re_alignment_logs | Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news~

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Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news~

WHO: Rung and whoever wants to stop in!
WHERE: The good doctor's office
WHEN: It's an all day affair at Rung's office~ A few days after he discovered his new abilities.
WHAT: Therapy sessions and go!
WARNINGS: Dark pasts, etc?

Yep, it was that time again.

Now that things were somewhat back to normal for the resident therapist, Rung had put out the word that he would be taking patients again. He had missed it, helping others, and it was time to get his mind off everything that had happened to him over the past few weeks.

His office had been cleaned up and rearranged a bit, the therapist just wanting to change the atmosphere a bit.

Make it more personable than it had been before.

Satisfied with what he'd done, the front door had been propped open and he was settled at his desk, going over some files as he absently toyed with a ball of light.

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Without examining what Kup had become, there's no way to know how much left was Kup, and how much was Prowl. Perceptor knows what his alterations should have allowed Prowl to do... but he can never know how much Prowl corrupted those changes to give him more access. Perceptor had learned to expect the worst.

And, maybe, there was just a part of him that hoped that it hadnt been Kup who'd left him behind on Turmoil's ship, but that it had been Prowl

"I could have refused. I should have refused."

"You should have, yes, but you weren't left with many options. And in the end, you stayed with Kup. Whatever the reasoning may have been behind that, you still stayed with him and I'm sure he valued that more than you may realize, Perceptor," the therapist countered softly, looking sincere in what he was saying.

Because as much as it may have hurt that Kup was gone, he could never blame Perceptor for what had happened.

Perceptor shrugs. "Someone had to watch over him."

"Is that the only reason you stayed with him?" Rung asked, leaning back in his seat with a curious glint in his optics.

"Isn't that enough?"

It had been a fight just to get Kup repaired in the first place. Not until Prowl had realized the tactical advantage that Kup might provide, had he agreed to "allocate the resources" for the project. And, as much as Perceptor hadn't approved of Springer's need to rescue Kup right now, insisting on sending several mechs to their ultimate deaths, Perceptor had been anxious to rescue the old mech. It had rankled him to have to sit back and watch from afar as Kup degraded a little more each day as they'd awaited Trailbreaker's arrival.

And there had always been the chance that Perceptor could undo what Prowl had made him do, without putting Kup into further danger.

At least, there had been until he'd laid there in the darkness as the realization slowly dawned on him that no one was coming back for him. That Kup wasn't coming back for him. Then later, after he'd awoken from the CR tank, and Kup had relegated all of Perceptor's grueling work upon Kup's own radiation shattered form as nothing more than Perceptor "doin' his job"... Had waved off all of Perceptor's long hours and sleepless worries and interrupted defrags as nothing more than status quo... Had,, in fact, said that he hadn't bothered - and implied that he never would - to thank Perceptor for the frustration and desperation of all those countless hours put into his resurrection because it was nothing more than business as usual...

That was the final rivet in the build... that moment when Perceptor had truly seen what his worth really was to everyone else. Blaster's contempt, Kup's disregard, Springer's squeamishness.

And yet, he'd remained, stubbornly clinging to his responsibility... and because, he was finally, finally useful enough to Kup, to Springer, for them to notice him.

Besides, Kup had invited Drift, and he owed Drift. The stranger who had come back for him, when his own mechs hadn't. The stranger who had seen Perceptor, noticed him, even before he'd remade himself and picked up a gun.

Perceptor suddenly realizes that he's been staring down at his hands in his lap for several long moments, flicking the tools out of his fingertips absently to run them through systems checks just to occupy a sub-process or two as he'd lost his higher processes in maundering. He shrugs, a single twitch of his shoulders, but doesn't look up.

"I'd thought we'd become... comrades."

Edited 2013-05-28 22:00 (UTC)

Rung's patient. Very patient. He always has been and now is no different. So while Perceptor sits there in that lost sort of silence, the therapist just leans back in his seat and takes the time to study the other.

He knows a lot about what happened in the Wreckers; to the individuals and the group as a whole. Most of it had come from Kup himself but there were others that he'd spoken with and gotten information from as well.

It wasn't hard to piece it all together and get a pretty good picture of what life among them was.

But Rung held tightly to his beliefs that a lot of the way Kup had been was because of Prowl's influence. Sure, Kup had always been an odd mech to get along with but nothing like he'd been after he'd come back. There had been something so much more militant about the other.

"...You thought? Or you really did believe it? Because I think, beneath everything that was going on, Kup considered you a friend. All things considered, he did trust you quite a bit. He told me as much."

Rung now gets to join a very elite company - and nearly every mech who has ever managed to see Perceptor lose his composure this much, is right here in Haven, too.

"...he did?"

This revelation makes Perceptor betrayal that much worse. At least in his own mind, and his composure slips again, revealing a moment of that despairing self-loathing before Perceptor struggles to pull his tattered mask of calm back around himself like a worn blanket. There's holes in the blanket now, though, and his hands are shaking as he starts to reach for his rifle, stops himself, and instead, balls his hands into fists on his lap.

"I'd hoped... but that wasn't..." That just wasn't something they'd sit and talk about. Even if the topic wouldn't have been awkward enough, it'd been Kup, and Kup... never had much discussed feelings. Not like that. Maybe with Rung - probably with Rung - but not with Perceptor.

"Then why did he...."

"Kup, even before Prowl's tampering, was never an easy individual to get to open about his feelings. He liked to play the cold sparked individual, barking orders and being the tough guy, but he cared in his own way. He just had a horrible way of showing it," Rung said with a faint, fond note to his voice that was gone just as quickly as it had surfaced as he continued.

"I can't speak about every instance though, because after awhile Kup even stopped talking to me about the more personal things. But I don't think he meant to hurt you, Perceptor. War does horrible things to individuals and sometimes we forget how to interact with others and show them that they are important to us."

"Forget?"

Perceptor has withdrawn, shoulders hunched, jaw clenched, but he looks up for a moment, optics flashing brightly with a flicker of... rage and hate and self-loathing.

"Like he forgot me lying on the floor, bleeding out?"

"..I can't make excuses for that particular incident because even I don't have any insight to what he was thinking then," Rung admitted, giving the other an apologetic look.

"But the Kup I know wouldn't have done that, Perceptor. Ever. He didn't leave his men behind."

"It wasn't just Kup. They all left me behind."

Kup doing so had hurt the worst, though. At least until Blaster had repudiated him for his upgrades. Had called him "defiled". Perceptor still isn't quite certain which betrayal had hurt worse.

"...he hadn't cared what I'd done for him... only when I'd made myself useful..."

"..And that alone should make it clear how much that wasn't Kup and someone else entirely," Rung countered gently, very determined now to express just how much he didn't believe those actions to be Kup's own.

It just didn't make sense. It didn't sound like the Kup he knew at all.

Perceptor digests that quietly for a while as he stares at his hands, shoulders hunched, a bundle of silent misery.

"So it wasn't Kup?"

"Parts were. Small parts. But a lot of it was Prowl's influence," Rung said softly but there was a note to his voice that made it clear how much he hated that fact.

How much he hated Prowl.

That should be a comfort to Perceptor, knowing that Kup hadn't been the one to abandon him.

It isn't though.

"I did that." He can't meet Rung's optics, and his voice has lost tat anguished tone. It's lost all tone, in fact. "It was all my fault anyway."

"You can't keep carrying the guilt, Perceptor," Rung counters softly, well aware of the role the other played but there's no blame.

Prowl gets all of that.

"You did what you were made to do, I doubt there was much room for you to do anything else. Kup wouldn't have blamed you so don't blame yourself," he continued, optics dimming a bit. "You'll drown in your guilt if you aren't careful, Perceptor, and I don't want to see that happen to you."

Perceptor shakes his head stubbornly, his features pinched into a pained scowl.

"It wasn't supposed to be that," he offers quietly. "It was only... only supposed to be a means to monitor Kup's mental stability, to provide a little balance against the radiation's influence. I should have known what Prowl would do with it."

Prowl had perverted his work. Prowl had perverted his work to damage and control Kup. It makes him so angry, but more than that...

It makes him angry at himself for underestimating what Prowl could do with his work... and with Kup. Mostly, it makes him angry with himself for willing himself not to imagine what Prowl might do.

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Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news~

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WALL O TEXT! ANALYZE THIS, RUNG! ^___^ hehhehheh

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

YEAH!

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