(Subtitle: And Disturbs Smokescreen In The Process)
November 07 2011
(Track and Training, Iacon)
---
There's a roar and a crash as Blades tosses the drone he'd been wrestling off his body and into a growing, sparking heap off to the side of the training ring. Not sure where the next opponent would be coming from -- and it'd be here by now, surely? -- he gets up and wanders back over to the heap. With a sharp tug, he yanks the head off the most recent victim and lobs it at the wall, where the not-quite-sphere shatters and sparks most beautifully.
First Aid looks around the training field after exiting the main training building. "There he is- over with the training drones." He smiles at Smokescreen. "He, um, likes to burn off energy out here, apparently. Last time he was on the obstacle course."
Smokescreen walks with First Aid, glad to see that the mech was at least somewhat at ease with him. As he watches the scene unfold before him, some less-professional bit of his mind laughs uproariously at the bouncing, sparking head...while another part notes with detachment that such displays of violence just /had/ to be indicative of an unbalanced psyche. Smokescreen's doorwings twitch. "I suppose that's /one/ way to put it." he says as neutrally as he can manage.
"He um... I wish I'd known you after he first came to Iacon from Cubicron, maybe you could have helped him adjust. He's a lot better than he was, though," First Aid says. "I guess it's okay to tell you, since this is private, even if it's more his than mine, but when we got separated, when our creators sent us into hiding, he ended up on the streets in Cubicron. By himself. For quartexes."
Blades isn't quite done with the drone yet... With a wrenching move and a sickening 'unzipping' noise, he drags out the control cabling from the drone's back and whips it off to the side to wait while he tugs out some of the more interestingly labeled lengths of hose from the corpse. He peers at one for several moments, as if appraising an energon vintage, and bites off a piece. He chews for a moment, then consumes the whole length of hose.
Smokescreen chokes. "Um." Did that mech just /chew/ on the drone? "First Aid, your brother needs help. Serious help." His optics spiral in shock.
First Aid nods. "I know." He looks sad. "We've been doing what we can, and he /is/ getting better- at least hose tubing isn't going to hurt his denta, but he /had/ stopped that. I thought, anyway- I don't think he was doing that before I was.. gone."
Blades's tanks gurgle a bit, and he burps... then makes a sour face. The purple polymer always has a nasty aftertaste. He tries again with some red.
Smokescreen 's patience with this acting out has come to an end. "Pardon me, First Aid, but this attention-getting behavior is excessive!" He walks over to Blades, his doorwings flaring wide. "Stop this display!"
Blades startles and twists his head around to glare at the stranger, a hand's length of red hose hanging out of his jaws. He screws shut his optics, bites, and tugs, then tosses the excess off to the side with one hand while the other is reaching into another drone's optic sockets. "Display? *What* display?!" Blades asks as he pops off the new head, then tosses it in the newcomer's direction.
Smokescreen 's optics widen further, almost to the point of being comical. "Do you believe that it is /acceptable/ to gnaw on a drone as if it were a rust stick?" He catches the head almost automatically, dropping it as if it had burned him almost in the same motion. "I apologize if I seemed- confrontational. Your behavior shocked me, that's all." He exvents heavily, and looks at First Aid to gauge his reaction.
First Aid just /looks/ at Smokescreen a bit beseechingly. Yes, Blades is wel, odd, but First Aid is just glad he's safe in Iacon.
Blades looks at First Aid, then at Smokescreen. His optics stay narrowed as he comes closer, then looms over Smokescreen with a slowly ticking engine. "It *is* a rust stick," Blades replies, then burps. "Your friend needs help," he mutters to First Aid.
Smokescreen says calmly, "That is a training drone. Not a rust stick. Even if their flavor is similar, one does not equal the other." This one was...feral, he noted. And without obvious allegiance. A good thing, right now- Smokescreen was willing to put many credits on the likelihood of Prowl tossing this one in the brig before the decaorn was out.
First Aid grits his denta. "Blades, if you're hungry, I put more energon in the cabinet in medbay for you with the supplements you like." He steps up pat Blades affectionately on the arm. "He just doesn't know how things were like for you in Cubicron."
Blades looks around sharply at this last, his rotors rattling in dismay. "What's it to him how things were like for me in Cubicron, anyway?" he asks.
Smokescreen takes this opportunity to try and introduce himself. "Because I am your brother's therapist and counselor, and as such, your well-being affects his because he cares so much for you. I am Smokescreen, temporarily attached to the Iacon Medical division, psychology department."
"Therapist and counselor?!" Blades nearly shouts, shrugging off Aid's hand as his arms tense while he makes fists. "There's nothing wrong with him that I need to talk to a..." he fumbles over the language now, "therapist and counselor! The slag do you think you are, anyway?" he asks as he starts to turn back toward the drones.
Surprisingly, even First Aid does, eventually, have limits to his patience. "He's helping /me/ get my processor back together after everything that happened in Polyhex. Which, if you'd been around more, you'd know." He frowns at Blades. "If you don't want to talk to him, you don't have to, but *I* want to, and there's no reason for you to be so rude to someone who has been nothing but polite to you and who is helping me."
Smokescreen looks to First Aid. "How much does he.know?"
"Know- I mean... I don't..." He glances back at Blades, looking embarassed. "I don't ... I'm not sure. I thought he was talking to Grove and Hot Spot at least, even if he wasn't talking to me."
Smokescreen clears his intakes, and schools his expression to be as calm as possible. "Blades. Your brother has made the choice to talk to me of his experiences. I will not force you to do the same. I will, however, note that you are agitating him, and that is /not/ what First Aid needs at this time. Come. I can tell that you care for your brother. Would you join us, if only to listen?"
Blades has been manhandling another drone skull, which he spikes to the ground in an angry toss. "You want to talk to him? He's helping *you*?" he asks of First Aid. "Fine! Slagging talk to him! You don't need me for a pit-slagging thing!" He grabs the control cabling he'd put aside earlier and yanks it apart with an audibly, if not visually, satisfying crack.
"I /do/ need my brothers. That means you too." First Aid insists, with a cringe at the noise as the control cabling splits. He vents hard, curling his hands into fists and tucking them against his sides defensively. "I- did you even notice I was gone?"
Smokescreen stands near First Aid offering silent support. He says nothing- merely watches.
"Flashover told me about it," Blades grinds out, looming over his brother. "You need me for *what*?" he asks slowly, in a low voice. His optics flash and his own fists begin to lift and fall at his sides.
"I- I don't know! I just- it's... I don't know!" First Aid says, a little bit desperately, looking down and wrapping his arms around himself with a shiver.
Smokescreen raises an eyeridge. "First Aid. Look at me. Please." He places himself to the side of the brothers, standing in an unthreatening manner.
First Aid turns sharply to look up at Smokescreen, optics bright with upset, although he doesn't say anything.
Smokescreen says in an intense tone, "He cares. He thinks you are abandoning him. Do not fear him or his reaction. You are safe. He would not harm you." Smokescreen then has a terrible thought. The similarity in frametypes-! "Does Blades' form remind you.of...him?"
Blades begins snarling deep in his systems as he glares at Smokescreen. "Wanna try that one again, doorwings?" he hisses.
Smokescreen slides his gaze over to the copter, unfazed. "Try /what/, exactly?"
"No! Blades won't hurt me!" First Aid says. "I'm not scared of him, either! It's just- it's- it's better when we're all together. All five of us." He turns back to Blades. "But Blades, I never see you, you barely recharge in our barracks, I'm not even in the medbay any more to see you if you get energon there- it's like you're gone, and I hate it!" His voice catches on the last bit. "I hate it."
Blades lets out a long, angry vent. "You didn't have any problems missing this 'brother' before I beat up on that Seeker," he says, his voice growing in volume and pace before he reaches the end of the sentence.
"I /was/ looking. It's hard to do when you don't remember someone's name or what they look like to ask for!" He takes a deep intake and shakes his head, frustrated. "I'm sorry, okay? I found you as fast as I could!"
Smokescreen puts a finger to his lipplates. "I think perhaps there has been some miscommunication here." His right doorwing twitches just at the tip.
Blades's optics linger on Smokescreen. "Less with the twitching, more with the talking," he grunts.
First Aid vents, hard, but gives a very tiny nod.
Smokescreen speaks softly. "You have not always been close. I believe that certain factors have went against you in this, yet something within both of you- and your other siblings- calls to you. You don't understand it, but it exists. And it's confusing. Add in the problems that recently occurred and..." Smokescreen shrugs.
Blades continues to rev, but says nothing.
"Flashover- Flashover said you were always a little like this - but not so much as now." First Aid says, his own tone calming in response to Smokey's.
Smokescreen continues. "You don't remember right now...but there is something important to realize: new memories can be made. If you want to. And with that will come the opportunity to recall the old. Flashover will welcome all of you, I know."
First Aid adds, softly. "Flashover offered to tell us everything he remembers about us growing up, too."
"Flashover's gonna be the only way my memories get out," Blades says, giving Smokescreen... and First Aid!... a glare. He huffs. "Nothing that says he wouldn't be... welcoming... either."
Smokescreen nods. "It goes against my personal and professional code to force treatment on anyone." He rather left out the interrogation parts.
"I've always said, and I'll keep saying it- no one's going to make you have your memory decrypted if you don't want to." First Aid says with a huff. "But... don't you want to know? I mean, like, does your alt mode work? Flashover said something about teaching you to fly properly now that we're back together. He tried to look for you too."
Blades rumbles. "If Flashover knows, then Flashover's the only one who needs to know," Blades huffs back. "And I'll ask him," he mumbles, kicking a few shards of drone skull away with a softened rev.
First Aid sighs. "That's fine, Blades. But please, stop pushing us away?"
Smokescreen holds out his hands in a gesture of openness. "Then let's go see Flashover."
First Aid looks at Blades first. "Is that okay with you?"
Blades looks distrustingly at Smokescreen's hands, but he finally relents and gives a slow nod to First Aid. "Yes. Fine," he says with a long vent.
First Aid doesn't take Smokescreen's hand, but nods in agreement and turns to follow the doorwinged mech to find Flashover.