Difficult Things 2: Personality Conflicts
Difficult Things: Personality Conflicts
Series: Transformers (G1)
Pairings/Characters: HoundxTwins (starting with HoundxSunstreaker, so bear with me here.) Hound, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Bumblebee, others.
Ratings/Warnings: T for safety so far, some of the later chapters jumping to M for mechxmech. Technically slash. Psuedo-incestuous. Threesome, both as a relationship and in sex scenes.
Summary: G1. Hound's realized Sunstreaker is watching him, which is kind of unnerving, really. Sunstreaker is convinced he wants absolutely positively nothing to do with Hound. Sideswipe's amused. Bumblebee's bemused. Everyone else is clueless--so far, at least. Love is not an easy thing.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my beta, mmouse15! Further thanks to dairokkan for pointing out a few mistakes!
(And hey--it only took me 24 days to get this chapter up! That is kind of awesome.)
Past Chapters:
Chapter 1: Absolutely Not in Love
Chapter 2: Personality Conflicts
Chapter 3: In the Dark
Chapter 4: Little Details
Chapter 5: Patience
Chapter 6: Helplessly
FFnet link
Difficult Things: Personality Conflicts Hound kept on staring at him when he thought Sunstreaker wasn’t looking. It was pissing him off.
Okay, so it wasn’t anything worse than what he’d been doing to Hound to start with, but that was different. And he’d been more subtle, anyways. -How the slag had Hound ever been made a scout? Didn’t that require subtlety and stuff like that? Unlike the functions Sunstreaker had been designed and programmed for: slagging Decepticons good on the battlefield in incredibly risky ways.
-Okay, maybe he was only catching Hound watching him because he was watching Hound-slag it-to start with. Maybe Hound was being at least somewhat subtle-none of the mechs he was seated with seemed to have noticed anything wrong, and they were his friends. Not that Sunstreaker was any good at catching on to those sorts of things. He wasn’t good with people. That was Sideswipe’s job.
…Bumblebee kept on looking at Hound funny. And every so often he’d glance at Sunstreaker, but that was kind of normal. Most of the minibots did that to him, since they were usually his primary targets when he attacked another member of the ark. Most of them were more unpleasant than Bumblebee was, though…
Maybe Hound kept on looking at him because he’d noticed Sunstreaker watching him. So it was him watching Hound watching him watching Hound, because he’d been caught looking in the first place.
If that was the case, he’d have to kill Hound on general principle. And he’d enjoy doing it, because-
Slag. Whatever. Hound probably just thought he was planning on attacking him, which was-
Which was what usually happened whenever Sunstreaker paid attention to a mech who wasn’t his brother. Although sometimes he listened to the officers, and he rarely went after them.
Maybe if he did attack Hound, they’d get moved off of patrol together. Or it would convince Hound to ask for a change. He tolerated Sunstreaker, but his friends weren’t the ones who normally ended up in the medbay after brawling with him. …Or ever. Hound’s friends were boring, but inoffensive, over all. His group.
He’d never been in a fight with Hound himself: there was no way the mech would stay… Not friendly, but as friendly as Autobots who weren’t Sideswipe got with Sunstreaker. Tolerant, maybe. Not if he attacked him…
It was a good idea. Attacking him. It would solve his problem… If he could just dismiss Hound as useless, simple and ugly, which he was, like the rest of the Ark, except for a very few exceptions…
“So I’m thinking of asking Prowl if I can switch shifts again,” Hound was saying, tone casual. Sunstreaker stiffened, his glare intensifying even though no one could see it; he was, and had been, staring at the table and energon cube in front of him, gripped between his hands. “Not much of one, just to the night shift-there’ll be owls and bats and other nocturnal animals, it’ll be great! I don’t know if I’ll get it, though-I mean, I just asked to switch onto the patrol I have now, and you know how Prowl gets…”
“I would be willing to consider recommending the alternate schedule, assuming you assisted me by making observations and allowing me access to your notes at a later date,” Perceptor said mildly.
“Great!” Hound replied, brightening. “Thanks, Perce-that’s a huge help.”
“It’s nothing-and I will end up benefitting as well, you know. I’m not being entirely selfless.”
“Still-the thank-you still stands. Anything in particular you want me to keep an eye out for?”
“There’s a species of insect I’m investigating right now, of the Lepidopterae…”
Sunstreaker tuned the rest out, still staring at his hands against the smooth metal finish of the table, face twisted into a scowl as he thought.
Moved off of the same patrol. Did Hound really just want to see different organic creatures? Or was it because of Sunstreaker? If he really did think Sunstreaker was planning to attack him-which he wasn’t, for once. Even if it would make things easier if he did…
It wasn’t fair. The one time he wasn’t planning on getting violent, and the person who mattered-and everyone else-thought he was anyways.
“Didn’t get moved off the patrol?” Sunstreaker spat mockingly as Hound pulled up next to him, their shift starting. “I guess you’re not the officers’ darling you thought you were.”
“Huh? You heard that?”
“I was there-you should know that! You kept on staring at me. Do you really think a slagger like you should be staring at me? Jealousy is so-unbecoming.” The bile, thick and bitter, came easily-it always did. Some days, that scared him. Usually, he liked it. It made things easier.
“I can’t say I’m jealous of you,” said Hound, and even though there was nothing unusual about his phrasing, his tone wasn’t nearly as relaxed, casual, slightly amused, as it usually was. Sunstreaker had been in moods like this on patrol before, and the other mech had always seemed to fail to notice, more than anything else.
“You aren’t? Then why were you staring at me? -Don’t tell me you think you have a chance of earning a little of my attention! Me-I’m the best-looking ’bot on this planet.”
“I don’t want to interface you, Sunstreaker.” He sounded-cold.
“Well, then. You expect me to believe you were staring at me for no reason? You kept on looking back. Is it that you expect me to attack you, Hound? Why worry about that? I’m sure your oh-so-useful tracking abilities and holograms would easily allow you to escape if, say, I were to go after you-”
Hound stiffened. “I’ll bring the officers into this if I have to,” he said quietly. Sunstreaker was suddenly filled with incandescent rage. Hound did think he was going to attack him, slag it-
It wasn’t too late to fulfill those expectations.
…No. He couldn’t. For once-
For once, he didn’t want to prove them right. Everyone right. For once, he wanted to-
He wished he was his brother. Sideswipe was an immature idiot, and not nearly as handsome, but he could do this sort of thing, he could be around other people- He would never have slagged things up this badly-
They were running late. Sunstreaker transformed, gunning his engine, and took off. Hound followed him, but even more slowly than he usually did. The distance between them grew.
They both remained silent for the rest of the shift. After it was over, Sunstreaker went to talk to his twin.
“You were right, you slag-sucking pit-damned-”
“Hey, Sunshine, what’s up?”
“I should beat you into scrap.”
“Whoa-someone’s Mr. Moody today. Did you get your aft kicked by Tracks or something?”
-That was too ridiculous to think about. “As if. But you were right, slag it.”
“Right about what, Sunny? You’re not making a lot of sense-should I call Ratchet or something?”
“About Hound!”
“-I’m still not sure I’m following you, bro. -Ohhh, are you talking about how you’ve got that thing for him? Yeah-duh. That ain’t news and it ain’t hard, Sunny-boy.”
Sunstreaker twitched at the new nickname. “Call me that again and you die.”
Sideswipe laughed, clearly delighted. “You don’t want that! You should think twice about attacking me at all-”
“Why?”
“’Cause you need my help. You do, don’t you? You suck worse at dealing with other people than Prowl. -Than almost all the bots on the Ark, matter of fact- Let’s see-Red Alert made friends with Inferno… the minibots all stick together… Yeah, you suck most at ‘interpersonal interactions.’ That’s how Ratchet puts it in his files-”
Sunstreaker’s train of thought was derailed. “What?”
“Oh-he’s got psychological profiles for all of the mechs on the ark, because he’s the medic, I guess. I was doing a little research one day, if you catch my drift, and I ran across ’em. Yours was one of the big ones. -Y’know, even Starscream has those two other jets he flies around with- So he’s got you beat, too.”
“I slagging know, Sideswipe!”
The red mech looked over, startled at the sheer vehemence in his brother’s voice-at the rage and, beneath it, something that sounded almost unhappy. He softened, briefly laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder before it was shrugged off. Still, Sunstreaker calmed a little. “-So, yeah. I’m here to help What d’you want?”
“…I don’t know.”
“That’s funny-neither do I.”
“He’s-I screw things up, Sides. I don’t know- He asked to get moved off of our patrol, or he’s going to. He says it to look at stupid organic creatures that like the dark, but…
“It’s because he thinks I’m going to attack him. He caught me watching him-stop sniggering you glitching lunatic-and now…”
“So be nice-not too nice, true, or he’ll get paranoid because actual decent behavior is out of character for you, but maybe you could be a little more decent. So, you could actually respond to greetings instead of glaring… Maybe a little more humility, or at least less obvious bragging?”
“Sideswipe-” Sunstreaker sounded almost panicky.
“Sunstreaker,” Sideswipe mimicked. “Look. This isn’t that hard-tons of mechs do this on a regular basis. Seriously-”
“-I-” Sunstreaker just sounded more distressed, he knew. If it had been anyone but his twin, it would have been pissing him off, that someone was hearing that weakness in his voice. But it wasn’t another mech-it was just Sideswipe.
“Why is this so hard for you?” There was a bitter note in the red mech’s voice. He’d been dealing with his brother’s social skills since the two of them had onlined. And it had all gotten worse after the war had started-and kept on getting worse. Ratchet had had something in his file about “self-fulfilling prophecies” and “cyclical behavioral patterns.” It had made an unnerving amount of sense. “No, seriously, why is this so hard for you?”
“You know this, Sideswipe-”
“Not really. We haven’t really talked about this in-slag, in a long time. Anyways, indulge me. What’s your problem?”
“…When I find out who gave you psychology files, I am going to make them beg for mercy before I finally offline them.”
“It was Jazz. C’mon, answer!”
“Sideswipe! I am not going to-to slagging indulge you with this, this… Just let it go!”
“Whoa, whoa, alright! Look, I get that you… Just don’t really know how to do this… But it’s not hard! It’s not like it’s not something you can learn or, slag, pretend to do for a while!”
“I… Look. Sides, I just don’t-I don’t understand anyone else. I get you, you’re a shallow dolt who gets his kicks through practical jokes and pulling stupid slag on the battlefield, that’s fine. I know you, I know how you’re going to react, I don’t have to worry! When I speak, I know you’re gonna get what I mean, that you won’t just pull something out of your aft and then freak out about it. You’re not-you-
“Most of ’em can go interface with a blender. But… I always say something wrong, even if I didn’t mean to. Or my temper goes because they’ve done something stupid and I do something
that just freaks them all out more, even if it wasn’t anything too bad to start with-and it’s all, all-slag it, they’re going to know it if I want them bleeding and beaten! And…”
“Yeah, I get it,” Sideswipe said softly. “And, yeah, I… Okay, it’s not all your fault. I mean, most of it is, because you can’t go around attacking the other guys and being moody and irritable all the time and bragging shamelessly the vast majority of it-even if it’s true, we’re not going to get into that right now, Sunny-without it having effects.”
Sunstreaker stared at the far wall of their room, expression set and grim.
“Does this have to be about Hound? Because I don’t see him as the type to be easy to talk around to this sort of thing. He’s one of the nice ones, Sunshine, he likes this planet and everything, gets along with the humans and almost all the Autobots, tries to keep things calm and quiet, doesn’t brawl… I bet you could talk Mirage into something, or maybe-”
Sunstreaker shook his head violently. “I… I’ll just ignore it or something,” he muttered, sounding like he was hurting, deeply, if you knew what to listen for, underneath the sullen annoyance, the irritation and the ever-present promise of violence. “It’ll have to go away eventually. He’s going to get switched off of our patrol. If I do fight him it’ll-”
“Don’t say that, Sunny,” Sideswipe said, voice oddly conflicted. “I-Hey, I’m going to help you, right? And between my charm and your looks, no Cybertronian born would be able to turn us down.”
--end chapter 2--
On to Chapter 3.
Series: Transformers (G1)
Pairings/Characters: HoundxTwins (starting with HoundxSunstreaker, so bear with me here.) Hound, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Bumblebee, others.
Ratings/Warnings: T for safety so far, some of the later chapters jumping to M for mechxmech. Technically slash. Psuedo-incestuous. Threesome, both as a relationship and in sex scenes.
Summary: G1. Hound's realized Sunstreaker is watching him, which is kind of unnerving, really. Sunstreaker is convinced he wants absolutely positively nothing to do with Hound. Sideswipe's amused. Bumblebee's bemused. Everyone else is clueless--so far, at least. Love is not an easy thing.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my beta, mmouse15! Further thanks to dairokkan for pointing out a few mistakes!
(And hey--it only took me 24 days to get this chapter up! That is kind of awesome.)
Past Chapters:
Chapter 1: Absolutely Not in Love
Chapter 2: Personality Conflicts
Chapter 3: In the Dark
Chapter 4: Little Details
Chapter 5: Patience
Chapter 6: Helplessly
FFnet link
Difficult Things: Personality Conflicts Hound kept on staring at him when he thought Sunstreaker wasn’t looking. It was pissing him off.
Okay, so it wasn’t anything worse than what he’d been doing to Hound to start with, but that was different. And he’d been more subtle, anyways. -How the slag had Hound ever been made a scout? Didn’t that require subtlety and stuff like that? Unlike the functions Sunstreaker had been designed and programmed for: slagging Decepticons good on the battlefield in incredibly risky ways.
-Okay, maybe he was only catching Hound watching him because he was watching Hound-slag it-to start with. Maybe Hound was being at least somewhat subtle-none of the mechs he was seated with seemed to have noticed anything wrong, and they were his friends. Not that Sunstreaker was any good at catching on to those sorts of things. He wasn’t good with people. That was Sideswipe’s job.
…Bumblebee kept on looking at Hound funny. And every so often he’d glance at Sunstreaker, but that was kind of normal. Most of the minibots did that to him, since they were usually his primary targets when he attacked another member of the ark. Most of them were more unpleasant than Bumblebee was, though…
Maybe Hound kept on looking at him because he’d noticed Sunstreaker watching him. So it was him watching Hound watching him watching Hound, because he’d been caught looking in the first place.
If that was the case, he’d have to kill Hound on general principle. And he’d enjoy doing it, because-
Slag. Whatever. Hound probably just thought he was planning on attacking him, which was-
Which was what usually happened whenever Sunstreaker paid attention to a mech who wasn’t his brother. Although sometimes he listened to the officers, and he rarely went after them.
Maybe if he did attack Hound, they’d get moved off of patrol together. Or it would convince Hound to ask for a change. He tolerated Sunstreaker, but his friends weren’t the ones who normally ended up in the medbay after brawling with him. …Or ever. Hound’s friends were boring, but inoffensive, over all. His group.
He’d never been in a fight with Hound himself: there was no way the mech would stay… Not friendly, but as friendly as Autobots who weren’t Sideswipe got with Sunstreaker. Tolerant, maybe. Not if he attacked him…
It was a good idea. Attacking him. It would solve his problem… If he could just dismiss Hound as useless, simple and ugly, which he was, like the rest of the Ark, except for a very few exceptions…
“So I’m thinking of asking Prowl if I can switch shifts again,” Hound was saying, tone casual. Sunstreaker stiffened, his glare intensifying even though no one could see it; he was, and had been, staring at the table and energon cube in front of him, gripped between his hands. “Not much of one, just to the night shift-there’ll be owls and bats and other nocturnal animals, it’ll be great! I don’t know if I’ll get it, though-I mean, I just asked to switch onto the patrol I have now, and you know how Prowl gets…”
“I would be willing to consider recommending the alternate schedule, assuming you assisted me by making observations and allowing me access to your notes at a later date,” Perceptor said mildly.
“Great!” Hound replied, brightening. “Thanks, Perce-that’s a huge help.”
“It’s nothing-and I will end up benefitting as well, you know. I’m not being entirely selfless.”
“Still-the thank-you still stands. Anything in particular you want me to keep an eye out for?”
“There’s a species of insect I’m investigating right now, of the Lepidopterae…”
Sunstreaker tuned the rest out, still staring at his hands against the smooth metal finish of the table, face twisted into a scowl as he thought.
Moved off of the same patrol. Did Hound really just want to see different organic creatures? Or was it because of Sunstreaker? If he really did think Sunstreaker was planning to attack him-which he wasn’t, for once. Even if it would make things easier if he did…
It wasn’t fair. The one time he wasn’t planning on getting violent, and the person who mattered-and everyone else-thought he was anyways.
“Didn’t get moved off the patrol?” Sunstreaker spat mockingly as Hound pulled up next to him, their shift starting. “I guess you’re not the officers’ darling you thought you were.”
“Huh? You heard that?”
“I was there-you should know that! You kept on staring at me. Do you really think a slagger like you should be staring at me? Jealousy is so-unbecoming.” The bile, thick and bitter, came easily-it always did. Some days, that scared him. Usually, he liked it. It made things easier.
“I can’t say I’m jealous of you,” said Hound, and even though there was nothing unusual about his phrasing, his tone wasn’t nearly as relaxed, casual, slightly amused, as it usually was. Sunstreaker had been in moods like this on patrol before, and the other mech had always seemed to fail to notice, more than anything else.
“You aren’t? Then why were you staring at me? -Don’t tell me you think you have a chance of earning a little of my attention! Me-I’m the best-looking ’bot on this planet.”
“I don’t want to interface you, Sunstreaker.” He sounded-cold.
“Well, then. You expect me to believe you were staring at me for no reason? You kept on looking back. Is it that you expect me to attack you, Hound? Why worry about that? I’m sure your oh-so-useful tracking abilities and holograms would easily allow you to escape if, say, I were to go after you-”
Hound stiffened. “I’ll bring the officers into this if I have to,” he said quietly. Sunstreaker was suddenly filled with incandescent rage. Hound did think he was going to attack him, slag it-
It wasn’t too late to fulfill those expectations.
…No. He couldn’t. For once-
For once, he didn’t want to prove them right. Everyone right. For once, he wanted to-
He wished he was his brother. Sideswipe was an immature idiot, and not nearly as handsome, but he could do this sort of thing, he could be around other people- He would never have slagged things up this badly-
They were running late. Sunstreaker transformed, gunning his engine, and took off. Hound followed him, but even more slowly than he usually did. The distance between them grew.
They both remained silent for the rest of the shift. After it was over, Sunstreaker went to talk to his twin.
“You were right, you slag-sucking pit-damned-”
“Hey, Sunshine, what’s up?”
“I should beat you into scrap.”
“Whoa-someone’s Mr. Moody today. Did you get your aft kicked by Tracks or something?”
-That was too ridiculous to think about. “As if. But you were right, slag it.”
“Right about what, Sunny? You’re not making a lot of sense-should I call Ratchet or something?”
“About Hound!”
“-I’m still not sure I’m following you, bro. -Ohhh, are you talking about how you’ve got that thing for him? Yeah-duh. That ain’t news and it ain’t hard, Sunny-boy.”
Sunstreaker twitched at the new nickname. “Call me that again and you die.”
Sideswipe laughed, clearly delighted. “You don’t want that! You should think twice about attacking me at all-”
“Why?”
“’Cause you need my help. You do, don’t you? You suck worse at dealing with other people than Prowl. -Than almost all the bots on the Ark, matter of fact- Let’s see-Red Alert made friends with Inferno… the minibots all stick together… Yeah, you suck most at ‘interpersonal interactions.’ That’s how Ratchet puts it in his files-”
Sunstreaker’s train of thought was derailed. “What?”
“Oh-he’s got psychological profiles for all of the mechs on the ark, because he’s the medic, I guess. I was doing a little research one day, if you catch my drift, and I ran across ’em. Yours was one of the big ones. -Y’know, even Starscream has those two other jets he flies around with- So he’s got you beat, too.”
“I slagging know, Sideswipe!”
The red mech looked over, startled at the sheer vehemence in his brother’s voice-at the rage and, beneath it, something that sounded almost unhappy. He softened, briefly laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder before it was shrugged off. Still, Sunstreaker calmed a little. “-So, yeah. I’m here to help What d’you want?”
“…I don’t know.”
“That’s funny-neither do I.”
“He’s-I screw things up, Sides. I don’t know- He asked to get moved off of our patrol, or he’s going to. He says it to look at stupid organic creatures that like the dark, but…
“It’s because he thinks I’m going to attack him. He caught me watching him-stop sniggering you glitching lunatic-and now…”
“So be nice-not too nice, true, or he’ll get paranoid because actual decent behavior is out of character for you, but maybe you could be a little more decent. So, you could actually respond to greetings instead of glaring… Maybe a little more humility, or at least less obvious bragging?”
“Sideswipe-” Sunstreaker sounded almost panicky.
“Sunstreaker,” Sideswipe mimicked. “Look. This isn’t that hard-tons of mechs do this on a regular basis. Seriously-”
“-I-” Sunstreaker just sounded more distressed, he knew. If it had been anyone but his twin, it would have been pissing him off, that someone was hearing that weakness in his voice. But it wasn’t another mech-it was just Sideswipe.
“Why is this so hard for you?” There was a bitter note in the red mech’s voice. He’d been dealing with his brother’s social skills since the two of them had onlined. And it had all gotten worse after the war had started-and kept on getting worse. Ratchet had had something in his file about “self-fulfilling prophecies” and “cyclical behavioral patterns.” It had made an unnerving amount of sense. “No, seriously, why is this so hard for you?”
“You know this, Sideswipe-”
“Not really. We haven’t really talked about this in-slag, in a long time. Anyways, indulge me. What’s your problem?”
“…When I find out who gave you psychology files, I am going to make them beg for mercy before I finally offline them.”
“It was Jazz. C’mon, answer!”
“Sideswipe! I am not going to-to slagging indulge you with this, this… Just let it go!”
“Whoa, whoa, alright! Look, I get that you… Just don’t really know how to do this… But it’s not hard! It’s not like it’s not something you can learn or, slag, pretend to do for a while!”
“I… Look. Sides, I just don’t-I don’t understand anyone else. I get you, you’re a shallow dolt who gets his kicks through practical jokes and pulling stupid slag on the battlefield, that’s fine. I know you, I know how you’re going to react, I don’t have to worry! When I speak, I know you’re gonna get what I mean, that you won’t just pull something out of your aft and then freak out about it. You’re not-you-
“Most of ’em can go interface with a blender. But… I always say something wrong, even if I didn’t mean to. Or my temper goes because they’ve done something stupid and I do something
that just freaks them all out more, even if it wasn’t anything too bad to start with-and it’s all, all-slag it, they’re going to know it if I want them bleeding and beaten! And…”
“Yeah, I get it,” Sideswipe said softly. “And, yeah, I… Okay, it’s not all your fault. I mean, most of it is, because you can’t go around attacking the other guys and being moody and irritable all the time and bragging shamelessly the vast majority of it-even if it’s true, we’re not going to get into that right now, Sunny-without it having effects.”
Sunstreaker stared at the far wall of their room, expression set and grim.
“Does this have to be about Hound? Because I don’t see him as the type to be easy to talk around to this sort of thing. He’s one of the nice ones, Sunshine, he likes this planet and everything, gets along with the humans and almost all the Autobots, tries to keep things calm and quiet, doesn’t brawl… I bet you could talk Mirage into something, or maybe-”
Sunstreaker shook his head violently. “I… I’ll just ignore it or something,” he muttered, sounding like he was hurting, deeply, if you knew what to listen for, underneath the sullen annoyance, the irritation and the ever-present promise of violence. “It’ll have to go away eventually. He’s going to get switched off of our patrol. If I do fight him it’ll-”
“Don’t say that, Sunny,” Sideswipe said, voice oddly conflicted. “I-Hey, I’m going to help you, right? And between my charm and your looks, no Cybertronian born would be able to turn us down.”
--end chapter 2--
On to Chapter 3.