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The room is spinning.
It’s spinning around the center, like one of those Earth carousels, round and round and round. He thinks that maybe it’s spinning faster, or maybe the center of its spin is just gaining pull, protruding from the ceiling and reaching down, down, dark and sharp and a gaping maw that is ready to burrow into his helm.
Rodimus groans and smothers his palms over his optics, willing the spinning to go away.
God, he’s dizzy. He’s– his fuel tank hurts.
He curls up onto his side, still burying his face into his hands, hoping the deep ache in his abdomen will dissipate and leave him alone.
He thinks he’s alone. He’s in his room. The last time he heard someone’s voice was when Drift stopped by to ask if he needed fuel because– Oh, that’s right. His fuel dispenser broke. Rodimus had waved Drift away, said he’d get it later, but he never did get it later. That was– That was two days ago.
He hasn’t refueled in two days. That must be why his fuel tank hurts. He’s hungry.
He blearily raises his helm, looking for a cube. There’s an empty one sitting on his desk but he doesn’t have a fuel dispenser. There’s no point in grabbing the cube if he doesn’t have a fuel dispenser.
He’s so fucking dizzy.
Rodimus rolls onto his front, bracing his servos under himself and willing his stupid frame to get up. He feels so tired.
He’s so tired. And hungry. And his head hurts.
It doesn’t help that the corner of his HUD is blinking with warnings and pings and a bunch of other shit that is making his head hurt worse. He sees something about an overconsumption warning and foreign contaminants and he sees something from Drift asking if he’s doing alright because he’s worried and suddenly Rodimus wants to throw up everywhere.
No, he’s not fucking alright. He’s fucking awful.
He’s kneeling on the floor staring down at his servos and something drips onto his knuckles and he realizes there is solvent pooling in his optics, spilling slowly down his face and gathering in a small puddle between his servos.
He blinks and another tear falls.
He’s crying. Why is he crying?
He feels his chassis hitch and shudder and then a sob escapes him, ugly and loud in the quiet space, and the only thing he can process is that he’s disrupting the silence. He’s loud and disrupting the silence and he’s being a fucking nuisance.
He collapses back onto the floor, clutching at his helm, at where his processor is pulsing painfully like a sparkling going absolute batshit on a drum.
The floor is spinning now and it’s marginally better than the ceiling. Fuck. Is he going to pass out?
There’s glass around him and he reaches blindly for it, uncaring of the sharp edges cutting into his digits. Maybe he grips it tighter just to feel the bite of it, just to see the pink energon well up and drip onto the floor in muted splashes, almost in slow-motion.
The glass. Why is there glass?
He’d gotten a bottle from Swerve as a present for something that he doesn’t care to parse out. It hurts too much to try and recall how the fuck he got here. He just remembers opening the bottle and bringing it to his lips and thinking about what a joke of a captain he is and then suddenly there wasn’t anything left to drink. His hand had shook as he blinked slowly at the bottle and then it slipped from his grasp. The glass had been loud. Louder than his sob from a few minutes ago. He remembers the way it shattered.
A groan escapes him as his internals roil unhappily and he attempts to crawl to the washrack. The washrack is safe. There’s a sink where he can clean himself and a shower he can curl up in and a hot shower that sounds good.
His leg is barely able to hold his weight for even two seconds and then he’s back on the floor, all laid out like a spilled pile of datapads.
Ultra Magnus had told him that he needed to read his datapads. He’d said it was his responsibility to do so. He’d said that Rodimus was abandoning his duties as captain to pursue other trivial, useless things and that he wasn’t living up to what the crew expected of him.
Well, Ultra Magnus can suck his exhaust pipe.
Man, whatever. He was right about it anyway. Rodimus was a big, fat, fucking disappointment. God. What would Optimus say? He didn’t even want to think about it.
“Ow,” he whispered as his fuel tank cramped.
Optimus would say that he saw so much potential in him, that he only needed to commit himself and he’d be able to achieve wonderful things, that if only he took charge like a leader he’d be great.
What a fucking joke. There was a time when Rodimus had believed him. That was even more sad.
“Sorry, OP,” he muttered to the empty room.
His voice broke on a voice crack and he giggled softly. And then he was weeping again. His optics burned with coolant and he wiped at them harshly, getting rid of the evidence. It returned a few seconds later in a fresh haze of stinging tears.
He dragged himself to the washrack, sitting by the doorframe and blinking slowly until he felt like he could pull himself to his feet. It took much more effort than it should to balance himself and even then he stumbled to catch his falling frame on the sink.
He squeezed his optics shut, forcing himself to breathe, and then gave up entirely when his chassis only hitched and shuddered uselessly.
He looked in the mirror.
He looked like goddamn fucking mess.
His optics were dull and flickery and almost gray, staring back at himself like a husk. There was dried engex on his chin and around his mouth. That was disgusting. His plating was all faded and scratched, horrible to look at, nothing like what a captain should look like.
Something in his abdomen creaked and then he was retching into the sink with violent, sharp heaves, frame shaking as tears gathered in his optics from the nagging sting in the back of his throat. The majority of the glowing slurry in the sink was pink. Engex. The blue tint of fuel was faint, most of it mixing with the engex and making a gross purple-y color that was frankly awful to look at.
Fuck, killing himself sucked.
He looked down at the pinpricks along his arms where he’d attempted to inject syk, then nucleon, then a variety of other circuit boosters that he honestly couldn’t say what was in them. The last planet they stopped by, he’d entered the first shady alleyway he could find and asked for the worst shit they could offer. The ratty pouch of drugs they gave him for the rest of the shanix in his subspace was kind of pitiful, if he was being honest. Like, if Rodimus was going to try and overdose on something, he’d prefer if it was flashy and presentable. But whatever.
And it didn’t even work. He’d started with downing as much alcohol as he could—until he felt like he was going to purge it all up again—to maybe make it hurt less, and then loaded up on as much shit as he could force into his systems before he’d shut down. Getting so inebriated he couldn’t even remember finishing the bottle did not dull the pain at all, by the way.
And then he woke up. And now his entire frame hurt and he didn’t think he was going to die.
He should have died; it’d be less of a fucking mess for everybody else.
He bowed over the sink and rubbed at his face, quiet sobs escaping him as he just fucking suffered.
What the hell was he even thinking? Trying to kill himself was stupid. He didn’t feel any better. He felt worse. Maybe if he called Whirl, he’d come over and finish the job for him. He hated him enough, right?
Fuck, if he drew a random name from the crew roster there was a 50/50 chance they’d laugh and say the ship would be better off without Rodimus. They’d be lining up to be the one to get rid of him. That’d be pretty funny, though. The Kill Rodimus congo line.
His crew hated him.
Rodimus stumbled back from the sink and slid down the wall, resting his helm on his knees and staring at the floor.
What was the point of being a captain if his crew hated him? Stupid. There was no point. He was just playing King of the Hill.
Ugh.
Ow.
His helm was pounding, sharp and bright and making everything hurt and he squeezed his optics shut.
Eventually he realized that the pounding wasn’t really his processor. There was someone knocking on the door.
He felt a belated burst of panic at the fact that someone was going to see him like this, all pathetic and disgusting and weak, but maybe they’d pity him and finish off the job so everyone would be spared from dealing with his shit.
He wondered who it’d be.
The knocking continued. It escalated. Rodimus grumbled uselessly as whoever it was practically started punching the door. He sent a ping for it to open, if only to stop the noise, and then realized he’d actually have to deal with the mech and he regretted it immediately. Screw his stupid brain for not thinking ahead.
He heard footsteps approaching the washrack and he curled in on himself, wishing he’d died, hoping they’d be kind enough to just ignore him.
“...Rodimus?”
He looked up to see Megatron staring down at him, red optics boring into him with some sort of emotion there that Rodimus didn’t feel like unpacking.
He waved a servo weakly.
Megatron knelt down, grasping at his helm, peering into his optics. Rodimus blinked slowly. Megatron’s face was all scrunched up as he looked at him.
“You’re high,” Megatron said, like that took a genius to figure out.
“I’m more than high,” Rodimus muttered, words slurred and muddled and bleeding into one another. “I’m drunk, too. I think I’m…” He giggled, leaning forward to prop his helm against Megatron’s shoulder. “Fuck, I feel like shit.”
“No surprise about that,” Megatron muttered, pawing at his medical panel. “I’ll get you to Ratchet, have him fix you up. Maybe you want to explain what the frag is happening here?”
Rodimus processed the words “Ratchet” and “fix” and then threaded together some form of logic to be able to figure out that that meant “medbay.” He shoved at Megatron suddenly, trying to get him to leave him alone. He smacked his medical panel closed.
“No,” Rodimus managed. “No Ratchet. No medbay. Jus’ leave me here.”
Megatron furrowed his brows. “Look at you, Rodimus. I need to help you–”
“No!” Rodimus said again, stronger now, kicking futilely at Megatron. A sudden surge of fear overcame him, so potent it was sickening, and he gagged again. He couldn’t go to Ratchet. Nobody could see him like this. Even Megatron shouldn’t be here to witness his absolutely pathetic misery.
“Megatron, please, you can’t– don’t let them see me,” he whispered, clawing at Megatron’s collar plating. The warframe’s optics widened minutely, his servos hovering over Rodimus’s frame like he wasn’t quite sure what the correct course of action was.
“Rodimus,” he said slowly. “Did you…” His gaze flicked to Rodimus’s arms, where the holes in his armor were evidence of circuit boosters jammed into his armor with little care. Rodimus couldn’t even cover it. Megatron’s gaze cracked just the slightest bit, something seeping through as he put the pieces in front of him together.
Rodimus felt disgusting.
“You need help,” he said firmly, beginning to rise and take Rodimus with him and he fought against it, pushing at Megatron, flailing his spoiler. Wounded sounds escaped him, high and whimpery, and Megatron only looked at him with pity.
“Megs, come on, please don’t. Please don’t,” he begged. “Just go away. Just go away and pretend you saw nothing. I failed anyway, I’ll be fine–”
Megatron scooped him up, taking him towards the door of his habsuite, and Rodimus thrashed, trying desperately to get away. Nobody could know what he’d done. They’d think he was incapable of handling authority, that it was too much for him, that he was not good enough.
“No, please–” he sobbed and thumped his fists against Megatron’s chestplate.
He saw Megatron’s servo raise to the door’s control panel, ready to open it, and Rodimus made a broken, fearful sound. Outside that hallway was anger. Judgment. Disappointment.
“I don’t need the fucking help!” Rodimus said hoarsely, voice cracking, a near scream. “I just need to die!”
“Okay, okay, here,” Megatron said suddenly, placing him on his berth. He sat down himself, pulling Rodimus against his chassis. “You’re okay, Rodimus.”
He shook his head, burying his face against Megatron’s chestplate. His servos wrapped around Rodimus’s shoulders, hugging him, and it felt so nice. He was going to miss out on this if he’d actually killed himself. He shook harder.
“You don’t need to die,” Megatron said quietly.
Rodimus’s breath hitched and he wrapped his arms around Megatron, digits digging desperately into his backplates.
“You don’t understand,” he whimpered, fresh tears spilling onto Megatron’s armor. “I’m– I’m so fucking bad at my job. I’m a horrible captain. I’m a horrible friend. What the fuck else am I good for if not just ending it all now? God, I– Megatron, you should’ve killed me.” He whispered it, pressed tight against Megatron’s chassis, a plea for him to understand.
If Megatron had succeeded in killing him, like, seven years ago he wouldn’t be in this situation. Past-Rodimus should’ve taken advantage of Megatron’s evil-ness while he could and get chest-fucked by his fusion canon instead of waiting until now, when Megatron was all nice and redeemed and wouldn’t kill him even if he pleaded.
Megatron stroked Rodimus’s helm gently. “No,” he said. “No, I shouldn’t have. You are so much kinder than you think you are.”
Rodimus choked on a strangled sound and then he was right back to sobbing, tears streaming in ugly streams down his face.
“I need to die,” he whispered again. “I hate looking at myself. I hate being myself. I’m– I wish I went with Nyon.”
Fuck, he missed Nyon. He missed it a lot. He missed driving through the streets and dodging potholes and going to bars and fishing and he missed when he felt like everything would be okay because he lived in a city that he loved and, in a way, loved him back. He missed when he believed that Primus was good to him. He missed when he didn’t care about what the hell other people were saying about him because he was just some turbo-revving young punk and not a bearer of the Matrix who had to live up to Optimus fucking Prime.
He could still smell the smoke of Nyon’s ashes after it died by his hand.
A soft servo settled against the back of his helm, gentle and cradling, and Rodimus made a sound that could only be described as a whine.
He clawed at Megatron, gripping him like a lifeline. Primus, he fucking was a lifeline. If he let him go, Rodimus didn’t think he’d stop falling.
“I don’t hate you,” Megatron said, and it was uttered with the softest tone that Rodimus had ever heard from the gruff mech.
The words hurt, despite the gentleness. They hurt a lot. It hurt that it felt like a lie and it hurt that Rodimus had no idea what to do with it.
So he just squeezed his optics shut and allowed Megatron to hold him and clutched him back, focusing on the feeling of the rough edges of Megatron’s armor digging into his chestplate instead of the ragged despair clawing at him from the inside.
“I wish I believed you,” Rodimus croaked eventually when the silence was beginning to feel suffocating. His voice was stuttery and glitched with static.
Megatron’s servos tightened slightly around him, grounding, like a barrier against the roaring world outside his habsuite. Megatron felt like safety. Somehow, despite the drugs raging through Rodimus’s fuel lines and the fact that he was very much not retaining his loose hold on consciousness very well, he felt safe in Megatron’s arms.
He buried his face into his shoulder, inhaling the thick scent of gunpowder and ozone that always clung to him.
Megatron exhaled above him and the gust of air from his intake tickled Rodimus’s finial.
“I wish you did, too.”