Conceptions - 10.c
Title: Conceptions of the Self - Home - Mei's Fanfic Master List
FIC Summary: [2007, AU] Sore throats, nightmares, and the differences between organics and Cybertronians - something is terribly wrong with Sam. To live is to evolve, and shape alone is not enough; think of it as a mutual learning experience. (Bot!Sam, Mech/mech)
1, 2, 2.b, 3, 4, 4.b, 5, 6, 7, 7.b, 8, 8.b, 9, 9.b, 10, 10.b
Ron's Intermission : The Witwicky Madness
Ron had thought that for a moment, he had somehow managed to escape the legacy of Witwicky Madness. He had thought somehow that he had escaped it, and that just proved that he had it worse than most of them.
His life had seemed so normal, for so long ... raised on bedtime stories of the grand adventures of Archibald Witwicky. He'd thought that Archibald was just a tall tale when he'd gotten older, and then around the time that he was fourteen, he'd found out that Archibald was his grandfather, and he was in an insane asylum. A handful of years later, Archibald's health took a turn for the worse and he seemed to drag his father with him. Then Archibald was dead and they were attending the funeral and Ron was just standing there hoping that his father would make it all the way through without his unstable temper getting the best of him. He and his mother, they were trying to keep Anthony out of public, his temper had gotten so unsteady and it was a shameful thing --
He'd noticed, across the gathering of family, the red-haired stranger dressed smartly with her hair bound respectfully, even though Ron had left his own loose and long as the style was. He felt kind of self conscious for not having at least put gel in it or something, seeing that the only person who seemed to give one honest hoot about Archibald's death be a stranger.
She must have felt his gaze, because she'd looked up suddenly, straight at him. He didn't know what it meant or who she was, but it was like she'd been spooked, and she looked away and picked her way carefully through the cemetery, heading for a posh black car and slipping inside without another look back.
It was an odd moment, but he didn't really have time to worry about it for a few months at least, and he'd nearly forgotten the woman in the black dress with vibrant red hair, except she showed up again. Ron couldn't forget looking up from the diner menu at the unfamiliar voice and seeing her standing there in uniform with a slightly self-depreciating smile, eyes bright and playful. That was the beginning of the rest of his life.
That wasn't to say there weren't ... odd moments when he had gotten serious with Judy. There were times when the newest technology came out -- like the cell phone -- and she'd get this grimly unhappy look on her face, and a frown would settle down on it and stay for days. And she hated it when the newer cars had more features, and that was why Ron bought an old classic and spent money they couldn't really afford to repair it and fix it up. There were days that she looked up at the stars with a sort of wariness that she never talked about, and moments when she'd look across the street at a stranger and her expression would ice over. (It wasn't immediately noticeable, but by that time, Ron knew Judy, and no matter how her eyes sparkled and her teeth glittered whitely, he knew that it was all just a facade.)
Not to mention the way she always, always found his magazines. When they'd gotten married and she got preganant and he insisted they have a real house and that she didn't have to work anymore, she settled into the routine with a sense of quaint curiosity. Then she'd gotten restless, and for a while she was going out walking and sight seeing and then she started going to stores and then she bent her attention to interior decorating ... Ron thought with dismay that he'd never be able to support her and her hobbies and the baby on his paycheck --
And then Sam had been born.
It had been an awkward transition at first, from going to husband and wife to -- to parents. It was awkward, but then it just -- seemed to fit. To work out. Before Ron knew it, Sammy wasn't in diapers, he was a toddler running every which direction and when they strapped him down so he couldn't run away, he was always pointing and shouting "look!" It was mortifying, usually, because Sammy was unfortunately perceptive, and he always noticed when something new was going on, and since they had taught him everything his eager mind could absorbed, he was noticing -- ah. Things they thought he wasn't ready for. Like. Er. Adult things. Like the time the Jacksons skinny dipped in their pool. Or when someone forgot to close their curtains before they got -- ah, adventuresome. Or the time that guy was trying to jimmy the lock on a car in the Mall parking lot ...
There was a picture in the paper, and Ron was pretty sure that Judy knew he had a copy in the bottom of his nightstand, still ... but she never said anything.
It seemed too sudden that Sammy was eight and insisting that he was a big boy, now, that his name was Sam, not Sammy. Then he stopped shouting look! at what he noticed, and started keeping it to himself. Instead of just seeing with his eyes, he started listening, and the school counselor was saying that his interpersonal empathy was amazing, but Ron wasn't sure he bit into all of that New Age stuff. All he knew was that Sam was turning out to be a teenage boy who didn't mind his parents and spun outrageous stories to his teachers and lied to everyone and he wouldn't ever tell them what was going on with him. His flare for the ridiculous blossomed, but his plunging grades said it all, and Ron was forced to resort to blackmail and bribes just to feel that he had any way to control his son at all.
But he loved his son, and even though years ago, Sam was always looking at Judy, going "Mom, there's something under my bed ...", it was always "I love you, dad." Judy was never jealous, maybe because Sam was always spinning fairy tales and wanting her to stomp the spider in the bathtub, but it had made it all worthwhile. So Ron felt like he could make a deal with Sam, who finally showed interest in cars, and Ron sympathized with being in love with a girl that belonged to someone else, and it seemed harmless to make him work a little and earn a few good grades ...
It had been a little hilarious for Ron to watch Bobby Bolivia attempt to spin some sucker tale to Sam and to see Sam so completely not bite into it. Oh, sure, Sam had kinda liked the bit about 'mystical bonds', but Ron imagined he was making sure to remember it for future instances ... and Ron sympathized, of course, seeing Sam trudge over to the cars that Bolivia wanted to show them. To be perfectly honest, Bobby Bolivia was a bit of a joke on his son, just like the Porsche dealership was a joke. Sam should remember that Ron's jokes always came in threes, but it didn't seem he did.
But then he'd seen the way Sam finally looked at the car that Bobby had stopped at, the sudden change that came over him, the way he was taking the car seriously. The crappiest Camaro generation that had ever been built, and his son actually liked what he was looking at. It was unbelievable -- it was absurd.
It was so completely Sam.
But he still wasn't paying five grand for a crappy Camaro. He wanted his son to have everything he wanted, but sometimes a person couldn't just have that, and Sam would have to learn that. But he would have sworn in front of a judge with his hand on the Holy Bible that he had heard something from inside the Camaro right before some piercing notsound burst all the windows of all the cars in the parking lot other than his own convertible and the Camaro. It made all of the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, but then Bobby whipped around and offered four thousand, and Ron had wanted Sam to have what he want and he just said "deal" before he even thought of haggling.
He didn't blame Bobby. With all the damages done to the cars, he was desperate for a sudden influx of cash that he would need lots of to do anything even like repairing the windows in the cars.
It had been gratifying, though, when Sam drove it onto the driveway and got out and took a look around and so obviously finally got that it was his car, title changed and everything. Of course, there was things like registration and insurance to deal with, but he figured that could wait a little while, at least. Let Sam enjoy it while he could. And Sam had looked at him and said in all-encompassing euphoria: "I love you, Dad."
Ron had just said, "yeah, me, too," because he was keeping in mind that soon enough he'd be taking away Sam's keys to make him do his chores and homework, and then Sam would hate him with Judy's white-lipped intensity. He had always known in the back of his head that Sam had inherited the Witwicky Madness, but couldn't remember when he'd realized it or what it had been that made him think so. It made Sam an unfathomable creature to him, much like his own father and grandfather had been. It made Sam temperamental and quick to feel betrayed and made that betrayal to cut to the core of him and sometimes he bounced back and forgave and sometimes he didn't. With Sam feeling so attached to the car and Ron's own acceptance that he'd have to use that against Sam (for his own good, but Sam wouldn't ever believe it), he dreaded that Madness more than ever.
The Witwicky Madness was a terrible thing that isolated Ron from everyone important to him, but Judy would just lean against his side and not say a thing and it would be okay, at least a little bit.
Then Sam came home a day later, late and having done none of his chores and Ron regretted with a sharp ache that he'd have to so quickly use the Camaro against his boy when he'd just got it, and then Sam looked at him and said, "I love you, Dad," and Ron had to get out of there and left it at that because it had been one of Sam's lies, and he said it just because he knew it always got him out of trouble, and it hurt, even through the numbness of the wine.
Then came a nightmare, and when they'd next seen Sam, the Madness had trapped his son and grew in choking vines out of every pore, and the strange, disturbing symbols that had littered everything the asylum sent them that Archibald had owned flashed in Ron's eyes with every step of Sam's feet as he shuffled gingerly into the room, glancing warily between the two agents from beneath lowered lids. He hadn't said a word, had sat silent and unmoved, and it goaded Ron on and he could tell that it goaded Judy on with a sort of desperate fury, and they were getting ready to really get into it when Sam had spoken only instead of 'my car', Ron heard 'the Ice Man', and ...
Aliens. The government had debriefed them, he and Judy, separately, about the events and the truth of what happened to his grandfather. That his son was now the 'proud owner' of an alien robot. And no amount of consoling by the government or reassurances from that Captain could really prepare him for the fact that Sam wasn't part of their family anymore, but in the thick of it with the aliens and that girl and --
It was kind of neat, after a while. Once he got used to the idea. It was sort of neat, and he thought to himself that it must be nice to have a car that was actually a super advanced robot. He might be able to handle the Witwicky Madness if it meant shiny robots (and they were shiny, and dynamic, and made every inner child pass out in glee), he thought he might but for the once he actually managed to sneak up on his son.
Seeing Sam casually reach out and rap the microwave with Judy's favorite wooden spoon and stare at it with a sort of breathless and suspicious fear brought it all home for Ron. Super advanced robot rides might have been nice, but the Witwicky Madness was called that for a reason, and he didn't think he could handle living like that, being uncertain of anything that had a battery and a microchip.
Then Sam was coming home and saying that something was happening to him and Judy was saying that she knew people, when she used to work in Sector Seven and Sam's reaction proved to Ron that he remembered who Sector Seven was just fine, that they were the ones that had been studying the Ice Man, and he suddenly didn't know who she was anymore, and how much had been a lie and how long had she been a plant and was their entire life together just a lie? And Sam was gone and Ron was abruptly alone in the world because the Witwicky Madness had cut him away from his blood kin because he didn't have it, and Judy was right there in that conspiracy and --
Then he came home to find Judy shocked white on the couch, clutching that girl Sam had been hanging out with, and the girl's face was a teary mess and Judy looked at him and said, "He's never coming home. He's never -- even if he wanted to, he's never --" and the girl keened and the tear trembling on the edge of Judy's eye fell and then they came like the uncontrollable tug of gravity.
The Witwicky Madness took from him and took from him and took from him, and he didn't know what to say to the people who were against him the entire time, so he settled for saying nothing at all. He was infected with the Witwicky Madness just as much as all of his family, but instead of Discovery like Archibald, or Becoming like Sam, his kind was of Loss. It was the worst kind of Madness of all.
(And he resented it just a little that it was his.)
-- To Be Continued --
- O RON. CHEER UP, EMO KID. Or go cut your wrists with Prime. O hai, u gaiz culd maek a band! omg. "SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THE NOTHING I'VE BECOME"
- Sometimes grieving brings out the ugly side of people. WOE.
FIC Summary: [2007, AU] Sore throats, nightmares, and the differences between organics and Cybertronians - something is terribly wrong with Sam. To live is to evolve, and shape alone is not enough; think of it as a mutual learning experience. (Bot!Sam, Mech/mech)
1, 2, 2.b, 3, 4, 4.b, 5, 6, 7, 7.b, 8, 8.b, 9, 9.b, 10, 10.b
Ron's Intermission : The Witwicky Madness
Ron had thought that for a moment, he had somehow managed to escape the legacy of Witwicky Madness. He had thought somehow that he had escaped it, and that just proved that he had it worse than most of them.
His life had seemed so normal, for so long ... raised on bedtime stories of the grand adventures of Archibald Witwicky. He'd thought that Archibald was just a tall tale when he'd gotten older, and then around the time that he was fourteen, he'd found out that Archibald was his grandfather, and he was in an insane asylum. A handful of years later, Archibald's health took a turn for the worse and he seemed to drag his father with him. Then Archibald was dead and they were attending the funeral and Ron was just standing there hoping that his father would make it all the way through without his unstable temper getting the best of him. He and his mother, they were trying to keep Anthony out of public, his temper had gotten so unsteady and it was a shameful thing --
He'd noticed, across the gathering of family, the red-haired stranger dressed smartly with her hair bound respectfully, even though Ron had left his own loose and long as the style was. He felt kind of self conscious for not having at least put gel in it or something, seeing that the only person who seemed to give one honest hoot about Archibald's death be a stranger.
She must have felt his gaze, because she'd looked up suddenly, straight at him. He didn't know what it meant or who she was, but it was like she'd been spooked, and she looked away and picked her way carefully through the cemetery, heading for a posh black car and slipping inside without another look back.
It was an odd moment, but he didn't really have time to worry about it for a few months at least, and he'd nearly forgotten the woman in the black dress with vibrant red hair, except she showed up again. Ron couldn't forget looking up from the diner menu at the unfamiliar voice and seeing her standing there in uniform with a slightly self-depreciating smile, eyes bright and playful. That was the beginning of the rest of his life.
That wasn't to say there weren't ... odd moments when he had gotten serious with Judy. There were times when the newest technology came out -- like the cell phone -- and she'd get this grimly unhappy look on her face, and a frown would settle down on it and stay for days. And she hated it when the newer cars had more features, and that was why Ron bought an old classic and spent money they couldn't really afford to repair it and fix it up. There were days that she looked up at the stars with a sort of wariness that she never talked about, and moments when she'd look across the street at a stranger and her expression would ice over. (It wasn't immediately noticeable, but by that time, Ron knew Judy, and no matter how her eyes sparkled and her teeth glittered whitely, he knew that it was all just a facade.)
Not to mention the way she always, always found his magazines. When they'd gotten married and she got preganant and he insisted they have a real house and that she didn't have to work anymore, she settled into the routine with a sense of quaint curiosity. Then she'd gotten restless, and for a while she was going out walking and sight seeing and then she started going to stores and then she bent her attention to interior decorating ... Ron thought with dismay that he'd never be able to support her and her hobbies and the baby on his paycheck --
And then Sam had been born.
It had been an awkward transition at first, from going to husband and wife to -- to parents. It was awkward, but then it just -- seemed to fit. To work out. Before Ron knew it, Sammy wasn't in diapers, he was a toddler running every which direction and when they strapped him down so he couldn't run away, he was always pointing and shouting "look!" It was mortifying, usually, because Sammy was unfortunately perceptive, and he always noticed when something new was going on, and since they had taught him everything his eager mind could absorbed, he was noticing -- ah. Things they thought he wasn't ready for. Like. Er. Adult things. Like the time the Jacksons skinny dipped in their pool. Or when someone forgot to close their curtains before they got -- ah, adventuresome. Or the time that guy was trying to jimmy the lock on a car in the Mall parking lot ...
There was a picture in the paper, and Ron was pretty sure that Judy knew he had a copy in the bottom of his nightstand, still ... but she never said anything.
It seemed too sudden that Sammy was eight and insisting that he was a big boy, now, that his name was Sam, not Sammy. Then he stopped shouting look! at what he noticed, and started keeping it to himself. Instead of just seeing with his eyes, he started listening, and the school counselor was saying that his interpersonal empathy was amazing, but Ron wasn't sure he bit into all of that New Age stuff. All he knew was that Sam was turning out to be a teenage boy who didn't mind his parents and spun outrageous stories to his teachers and lied to everyone and he wouldn't ever tell them what was going on with him. His flare for the ridiculous blossomed, but his plunging grades said it all, and Ron was forced to resort to blackmail and bribes just to feel that he had any way to control his son at all.
But he loved his son, and even though years ago, Sam was always looking at Judy, going "Mom, there's something under my bed ...", it was always "I love you, dad." Judy was never jealous, maybe because Sam was always spinning fairy tales and wanting her to stomp the spider in the bathtub, but it had made it all worthwhile. So Ron felt like he could make a deal with Sam, who finally showed interest in cars, and Ron sympathized with being in love with a girl that belonged to someone else, and it seemed harmless to make him work a little and earn a few good grades ...
It had been a little hilarious for Ron to watch Bobby Bolivia attempt to spin some sucker tale to Sam and to see Sam so completely not bite into it. Oh, sure, Sam had kinda liked the bit about 'mystical bonds', but Ron imagined he was making sure to remember it for future instances ... and Ron sympathized, of course, seeing Sam trudge over to the cars that Bolivia wanted to show them. To be perfectly honest, Bobby Bolivia was a bit of a joke on his son, just like the Porsche dealership was a joke. Sam should remember that Ron's jokes always came in threes, but it didn't seem he did.
But then he'd seen the way Sam finally looked at the car that Bobby had stopped at, the sudden change that came over him, the way he was taking the car seriously. The crappiest Camaro generation that had ever been built, and his son actually liked what he was looking at. It was unbelievable -- it was absurd.
It was so completely Sam.
But he still wasn't paying five grand for a crappy Camaro. He wanted his son to have everything he wanted, but sometimes a person couldn't just have that, and Sam would have to learn that. But he would have sworn in front of a judge with his hand on the Holy Bible that he had heard something from inside the Camaro right before some piercing notsound burst all the windows of all the cars in the parking lot other than his own convertible and the Camaro. It made all of the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, but then Bobby whipped around and offered four thousand, and Ron had wanted Sam to have what he want and he just said "deal" before he even thought of haggling.
He didn't blame Bobby. With all the damages done to the cars, he was desperate for a sudden influx of cash that he would need lots of to do anything even like repairing the windows in the cars.
It had been gratifying, though, when Sam drove it onto the driveway and got out and took a look around and so obviously finally got that it was his car, title changed and everything. Of course, there was things like registration and insurance to deal with, but he figured that could wait a little while, at least. Let Sam enjoy it while he could. And Sam had looked at him and said in all-encompassing euphoria: "I love you, Dad."
Ron had just said, "yeah, me, too," because he was keeping in mind that soon enough he'd be taking away Sam's keys to make him do his chores and homework, and then Sam would hate him with Judy's white-lipped intensity. He had always known in the back of his head that Sam had inherited the Witwicky Madness, but couldn't remember when he'd realized it or what it had been that made him think so. It made Sam an unfathomable creature to him, much like his own father and grandfather had been. It made Sam temperamental and quick to feel betrayed and made that betrayal to cut to the core of him and sometimes he bounced back and forgave and sometimes he didn't. With Sam feeling so attached to the car and Ron's own acceptance that he'd have to use that against Sam (for his own good, but Sam wouldn't ever believe it), he dreaded that Madness more than ever.
The Witwicky Madness was a terrible thing that isolated Ron from everyone important to him, but Judy would just lean against his side and not say a thing and it would be okay, at least a little bit.
Then Sam came home a day later, late and having done none of his chores and Ron regretted with a sharp ache that he'd have to so quickly use the Camaro against his boy when he'd just got it, and then Sam looked at him and said, "I love you, Dad," and Ron had to get out of there and left it at that because it had been one of Sam's lies, and he said it just because he knew it always got him out of trouble, and it hurt, even through the numbness of the wine.
Then came a nightmare, and when they'd next seen Sam, the Madness had trapped his son and grew in choking vines out of every pore, and the strange, disturbing symbols that had littered everything the asylum sent them that Archibald had owned flashed in Ron's eyes with every step of Sam's feet as he shuffled gingerly into the room, glancing warily between the two agents from beneath lowered lids. He hadn't said a word, had sat silent and unmoved, and it goaded Ron on and he could tell that it goaded Judy on with a sort of desperate fury, and they were getting ready to really get into it when Sam had spoken only instead of 'my car', Ron heard 'the Ice Man', and ...
Aliens. The government had debriefed them, he and Judy, separately, about the events and the truth of what happened to his grandfather. That his son was now the 'proud owner' of an alien robot. And no amount of consoling by the government or reassurances from that Captain could really prepare him for the fact that Sam wasn't part of their family anymore, but in the thick of it with the aliens and that girl and --
It was kind of neat, after a while. Once he got used to the idea. It was sort of neat, and he thought to himself that it must be nice to have a car that was actually a super advanced robot. He might be able to handle the Witwicky Madness if it meant shiny robots (and they were shiny, and dynamic, and made every inner child pass out in glee), he thought he might but for the once he actually managed to sneak up on his son.
Seeing Sam casually reach out and rap the microwave with Judy's favorite wooden spoon and stare at it with a sort of breathless and suspicious fear brought it all home for Ron. Super advanced robot rides might have been nice, but the Witwicky Madness was called that for a reason, and he didn't think he could handle living like that, being uncertain of anything that had a battery and a microchip.
Then Sam was coming home and saying that something was happening to him and Judy was saying that she knew people, when she used to work in Sector Seven and Sam's reaction proved to Ron that he remembered who Sector Seven was just fine, that they were the ones that had been studying the Ice Man, and he suddenly didn't know who she was anymore, and how much had been a lie and how long had she been a plant and was their entire life together just a lie? And Sam was gone and Ron was abruptly alone in the world because the Witwicky Madness had cut him away from his blood kin because he didn't have it, and Judy was right there in that conspiracy and --
Then he came home to find Judy shocked white on the couch, clutching that girl Sam had been hanging out with, and the girl's face was a teary mess and Judy looked at him and said, "He's never coming home. He's never -- even if he wanted to, he's never --" and the girl keened and the tear trembling on the edge of Judy's eye fell and then they came like the uncontrollable tug of gravity.
The Witwicky Madness took from him and took from him and took from him, and he didn't know what to say to the people who were against him the entire time, so he settled for saying nothing at all. He was infected with the Witwicky Madness just as much as all of his family, but instead of Discovery like Archibald, or Becoming like Sam, his kind was of Loss. It was the worst kind of Madness of all.
(And he resented it just a little that it was his.)
-- To Be Continued --
- O RON. CHEER UP, EMO KID. Or go cut your wrists with Prime. O hai, u gaiz culd maek a band! omg. "SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THE NOTHING I'VE BECOME"
- Sometimes grieving brings out the ugly side of people. WOE.