Lost Not Light: Chapter 2
Optimus Prime heeds Prowl's warnings about Megatron in the worst possible way; making him the tyrant's official chaperone aboard the Lost Light.
///////////////////////
Basically Prowl gets sent to the Lost Light for an attitude adjustment disguised as a mission and the Constructicons tag along, using the opportunity to more aggressively court their sixth now that he's essentially alone. ao3
Five Constructicons walk into a bar.
Chatter hushed to raised whispers; the bartender asked, “Any weapons?”
“Got your weapon right here,” Bonecrusher flexed. “A weapon of mass-construction.”
Awkward laughter, somebody coughed; the loud chatter and overcharged revelry recommenced. The little red and white bartender laughed the loudest, his expression of befuddled amusement. Bonecrusher grinned, real proud of himself for that one. Their entire night’s plan would fail if they couldn’t get their peds through Swerve’s door, and Bonecrusher was pretty sure he’d just earned them their ticket in with a good if hokey joke.
“Alright, alright,” the little bot nodded. “Tables are free, drinks aren’t—got any preference?”
Mixmaster took that as his cue to saddle up to the bar while the rest of them looked for the whole reason they’d decided to join in on the first night's fun.
Long Haul took point on locating their objective, using his height to scan over the crowd. Scavenger, their most curious member, turned his helm in every direction it could, not out of any enthusiasm for their objective, but to scope out all the bots who didn’t know him. Some who didn’t even know of him—the gestalt’s personal loose screw was already imagining how he could twine himself onto already established clicks; endearing himself to them in ways that had never worked among their old faction.
Bots liked chattery little try-hards. Decepticons? Scavenger never would have made it without the rest of the team, a fact they regularly reminded him of.
Hook’s arms were crossed in front of his chassis, field held tightly around himself. The surgeon had never liked crowds—crowds meant mingling with the masses, potentially bumping armor, or even, primus forbid, talking to them. And their hoity-toity Hook was too good for that; mech thought himself too good for just about everything and everyone. Except for the gestalt. For Prowl.
Bonecrusher only had optics for the low-quality engex, blues and bright yellows, floating in polished glasses on the bar counter, the high-grade cubes that glittered in mecha’s servos, reflecting its glowing energy off round, dirty tables, and sat unbound on shelves lined with Cybertronian liquor. All wonderful opportunities for the Bonecrusher to exhibit his virtuosity—all brilliant little bombs ready to go off with the right detonator.
Good stuff, that high-grade. Lower quality, but not cheap. Problem was, he could tell the additives it had been blended with from visuals alone; proving the blend hadn’t been mixed by a master.
The flints of minerals and metals glinted in the bar’s dim lighting, giving the cubes a glimmer that reflected off bright Autobot armor. The resulting destruction were he determined to set it off would have been pretty, bordering on beautiful, a fine example of Bonecrusher’s particular vision of art. Only there were too many variables out of his control, the timing of the sequential explosions, the specifics of minerals, and even the amount of high-grade in the bots’ tanks were unknowns that could spatter his work with imperfections. And if he couldn’t control every aspect of the demolition, it wouldn’t be perfect; if it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t worth it.
Prowl was worth it.
There were a lot of faces surrounding the bar, hopped up on stools, even more crowded together at the tables pushed up against the wall; toward the back, there was a circle of mecha who had cleared space for their own makeshift dance floor. If their unsynchronized bouncy shuffles could even be considered dancing. Huh, looks like the old Decepticon adage that an Autobot’s back-strut was too stiff to dance was right.
Simply put, the place was stuffed fuller than a pleasure-bot on payday.
Bonecrusher grinned behind his mask at the pack of wannabe dancers, wondering if he could convince Long Haul to toss Hook into the mass, and give this party some real entertainment. A ripple of amusement passed through the bond as Long Haul picked up on his thoughts. Beside them, Hook’s armor drew in impossibly tighter even as his field lashed out in warning at his conspiratorial teammates.
Don’t you dare.
They shared a chuckle at their surgeon’s expense but left the idea as nothing more than an amusing thought. Heavy-duty frames like theirs had to tread lightly on razor-thin ice; they couldn’t afford to crack through the Autobots' scarcely gained tolerance. There was too much ground for the Constructicons to lose so early into the voyage.
Was a big night, the first night. The Lost Light had breached Cybertron’s atmosphere and in less than a breem, the sounds of partying could be heard all throughout the ship. It bounced through the halls, coming from closed doors and shared recreational spaces, but the loudest had come from the bar. Music and mechs—now femmes too—all excitedly jabbering about what the voyage held, what their part would be in the grand epic of a quest: the adventure, the mystery, the romance.
Bonecrusher snorted at his own thoughts; romance, right.
Before the first merge, back when the Autobot was just a tool slotting in with tabs b, c, d, e, and g—before they knew Prowl was Prowl—the Constructicons would have sworn there wasn’t a romantic wire in their frames and would have fought anyone who suggested otherwise. But now?
Here they were on a ship full of Autobots, their own plating smooth where a purple sigil was once engraved, and looking for the one bot that had recently skyrocketed up their ever-lengthening frag that guy list; the only other to have made the list so fast was that puny fleshling, Spike Witwickey. The human held the record. Probably always would.
And if joining this slagged up, hug-fest, hippy-dippy ship’s crew wasn’t romance; the Constructicons would beat anyone who said as much.
The demolitionist rolled his neck, huffing and cracking stiff joints—what love did to a mech…Bonecrusher shook his helm, a rueful smile hiding underneath his mask, the demolitionist unused to his own foppish musings.
Within its casing, his spark swirled and warmed with affirmation from the gestalt bond; they all felt the same deep love for their sixth and they were all unfamiliar with the amorous turn their thoughts had turned in the light of that love. Warm fuzzies all around; Scavenger even turned from scouring his future victims (potential friends) to gently touch Bonecrusher’s elbow in assurance.
He frowned and shook off his teammate’s touch, not caring how the shorter mech wilted at the rejection; little Scav had thought they were having a moment. Over Bonecrusher’s greyed out husk. Just because he loved the little weirdo the same as he loved every other Constructicon didn’t mean he would tolerate the excavator’s wimpishness. They might be one big fragged up family who loved each other, had no hang-ups admitting as much, and would offline anyone who was dumb enough to call them weak for it—but they were in love with Prowl. It was different. New. Exciting. Terrifying. Excruciating.
Agreeing rumbles all around and Bonecrusher forced himself to focus on their self-assigned mission.
With Long Haul taking his sweet aft time finding the cog sucker they’d come to cosey up to, Bonecrusher decided to turn his gaze from the glowing cubes of temptation to the bots holding them, trying to spot who his taller teammate had missed. All he saw were blue optics and red badges.
Bonecrusher sneered behind his mask; it was no wonder the Decepticons hadn’t put their faith in the Lost Light’s frivolous voyage. The Constructicons hadn’t either. That wannabe Prime, Roddy-something, could make all the grand speeches he wanted about finding Cyberutopia and the Knights of Cybertron—but who would that utopia really be for? There wasn’t a single con onboard that hadn’t given up the faction and there wasn’t a coolant drop of doubt between them that the Constructicons would have been granted permission to join the crew’s roster had they not scrubbed their armor clean of branding before registering; idly Bonecrusher brushed a servo over the center of his bare-green chassis, the phantom ache of the nanites’ removal a reminder of just what they had been willing to give up for their ultimate goal.
The Constructicons didn’t believe in some distant fable of a Cyberutopia or need the recognition that would come with being part of the crew that found it; they believed in Prowl. They needed Prowl.
The real, tangible (touchable) Prowl who had holed himself up in the storage closet of an office he’d commandeered almost immediately after the Constructicons had placed their praxian’s soft, breakable berth into his personal quarters. They’d all made up excuses their bot didn’t believe, but had been too exasperated to call them out on, as to why all five of them were needed to heft the berth into his quarters, slowly, slow enough for an experienced construction mech to scan a full schematic of the rectangular space and learn the room’s exact measurements; course that was just hypothetical. Heh.
Out of their gestaltmates' unnecessary personal quarters, Prowl had marched around the ship like he owned it—and the Constructicons would make a valiant effort if that’s what he really wanted—looking for an empty room to take as an office. Because of course, he’d have an office. Their boss bot wasn’t on some pleasure cruise, he had a very important mission to accomplish, or so he had claimed while rejecting the Constructicons’ offer to parse out a section of their larger-than-most habitation suite for the tactician to use.
Once he’d picked a room, Bonecrusher and Long Haul had helped him set it up, tossing heavy boxes of whatever out into the hall until it was sufficiently empty enough to fit their praxian’s fancy desk and chair, barely. His gestalt mates had radiated their jealousy through the bond over Long Haul and Bonecrusher being the only ones allowed in such a tight space with their sixth, but the closet the praxian had picked out was too small to fit all the construction mechs at once; two comfortably, three if they squeezed.
They’d find him a new, bigger office later once they’d gotten ahold of or built their own blueprints of the ship.
Bonecrusher and Long Haul had used the opportunity to get in close with their smallest gestaltmate at every opportunity—Long Haul going so far as to use his longer limbs to accidentally brush against a stiff doorwing, just one digit casually running along the tip as he reached over top their praxian to look at a questionable (perfectly fine) light fixture above where he stood—it had been cute the way Prowl had chased them out immediately after; practically hissing like a turbo-fox, doorwings raised like hackles.
The desk he tossed in their direction was less so.
Long Haul had apologized for the accidental touch, not meaning a word of it. Prowl knew and went back to his usual silent treatment, watching the construction mechs through narrowed optics as they reset the desk and bowed out of the makeshift office before their praxian could start contemplating a chair toss.
The touch had been worth it though and Bonecrusher had been the first to slap Long Haul on the back out of respect for a job well done once the office door was closed. They’d be reliving the sensation of the intentional brush up in the privacy of their hab-suite for the orns—or until a more prolonged contact took its place. And there would be more: longer, willing, intimate contact with their sixth.
The Constructicons never left a job half done and wooing Prowl was easily the most demandingly complex one they had ever taken on. It would also be the most rewarding once complete. Once they were complete.
The barbed walls their sixth had built around his spark would crumble under the might of Devastator, and each time the tactician painstakingly built them back up, blocking them from his side of the bond; the Constructicons would be observing, learning the tools and materials he used for their construction. The Constructicons’ courtship of Prowl would be a controlled demolition, identifying the structural weaknesses in his barriers and strategically (heh) targeting them, breaching closer and closer until it was too late for another rebuild because they were already on the other side.
Sweet anticipation rippled through the bond.
Turning from thoughts of their sixth to what they were attempting to accomplish for him, Bonecrusher’s visor narrowed as he sought out a homely white helm and a hideously gangly frame. Even in a crowd, the tall fragger should have been easy to spot. Was hard to hide that much ugly.
If they didn’t find their first choice of Autobum to cozy up to soon then they would need to pick another while enough of the partying crew was still sober enough to remember how well-behaved and welcoming the Constructicons had been during the Lost Light’s first underway party. They only required their chosen bot to be of a popular sort, a real name onboard and not one of the rejects who had joined as some misplaced grab at notoriety. They also couldn’t know any of the Constructicons personally, at least not too well. The one exception was Clown-dome, but he didn’t really know them, only their close association with Prowl. That fight at the cliffs didn’t count; any con would have done the same.
There he is.
Bonecrusher’s helm whipped around to where Long Haul was not so subtly shoulder gesturing to, his visor brightening as he spotted their quarry. His face mask hid the predatory smile that split his faceplate and a rumble of delight at how vulnerable their prey had left himself.
Seated all alone in a booth pushed against the side of the bulkhead, hunched over the table, and surrounded by what appeared to be multiple empty high-grade cubes sat Chromedome. There was no sign of approaching partiers, the bargoers appearing to be giving the lonesome bot a wide berth—just enough for five Constructicons to squeeze through.
Without waiting for the others, Bonecrusher set out on a path directly to the booth. Scavenger and Hook were close to follow, with Long Haul making up the rear as he usually does. A few scathing glances were sent their way as they passed partying bots and even more scrutinizing looks followed the ex-cons as they made their way through the crowd and into the empty space around their chosen company’s empty booth.
As he came closer, Bonecrusher noted that just above the table there was a single, small round window giving a limited view of the space outside. An odd design choice and one the Constructicons wouldn’t have gone with had they any part in the ship’s design. It was an obvious hull vulnerability, a waste of triple reinforced plexin-glass, and even aesthetically it was pointless—there was nothing out in space worth looking at, everything worth interest was already inside the ship.
Affirmative nods reached across the bond from everyone except Scavenger (and their silent sixth), but then the excavator had always held a strange penchant for the kitschier designs.
The closer the Constructicons came to Chromedome, the more they understood why none of his fellow Autobots had been brave enough to approach.
An open, heavy wave of misery poured from the bot at the table and the Constructicons allowed it to wash over their own tightly held fields, basking in Crum-dome’s unrestrained suffering. The four empty cubes surrounding the slumped-over mech were likely the reason for the uncontrolled emotions, but the Constructicons knew its source and it tickled their sparks seeing Chromedome exactly as he always should be. Alone.
The merriment Bonecrusher allowed to peak through his own field didn’t even need to be faked.
“Hey mech, been looking for you,” Bonecrusher’s mask lowered in an audible click, revealing a sharp-if-friendly smile. “Slide on over, we got something for ya.”
The other Constructicons' mask also lowered just as the slouching bot startled, sitting up with his visor stretched wide. “What, no you’re—”
But Bonecrusher was already lowering himself to sit, his bulk easily shoving Chromedome’s lighter frame to the booth’s corner as he slid into the long, cushy seat. Across from them, Hook and Scavenger piled in, their frames only narrowly missing each other in the cramped booth, only a vent’s worth of space between them. Long Haul hadn’t even bothered, having searched around and grabbed a chair from a table, without asking, and pulled it over to the end of the booth to sit, his legs spread around its back as he faced them.
Raising his helm toward the bar, Bonecrusher spotted Mixmaster performing an impressive balancing act with multiple cubes of high-grade balance on his bent, raised arms, a cube held in each servo for good measure. Scavenger spotted him too and they waved their teammate over, calling him through the bond.
Here, this way, we got him.
Mixmaster’s optics lit up at the urging and carefully started making his way over to their booth, dodging various passersby and narrowly avoiding the gyrating mecha who had fumbled their way from the dancefloor.
Chromedome didn’t wait for the mixologist to arrive before questioning the ex-cons surrounding him. “Did Prowl send you? This some kind of elavrate revenge?” The pointed accusation was dulled by slurred vocals and Bonecrusher was left wondering what the mech had actually meant to say.
Elaborate, Hook supplied and the rest of the Constructicons internally shrugged it off as unimportant. Kind of like the waste of parts himself, Chromedome.
What Prowl had seen in that walking set of rusted-rebar the Constructicons would never understand; except they did understand. They’d been in Prowl’s memories and seen everything to do with this particular toxic waste dumping ground of a relationship. Had seen their lonesome little bot’s exuberance at believing he had finally found someone who understood him, and would accept him—except Tumblr hadn’t understood him, Chromedome would never accept him; the Constructicons had done both and more. They were everything Prowl had ever wanted; he just refused to acknowledge the spark-proven truth.
Their praxian would though, there was only so long a logical processor like Prowl’s could deny the obvious. Especially with the Constructicons’ using the voyage as a means to prove their usefulness to the tactician in more ways than just their unparalleled construction abilities.
They’d have him, it wasn’t a matter of if but when.
“What, Prowl? Noooo,” Bonecrusher started, the others joining in, scoffing and snorting their denial. “Boss bot doesn’t even know we’re here—he’s been locked up in that little office of his for joors now.”
“His office? Here, on the ship; Prowl has an office?” Chromedome questioned; as if it was even a question.
“It’s Prowl, of course he has an office,” Long Haul shrugged, not feeling a need to elaborate.
The bot seemed to feel the same way, accepting the answer with a nod, but his unrestrained field was a buzz with uncertainty, hostility, and buried beneath all that, fear. That have been great, warmed Bonecrusher’s spark to know that even in a congenial setting they were able to pull that kind of reaction from a bot. Unfortunately, the Constructicons had settled on a play-nice strategy for the voyage and as satisfying as the fear was, they were attempting to engineer a more…amicable response from the mnemosurgeon.
Chromedome’s attention was taken from the Constructicons seated with him to the one who had finally reached their table as Mixmaster finally joined them. Not a drop of high-grade was spilled and he started placing the drinks on the table, putting one in front of each of the seated Constructicons before finally pushing away the empty cubes that had been surrounding Chromedome and replacing them with a bright pink, larger-than-everyone-else’s-cube containing something that smelled sweet, but potent.
Mix then took a seat on the sliver of bench remaining next to Bonecrusher, precariously balancing himself by placing a servo on one of Long Haul’s spread legs. The mixer gave said leg a squeeze, servo sliding up the larger mech’s leg higher than strictly necessary in a subtle tease.
Long Haul’s engine growled low, the larger mech sending an amused threat across the bond, implying he’d get Mix back for that later—something Bonecrusher looked forward to watching, preferably while they were all bonding and reexamining that brush of doorwings from earlier. Scavenger echoed his thoughts.
Hook sighed, loudly, continuing as though he hadn’t noticed the scrawny mech’s fear or his team’s less-than-pure turn of thought. “We helped him with the furniture arrangement and when we dared to linger–he flung the desk at us.”
Alright, back to business; being visibly chummy with Chump-dome.
“Was worried we’d have to build him a new one,” Long Haul chimed in.
“Three times!” Scavenger lifted his digits to the number, and the Constructicons all shared a laugh at the exaggerated memory.
“…heh,” Chromedome finally laughed with them, it was small, more of a chuckle than a full guffaw, but it was something. It was an in.
“He does that,” the Autobot tacked on, bringing life to his visor, the mech obviously taking the Constructions’ affectionate riffing at face value; as a derisive dig at their praxian. As if they would ever, as if Crud-dome had the right.
An astro-click of outrage flashed through the Constructicons, and in an exercise of previously untapped restraint, they reigned it in; kept their furious fields, full of violent desire, held close and their smiles wide, encouraging. Long Haul even managed a laugh, expression bright as he tilted a cube in the bot’s direction. Their faces may have been exposed, but their masks were up; even Hook had one firmly in place.
Their whole half-formed plan would fall apart if Chromedome felt threatened and seriously shooed them away, potentially calling his who-could-like-this-loser friends to do it. They needed to be big friendly hydro-pups who were happy to pall around with their new crewmates, sharing drinks and good stories all around. As the Constructicons, as Devastator, they had reputations amongst the Autobots—but that was all they had. There weren’t many bots who had actually encountered them personally on the battlefield and survived to bleat their terrified sparks out to the rest of the faction about it. And any who had ever made it to Hook’s operating table either died under the surgeon’s scalpel or offlined themselves soon after to escape the memory of piercing agony he had engraved directly into their most primordial systems.
The Autobots knew of them, feared them and rightfully so, but they didn’t know them. Dispelling those very true rumors and winning a short-tether of trust with the crew was the second phase of their grand plan to win Prowl’s spark—the first phase was always conception, and even that was vague, Scrapper had been the master architect and without him their plans had become shaky, erased and rewritten lines on blue vellum paper. The second phase was also the most well thought out part of the plan; they weren’t even completely sure what the other phases were, only that all good plans had multiple phases. All of Prowl’s had, anyway.
But their plan was one their cute-but-competent helmsmen would have never been able to put together himself, let alone pull off. It revolved around being the one thing their sixth couldn’t be—Personable.
And it was working so far: they had gotten into the bar with no major incident, sat with a popular bot who was laughing at their jokes, enjoying their company (kind of), instead of telling them to frag off. That Chromedome hadn’t yet, considering their proximity to Prowl and the mech’s protoform deep hate of him, was their luck and they knew better than to push it.
Bonecrusher still wanted to kill him.
Stick needles into the back of their helm, root around in their processor, removing memories, leaving them spread wide open for the enemy to plug in and control—commit the deepest act of violation known to Cybertronian kind—and Cybertronians had been around for longer than most recorded species; they knew a lot.
Happen to any of them and the Constructicons would be sitting with a dead mech. Soon as they’d learned of the betrayal, they’d have welded the traitor to Hook’s med-berth, or a solid refueling table, or even built him his own personal slab of insulated metal; any flat surface would have worked, really. Then they’d have taken turns breaking him apart, putting him back together, just to take him apart all over again. It’d have been different each time, too. Each Constructicon getting to put their own preference on the method.
—Bonecrusher would widen the mech’s transformation seams, just enough to slide detonation cords throughout his frame, little tetryl boosters placed over the sensor heavy sectors, where the wires clustered. He’d set off a controlled detonation and watch as the mech’s armor rattled and broke apart in sequence, from helm to ped. After the armor fell away, the same would be done to the underlying protoform, twisting the cords into wires and fuel lines, connectors that held internals together. Layer by layer, until every piece of the mech had been broken apart under his deftly crafted demolitions. Bonecrusher would have started with the visor first, though. Just plucked that right off his face and gouged out any optics beneath. Was always fun to see himself reflected in dull optical glass, fear making them pull wide so he could see more of himself, but he enjoyed the way their electro fields went crazy wherever he touched when they didn’t know where he would touch more. The perfectly measured destruction would be beautiful, even more so if Prowl was with them watching, supervising, approving.—
They’d have killed the skinny glitch over and over again, and made him grateful for when it was the last. They still would if Prowl asked. And slag, did they wish he would ask.
But he wouldn’t. Their sixth had only gone so far as to say something mean to the scrawny slagger after finding out—Prowl was soft like that. Soft like that berth the five of them had their optics set on during that first fun move to the Lost Light. (They already had plans to modify their own after it, making it more welcoming for when their sixth eventually joined them on it.)
The Constructicons were willing to play nice with Chromedome in public, they’d suffer his continued function if only because pointing servos would immediately turn toward their sixth were he to disappear. They wanted those who would point and accuse their praxian to reassess any distaste of him because the Constructicons liked him, and they liked the Constructicons. But they had a line that couldn’t be crossed and they needed the crew to want to respect that line—Prowl.
“Yeah, he does,” Bonecrusher finally managed, vocals a rough grunt—he hoped the Autobot thought it was a laugh from shared humor. “Never seen a mech hate a piece of furniture that bad before.”
“I have,” Scavenger’s visor brightened as he wiggled in his seat, radiating an inordinate amount of enthusiasm through the bond, the excavator excited to be part of a conversation, to be tolerated by anyone but his fellow gestaltmates. “They…they hated the wash racks and never went in them, ever.”
The top of Bonecrusher’s visor raised at the mention of the seekers. The story was well known among the Decepticon rank and file but had never quite made it to the Autobots as anything more than speculation. Nothing of any significance to the war, but a juicy bit of gossip that could potentially capture a bot’s attention just enough for him to forget who was telling it.
Good call.
Scavenger beamed through the bond.
“What, ya mean the seekers? They didn’t hate wash racks, they were just scared of ‘em,” Bonecrusher said as leaned back, casually laying a strong arm across the bot’s shoulders. He felt the plating beneath his own tense, but the mech didn’t pull away. Good, good.
A tug too hard, a flex too strong, and those shoulders would buckle and bend beneath his hold; the joint sockets sparking as they tore beneath the Constructicon’s pure laborious power. The mech’s dismantling would be quick, satisfyingly so. The mnemosurgeon was worth less than a klick of the Constructicons’ time outside of a torturous setting—he wasn’t worth even a nano-second of Prowl’s.
“…The seekers were scared of wash racks?” Chromedome questioned, his tone disbelieving, the overcharged mech entirely unaware of Bonecrusher’s vicious imaginings.
Scavenger fidgeted in his seat, “they um, thought everyone wanted them? Their wings I mean. They’re not so hot though, there are uh…better wings.” The last bit was mumbled and Bonecrusher’s optics rolled behind his visor; he agreed but now wasn’t the time to subtly imply how smelter hot they all found Prowl.
“He means they thought us dirty grounders would all jump ‘em if they ever used solvent,” Bonecrusher salvaged, even though that was supposed to be Scavenger’s job. “Completely flew over their helms how not everyone’s preferences ran aerial.”
“Arrogant,” Long Haul huffed.
“Delusional,” Hook supplied.
Bonecrusher and Mixmaster hummed their agreement as they let it all sink in for the Autobot.
Chromedome’s visor was pinched, his helm tilted ever so slightly in such a way that implied concentrated thought–what little the glitched mech was capable of, overcharged or sober.
“…Did they just not wash?” The bot finally asked, likely cross-referencing everything he knew about the narcissistic frame type with the new information the Constructicons had just given him; his high-grade heavy logic drives struggling to fuse the two.
“They did,” Bonecrusher answered. “Though no one ever saw them doing it.”
“Even…even if you did, no one believed you,” Scavenger commented with a pout, having been subjected to that particular disbelief and mockery more than once.
Hook patted the excavator’s leg under the table in solidarity. The other Constructicons had shared Scavenger’s memory and believed him; hadn’t stopped them from joining in on the ridicule. Or calling him (rightfully) a creepy little voyeur.
“Most believe they made deals with Starscream for the use of his personal washracks,” Hook said. “Some even claiming it was the real reason the air armada was so loyal to him—It’s not true, but who are we to get in the way of a good rumor?”
“…So they just didn’t wash?” Chomedome asked incredulously, his optics wide in disbelief.
“Oh they did, and they were cutting deals, just not with Starscream,” Bonecrusher clarified as he glanced at the high-grade Mix had gotten them. It looked weak, but then what could he expect from an Autobot ship?
“Then who?” The bot questioned, snapped really, white plates shifting impatiently beneath Bonecrusher’s servo. A miserable and snippy drunk? Chromedome really was the worst kind of everything.
“Soundwave,” Hook answered.
“Soundwave?” Chromedome repeated.
“Soundwave,” Bonecrusher confirmed with a nod.
“But why?” The bot asked, his field finally losing that last hint of fear and hostility, replaced with open curiosity. There it was. They got him. Wouldn’t matter if the scrub bucket didn’t remember their conversation come the morning, and he probably wouldn’t. What mattered was the rest of the bar watching them have it.
“For information on Starscream, of course,” Hook smiled, delighted by the duplicitous nature of the seekers toward their own commander whenever he was reminded of it. The surgeon had always loved a good betrayal—Chromedome’s own toward Prowl the sole exception.
Were the bot not wearing a mask, Bonecrusher was pretty sure Chromedome’s jaw would have dropped. “That makes too much sense, or no sense at all, I’m not really sure I—” Cutting himself off Chromedome reached up to press long fingers onto the back of his helm. “Primus my helm hurts.”
Hook, sensing an opportunity to show off, began explaining, “It’s the high-grade, it causes the fuel in your tank to burn faster, which disrupts communication between the circuitry in your processor and your filtration system. Your processor is over-firing due to the increased demand and overcompensates for the delayed response, causing a helm-ache. Nothing a little coolant and med-grade won’t fix.”
Finishing his explanation, Hook’s derma curled into a conspiring grin. “Or if you’re looking for an immediate relief, more high-grade helps.” The medic gestured to the untouched cube of high-grade they’d bought for the Autobot.
If anything, Chromedome looked more pained by the explanation and had brought both servos up to grip his helm, squeezing and messaging it in a way the Constructicons knew wouldn’t work.
Bonecrusher used the lull in conversation to peek around the room, grinning at all the bots that had turned to openly stare at the construction mechs. He tilted his helm toward Chromedome and if not for his visor, he’d have winked. The stares were a good turn, they wanted as many optics on them as possible.
Misery had begun to seep back into Chromedome’s field, causing Bonecrusher’s grin to widen. They’d been seen, possibly accepted, which meant they were done with the scrawny bot. Best if they moved on, and found a few others to mingle with before retiring to their shared quarters. Maybe even make a few passes at Prowl if they spotted him on the way.
“Why are you here?” Chromedome questioned, breaking the table’s silence and sounding depressingly sober. Though finding no hostility directed to ward them, the Constructicons decided they had been technically successful with their mission.
The mournful mech’s misery turning toward the Constructicons was their final sign to bow out and move on, but their tolerance for Chromedome was at its lowest and the five of them sensed an opportunity. They’d continue to play nice a little longer, just enough to grab the knife of grief digging into Chromedome’s spark and twist it. All while maintaining the friendly façade of comradery.
“Course we’re here—we’re crew!” Bonecrusher crowed with a smile, acting oblivious as to the real reason the bot would be asking them that.
“No, I mean why are you here with me?” Chromedome emphasized, then through a narrowed visor. “I know Prowl hates me.”
“Hate you?” Hook frowned as if the thought had never occurred to him.
“Prowl doesn’t hate you,” Mixmaster assured.
Unfortunately.
“We are not the most…approachable mecha onboard. An inevitable consequence due to our previous loyalties,” Hook tactfully remarked. “We are attempting to change that image through repeated positive contact with the crew.” The surgeon supplied, fully confident Chromedome wouldn’t remember complete details of their conversation come morning.
“Prowl had good memories of ya, figured you’d be as good a start as any,” Bonecrusher added, hating how true the former part of his statement was.
“…He did? That’s not…,” Chromedome shook his helm only to wince, clearly not sober, but wary enough to realize maybe he should be. “Why are you really here—what do you want?”
“Why, to share a drink with a fellow crewmate—and to thank you, of course,” was Hook’s honeyed response.
“Thank me?” Chromedome puzzled.
“Course, bot like Prowl never woulda bonded with us willingly; big bad cons like us? He’d sooner offline,” Bonecrusher responded, keeping the amusement he felt at watching the bot’s frame begin to slump in response to the bulldozer’s words locked in tight around himself.
Chromedome did no such thing, the now anguish bleeding from his frame. Bonecrusher greedily soaked it in, relishing the Autobot’s torment over their cheerfully delivered thanks.
“But you gave him to us,” Scavenger whispered, red visor shining with reverence.
“Wrapped him up all pretty like an energon goodie and dropped him off at our door like an early creation day gift,” Bonecrusher complimented with a soft, appreciative rumble.
Slump. Slump. Slump.
“Best present we ever got,” Mixmaster affirmed.
They all nodded and Bonecrusher even gave the bot a good little jovial shake of appreciation.
“And Constructicons have been called a lot of things over the years, but ungrateful ain’t one of them,” Bonecrusher went on; more nodding and murmurs of agreement.
“We always pay back our dues,” he promised, visor burning a dark red.
Bonecrusher’s smile, more a nasty grin, stretched wide as he pushed a high-grade cube into one of the Autobot’s now limp servos, taking it underneath his own and squeezing to make sure the grip stuck. He felt the delicate white plating crunch, satisfyingly, underneath his hold; he didn’t let go. Instead raising the servo-held cube of high-grade up. His fellow Constructicons raised theirs in answer, smiles all around.
Bonecrusher leaned in close to the lump of limp guilt—was it guilt? His derma dangerously close to touching one of the smaller mech’s audials as he growled low, hot air venting across thin armor.
“This one’s for you, Tumblr.”
Cheers.