"You should know that Cybertronian psychiatry has been thoroughly weaponised and has been used as a means of social control since long before I was kindled. So if you're thinking I have a prescription for this, I'm about to disappoint you terribly. This is a hack. Soundwave told me that modified circuit-boosters could be used to correct extreme mood swings, and I discovered that it worked. Unfortunately, I did not learn this trick in time to avoid becoming a genocidal tyrant, and since this particular brain-hack is slightly illegal, I had to stop doing it while I was on trial."
Megatron smiles wryly. "Ravage got me to go back to it; it was one of the promises he extracted from me before he left the ship."
He frowns. "I've survived a shadowplay attempt, Loki. They call it 'personality adjustment' when it's done to someone disposable, which I absolutely was at the time. I was fortunate not to lose my intellect or creativity, but it left me with a phobia of needles, because I woke up while they had needles in my spinal circuitry and brain module, and a propensity for manic episodes that got more and more severe as the stress on me increased over time."
He lets himself slump against Loki and cling to him, resting his head on Loki's shoulder, face pressed into the curve where neck and shoulder meet. "I'm a piece of work, and also a work in progress, but you knew that. That's only one of the things that happened to me during the first worst day of my life. Right after that narrow escape, the mines began to collapse. That's when I lost Terminus. I've told you bits about him, here and there. He was my first real lover, and he was already dying. I would rather have taken his life myself, out of love, than left him to die like that. I decided not to go to my next assignment, since someone had already decided I needed my attitude managed, and went to the arena instead. That's when I really started to drink. We all did. But while I was in the arena, and later, when we were actively in revolt and they were hunting us, we had to be careful about it. After the revolt got well under way, though, and I had my own flagship, the others cut back, and I didn't; it seemed safe for me to get worse, and I did. It took Scorponok's betrayal to make me realise how fragged up I actually was."
Megatron closes his optics as tightly as he can, but he's going to cry anyway, no matter what he does. "There are so many things I want to tell you about those days. Good things, even. Not everything was unrelentingly awful. But even when we were happy, there was usually a body count."
He presses a kiss to Loki's throat, where the pulse surges against his lips.
"I may be of more use to your brother than your children, in this respect. A lot of people drink when they have gone to war. But I'll do whatever I can to help."
warning: this may not be as comforting as you expect it to be ...
Megatron smiles wryly. "Ravage got me to go back to it; it was one of the promises he extracted from me before he left the ship."
He frowns. "I've survived a shadowplay attempt, Loki. They call it 'personality adjustment' when it's done to someone disposable, which I absolutely was at the time. I was fortunate not to lose my intellect or creativity, but it left me with a phobia of needles, because I woke up while they had needles in my spinal circuitry and brain module, and a propensity for manic episodes that got more and more severe as the stress on me increased over time."
He lets himself slump against Loki and cling to him, resting his head on Loki's shoulder, face pressed into the curve where neck and shoulder meet. "I'm a piece of work, and also a work in progress, but you knew that. That's only one of the things that happened to me during the first worst day of my life. Right after that narrow escape, the mines began to collapse. That's when I lost Terminus. I've told you bits about him, here and there. He was my first real lover, and he was already dying. I would rather have taken his life myself, out of love, than left him to die like that. I decided not to go to my next assignment, since someone had already decided I needed my attitude managed, and went to the arena instead. That's when I really started to drink. We all did. But while I was in the arena, and later, when we were actively in revolt and they were hunting us, we had to be careful about it. After the revolt got well under way, though, and I had my own flagship, the others cut back, and I didn't; it seemed safe for me to get worse, and I did. It took Scorponok's betrayal to make me realise how fragged up I actually was."
Megatron closes his optics as tightly as he can, but he's going to cry anyway, no matter what he does. "There are so many things I want to tell you about those days. Good things, even. Not everything was unrelentingly awful. But even when we were happy, there was usually a body count."
He presses a kiss to Loki's throat, where the pulse surges against his lips.
"I may be of more use to your brother than your children, in this respect. A lot of people drink when they have gone to war. But I'll do whatever I can to help."