Title: Aclinical
Fandom: Transformers IDW
Author: hellkitty 
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount:3414
Warnings: some violence of the alien shoot-em-up variety
Prompt: Role-reversal. Also hc_bingo  prompt 'stranded'
Summary: The psychologist finds himself in the world he's only heard about from his patients.

“All right,” Rung said. “We were about to talk about Hell’s Point.”

“Hell’s Point,” Impactor snorted, pacing in the confines of Rung’s temporary office like a caged thing. Rung had asked why he didn’t sit, or better yet, lie on the couch like his other patients…once.  Now, he just let Impactor pace. “I’ll tell you about Hell’s Poi—“

The word was cut off by a soft ‘whoop whoop’ alarm, lights dimming. Impactor tensed. Well, more tense than he usually was. 

“What?” Rung asked.

“Proximity. We’re under attack.”

“Under attack?”  This was a simple wheel station they were using while Kimia was being repaired after Brainstorm’s last experiment had blown half the fifth deck.  It wasn’t cut out for attack. Then again, all the important functions of Kimia were still going on at the station. Only ‘limited essential’ personnel like Rung and other administrative jobs had been shunted off onto this temporary home.

“Am I stuttering?” Impactor rounded on Rung. “Listen. You have the codes. Unlock my weapons systems.”

“I-I can’t do that, Impactor.”

The large mech lunged over him, the orange framing of his helm inches from Rung’s face. “Yes. You can.”

“But counseling protocols require—“

“Let me tell you what you can do with your protocols,” Impactor snapped. But whatever words he was going to say next were drowned out by a louder klaxon, going BZAAAA BZAAAA BZAAAA, and a red light, strobing.  Impactor snarled. “Hull breach. We’re leaking atmosphere.”

He spun to the door, left hand slapping at the door locks.

“Where are you going?”

Impactor treated him to a sneer over his shoulder. “Don’t have weapons, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna fight.”

“Impactor, this is really unwise.”

“Unwise.” Impactor laughed. “Probably. You stay here, and be all…wise and scrap.”

And with that, he was gone, the door whooshing closed behind him in the strobing corridor, Rung sitting, feeling clueless and lost, on his chair.

[***]

 Rung clutched his datapad, hearing the power spark and fizz and the world plunged into blackness, punctuated by a cacophony of alarms. 

The door groaned open, manual override. Rung shrank back in his chair.

“Good,” Impactor’s voice, rough, carrying over the blare of alarms. “You’re still here.”  He jerked his harpoon, the vicious barbs of the point clotted with gore. “Come on, we’re evac’ing.”

Rung rose, whirling, trying to figure out what to bring with him.

“Records,” Impactor snapped. “And step on it.” 

Another alarm blared, the sound jarring in Rung’s jaw.

“Great,” Impactor muttered.  “There goes the a-grav. Fraggin’ symphony of clusterfuck.” Two solid sounds, like ‘chung’, which Rung realized belatedly were Impactor activating magna-clamps. Impactor strode into the room, just as Rung felt his feet lift from the ground, his hands desperately scrabbling at his desk. “Come on,” Impactor said. “We’re out.”  He tucked Rung under his arm like a parcel, turning and running down the hallway. 

“Where are we…?”

“Escape pods.”

Rung could feel Impactor’s heavy armor against his back, the harpoon’s casing a solid bar against his chassis, and the running pace, as the clamps engaged and disengaged for each stride, jarring against him.  Until Impactor took a sudden left, the motion swinging Rung’s legs wide, clanging against a doorframe, as Impactor ducked into a pod. 

“Right,” Impactor said, letting Rung go as he snagged the control chair’s belt with one hand, looping it over his own legs. 

Rung found himself floating free, clinging to his datapad. “Uh, Impactor?”

“Later.”

Rung squeaked into silence, watching as Impactor punched a series of codes, one-handed, into the console. 

“Right,” Impactor said, reaching up without looking, grabbing Rung by an ankle, just as the pod’s small thrusters popped it free of the station.  Rung saw the arc of the station recede, and then abruptly seem to dissolve into sparks and debris.  And above it loomed the jagged symmetry of a Decepticon warship. He scrambled for Impactor’s arm, panicked.

“And we’re away.” 

[***]

 “You in there, small stuff?”

Rung blinked, then blinked again.  “What--?”

“Escape pod. We’ve officially ‘escaped’.”  Impactor jabbed his harpoon, gleaming and clean, up.  Rung remembered it looking different, messier.  “The station. It blew.”  A frown. “You musta really taken  a whack to your head.”

“I must have,” Rung said, his hand coming up to rub his helm. It was coming back to him, though, but dimly. All the noise, the blinking lights. And floating.  “Gravity?” 

“Yeah. Gravity. We made planetfall.”  A shrug. “Need your help getting the signal beacon up. After that you can snooze all you want.”

Rung struggled to sit up. “I can help more.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Impactor said. He rose, offering his hand to help Rung stand. “Signal node got damaged in the crash: I can boost you up there. Just realign the dish and you’re done.”

“A-all right.”  Rung wobbled to his feet, following Impactor out the half-buried hatch of the pod, sunk into a small impact crater. They’d made that, that crater, with their landing.  It was a sobering thought.  He stared at the churned up ground, at the round, almost regular lip of the crater.

“You coming?” Impactor said, impatiently.  This was his world, and Rung? His only job was to repair comm.  And then stay, he hoped, as small as possible. 

[***]

Night fell, real planetside night. Rung hadn’t seen one in so long that he found himself leaning in the pod’s hatch, watching the sky fade from cerulean gold to violet. And the air was too full of currents and strange smells, but it was…nice. 

Until night swept in around the pod, shadows swallowing the crater like liquid filling it. 

Impactor had left him alone after he’d re-aligned the dish and verified the signal, giving him a satisfied grunt, and a sound thwap on the shoulder after he’d lowered Rung back to the ground.  Then he’d wandered off on something he called a ‘perimeter sweep.’

Then it got a bit scary.

The darkness was one thing, but he heard, distinctly, sounds in the woodline, and worse, sounds near the pod.  Rung scrabbled in the pod for something he could use as a weapon, coming up with a small welder.  It was better than nothing.

He hoped.

Rung edged around the pod, the ground, heat-slagged from their impact, seemed treacherous underfoot.  He held his vents, one palm sliding along the bumpy side of the pod, his other on the toggle for the welder. He could do this. 

He slipped another step around the pod, and another. And then his foot hit something hard, with a distinct metallic clunk.

“Get back!” he said, whipping the welder out, flicking it on.  A blue flame licked out, illuminating…

…Impactor’s face, optics shadowed by his helm’s cheekplates.

Impactor shook his head, rolling his optics. “Put that away before you hurt yourself.”

Rung snapped it off, abashed. “I-I’m sorry.” He’d just pulled a weapon on his only ally. One who, he knew from his records, had a history of a quick temper and tendency to violent response.

Impactor snorted.  “You better be.  Welder’s a lousy weapon. Next time, grab the rivet gun.”

Well, that wasn’t what he’d expected.  “All right.”  He tucked the welder behind his back. “There’s, uh, there’s room in the pod.”

A shrug. “Keeping watch. You grab some recharge, though.”

That didn’t seem fair—Impactor had been constantly on the move since they’d arrived: Rung had tinkered with a comm relay.  “Shouldn’t you?”

Impactor tipped his chin up.  “Let’s get this straight, little guy. This is my world, okay?   This is what I do. You? You don’t have any authority here.”

Rung shrank back. “Sorry. I was just, you know, trying to be nice.”

“Yeah, well, nice doesn’t do scrap out here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hrnnn.” Impactor looked away. “You’re in my line of sight.” A beat. “And don’ t say you’re sorry, just get down.”

Rung dropped to his knees, the apology bubbling on his mouthplates, anyway, but quashed by the sudden intensity in Impactor’s optics.  He scrambled out of the way, until he sat, pressed against the pod, optics scanning the lip of the crater for whatever Impactor was listening for.  “What--?”

He expected to be silenced, but after a moment, Impactor murmured, his voice strangely hoarse, but soft. “Listen. You hear the birds?”

Rung cocked his head. “Yes…?”

Impactor nodded. “As long as you keep hearing them chattering like that, we’re good. Anything dangerous comes, they either go into alarm, or go quiet.” 

“How do you know this? Have you been here before?”

A twitch of the helm. “Nah. Listened on my patrol today. You never want to take that sort of thing for granted.”

“Oh.” He really was so out of his league here. “I-I’m glad you’re here, Impactor,” he said, softly.

Impactor snorted. Rung waited for the salty retort, but none came.

Time stretched, filled by the chirping chatter of the birds in the trees beyond the crater.  And the darkness was like velvet around them, and suddenly the stress of the day seemed to crash on Rung in a wave of exhaustion, and he felt himself leaning over, over, shoulders sliding against the pod, until one bumped against Impactor’s arm. He was so, so tired.  It wasn’t fair, but he found himself falling into an abyss of sleep.

“Hnh,” Impactor looked down at Rung, his optics shuttered, hands limp on his lap, sound asleep. “Fraggin’ REMF,” he murmured, but lifted his arm, letting Rung fall against his rib struts, lowering the harpoon arm gently over the narrow shoulders. 

[***]

Rung woke, as the ground seemed to move under him.

No, just Impactor. And he realized, sheepish, that in his recharge he’d sprawled over the larger mech’s lap, clinging to him for heat and comfort.  He rubbed his optics, sitting up.  The sun was just beginning to rise, graying the shadows, lightening the eastern sky.

“Going for a patrol,” Impactor said, pushing to his feet.  He paused, turning back to Rung, who was still on the ground.  He jerked his pistol out of its holster, handing it out. “You might need this.”

Rung tried to take the gun, its weight dragging down both of his hands. “I don’t think I’ll be much good with this,” he said, lamely, trying to offer it back.

Impactor shrugged. “The point is I’ll hear it go off.” 

“Oh.”

“Just don’t shoot me,” Impactor said, turning back and moving toward the rim of the crater. “Especially not in the back: I’ll never live it down.”

Right. Don’t shoot Impactor.  That was likely not going to be a problem. Rung braced his stance, tensing his stabilizers, hefting the gun and holding it, trying to sight along the barrel.  Which would have been easier if the barrel wasn’t swaying and shaking so much.  This was pointless.

Still, he dragged the gun along with him, into the pod. At least he could dig through the survival supplies and have energon heated and ready for when Impactor returned.  He’d always had warmed energon ready for patients during his sessions, to calm them down, to make it seem less stiff and official and forced. This was no different. 

He lay the gun on the console, climbing onto the seat to reach the overhead bin. They’d been too tired to eat yesterday. Today, though, would be different. Especially with Impactor running another of his ‘patrols’.

Clang.

Rung froze. “I-Impactor?” 

No, he wouldn’t return like that. He’d make some signal.

Clang-thunk.

Or…or maybe it was a prank, maybe Impactor was messing with him. Trying to scare him.  Right. Don’t be scared. I’m not scared. I’m not scared.  I’m not going to huddle in the ship, under the chair, waiting for Impactor to burst in laughing at me.

What would Impactor do?

Rung had studied Impactor’s file: that was easy. Impactor would grab his gun and go out there and shoot everything, doubtless a bullseye on every target.

Well, that was out of the question. But he could go look. He would.

He jumped off the chair, taking the gun, wrapping both of his small hands around the grip. “Impactor!” he called again. “You’re not scaring me. I’m not scared.” I’m also…lying.  He stepped out into the rising daylight, barrel of the gun pointed out the ground.  “This isn’t funny.”  That wasn't a lie.

A skittering sound from the top of the pod. Rung whirled, just in time to see three malevolent yellow optics, a maw full of jagged fangs and far too many limbs for him to count, leaping at him.

He fired.

The shot went wide, the round kicking up a shower of dust and stone in the crater’s side, just as the creature landed on Rung, knocking him to the ground. He clutched at the gun, desperately, squirming under the other’s weight.  His cortex locked. He knew this. He knew, clinically, the three possible reactions to cyberdrenaline: fight, flight, or freeze. He’d never felt it before, never known it this way. But it was all he could do to stare at the mouth, slavering over him. He was going to die, holding a weapon, and be utterly, utterly unable to stop it.

He couldn’t even scream.

A roar of sound, and a flash of purple and gold, and then a terrifying blade—Impactor’s harpoon—driving into the creature’s open mouth. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” Impactor said, kicking it, freeing his harpoon.

 It shrieked, mandibles clicking, rising up on its rear legs, blind with pain, forelegs flailing. Impactor came around with his fist, punching it in its thorax. Rung heard the sound of chitin cracking, the creature falling backward.   

Impactor stepped over him, harpoon readied again. “Had enough?”

“Y-yes?”

Impactor looked down, between his legs. “Wasn’t talking to you, short stuff.”

“Oh.” Rung scrambled back on his elbows. “Thank you for the rescue.”

“Ain’t over yet.”  Impactor crouched, bracing, as the creature lunged forward again, using its long body as a whip, slamming its forelimbs toward Impactor.  He grunted, catching the thing with one hand, the other, the harpoon, skittering along the plates of the creature’s underside, seeking an opening. 

Rung rolled to one side, clinging to the gun, trying to get out of Impactor’s way, not to foul his stance.  This was combat. This was what all the mechs on his couch had been talking about. 

He hated it.

The creature roared, and from this distance, Rung could finally take in its size. It was huge, twice Impactor’s height, thrashing with barbed limbs.

But Impactor didn’t apparently care about size differentials: he flung the thing onto its side, leaping atop it, foot resting on what must be its throat.  It was like watching Wreckers: Declassified come to life. “Yeah,” Impactor said, chassis heaving. “I’m done playing with you.”  He reared back, right elbow high, and then slammed down, driving the vicious metal barb into the creature’s central eye.

The creature jerked, juddered, a nasty black ichor bubbling from its mandibles as it settled into a sudden stillness even Rung recognized as death.

It was exactly like Declassified. Only with more noise and a lot more terror. 

“Now,” Impactor said, heaving his harpoon free, mouth pulled into something like a grin, “you can thank me.”

Rung couldn’t—paralyzed by the appearance of another of the creatures, behind Impactor. He tried to point, the gun wobbling in his hand. “I—ah—be—“

The gun went off, a simple clutch of panic over the trigger as the creature lunged at Impactor. The recoil flung Rung backwards, gun tracing an arc in the lightening sky, Rung’s aft tracing a much less attractive geometric shape into the hard dirt of the crater. Impactor spun, just in time to see the round penetrate the creature’s skull, and dive out of the way of the falling mass. 

He even managed to make that look heroic, Rung thought, dimly, the move gymnastic and surprisingly limber for his bulk. Impactor landed on his feet—which seemed physically impossible to Rung but he saw it with his own optics.

Impactor jerked his neck, as though snapping something back into place, rising to his feet.  He reached out his hand to Rung, who was still holding the gun, shaking.  Impactor prised the gun from his fingers, clearing it with one fast, easy move, and stowing it before reaching again, taking Rung’s hand and hauling him upright.

“Nice save,” Impactor said. 

“I…it was an accident.”

“Good kind of accident,” Impactor said, evenly. “Let’s get you inside. And then I’ll deal with the mess.”

[***]

“Impactor.”  Rung didn’t know how to begin this, so he began by holding out one of the energon cubes he’d meant to warm earlier.

“Lemme guess. You want to talk about things.”  He took the cube, dropping the rag he was using to wipe the creature’s blood from his armor.

“…yes.” 

“Lemme guess another one. Your first kill.”

Rung just hunched on the dirt, shoulders high.

“Doesn’t help if I say it gets easier,” Impactor said, taking a swing of his cube. “But it does.”

“I don’t want it to get easier.”

“Hnph. That’s the difference between you and me. I couldn’t wait till it didn’t feel…weird.” He gave a shrug, not happy with that word. 

“You seem to…enjoy it.”

Another shrug. “It’s my job. Nothing wrong with enjoying your work, is there?”  His orange optics glinted under his helm.

“How long did it take? For you?”

“Me?” Impactor frowned, as though mining that far back into memory was hard work. “Three.  Probably three. First one, I was surprised it was so fraggin’ easy. You know?”

Yes. Rung knew. 

“Second, kinda felt…sick about having that much power. About being good about having that much power.  But, you know, only kinda power my kind was allowed to have, back in the day.”

“And the third?”

Impactor picked up his rag, wiping down his ankle. “Third time? I felt high. Like on Syk or something, just swept up in my own thing. It was like…transcenfraggingdental or something.”

Or something.  Rung buried his expression in his own energon. He could feel the seeds of those stirring in his own cortex: how easy it had been, a twitch, accidental, of his index finger.  The massive life, the history of that creature, stopping, entirely, because of one, tiny flex of Rung’s little orange digit.

Another of Impactor’s enigmatic shrugs. “Never bothered me, ever since. Any of it.”

“Any?”

“Just numb. Killing’s killing. You or them, them or you. Nothing magical about it. Just luck, will and brutality.” He looked up, suspicious, as though he'd revealed more than he'd intended. “You should be drinking more.”

“More?”

“Trust me. Wouldn’t hurt to get you a bit overcharged right now.”

“Oh.” He looked at his cube, frowning. It would feel…good. To be numb at least. 

“Besides, then you’d maybe stop asking so many irritating questions,” Impactor growled.

But he hadn’t been. Or had he? Rung realized, abruptly, that they’d shifted roles: he was coming to Impactor for help, to make sense of things, to be told that everything was okay, to feel secure with what had happened, safe with himself. And Impactor, like he’d done everything this trip, had simply stepped up, no matter how much it exposed him, because it simply needed to be done.

That seemed like a key there.

“One more question.”  He was ready for the irritated optic roll. “Why did you come back for me? On the station?”

“Drink,” Impactor said, gesturing toward his still mostly full cube with the harpoon’s blade. “And then I’ll tell you.”

Rung felt the other’s optics on him as he tipped his head back, pouring the cube down his throat. He’d never drunk so much so fast. But Impactor hadn’t been wrong yet.

He held out the empty cube. His part of the agreement, done.

“Heh,” Impactor said. “Gonna hit you like a steel wall.”

“Tell me,” Rung said, the words already sounding slurry and muzzy.

“All right.”  Impactor took his own drink, neat and quick, a mech used to holding his energon. “Came back for you because you’re the only mech who even tries not to judge what he doesn’t understand.” A snort. “Even though that’s kind of your job.”

[***]

Rung wiggled to wakefulness, just as he felt his legs swung up into the air. 

“Heavy sleeper,” Impactor said, wryly.  “Come on. We got a ping on the locator.”

“We’re found?”

“As good as,” Impactor said.  “Told you I’d get us through this.”

“You could…you could put me down,” Rung suggested.

“I could.” Impactor shifted him, slinging him instead over his shoulder, so that Rung’s belly was sprawled over his cannon.  The whole place seemed to shift and lurch, and Rung remembered, in vivid blurry snatches, last night.  “Faster this way.”

Rung wanted to thank him, but he had a feeling he'd done enough of that already, blearily clinging to Impactor for another night, burrowing against the heavy frame of the mech who threatened to kill him just about every time they had a session together. "Okay," he said, going limp, letting the even, loping strides of Impactor carrying him to the LZ for pickup, lull him into comfort.