#ACCIDNETALLY POSTEDBTHIS EARLY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO STAY IN THE QUEUE UNTIL LIKE SATURDAY

[minorisato]

tied up in lies; i am a phony

transformers / hotlock / wc: 587 / warnings: NA / notes: humanformers, same verse as this, 2nd POV, old ventfic. the shipping is really secondary to the... everything else

You aren't stupid.

To be honest, you don't know where the idea of you being a hopeless dumbass came from. You did fine in school, and sure, you get confused pretty easily, but so do a lot of people, and those people aren't being called stupid. Just you. And really, they don't even have the right- you are the fucking glue holding them all together, and they know it.

(He's asleep next to you, breathing evenly. He never looks like this. It's the most peaceful you've ever seen him.)

When you were younger, Kup always said you were totally average. Of your group, Arcee was easily the smartest, but that didn't mean the rest of you were stupid. Kup was right- something you'd never admit out loud, lest your boyfriend smack you- you were pretty average. In smarts, anyways. Everything else about you is fantastic, and also spectacular, and also perfect. You're on fire in the best ways. You haven't talked to Kup in a while.

Last time you talked to Kup was probably before you last talked to Optimus. Kup was like your dad, sure, objectively, whatever, but Optimus is- was?- your hero. Of course you'd talk to him more. No one likes talking to their dad, or almost-dad, or almost-almost-dad. It's been quite a while since you talked to Optimus, too.

(You're just staring at him. One of his canines is poking out from between his lips. Are you a bad person?)

God, Kup probably thinks you're dead. You think about calling him- it's, like, five A.M., he'd be so mad at you. He might be up already, but you aren't ever up this early, so he'd immediately bitch about how you should be sleeping and taking care of yourself and whatever whatever whatever. And then you'd sort of brush it off, and chuckle, and say hey, I'm not dead, still working with Deadlock and he would reply of course you are in that way that really gets across just how much potential he thinks you're wasting.

(Are you wasting it? Is there something else you should be doing? Are you a bad person?)

And then he'd say something like come home, or people are worried about you y'know, and I saw Blurr/Springer/Wheelie the other day, and god, you should probably just not call Kup.

(He's your dad. Are you a bad person?)

You're thinking too hard about it. Would it be burdensome to let anyone know you're still kicking? Does your immediate group even care that much? You're kind of an asshole. You make a habit of leaving people behind, leaving everything behind, only thinking about yourself and how you feel. You're parasitic, leeching energy from everyone around you, and you jump host-to-host, running when they can't handle you anymore.

(He's never looked this peaceful when he's awake, when he's around you. Are you a bad person?)

Maybe you are stupid.

There's this tiny part of your brain that wants to scream what's so bad about that? At least being stupid is funny. If there's one thing you're objectively good at, it's getting laughed at. You are amazing at being made fun of. King of taking it. Can't dish it, for some reason, because whenever you try everyone just kind of gets mad, and you're told "Roddy, that's mean," in that way you say something is mean when trying to teach a baby about empathy.

(Are you a bad person?)

You're a fucking adult, dammit, you don't need to be taught empathy.