Breakdown was attentive for a while. He was responsive for awhile, nodding and adding his own flavor of words into Knock Out’s responses with relative ease, as though all worries had dissipated just like that. Though discomfort still creeps on his circuitry, Breakdown shakes it off with a responding laugh.
‹ ⚡ › “No kidding. I’ve been here long enough to know that much. Humans - they’re all conniving little heaps of trash. All of ‘em.”
Words spill bitterly from his lips, taste all too repugnant for his liking and resulting in a briefer silence from him. Instead of speaking, Breakdown chooses to clean his palette by listening, instead. Listening to what Breakdown had to say.
Whatever Knock Out had to say...
Uncertainty has its way of creeping back in. Stability seemed more and more like a mere pipe dream nowadays. Every so often comes an event that threatens - at worse, DEVASTATES - any semblance of a calm mind within a moment’s notice. Uncertainty sneaks in and wreaks havoc from within. It takes advantage of perceived security, and whatever pillars existed to keep afloat a calm mind, it EVISCERATES. At one point, he thought that everything was fine. He thought that everything he needed was with him again.
Pillars collapse and doubts resurface in their place, making way to found fears that crept down Breakdown’s spinal column for days now. It finds itself a nice foundation to perch upon and build up into a little home for intrusive thoughts - easy to enter yet difficult to leave. It perches high above standard reach, difficult for Breakdown to confront, let alone evict altogether. He fears most what doubts now take hold of his memory drives - the authenticity of the “Knock Out” he encountered months before.
By this point in time, Knock Out’s words barely register. He wasn’t paying much mind. He wanted to, but couldn’t. That colorful intonation, that wavy craftsmanship of vocabulary and voice - the very VOICE he longed for - reached Breakdown no longer.
How many wires came loose during his stay here? How much worse did an already existing bug in the system become here? Was Knock Out a means of coping? Was he even there? Was he ever there, he begins to wonder. The bruiser remains stagnant now, lost in a mental prison and paralyzed in place by a combination of his own contemplating and the intrusive stares he felt bore into his plating. He feels the crowds converging around them. He feels their murmurings to one another, whisperings of topics potentially unrelated but nevertheless difficult for him to ignore. Potentially these vacant whispers substituted for the condescending words spoken by those unseen captors from Primus knows where. They’re invisible, but he still feels them watching. They’re always watching. Always watching.
It was by their own fabrication. It had to be.
They created that figment of his imagination.
Somehow, they toyed with him. They rebuilt him, so certainly... certainly...
If he had not fallen, if he had not allowed Airachnid to dismantle him as easily as she did, then perhaps this entire mess could have been avoided. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to stand here questioning if this, too, is a mere figment of his imagination and those wretched fleshbags lurk behind their veils chastising him for falling for this trick again.
Ventilation pipes weren’t functioning as they should - or so that’s how it felt - and every exhale expunged from the bruisers parted lips felt all too warm for comfort. Breathing became uncomfortable. His face threatens to twist into a combination of discomfort and frustration and his pistons lock in place. Lashing out becomes the only means of releasing himself from this mental ward--
... And then, a warm servo presses upon cool metal. Breakdown snaps back to reality. The murmurs abruptly cease, and Knock Out’s voice reaching his audio receptors once more. Even then, it felt unreal. Even then, with Knock Out touching his cheek so clearly, Breakdown felt doubt linger.
His own servo cups over Knock Out’s. What he expected to be a mere apparition of the mind turns out to be a solid figure. His single optic peers directly into the medic’s two own.
He really, really exists. Just... how much has this city wore down on him, anyways?
Questions for another day.
Words trickle from his lips contrary to the natural torrent of volume and vocabulary. No force of nature could truly separate the medic and his assistant. The bruiser and his partner. Them. Breakdown... just has to permanently commit that to memory. To never doubt that ever. Not even the nagging doubts will very easily make him think otherwise, if he could help it at all.
Besides, the doctor is in again. He’s kept Breakdown grounded before - he could do it again. Right?
Breakdown mirrors Knock Out’s smile with one of his own.
‹ ⚡ › “They’ll have to pry us apart with a hundred-meter crowbar in order to separate us, eh?”
There’s the old Breakdown.
Bit by bit, he feels himself returning to the reality of things. Intimacy wasn’t always needed, but always welcomed especially by a finicky medic like Knock Out. The moment had to break away at some point - Breakdown fully expected it. He received all the verification of Knock Out’s presence he needed, anyways. The following statements, too, were enough to prove that he’s there.
Of course he’d comment on the grime residue on his chassis.
‹ ⚡ › “What-- oh, well, that was, uh...”
‹ ⚡ › “I didn’t need one-- didn’t think I needed one... I can get myself cleaned up later, don’t worry about that. A little walk an’ talk wouldn’t hurt, though.”
He’ll just get dirty again later.
