AU August Fic 23

AU August Fic 23

Infinity Loop

Notes: Not really an AU, but I couldn’t resist. Also, look!  It’s short!

Wheeljack was keeping a secret and Prowl and Jazz looked exhausted.

Ratchet knew he needed to investigate whatever insanity they’d concocted.  He knew that as their medic it was his job to be the hovering wrench that kept them from stupidly injuring themselves.

Any one of them he could handle, but to take on all three he was going to need help.  

He enlisted Optimus and Ironhide.  Ironhide because he was impervious to Jazz’s silver speech and half truths.  Optimus because Prowl, despite Prowl’s frequently loud disagreements, had never been able to lie to the Prime.

Every now and then he tried.  It was very entertaining.

He chose Wheeljack for himself because he knew all his friend’s little tells.  Plus, he was the only one on the ships (aside from Perceptor who would just join in the idiocy) that Wheeljack could techno-jargon into confusion.  Ratchet actually knew what a polyphasic interaction was.

So, Ratchet handed the medbay over to First Aid and cornered his friend in his lab one morning.

“Oh!  Hi Ratchet!” Wheeljack said, immediately stepping behind one of his workstations.  He was wearing his “I haven’t done anything wrong” smile which was a tell. He was also pulling out a cleaning cloth and polishing the table - another tell.

“How are you, Jackie?  Been doing anything illegal?”

The biggest tell was probably that Wheeljack took that moment to try and bolt for the door.

0-0-0

“Now,” said Ratchet, standing over a pinned Wheeljack, “Let’s try this again.  What’s been going on with you and Prowl and Jazz?”  He held up his portable tractor beam.

On the ground, Wheeljack wiggled and frowned and then started talking very fast.

“So I was running late on a lot of my experiments and I thought to myself, Hey!  What if I had extra time to work on all of them?  I know Optimus doesn’t like us messing with time travel and if someone walked in and there were four of me in the lab that would be bad.  Plus that weakens the fabric of reality and I don’t think I’d actually get anything done if there were four of me.  We’d all still want to work on each other’s projects.  

“So I thought - what about a time loop!  I was watching some of the human’s movies - Delorians are awesome! - and I found a couple where humans get stuck in time loops and they learn how to do things because the day keeps repeating so they have endless time to learn stuff!  So I set it up and -”

“And it went wrong,” Ratchet interrupted, sitting down heavily on a stool.  But Wheeljack was shaking his helm vigorously.

“Oh no!  I put in a bunch of failsafes!  It set it up for my lab only, for only an hour and I put in four different shut off points - even some alerts that I had to acknowledge or it would pull me out of the loop in case I got carried away and forgot the time!  I was very careful Ratchet!”

That actually was very careful for Wheeljack.

“So what went wrong?”  Silence.  “Jackie?”

“Jazz found out about it!” he whispered, looking around as if the spy himself would pop out of the vents.  “He made me explain how it worked and then he said that, as a member of the command staff, he needed to make sure it was safe!”  Wheeljack’s servos were going a mile a minute, like he was trying to wave away Ratchet’s anger, fins flashing through colors faster than a screensaver.

“And you bought that.”  This proved once again, that there a sliding scale with Innovative Genius and Common sense on either end.

“Everything was fine - he brought Prowl - and he asked to use it every other week so he and Prowl could get some paperwork done -”

“Oh Primus.”  Ratchet suddenly knew where this was going.

“And then I found out that they’d hijacked my safety measures and the loop was an infinity loop, where it just started itself over and over again.  They eventually managed to fix it, but um, they may have taken advantage of all that…uninterrupted time…”  Wheeljack’s fins were growing steadily pinker as he spoke.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine what those two newbonds would do with endless time on their servos.”

Wheeljack was looking very firmly at his twisting servos.  “Um, yeah.  I think that’s why they wanted it in the first place…”

Perfect.

0-0-0

“An’ then, then ‘e said,” Ironhide roared with laughter again.  Apparently Jazz had spared no detail when Ironhide had confronted him over drinks that afternoon.

Ratchet now knew far more about why they were both so tired than he really wanted to.

On the other servo, Optimus had said nothing since talking to Prowl.  Occasionally he opened his mouth, squeaked, and his field flared with mortification, but that was all.  He was so stiff, Beachcomber could use him for a surfboard.

Ratchet thought about throwing them both in the brig, but they only had one cell and he didn’t want to subject the guards to that.

AU August Fic 14

Food Trucks

Okay - okay!  This was perfect.  All Jazz had to do was step out and say “Oh!  You like Starlight’s bubbly energon too!  What’s your favorite flavor?” and start up a conversation.

If he could just get up enough courage to leave the back of the truck.

0-0-0

It had all started 5 vorns ago when Jazz, late of his Prime’s army, had been wandering from place to place.  His moods had been swift and volatile - they had not gained him any friends among his civilian neighbors.  He didn’t blame them.

If he’d had a nightmare in the barracks of their tiny ship, Ironhide’s armor would have easily deflected Jazz’s blades - made for close, personal, intricate work, not wild thrusting - and he would have held him until he woke up.  A civilian had no such ability and no experience with the kind of nightmare that came from being Optimus’s secret assassin.

Clerical work had sent him into a depression, desperate for contact with other bots.  Retail and ‘front of house’ work had contained too many triggers - too close, too loud, enemy? - and too many well meaning questions from those that recognized his military memorial etchings.

He’d been struggling with a stocking job - the best fit so far - when he’d started frequenting the group of fuel trucks that parked at the center of the small shopping plaza.

He’d made it a mission to sample each kind of fuel, even if he probably wouldn’t like it.  It was one of the things his therapist had recommended.  Small, achievable goals and rewards to give himself something to look forward to, while his emotions tried to sort themselves out.

Starlight’s Sparklers had been his first choice and he’d enjoyed the flavors, but they’d been very plain.  As he circled through the trucks he’d sipped a very - very - spicy blend that had given him an idea.  The next day he bought a quarter cube of the spicy fuel and a full cube of the lead-infused sparkling energon from Starlight.  He sat down at one of the small tables and drizzled some of the spicy blend into the bubbly.

It’d been perfect.

So he’d started experimenting.  After a while, the other customers noticed and asked him about it.  He’d told them the best combos he’d found and within a month he’d invented - by accident - his own secret menu.

He wasn’t a professional by any means, but he wasn’t afraid to try the very weird combinations and his dogged persistence at it often resulted in things like a triple gold shot, heavy neon mixer, and light solar blend.  The drink was named the Polyhex and wound up on menus all over the city. 

This had confused the trucks.  Yes, they were getting good business, but at the same time customers were most likely to order a half or quarter cube to mix instead of a full cube at full price.

After a few threats - quickly retracted when Jazz had a very pointed chat with them inside their own habsuites - and a lot of negotiating, Jazz became a freelance, consulting, mixologist.

0-0-0

It had started three weeks ago when Jazz, late for a consult, had bumped into a mech carrying a tray of cubes.

“Sorry!  Sorry!  Wasn’t lookin’ where I was goin’!”  He’d stared in dismay at the colorful slush on the ground - they’d been Starlight’s new frozen fuels.

“It is fine,” the mech had said, covered in the spill.

Jazz’s first thought was that the mech was very polite.  His second thought was that he should offer to clean the mech up himself.  With his mouth.

“Nah, mech, lemme buy you a new tray -”

“That won’t be necessary.  The drinks are on the company’s tab.  They won’t notice.”

Jazz’s third thought was to realize that the mech he’d slammed into was the Enforcer Captain from Praxus who was making waves in Iacon.  Those waves were reaching all the way to places like Kaon and Vos.

“Oh, but - “

“Please, don’t let me make you later than you already are,” the Enforcer insisted, fimly, but gently.  Jazz was in love.  Jazz was also late.

“Oh, right - slag.  Gotta go!”  

He’d been late, but that was okay, because it meant that he had an excuse to dawdle around and spy on his new subject of interest.

He was just as polite as before.  Always bought his patrol partners drinks.  Never yelled or threatened, even when the really stupid punks tried to goad him.

Jazz’s crush had grown.  

It was only a matter of time before the trucks noticed.

0-0-0

“Tell him,” Matty - Systematic, Matty for short - had said as she consulted Jazz on her high-grade night-cycle blends

“Just walk up and start the conversation!” Connie - Converter, Connie for short - had urged him as he consulted Jazz on his new sparkling friendly thermal blends.

“He’s gorgeous, if you don’t, I will,” Lex - Lexical, Lex for short - had threatened last time he’d ordered her turbo shots for a long night.

Jazz had been worn down all all sides until he’d found himself hiding inside Starlight’s fuel prep area, gathering courage.

“Ouch!”

“Oops, sorry,” Starlight lied, as if she wasn’t purposefully bashing him with the door to her additive’s cabinet.  “Maybe you should get out if you don’t like it.”

“I will!”

“He’s about to leave.”

“Frag!”  Panic provided the final burst of courage and Jazz threw the back doors open, stepped out, and slammed into Captain Prowl.

Oh, good.  He was staying on theme.

Caught between the panic, the embarrassment, the image of his crush dripping energon, and his  memorized script, Jazz screwed everything up.

“I AM SO SORRY YOU LIKE ENERGON!  WHAT FLAVOR ARE YOU!?” he screamed at Prowl at the top of his vocalizer.  

Prowl blinked.

Jazz froze and thought he was about to crash.

Starlight muttered, “You fragging idiot” and closed her back doors.

0-0-0

Five minutes later - once Starlight had refilled Prowl’s order and Connie had driven over to offer them both towels - Jazz tried again.

“I’m Jazz.  It’s good to meet you.  I’ve noticed you like Starlight’s Bubbly Energon,” he’d said very slowly and carefully, checking each word twice.

“Yes.  I do.”  Prowl’s helm was stained light pink from the energon.  Jazz made a mental note to tell Starlight they needed to reduce the coloring in that one.

“I was wondering what your favorite flavor was?”

“You…want to know my favorite flavor?” Prowl asked, confused.  Behind him, Jazz could see one of his partners - a tough looking femme with a patched optic - shaking her helm and covering her face with a servo.

“Yes?” 

“...why?”

“So I can buy it for you?” Jazz asked.  Prowl looked at him again, titling his helm.

“I already told you, the company -”

The femme it seemed had had enough.  She hauled herself up on the table and shouted:

“IT’S. A. DATE!  HE’S ASKING YOU ON A DATE!”

From points around the plaza - startling the uninvolved civilians - the trucks were giving their own opinions.

“He’s been pinning for you!”

“He memorized your order!”

“Half his new blends are named after you!”

“DATE HIM FOR PRIMUS’S SAKE SO HE’LL STOP MOPING!”

Starlight was especially vocal.

Jazz dragged his gaze up to meet Captain Prowl’s optics.

“Um, yeah, what they said.”

“A date?”

“Yes.”

“With you?”

“Probably.”

“Where?”

“Um…wherever?”

“Okay.  Here, tomorrow night?  They light up the fountains when it is dark.”

Jazz starred.

Someone honked loudly.  Jazz jumped.

“Oh, um, I mean, yes!  Yes, I’d love to go on a date with you tomorrow night. Here.”

Prowl nodded once, like he was setting a tactical assault into motion.

“Good.  It is decided.  My favorite flavor is the neon slush.”

AU August Fic 25

Mad Scientist

Most bots thought of science as chemicals in beakers or mad engineers building time dilation devices.

They all ignored the subtle science of cybertronian anatomy.  The danger in a well designed pede and the poetry of a perfectly sculpted bumper.

The perfectly sculpted bumper in front of him, put stars in Jazz’s optics.  It was a perfect mixture of sleek and tough, expertly designed to balance speed and ramming ability.  The curve alone!  

Jazz was not, however, blindsided by a perfect bumper to the point that he ignored the rest of the gorgeous, gorgeous anatomy.  

Where to start?  Top or bottom.  Heh, ‘bottom.’

The mech’s pedes were not pretty in the same way his bumper was, but the sheer craftsmanship that had gone into them was dazzling.  Jazz watched each tiny hydraulic cylinder compress as the mech shifted from pede to pede, the shaft pressing inwards with the weight and easing out as he lifted his pedes.  It must have been like walking on air.  The moving parts, spinning and pumping and cranking, were dizzying to watch.

As his optics moved upwards, Jazz could see the cables and sensors peeking out from behind the armor plating.  Each leg was thick - heavily armored and strung with thick and thin cables.  It allowed the mech the choice of powerful gross movement or delicate precision.  Jazz felt an ache in his digits - he wanted to stroke his servos over those smooth shinplates and up those round thighs…

His hips were very wide - perfect for resting weight on be it his own or a partner’s.  While the mech was in pursuit the hip joints would take the heavy pounding if he was running.  Whatever bumps weren’t compensated for by the hydraulic suspension in his pedes, would be evenly distributed over his hips to reduce vibration and damage to his torso and sparkcase.

It seemed wrong at first, for the waist to be so small and trim compared to the generousness of his legs and hips.  However, as Jazz stared looked he realized the narrow waist gave him nearly 180 degree bend and twist.  The armor around his central column was made up of many interlocking plates, creating a thick, but flexible shield.  Flexibility was always…good.

Jazz shifted and bit down hard on his thumb, trying not to imagine that flexibility too much.

His chest was broad and deep.  Jazz had heard him speak and it was like a rumble of thunder.  His shoulders obviously held a trio of missile each, if the lines in his plating was any indication.  Yet they were so smooth and polished, it seemed impossible that they could transform.  Jazz imagined the plating folding out like a flower as the weapons sprung forward, hot and charged and -

Oh, he might need to step outside.  Jazz tried to discreetly increase his fans and pressed his back against the coolness of the window behind him.

His chest was impressive, not counting that perfect, perfect bumper.

The helm was striking.  Plain white, rounded, with cheek guards.  A single adornment - a sharp, red chevron - was the only flash of color.

His face, well, Jazz had always had a thing for the stoic type.  Pale blue optics and a stern mouth.  A chin that looked like it had taken a few hits - which only intrigued Jazz more.

Behind him, held stiffly, were the ultimate temptations.  If rumors were true, those elegant, thick doorwings were sensor rich.  Jazz wanted to locate each sensor and give it the attention it deserved.  Preferably while the mech was pinned on his front -

“Thermal-Blend with sprinkles for Jazz!” called the barista.  

Jazz wasn’t sure if it was good or terrible timing.  He felt a step away from combusting and he had a feeling the crowded cafe would notice something like that.

He had to be careful in the colonies.  It wasn’t as easy to disappear.  He had to leave behind his old profession and his old skills.  Things like that wouldn’t go unnoticed here.  Such few bots made patterns easier to see.

“Sorry,” he mumbled as he bumped into someone, holding his cube close to his chest so it didn’t spill.  He looked up.

Oh.  He didn’t think he’d get to study the bumped up close.

“It is alright.  You are new to this colony?”  

Jazz nodded, trying to keep his optics fixed on the other mech’s instead of letting them slip down to -

“Just left Cybertron last week.  Thought it would be a good change.”

“It is.  I am Captain of the Enforcers here.  If you need anything, you only need to ask.”

An Enforcer. Of course he was.  Built for combat and pursuit.  Scrap.

“Thanks.  We’ll probably be seein’ a lot of each other,” Jazz said, before his processor caught up with him.  He wasn’t supposed to be taunting the enforcers!

“Oh?”  The enforcer tilted his lovely helm.  “What is your function?”

Jazz looked the mech up and down as his processor ran a mile a minute.  Well, he had said he was going to go straight once he got to the colonies…

“Scientist,” Jazz said, leaning back against the door frame.  “I’m a scientist.”

AU August Fic 27

Adoptive Family

I tried to do something a little different here and I’m not sure if it worked how I wanted it to.

Warning: Discussions, but no depictions of terminating pregnancy, torture, trauma

Prowl was woken by the cry of a sparkling.  He pushed himself up and squinted at the door and the crack of light underneath.  Either he was waking up very late or someone had broken in and left a sparkling.

Again.

Prowl rolled off the cot with a thud.  Ow.  It wasn’t great for doorwings - too hard and too narrow.  He wasn’t going to waste credits on trying to fix it - it was supposed to be a temporary situation.

He wasn’t high on the list for housing with the New Cybertronian Restoration Act.  He technically could recharge in the backroom of his office - on the awful cot - and he had no dependents.  Prowl understood.  Still, it made it difficult at times to separate work and home when your home was your office.

Prowl opened the door ready for almost anything.

He was not ready for a mech, dinged and scratched to the pit, covered in uneven welds, with obvious spy mods running, holding one of the smallest sparklings Prowl had ever seen.

Prowl paused and pulled up his battle computer - something he hadn’t used since his days as an enforcer before the war.  He was going to need more than just his social service degrees to walk this path.

“Hello,” he said softly, servos soft and open, arms loose by his sides in plain view.  

The mech turned and looked him up and down, keeping the bitlet close to his chest and out of sight.

“‘M not that bad, mech,” he said with a tired grin.  “Ain’t gonna shoot ya.”

Prowl nodded, but didn’t change his posture.  Bots often thought they were in control, whether or not it was true.  He took two slow steps and sat down in his office chair so he wasn’t towering.

“I am Prowl, what help do you need?”

The mech laughed, harsh and loud.  His visor flashed and shorted out briefly.  Prowl caught sight of the mech’s optics - and pinged Rung to see if he was available today.

“Ya don’t pull any punches, do ya?  I’m here ta - ta - I read about ya in the papers on the shuttle here.  It says ya straight.  Helm of Protective Services, right?  I need - I read about ya instituting the new laws for fosters and the new support laws for families.  Sounded good mech, real good.  I thought, if I could trust anyone ta -”

As he spoke the mech’s optics darted around the room in a pattern - door, vents, backdoor, vents - over and over again.

As he spoke he stroked over the tiny helm resting against his torso.  There was a miniature yawn and the tiny open mouth revealed equally tiny fangs.

“I’m here ta - I’m - frag.”  There was no heat in the curse, just exhaustion.  Prowl decided it was safe to nudge him a bit.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning and work your way up to it?”  He knew why the mech was here.

“Yeah, yeah.  ‘M Jazz, well, I was Commander Jazz during the war.  Spec Ops Helm for most of it.  Tried to keep ourselves to ourselves and there weren’t much of us ta begin with.”  He shifted on the couch and tucked one leg under himself.  Good, he was prioritizing comfort over the ability to make a quick escape.  Prowl started writing his initial report for Rung.

“We were running a last mission, just me an’ a couple of the others.  Everyone who hadn’t already been called back.  It was a really weird mood, ya know?  We were so close ta the end, an’ so scared we wouldn’t make it - well.  Had a bit too much high grade and a bit too much thinkin’ and one thing led to another.  Nothing woulda come of it - wasn’t like that.”  His voice trailed off.  Had he wanted it to be like that?

Jazz shook himself slightly.  

“They were my friends and my bots and the people I was supposed ta take care of.  Mission went wrong and they got killed and I got caught.”  He looked up an waved a servo at Prowl.  “Wasn’t my first time gettin’ caught or hurt or anythin’ like that.  I got the training and the mods ta withstand a lot.  More ‘n any of them would have so…probably better they didn’t get caught.”

War logic, Optimus and Rung had called it.  Impossible situations that required a twisted logic to get through.

“So they go through all the regular stuff - guess it wouldn’t be regular to ya,” Jazz said and flashed a true smile at Prowl.  Prowl returned it.  Jazz’s voice was turning even and his frame was relaxing.  Going into ‘report mode’ most likely.  His servos never lost their gentle attention.

“Didn’t realize I was carrying until one a’ them wanted ta see my spark.  They liked that sort of thing - thought it ‘demoralized me’ and slag.  I tried to slam it open - show ‘em it didn’t matter ta me.  But I couldn’t.  Wouldn’t let me override it.  I got them…distracted, with something else and when I was alone I ran a diagnostic.

“Our high-grade night had been productive!”  He laughed and flashed a smile down at the sparkling.  “I tried ta reabsob the sparklet, but I was too weak.  My spark was startin’ ta destablize and without a medic, I couldn’t do anything.”  

Jazz fell silent and Prowl could see his processor running - trying to pull him back into the memory, trying to re-solve all the problems he’d gone through -

“That must have been frightening for you,” Prowl said.  Jazz jumped and looking around the room, his scan - door, vents, door, vents - starting up again.

“Yeah.  Knew none of my mechs had survived an’ no bot knew where I was.  Had ta get out before they found it, before it emerged and they could -”  He was venting faster now and Prowl scooted his chair slowly out from behind the desk, watching his reactions.

“Jazz, do you know where you are?” he asked, stopping just a klik away.

“Yeah,” he panted, “yeah, mech.  I’m here.  Jus’ rememberin’ it all.  So, ah” Jazz finally took one servo off his sparkling and rubbed it hard over the shoddy welds on his thigh.  “‘M here.  I got out - wasn’t easy, had ta weld myself back together after I got outta the chains -” that explained the welds on his joints, “- and got myself onto the plains ta hide while I waited for a shuttle.  I knew I didn’t have a lot of time or a lot of fuel ta spare.  I sped up the bitlet’s development as much as I could - probably why he’s so small - stealing fuel where I could.  Shuttle came to restock the Decepticons and it got me ta a neutral port.  Kept hopping shuttles until I made it back ta Autobot space.  He emerged in the cargo bay of the shuttle I was stowed away on just outside of Rings.”

Jazz swiped at his optics under his visor as he neared the end of his story and Prowl inched closer.

“I heard about ya and how ya keep things on the straight and narrow and knew I had ta bring ‘im ta ya.  Find him a good home, yeah?  He deserves it.”

Jazz’s voice broke and he curled around the sparkling.

A complicated situation like this needed a complicated solution.

Prowl loved complicated.

“Commander Jazz, may I ask you some questions?  I will respect whatever decision you make, but I would like more information.”  He was in front of the mech now, close enough to see the flicker in his visor and the grief in the optics behind it.

“I can’ have him, mech.  Not safe ta be around.  Barely - haven’t - recharged in weeks gettin’ him here.  I’m running a stabilizing program ta keep me from reactin’ too fast and hurtin’ him.  I can’t.”

“Would you want to keep and raise the sparkling if you could?”

There was a long silence.  Prowl focused on keeping his field calm and wide open.  No judgment, no rush.

Jazz nodded.

“I wanted ta…after the war, but -  Mech, I can’t.”

“Not right now, no.  I agree with your assessment.  You have just come out of a milinia long war, you were recently tortured, you are showing very obvious signs of PTSD and trauma responses.  At the moment you are not able to care for an infant and I - please don’t take this as an insult - am not sure you are fully capable of caring for yourself.

“However, these types of situations are what the foster care system is designed for.  If you do want to retain custody of the sparkling, we can place him in a foster home in the morning and you can stay in contact while you focus on getting yourself back to stable place.  Once everyone is in agreement that you are well and capable of caring for a sparkling, we will look at setting you up with resources and a new habsuite.”

Jazz was shaking his helm.

“Nah, mech.  This isn’t - I ain’t some civilian.  I knew what I was doin’ and it was stupid, gettin’ sparked up so close ta the end of the war.”  He was turning his face away now.

Powl rolled forwards until their knees bumped.

“Do you believe that emerging a sparkling was a punishment?” he asked, making Jazz’s helm jerk back up.

“Wha - no!  He’s - he’s a good bitlet.  It’s not his fault I was stupid -”

“Are you punishing yourself by giving him to us for adoption?”

“I - no?”  He seemed to shrink more, pressing into the softness of the couch.  “Maybe?”

Jazz hunched over. Then he leaned down and kissed the sparkling’s tiny helm.

“I don’t know.”

“May I hug you?” Prowl asked.  His battle computer suggested that Jazz found comfort in physical contact.

“Yeah,” Jazz croaked, looking up, his visor flickering off to reveal his optics.

Prowl shifted so his legs bracketed Jazz’s and pulled him forwards.  The mech trembled and Prowl squeezed him harder.

He used the sparkling words - it was amazing how well they still fit, even grown bots.

“You are not alone.  You don’t have to figure everything out.  Let me help.”

“Okay.”

The floodgates opened and Jazz collapsed into his arms.

0-0-0

With Jazz recharging in Prowl’s backroom cot, Prowl pulled a well-used sling from his subspace and settled the tiny - so tiny! - sparkling inside.  The bitlet yawned and curled against him.

Then Prowl sat down at his desk and started making calls.

He set up a wellness check with First Aid in the morning.

He found two fosters that could take the bitlet long term - and right here in the city.  He would decide which one with Jazz in the morning.

He made Jazz a set of appointments with Rung and set him up with some of the groups that met to talk about the war.  Ironhide led what he called a “hit ‘n talk” training which was very popular.

Commander Jazz had lost so much to this war.  He’d been alone.  It was about time he got pulled back into a family.

And wouldn’t you know it, Prowl’s theoretical new apartment building still had a few vacancies according to their datanet site.

AU August Fic 21

Ghosts

Listen, this was not supposed to be 1,500 words of dystopian YA novel.  Yet here it is.

“Ugh.  Or-ion!  Come on!  Before they see us,” Ariel scolded as she slipped under the fence.

 “Maybe this isn’t such a good -” Dion started to say as he scooted under, folding down his smoke stacks.

 “It’s a great idea!”  Ariel put both servos on her hips and glared at them.  It was unsettlingly similar to the depiction of the Divine Weapon on the sides of the temple, one of the unknown Primes.  “We’ll finally get to do something fun!  Exams are over -”

 “Until we apply for Secondary Schools,” Orion Pax corrected as he carefully held the fence away from his shiny new paint.  Ariel had already scratched hers and Dion’s creators hadn’t bothered with the traditional re-paint after graduation.

 The other side of the fence looked surprisingly…normal.  Everyone had different reasons why the plains and forests outside the city were forbidden - wild mechanimals, rogue sentinel bots, sparkeaters.

 It was a bit dusty, Orion decided, a bit quieter.  It was mostly bare with a few shrubs and a few places where the heat of the core had burst up and buckled the surface metal.  Even that had cooled, leaving a lonely stretch of cold, dark land.  

 Ahead of them was the abandoned building they’d been wondering about since they had all been sparklings. Had it been a base for an army?  A prison?  A mad scientist’s lab?  When Ariel had suggested one more adventure before they split for secondary (Orion for Knowledge, Ariel for Military, and Dion for Construction of all things) none of them had had the spark to say no.

 It sounded like Dion was second guessing that idea.

 “I’m just saying,” he repeated, “that if we get eaten by a sparkeater my carrier is going to kill me.”  

 “That’ll save them the trouble then!” Ariel called back.  She was leading the way, darting from shrub to rock shelter, to hide from anyone monitoring the gate.  Dion and Orion Pax tried to copy her clever movements, which wasn’t easy to do, considering they were four times her size.

 After a few more ‘duck and covers’ they both just trailed behind her as she rolled and tumbled.

 Finally they reached the entrance.  Or where an entrance would have been if the roof hadn’t caved in.

 “I’ll go first!” Dion volunteered because he never turned away a chance to get dirty or injured by falling debris.

 Which explained the construction degree, now that Orion thought about it.

 Dion safely made it through and into the hallways and called the other two after them.

 It was…dark.  Quiet.  Orion found himself slowing his venting as he walked.

 It looked like it might have been a…bar?  There was a big room with chairs and tables and some sort of spigot?  Dion mentioned seeing something like it in one of their history texts.

 “Imagine,” Ariel said as she fiddled with it, “just drinking whatever energon came out of that.  It could be cut with dead bot’s energon or hydrogen dioxide!”

 Orion explored one of the rooms on the left and came back to tell them it looked like the school’s chemistry lab.

 “I think they mixed things into their energon!”

 “Oh, come on!” Dion ribbed him.  “No one would waste gold or lead or sulfur on flavoring their energon.  I bet this was a secret weapons facility!  They were probably building weapons and - and time vortexes!”

 “Pft.  I doubt it.”  Ariel was standing on the bar, trying to reach one of the ceiling panels.

 “I could be right!”

 “In your dreams!  You thought the noise outside your window was a sparkeater!”

 “I was 112!  How was I supposed to know what rain sounded like?”

 “I bet it’s an old mad scientist’s lab,” Ariel proclaimed, a look of giddy excitement crossing her face that Orion hadn’t seen since they were small.  “She was probably creating super soldiers against the government and they shut her down!”

 “That’s stupid!”

 “It is not!”

 “You said my idea was stuipd!”

 “Because it is.”

 “Hey!”  Orion cut them off.  “We’ll probably never know -”

 “We could just ask them!” Ariel interrupted him.  Orion looked over and caught her optics.  Oh, this was a plot, he could feel like.

 “Ask who?” he said carefully.  She reached into her newly created subspace and brandished a datapad with a peeling sticker that said “Ghost Chaser!” with the logo for the popular television show.

 “What,” he said flatly, “is that.”  She only smiled wider.

 “They use them on the show to talk to ghosts!  We can contact the ghosts of the bots who used to live here and ask them!”

 Dion walked over and pulled it out of her servos.

 “Hey that’s mine!”

 “How long have you been planning this, A?”  She snactched it back.

 “A while!  It’s not like it’ll hurt.  We’re already here.”  She looked over at Orion.

 “Set it up,” he said, “but we aren’t going to wait all night like they do in the shows.”

 0-0-0

 It did not take all night.  It did not even take twenty kliks.

 “Look look look!  It’s moving!”

 Indeed, the small red dot was moving across the glyphs.  Everytime it paused the device read the word allowed.

 “Can’t.”

 “Stop.”

 “Can’t.”

 “Stop.”

 “Can’t stop what?  Where you murdered?  Are you a murderer?”

 “Sh, don’t interrupt it!”

 “Can’t.”

 “Stop.”

 “The.”

 “Can’t.”

 “Stop.”

 “The.”

 “Music.”

 “Ba-da-dum.”

 “Ridiculous.”

 “WHAT?” Ariel screeched.  She leapt for the pad, but Orion hauled her back.  

 The static around his spark was starting to prickle uncomfortably.  Something was…strange.

 “Ridiculous.  I.  Am.  Ridiculous.  You.”

 “Yes.  You.  Are.  Ridiculous.”

 “No.  You.”

 “Not. I. Singing. To. Sparklings.”

 “I’m not a sparkling!” Dion said outraged before going very still.  He had just yelled at a ghost.  It was Ariel this time who pulled him back.  She had gone very still and very quiet.

 “Sparklings.  Not. Forever. But. Yes. Sparklings.  Go. Home.”

 “No.  Stay.  Don’t. Leave. Me. With Stick-in-the-slag.”

 The device was running words together as if they were being pressed too quickly for it to handle.

 “Your.  Bonded.”

 “Bonded-stick-in-the-slag.”

 “You.  Like.  Stick.”

 “Sparkling.  Audials.  Quiet.”

 “What was this place?” Orion asked, seeing as both his best friends were playing statues.  

 “Bar.  Home.  Bots. Come. Music.  Fuel.  Family.  Family-after-the-war.”

 “What war?”

 There was a pause and Orion was afraid the ghosts had left.

 “The.  Great.  War.  Autobots.  Decepticons.  Good.  Evil.  Both.  Study?”

 “I don’t understand.”

 “You.  Study.  Not.  Great. War.  What?”

 “Well,” Orion said slowly, “I’m studying knowledge right now.  The Great Kaon Archives have almost 1,000 datapads.  I’ll be allowed to start reading them after I pass my university exam.  We learn about how the government works, how it gives us fuel and shelter.”

 “We do math,” Dion finally chimed in.  “We have to use it to build new buildings since the acid rain eats at them.  We have to calculate our fuel usage everyday to add it to our tally.”

 “Tally.”

 “Yeah.  The government gives us fuel as sparklings and we have to pay it back when we’re grown up!  Everyone does.  My grand-creator is almost done paying off her sparkling fuel.  After that they’ll pay her in credits and then we can go on a trip or buy cool stuff!”

 “Query.  Tally.  How.  Much.”

 “Well,” Dion said, squinting his optics as he thought, “my fuel usage today was 400 credits.  When I get my first construction job I’ll be able to pay back about 700 credits a week.  As long as I don’t have any accidents and I keep my fuel usage low, I’ll be able to pay my debt off way before my grand-creator did.”  He smiled, but there was something…tight about it.

 “How. Keep.  Low.”

 “Recharge as soon as you get home from school,” Orion started to recite.  It was on every classroom wall and in every sparkling show.  “Don’t use the datanet for more than 20 minutes a week.  Stay close to home.  No comms unless it’s an emergency.”

 The device was silent.

 “This.  Is.  Tyranny.  This.  Is.  Sentinel.  Prime.  This.  Is.  Praxus.  This.  Is. WRONG.”

 “Mechs.  Femme.  Wrong.  Listen.  Keep.  Down.  Hold.  Down.  No.  Word.  No.  Word.”  

 The device started to shake.

 “On-Pr-E-Sh-N.”  The ghost was cycling through the words even faster and they started to run together.

 “O-Pr-E-Sh-N.”

 “O-Pr-E-Sh-o-N.”

 “OPPRESSION.”

 “What…does that mean?” Orion asked, something in his helm - or in his spark? - flinching at the word.

 “Word.  Means.  Keep.  You.  From.  Fighting.”

 “It doesn’t!”  Ariel argued, glaring at the device.  “I’m going to study military and I’ll be fighting to protect us from the invaders!”

 “Fight.  Government.”

 Ariel rolled her optics.  “Why would we fight the government?  That’s stupid.”

 “If.  Government. Wrong.  How.  Will.  You.  Fight.”

 “The government…can’t be wrong!”  But there was something in Ariel’s optics.  Something Orion thought he’d been seeing peek out for a while.

 Fear.  She clutched at the seat of her chair, servos clench so hard the color was fading.

 Beside her, Dion was looking down, his whole frame hunched and drawn in.

 There was something here - something they’d left him out of.  Why?

 “Fight.” 

 “What…have you guys been keeping from me?” Orion Pax asked, hoping they wouldn’t answer.

 “We…we found some stuff…” Dion mumbled.

 “What?”

 “Frames!”  Ariel finally shouted, leaping from her chair.  “We found dead frames in one of the building in 23 District.  That’s it!  We don’t know how they got there!”

 “Just…frames?  Laying around?”  That…the government said that they didn't have enough cybertronium.  That for every bot that died, their frame was recycled and that was why it was so hard to create new sparklings.  That was why they had fuel shortages.  If they were in the Government District…

 “You…you didn’t tell me?”

 “They were…Orion, they were the Kaon Archive Librarians.”  Ariel wouldn’t meet his optics.  He felt like his spark was disconnected from his frame.  His processor had stalled.

 “Or-Eye-N.”

 Orion turned to look at the device.

“Danger.  

AU August Fic 16

Psychological Horror (Fluffy version)

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Ah could hear ya thinkin’ it.  Loudly.”

“You’re going to have to come down sometime.”

“Not while meh magnets still work.”

“And what should I tell your coworkers when they come knocking on our door?  Big, tough, rock and roll star Jazz is afraid of -”

“Ah’m NOT afraid of it!”

“And yet you are on the ceiling.  Driven up there by a tiny glitchmouse.”

“Ah’m not scared of glitchmice!”

“Of course not.”

“Ah jus’ don’ like the idea of not knowin’ where it is.  Knowin’ it could run out any minute an’ -”

“Scurry over your pede?”

“An’ surprise me!  Ah don’ like surprises.”

“Are you going to recharge up there?  Or in the berth with me, your neglected bonded?”

“An’ risk it crawlin’ over mah face inna middle a’ the night?  Nope!”

“Well, that’s where I’ll be when if you change your - EEEEEK!”