to look at Swerve.

“Do you have to go?” Luckily, Swerve didn’t sound upset about this, and when Rung nodded, he managed a smile. “Sorry for crying all over you.”

“Trust me when I say that patients have often done worse.” Rung smiled in return. “I’d like it if you came to talk to me again. I’d also like it if you maybe stayed in the med bay until we can find you someone to share your room with. I don’t know if it’s wise for you to be alone right now, Swerve.”

“Yeah?” Shifting where he sat, Swerve went back to trying to dry his face. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

“Come on. I’ll walk you back.” Rung got up, but Swerve shook his head and held his hands up.

“No, you go tend to your emergency.” Smiling again, this time one of those small gestures with the ragged edges, Swerve pushed himself off the couch. “I don’t want to bother you with this anymore today.”

“I couldn’t consider myself a professional if I let you walk out of here alone. You’ve just had a bit of a breakdown-”

“I promise you, I’ll go straight back to the med bay, okay? Do you want me to call someone to let you know when I get there? I could call Bluestreak, or maybe Tailgate, or even Ten if you wanted to put up with him jabbering at you for awhile.”

Laughing softly, Rung put his hands on Swerve’s shoulders. “Alright. You’ve made your point. I’ll call to schedule another session with you soon, Swerve.”

Vents hitching and frame heaving forward, Whirl let out a high pitched, mechanical noise. He did exactly as Eyebrows had asked. He tried his very best to keep his energon down. His optic was burning fever bright and condensation was beading on his frame, but his tank settled enough that he wasn’t in danger of emptying it on the floor.

His helm wound was dripping energon into his optic but there was no way for him to wipe it away. His vision was becoming blurry.

“Get Rung!” Whirl demanded, turning his head away when one of the guards came closer to see if he was alright. “Don’t touch me! Just get Rung, get him here now!”

“Someone already sent for him.” One of the security goons said, sounding exasperated. “You’re bleeding, mech.”

Whirl said nothing, shifting his pedes a little and succeeding in driving himself into an even more awkward and uncomfortable position. It didn’t matter so long as the guards couldn’t touch him.

There was pain in his wings and arms now as well as his head, all of it helping him focus on the here and now. Still, the memories lingered and Whirl’s cooling fans howled and he had no choice but to let out the agony the only way he could. Wordlessly, he drew in air through every vent and let it escape as pain filled, furious shrieks. His field erupted around him, filling his cell, driving all that he was experiencing into the guards, the bystanders.

By the time he felt a highly concerned, panicked presence enter his cell, Whirl was hoarse. That presence held steady just out of arm’s reach, and when Whirl raised his optic, he worried that seeing Rung crouching near him didn’t fill him with relief the way he had hoped it would.

The shrimpy psychologist was the only one who didn’t flinch when Whirl shifted so that he get to his knees. “Get these things off me.” He said, and this time, Rung did flinch. He didn’t blame the smaller mech. He sounded pretty terrible.

“I don’t think the guards can authorize that.” Rung said, looking over his shoulder at them. “But if you give me a moment, I’ll talk to Ultra Magnus.”

As Rung put the call through, he took a cloth out of his subspace and straightened, stepping forward. Whirl watched him warily, but he didn’t protest the gentle hands that took hold of his head and wiped his optic clear.

“They told me you were in distress.” Rung said, holding the cloth to the wound on his head. “You were hurting yourself.”

“Only to keep myself from breaking my promise to you, Eyebrows.” Whirl was leaning on him, but Rung held steady. The little runt was stronger than he looked. “It was either knock some sense into myself or throw up again.”

“What happened?” Rung shifted the cloth briefly before pressing it down again.

“Nightmare.” Whirl grunted in response, pressing harder against him. Rung took a half step back to keep his balance, his hand coming to rest on Whirl’s windshield.

His touch didn’t dredge up more unwanted feelings. There was too much calm in Rung’s field for that.

“I’m going to take the cuffs off now, but you have to promise me something, Whirl.” There was a subtle threat in Rung’s voice as he spoke, one that the larger mech was far too familiar with. There was only one person in the world that did fatherly disappointment better than Rung, and he was worlds away. “Promise me you won’t hurt yourself. Promise me.”

“I do. I promise.” Whirl shifted his arms behind his back, hissing. “I won’t hurt myself, Rung, please.”

As soon as the code was put in and the stasis cuffs fell away, Whirl surged to his pedes. Rung cried out his name and backed away from him. The guards immediately brought out their weapons, waiting to subdue him if he got out of hand.

Flaring his armor and his wings in a threat display, Whirl turned to face them, putting himself between the door, the guards, and Rung.

“Get out.” He snarled. “Get out of here.”

“What?” Aquafend lowered his weapon slightly, looking in bewilderment at the rotary. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I don’t have much of a sense of humor right now.” Whirl began pacing, his field shifting from helpless fury to very directed violent intent. “Get out.”

“Where exactly do you expect us to go?” One of the others asked incredulously. “We’re not leaving Ring there for you to-”

“His name is Rung.” Whirl snarled, taking a step forward and making the weapons twitch back up again.

“Please, don’t do that.” Rung was trying to get in front of him, his skinny arms outstretched. “You’re just going to make things worse. It’s best to do as he says.”

“Doc, you can’t-” Aquafend began.

“I know what I’m doing.” Rung interrupted, the guards looking between Aquafend and the tiny nerd in surprise. “Please. Give us ten minutes alone. Lock the cell. Walk away.”

“With you in there?” Aquafend bleated, his weapon dropping to his side and his helm shaking. “You’re as much of a nut as this guy is if you think we’re going to lock you in there with him.”

“Ultra Magnus knows what’s going on down here, do you honestly think Whirl is willing to risk his eventual freedom by harming me?” Rung’s tone was hard and angry. The other guards lowered their guns and exchanged glances.

It was Aquafend that eventually stepped forward to shut the cell door and lock it, though it looked like the act was causing him physical pain.

No further words were exchanged, but Whirl suspected Rung had given them some sort of gesture to placate them enough to get them to turn and walk up the hall. One of them lingered by the door before finally being drawn out, then the door at the end of the hall closed and Whirl let go.

Turning to face Rung, the rotary’s knees buckled and he dropped down in front of the smaller mech. As soon as his claws came up to clutch at himself, slender hands closed over them without fear. They held tight, keeping them from raising further, Whirl’s vocalizer blurting static as he pressed his injured helm against the bright glow of Rung’s chest.

Chapter Text

“Must you always try to maintain this violent reputation of yours?” Rung said scoldingly, but all his field and his touch offered was comfort. “All this because you didn’t want them to see you are vulnerable just like everyone else?”

Whirl said nothing, shaking free of Rung’s grip and reaching out to wrap long arms around him. Rung said his name in surprise, then Whirl jerked him forward into an awkward embrace that caused the smaller mech to sprawl against the glass on his chest.

Glasses once again becoming knocked loose, Rung scrambled to grab them before they fell off his face and onto the floor. He opened his mouth to speak again, but then Whirl let out an absolutely dreadful noise that Rung was sure he had never even imagined coming out of the rotary.

In the space of almost an hour, Rung had held two sobbing mechs in his arms. Two separate mechs linked by the same trauma. None of his cases were ever easy, but this one…

Rung didn’t know if his spark was strong enough for this.

Folding himself as best he could around Whirl, his arms wrapping tightly around the rotary, Rung poured as much reassurance and calm as he could into his field. He whispered to Whirl, told him that everything was going to be fine, that he was sorry, that it was alright to be afraid, that he was there.

“I can’t!” Whirl gasped, his shaking getting worse and his claws digging into Rung’s frame painfully. “I can’t do this!” He pulled Rung closer, almost lifting him off his feet. The rotary’s chest mounted guns were now pressing into the smaller mech’s chassis, sure to leave dents if Whirl tightened his grip again.

Hushing him, Rung closed his fingers over the back of Whirl’s slender neck. “You can.” He said. “I’m here, Whirl. I can help you.”

“Yeah?” Whirl’s field surrounded him, intense and full of grief and shame. “Yeah?! You think you can? How are you gonna help, huh Eyebrows? How are you going to help me when the only things that I can think of that might possibly work to fix this… this thing I’m going through are pain or something worse. Something I don’t want. Something my frame wants me to want but I don’t want it! I don’t want it!”

The heat pouring off of Whirl’s frame made sense now. “Listen to me. Are you listening to me, Whirl?” Rung said, firmly enough that Whirl stopped squeezing his claws and digging furrows into Rung’s paint. “The reaction you’re having to your memory purge is perfectly normal.”

“Nothing about this is normal.” Whirl growled. “How the frag is it normal to wake up from a nightmare with your spike standing at attention and your cooling fans screaming?!”

“I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it is, in fact, a normal reaction.” Rung ex-vented evenly and reached up a hand to check Whirl’s head wound. It was still oozing, but it wasn’t life threatening and probably wouldn’t even scar once the rotary’s internal repair got done with it.

“Frag that.” Whirl said, voice so soft that Rung almost missed it. “It’s sick, Rung. I’m sick.”

“That simply isn’t true.”

“How do I make it stop?”

“As with all things, Whirl, you need to give it time. Nothing will ever get better overnight. You have to be patient.”

“I don’t want to be patient!” Whirl shouted. “I don’t want to be fragging patient, I want to be able to recharge without remembering that fat little chatterbox’ hands all over me!”

He still hadn’t let go of Rung, and now his claws were getting painful. Rung didn’t know if he could talk down the guards when they returned if he was bleeding.

“Not even you can decide what you dream, Whirl. I’m sorry.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Whirl’s voice cracked. “I can’t make it stop, it’s getting fragging hard to ignore it.”

“Perhaps we can go to Velocity. She is a doctor, she might have some options for you, but just keep in mind that nothing she offers you is a permanent solution.” Rung kept his touch on Whirl’s frame firm, partly to brace himself while he was barely touching the floor and partly to keep from agitating the rotary further.

“Yeah. Fine. Get me out of here. A walk would be nice. Stretch my legs.” Whirl muttered, though he didn’t bother actually letting go of the smaller mech.

Rung remained rather still while he commed Velocity to let her know they would be coming, then sent a message to Ultra Magnus to let him know he would be escorting the rotary to the med bay. Finally, he sent a message to Skids, asking if he could make sure Swerve wouldn’t be in the med bay when they arrived. He didn’t think it was safe for Whirl to see him right now.

Getting the stasis cuffs back on Whirl was a bit of a trial. He said at first that it was fine if Rung put them back on, but then kept changing his mind and jerking his wrists away while giving off obvious threat displays. He fell back into muttering about hurting the much smaller mech, but Rung got the feeling he was in no shape to actually follow through. Whirl was exhausted. Whirl was wounded. For the first time ever, Whirl seemed defeated.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to-” Aquafend began when Rung finally got Whirl back on his feet. The guards had returned at some point while Rung was wrestling the rotary back into his stasis cuffs, refusing to open the door unless the big aerial was wearing them.

“I can handle this.” Rung insisted. The bigger mech had his helm bowed and his optic dimmed, and he was once again leaning on Rung as they paused just outside the cell door. “Thank you for your concern. Everything will be fine.”

The fragging med bay never slept. Even with the pleasant buzz of pain killers running through his systems, even with the exhaustion that swept through him from his breakdown earlier, Whirl couldn’t recharge.

Velocity was very quiet as she got things put away and went to grab some recharge of her own, but there was a veritable chorus of beeps and whirs and hums as various machines around the room did their thing. Someone was venting loudly in another recovery room. Someone else was pacing, Whirl could hear their pedes tapping along the floor from where he lay.

His own venting seemed too loud. The thudding of his fuel pump. The spinning of his spark. His own fragging thoughts.

Rubbing his helm against the berth covers to try and scratch the itchy mesh that covered his head wound, Whirl huffed in irritation. His wrists were still cuffed because Eyebrows considered him not only a literal flight risk, but a rather trigger happy one and insisted it was safer for everyone if he kept the cuffs on.

Shifting and twitching on the berth, Whirl finally let out a growl. Rung was honestly the only person in the whole freaking universe he trusted, even just a little, but he didn’t want to think the nerd could be right this time. The way he was feeling wasn’t normal. It couldn’t be normal. His frame still burned with the charge he was trying to ignore. A nightmare, a freaking nightmare had put it there! That wasn’t normal.

But Rung wasn’t in the business of lying to Whirl to make him feel better. That’s what he liked about the bespectacled geek. He was tiny, he was non threatening, he was nice to talk to, he collected model ships and he didn’t lie.

“Show me one other person who’s been in my fragged up situation and maybe, maybe I’ll consider it normal.” He muttered to himself, once again rubbing his head on the berth as the itching caused by his self repair persisted.

It’s not like he could fix the whole issue of his charge even if he wanted to, even if he wasn’t handcuffed. Claws weren’t really the best for jerking off. He might have been able to ball up some bedding to rub himself against, but…

He didn’t want to give in.

That was letting the nightmares win.

His plating crawled when he tried to argue with himself that maybe getting it out of his system would be for the best, Whirl letting out a loud squawk and kicking his legs out in protest. The berth he lay on rattled, and Whirl froze when he felt a curious EM field on the other side of the recovery room door.

It was a familiar EM field. Not Rung, he would have knocked by now and asked to come in and see if Whirl was alright. It wasn’t Velocity, he would have heard her coming, berth rattling or no.

So familiar… Bringing with it a lingering warmth and… and…

Oh slag.

‘Go away,’ Whirl thought frantically, trying to make his own EM field as unappealing and uninviting as possible. ‘Just thrashing in my sleep, nothing to see here, nothing to hear, nothing at all.’

The presence drew away after a long moment. Whirl couldn’t bring himself to relax. He knew why it was so familiar. He just didn’t know why, of all the people on the ship, Swerve had been the one standing outside his door.

Spark pounding, Swerve hastily moved away, eager to return to his own room. He had known that Whirl was going to be in the med bay, seeing as Skids had mentioned giving the rotary space was part of the reason he had suddenly shown up asking Swerve if he wanted to go out for drinks.

Only part of the reason. The rest of the reason had apparently been need to know information that Skids had said he didn’t need to know yet. At least the Super Learner had said it with a smile.

Swerve wasn’t upset that people were humoring him. It was nice to pretend to have friends, to go out for friendly drinks and have friendly conversation. It was nice to go to the bar, to see familiar faces, to sit with Rewind and Tailgate and Nautica and others and try and talk about anything but the shitty situation he was in.

Skids had pulled him away before they could start asking too many questions. The two of them had gone for a walk. They had gone down to the oil reservoir. They had played some sort of dice game that Swerve was pretty sure Skids couldn’t remember the rules for, so they made up their own.

It was really nice.

Coming back to the med bay and realizing that they had put Whirl two doors down from where he was staying was not how he had envisioned this night ending. Swerve didn’t know why he was freaking out about this. He was having trouble figuring out just what sort of ‘freaking out’ he was experiencing.

He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t upset. He was just sort of nervous and fluttery and-

The door closed a little more loudly behind him than he had intended and Swerve made a small sound of regret in the back of his intake.

Unrequited longing was sort of a default feeling for the metallurgist. He felt it every day. Running a bar and being constantly surrounded by people who had forged lifelong connections and sometimes even partnerships was difficult when you literally had no friends of your own.

Swerve’s recent brush with death was mostly caused by being buried beneath the weight of so much unrequited longing that he couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t go to work. Just couldn’t in general. If he had any friends at all, Unrequited Longing was likely the one he didn’t ask for and couldn’t get rid of.

There was a vast difference between the longing he felt for Skids and the longing he felt for Whirl. Skids was under the ‘friend’ column. Skids was a pal. A bro. A buddy. Skids was so fragging awesome and Swerve longed with all his spark to one day be able to call Skids a friend.

He didn’t think they were now. Not yet. Maybe someday. Skids had broken the ice and now Swerve could do a little less longing and a little more striving.

As for Whirl, well…

That longing was a lot different. And a lot more complicated.

How did you tell the most hated mech on board the Lost Light barring one other mech that people probably hated more that you found him hopelessly, horribly sexy and wouldn’t mind getting under his plates? How did you tell a mech with more insecurities than yourself that you thought he was hilarious and interesting without him kicking you across the room and never speaking to you again? How did you tell him that it didn’t matter that someone took his face and his hands away and made him into what everyone else called a monster? How the frag did you stand up for him when he saw that sort of thing as laughable weakness and relentlessly teased those who tried? How did you tell him that every time he lost his temper and started a brawl and was hauled off to the brig that you didn’t blame him and just wanted to hold him and tell him everything was okay?

“Well.” Swerve muttered to himself, sinking down with his back against the door. “You sure as frag don’t go into a heat cycle and accidentally grab hold of him while he’s running past in the hallway.”

Putting his face in his hands, Swerve felt himself beginning to tremble.

He hadn’t done it on purpose. He hadn’t meant for it to be Whirl. People had been passing through that hallway all night. He had raised his hand to every one of them, groping blindly and exhaustively for someone, anyone…

It hurt to remember how it felt when Whirl very gingerly lifted him. That warm, protective EM field surrounding him, warding off any others who might have tried to take him. The thrum of Whirl’s engine beneath his plates, frantic venting, the deep, possessive growl…

It had all gone so horribly. Swerve scrubbed his hands against his face and forced himself to get up. He didn’t want to go further into that memory. It hadn’t been real, it was a lie. It was just chemicals reacting.

It could have been anyone. Swerve wished it had been anyone else. He wished it had been anyone else begging for it to stop. Telling him no. Anyone else sickened by the act but unable to help themselves. Anyone else… Not Whirl. Not him.

Swallowing hard, Swerve realized he was slipping back into a dark place. He needed to call Rung. But Rung had already had such a long day and Swerve didn’t want to bother him.

He didn’t know what else to do.

Shifting on his berth, Whirl sat up a bit. For some reason, he could feel Swerve’s EM field again. This time, it wasn’t curious. This time, it was dark and scared and familiar for all the wrong reasons. Whirl knew what an EM field like that meant. It meant someone was contemplating doing things that weren’t good for their health. Self destructive things. Things that might end up making them very sick or very dead.

Resisting the urge to get up and investigate personally, Whirl started up his comm.

Rung took his glasses off and put his face in his hands. He was tempted to just stay like that, stay sitting here on his berth, but he couldn’t.

Whirl had called him. Whirl had called him but not to help himself. He had called about Swerve. It was like the rotary and the metallurgist were playing some perverse and horrid game of tag, trading off, taking turns being in crisis.

There was work to be done. It was going to be a long night.

The lights in the med bay were out when he arrived. Rung hesitated after entering, but made his way over to Swerve’s door none the less. Before he even raised his hand to knock, the door slid open and a dimly lit visor peered out at him.

Rung smiled. “Hello Swerve. I heard you were having a rough night.” He said, Swerve cringing visibly and shrinking in on himself. “Would you like to talk? May I come in?”

“I didn’t want to bother you.” Swerve said, drumming his digits on the door and looking away. “I was gonna call, but you had a busy day and I figured you’d be recharging.”

“You can call me any time, Swerve. Day or night.” Rung reassured.

Looking up at him, Swerve nodded in a hesitant manner. He pushed the door open a little further and silently ushered Rung in.

Chapter Text

Velocity reported to Rung the next day that Whirl had done well overnight with the help of a suppressor chip that allowed him to sleep without memory purges. When she went into his room in the morning, he had been awake and attempting to rub his itchy head wound against the berth covers.

She said that the rotary had chattered at her amiably while she changed the mesh on his wound, and that there had been a ‘brief incident’ when she was putting a nanite cream on it to encourage faster repair.

“He tensed up, just a little at first. Then he snapped at me, saying that ‘he wasn’t made of glass and I didn’t have to treat him so delicately.’ It’s likely my touch brought up something that upset him.” Velocity said, looking a little guilty.

“That’s going to be a regular thing for the next little while, Velocity. Try not to let it bother you.” Rung urged. “He didn’t harm you?”

“No. Once I finished with the dressings, he let me hold his energon for him so he could fuel, then went back to talking at me until I had to leave to help other patients.” Velocity was wearing a slight smile that not many bothered to while talking about Whirl. There was no rolling optics or long suffering sighs from her. It occurred to Rung that she may have very well been the one person aboard with a mostly unbiased opinion about the rotary. “I think it might be safe, within the next few days of course, to let him out of those cuffs. It can’t be comfortable, having your arms bound behind your back all the time.”

“I agree.” Rung nodded. “We’ll at least wait until the wound is mostly healed. He has a tendency to fuss at his injuries.”

The first thing Whirl did when the cuffs came off was go for an excited flight in the lower levels of the ship. It was unexpected to see joy become the first emotion the unstable rotary displayed, but Rung couldn’t exactly say he was upset about that.

When Ultra Magnus brought him the surveillance footage of the event, Rung sat in his office to watch it and smiled happily for the first time in days. Even when Whirl managed to catch his rotors on a corner and went tumbling out of alt mode and crashing into an empty room.

They had their first regularly scheduled session later that week, and while Whirl seemed a touch more sullen than normal, there was none of the panicked, suicidal rage that had been plaguing him to be seen.

“How is your helm doing?” Rung asked as Whirl flopped onto the slab with a huff.

“Isn’t it your job to tell me the answer to that?” Whirl asked flippantly in return, Rung ex-venting softly and standing from behind his desk. He sat on the chair next to the slab, meeting Whirl’s gaze easily.

“I suppose it is, but I was more asking about the head wound.” He said, the rotary reaching up a claw to rub at the barely visible mark left behind after his internal repair had finished healing him.

“Ah. It was itchy as frag for a bit, but it’s fine now. No lasting effects.” Whirl ruffled his armor in a good natured manner, optic curving into a smile.

“Good to hear. Shall we begin?”

“Yeah, we should. Can’t sit around socializing all day.” Whirl sat up and crossed one of his spindly legs over the other, draping his arms across the cushions behind him.

It was almost as if the incident had never happened. They proceeded according to their usual routine, Rung asking questions and Whirl casually deflecting them if he didn’t feel like answering. They made slow, careful progress, Whirl laughed a few times (only one of them a harsh, cruel laugh at the expense of someone else,) but Rung didn’t allow himself to get his hopes too high.

“Is there anything else you’d like to cover before you go?” He asked as the session drew to a close.

“Yeah.” Whirl said immediately, sitting up straighter. “Uh, thanks. For everything the past little while, y’know? You’re alright, Eyebrows.”

Blinking, Rung raised his brows and nodded. “Of course, Whirl. You’re more than welcome.” He replied.

“You care too much, but you’re alright.” Whirl shrugged, standing up. “Same time next week?”

“As always.” Rung stood as well, seeing him to the door.

“It occurred to me that I’ve had worse.” Whirl said without looking at him. “What happened with Swerve… it was awful. Just awful. But only because I didn’t have a choice, right? Just like all the other times, but this was different. I didn’t get the slag kicked out of me. I wasn’t left to die. So I did some thinking and figured… why the slag am I making such a big deal about it? Get your aft in gear and shake it off, Whirl.”

“That’s a dark but optimistic view of things.” Rung said softly.

“Yeah.” Whirl was smiling when he turned to Rung, putting a claw on the smaller mech’s head and patting him roughly. “So long as those suppressor things that Lotty gave me keep working, I think I’ll be just fine, Eyebrows.”

“I hope so, Whirl.” Rung smiled and nodded, patting Whirl’s claw. “If you ever want to talk about those things, please… you know I am here to listen.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Someday.” Whirl ruffled his armor again, turning to open the door.

As soon as the metal cleared the frame, the rotary looked down and froze to the spot. Rung felt an abrupt change in Whirl’s field and slipped around him to see Swerve standing in the doorway. The minibot drew himself up and took in a slow vent, optics widening behind his visor. Whirl’s rotors twitched upwards slowly, then he stepped around Swerve and turned to Rung again with a wave before heading up the hallway.

“Hello Swerve.” Rung said in a quiet voice. “What can I do for you?”

“I, uh… came to offer you an open tab at the bar. For everything you’ve done the last little while.” Swerve said after a beat, looking up the hall at Whirl’s retreating form. “He looked good. He’s doing okay?”

“I think he’ll be alright.” Rung said, hoping with every fiber of his being that it was true.

There was really no one on the ship that Whirl called a friend, no one he considered ‘close.’ He had told Rung this on numerous occasions. That was perhaps why Rung took it upon himself to check in on Whirl every few days, even if it was just a quick call in the evening before he turned in to see how the rotary was faring.

Normally it was Rung instigating these calls, but one particular evening found him on the receiving end. Just as he had finished putting his files into a drawer and locking it, his communicator chimed, Rung pausing before reaching to pick it up off the desk.

“Eyebrows.” The voice on the other end said before he could even finish his greeting. There was a peculiar cadence to Whirl’s voice that made Rung grimace. It seemed the aerial had gotten his claws on some high grade. “You got a minute?”

“I’m not busy at the moment, so yes.” Rung tucked the communicator into the crook of his neck and finished picking up a few of his belongings before heading towards the door. “Is something the matter, Whirl?”

“Nah, just wanted to talk. Is that alright?” Whirl let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a hiccup and Rung couldn’t help smiling.

“That’s fine. I’m outside official office hours, a friendly call is perfectly permissible.” He said, closing and locking his office door before starting down the hallway, tucking his things into his subspace with his free hand. “I was going to contact you when I got back to my hab anyway.”

“Aw, so sweet of you to keep thinkin’ of my well bein’, Eyebrows.” Whirl let out a wheezy giggle.

“You sound tired.” Rung commented.

“I must also sound drunk, cause I am. Just a little though, Mirage cut me off way sooner than someone else might have.” It was a curious way of wording it, Rung noting the effortless yet careful omission of a certain metallurgist’s name. “Hey, I was wondering if you could come to my hab and do something for me.”

Steps faltering, Rung hesitated. “I suppose I could. Are you sure everything’s alright?”

Sometimes it was hard to determine Whirl’s emotions just by listening to him. Even more difficult when speaking to him face to face since he didn’t exactly have a face to read. The cheerful nature of the aerial’s words could easily be disguising something darker.

“Yeah, I’m good. Really good, don’t worry. I just… well, there’s something that’s been bothering me and I think you’re the only one who can help.” Whirl spoke the magic words. Rung resumed his journey, this time heading towards Whirl’s hab suite instead of his own.

“I would be happy to help. I will be there shortly.” He informed the rotary, who made a chirping noise that was rather unique to flight frames. Rung wondered if perhaps Whirl was more inebriated than he thought.

The path from his office to Whirl’s suite was becoming far more familiar than Rung would have ever thought it would be, and their idle chatter continued until he was standing outside the door. “I’m here.” He said into the communicator, shuffling from inside the room preceding the door opening to reveal a rather disheveled and sleepy looking Whirl. Closing his communicator, Rung smiled up at the aerial.

“Come in. Uh, sorry about the mess.” Whirl gestured awkwardly and Rung nodded, slipping into the room and looking around. It was hardly unexpected that his trickiest patient had an untidy living space. It suited the cluttered nature of Whirl.

There was the distinct smell of heated metal and lubricant in the air, Rung’s sensors and EM field picking up a hint of extra charge that indicated someone had overloaded fairly recently. That came as a surprise, and for a moment Rung let himself hope that perhaps Whirl really was recovering as quickly as he seemed.

There were a lot of pillows strewn about the room, answering the long pondered question of who was taking all of them. Pillows and cushions had been going missing since just after they left Cybertron, but the mystery had gone unsolved until now. Since it wasn’t really Rung’s place, and since there were honestly worse things that Whirl could be stealing, he decided to keep this particular bit of information to himself.

Whirl had seated himself on his battered recharge slab, looking at Rung with his optic half closed. “C’mere.” He gestured with a claw, Rung approaching the larger mech but maintaining a polite and decent amount of distance between them. “Okay. This is gonna seem weird, but I really don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“I feel as though I’ve become a good enough judge of your character that I’ll be able to read your intentions.” Rung assured. Even though his words were confident, Rung reached up and took off his glasses, producing a small piece of soft mesh from his subspace and cleaning them. This was a volatile mech, and Rung was in unfamiliar territory. There was honestly no telling what was going to happen depending on what it was Whirl needed him for.

“I want you to touch my Not-Face.”

Stopping with his glasses halfway to his face, Rung blinked in surprise at Whirl. He followed through with the motion, then reset his vocalizer slightly and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“That doesn’t seem like an entirely appropriate-” He began, but Whirl held up his claws in a placating gesture.

“It’s nothing dirty or weird. I’ve been… having memory purges. Look, Eyebrows, I don’t have a ‘safe place,’ okay? You wanna know what I see whenever you ask me to go to my ‘safe place?’” Whirl asked, his optic a little brighter now. When Rung gestured for him to continue, Whirl ex-vented. “I don’t have a ‘safe place,’ I have a ‘safe person.’ I always see you whenever I’m trying to calm down because you’re the only one who gives a damn about having me calm down. I hear your voice, I see your face and I can manage to get through the rage, the fear, the whatever.”

That made sense, though Rung was beginning to suspect it to do with more than just his counsel keeping Whirl out of the brig.

“I keep seeing… him, y’know. In the middle of it, he suddenly reached towards me, slid his hands up my cockpit, up my neck, over my helm. It was so damn gentle, and it’s giving me nightmares, Rung.” Whirl’s voice was soft, and Rung let out a slow ex-vent, stepping just a little closer. “You’re my safe person. If I have to keep seeing that memory in my head over and over, I’d rather be able to replace him with you and make it a safer thing for me to be seeing.”

“I can understand that need.” Rung said quietly, Whirl’s optic focusing on his face. “I guess this is why you grew agitated when Velocity was changing your wound dressing in the med bay?”

“Yeah.” Whirl shivered, his whole frame rattling. “It’s not her fault. Did I freak her out?”

“No, she was just concerned about your well-being, that’s why she mentioned it to me.” Rung lifted his hands, finding Whirl’s claws around his wrists almost immediately. He went still, his EM field brushing against Whirl’s to discern whether the act was aggressive, finding that there was more fear in the rotary’s field than ever. “I won’t hurt you, Whirl. I am here to help.”

“Yeah.” Whirl muttered, his grip tightening. He let his optic offline briefly, hanging his head, then he released Rung’s wrists and turned his gaze back upon the smaller mech. “Yeah. I know. Thanks Eyebrows.”

“Where-?” Rung began, then Whirl took hold of him again and pulled his hands flat against the glass of his cockpit. Rung let them rest there for a moment, keeping optic contact with the aerial and letting his field push a little harder against Whirl’s. The glass grew warm beneath his hands, and he could feel the hum of Whirl’s systems and the swift, hard pulsing of his spark.

“This part should be easy for you.” Rung said, Whirl lifting his head a little. “Clear your mind and go to your safe place, Whirl.”

The unnerving intensity of Whirl’s gaze, the same he had seen that night he found the rotary there in Swerve’s hab suite, returned but Rung met it and held it. Knowing now the reason Whirl never let his attention properly unfocus when they used this exercise in his office, Rung felt regret that he hadn’t learned it sooner. All of his frustration over Whirl’s ‘lack of participation and effort,’ as he had put it before, seemed unfair.

“Just listen to the sound of my voice. I’m here to help.” Rung said, sliding his hands slowly up the glass of Whirl’s cockpit and feeling the rotary’s EM field shift against his. The fear was leeching out of it, and Whirl’s quick venting was beginning to slow. “There is no reason to fear. Nothing here will hurt you. You are in your safe place Whirl.”

His hands reached the top of Whirl’s chest, his fingers pressing gently into the cables of the aerial’s slender neck. There was no hitching of vents, no sound of Whirl’s cooling fans coming to life, nothing in his field to indicate intentions other than what had been stated. Just the rotary’s steady breathing, his unerring gaze and the sound of Rung’s voice as he continued to reassure Whirl that everything was going to be alright.

As he continued sliding his fingers upwards, Rung heard a soft whimper escape Whirl, one that he likely wouldn’t have been able to hear if he hadn’t been so close. The smaller mech hushed him, hands cupping the base of Whirl’s ‘Not-Face’ as he had put it.

“I am here to help, Whirl. I won’t hurt you.” Rung said, able to feel that Whirl was trembling, but the only thing conveyed through the field that was meshing with his own was gratitude. His hands moved upwards again, cupping the back of Whirl’s helm, fingers tracing over his antenna. They then trailed forward until they rested on either side of Whirl’s optic, Rung leaning forward until his forehead rested against the upper edge of it. “I’ve got you.” He said.

“I know.” Whirl’s voice was soft, but there was no static in it, no thickness.

“You’re going to be alright.” Rung said again.

“I know.” Whirl repeated, a little louder this time. He hadn’t moved since they began, but now he reached up and took hold of Rung’s wrists once more, prompting the smaller mech to lean back. “You’re right. I think I’ll be okay.”