2022-07-15 20:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redthedragon
redthedragonSomehow this was supposed to be a Fandom Weekly fill (for nightmare, on account of the thing being all kicked off by one big PTSD trigger).
~4500 words of Vortex and Onslaught talking mental health, blatantly just me projecting onto Vortex. I've had a rough couple weeks and Vortex gets to have a worse one.
title is a reference to the song Change (in the house of flies) by Deftones. Not hugely accurate but it came on while I was posting this and I couldn't think of anything better; at least this is "clever."
Content warning for on-screen semi-graphic self-harm. and arguing about mental health stuff. possibly some minimization, idk. i'm very tired.
Catch it on Ao3 here.
Onslaught went to find Vortex in the brig.
This was getting more and more common. Vortex had always been like this, prone to randomly snapping and turning on people he was nominally on the same side of when he was in a foul mood, but it used to be that he'd have this problem once a year. Now it was approaching once a month. Much more of this and Onslaught wouldn't be able to keep his feet out of the fire. It was hard enough trying to talk Soundwave down from another prison sentence to a long punishment detail, and that only worked because Bruticus was still more valuable to High Command than the mecha Vortex refused to keep his claws off of. If he could only redirect all that aggression into the mecha he was supposed to hurt instead of other Decepticons...
Onslaught knew better than to expect that, or (Primus help him) ask for it. Vortex was a fragging nightmare to manage, and it wasn't even entirely because he wanted to be. Sometimes he just got into these moods- irritable, short-tempered, easily bored- and combined with his already-capricious and cruel personality, he was just... well. To call him "a handful" would be understating it. He was ten handfuls and a headache masquerading as a mech. If Onslaught got him in one of those moods and asked Vortex to keep it productive, Vortex would probably kill an informant on purpose just to make Onslaught mad. He was that kind of person.
The steps to the brig creaked under Onslaught's pedes. The distant sound of claws on durasteel stopped immediately. Onslaught took a second to compose himself before walking down to Vortex's cell.
The helicopter sat on the slab, apparently waiting patiently for Onslaught to come and speak with him. Despite the way his hands were folded in his lap, Onslaught could see the nervous energy in him. His rotor blades quivered; he looked like he was struggling with the effort not to tap his fingers on his plating or something. And, of course, there were claw-shaped scratches on his chest and divots on the slab and purple paint transfers on the tips of his fingers. "Hey, boss."
"Will you tell me why you did it?"
"Haven't we done this before? I felt like it, Ons, you can't tell me you never looked at Scavenger and wanted to really see him cry. He makes it so damn easy to want to get to him."
"Yeah, we've done this before, so I'm not stupid enough to think that that's what this was really about. Why'd you do it? Quit bullshitting me, Vortex."
Vortex leaned forward, putting one hand under his chin. His optical band was so bright it almost hurt to look at. That couldn't have been a pleasant burn. "You gonna let me out of here, boss? Is this it?"
"Soundwave wanted you in prison for the next six cycles."
Vortex's rotors stilled. "It is, isn't it. I knew I was outliving my usefulness."
"We," Onslaught corrected. "We are running out of goodwill because of you. Do you really think Megatron is going to give any of us the kind of clemency we've been receiving once we can't give him Bruticus?"
Vortex shrugged, apparently disinterested. "Honestly, you ask me, Swindle deserves it more than I do. He gets away with murder."
"No, Vortex, you get away with murder. Because of me! Because every time you frag up I go and bow and scrape to get you off the hook!"
Vortex stood up, bouncing to the front of the forcefield separating him from Onslaught. "Yeah. Thank you so much, glorious leader. Should I bow and scrape like Starscream about it?"
Onslaught took a deep vent. Vortex was trying to wind him up. He did that sometimes. "Explain to me why you are behaving like this. Explain to me what happened."
"I'm just fragged in the head, Ons, you know that."
Primus give him strength. Onslaught gestured at nothing in particular. "You weren't like this yesterday! Tell me what changed. I want to work with you, Vortex. I want to figure out what's wrong."
"You gonna let me out of the fucking cell? I'm bored out of my fucking skull."
Onslaught shook his head. "Talk to me and I'll let you out."
Vortex, lacking optics to roll, did an obnoxious little waggle with his head to mimic the look and deposited himself back down onto the slab with a loud clattering noise. "Guess I'll be in here a while."
Onslaught nearly responded, but Vortex could be patient when he wanted to be. He had to have some self-control to do the job he did, after all, inasmuch as it seemed like he relished the opportunity to pretend that when Vector Sigma had spat him out, it had forgotten to give him any. But Onslaught could be patient, too.
"Alright. I'll be back tomorrow if you want to talk."
When Onslaught came back the next day, Vortex was laying flat on his back on the floor, picking dirt from under his clawtips. He sat up quickly when Onslaught walked into the room, scrambling to his feet. "Onslaught!"
"Hi, Vortex. Thought about what I said yesterday?"
"You can't really leave me in here," Vortex said, in lieu of an answer. "Eventually Soundwave is going to want his brig back. It's not your playground."
"He's mad, Vortex," Onslaught said. Vortex was right, of course; that didn't mean Soundwave wouldn't let him use a cell for a week or two. And Vortex would be climbing the walls after less than that. It looked like he already was.
"Still. I'm not going to be in here forever."
"You want to be in here for weeks on end? Be my guest. Do you really doubt I'll do it? I'll let you out when you talk to me."
Vortex huffed, vents clattering. "Onslaught, come on. Bluffing doesn't suit you."
Onslaught shook his head and turned to leave. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"Wait!"
"What. I thought I was bluffing?" Onslaught stopped, but didn't turn back to Vortex. "Have you got something to say to me?"
"Can you bring me a ball? I forgot to shove it in my subspace and I want something to do."
Onslaught scoffed and walked out.
"Vortex: still in brig," Soundwave intoned, looming over Onslaught in the officer's mess.
"He's been uncooperative," Onslaught said, setting his cube down. It felt like someone had poured ice straight into his lines, down his backstrut. "I don't expect this to take much more than a few days more."
"Onslaught: insisted Vortex's behavior would change," Soundwave said, musical voice definitely holding an edge of menace. "Onslaught: lied?"
"He will change his behavior," Onslaught said. "I am not lying, Soundwave. I will get a handle on him. I just need a little bit of time."
"Soundwave: understands." Onslaught relaxed, just slightly. "Soundwave: expects immediate improvement. Vortex's behavior: unacceptable."
"I understand," Onslaught said, optics fixed on Soundwave's visor. "He will."
Soundwave silently loomed over Onslaught for a few more tense moments, then abruptly turned on his heel and left. Onslaught choked the rest of his cube down and retreated from the mess hall, trying not to feel like there were optics on him all the while.
When Onslaught returned to the brig the next morning, Vortex was peeling up the flange on his wrist. He looked up immediately when Onslaught came to stand before him. "Morning, boss."
"Morning, Vortex. Can you, um...?"
Vortex pulled his fingers out and wiped the strings of energon off on the top of his thigh. "Gonna ask me what the other day was about again? I don't suppose you asked Scavenger what set me off."
Onslaught had, actually. Scavenger either hadn't known or hadn't wanted to tell, and Onslaught- having known Vortex for more than five minutes- was inclined to believe there wasn't anything by way of an inciting incident anyway. Sometimes it felt like Vortex was just looking for an excuse. This had felt to Onslaught like exactly one of those times.
"That's neither here nor there," Onslaught said, instead of all that. "I want to hear it in your own words."
"Well. I want a bouncy ball."
"Vortex, I will let you out of the cell once you make it clear you're willing to work with me."
"I know," Vortex said, uncharacteristically sincere for a second; then he went back to picking at his wrist. "And I still want a bouncy ball."
"Right," Onslaught said. "Should I be taking this as a sign you're not going to be forthright with me here and leave?"
"No," Vortex said. "You know I don't do anything approaching my best work while I'm bored. I got nothing to do with my hands. Either you give me something to play with or I'm gonna pull all my armor off with my bare hands, and after the other day I'm not sure I believe the green and purple eyesores are gonna put me back together again."
"Then talk to me now," Onslaught stressed. "Help me get you out of here."
Vortex shook his head. "It's not going to work."
"Give it a shot."
"I've done this before, you know," Vortex said, tearing off a small strip of yellow metal and flicking it at the forcefield at the mouth of the cell. It made a nasty heated sizzling sound before falling to the floor. "You can't think you're the only CO I've ever had to notice that sometimes I cause problems more times than others."
"Alright," Onslaught said. "What happened then?"
Vortex shrugged. "You haven't got anything you don't need sitting around in your subspace."
Onslaught considered it. "I don't make a habit of carrying garbage or stupid toys around, no. I have a... tarp?"
Vortex raised his brows. "Like the cloth?"
"It's convenient in the rain."
"I think I'll pass, actually." Vortex plucked another torn piece of metal from the inside of his wrist and flicked it across the cell. "Anyway, Scavenger started it this time."
"Okay," Onslaught said. "What'd he do?"
Vortex grabbed a bit of torn plating and started pulling it off from the rest. Energon seeped out from under it, bright violet in the dim brig lights. "We were in the rec room. He wouldn't get out from in front of the damn TV. Told him to move six times and he didn't move."
Onslaught waited, but Vortex didn't continue. "...and?"
"And what? He didn't move, so I was mad at him."
"Mad enough to follow him to his quarters, put his optics out, and remove his hand?"
"Oh, yeah. I was interrupted, honestly, I was mad enough to do worse." The strip of plating finally separated from the rest of Vortex's armor with a tortured screech and Vortex flicked that at the forcefield, too. It was a fair sight heavier than the two smaller pieces and it landed heavily on the ground instead, a couple feet away from the forcefield. Revealed, the struts and tensors in Vortex's arm twitched minutely. Energon seeped from a small handful of torn lines.
"I do want this back," Onslaught said, and pulled a stylus out of his subspace. He switched the forcefield off and noted that Vortex didn't even try for freedom, just caught it easily in his uninjured hand. He put the forcefield back up. It was still better to have it there. To remind Vortex what was at stake here. "Scribble on the floor or something."
"You got it, Ons," Vortex said, and twirled it between his fingers like he sometimes did with his knives.
"You know that torturing Scavenger was a disproportionate-"
"I wasn't torturing him," Vortex said. "I don't know why everyone gets that wrong. If it's not on the clock, it doesn't count. It's just assault."
Onslaught resisted the urge to sigh. "I don't think anyone would care if you'd just hit him, though. Why'd you feel the need to go that far overboard?"
"What can I say, boss?" Vortex shrugged, drama infused in both his tone and his body language. "I thought it'd be more fun."
"Bullshit." Onslaught had heard better lies from sparklings. "Why didn't you throw something at him in the rec room, make him move, and call it a day?"
"Oh, I did. It wasn't enough."
That was getting somewhere. "What, so it was eating at you?"
"I guess, yeah." Vortex shrugged, spinning his rotors. "I told you, I've done all this before. You're gonna tell me I need to do some sort of anger management or some stupid slag that isn't gonna do shit or send me off to- Shockwave, or something, to reprogram me and it won't work. I told you I've outlived my usefulness."
"Shut the frag up about what you think I'm gonna do and just keep telling me what happened," Onslaught snapped. "It doesn't matter what anyone else has done."
"There's only so many ways to skin a cat."
"What?"
"Some shit I saw on the TV," Vortex said, "some kind of human saying. I don't know. I guess you can skin a cat two different ways or something."
"There's more than two ways to deal with whatever you're doing," Onslaught said, shaking his head. "I don't care about skin and cats or whatever the hell the humans say. Why wasn't it enough to get him to move?"
Vortex sighed, his hands stilling on the stylus. "You gotta understand, none of this is normal slag. I'm gonna tell you and you're--"
"Shut up about what you think I'm going to do. Vortex. I don't care what you think I'm gonna do. Assume at this point I'm just gonna tell you to go, I don't know, light some fragging human town on fire when you get whatever the hell it is you get. Stop putting words in my mouth and just. Talk. Just tell me what it is."
"I don't want you to decide to fix me," Vortex said, flat and angry. "Everyone thinks they can help. This shit can't be helped."
"Then I'll fragging shut you up in our quarters until you cool off. What do you want me to say? Do you want to land us all in a cell?" Vortex shook his head, optics widening. "Talk, Vortex."
"I don't know what you want me to say. Do you want me to try to scare you? I was in a bad mood, I was mad at Scavenger, I got even, it didn't feel even, so I got one up on him. That was all."
"Scare me, then, because that's not everything."
"Shit doesn't feel real. It's like I'm walking through a fucking dream. Nothing has any consequences, that's just- "
"Vortex, I don't belive you know what a consequence is when you're normal either."
"Quit busting my bearings. You wanted me to talk, then listen. It's like nothing follows, I just got these disconnected urges and I gotta follow them because nothing else is real, it's like whatever I'm feeling is all that matters." He stopped. He didn't sound like he was done. "You gonna call me crazy now?"
"Nah."
"Nah?"
"Nah. I told you, I'm not here to rake you over the coals, I'm here to figure out how to keep you out of a cell. Keep talking."
"Huh," Vortex said, staring straight at Onslaught. "You good?"
"I have Soundwave watching me like a hawk waiting for you to step out of line again so he can get rid of all five of us. Of course I'm not good. Keep talking anyway."
Vortex glanced askance, toward the camera in the corner of the cell. "It's like I need to do something. Not- not for any reason, I just can't sit. And nothing is fun. Nothing is enough. You've met me. You know what I like. Pain, causing trouble. So I do that."
Onslaught nodded. "So. To make sure I got this. You hurt people and cause trouble because consequences are fake and nothing is real."
"I mean obviously I know better, I'm not fragging stupid- "
"Vortex, stop trying to defend yourself and just work with me here. That's the state of mind?"
"...yeah. Sometimes I break slag. And... I don't know."
Onslaught fought the urge to shake his head, or scoff. "That just sounds like disassociation. Like normal fucking disassociation." Vortex was staring at him. "Dissasociation is- "
"I know what fucking disassociation is, Onslaught, I'm not fucking stupid. How- how do you know what dissasociation is?"
"Because I'm not fucking stupid," Onslaught said right back. "You're hardly the only mech on the planet this happens to, Tex, you're not fucking special."
"--what?"
"That's all it is?"
"I've been impulsive since the day you met me."
"That's all it is?"
"If I don't do it, it's like the walls are closing in on me. Like I can't breathe. That what you want to hear? Like everything is muted and the only thing that matters is that I have to get out of my head before it boxes me the fuck up, before it all closes in for the last time and I'm stuck like that- "
"You know that isn't how it works, right?"
Vortex fixed Onslaught with a flat stare. "That's how it worked in the Detention Center."
Onslaught took a second. "You understand that's where you're headed if you don't get a handle on yourself."
Vortex shook his head. "I'm telling you, I'm going back no matter what I do. The question is just how long I have before I do."
"So you're not even going to try to avoid it? You're just gonna sell us all down the fucking hole?"
"I don't know," Vortex snapped, digging the stylus into the exposed mechanisms of his wrist, "if it's not gonna work it's not gonna work, Onslaught, I don't know what you want me to fucking tell you here."
"When it's happening!" Onslaught snapped. "So we can do something about it that doesn't end in you here!"
Vortex shook his head. "Wishful fucking thinking. You really expect me to just... what, go 'oh, Onslaught, everything isn't happening enough and I have the strongest urge to pull someone's fingers off their hands and if you even try to get in my way I'm going to snap on you like a fragging turbohound smelling blood, please do something about it,' sure. I'm sure we'll both have a great time if I do that."
"Do I sound like I want to have a good time? Does any of this sound like I am tyring to have anything other than some understanding of why you're going off like this?"
"And do you not fucking get it now? Are we done here?"
"I don't know. You get dissociated and you get mad and you just follow people and hurt them because if you don't, you feel like you're gonna land back in the Detention Center. That's what it is?"
"And everything makes me fucking mad. Might want to factor that into your, your cute little--"
"You sure it isn't that you're fucking scared?"
Vortex was shocked silent by that for a second. "Oh, fuck you, Onslaught. Is this you trying to frame me as some sort of coward?"
"You've been doing your absolute best not to talk to me for days, so, yeah, sure. I don't know, Vortex, if I'm so off-base then explain."
"I was trying to! You kept interrupting me, Onslaught. I'm fucking mad all the time, at everyone, for everything. Small shit, stupid slag I wouldn't even care about otherwise."
"Mad at the Detention Center?"
"Mad at Shockwave." Vortex paused, digging around with the stylus in his arm some more. A piston in his wrist jumped spasmodically. "Not fucking scared, mech, I'm not fragging scared."
"It's not like it's some kind of big deal if it does, Vortex, I'm not trying to figure out your insecurities or whatever." Oh, this was going to end so badly. "I mean, mine is all kinds of fear, and-- "
"Yours?"
Ah, shit, here they went. "You know things about people. You know I'm controlling, you know I've got a thing. It's all fear, it's anxiety. It doesn't matter. I don't- I don't know, I'm not trying to insult you, Vortex."
"Still ain't fucking scared," Vortex said, flat. "If you just wanna assume I'm the same as you-- "
"You hear me say that even once in this conversation?"
"No."
"The only reason I care is because you're doing it more often and it's getting obvious, Tex, however miserable you make yourself is your business. I'm not trying to, I don't fucking know, I'm barely even holding out a fucking hand right now. You wouldn't take it if I were."
Vortex jerked the stylus hard enough to rip a line. Energon splashed across his mask. "You left me here for days."
"I told you to tell me why you did this and you told me you'd be in here a while. That was all you."
Vortex made a little frustrated noise, glancing off to the side again. Looking at the camera. "I make shit up sometimes, too. Shit that didn't happen, I'll think it happened. I can usually catch it. I'm getting worse at catching it."
"That happen this time?"
"No fragging idea." He paused, stylus stilling in his hand. "Maybe. You still refuse to call this what it is?"
"What do you want me to call it? I don't know how many times you want me to tell you I don't care how glitched you think you are, that's not why I'm here. I--"
"Yeah, I know, you want to keep me out of a cell by expecting me to tell you when I'm out of my head. That's not how it works, Onslaught, I'm trying to tell you. It's not that fucking easy--"
"I know it's not fucking easy!"
"Then stop acting like it fucking is!"
"All I'm expecting from you," Onslaught said, "is that you come tell us before you go tear some fucker's arm off or something. That you talk to me. That's all I'm looking for here, Tex."
"So you can stop me? Throw me in a closet until I calm down?"
"If for no other reason, so we can lie better when we're getting you off the hook. And yeah. Sometimes to sto you so you don't fuck us all over," Vortex narrowed his over-bright optics. "You are the one who told me you don't remember consequences are real. I'll work around it if you won't."
"Think I ruined your stylus," Vortex said, apropos of nothing.
"I figured when you stuck it in your arm. Will you talk to me?"
"You said you wanted it back."
"I also said you should write on the floor. I don't see either of that happening. Will you talk to me?"
"You're not mad?"
Ugh. "Of course I'm fucking mad. Will you talk to me next time?"
"You don't sound mad."
"You're not answering the question."
"What do you want me to say? I told you I can't do that."
"You can't come home and say 'hey, Onslaught, come watch me make Scavenger regret standing in front of me?'"
"That is not how you told me to say it, Onslaught."
"Fucking put it in whatever words you want to make it work for you. I don't care. Keep me in the loop as best as you can, Vortex."
Vortex scoffed. "Yeah, whatever. I can try."
"Why's it keep coming up so much, anyway? It's new. You're slipping."
"You think I don't fucking know that?"
"I think you know why you're slipping and I don't. You've been this way since we met, you think I only just noticed?"
"What, that I'm an inconsistent weirdo with no impulse control? Because I don't know if anyone told you, but that's me on a good-- "
"Cut the crap, Vortex, whatever this is isn't subtle. It's obvious there's something up with you. You wanna run that by me again?"
"Every time I get got by the loyalty coding, I start thinking about the Detention Center." He paused, turning to point with the bloodied stylus. "Not in a scared way. I'm not scared. I just don't want to think about that. But it, you know, it's... it doesn't go away. And then I get fucked in the head about it."
Onslaught thought, privately, that Vortex was genuinly too smart for this nonsense posturing. Whatever. He'd take him at his word. If that wasn't right, then Vortex would get annoyed about it and crrect him eventually. "Alright. I can work with that. Get up."
Vortex was at the edge of the forcefield in seconds, practically quivering with anticipation. His fever-bright eyes blazed. "Finally letting me out now?"
"Yeah."
"I been bored as hell," Vortex said, while Onslaught punched in the code to disable the forcefield. "Three days in a cell with nothing to do, Onslaught.
"Yup."
"You think maybe I can do you?" Vortex's rotors twitched. "Right up against the wall across from the cell block, maybe."
Onslaught gave it a few seconds' hesitation, thinkingit over as he punched in the final digits to drop the forcefield. But this'd been a miserable day in a slew of miserable days, and it wasn't even done yet. "I'll let you suck me off."
Vortex paused for a moment, rotors stilling, and then leaned in. "Sure thing, boss."
Onslaught let Vortex push him back toward the other wall, and watched as he sunk to his knees between Onslaught's thighs. He took his mask down, licking his lips. He grinned up at Onslaught; Onslaught went to slide his spike cover back when Vortex turned, grin going knife-sharp, and bit the inside of his hip, hard. Meant to damage, too; he took a good chunk of the motor relays in there with him, shearing through energon lines like it was nothing.
"The frag, Vortex?" Onsalught yelped, shoving Vortex out of his crotch. Vortex unfolded back to his feet, mask snapping back into place. Onslaught's injured thigh throbbed.
"Lock me up again just to make me talk to you," Vortex spat.
"So we can avoid this happening for real," Onslaught pointed out.
"Fuck you, Ons," Vortex said, and fled of the brig.
Really, this was such typical Vortex behavior. He delighted in making things difficult. Onslaught considered, one hand pressed to the crease of his bleeding hip, he probably shouldn't have even been surprised.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even immediate, like Soundwave had demanded. It was, by all measures, a stopgap, because Vortex was still wildly uncommunicative, and Onslaught had no real interests in fixing that. But it worked well enough, and the five of them were better liars when they had time to pay other mecha off and coordinate their stories.
Onslaught called that good enough.
~4500 words of Vortex and Onslaught talking mental health, blatantly just me projecting onto Vortex. I've had a rough couple weeks and Vortex gets to have a worse one.
title is a reference to the song Change (in the house of flies) by Deftones. Not hugely accurate but it came on while I was posting this and I couldn't think of anything better; at least this is "clever."
Content warning for on-screen semi-graphic self-harm. and arguing about mental health stuff. possibly some minimization, idk. i'm very tired.
Catch it on Ao3 here.
Onslaught went to find Vortex in the brig.
This was getting more and more common. Vortex had always been like this, prone to randomly snapping and turning on people he was nominally on the same side of when he was in a foul mood, but it used to be that he'd have this problem once a year. Now it was approaching once a month. Much more of this and Onslaught wouldn't be able to keep his feet out of the fire. It was hard enough trying to talk Soundwave down from another prison sentence to a long punishment detail, and that only worked because Bruticus was still more valuable to High Command than the mecha Vortex refused to keep his claws off of. If he could only redirect all that aggression into the mecha he was supposed to hurt instead of other Decepticons...
Onslaught knew better than to expect that, or (Primus help him) ask for it. Vortex was a fragging nightmare to manage, and it wasn't even entirely because he wanted to be. Sometimes he just got into these moods- irritable, short-tempered, easily bored- and combined with his already-capricious and cruel personality, he was just... well. To call him "a handful" would be understating it. He was ten handfuls and a headache masquerading as a mech. If Onslaught got him in one of those moods and asked Vortex to keep it productive, Vortex would probably kill an informant on purpose just to make Onslaught mad. He was that kind of person.
The steps to the brig creaked under Onslaught's pedes. The distant sound of claws on durasteel stopped immediately. Onslaught took a second to compose himself before walking down to Vortex's cell.
The helicopter sat on the slab, apparently waiting patiently for Onslaught to come and speak with him. Despite the way his hands were folded in his lap, Onslaught could see the nervous energy in him. His rotor blades quivered; he looked like he was struggling with the effort not to tap his fingers on his plating or something. And, of course, there were claw-shaped scratches on his chest and divots on the slab and purple paint transfers on the tips of his fingers. "Hey, boss."
"Will you tell me why you did it?"
"Haven't we done this before? I felt like it, Ons, you can't tell me you never looked at Scavenger and wanted to really see him cry. He makes it so damn easy to want to get to him."
"Yeah, we've done this before, so I'm not stupid enough to think that that's what this was really about. Why'd you do it? Quit bullshitting me, Vortex."
Vortex leaned forward, putting one hand under his chin. His optical band was so bright it almost hurt to look at. That couldn't have been a pleasant burn. "You gonna let me out of here, boss? Is this it?"
"Soundwave wanted you in prison for the next six cycles."
Vortex's rotors stilled. "It is, isn't it. I knew I was outliving my usefulness."
"We," Onslaught corrected. "We are running out of goodwill because of you. Do you really think Megatron is going to give any of us the kind of clemency we've been receiving once we can't give him Bruticus?"
Vortex shrugged, apparently disinterested. "Honestly, you ask me, Swindle deserves it more than I do. He gets away with murder."
"No, Vortex, you get away with murder. Because of me! Because every time you frag up I go and bow and scrape to get you off the hook!"
Vortex stood up, bouncing to the front of the forcefield separating him from Onslaught. "Yeah. Thank you so much, glorious leader. Should I bow and scrape like Starscream about it?"
Onslaught took a deep vent. Vortex was trying to wind him up. He did that sometimes. "Explain to me why you are behaving like this. Explain to me what happened."
"I'm just fragged in the head, Ons, you know that."
Primus give him strength. Onslaught gestured at nothing in particular. "You weren't like this yesterday! Tell me what changed. I want to work with you, Vortex. I want to figure out what's wrong."
"You gonna let me out of the fucking cell? I'm bored out of my fucking skull."
Onslaught shook his head. "Talk to me and I'll let you out."
Vortex, lacking optics to roll, did an obnoxious little waggle with his head to mimic the look and deposited himself back down onto the slab with a loud clattering noise. "Guess I'll be in here a while."
Onslaught nearly responded, but Vortex could be patient when he wanted to be. He had to have some self-control to do the job he did, after all, inasmuch as it seemed like he relished the opportunity to pretend that when Vector Sigma had spat him out, it had forgotten to give him any. But Onslaught could be patient, too.
"Alright. I'll be back tomorrow if you want to talk."
When Onslaught came back the next day, Vortex was laying flat on his back on the floor, picking dirt from under his clawtips. He sat up quickly when Onslaught walked into the room, scrambling to his feet. "Onslaught!"
"Hi, Vortex. Thought about what I said yesterday?"
"You can't really leave me in here," Vortex said, in lieu of an answer. "Eventually Soundwave is going to want his brig back. It's not your playground."
"He's mad, Vortex," Onslaught said. Vortex was right, of course; that didn't mean Soundwave wouldn't let him use a cell for a week or two. And Vortex would be climbing the walls after less than that. It looked like he already was.
"Still. I'm not going to be in here forever."
"You want to be in here for weeks on end? Be my guest. Do you really doubt I'll do it? I'll let you out when you talk to me."
Vortex huffed, vents clattering. "Onslaught, come on. Bluffing doesn't suit you."
Onslaught shook his head and turned to leave. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"Wait!"
"What. I thought I was bluffing?" Onslaught stopped, but didn't turn back to Vortex. "Have you got something to say to me?"
"Can you bring me a ball? I forgot to shove it in my subspace and I want something to do."
Onslaught scoffed and walked out.
"Vortex: still in brig," Soundwave intoned, looming over Onslaught in the officer's mess.
"He's been uncooperative," Onslaught said, setting his cube down. It felt like someone had poured ice straight into his lines, down his backstrut. "I don't expect this to take much more than a few days more."
"Onslaught: insisted Vortex's behavior would change," Soundwave said, musical voice definitely holding an edge of menace. "Onslaught: lied?"
"He will change his behavior," Onslaught said. "I am not lying, Soundwave. I will get a handle on him. I just need a little bit of time."
"Soundwave: understands." Onslaught relaxed, just slightly. "Soundwave: expects immediate improvement. Vortex's behavior: unacceptable."
"I understand," Onslaught said, optics fixed on Soundwave's visor. "He will."
Soundwave silently loomed over Onslaught for a few more tense moments, then abruptly turned on his heel and left. Onslaught choked the rest of his cube down and retreated from the mess hall, trying not to feel like there were optics on him all the while.
When Onslaught returned to the brig the next morning, Vortex was peeling up the flange on his wrist. He looked up immediately when Onslaught came to stand before him. "Morning, boss."
"Morning, Vortex. Can you, um...?"
Vortex pulled his fingers out and wiped the strings of energon off on the top of his thigh. "Gonna ask me what the other day was about again? I don't suppose you asked Scavenger what set me off."
Onslaught had, actually. Scavenger either hadn't known or hadn't wanted to tell, and Onslaught- having known Vortex for more than five minutes- was inclined to believe there wasn't anything by way of an inciting incident anyway. Sometimes it felt like Vortex was just looking for an excuse. This had felt to Onslaught like exactly one of those times.
"That's neither here nor there," Onslaught said, instead of all that. "I want to hear it in your own words."
"Well. I want a bouncy ball."
"Vortex, I will let you out of the cell once you make it clear you're willing to work with me."
"I know," Vortex said, uncharacteristically sincere for a second; then he went back to picking at his wrist. "And I still want a bouncy ball."
"Right," Onslaught said. "Should I be taking this as a sign you're not going to be forthright with me here and leave?"
"No," Vortex said. "You know I don't do anything approaching my best work while I'm bored. I got nothing to do with my hands. Either you give me something to play with or I'm gonna pull all my armor off with my bare hands, and after the other day I'm not sure I believe the green and purple eyesores are gonna put me back together again."
"Then talk to me now," Onslaught stressed. "Help me get you out of here."
Vortex shook his head. "It's not going to work."
"Give it a shot."
"I've done this before, you know," Vortex said, tearing off a small strip of yellow metal and flicking it at the forcefield at the mouth of the cell. It made a nasty heated sizzling sound before falling to the floor. "You can't think you're the only CO I've ever had to notice that sometimes I cause problems more times than others."
"Alright," Onslaught said. "What happened then?"
Vortex shrugged. "You haven't got anything you don't need sitting around in your subspace."
Onslaught considered it. "I don't make a habit of carrying garbage or stupid toys around, no. I have a... tarp?"
Vortex raised his brows. "Like the cloth?"
"It's convenient in the rain."
"I think I'll pass, actually." Vortex plucked another torn piece of metal from the inside of his wrist and flicked it across the cell. "Anyway, Scavenger started it this time."
"Okay," Onslaught said. "What'd he do?"
Vortex grabbed a bit of torn plating and started pulling it off from the rest. Energon seeped out from under it, bright violet in the dim brig lights. "We were in the rec room. He wouldn't get out from in front of the damn TV. Told him to move six times and he didn't move."
Onslaught waited, but Vortex didn't continue. "...and?"
"And what? He didn't move, so I was mad at him."
"Mad enough to follow him to his quarters, put his optics out, and remove his hand?"
"Oh, yeah. I was interrupted, honestly, I was mad enough to do worse." The strip of plating finally separated from the rest of Vortex's armor with a tortured screech and Vortex flicked that at the forcefield, too. It was a fair sight heavier than the two smaller pieces and it landed heavily on the ground instead, a couple feet away from the forcefield. Revealed, the struts and tensors in Vortex's arm twitched minutely. Energon seeped from a small handful of torn lines.
"I do want this back," Onslaught said, and pulled a stylus out of his subspace. He switched the forcefield off and noted that Vortex didn't even try for freedom, just caught it easily in his uninjured hand. He put the forcefield back up. It was still better to have it there. To remind Vortex what was at stake here. "Scribble on the floor or something."
"You got it, Ons," Vortex said, and twirled it between his fingers like he sometimes did with his knives.
"You know that torturing Scavenger was a disproportionate-"
"I wasn't torturing him," Vortex said. "I don't know why everyone gets that wrong. If it's not on the clock, it doesn't count. It's just assault."
Onslaught resisted the urge to sigh. "I don't think anyone would care if you'd just hit him, though. Why'd you feel the need to go that far overboard?"
"What can I say, boss?" Vortex shrugged, drama infused in both his tone and his body language. "I thought it'd be more fun."
"Bullshit." Onslaught had heard better lies from sparklings. "Why didn't you throw something at him in the rec room, make him move, and call it a day?"
"Oh, I did. It wasn't enough."
That was getting somewhere. "What, so it was eating at you?"
"I guess, yeah." Vortex shrugged, spinning his rotors. "I told you, I've done all this before. You're gonna tell me I need to do some sort of anger management or some stupid slag that isn't gonna do shit or send me off to- Shockwave, or something, to reprogram me and it won't work. I told you I've outlived my usefulness."
"Shut the frag up about what you think I'm gonna do and just keep telling me what happened," Onslaught snapped. "It doesn't matter what anyone else has done."
"There's only so many ways to skin a cat."
"What?"
"Some shit I saw on the TV," Vortex said, "some kind of human saying. I don't know. I guess you can skin a cat two different ways or something."
"There's more than two ways to deal with whatever you're doing," Onslaught said, shaking his head. "I don't care about skin and cats or whatever the hell the humans say. Why wasn't it enough to get him to move?"
Vortex sighed, his hands stilling on the stylus. "You gotta understand, none of this is normal slag. I'm gonna tell you and you're--"
"Shut up about what you think I'm going to do. Vortex. I don't care what you think I'm gonna do. Assume at this point I'm just gonna tell you to go, I don't know, light some fragging human town on fire when you get whatever the hell it is you get. Stop putting words in my mouth and just. Talk. Just tell me what it is."
"I don't want you to decide to fix me," Vortex said, flat and angry. "Everyone thinks they can help. This shit can't be helped."
"Then I'll fragging shut you up in our quarters until you cool off. What do you want me to say? Do you want to land us all in a cell?" Vortex shook his head, optics widening. "Talk, Vortex."
"I don't know what you want me to say. Do you want me to try to scare you? I was in a bad mood, I was mad at Scavenger, I got even, it didn't feel even, so I got one up on him. That was all."
"Scare me, then, because that's not everything."
"Shit doesn't feel real. It's like I'm walking through a fucking dream. Nothing has any consequences, that's just- "
"Vortex, I don't belive you know what a consequence is when you're normal either."
"Quit busting my bearings. You wanted me to talk, then listen. It's like nothing follows, I just got these disconnected urges and I gotta follow them because nothing else is real, it's like whatever I'm feeling is all that matters." He stopped. He didn't sound like he was done. "You gonna call me crazy now?"
"Nah."
"Nah?"
"Nah. I told you, I'm not here to rake you over the coals, I'm here to figure out how to keep you out of a cell. Keep talking."
"Huh," Vortex said, staring straight at Onslaught. "You good?"
"I have Soundwave watching me like a hawk waiting for you to step out of line again so he can get rid of all five of us. Of course I'm not good. Keep talking anyway."
Vortex glanced askance, toward the camera in the corner of the cell. "It's like I need to do something. Not- not for any reason, I just can't sit. And nothing is fun. Nothing is enough. You've met me. You know what I like. Pain, causing trouble. So I do that."
Onslaught nodded. "So. To make sure I got this. You hurt people and cause trouble because consequences are fake and nothing is real."
"I mean obviously I know better, I'm not fragging stupid- "
"Vortex, stop trying to defend yourself and just work with me here. That's the state of mind?"
"...yeah. Sometimes I break slag. And... I don't know."
Onslaught fought the urge to shake his head, or scoff. "That just sounds like disassociation. Like normal fucking disassociation." Vortex was staring at him. "Dissasociation is- "
"I know what fucking disassociation is, Onslaught, I'm not fucking stupid. How- how do you know what dissasociation is?"
"Because I'm not fucking stupid," Onslaught said right back. "You're hardly the only mech on the planet this happens to, Tex, you're not fucking special."
"--what?"
"That's all it is?"
"I've been impulsive since the day you met me."
"That's all it is?"
"If I don't do it, it's like the walls are closing in on me. Like I can't breathe. That what you want to hear? Like everything is muted and the only thing that matters is that I have to get out of my head before it boxes me the fuck up, before it all closes in for the last time and I'm stuck like that- "
"You know that isn't how it works, right?"
Vortex fixed Onslaught with a flat stare. "That's how it worked in the Detention Center."
Onslaught took a second. "You understand that's where you're headed if you don't get a handle on yourself."
Vortex shook his head. "I'm telling you, I'm going back no matter what I do. The question is just how long I have before I do."
"So you're not even going to try to avoid it? You're just gonna sell us all down the fucking hole?"
"I don't know," Vortex snapped, digging the stylus into the exposed mechanisms of his wrist, "if it's not gonna work it's not gonna work, Onslaught, I don't know what you want me to fucking tell you here."
"When it's happening!" Onslaught snapped. "So we can do something about it that doesn't end in you here!"
Vortex shook his head. "Wishful fucking thinking. You really expect me to just... what, go 'oh, Onslaught, everything isn't happening enough and I have the strongest urge to pull someone's fingers off their hands and if you even try to get in my way I'm going to snap on you like a fragging turbohound smelling blood, please do something about it,' sure. I'm sure we'll both have a great time if I do that."
"Do I sound like I want to have a good time? Does any of this sound like I am tyring to have anything other than some understanding of why you're going off like this?"
"And do you not fucking get it now? Are we done here?"
"I don't know. You get dissociated and you get mad and you just follow people and hurt them because if you don't, you feel like you're gonna land back in the Detention Center. That's what it is?"
"And everything makes me fucking mad. Might want to factor that into your, your cute little--"
"You sure it isn't that you're fucking scared?"
Vortex was shocked silent by that for a second. "Oh, fuck you, Onslaught. Is this you trying to frame me as some sort of coward?"
"You've been doing your absolute best not to talk to me for days, so, yeah, sure. I don't know, Vortex, if I'm so off-base then explain."
"I was trying to! You kept interrupting me, Onslaught. I'm fucking mad all the time, at everyone, for everything. Small shit, stupid slag I wouldn't even care about otherwise."
"Mad at the Detention Center?"
"Mad at Shockwave." Vortex paused, digging around with the stylus in his arm some more. A piston in his wrist jumped spasmodically. "Not fucking scared, mech, I'm not fragging scared."
"It's not like it's some kind of big deal if it does, Vortex, I'm not trying to figure out your insecurities or whatever." Oh, this was going to end so badly. "I mean, mine is all kinds of fear, and-- "
"Yours?"
Ah, shit, here they went. "You know things about people. You know I'm controlling, you know I've got a thing. It's all fear, it's anxiety. It doesn't matter. I don't- I don't know, I'm not trying to insult you, Vortex."
"Still ain't fucking scared," Vortex said, flat. "If you just wanna assume I'm the same as you-- "
"You hear me say that even once in this conversation?"
"No."
"The only reason I care is because you're doing it more often and it's getting obvious, Tex, however miserable you make yourself is your business. I'm not trying to, I don't fucking know, I'm barely even holding out a fucking hand right now. You wouldn't take it if I were."
Vortex jerked the stylus hard enough to rip a line. Energon splashed across his mask. "You left me here for days."
"I told you to tell me why you did this and you told me you'd be in here a while. That was all you."
Vortex made a little frustrated noise, glancing off to the side again. Looking at the camera. "I make shit up sometimes, too. Shit that didn't happen, I'll think it happened. I can usually catch it. I'm getting worse at catching it."
"That happen this time?"
"No fragging idea." He paused, stylus stilling in his hand. "Maybe. You still refuse to call this what it is?"
"What do you want me to call it? I don't know how many times you want me to tell you I don't care how glitched you think you are, that's not why I'm here. I--"
"Yeah, I know, you want to keep me out of a cell by expecting me to tell you when I'm out of my head. That's not how it works, Onslaught, I'm trying to tell you. It's not that fucking easy--"
"I know it's not fucking easy!"
"Then stop acting like it fucking is!"
"All I'm expecting from you," Onslaught said, "is that you come tell us before you go tear some fucker's arm off or something. That you talk to me. That's all I'm looking for here, Tex."
"So you can stop me? Throw me in a closet until I calm down?"
"If for no other reason, so we can lie better when we're getting you off the hook. And yeah. Sometimes to sto you so you don't fuck us all over," Vortex narrowed his over-bright optics. "You are the one who told me you don't remember consequences are real. I'll work around it if you won't."
"Think I ruined your stylus," Vortex said, apropos of nothing.
"I figured when you stuck it in your arm. Will you talk to me?"
"You said you wanted it back."
"I also said you should write on the floor. I don't see either of that happening. Will you talk to me?"
"You're not mad?"
Ugh. "Of course I'm fucking mad. Will you talk to me next time?"
"You don't sound mad."
"You're not answering the question."
"What do you want me to say? I told you I can't do that."
"You can't come home and say 'hey, Onslaught, come watch me make Scavenger regret standing in front of me?'"
"That is not how you told me to say it, Onslaught."
"Fucking put it in whatever words you want to make it work for you. I don't care. Keep me in the loop as best as you can, Vortex."
Vortex scoffed. "Yeah, whatever. I can try."
"Why's it keep coming up so much, anyway? It's new. You're slipping."
"You think I don't fucking know that?"
"I think you know why you're slipping and I don't. You've been this way since we met, you think I only just noticed?"
"What, that I'm an inconsistent weirdo with no impulse control? Because I don't know if anyone told you, but that's me on a good-- "
"Cut the crap, Vortex, whatever this is isn't subtle. It's obvious there's something up with you. You wanna run that by me again?"
"Every time I get got by the loyalty coding, I start thinking about the Detention Center." He paused, turning to point with the bloodied stylus. "Not in a scared way. I'm not scared. I just don't want to think about that. But it, you know, it's... it doesn't go away. And then I get fucked in the head about it."
Onslaught thought, privately, that Vortex was genuinly too smart for this nonsense posturing. Whatever. He'd take him at his word. If that wasn't right, then Vortex would get annoyed about it and crrect him eventually. "Alright. I can work with that. Get up."
Vortex was at the edge of the forcefield in seconds, practically quivering with anticipation. His fever-bright eyes blazed. "Finally letting me out now?"
"Yeah."
"I been bored as hell," Vortex said, while Onslaught punched in the code to disable the forcefield. "Three days in a cell with nothing to do, Onslaught.
"Yup."
"You think maybe I can do you?" Vortex's rotors twitched. "Right up against the wall across from the cell block, maybe."
Onslaught gave it a few seconds' hesitation, thinkingit over as he punched in the final digits to drop the forcefield. But this'd been a miserable day in a slew of miserable days, and it wasn't even done yet. "I'll let you suck me off."
Vortex paused for a moment, rotors stilling, and then leaned in. "Sure thing, boss."
Onslaught let Vortex push him back toward the other wall, and watched as he sunk to his knees between Onslaught's thighs. He took his mask down, licking his lips. He grinned up at Onslaught; Onslaught went to slide his spike cover back when Vortex turned, grin going knife-sharp, and bit the inside of his hip, hard. Meant to damage, too; he took a good chunk of the motor relays in there with him, shearing through energon lines like it was nothing.
"The frag, Vortex?" Onsalught yelped, shoving Vortex out of his crotch. Vortex unfolded back to his feet, mask snapping back into place. Onslaught's injured thigh throbbed.
"Lock me up again just to make me talk to you," Vortex spat.
"So we can avoid this happening for real," Onslaught pointed out.
"Fuck you, Ons," Vortex said, and fled of the brig.
Really, this was such typical Vortex behavior. He delighted in making things difficult. Onslaught considered, one hand pressed to the crease of his bleeding hip, he probably shouldn't have even been surprised.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even immediate, like Soundwave had demanded. It was, by all measures, a stopgap, because Vortex was still wildly uncommunicative, and Onslaught had no real interests in fixing that. But it worked well enough, and the five of them were better liars when they had time to pay other mecha off and coordinate their stories.
Onslaught called that good enough.
