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“Soooo… Why am I here again?” Swerve asked form his position lying on the reclined comfortable slab. “Is this about the crappy shot thing? About, ya know, me shooting you. In the head. Cuz, that really was an accident!” The minibot wailed. “Everybot knows I’m a rubbish shot and I told Rodimus! I’ve already apologized like, a bazillion times, gave you a free tab at the bar and I-”
“No, no Swerve. This has nothing to do with that.” Rung smiled kindly, stopping him before he really got going. “I already said that I forgive you, there was a lot of presser around that day and it wasn’t your fault.”
“Well if we were to start pointing fingers, technically, it’s Rodimus’s fault, but then, I was on the end of the rivet gun, so I am also to blame, but he still had a huuuuge hand in it, so it’s mostly his fault, and you know I still feel really awful about it, right?”
“I know you do, but there is no need to be and as I said, this isn’t about that.” Rung reiterated again. “Ratchet just though you might benefit coming to talk to me.” Swerve pulled a face of utter confusion.
“Ratchet thought-? Ugh, why?”
“He’s a little concerned.” The psychiatrist said gently.
“What about?”
“You.”
“Me?!” Swerve spluttered, bolting upright. “Wha-?! Why?! I’m not crazy! I’m the sanest person on the ship most of the time! I tell that to people all the time! They don’t believe me, but I tell them! All my Energon cubes are properly stacked, thank you very much!”
“No one said you were crazy.” Rung soothed. “But as you are part of the medical team, Ratchet job includes seeing to the care of those under his direct command, he just expressed some concern for your wellbeing.”
“Why would he be worried about me? And I’m not really ‘Part of the team’.” Swerve said, mimicking Ratchets air quote fingers and patented dour expression before flopping back against the sofa. “More like occasional consultant.”
“To be a consultant for Ratchet, of all Medics, is quite a thing. He must hold your opinion in high regard and trust your judgment. He doesn’t let just anyone work with him in his medbay, now dose he?” The slender bot smiled warmly.
“That’s… that’s true… I guess…” The mini bot said some what shyly, a little serge of pride welling up within him from the praise, Rung could tell he clearly didn’t get it often.
“Ratchet just thought you should come by and talk with me.” The orange bot continued.
“I still don’t get why?” Swerve said, sounding baffled.
“Well, it’s not his field but, he seam’s to think you suffer form logorrhoea.”
“WHAT?!” The metallurgist bolted upright again, “I have NEVER had outtake waste problems! Never! Not even on my worst binge days!” The psychiatrist couldn’t help the little twitch of his lips at the utterly offended look on Swerves face.
“Logorrhoea is a physiological condition resulting in excessive use of words.” Rung explained gently. “Not a physical one, which is why Ratchet referred you to me.”
“Oh… well… that’s, that’s… slightly better.” The bar tender cleared his intakes loudly. “But even so… I still don’t see why the old hatchet would think I should see you about it. So what if I have this-this Log-o-wotzit, it’s not a big issue. It’s not really worth wasting your time, is it? I mean, yeah, I talk, I just like talking, I love a talk. Love a good old chin wag me! I’m a just a very chatty guy!” Swerve smiled brightly. A very well practiced and honed smile to cover discomfort and anxiety, the psychiatrist had seen a million like it. He could always tell…
“Why?” Rung asked simply.
“Why what?” Swerve looked at him confused again.
“Why do you like to talk?” The orange bot inquired, helm tilted curiously. The white and red minibot merely shrugged.
“I dunno… better then silence.” The minibot chuckled lightly, but Rung detected a hint of… something else in it he could quite place yet.
“Dose that bother you then?” The doctor probed further, the bartender cast him an odd look.
“Dose what bother me?”
“The silence? Dose silence bother you? Is that why you have a need to fill it?”
“Wha- No! No, of cores not. Don’t be silly Rung.” The metallurgist laughed lightly, waving him off, but older mech was not fooled. He’d been around far too long, knew far to much and learnt all too clearly how to see though masks and covers to see what the bot underneath was really feeling, the minibot was trying to ovoid the subject.
“Swerve, you know anything that is said in this room is between you me and the bulkhead.” Rung said in his most gentle, reassuring tone. “I’m here to listen to what ever is troubling you. No matter how small or trivial.”
“It’s- I- Look it’s nothing! Honestly! It’s not worth you worrying about silly old me! It’s just a stupid thing I have.” Swerve said dismissively, trying even harder to sound joviality. “Ya know, just part of my overall charm. A quirk. Like Ultra Magnus’s and his cleaning OCD, Skids and his amnesia or Whirl’s and his obsessive compulsive shooting of people. Talking is just my thing… I just don’t like the quiet, that’s all…” He said, trying to deflect attention with jokes.
“Is it because of what happened on Kerackus?” The psychiatrist asked gently, now playing his trump card, knowing that this was the question that would either get them talking about the real issue or have Swerve speeding out the door. The mini bot stiffened visibly, the well practised smile faltering and falling from his face. Rung could just make out his optics shifting uneasily behind his visor.
“Ugh… ha- how do you know about… Kerackus?” The white mechs voice was very quiet, nothing like his usual happy-go-lucky tones, Rung knew now he was definitely on the right track and Swerve hadn’t gone for the door yet.
“It’s in your service record,” Rung explained. “Being who I am, I can gain access to such files. Sometimes reviewing passed incidence like that can help me understand a bots troubles.”
“But, I don’t have any troubles! Not me! I’m just dandy! Nope!” the little mech said, the smile was back but it was at only 80% strength and dwindling fast.
“Swerve, I’ve read the report… I know what happened.” Rung said softly, watching as that fake smile now vanish completely, a tremor ran through the stocky frame before the bot shook it off with a shrug.
“You kn-Okay, So you know… so you don’t need me to tell you, why didya bring it up?” The minibot said some what snippily, very un-Swerve like, definitely getting to the hart of the mater, Rung thought.
“Because the report was written by the commanding officer and I’d really like you to tell me what happened there?”
“Why? It was nothing,” Swerve said his tone attempting to sound casual and unbothered, but he was failing miserably. “ Just some bots… messing around… it was a joke… that’s all… just a stupid joke… it just-it just got a little out of hand that’s all… tell ya the truth I kinda deserved it… I used to be such a jerk…”
“They left you in the storage bunker… for over a luna cycle… even if you were a ‘jerk’, which I highly doubt by the way, no one deserves that type of treatment.”
“It wasn’t that bad…” Swerve lied through his denta, attempting to sound light and keep his feelings about the trauma he suffered from Rung, but it was useless, other mech could clearly see it written in every line of his face and every stiff movement of his body, denial like a flashing neon sign hanging over his head. Every little twitch, every little hesitation and look told him more then a thousand words could.
“They left you alone in the dark, for cycles Swerve. Those bunkers are made of reinforced Trillium. Indestructible. Their sound proof… with no power inside.”
“Yeah, that’s for safety… to eliminate the risk of internal fire or leakages that could damage the goods. Not brilliant if your turn up and find all your weapons blown up by themselves cuz someone left the light on.” The minibot said quietly as he started to pick at a joint in his servo.
“Why did they take so long to let you out?” Rung asked. The metallurgist let out a short mirthless laugh.
“They said they just… forgot I was down there.” Swerve said through tragic laughter. “They all though someone else would let me out… and didn’t bother to check if someone actually did… how can you forget you locked someone in a bunker?!” He said, anger rising in his voice, if only a little as a chunk of red pain enamel flew off his hand from were he was rubbing. Rung could see he was holding onto a lot of pain. He obviously hadn’t talked about this to anyone and had learnt to just bury his hurt and anger, turning it inward and pretend it didn’t matter. Or worse, believing that no one would care. His spark went out to the poor soul with him, he truly did like him and really wanted to help the mech, but he needed him to open up a little more, let him in to see the root and true fear too see if he could help ease his burden. Luckily, with his condition being what it was, it shouldn’t be too hard…
“What was it like in there?” Rung asked, probing gently, trying to get the bot to divulge more information.
“What you would expect… It was dark and… cold,” The minibot shuddered a little at the memory. “Yeah, actually… really cold, now I think of it. I mean, I dealt with that no problem, I’ve been in colder places, like Giddion, it’s an ice planet in the Minbiri sector or, Do you know Ice-pick? I mean seriously! Have you ever stood near that guy?! Touched his had once, could feel my fingers for 10 minuet! Nobot should run that cold unless they’re Grey and dead!
“He dose run rather cold yes…” Rung nodded, the mech was a bit of an anomaly.
“Yheah, I mean, there’s cold and then there’s cold, the bunker wasn’t that kinda cold but… it was-,” Swerve’s face dropped, even with his optics covered, Rung could tell he was suddenly lost in a memory. “It was silent… that was the worst bit, it really bugged me, ya’know it was just so… fragging quiet! I can’t really describe… I mean you couldn’t hear anything. Well actually, you couldn’t hear anything outside I should say, but inside… you could hear a nanite fart! It was like… like I was the only bot left on a dead world…”
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like…” The psychiatrist said with a solemn shake of his helm.
“After a few hours of waiting, I tried calling for someone to let me out… obviously nobot could hear me… after the first cycle I tried bagging on the door, I hammered on that thing till my servos seized up. I really thought someone would hear that at least. Of coarse, No one did…,” Swerve spoke softly, losing himself in the long held painful memories, finding himself unable to stop once he started.
“After a while all I could hear was my own venting and hydraulics. I could have sworn on my sires spark, that I could hear my own circuits buzzing… do you know how fragging noisy we are?!” He asked. “Gears working, cables flexing, pistons hissing! It’s crazy! What’s crazier is that the whole planet could have been bombed outside and I wouldn’t have known… cuz all I could hear was the sound of my own body… it just drove me nutty….” Rung saw the bot start to twist and worry his three digit hand aggressively, anxiety and stress beginning to surface.
“So you started to fill the emptiness with talking?” Rung guessed.
“Yeah,” the minibot snorted mirthlessly, “I mean, what else was I supposed to do? I realised that none was coming. So I just sat in a corner and talked to myself…”
“What about?”
“Anything. Everything. You name it I had a conversation with the wall about it. Silly things like, ‘those guys are going to be trouble when I get out’, ‘bet ya we’ll all have a big laugh about this later’ and ‘Dose my voice really sound like this?’… but as the cycles went on… I just… just…” the metallurgist chewed his lip plate and started ringing his servos harder, causing more red paint to be scratch and flake flak off.
“It’s alright Swerve. Take your time. This is a safe place, I’m here for you.” Rung reassured him, the minibot was doing so well, they were so close to the truth.
“It’s just… so ridiculous! I’m embarrassed for myself!” Swerve actually growled out loudly, angry and frustrated.
“Why?” Rung asked, baffled why he would feel so much rage at himself.
“Cuz I was weak and I wasn’t bot enough to handle it!” Swerve snapped out in defeat, “Anyone else, Skids, Getaway, Cyclonus would have stuck it out and remained cool and stoic as frag, water of a windshield, but me? Slaggit, Rung, I couldn’t handle it! I just curled up like a sparkling and started spouting out metallic chemical compounds, reciting entire episodes of ‘Bolts and Screws’, fraggit I even sang old lullaby’s my carrier used to sing, anything just to brake up the defining emptiness… then I’d start all over again… by the end of the third week I didn’t care that I was reaching dangerous energy levels…cuz, yeah I hadn’t refuelled, but that didn’t matter, cuz the silence was suffocating and I just started talking gibberish…”
“When someone did finely opened the bunker, I was so relieved, I saw the light, couldn’t get to my peds quick enough, used the last of my energy and fragging ran… I was so afraid the door would shut before I got there… I latched onto the first bot I saw, I just rambled on and on from around his leg, just thanked him over and over… just hearing another bots voice was amazing… I was so happy when he told me to ‘shut up’… I knew I wasn’t dreaming…”
“I was taken down to the med-bay. They had to pry me off the mech I was attached to. The commander was furious.” Swerve shook his head, “I don’t think I ever herd anyone swear so much in my life, mostly at me…”
“Why was he angry at you?” Rung asked, baffled.
“Remember I said I used to be a jerk? Well… commander said I brought it on myself being such an aft head.”
“He sai-,” the orange mech had to bite his glossa to stop his own rage. “What did he have to say about the others? I would hope that they were disciplined?” Rung asked, internally horrified that anyone would take their anger out on a victim of such a hideous prank. He made a mental note to look a little closer at Swerves former commander.
“Well, yeah… but all it was extra cleaning duties and a written reprimand in their files.”
“And that was it?” Though outwardly he portrayed his usual clam, inside other bot was utterly disgusted and seething at the apparent non-existent punishment.
“You wanna know the worst thing,” the minibot murmured quietly. “Apparently no one missed me… no one noticed I’d gone… no one cared that I hadn’t been seen for over a month… that I was locked in a cold dark storage bunker…. alone… Buts that’s why I like the bar, you see,” A very small, very sad little smile graced the minibot face, the bot was teetering on the brink of deep emotion. “It’s always busy… always noisy… the noisier the better in my opinion… always someone there… guaranteed someone will come by, even if it is just to sit in the corner… that okay though… just as long as there’s someone there… truth is… truth is I really can’t stand being alone… not anymore… not after that…”
“That why you’re so desperate to find a room mate still, isn’t it? You don’t want to be left in a room alone again, to risk being forgotten again.” Rung deduced boldly, as the pieces clicked into place, everything now making sense. “With a roommate, you’d know that someone was going to come back… someone will be there with you in the dark…” Swerve didn’t confirm it, but the slender bot saw lip quiver and his face struggling to stay neutral said enough.
“I thought maybe I was over it by now, I was wrong. Heh, It’s ironic isn’t it,” Swerve snorted sharply, his emotions chaotic, his EM filed fluctuated wildly enough for Rung to feel it from where he was sitting. “Red couldn’t make the voices stop… and I can’t get enough of them…”
“Swerve…” Rung started, reaching out to place a warm comforting servo on his arm.
“And… and I’m… Oh Primus, Rung, I’m so fragging lonely…” He whimpered, finely braking, his face screwed up into a spark wrenching expression, his voice filling with static as he spoke. “There… I said it… I’m lonely and pathetic… and no matter how hard I try… Unless I’m needed for something… no one wants me around. No one really cares… no one ever has. I could offline right now and I know nobot would think twice about me… and Primus… knowing that… it hurts… it hurts so much Rung…”
Rung watched as Swerves visor suddenly snapped back, only to have the minibot cover and rub at his optics as they flared brightly beneath his digits, he’s stocky frame shuddering with raging painful emotion as he curled up on himself, drawing his knees in making himself even smaller. His intakes hitching with silent sobs. Even with all his years of professionalism, Rung felt his spark breaking at the utterly sorrowful mini bot before him, he’d always guessed that the mech held onto some deep held trouble. He could easily pick up on the signals just from his casual, day to day, observations of him, but he didn’t realised it when that far. The mech was traumatized and lonely and in so much anguish… and it seemed that life just kept dealing him rubbish hands…
“Oh Swerve… how long have you felt like this? How long have you kept this all to yourself?” Rung asked softly, gently rubbing a thumb soothingly on his plating and extending his EM filed to brush against the distressed mini bots. Offering as much reassurance and comfort as he could, the rippling torrent of emotion in the metallurgists aura was almost painful to touch.
“S-since the bunker happened…” The mech shudder. “Tried but… no one wanted to hear it. No one was interested in my stupid problems with the dark… So… No point in keeping on blabbing about it” Swerve croaked out through sniffles his intakes spluttering every so often.
“Were you not referred to a counsellor?” Rung asked, it only seemed to make the minibots shuddering worse.
“N-no… and if I requested it, everyone would know, think I was just milking it for attention… it’d just made me look more useless then I am…”
“Swerve, the emotions your feeling, do not make you pathetic or useless.” Rung said, softly yet firmly. “You when through a very traumatic event, it was bound to leave an affect on you. It never should of happened, what they did was a disgraceful way to treat a bot. Your superiors should of looked after you better, they had a duty of care to you, before and after, that they clearly neglected. All that anger and pain and hurt, Everything you feel is valid and yours and true and you should not feel you have to dismiss them or try and hid them because of what other people think.”
“But I don’t wanna feel this way!” The minibot cried out in despair. “I’m sick and I’m tired of it! I want to not worry about doors shutting behind me! To not panicking whether or not their gonna open again! To not start freaking out when I’m by myself for more the 5 clicks! I don’t wanna annoy and pushing bots away with my talking as I try and cope while I’m stressing out! Primus, I just wanna be able to recharge in one go and not have a vid screen playing constantly in the background!” He sobbed then the bartender collapsed back inward and shuddered silently. As painful as this was for him, Rung was proud of his courage in admitting his anxieties.
“Swerve… believe it or not, you’ve done something wonderful today… you took a very brave and important step. Opening up and acknowledging what you feel and fear instead of hiding or repressing it is the first steps to recovery and not feeling like this.” The psychiatrist said encouragingly. “I know that right now, this moment, you’re feeling isolated and that everything is against you... but I want you to know that you can always talk to me, any time, about anything. My door is always open and not just because it’s my job, I like to think of you as a friend and I really do not like to see my friends in this much distress.”
“but- how could you? I blew your head off?” Swerve whimpered, a pair of bright ribboning optics looking up at him forlornly. Rung merely smiled back.
“Yes, even after you blew my head off, I’m more then willing to look past that.”
“Swerve, you have a lot of very admirable and impressive qualities. You are friendly and you are genuinely a very kind sparked person. Professionally, you’re a Metallurgist of the highest calibre.” Rung praised, reminding the minibot of some of his important yet overlooked personality traits.
“I’m not that good…” the minibot sniffed rubbing his optics.
“I’ve seen your qualifications, not to mention your accomplishments. You are talented. If half the bot out there knew what you’ve done to aid medics and engineers throughout the centuries, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge you.”
“Metallurgy isn’t the most glamorous occupation.” He muttered somewhat bitterly. “Not like Ratchet, the miracle working doctor or Wheeljack the genius engineer. Kinda stuck in the obscure no-bots-land in the middle… nobot cares who put the ground work in… just those who get the results…”
“You’ve helped save bots lives. You helped save Tailgate,” Rung stated firmly. “without you, if you hadn’t of deciphered Pharmas notes, Ratchet said he wouldn’t have been able to produce a cure and Tailgate wouldn’t be here.”
“And apart from Ratchet and First-aid, you’re the only one who’s acknowledged my work, or More likely, the only one who’s taken the time to find out …” The metallurgist mumbled miserably. Rung gave a long deep sigh. Truly, Swerves tail was a sad and unfortunate one.
“Is clear that a lot of bad things have happened too you, Swerve. Unjustly so, I feel. No one should go through what you have, or feel like you do.”
“Your telling me…” the minibot muttered.
“So… I think this situation calls for… a little bit of unorthodox treatment.” Rung gave the distressed bot a small smile, rolled his chair back with is peds and opened a cupboard. Swerved rubbed his sore optics and was taken back when the slender orange bot pull out a bottle of luminous yellow high grade along with two glasses. The psychiatrist wheeled himself back over, placed the two containers down, opened the bottle and poured a generous amount of the fuel in each.
“Now I certainly don’t do this with my patients… but, this is a special circumstance and I think this is what you need…You let me be your Bar tender, Swerve.” The mech said handing a glass to the stunned minibot. “You hear everyone else’s woes in that bar, while you have so many of your own. You give bots somewhere to relax and blow off steam. Let me be the one you come to unburden on. About anything, any time. I’ll be here, with a friendly audio and a full bottle, you’ll always have me to talk to. Your friend. How dose that sound?” Swerves optics were wide and bright, he was clearly touched by the Psychiatrist kind gesture. He looked down into the shimmering depths of the drink in his servos. Very few bots have ever been this kind to him.
“Heh… ya know, this is my favourite blend.” The minibot smiled, despite his earlier upset.
“I know…” Rung said with a somewhat slyly.
“How?”
“Skids told me. He talks a lot about quite you actually.” Swerve looked back at him genuinely surprised.
“He doses?” Rung made an affirmative noise and swirled his own fuel.
“He also expressed to me, on his own accord, that he was worried about you, that you hadn’t been yourself for a while and that he hoped it wasn’t him who upset you.”
“W-why would he think that?” the bar tender murmured, clearly confused why anyone would be concerned for his welfare.
“Because he cares for you.” Rung said simply. “You have friends on this ship Swerve. I would suggest, that perhaps you should stop berating yourself so much and thinking your not good enough because, let me tell you, you are. Even at your darkest times, when you really don’t feel or believe it, you are wanted here, you’re needed and that there are bots aboard that do genuinely like you for who you are and who want you around.” Rung said with a gentle smile. “I know it is easy for me to say all that, but… it is the truth and if you’re willing to let me… I’m sure I can help you see that to…”
For a very long moment… Swerve was quiet, staring down into the cube he held and chewing his lip, contemplating everything the other mech had said. Rung gave him the time he needed and sipped the fuel. It was smooth zesty and refreshing. He could see why the metallurgist liked it. It sent a zing through your systems but didn’t leave a thick heavy feeling in the mouth that other blends did.
“Thank you, Rung.” The bartender murmured softly, catching the psychiatrist attention. “That all means a lot, ya know, what you said… especially coming form you.” The old bot was pleased to see a small but genuine smile back on the mini bots face as he shyly held out his glass, Swerves big blue optics shining bright with gratitude. The other mech returned the grinned warmly, he reached up and removed his own optic wear so they could truly see optic to optic, a sign of trust and companionship as he tapped his own cube against the offered one, it made a delightful chink on contact.
“Well… what are friends for…” His gin faltered slightly, when he caught the suddenly odd look on the minibots face. “Is something wrong?” The slender mech asked.
“Mech… anyone ever tell you how hhhhhhhhot you are without those on?” Swerve, the king of the blunt statement was back with vengeance and said with the most comical look on his face. Rung chuckled lightly, truth was, he found Swerves ability to just blurt honest thoughts out so readily, endearing,
“On occasion,” The psychiatrist sniggered, lent forward in a conspirey way. “That’s why I keep them on… stops bots getting distracted during sessions.” He was delighted when it caused Swerve to let out a truly happy laugh, the minibot snorted. The orange bot lent back in his chair. It wouldn’t happen over night, it may take vorns, but he was confident, that with time, patients and a some genuine care… Swerve would be alright… he’d make sure of it…