robothell | big dumb loser baby

big dumb loser baby

Who: Helex and whoever wants to look at his ugly mug.
What: Big angry sad confused Easy Bake Oven not sure how to handle the fallout.
When: Somewhen after Tarn dramas.
Where: WHEREVER WORKS REALLY. He's sort of out and about.
Warnings: Potential violence if you really annoy him? Otherwise not much honestly.

now.
Deep in a largely empty district somewhere in the city far from the crater – and so, in theory, far from other people – a building begins listing to one side. Dust and smoke drift up from the street in thick bursts and metal shrieks as it crumples.

Helex twists steel sheet and rebar in his massive hands and imagines it's his own neck. Actually tearing off his head won't do Tarn any good now… not that Helex was much good before either. He should have stepped in, he tells himself. It should be Helex in exile, not Tarn; Tarn could figure out a way to bring Helex back. The walking smelter has no such knack for planning and short of a one-bot rebellion, he can't see a way to make it work. Not that such a rebellion would work anyway, he thinks, tearing siding away from the underlying building frame. He could wipe out plenty of the bots here without too much trouble, maybe… but Megatron…

"Dammit," Helex snarls, rending the metal in his hands into scraps and shards. "Dammit!" He starts punching the frame with both large fists, a one-two battering ram that he just imagines is aimed at Megatron's face. He doesn't know what else to do. Attacking anyone outright without a plan will just end up with him dead or exiled, too, and he can't help Tarn that way. Girders start buckling under his frustration and he keeps pushing, punching, ripping away.

He shouldn't kill anybody if he wants to be useful to Tarn, no matter how much he wants them to suffer, but nobody said he can't tear apart decrepit old buildings as an outlet instead. As though it'd stop him if they told him he couldn't.

later.
Sullen and holding at a low simmer, Helex wanders grudgingly back towards civilisation. He's covered in dents and scrapes and finely powdered rust, his smelter is a little over half-full, his hands look like he just tried to box a Metrotitan, and he only feels the tiniest bit better. Wrecking inanimate structures is a mediocre substitute for the pure satisfaction of ending a life.

But he's tired, and hungry. And he can't really address either problem without coming back here.

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In his exile, Tarn has taken to watching the city. He’s found some high ground relatively close to the edge of the city where he goes to think (and maybe, also, to get away from Spinister’s judgmental stare). He isn’t there long before dust and smoke begins to rise from a secluded district away from civilization. It barely registers on Tarn’s radar until he picks up a familiar scent in the smoke. Helex’s smelter.

He never did get to speak with him before his exile. He had looked, of course, but the smelter was no where to be found. Which, to be quite honest, with the way Tarn’s mental state was at the time, was probably for the best. He immediately stands up, taking a step toward the scent before pausing. He shouldn’t go down there. He takes another step, and then another. The area of the city is deserted…surely no one would notice if he snuck in. It’s so close to the edge of the city that he would barely be breaking Megatron’s order at all.

Transforming into his alt mode, he makes the quick trip to the very edge of the city, before deciding to continue on in his quieter root mode. If the scent of smelting alloy didn’t serve as a beacon, the screech of tearing metal certainly did.

As he carefully rounds the corner of the building he finds his comrade with his back to him, making quick work of what used to be a building.

He knows better than to approach Helex when he is in a mood like this; especially unannounced. In fact what he is doing is a near death wish as he approaches him from behind. He can’t even clear his throat as a warning, but he does make an effort to make his footfalls a bit louder in hopes that he might hear him through his blind rage. Carefully he reaches out to place a hand on Helex’s broad back.

Ratchet knows it's probably stupid to be this far from home base right after the attack, but he can't spend all his time cooped up in the medibay, or so he's been told. It's even stupider for him to be alone, and this occurs to him abruptly as he watches Helex's intimidating bulk moving towards him. As he gets closer, Ratchet realizes that he's injured, and hesitates for a long, long moment. Well, it's not like he could run, unless he's banking on Helex getting distracted laughing himself to death to save Ratchet's plating.

"You look like somebody dropped half a mountain on you," Ratchet says, pitching his voice to carry and decidedly not moving to come closer. "What happened?"

It is virtually a death wish to come up behind Helex when he's in his temper like this; fighting instincts aside, he's simply violent and detests being touched by much of anyone. Even the rest of the D.J.D. knew better. They're the only ones who might try, though.

But none of them are here and Tarn is exiled, so when Helex hears footsteps behind him only an instant before there's a hand on his back, he spins, trying to grab the offender with one small hand and start punching with the opposite large fist. He registers the familiar violet plating almost too late to stop himself.

"Tarn?!" he huffs, incredulous, winded with the effort of restraint.

He doesn't recognise the voice and wasn't exactly expecting anyone to try and interrupt him, so Helex pauses and looks around for the source, scowling. Preferably he can just spook them off and he won't have to deal with conversation because talking to any of the bots here, after everything that's happened recently, is even less appealing than the thought of having to live with them while Tarn wastes away outside the city.

Helex's gaze falls on one of the medics. Ratchet, he's pretty sure. He squints harder and his scowl deepens with open hostility and he stops where he is.

"What's it to you?" he rumbles, suspicious. Ratchet's out here alone and injured. Must be bait for some kind of trap so they have an excuse to throw Helex out, too. So he pointedly leaves the Autobot a wide berth and glares, smelter churning.

"Depends on if there's something out there big and mean and stupid enough to get into a fight with you and leave you looking like this."

Ratchet hesitates for a very, very long moment, watching Helex's face, before he huffs a slow stream of air from his vents.

"I can patch some of those leaks for you, if you want. Pop the worst dents. Up to you."

The offer of help just stokes Helex's suspicion. He makes a show of taking a full step back just so nobody who might be watching can call foul on him.

"You must think I'm stupid on top of hating me," he practically spits. The bitter taste of dross rises in the back of his throat as if underscoring his disgust. "Like you're just out here for no good reason and you're just gonna patch me up because why not. D'you think I haven't seen this trap before?"

"I don't hate you," Ratchet says, sounding faintly exasperated. "I'm out for a walk--I can't spend all my time locked in the medibay, whether there's still debris to be cleaned up from fistfights with your former boss or not. I'd patch you up because it's my job."

He tilts his head, optics narrowing, but he sounds faintly curious now. "What exactly am I supposed to be trapping you doing?"

Tarn stumbles backwards, trying to take evasive measures from the fist aiming at his face. His vocalizer hisses and clicks as he tries to sooth Helex, hands held out in front of him in a placating gesture.

Though his throat has been neatly welded back together, the wound is still fresh and new. The damage to Tarn’s vocalizer is extensive and is not a quick fix. His disappointment could not be greater.

Tarn holds a finger up to the slit in his mask, gesturing to a neighboring empty building, hoping to keep hidden. He can’t risk being found by any prying eyes.

Ratchet doesn't deny that he thinks Helex is stupid. That's practically the same as admitting it to the massive 'Con, who sneers and vents caustic gas as the metal in his smelter roils with his anger.

"All you have to do," he says knowingly, "is say I tried to hurt you. Whether or not I actually did won't matter. They'll believe you anyway." He firmly crosses both sets of arms. "And don't you feed me that 'it's your job' scrap or tell me you don't hate me. I'm not stupid." Never has he heard a greater lie, really, than someone saying they don't hate the D.J.D. It doesn't bother him, being reviled; it's the thought that anyone would expect him to believe otherwise.

"I never said you were," Ratchet says, but he's looking less alarmed and more thoughtful by the minute, shifting on his crutches and not moving away from Helex, leaving Helex to do as he pleases.

"It is my job, as it happens. And I don't hate you. I might not be thrilled about the Decepticon Justice Division as a whole and I confess to a little worry that you're going to get fed up with this conversation and beat the tar out of me, but neither of those things makes me hate you, nor would they mean I wouldn't treat you if asked."

At first, Helex merely blinks, not quite comprehending the meaning of Tarn's gesture. It clicks a second or two later and he makes an O shape with his mouth, nodding. There are any number of empty buildings nearby that can offer decent cover; Helex chooses one with a door he doesn't have to manually enlarge so he can fit through and waves Tarn in ahead of himself.

"What're you doing here?" he asks once they're both indoors. Not that he isn't happy to see his commander. He's overjoyed, really, and his smaller hands twitch with the urge to grab Tarn by the shoulders and just hug him for a moment or two. Now might not be the time, though.

Avoiding Optimus Prime is now, suddenly, a full-time job. That, and keeping his video stockpile up to date. There's some seriously weird scrap floating around in the abandoned buildings, and the wasteland areas. Somehow, they managed to keep from being obliterated.

... it was easier said than done. Especially when someone who is also large, and a great deal angrier shows up. Okay then.

He straightens up from where he's been rummaging in a crate on the street. Hands on his hips.

"You mind watching where you're slinging your scraps?"

Helex came out here because he needs to vent. He's furious and disgusted with everything and himself and he can't just kill people – well, he could, but it wouldn't help Tarn or Helex in the least, he knows that – so this seemed the easiest way to go about it. He didn't come out here to talk. He doesn't even want to see a single one of them right now.

So when he hears a voice, he grinds his teeth. Really, he couldn't care if it's Optimus bloody Prime; they're bothering him. He doesn't answer, but stops to look away from his 'work'.

Oh. That guy.

Helex glowers at Roller in warning, then turns back to what's left of the wall in front of him.

"Don't like it," he growls, "then move." He gives one girder a particularly vicious yank with all four hands and it wrenches free of the foundation.

Yeah, that guy. And now that he's seen it's this guy, it makes a difference. Charming. It's not his fault the guy decided to come to this specific street to have his little tantrum, or whatever it is.

Roller isn't the kind of guy who goes looking for trouble. Not normally. But, normally, he's not dealing with all this stupid guilt or awkward Prime-slash-Pax situation. It's enough to make any easy-going bot more irritable than usual.

"Sort of looks like it'd be a move to an entirely different sector, with you... doing whatever it is you're doing."

Demolition fun time, maybe. Who knows. But he's fairly sure they're supposed to be salvaging this situation, not making it worse.

He's. Still. Talking.

Helex first goes very still, then slowly turns to face Roller; the girder peels in two as he moves, one side in each of his large hands. It takes a herculean effort to not start beating the Autobot with it.

"I'm trying to not murder anybody," he says through clenched teeth. "I didn't see any rule that says I can't tear up some old buildings nobody's even using. So." He snaps off the torn section of beam and bends it until it fits neatly into his smelting chamber with several other similarly tortured pieces of metal, all of which are red-hot and gradually liquefying. "Or you got some problem with that, too?" He's an Autobot; they have a problem with everything.

"I told you not to spout those lines at me!" Helex booms, furious, and takes two steps towards Ratchet with his fists clenched before he catches himself and stops. The wretched little Autobot isn't even that scared; it rubs raw on his circuits. It's maddening. It's so hard to not just… grab him and rip him in half. Helex fairly trembles under the weight of impulse. He hasn't killed since he got here. The privation is almost nauseating.

But he can't fail Tarn like this.

He leans back, painfully slow; fumes and steam belch from his vents, and he works his fists loose again one finger at a time. His hands ache. He doesn't care.

"Stop. Lying," he adds, grinding his teeth on the words and imagining it's Ratchet's brain module. The thought helps, just a little.

Ratchet flinches, then curses himself immediately, blowing out a shaky vent of air.

"I don't know how to convince you I'm not. But if you don't want medical attention, I'm not going to try and make you sit still. ...I'm not going to try to make you do anything, or complain to anyone unless you actually try to rip another limb off. Please don't."

‘Looking to speak with you’ He tries to force the words past his damaged vocalizer. In the end, Tarn manages to make a sort of pathetic wheeze, but the words are lost in the painful sound. He bursts an annoyed huff through his vents, embarrassed. He hates Helex having to see him like this. Brought so low by someone he trusted; weakened to the point of uselessness and reduced to skulking around abandoned buildings and scrounging the wastes for useful supplies.

He misses Helex desperately. What he wouldn’t give for some good Company to commiserate with and perhaps the heat of a smelter to help cut the bitter cold of the dark nights out in an endless sea of sand. A stab of guilt twists inside his tanks at the thought of Helex having to handle this alone.

He settles down into the dust, scrawling an ‘I’m sorry’ in the dirt. He may as well get into it, it’s not like small talk is a viable option at the moment. ‘I made a foolish mistake’ quickly follows.

Ratchet's reaction is somewhat mollifying, but the words are still weird and confusing. It does ultimately steal the edge from Helex's rage.

"…Why wouldn't you be lying?" he demands, momentum faltering. Tension leaves his arms for the moment. No Autobot has any reason to be honest with him, after all.

"Lying is a waste of time and energy, neither of which I have a particular overabundance of." Ratchet appears to be giving Helex's question some serious thought.

"War's over, no particular reason to hold old grudges, and we're all stuck here with each other anyway. And I'm not interested in holding grudges. That's another waste of my time." He shrugs. "And, sure, fixing you specifically might not be in my job description, but I've never differentiated much. So if you want me to, I'll take a look, but I'm not going to fight you about it."

What's an Autobot?

And that's... gross. Who would even have that installed? And why? Part of him can imagine some pretty... creatively disgusting scrap. And the rest of him is revolted. Yay. What a way to start the day.

"That's... wow. What a big mess you have. In you."

A+ conversation skills there, big guy.

"Smelting's messy work," Helex grumbles, unfazed by the commentary. It's significantly less messy when he doesn't have a person stuffed into the chamber; honestly, he finds it feels weird to not feel screaming and kicking going on. But having something to melt down feels better than not having it at all.

"If I ask why you even have that creepy thing, I'm really going to hate the answer, aren't I?"

He has a vague feeling the answer is going to be 'yes'. Overwhelmingly so. Everything about this guy was disturbing. On a lot of levels.

Sixshot doesn't announce his arrival. The sounds of a building being torn apart covered up his approaching footsteps- and he makes no point to give Helex the courtesy of letting him know there was someone there.

He makes no point to actually try and talk with the smelter immediately, either. Instead, the wolf-mech settles quietly down and patiently waits, watching the ongoing wanton destruction with an air of mild disinterest.

Helex will be done at some point. Sixshot was nothing if not patient.

The sound Tarn makes is painful to hear; Helex can't imagine what it's like feeling that sound in his vocaliser and he grimaces at the thought. Surely they can get that fixed, he thinks.

But he doesn't get much time to think about it before Tarn is settling down and writing in the dirt instead of trying to sort out speech. Probably for the best. Helex watches the words form and mouths along as he reads, half-mumbling, half-breathing them out of habit. When he finally processes them, he frowns.

"Nothing to apologise for," he says quickly, waving off the very notion with one large hand. "Least not to me." His tone shifts, turning curious, and he adds, "Miscalculating isn't like you. What'd I miss?"

He had to have missed something. He's loyal to Tarn and Tarn in turn relies on him often, but that doesn't mean Tarn tells him everything.

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big dumb loser baby

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NOW

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orz i keep forgetting Roller pre-dates all that

it's okay!

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