robothell | [ THE "DRIFT GOT HECKED UP BY TARN" CATCH-ALL POST ]

At the suggestion, there's a little gloom that can't help leak into his expression - for a moment.

"Yes. I know."

The pressure abates as Megatron retracts his hands, a little discomfort was to be expected. As long as there was nothing severe, it shouldn't be anything Drift's own self repair can't knit together from there.

"You're doing good, by the way. You should be out of here soon."

"Try it and see what happens." Megatron's might not have been a threat, and Rodimus' is simply a statement. He's worn out, stressed out, and doesn't have the time to deal with anyone else harming his crew.

But his curiosity for Drift's conditions momentarily wins out over the enormous amount of ill will he has for Megatron - any Megatron. "How is he?"

"Yeah, me either," June says mildly. It really bugged her at first, but she pretty quickly found bigger things to worry about. She keeps scrubbing gently at his plating, notices the expression on his face and just barely smiles even as the energon soaks right through her handkerchief. Whatever, not like she thought she could clean him all up with just that tiny thing. But the gesture is important.

"Wait, you're both captain?" June's expression dissolves into something far more perplexed and just a touch skeptical. "Wait -- is this about Megatron's trial? Trailcutter mentioned something about that... Optimus made him captain? Oh my god, how wrong did that trial go?"

"I'm glad to hear it," June says with approval, a touch of surprise to her voice -- but she's glad to see it. She can see how far Megatron must have strayed, meeting this much younger version of him...but he's making changes. That means something.

"Learning something new always is," she advises knowingly. "But you'll get there. So what have you learned about patient care so far, hmm? I'm kind of curious. Human medicine is my thing, but I don't really know anything about Cybertronian medicine. Maybe you can show me a thing or two."

Megatron just quirks a bemused eyebrow at that. Rodimus certainly liked to be inflammatory, and he's finding himself liking the Autobot's rebellious fire. As long as it didn't get in the way of patient care.

"His vitals have stabilized. For a while, I was considering asking if you and Drift had planned anything in case he was incapacitated."

But Ratchet, unsurprisingly, turned out to be an incredible medic. His systems would almost certainly return to completely normal function soon.

Your eyebrows don't even compare to the not-you that's wandering around, Megatron, don't even front. The implications of what Megtron has said completely go over his helm, however, and he just looks confused.

"Planned anything?"

Yeah, someone's going to have to elaborate on that.

Rodimus took the outcome of the trial poorly, only unmatched by Prowl's absolute fury for the entire thing. Which Rodimus would have thought was hilarious and enjoyed his temper tantrums if he wasn't too busy dealing with the reality of handing part of his command to Megatron. Which means his answer is accompanied with a scowl.

"Prime gave Megatron the one guy who's actually committed to doing the best job possible no matter what to be his defense." He likes Magnus, he does. But seriously, he could have been a little less Magnus-y about the entire thing and no one would have blamed him. "There was other stuff too, though. Old laws, trial held on Luna 2. Things like that."

"Well, yes. If he's unconscious he can't very well tell us what he wants, can he?"

He puts the datapad down. Then again, Rodimus really didn't really seem like he spent too much time contemplating his life decisions, so maybe they hadn't brought it up.

"Not that it's relevant here, he should be up fairly soon."

Edited 2015-02-12 04:05 (UTC)

Nautica couldn't articulate all the ways that was wrong, so she just sighed. "It's complicated."

IV be damned, she reached out in an attempt to grab Rodimus' hand. "Don't worry, you don't care about temporal physics anyway. Leave it to Team Rodimus."

She was perhaps the only other person in the universe besides Rodimus himself capable of saying that unironically.

"No, I got that. But why would you assume he'd talk to me about that sort of thing?"

They're best friends, sure, but that was left to people like Chromedome and Rewind, not-- himself and Drift. Also: rude, but accurate.

"Good. That's... really good."

Edited 2015-02-13 01:50 (UTC)

"Hey, I'm allowed to have an interest in-- magic." He is not allowed to have an active interest in it, however. But her faith in Team Rodimus does make him smile briefly. "We're still missing Skids, unless you've found a good replacement."

He did love Team Rodimus, in all their brainy ways.

"I'll cover for him." It was distinctly possible she couldn't spell her own name right now, but that didn't affect her confidence. "You can yell at him for slacking off later."

"Huh." Ratchet only sounds a little bitter. "Glad someone around here has an idea of what responsibility looks like."

Drift is mostly stable now, but there are still minor repairs to do. Ratchet works in silence for a few minutes.

"Look," he says suddenly. "I never really got a chance to explain about why I turned Tarn away. I mean--this is partly why, because he does things like this. But it's not all of it. ...it's not even most of it. And Pharma--he's here now. You should probably be briefed, if nothing else, in case he shows up here."

Ratchet's voice is oddly flat, scraped thin by a kind of pain that just leaves him looking tired and a little resigned.

"I joined up with The Lost Light originally because my hands were failing," he says quietly. "I could barely hold a glass, let alone..." He gestures with an elbow down to what he's doing, his jaw working briefly. "I wanted to find a new CMO, since I was about to be completely useless, and I thought Pharma was it."

"Pharma?"

Megatron looks at him, hovering just out of Ratchet's way in case he needed something out of reach. He's quiet as Ratchet begins to explain, watching his hands glide in a well-practiced manner.

"They don't have limb replacements on the Lost Light?"

Not that he was unused to that kind of situation - Manual class were always one accident away from being tossed to grinder. Whatever you were born with is all you had.

But he expected an Autobot ship to be better than that. At least, these versions of the Autobots.

Edited 2015-02-13 18:26 (UTC)

"Not these limbs," Ratchet says. "Not for me. A medic's hands... they're fine instruments, irreplaceable. Once my hands went, I was done. For good. And there were weirdly consistent statistics of patient deaths from Delphi, where Pharma was stationed." He looks up at Megatron now, still finishing a weld. "In the heart of the DJD's territory. On Messatine.

"So, we got there and everyone was dying of this... plague. First Aid was stationed there too. Drift and Pipes were with me. They both got sick, some Decepticons attacked, but eventually it all came out that Tarn had been forcing Pharma, under pain of torturing and killing everyone on the base including another medic name Ambulon who was a forme Decepticon, to kill patients so he could supply Tarn with t-cogs. He's addicted to transforming and has refused treatment before, that's why he needed so many. He burned them out."

Ratchet actually has to stop, his voice very steady but his vents rattling slightly.

"Pharma had gotten away with it as long as he could, but he eventually ended up cooking this rust virus, to take the whole place out and cover it up so nobody would know that he'd been first deliberately letting patients die, then killing them, to keep Tarn from... doing whatever he was going to do if Pharma refused. I came down with the plague--it was very fast-acting--and Pharma tried to kill me before I infected him. I managed to get the antidote from him and knocked him off the side of a building to let him hang there when he almost shot me to death." Ratchet's hands settle, flat and still, against Drift's too-cool plating. "Drift managed to somehow haul his tattered, leaking carcass up to the roof and chop off Pharma's hands to let him fall before he could take me out." He shrugs, not looking at Megatron, or even at Drift, but staring almost numbly down at the backs of his palms.

"So I took them. I needed them--especially then, with a bay full of rusted leakers that needed treatment. But Pharma--" He does look up at Megatron now, his face drawn and set. "We went to school together. He was good, he might have even been the best. But Tarn gave him an impossible choice to make, and it broke him. It's as much Tarn's fault as it is anyone's that he's dead."

"He doesn't need to kill you to do you harm, Megatron. A professional torturer knows how to prolong the pain. In fact, he doesn't even need to intend to do you harm in order to accomplish so." Aftermath crosses his arms, looking away. "He may very well hurt you for what he thinks is your own good- just like how he culls 'traitors' from our ranks for the good of the Cause."

"Think you can out-learn a super learner?" Actually genuinely curious for once in his life. Mostly because Team Rodimus is the best team and he supports everyone, but he also likes having the best and the brightest at his relative beck and call. "Will do."

Drift doesn't respond to that the way Rodimus probably hopes -- there's no glimmer of a smile, just a dimming of his optics and a slightly more tired to his slump against the berth. He doesn't actually want to see Megatron beating the spark out of Tarn -- this isn't about this, it's never been about this. He just wants Tarn over and done with, a footnote in Megatron's unpleasant past come to rear its head again over and over again, because every footnote in Megatron's past is an echo of Drift's own, one that he's tried so hard to put behind him, to show the world that he's changed. It's hard to feel his conviction bearing a fresh Decepticon brand on his chest.

"You seem upset," says Drift, winning the "most observant friend of the year" award.

"Wouldn't be so sure of that," Drift murmurs, his gaze still steady on Megatron's face. "I don't think Ratchet's keen on letting me out of his sight just yet."

Ratchet always does have a certain stubbornness when it comes to Drift and proving him wrong, even though they're friends now, or so Ratchet says. Apparently that's still a thing.

"...So you're learning to be a medic now, is that it?"

"...Are you saying he found a loophole?" June says slowly, and then a flat look settles on her face as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Of course he found a loophole. Oh my god."

June's really only gotten a fractured picture of things as they are in Rodimus' universe, meeting Autobots here and there, some of them crew of the Lost Light, some of them not. Some of them from far, far in the past, relative to everyone else. Rodimus is filling in some very critical gaps here, but a lot of this still doesn't make sense.

"Wait -- okay, how does this work exactly? You're captain of your ship...and Optimus also made Megatron captain? Isn't that...kind of a solitary position on a ship?"

That question doesn't even merit answering, not when June's got it figured out. Of course he did, because it's Megatron and it's impossible for him to actually be dead and gone and not bother anyone for any significantly long period of time. One of those constants that Rodimus has experienced first hand courtesy of a shot through the chassis.

He really hates Megatron.

Part of him wants to laugh at her second question, but he's too tired and exhausted to do so, so she just gets a strained grin, not entirely pleasant. "Yeah. Or at least that's how it's supposed to be." It clearly isn't and he is clearly not happy with it.

Spark sinking even further at the lack of positive reaction, Rodimus can't focus on Drift's face - optics trained on some vague point over his shoulder. He winces when Drift mentions his state of mind, childishness winning out over better responses as he mutters "Yeah. Can't imagine why," before sinking into the seat he'd claimed as his next to the head of the berth.

Because he can't leave. Not this time.

But he's reluctant to extrapolate, fingers tapping against the berth next to Drift's arm. Rodimus wouldn't even know where to begin. Nor does he know what's making him the most upset at this point in time - Drift's not even saying a word to him before asking for Megatron, the fact that it's just one more thing proving that Megatron is more highly valued, that he can do what Rodimus can't (he would have figured out a way to get back at Tarn, he would have!). His helm makes a small thump as he lets it fall back, connecting with the back of the chair. "It's bad enough he's on my ship. Why does he have to be here, too?"

Edited 2015-02-18 03:58 (UTC)

Oh my god, Cybertronians, you are giving June a headache.

"They'd rather listen to Megatron than you, is that it? Megatron. I mean, he seems...less like the murdering tyrant I expected, I'll give you that, but..."

But that's not what's really bothering Rodimus, is it. Or at least that's not what's bothering him the most. June's face softens as she wipes the handkerchief over the curve of a plate, drawing away to wring it out.

"It must be frustrating that Tarn's been hurting so many people you care about," she says. "From what Megatron told me, he sounds incredibly dangerous."

"We're all here for a reason," Drift says hoarsely, but it sounds a little hollow this time, bitter.

And he is, because he's trying so hard to put his faith in this, whatever it is that's happening, but he can't think of a reason for Tarn to be here, either, except to make them suffer. Drift doesn't know how to reconcile that. Blind faith has never been easy for him, and that's what makes it all so significant -- but this... He runs his fingers over the brand etched into his chest and his face darkens, his frame heavy with some invisible weight. It makes everything he's done to leave that part of himself behind feel futile. We're all here for a reason -- the words repeat themselves in his head, he repeats them, just as much to assure himself as it is for Rodimus. He need there to be a reason.

That particular movement is hard for Rodimus to miss, and his hand reaches out to grab Drift's wrist - probably not as gentle as he should have, all things considered - but he pulls Drift's hand away because that's not... it's not who Drift is. (His own palm smooth, with no trace of the voting tally but he knows the feeling of running fingers over scarred metal and the weight of something you'd rather forget etched into you but it's different with Drift because he didn't choose this.) Drift isn't that bot anymore. And he hates Tarn a little more. For making him feel helpless and worthless, for robbing Drift of the warmth he normally associates with his friend. He's not going to let that psychopath win. And sure, he's not certain what that entails, exactly, but that's never stopped him before and that's not going to stop him this time.

"You'll figure it out," is what he says in his attempt to at least banish the emptiness in his friend's voice. This isn't right, he thinks, because Drift's faith in whatever it is has always meant something to the other bot. He's always assumed it's just Drift being Drift but if his faith is what made him leave the Lost Light then it can figure out why they're all there.

Edited 2015-02-20 02:15 (UTC)

[ THE "DRIFT GOT HECKED UP BY TARN" CATCH-ALL POST ]

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it took me forever to figure out how to make this funny again, sorry

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HOW DARE no you're forgiven

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