Big Fans of Survival Chapter 1: Pt 1-35, a transformers/beast wars fanfic

Various tales of the W.A.P. and the strange, scavenged, screws-loose Decepticons (and Autobot) aboard it. Survival? Sign them up for some of that!

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Warning: MTMTE spoilers. Scavengers being weird and Decepticons. AUs everywhere. Two continuations of Rewound. Death, torture, and reproduction. Snippets that probably make no sense. Fulcrum being completely disinterested in shagging anyone.

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Note: I could have given myself a headache posting each of these fics separately, but it's easier to just put them into one conglomerate for this site. FFnet doesn't make posting fic easy for me. So here you are: all 35 Parts in one giant mass.

Part One

[* * * * *]

"everything involving Fulcrum"

[* * * * *]

There are theories of multiple universes.

An infinite number of possibilities exist for every action. Everything can change, depending on how a shot lands, when a flyer turns, or where a cube got set down. An infinite amount of dimensions spin off from every turning, the theory goes. That means that there are an infinite number of every mech alive, and an infinite amount of universes branching from his every action and decision he may or may not make in the course of his life. An even greater amount of dimensions branch out from every permutation of his death, touching off chains of new universes from the lives he failed to touch because of that death, or touched because of it.

Imagine this ever-expanding vista of dimensions. Impressive, isn't it? Impossible to explore in its vastness, like trying to count and map every star in the current universe.

The theory is incomplete, however. It's not that it is wrong, but merely mistaken on a single detail. The theory is too broad in scope. It assumes that everything is equal, creating possibilities with no favor for whatever caused the branching off. There is the error.

The multiverses do not branch out in a vast, directionless field on many planes with no order to them. No, they center around one mech. Everything focuses upon that center. Everything builds up to him. Everything turns around him. Everything is, in some peripheral way, about him.

He seems, in each universe, to be one small piece of the larger dimension. It is impossible to see his value in the middle scale; there is only the micro-view, and the very largest macro. Close up, his value seems tiny, yet causes the greatest changes around him. Taken on the wider view, across all the multiverses, he becomes the crux.

He is the Fulcrum.

In one dimension, he is a cowardly technician who fails to die. In another, he leads four murderous Decepticons on a crusade against the unfaithful. In yet another, he waves a powerful hand and exterminates a rival faction leader. Elsewhere, he meets two construction crewmates and an electrician in a bar to listen to a singer with a rich, crooning voice. They buy the scientist at the next table a song, and this mech leers when the singer picks a ribald song.

He has died many times. He has lived just as many.

And around him, the universes multiply.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Two

[* * * * *]

Rewind & Fulcrum - disposable frames

[* * * * *]

They looked through the brig's glowing energy bars at each other, and Rewind wondered what the Decepticon saw. Just another short Autobot; a relic from a former era; an archivist still persistently pursuing his function? What did Rewind amount to in the optics of this mech?

It hadn't been important a day ago. A day ago, he'd been curious about the K-Class Decepticon in the brig, but that'd been it. Now he knew. He knew, and he didn't know what to think. He carried the information like any other piece of data, but he didn't know how to process it. So he'd come down here on the pretense of gathering more information, and he'd ended up blurting out what he now knew.

"That's not my name," Fulcrum said. He glowered darkly when Rewind gave a weak shrug. "It's not. Like I told you before, my name is Fulcrum. It's always been Fulcrum!"

"Not always," Rewind insisted quietly, replaying the file in his own mind. "Not before…not before you were reformatted. You can't..?" He hated how hopeful he sounded, but he couldn't help himself. Mnemosurgeons, as Chromedome had confided in him, were neither infallible nor always as thorough as they could be when doing hasty mind alterations. Especially when it came to erasing someone's past. The drips and dribbles of memory lingered in a mech's cache like dreams remembered distantly upon waking. "You don't remember anything?"

'You don't remember me?'

"I was reformatted exactly once in this war, and it was by my own side!" The taller mech turned and slammed a fist against the wall in frustration, refusing to even acknowledge the Autobot's pained expression. "I know who I am, and I'm Fulcrum. Ask anyone!"

Ooo, time for an awkward pause. Because Rewind had asked the right person at last, and the truth had come out. The truth that Fulcrum denied because the memories weren't there, and the truth Rewind wished wasn't true.

"Give him time," Rung had advised when Rewind panicked and turned to him for help dealing with it. "Right now, he's surrounded by the enemy and doesn't dare trust anything. He must go through denial before reaching any form of acceptance. Let him rage against the facts. They will still be facts when he's exhausted his attempts to refuse their truth."

He wished he'd taken the psychotherapist's advice now instead of heading straight down here. "Well…okay." Time for a topic shift. "So, um, what made you decide to get reformatted into a K-Con? What's it feel like to be a bomb?"

Tactless questions about personal information served as a handy way to change the subject. Luckily, Rewind could always use more information. Information about this mech in particular was all the more precious, if he thought about it. And really, what mech didn't like talking about himself? Domi - Fulcrum was a Decepticon. A K-Class one, at that. There had to be an interesting story behind how he'd become a fanatic! It was probably exciting and full of reasons Rewind might even understand. Reasons for why the brilliant friend he'd once idolized had become a fanatic willing, even eager to die for the Decepticon faction. A fanatic whose sole purpose in life was killing as many Autobots as he could when he died.

Primus, it was really depressing to look at this mech with memory superimposed over top of him.

Especially when that narrow look glared back at him. Fulcrum had half-turned to look over his shoulder, and he raked a glare down the small Autobot's body like he could cut him apart with optic power alone. "You're a memory stick, right?"

"Oh, wow." That surprised a laugh out of Rewind in a burst of wild hope. "Not many mechs can I.D. my altmode on sight! That's - that's amazing! How did you know?" Please let it be a stray memory, please!

The impressive chin on the mech only enhanced the sneer he pulled. "No, what's amazing is that you made it this long. You were made to be used and discarded. Limited use kind of frametype, am I right?"

Rewind had frozen, still recording but unable to react. Those words had all the worst connotations of a different time, fresh in the forefront of his thoughts and now weaponized to hit him like a sledgehammer. "W-what?"

"You tell me, Autobot. Did you decide to be disposable?" Fulcrum spat, lowering his helm until only low glints of yellow and contempt were visible. Rewind actually staggered back a step, shaking his head. Denial had turned to outright anger burning in those yellow optics, because it was terribly clear the little Autobot wasn't here for him. Nobody saw him for him it seemed. He was who he'd been, the crime he'd committed, the frame forced on him, or just his fragging faction. "Did you have to fight for your right to live? Were you told you were the lowest of the low and should die after serving your purpose? You weren't even a person. You were a number. A statistic, and losing one of your frametype used to hardly change the stats."

A bitter laugh filled the brig cell. "Because your altmode is all you are, right? Once your altmode's used up, you're useless. Did you make the decision to be used like that? Were you even given a choice?"

"That's what it feels like." Fulcrum turned away, putting his back to the past. "You say I don't remember who I was, but I know enough about Cybertronian history to know I'm probably not missing much. You remember everything, I don't remember anything, and I'm okay with that. War's flipped everything around, but nothing's changed." He sat down on the berth and looked up through the bars at Rewind. "You've just become the indispensable resource, and I'm the disposable class, now. K-Class is even more marginalized than your frametype ever was."

He laid back and sighed. "I wonder who's gonna campaign for my rights?"

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Three

[* * * * *]

What didn't happen - "More sad Scavengers"

[* * * * *]

"It's really weird, that's all I'm saying." Misfire pulled a length of tubing through his hand and frowned at the kinks. "I have to have a specialized set of tubes for siphoning energon, and I can't replace them with tubes taken out of somebody's corpse. Which is bogus, you know, because half the tubes in our bodies are for carrying fuel anyway, so I don't get why siphoning means I need different tubes!" He shook his head and elbowed Flywheels, who was doing his best to ignore him. "Why do I need different tubes? All I'm doing is sucking energon from corpse A to flask B, so what's with needing a special tube size? Somebody out there is profiting off selling siphoning kits that have to be replaced by specialized equipment that really isn't needed."

Flywheels leaned his head away and just sort of looked at him for a moment. He didn't bother trying to answer, because Misfire was so high answers just kind of whiffed by underneath him. Total misses. They didn't even register. Before the first surge of the circuit speeders had finally worn off, Krok had tied a cable to his landing gear and let him buzz around in little captive circles overhead, because frag if the mech was getting any work done. The officer had been quite a sight to see, walking along as patient and resigned as ever while holding the end of the cable. The jet had zipped around talking so fast it'd all come out mashed together into a long, high-pitched, "Wheeeeeee!"

This manic yapping on inane topics was a step back toward normal, except it was still being done in fast forward. Misfire wasn't slowing down to let anyone get a word in edgewise. Flywheels shook his head and went back to watching Spinister work.

Sure enough, the jet kept chattering. "Not that it matters, because I can fix this set right now if I can find some glue, but Spinister says he has some. I don't need to go looking, how handy is that? I just have to wait for him to finish up with - are you finished yet?" he called toward their surgeon.

Spinister had his hands up to the wrists in the corpse's chest at the moment. A nice, solid corpse; all the Scavengers ever wanted from this world. Then again, this world kind of sucked. All they wanted out of Clemency was enough energon to fuel the W.A.P. and get away from the planet. So yeah, they wanted solid corpses that were mostly intact.

This corpse right here? Exactly what they wanted. It was a tan-and-orange Decepticon who was a bit bashed about but otherwise undamaged. Judging by the crater he was lying in, he'd fallen to his death. That was too bad, but it got them a mostly-intact corpse, so hurray for death by gravity.

Unnamed dead Decepticon number four thousand and then some was a good find. Krok had immediately called everyone over to strip the body down, but Spinister had put a stop to that by claiming he had to disarm something in the body's chest. Misfire hadn't been able to pay attention long enough to hear what the surgeon had to do. But even he hadn't tried to dive straight to work.

Hey, one thing a mech learned about rummaging about on a battlefield? Ordnance never died. Mechs did, but their weaponry didn't. The Scavengers stood back and let Spinister do his thing, because the magic word in expropriation was 'disarm.' It was synonymous with 'live to see another day.' Misfire liked these words. He even told Flywheels so and got an agreeable monosyllable in return. Yes, survival was a good thing. They liked that.

They didn't like it so much when Spinister stiffened and grunted. That was the kind of grunt that came right before the surgeon hauled off and punched someone in the face. Misfire would know; he'd heard it often enough.

"Spinister?" Krok asked quickly.

"Krok. You guys." Spinister's voice had gone from dull and slightly mystified by the world to curt and full of authority. Even Crankcase listened. That was the voice of a medical authority during an emergency, and smart Decepticons knew to follow it when they heard it. "Start running. Misfire, Flywheels - grab 'em and go. Now."

Krok, dumbaft overly concerned commander he was, actually took a step closer. "What is it?"

And their big, stupid, hardcore warrior lug of a medic glanced back with a pained look to his optics. "K-Class. Thought I could disarm him, Krok, but I tripped him instead. I've got the wires between my fingers, but I can't - " Panic lit those optics fear-bright. "It's slipping! Get out of here!"

Flywheels snatched Crankcase up by the shoulders and took off, going for height instead of distance.

Misfire grabbed for Krok, but the officer dug his heels in and hesitated. "Spinister, what about..?"

"Go!"

The hyperactive jet hauled their officer's arm as hard as he could, slamming the smaller Decepticon onto his back with a quick half-twist that left Krok's hands on the tops of his wings when he transformed, but they were still close enough to hear the ominous click of detonation.

And then they didn't hear anything at all.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Four

[* * * * *]

What didn't happen - "Someone asked for more sad Scavengers?"

[* * * * *]

"Wait. Guys? Guys, I can explain…"

Shocked staring turned into a command decision. Krok had lost one unit, and like the Pit was he going to lose a second one. His helm whipped around to address the comm-cube. "Tarn!"

"No!"

The leader of the Decepticon Justice Division seemed amused by the sudden shouting match on Krok's end. "Not so dead, I assume?" Fulcrum's attempted escape and Crankcase's flying tackle were out of sight, but the K-Con's yelling could be clearly heard. The two mechs tumbled down the short slope, and then the rest of the Scavengers piled on top.

Krok's throat tubing worked nervously as he quickly revised everything. Crankcase and Flywheels had Fulcrum pinned down, wrists jerked up between his altmode casing while Spinister tied them there. They had the traitor, however much Krok dearly wished they didn't. Tarn had originally offered them a deal where they lived if they turned Fulcrum over without a fuss. Maybe the deal still stood. It was either hope it was possible or try to take a stand against the D.J.D. now that they already knew something was wrong.

He had to take the chance for the sake of his remaining mechs. "Ah, due to a misunderstanding, I'm afraid we may have been operating under, er, false pretenses."

"In other words, you lied to me and are now covering your aft." Tarn did have a way with words, didn't he?

Krok winced. "Ye - not precisely, no. But, yes, Fulcrum is still alive. He's - well, he's here with us. You see, ah, sir," he tacked the title of respect on, because dear Primus did they need to butter the leader of the D.J.D. up right now, "we were under the assumption that you were after Grimlock."

"They're la~anding," Misfire sing-songed nervously as he peered over the ridge. Everyone could hear the ship touching down.

Fulcrum struggled harder, then slumped like a pathetic sack of spare parts in Spinister's steel grip. His fans were working so hard they rattled audibly from where Krok stood. "Please no, please, I didn't do anything, I swear I didn't, please…"

"Grimlock?" Tarn's optics narrowed behind his mask. "Grimlock is there?"

Interest! Interest was a good sign of potential survival! "Yes. He's in the statis pod," Krok said as he stood up to stand cautiously beside Misfire. That made big targets of them both on the ridgeline, but Krok sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that. The purple flyer gave the comm.-cube a wide, nervous smile and pointed helpfully. Krok turned it so Tarn could see over the clear area between the Worldsweeper and the Peaceful Tyranny. "We dragged it out there because, uh, we thought he was who you were after. We didn't know - "

"I see," Tarn interrupted. In the distance, a group of mechs any sane Decepticon and quite a few insane ones feared disembarked from the ship. They stood and looked back toward the outcropping Krok's unit hid behind. "I will take this incident as the lesson it is. Including the names of those we hunt is important."

"Would have avoided a lot of this slag," Crankcase muttered, reversing his tune about fighting for the true Decepticons now that the D.J.D. was headed toward them.

Krok looked at him, then away. He had no illusions about his new crew: they were maniacs, morons, and bullies. They were backstabbing dregs of the faction, and they'd turn on each other just as easily as he'd shot the Autobot they'd burnt for a fire last night. That didn't mean he would do his best to keep them alive, even if it came at the expense of one of them. He avoided looking in the direction of the K-Con being frog-marched up the incline. The end justified the means, in bleak survivalist terms. None of them were expropriation specialists because they had a choice, after all.

"Primus, please! I'm begging you guys, please, I'm begging you. I'll do anything you want, I swear, just don't, please Primus - mmph!"

Flywheels had slapped his hand over Fulcrum's mouth. "Primus already answered my prayer today," the NeoPrimalist said, clenching his free hand. "Don't want Him getting confused, okay? Good."

Well, if there was ever a time to find religion, now was it. Krok's finger tightened on the injection trigger as Tarn transformed to look down at the statis pod. This was the moment. This was the second. He could either hit the trigger, and they'd fight - or he trusted in a deal that might have passed its expiration date.

The moment passed. Tarn patted the pod approvingly, and Krok's hand relaxed. The figure below and the face in the comm.-cube he still held looked at him. "Bring the traitor down here, Decepticons, and as a reward for your loyalty, you may witness his execution. As a reward for bringing us the Autobot," Tarn patted the statis pod again, "we may just give your little group a lift to the nearest outpost."

Krok carefully set the trigger down altogether and beckoned to his motley group. "Sir, that would be very appreciated."

Fulcrum shrieked in despair, wailing for mercy that the D.J.D. didn't have. Krok gave him an apologetic look. Flywheels and Misfire uneasily kept their helms turned away. Spinister lifted their necessary sacrifice up, and the Scavengers went down to collect their reward.

So, in the end, the Scavengers made it. There was just a slightly different roster for the unit.

Flywheels left Clemency. Fulcrum stayed behind.

What was left of him, anyway.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Five

[* * * * *]

Misfire - "the silence is keenly felt"

[* * * * *]

They couldn't hear him.

It's the first thing Misfire realized. Not that the pain had stopped - that actually took a while to sink in - but that nobody could hear him. Trying not to hear him and not being able to hear him looked different, no matter how Krok had pretended back when the officer still thought being ignored would shut him up. Being ignored was a challenge. Not being heard was just weird.

Misfire sat up from where Tesarus had dropped him, saw the living grinder advancing on Krok, and was baffled when an instinctive yell of, "Hey, frag-face, I'm not done with you!" went unnoticed.

On the one hand: good. The yell had been sheer bravado backed by nothing but total panic. He didn't really want Tesarus to come back and turn him to minced metal. Right now, there was no one available to help him. Flywheels was over there getting stomped by Vos and gnawed on by that drooling freakshow turbofox; Spinister and Crankcase were being tossed around by Helex; Tarn was taking out Grimlock; Krok was held helpless by Kaon. Who the frag knew where that slagger Fulcrum had taken off to. The unit was getting their afts handed to them, and Misfire wanted nothing more than to take off and fly for his life.

On the other hand: bad. Krok was his officer, and they were fighting the D.J.D. together.

Also bad: Vos kicked Flywheels over to be stomped into the ground by Tesarus while the slender Decepticon walked toward Krok and - had he seriously just taken his face off?! There was creepy, and then there was the D.J.D., and this was definitely beyond creepy. This was the D.J.D., and aw frag no, was Vos going to shove that into Krok's face? Bad! That was bad! That was the opposite of good, here!

Once again, Misfire's mouth went off without conscious thought on the part of his mind that was in a gibbering panic over current events. "Hey! Hey, tire-muncher! Rust your motherboard and scramble your - your - what the frag..?"

The second thing he realized was that he couldn't hear himself. Nobody noticed him talking, but he wasn't hearing anything, either. He knew he was talking. His vocalizer engaged, all the automatic processes whirring busily away in the back of his mind as per usual, but nothing happened. In fact, he wasn't even sure his vocalizer was receiving the commands. The more thought he gave it, startled and reflexively running a hardware check, the fewer of those automatic functions seemed to be running. The fewer of any of his functions pinged back as functioning, or even, well, there at all.

Krok screamed as Vos shoved drills and nasty pointy things into his face. Mouth hanging open in speechless indignation and anger, Misfire surged to his feet to do something. Primus alone knew what, because all he knew was that he had to do it. Nobody did that to Krok!

That's when he realized that he'd left his body on the ground. Technically it was a pile of messy scrap, but it'd been his body up until a few moments ago. When...Tesarus finished passing Misfire through his grinder. Memory clicked over in Misfire's mind, and things twisted around to take on a different perspective entirely. The massive mech hadn't dropped Misfire; he'd spat him out!

That had hurt. Now it didn't. Misfire belated registered that the pain had, in fact, stopped. So had his vital functions. His vocalizer wasn't working because there was no vocalizer left to work. The processes he'd assumed were running in the background of his mind had stopped. There was nothing left for them to run, and no CPU to run in.

The third thing Misfire realized was that he was dead.

The jet stayed stock still, feet still planted in the ruins of his body, as the battle came to a close. As Fulcrum fell and failed to explode. As the D.J.D. left. As the living members of his unit reassembled.

They gathered up Grimlock. They poked through Misfire's remains. No matter how he shouted or gestured, they neither heard nor saw him. His hands passed through them. When they headed toward the ship, he watched them go with the helpless bewilderment of the newly dead. Shock held him paralyzed.

When the W.A.P. departed Clemency, it left the planet quiet as a grave behind it, and it didn't matter how Misfire screamed in its wake.

He was dead. He couldn't hear himself. They couldn't hear him.

The rest was silence.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Six

[* * * * *]

"Lick Me" - Misfire

[* * * * *]

Due to the fist fight (Crankcase), the attempt to slice you in half (Spinister), total cowardice (Fulcrum), and - ultimately - orders (Krok), you get stuck feeding Grimlock.

The latter two are the result of the previous two, which is why Crankcase is assigned to scrubbing out the engine block with his forefinger and a cup of grease cutter. Spinister doesn't get why he was chastised, so he's happy enough being confined to the medbay. Lucky fragger. Lucky, violent fragger.

Krok took off after Fulcrum in an attempt to stop the K-Class mech before this little incident turns into a search of Clemency. Fulcrum is such a wuss. Although, admittedly, Crankcase did just attempt to bash his face in, and you might have gotten in the middle of that intending to kick the K-Con's bearings up between his audios. It wasn't an outright attempt to kill the mech, but you can see why he thought fleeing from you and Crankcase was wise. Add in Spinister breaking up the fight with his rotor blade, and yeah, running off into the night was a good option. Three Decepticons yelling and getting in each other's way while there's slicing and dicing? That's plenty scary.

You still think the shrill screech of fear was over the top. Mech faced down the D.J.D., for Primus' sake. In your opinion, he should suffer some pain for dragging the rest of you into his mess. Fulcrum needs to buckle down and take whatever you and Crankcase feel like dishing out.

Krok, however, doesn't agree. Krok outranks you and has that peculiar ability to find the weak spot on your wing hinges even while mostly blind. One yank and a boot to the aft has you scurrying into the W.A.P. for Dynobot-feeding duty in no time flat.

You don't want to. You can actually feel the circuit-speeders wearing off, like someone sapping your strength. For the first time in days, you want to lay down. Recharge sounds wonderful. Maybe you can just mosey on off to the bunks and pretend that you gave the Autobot his energon already. It's an extra ration for you, if you need to dispose of the evidence. What, is Grimlock going to be able to say otherwise?

*"Misfire!"*

Your wings flinch up in guilty reflex. Oh, scrap. That's the 'I Know Where That Hinge Is' voice. "Heeeeeey, Krok. Uh, what's up?" Playing innocent is not your best act.

*"Don't even think about it."*

You wonder if your strained grin transmits over audio channels. "Think about…what..?"

*"I will rip off your helm and beat your cockpit in with it."* A decisive click closes the transmission.

"Okay," you mutter to yourself. It's only slightly eerie that your commanding officer can apparently read your mind.

Shoulder slumping, you go to get a cube. Where the frag is Grimlock, anyway? You lost track of him once you pushed him through the airlock. He's probably found a corner to curl up in by now if he feels half as tired as you are.

When did your feet get so heavy, anyway?

Walking downgrades into trudging, and it's becoming progressively harder to pep-talk yourself into any semblance of awake. It feels like you're running on Krok's distant threats alone. Your flight engine isn't even on anymore, and if feels like your main motor has down-shifted into lowest gear.

You honestly can't remember when the last time you recharged was. It's beginning to annoy you. Like, that isn't something you should forget. You should remember it as clearly as you can picture it right now. Turning off your optics, sinking into the darkness, resting your weary struts, pillowing your head in your arms, and letting automatic functions sweep your conscious mind away into blissful oblivion…

A snarl through your commlink wakes you up from the half-doze you're in. "Waah! Whazzat? Whodunnit? It wuzzint me!"

Your commlink clicks at you. You blink back at it and heave a tired, resigned sigh. Right. Mind-reading officer.

You push off the wall to stagger onward. Krok will dismantle you if you don't feed the Dynobot. Feeding the Dynobot good; sleeping bad. Mmm, sleeping.

No! Recharge later!

You walk head-first into a wall of Autobot when you turn the next corner. Optics bleary, you look down at the energon slopped across your front. So much for that cube.

You look up at the Dynobot regarding you quizzically - and hungrily. All right, then. That's taken care of.

One finger wavers in a vaguely pointing manner under his muzzle. "No teeth," you think you say as your knees give out.

At least you'll be clean when you wake up.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Seven

[* * * * *]

"The Scavengers make it home"

[* * * * *]

You land and spin on a heel, punch-drunk with glee. You're home! You're back on Cybertron! You made it! No more war, no more Justice Division, just Cybertron and rebuilding. Frag yeah!

"Rusted bumper on a wreck, it's good to be - what in Flywheels' name is going on here?!"

The ground lurches under your thrusters, but you figure out through the application of basic observational skills that the ground isn't moving - you are. Spinister has you by the scruff of the neck in one hand, Fulcrum in the other, and he's throwing you both in the direction of the W.A.P.

You land running, stumbling but keeping your feet. "Hey, I just got off that," you protest on automatic. "I don't want to go back in the tin can!"

Hands clutch your arm before you can take a swing at Spinister, however, and when you glance down, you can see the joints grinding with the strength of their grip. Spinister's pushing at the small of your back, or you'd turn to see what's got Fulcrum's optics that wide. He looks terrified, and he's pulling at your arm as hard as he can. It's an awful lot less funny than when he does it to Grimlock. You've never seen him look like this while trying to drag Grimlock around.

Worry swamps you, despite yourself. "What? What's going on?"

"Move!" Krok yells from the W.A.P.'s loading ramp. You look up, and he gesturing in big, frantic motions as if he could scoop the air and somehow make you hurry faster that way. "Get inside!"

"But what's going on?" you ask, bewildered. Everything's moving too quickly, and the glimpse you got of the sickly yellow glow on the horizon doesn't make any sense. You didn't see it clearly. It wasn't sunlight, because Fulcrum pinged the correct planetary time to everyone's chronometers before landing. If you could just take a short flight, you could scan it and zip back to the ship in no time flat, but Spinister slams you back to the ground the second you bounce in preparation for igniting your thrusters.

"No," he growls and almost dislocates your wings in one violent shove.

"Run," Fulcrum chants, tugging in time with the shoving. You yip protest as your wings creaks alarmingly, but between the loser and the surgeon, you're stumbling forward at a near-run again. Fulcrum's ahead of you, pulling your arm with him. "Run, Misfire, run. We've gotta go. We've gotta run." He's still looking back, optics pale but yellower than ever in the growing light. That yellow light disturbs you, but it apparently freaks the slag out of the K-Con.

And Krok. "Move your aft!"

Spinister clonks you on the back of the head and is gone, pelting past you. Long legs propel him up the loading ramp before you even reach the bottom.

*"We're launching in five,"* Crankcase says in a cool voice that almost covers how badly it's shaking. You hesitate at the base of the loading ramp to give your forearm projector a confused look. Even filtering up through Fulcrum's fingers, you can see the pilot concentrating on the W.A.P.'s console. His expression wants to be calm and looks like he sees the D.J.D. walking through the door, instead.

"Make that three," Krok barks, taking the ramp in two steps. There's no hesitation as he hits the bottom; he turns, grabs your shoulder, and starts back up the ramp in one smooth move.

You lurch along behind him, unexpectedly dragging Fulcrum. The K-Con's grip hasn't faltered, but he's staring at something behind you, wearing the fascinated, horrified expression of someone watching a fatal blow coming in slow motion.

You twist, but Krok's not letting you turn to see. "Krok? Krok, what's going on? We just landed!"

"And now we're launching," he says briskly.

*"Can't guarantee all the airlocks will seal in 3,"* Crankcase snaps, more a statement of fact than a protest.

"I'll risk blowing a lock. Get us up. Spinister," Krok says into his forearm microphone as he slams his free hand down on the loading ramp's controls, "close off the medbay when these two get in. I'm shutting every door between here and the bridge door, so don't open your door unless there's air pressure on the other side." You get a rough shove that almost sends Fulcrum sprawling as he trips on your feet. Your wings and his altmode kibble collide and tangle momentarily, and Krok keeps pushing you along before either of you can free your respective bits. "You two get to the medbay. Stay there. Be quiet, and keep Spinister from shooting anything. Got it?"

You finally turn around, but all you see is the last sliver of Cybertron's sky as the loading ramp closes. It's bright, virulent yellow. "Krok, what're you doing?" You sound shocked and confused even to your own audios. "We just got here - we can't leave! I have bars to visit! People to see!" Debts to avoid. "What about your old unit?" you wheedle, appealing to Krok's obsession. "Aren't you going to go find them?"

He turns from the controls and gives you a look. Fulcrum pulls on your arm, and you absently follow because you're severely weirded out, now. You've never seen Krok so serious.

"I'm going to save the unit I have left," your commander says as Fulcrum pulls you into a jog. "Maybe Primus will be able to find someone alive here when this is over."

The ship lurches into the air. You meet Krok's optics and, suddenly afraid, turn to run beside Fulcrum to the medbay.

Home sweet home. It's like the war never ended.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Eight

[* * * * *]

"Scarf" - Misfire & Fulcrum

[* * * * *]

"Well, this is…" You don't know what this is. Morbid and rather terrible? Shocking? Bizarre? "Uncomfortable," you decide on. Krok stops in the doorway and gives you a critical once-over. You spot him in the mirror where you've been checking out your backside, and the sheepish grin you turn on him can't be stopped. "Uh…not that I'm ungrateful or anything. I just don't really know how to wear," you look at your new back in the mirror again, "well, someone else."

"You look like you're rattling around in there," he tells you as he invites himself into the medbay.

Great, you get Spinister to leave you alone for three minutes, and here's your commander to watch you. Can't a mech get ten minutes alone to trip over his own feet?

Someone else's feet. Misfire's feet.

Primus, this is awkward. There are thrusters in your heels. How do you do thrusters?

"Yeah, well, I kind of feel like it," you mutter. One of his optics squints in silent laughter.

Ignoring the amusement at your expense, you go back to peering into the mirror. It's more difficult than it sounds, considering the fact that you have to do so over your new accessories. Wings. What the frag are you going to do with wings? They were clumsy and wide, and you kept slapping them against Spinister's arm and the berth. They aren't very sensitive, but they're big and new. Crankcase slapped his palms on the flats when they first integrated into your cortex, and you jumped across the medibay in surprise. That was a lot of open surface area suddenly taking in input, and you're not even close to getting used to the bombardment of data. How did flyers handle these things?

They're sensitive enough that you feel Krok tweak one wingtip, although you confine yourself to a nervous shudder instead of leaping away like you were shocked. "You'll get used to it. I'm surprised," he remarks, changing the subject before you can start Round #89 on your protests against this insanity.

"Surprised by what?" What are these secondary sets of wings called? It's been bothering you since you realized you could wiggle them. You raise you arms up a bit and twitch them before folding them down tight to your lower back. Yeah, that looks better. You're not streamlined at all compared to your former - huh. Your two former forgings.

"Surprised that your spark is strong enough to power a suit of armor." The officer tweaks your other wing, apparently to watch you flick it out of his hand. Is he testing your reflexes, or just poking you like a retrorat in a lab cage? "You realize that not everyone can."

Oh, hey, look at that. Your new exterior plating fluffs just like your old altmode did. "Crankcase could power that Cybernaught." Er, right. Defensively huffing at your commander might be taken the wrong way. "It's not that uncommon," you add, smoothing ruffled wings down. You look in the mirror just in time to catch how that looks, and you're absurdly pleased that even hulking over Krok, you manage to look properly intimidated. Blending into a crowd of soldiers is going to require looking the part, and perky wings stand out.

You remember Misfire, after all. Mech stood out. And look what that had gotten him? Dead and salvaged. Not that you don't appreciate the, er, donation of parts to build you up, but gratitude doesn't resurrect the dead.

"That's short-term integration, mostly run through a massive control board accessed through uplinks," Krok states matter-of-factly. "Spinister tells me this is closer to integrated neuroware. Not a full set, but still. You a loadbearer, Fulcrum?"

Ah. You know that slightly suspicious look. You've had C.O.s who just didn't understand how you got to be a technician, without seeing the important part: you were an officer. "Like I said, it's not that uncommon. Not anymore." The stabilizers on your lower legs can move, too? Frag, you are just not used to this level of altmode mobility. "You realize most of Cybertron's been killed off, right? The ones that're left are unusual already. We're the statistical outliers in a war where the average Cybertronian is dead." Fascinated, you watch bits of yourself flex. "The only 'Cons who started being taken out of the remaining hot spots on Cybertron were the ones the recruiters wanted, for some reason. I just got lucky. A Point One Percenter, even one in a low class as me, was still worth harvesting." It scares you, sometimes, how close you were to not making it. Just a little weaker, and maybe you'd have been tilled under to encourage another spark to bloom.

"And now we're all beating the odds, so it's my thought that the mechs like me?" You meet Krok's optics in the mirror. He looks troubled. "We're probably more than .1% of the ranks on either side, now. Probably closer to 15%, maybe 20%. Statistically speaking, we can just take more abuse before we kick it."

You can see Krok get it. How many mechs can go through reforging, fall out of a drop ship, survive the impact, then still miraculously survive statis?

"Everyone dies around me," you say as Misfire's armor settles down over your own, "and I keep going."

It's an uncomfortable fact of your life, but not a new one.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Nine

[* * * * *]

"Protect Me" - Grimlock

[* * * * *]

Krok sprints in front of you, running flat out, and you're on his heels. You're sure you're about to die.

The door up ahead slides open, and all you can think is that they got ahead of you. Somehow, they got ahead in the ship!

But it's Crankcase who steps out, palms Krok's forehelm, and throws him to the ground in one quick move. Slick move. Krok yells as he goes down and skids past the door, but Crankcase just turns to give you a narrow glare.

"Down."

You hit the deck as Crankcase dodges to the side and Grimlock storms out. The Dynobot comes into the hall already transforming, and the whirl of clicking, moving parts stomps forward three steps. They're so heavy they shake the hallway. A leg thicker than your entire body plunges downward, barely missing you, and the foot dents the floor beside your head as you desperately roll.

The tangle of massive, powerful limbs resolves into a bestial form almost too big for the corridor. You fetch up against the wall, knocking the breath out of yourself, and when you look up, there is a mountain of Dynobot looming above you. From your angle, he's all impenetrable armor and sharp teeth.

Your pursuers round the corner, and flames lick out around those teeth. The oncoming tide of feet stumble to a halt, and then into reverse - but they're a shade too slow.

"Me Grimlock no like you!" Grimlock roars, and fire fills the world to overflowing.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Ten

[* * * * *]

"Snow" - Fulcrum

[* * * * *]

It's not a bad place to be abandoned. Sure, there's that whole abandonment part, but really, it could be worse. Clemency isn't a bad place. Desolate, covered in dead bodies, and eerie at night, but not really bad.

You've been in bad. Clemency is still far preferable to Styx.

You wish you weren't alone, but oh well. Prison beat being dead, Clemency beat prison, and you can't honestly blame Krok for telling you to turn around and start walking. You count yourself lucky he didn't shoot you in the head. Your lie got Flywheels killed and the rest of the makeshift unit pounded to scrap and back by the Justice Division. You got a taste of how protective Krok is, and you were expecting him to join in on the impromptu unit discipline, not interrupt it and kick you out of the unit entirely. Spinister and Misfire both looked like they wanted to tear you to pieces. Crankcase turned and stomped toward the ship after Krok stopped the beating.

You're grateful to the officer. You're a little worse for wear and a lot hurting at the moment, but at least you are alive. Krok told you to go, and you went. You'd have run if running didn't hurt so much.

You find a small hole between a downed mobile artillery platform and the huge mech who took it out, and you curl up in the makeshift shelter to let your self-repair work. Sometime during the night, a loud rumble shakes the corpse, and you spot lights high above when you peek out. The W.A.P. launches, and that's the last you see of anybody.

The war's over. Eventually, somebody will come back to Clemency, maybe looking for scrap to recycle, maybe searching for history. You have to survive until then, and hope that the Autobots really did win the war. You really hope that the D.J.D. don't think to search for you again, especially in the place you supposedly died. Let them think that you exploded.

Since you are alive, however, you have to scavenge. Krok's group taught you that much. There are enough tiny sips of fuel left on this world of dead bodies to sustain you indefinitely, if you're careful. You find a crashed ship that isn't full of creeptastic scary slag and statis-locked Dynobots, and you make a home there as best you can.

It's not a great life, but it beats being dead.

Clemency's not a bad place to be abandoned. You tell yourself that over, and over, and over again. Sometimes you tell yourself it so much, you almost believe yourself. You talk to the corpses, commenting on cause of death and philosophy behind the factions. You build big fires and stare into the flames until you see double of everything, and nothing looks familiar despite everything looking the same.

If only the ground wasn't so cold, and the sky so big and empty.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Eleven

[* * * * *]

Misfire - "Order"

[* * * * *]

There was a method to his madness. Krok originally thought Misfire could make a mess of anything, but the flyer soon changed his mind. *"What is this?"* the jet asked the first day Krok sent him to retrieve everyone's ration. *"What the - no, what the fragging Pit is wrong with you people?! Ugh. Stay hungry for a while, folks. I've got this."*

Attempted contact via commlink got nothing. When Krok went after him, he found the storage room looking like a complete disaster area. The unit's scrounged dregs and dribbles of energon were in cubes, but the cubes had been stacked up in disordered towers. The chaos made measuring out every mech's ration a long, tedious process of testing potency and averaging out the cubes into the correct amount. Misfire had the entire selection of cubes spread out over the floor and up on the shelves in some kind of system Krok couldn't even begin to understand.

"What are you doing?" the officer asked after cautiously peering through the door for a while. Honestly, he'd expected an explosion. This looked like nothing he could figure out.

When he concentrated hard, Misfire resembled an odd sort of scientist. Right now he was concentrating on the meter stuck in the half-full cube he held, reading the energy output in this particular blend and calculating what grade of energon he'd have to mix in to make a full cube. His goal was to make three stacks of the three most common blends the Decepticons generally kept stocked. It wasn't that difficult a task, but it required testing and sorting every single one of these collected dribbles of fuel. That was a tedious organizational duty the other Decepticons onboard had been avoiding.

"Working," the jet said shortly.

Krok studied the system as if it'd make sense if he stared at it longer. "I…see." He thought about it for a minute. "Congratulations, Misfire."

That got the maroon flyer to look up. "Uh, thanks? What'd I do?"

"You got promoted. You're in charge of the fuel stock from now on."

"Oh." Well, that was good. Since he was taking over anyway. He shrugged and went back to working.

Krok was a smart Decepticon, no doubt about it, and Misfire got that storage room organized.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twelve

[* * * * *]

Scavengers - Coffee Shop AU

[* * * * *]

"Welcome to Star Saber," four extremely bored voices said when Fulcrum pushed the door open. The chorus was so well-practiced it came out in one long slurry, like a giant word in sentence format. "Would you like to try a Mocha Frappe Caramel Latte Energon Freeze today?"

He paused and let his optics adjust. "Uh, no?"

The barista slumped over the cash register didn't even look up. "Okay. Whatcha want?"

His nametag was upside-down and mostly falling off his wing. Fulcrum squinted at it when he came up to the counter. It could have said either 'Hello! I'm Misfire!' or 'Help! I'm on fire!'

"I was hoping you...do you guys even have a menu?" He glanced around, temporarily derailed from job-searching by the strange lack of menu.

That got the bored mech to look up from doodling on a receipt, at least. "Nope. We've got me. Best drink-matcher on this side of Cybertron. You look like a guy who needs a Red-Eye. Spinister! Make a Red-Eye!"

"But I don't want - nevermind." He'd always preferred cold drinks, but the barista on the far end of the counter perked up so much he didn't have the spark to tell him no. A double shot of espresso cut with mineral oil sounded awful, but maybe buying something would make the manager regard him a little more favorably. Although if that guy scowling at him from the espresso machine was the manager, a mere drink purchase just wouldn't cut it.

Fulcrum hauled out one of his dwindling supply of shanix. "How much?"

Suddenly Misfire was being pushed aside by someone whose nametag was scrupulously placed and inscribed with an obnoxious 'Primus Loves You!' message. Flywheels rang him up and shuffled him along to wait for his drink at the end of the counter.

Despite the interruption, Misfire hadn't stopped talking. Not talking with Fulcrum, but certainly talking at him. It was kind of amazing. Fulcrum absently accepted the drink from Spinister and took a swig, still staring at the chattering jet.

...oh, hey, this Red-Eye wasn't half-bad. Maybe Misfire really was a drink-matcher.

Right about the third time Fulcrum tried to interject a word into the hyperactive monologue, a fifth employee came out of the door to the back room. "Misfire!"

"Eep!"

"You'll have to excuse him," the new mech said as Misfire scurried back to the cash register and his doodling. "He's a little hyped on caffeine right now."

The nametag said 'Krok.' It also said that this was the Star Saber manager. Fulcrum gulped the last of his Red-Eye for courage and took a deep breath. Time to ask about that job. What was the worst that could happen?

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Thirteen

[* * * * *]

Overlord/Fulcrum - "TWO MECHS WALK IN TO A BAR…"

[* * * * *]

Well, Overlord walked. Fulcrum had apparently arrived surfing a wave of engex, or at least he smelled like it. It was late in the night cycle and the bar was mostly full of recharging Decepticons. They were ripe for rolling for loose shanix when the bartender finished coaxing his last customer into slumber. Fulcrum, however, could hold his engex like nobody's business and was still swilling the stuff back no matter how much the bartender pushed in front of him.

Which was when Overlord walked in.

Now, normally the story would go 'And the arrival of a notorious Phase Sixer silenced the room,' but not only was it pretty quiet already, but Overlord stopped dead in his tracks because that was a chin that could silence him. Not surprisingly, Overlord had a bit of a thing for exaggerated facial features. And dear Primus, but Fulcrum delivered that unsung fetish by the shipload.

Unfortunately for Overlord's suddenly titillated libido, the little techie figured out he was being hit on three sentences in and laughed uproariously. "I," Fulcrum stated, "don't find large mechs attractive at all." He peered blurrily at the huge Phase Sixer, totally not recognizing him. "Sorry. Nothing personal."

Overlord was not a mech used to being denied, much less right to his face. Fulcrum wasn't normally a mech who'd say such things, either, but here they were and that's exactly what had just happened, so there they sat. Fulcrum grinned, drunk silly, and took another shot.

Overlord's optics narrowed. Challenge accepted.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Fourteen (Lost Light: 1)

[* * * * *]

Other universes: "Scavengers (or Lost Light) - a tribble problem"

[* * * * *]

It started with six mechs. Five relatively harmless Decepticons, one brain-dead Autobot, and the biggest set of pleading optics Rodimus had ever run up against. Misfire came on-screen when the W.A.P. hailed the Lost Light, and that was the end of it. Ultra Magnus could say what he wanted about the potential criminals running loose on the ship, but that described most mechs in his optics, so nobody took that very seriously. Those big red optics kind of trumped any argument the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord could come up with, anyway, and what the optics didn't demolish, Fulcrum argued into the ground.

Ultra Magnus held a strange sort of respect for Fulcrum. Fulcrum huffed and grumbled and seemed to be thinking about becoming a lawyer.

The fact that the small band of Decepticons handed over Grimlock with no complaint helped their case. The fact that Spinister sternly lectured Ratchet on the Dynobot's care didn't endear him to the medic, but it did demonstrate that the Scavengers cared more about Grimlock than they showed. In fact, the care they displayed for each other was remarkable for Decepticons. They tried not to show that fact.

The Autobots in Swerve's bar mused that they probably weren't aware that they were showing it. They probably thought they were being tough and macho.

Even Cyclonus barked a laugh when that was suggested, which made Whirl swear mightily because that meant had to pay up on his bet with Skids that the purple mech had no sense of humor. Tailgate squeezed his hands under his chin and called the five Decepticons 'cute,' but he found a lot of inappropriate things attractive. Nobody cared what he thought on the subject. The rest of the Autobots scoffed. There was no way they'd ever apply the word 'cute' to a bunch of Decepticons. Skids muttered dire threats of dismemberment into his drink whenever Misfire got within half a ship of him. Chromedome pointedly put himself between the 'Cons and Rewind. The other Autobots weren't any more polite about their anger and resentment.

Murderers! Thieves! All of them!

Besides, Crankcase said stuff like "Bah!" out loud. What kind of mech did that? That slag just wasn't right.

In the course of three weeks, that opinion kind of shifted. Not all at once, and not even on purpose. The ragtap group of Decepticons was prone to petty theft and wouldn't hesitate to off an Autobot or six if there were some way they could get away with it. Everyone knew that. It was just that they were everywhere, got into everything, and were sort of really lame when it came to being threatening when up against, well, anyone who wasn't half-dead. On the surface, the crew of the Lost Light still hated the Scavengers' collective guts because the misfits were still Decepticons. More and more, however, the Autobots were starting to watch the hopeless failures in amusement.

Autobots and Decepticons weren't really enemies anymore, after all. It was okay to not be completely hostile toward them, right? Plus, movie night got kind of old after a while, but Misfire's baffled speculations (surely not all of the bizarre things he referred to actually happened?) over what he'd done to earn Skids' hatred never got boring.

Yeah, the Autobots were doing a nice job justifying themselves. The word 'cute' got bandied around the bar more and more often. The fact that they were discussing the Scavengers with such terminology was merely incidental.

Ratchet caught the Decepticons not-quite-casually clustering outside the medibay doors while Crankcase was being examined. He kicked them off down the hall. They lurked around the corner until Crankcase insisted on bringing Spinister in when Ratchet brought up surgery, and then they all came crowding in. When the Ark's chief medic refused to include Spinister in the operation, Krok broke out rules and regulations about assuming responsibilities for his mechs' health. Then Crankcase refused to even consider treatment unless there was Decepticon medic involved, and since Spinister was the only Decepticon medic onboard, that was that.

It took three shots of Swerve's knock-'em-out engex for Ratchet to stop fuming, later. "Krok looked like he was going to fight me over it." The medic ran a hand down his face and reached for another shot. "…that should not be cute."

But it was. It was even cuter when the whole group camped out in the corridor when Crankcase went into surgery. Misfire brought snacks. Fulcrum coaxed Grimlock into transforming and lying down, whereupon he draped a tarp over the Dynobot and turned him into a strange kind of tent-fort. It looked like it wasn't the first time they'd done it, because Misfire immediately scuttled inside Fort Dynobot, and Krok perched on top to glower like an irate sentry at anyone who dared pass by. The intimidation factor was lost in the sound of Grimlock's engine-purr.

"They said they were playing cards," Ambulon griped, head in his hands. "I just…I let them in to go see him." A ripple of muffled snickering went around the bar. He bristled defensively. "There was a Dynobot staring at me! Don't judge me until you've had something with that many teeth stare you down."

Misfire glomped Tailgate when the little Bomb Disposal expert helped Ratchet figure out how to disarm the trigger in Fulcrum's tanks. Okay, to be honest, it was mostly Ratchet, but Ratchet wasn't small and nonthreatening. He'd have probably put the Decepticon through a wall if Misfire tried hugging him, so the jet just went for Tailgate. Fulcrum dazedly did likewise. Spinister picked them all up and spun them around. Krok radiated approval and relief, for all that he limited himself to patting the Minibot on the shoulder once Spinister finally let them go. Crankcase snorted but gave him a nod of thanks.

"I didn't say anything!" Tailgate protested when he walked into the bar to face a wall of expectant looks.

Whirl didn't have to say anything. He wore streaks of Spinister's paint and rotor-slashes proudly. First Aid was the one who gushed when he skipped into the bar later that shift.

"Krok was sputtering, it was adorable," the ex-nurse giggled while everyone pretended not to be eavesdropping. "He wanted to go straight to Ultra Magnus to file a complaint, but Spinister just wanted to get the bulletholes patched in time for 'Round Two.' You should have seen their faces when the rest of them figured out what he meant by that."

The rest of the Autobots didn't have to. They could clearly see the swagger in Whirl's step when he left soon after, and that was far more than any of them wanted to ever see. Crankcase's beeline to the bar got a cleared path instead of belligerence, for once, and Skids actually slid a glass of engex down the bar when Misfire melodramatically collapsed over it. The drink was poisoned, of course, but the sentiment was appreciated. Fulcrum had to talk the jet out of drinking it anyway, just to clear the mental pictures away.

Unfortunately for their peace of mind, Krok had a panic attack when nobody could find either of the rotary mechs three hours later. There was a search. Everyone approached closed doors with the expectation of opening it to psychological damage and possibly weapons' fire on the other side.

By hour five, Krok lost it completely and stormed onto the ship's bridge. He accused Ultra Magnus of disposing of his surgeon. Fulcrum, Misfire, and Crankcase desperately kept a hold on their officer, apologizing in snatches between wrestling him down. Watching the dignified strategist pitching a fit at the much, much larger executive officer made for grand entertainment. Ultra Magnus kept an entirely blank face the whole time. Rodimus laughed himself silly.

The rest of the bridge shift joined him when Whirl poked his head into sight on the bridge's wide viewing window. Spinister sheepishly waved at everyone from behind the Autobot rotary mech. They both looked scratched up and battered, but tremendously satisfied with themselves.

Krok promptly stomped over and began yelling at them both. Despite the fact that they couldn't hear him. Whirl appeared to be making commentary right back at him, which only made Krok froth all the more. The other three Scavengers ran off and found Grimlock to restrain their overly possessive officer before he tried going outside of the ship to rip a strip off Whirl.

That backfired when Krok recruited Grimlock to wait with him at the airlock for Spinister and Whirl to return. Ultra Magnus put himself between the Decepticon officer and his own troublemaker. Krok ignored the Autobot rotary mech save for one furious glare after an icy stare-down with the Lost Light's Second-in-Command. Whirl complained bitterly as he was taken away from the free entertainment in order to be written up for violating nine different fraternization rules. The rest of the Autobots who'd arrived in time for the show stuck around.

All four Scavengers whined pathetically when their officer demanded curfews and chaperones, or at least asking permission beforehand. Permission for what wasn't stated. That was fine. The watching crowd of Autobots was already laughing so hard they needed to lean on each other.

The 'c'-word got said a lot in the bar that night.

Then Krok decided that if he couldn't fight it, he'd just up and deal with the problem the old-fashioned way. It took another week for Whirl to figure out that he'd been adopted into the unit. Two, for the Autobots to figure out Tailgate had been absorbed, too.

Cyclonus didn't like how Krok began eyeing him. Ambulon became suspicious when Spinister hung out in the medibay more often. Fulcrum gave that amiable smile, and the next thing mechs knew, there were a 'If found, please call Krok' comm. frequency tags attached to various bits of anatomy. Misfire began actively trolling for other flyers, and argh, those optics.

It started with six Scavengers: five Decepticons, and one brain-dead Autobot. It soon spread, as much as nobody wanted to admit it.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Fifteen (Lost Light: 2)

[* * * * *]

Other universes: Fulcrum -"He REALLY wants to read that book."/center

[* * * * *]

The Scavengers didn't start out wandering freely around the Lost Light. No, Ultra Magnus would have never allowed that. Misfire had gotten Rodimus on their side with the wide optics and never-ending chatter, but that just meant the Autobots rescued the Decepticons from their derelict hunk of junk. The W.A.P. had been floating powerless through space for enough time that rescue by anybody was welcome.

Ultra Magnus and a team met the 'Cons at the airlock to escort them straight to the brig. The leader of the small Decepticon group stepped on board and looked up at the much taller, much bulkier mech waiting for him, and Krok swallowed visibly. Then he braced himself, folded his arms, and put up his chin defiantly. There was a slight bit of respect awarded him by the Autobots for managing that much.

"I am Krok, acting captain of the Weak Anthropic Principle."

"That's a really weird name," someone commented from the back.

Krok ignored whomever it'd been. "I take full responsibility for my mechs in this," one optic twitched in distaste for having to submit to Autobots, "situation. All issues should be addressed to me as their commander. Got it?"

The aura of steely control the scarred mech was trying to project was somewhat sabotaged by the scowling Decepticon with a head injury standing by his shoulder, and the slender orange-and-tan mech who appeared to be trying to hide behind him. Fulcrum nervously peered around Krok's arm and ventured a smile that crumbled around the edges. As the armed, impatiently waiting Autobots recognized the K-Con's frametype, Krok faced off with the ship's executive officer like he'd take the Autobot on if Ultra Magnus tried pulling something on his unit.

That's approximately when Grimlock barreled through the tense group, however. That kind of pre-empted any words being traded about a K-Class mech being allowed onboard.

The shocked assembly stared after the rampaging reptilian creature that'd just plowed into them and continued stomping down the corridor. "Grimlock?" Ultra Magnus ventured, sounding a teensy bit off-balance for once in his life. "That was Grimlock, was it not? What is he doing here?" Meaning, what was a notorious Autobot beserker doing aboard a Decepticon ship?

Krok put a hand to his still-tender facial mask. "Ah. Erm. Yes. About that. I didn't, ah, precisely know how to bring up that we had a passenger, considering his…distorted state of mind - "

Spinister tried to follow the Dynobot, at that point, and accidently knocked the three Decepticons already in the airlock sprawling out into the confused Autobot posse. Fulcrum jumped into Ultra Magnus' arms, propelled by sheer about-to-get-trampled panic and a surgeon directly to the back struts. Krok took out Skids by faceplanting into his knees, and Crankcase might have intentionally tripped up Whirl. One never knew, with Crankcase. Misfire bounded out of the airlock and cleared the whole flailing mess in one neat flip in and out of his altmode, landing on his feet on the other side and taking off after Grimlock.

He was still pleading for him to stop at the top of his voice. The Autobots would have shot the jet, but there was just something incredibly not-threatening about a Decepticon chasing a Dynobot through the ship yelling, "Tummy rubs, Grimmy! Grimlock! Grimmy, c'mon!"

Ultra Magnus stood there, face a mask. His hands were rigid, as if unable to believe what they were holding. His errant Deceptidamsel in distress abruptly realized just who he'd been clinging to. The K-Con looked up at him, face horrified, and let go of him. Fulcrum promptly fell splat onto the floor with a sound much like a latex balloon having sex with a glitchmouse: sort of a squeak-pop without even a pretense of pride about it.

Krok scrambled upright and looked after his hyperactive subordinate. Misfire skidded around a corner still yelling his helm off. His commander groaned as he hung his head. "Fulcrum! Spinister! Dynobot duty, now!"

"Dynobot duty..?" that same somebody repeated in from the crowd, sounding a little dumbfounded this time.

"I thought I was on Dynobot duty already," Spinister asked, hesitating, but Fulcrum zipped past him as the K-Con pelted after Grimlock. "Wait! Wait for me! I've got his treats!" The rotary mech took off down the corridor, too, waving a box of energon goodies above his head as he ran.

The Autobots collectively looked at each other, looked at Crankcase giving them a 'Yeah, what of it?' glare, and moseyed on after the loud chase crashing its way through the Lost Light. Someone distantly shrieked what sounded like, "Sit! Sit - don't eat that! Don't eat him!"

"Explain," Ultra Magnus demanded curtly once the last Autobot turned the corner.

Krok had a despairing look to his optics. "I would if I could. Does your captain's insurance accept 'accidental survival' as viable cause of damage?"

"…we don't have insurance."

That got a sigh. The Decepticon hadn't expected differently, really. "A mech could hope."

It took Misfire to chase him, Spinister to lay out a bait-trail of treats into a corner, and Fulcrum sitting in the corner ready with tummy rubs and jaw skritches in order to subdue Grimlock. The three 'Cons swarmed the Dynobot, petting and cooing and prodding until the huge, brain-damaged mech finally calmed down enough to transform back to rootmode. By then, there was an audience and no hope for dignity. Krok had wandered after his ragtag crew, and he stood there watching them push Grimlock along toward the medibay. The officer looked resigned to his fate. He trailed after them.

Ultra Magnus, at a loss for what rule covered this situation, settled for acting as Crankcase's armed escort. Crankcase bitched the whole way.

When Grimlock finally made it to the medibay, Fulcrum and Misfire tackled introducing him to First Aid.

"He…faid?"

"First Aid."

"He afraid."

"No, he's Fir - oh, well, no, you're right. That's Fulcrum, and yeah, he's afraid 90% of the time. Who taught you that? Ah heh heh, nope, don't know who could have possibly taught you that." Fulcrum scowled, optics narrowing slowly. Misfire gave an embarrassed grin at the watching group of Autobots and hurriedly pushed Grimlock's hand down, away from pointing at the K-Con. The purple jet reached up and turned the Dynobot's head back toward First Aid. "Nevermind. We're talking about him, now. Remember him? Try to remember him. He's First Aid. Come on, say it with me. Feeeeeer-stuh Aaaaaaa-duh. Now you try."

"He ferust paid."

"No! First Aid. First! Aid!"

"You know, it's quite alright if he doesn't - "

"No, you don't understand," Fulcrum interrupted the medic, gesturing in a distressed and impatient manner. "If he calls you by the wrong name, he will get angry if someone else calls you by another name." He paused and thought a moment. First Aid probably had no idea what he meant by that. He hadn't been shut into a derelict ship with a Dynobot for a month; the medic didn't know what Grimlock was capable of. "He will attempt to bite the head off of anyone who 'mispronounces' your new name," he clarified.

"...I…see." First Aid stared at the impromptu name lesson. "And…how long will it take to..?"

"It took us two weeks to get him to stop chewing on Misfire's leg every time he forgot to address Krok as 'sir'."

Meanwhile, Krok tried to explain what was going on to Ultra Magnus, who was having trouble reconciling reality as the Scavengers knew it with anything that resembled reality as everyone else saw it. Rodimus could have probably told Krok it was a fruitless task. Ultra Magnus has a special perspective on reality all his own.

"A coward, you say."

"Convicted and everything." The Decepticon officer would have slouched against a wall if he wasn't having a body language contest of some kind with the Duly Appointed Enforcer. They seemed to be trying to determine who could have straighter back struts and more tightly folded arms. The watching crowd of Autobots were giving him full marks for even attempting to out-do Ultra Magnus, even if he didn't stand a chance without a building girder shoved somewhere unmentionable. "He's got the worst case of bad altmode I've ever seen. He'll be a very happy mech if your medics know how to disable his kill-switch."

The towering Autobot went deathly still. "He has a kill-switch."

Krok could never hope to compete at the Ultra Magnus level of robotic body management. The only things being communicated by Ultra Magnus right now were frowning and disapproval. Krok couldn't completely erase exasperation from his own body language. "He's as disarmed as we could make him. We're not suicidal, Magnus. Especially not Fulcrum! I suggest letting Spinister run an analysis of your ration grade energon before giving it to him, if your medics won't help him, and he'll be fine."

While Ultra Magnus absorbed that fun fact, Spinister was in the back of the medibay delivering a lecture about Dynobot care to Ratchet. Ratchet stared in speechless affront up until the Decepticon surgeon descended into medical terminology describing what he'd already observed and tried for treatment. The Autobot Chief Medical Officer sucked in a deep vent, smashed his temper down, and started taking notes. Ultra Magnus had to cuff and bodily haul Spinister away from the rather heated debate that developed on whether or not an operation would help the Dynobot recover, and Ratchet followed them to the medibay door still arguing.

All in all, the Scavengers accepted being put in the brig with credible aplomb. Except for Crankcase, but…meh. It was Crankcase.

Ultra Magnus wisely decided to isolate the Scavengers in a cell by themselves. They didn't seem to quite belong with the brute squad that the Lost Light had liberated Temptoria from. The rescued group of oddball Decepticons stared through the bars at the rest of the brig, which was full of battered 'Cons arrested after battle, and Fulcrum looked openly grateful for the bars between them. The small band of mechs was roughed-up, too, but their injuries didn't make them fit in. Despite how tough Crankcase tried to act, and how Misfire exchanged blatantly false stories with the mechs in the nearest cell, the other Decepticons kept looking at the group suspiciously as Ultra Magnus took down their designations and I.D. stats. Maybe it was how cooperative they were being. Maybe it was how they had a K-Con in their midst as if he were hiding behind them.

Regardless, the brig had the feeling of a group of turbofoxes staring through bars at a bunch of petrorabbits. The Scavengers were better off separate. There was just something off about them.

Prisoner induction went well. As compared to what was a question better left unasked.

Krok stiffly gave the requested information and nothing but the requested information. Fulcrum mumbled his way through the induction, attempting to keep his voice lowered enough that the other Decepticons couldn't hear. Crankcase had a half hour argument with the Duly Appointed Enforcer about whether his name should be entered as 'Crank Case,' 'CrankCase,' or 'Crankcase.' And by argument, that meant Crankcase kept going "Bah!" instead of telling Ultra Magnus the proper spelling of his name, which gave the Autobot conniptions. Apparently, Ultra Magnus had a thing for proper rules and regulations, and someone, somewhere, had mis-entered Crankcase's name in the files. Not just once, but twice. Ultra Magnus was furious and determined to correct this travesty.

Misfire, on the other wing, had no problem giving the Autobot all the information he asked for and then some. The jet gave his designation, I.D. stats, date of forging, last paint color, top speed, preferred atmospheric composition, and asked if he could have his siphoning kit back to start distilling some decent high grade. "What? We'll share. Nothing beats a brig party," he said matter-of-factly. The guard on duty behind the Autobot officer gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and Misfire grinned brightly when the rest of the Decepticons stirred, suddenly interested.

Ultra Magnus shuttered his optics slowly and turned to the next Scavenger with the mechanical efficiency of one who was carefully not reacting to what had just been babbled at him. Spinister responded to his questions by punching the wall several times.

"No, no, this is good," Krok assured the Autobot when the mech's perpetual disapproving frown deepened. "He'd have aimed for someone if he was angry."

Misfire and Fulcrum stood watching, arms folded and expressions thoughtful as they evaluated the violence. "Yeah, he's aiming high. I think he's trying to remember a date." Their heads tipped to one side to study the dents in the wall. "Oo, double punch. Definitely a number of some kind."

Everyone just stared until Spinister finished, turned, and calmly handed over his information as if nothing had happened.

Krok immediately got in an argument with the highest-ranked Decepticon there about how to treat subordinates, as the other officer snorted derisively and muttered about how that kind of behavior wouldn't be tolerated in his unit. "You'd prefer I lay into my unit's only medic?"

"That's a medic?" The officer gaped at Spinister, who was blinking at a thin trickle of fuel now staining the wall. "How the frag did you survive this long?!"

"By not indiscriminately handing out beatings to my mechs," Krok said bluntly.

The larger, nastier-looking Decepticon officer moved to the front of his cell, shoving aside the mechs who didn't skitter out of his way in time. "Are you trying to say something, cogsucker?"

Krok looked pointedly at the Decepticon who'd been knocked down by the other officer. The mech was slowly climbing back to his feet, but he froze as he became the focus of half the brig. "I've never pushed my unit around that way." Krok's chin went up smugly. "Of course, I've never had to."

The offended 'Con glared, optics flaring brightly. The mechs in the cell with him pressed themselves as far away from the Enraged Officer Vibes emanating off him as they could get. The poor 'Con at his feet didn't dare move, but it was obvious to the rest of the brig that the pleading look he wore certainly wasn't directed at his own commander. Krok looked smugger. The other officer just looked angrier, not knowing how he'd lost this round but feeling that he somehow had.

Spinister wandered idly through the stare-down. He looked between the two officers, mildly confused, then gave Krok an inquiring look. "No shooting," Krok ordered him. He added, "No poking." The surgeon put his rotor blades back. "No surgery, either!"

By now, the other officer was looking slightly alarmed. The mech at his feet inched out of reach while he was distracted.

Spinister put his field kit back and scratched at his arm until he popped a pebble out from between armor plates. He held it up and turned hopeful optics on his commander. Krok heaved a sigh and shrugged. The rotary mech happily plopped himself down in front of the bars and started aiming. Misfire crowed triumphantly and hiked up a foot to find more ammo for the surgeon as the rival Decepticon officer beat a hasty retreat to the back of his cell, trying to get out of pebble-flicking range. Crankcase snickered meanly and let Misfire lean against him. Krok shook his head at his subordinates but didn't try to stop their fun.

The rest of the Decepticons could only watch, mystified.

Ultra Magnus had been frowning, entering information and heavily disapproving of the byplay. Spinister's removable rotors got a double portion of frowning heaped upon him, but even dumb, violent Decepticon surgeons were afforded respect and more liberties than their comrades. Regulations stated that as long as he caused no problems, Spinister could keep his unpowered, unloaded weaponry and medical equipment. That didn't mean the Autobots wouldn't be watching every single move he made, ready to take them away if he made a hostile move.

"What are we being charged with, anyway?" Fulcrum risked asking when Ultra Magnus finished working.

The Duly Appointed Enforcer had looked down at the slender K-Con and frowned. Not unhappily, this time; frowning was just his default expression. "You are Decepticons."

"Yeah, but…the war's over, right? And we didn't attack you." He gestured at the rest of the brig to indicate the different circumstances behind the two Decepticon groups' arrivals on this ship. "Sure, we lost," Krok flinched violently at the reminder, because that had not been news he'd wanted, "but why are you treating us like criminals? We just want to go home."

"You are Decepticons," Ultra Magnus repeated. There was a loud ping! and yelp as Spinister scored. "The probability that you have committed and will commit further criminal activity is near 100%."

Fulcrum actually scoffed. "I could say that about any mech I've ever met in this war, neutral or Decepticon. Why isn't that Whirl guy down here in the brig, if you're brigging us for potential criminal activity?" The officer in the other celled snarled to himself, holding a hand to the fresh dent on his helm. His mechs were discreetly passing the tiny stones from hand-to-hand and rolling them through the bars back to Spinister. "You have no evidence or actual criminal charges on us, but he tried to take Crankcase's head off after you'd put the cuffs on us!"

Everyone stared at Fulcrum. The pebble-passing came to a temporary halt as even Spinister stopped and stared. The Decepticons in the other cells probably only saw a K-Class mech indulging in the suicidal bravado common to his frametype, but the Scavengers were stunned. Was their little reformatted techie standing up to Ultra fragging Magnus?

"I am a Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord," said the Autobot himself. His stern expression implied that the title was explanation enough.

That could have been true for most mechs, perhaps, but this Decepticon had an ingrained doubt of blindingly agreeing with distant authority figures, now. What the frag. He'd gotten away with disagreeing with the Decepticon Justice Division over fundamental philosophy. Fulcrum could be suspicious of Ultra Magnus, too. "You know, I've never even seen that Accord. For all I know, you're just making up things to justify imprisoning Decepticons in general."

That got an offended huff, and the Lost Light's executive officer turned to leave. "I will send you a copy."

"You do that."

And he did. Ultra Magnus kept his word, at least. Fulcrum accepted the datapad sent down via the change in the brig guards. He sat down in the corner of the cell to read, impressive chin set at a stubborn angle. He exuded grim concentration. Even Misfire left him alone after a brief look-over for more pebbles to torment the cursing 'Con officer next door with.

Fulcrum had this weird thing where he managed to duck any and all expectations everybody held of him. He was a K-Con convicted of cowardice. He was a K-Con technician. He was a K-Con survivor. He was a Decepticon who'd never killed an Autobot. He was a Decepticon who didn't really like violence, although he didn't find it morally wrong. He didn't even have a gun of his own. He lived through dying for the Decepticon Cause, only to try and die for a group of Decepticons, and then he'd managed to live through that, too.

He was also disproportionately smart when it came to splitting technicalities.

"This reads like a user manual for politics," Krok heard him mumble. The officer stopped short when he overheard that. After a long, considering look at his unpredictable subordinate, he casually walked across the cell. He took care not to make any sudden movements. He quietly got Spinister and Misfire to stop plinking the rival officer with stones and relocated the rest of his unit to the other side of the cell.

Where he stayed throughout the argument, standing in front of them almost protectively as Fulcrum stalked up to the front of the cell to lay into the Duly Appointed Really Scary Autobot the next time Ultra Magnus came down to inspect the brig. Crankcase, Spinister, and Misfire were content to stay behind him. It was safer to watch such shows from behind a barricade. Some things were too bizarre to get closer to.

The argument baffled the entire brig. It started out reasonable enough, but it delved into legal jargon fairly quickly and led to both mechs raising their voices as they got more passionate on the subject. An hour in, and Fulcrum was railing through the bars at Ultra Magnus, who was tight-lipped and peeved about some sort of footnote in Section 4.11 about jurisdictions. The two mechs bickered back and forth, citing passages and references with viciously pointed fingers and much hand-waving.

Ultra Magnus ended up making a thoughtful retreat to check his own notes. Fulcrum glowered after him before scrunching back into his corner. He muttered ferociously to himself, rereading and scribbling furiously on the datapad.

The Decepticons in the other cells regarded him with a strange sort of awe. He'd just made Ultra Magnus back down. Truly, the K-Class were strange and brave.

Misfire tried to swipe the datapad to catch a look, and the K-Con thwapped him upside the head for interrupting. He got a glimpse anyway.

"It looked like some sort of mystic sorcery," the jet whispered to the others. "All the words look normal, but frag if I know what they meant."

"Political jargon," Krok said, peering over at the tan-and-orange mech. "I didn't know you were interested in politics."

"Mm?" Fulcrum didn't look up from his work. There were technicalities to be exploited, here. "No thanks, Spinister. My tanks are topped up."

"I'm Krok."

"That's nice, Spinny."

"What'd I say?" Spinister asked, bewildered.

"Shut up, Crankcase. Can't you see I'm busy?"

The other Scavengers looked at each other. They looked at Fulcrum. Then they quietly settled down in the far corner of the cell and continued whispering to each other.

Altmode kibble fluffed up when Ultra Magnus came back. The way Fulcrum's altmode hinged, he literally got his back up when he was irritated. It was a warning sign that everyone took heed of, this time around. Decepticons throughout the brig were torn between being glued to the front of their cells, or plastering themselves against the far wall, away from the potential blast radius.

"I feel like I should be restraining him," Krok said as his techie bolted upright to take on the huge Autobot. Round Two: go! "Or rescuing the Autobot," he added half an hour later when Fulcrum was shoving his datapad through the bars and stridently browbeating the Duly Appointed Enforcer with footnotes.

It took three hours of jargon-filled debate before Rodimus came down looking for his missing executive officer. He walked in right when the discussion about Subsection 43 degenerated to outright yelling back and forth. The young captain watched them go at it for a while. He looked hopelessly confused by whatever was being argued, but helplessly amused by it all the same.

Ultra Magnus caught him smiling and stormed out in an offended huff. Something about not being a 'figure of fun.'

Rodimus turned to watch him leave. "Can you do that again?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Rrrrr," Fulcrum grumble-mutter-growled, still riled and clutching the datapad like a weapon.

The other four Scavengers were clustered as far away from him as they could get. Krok had collected his three less confrontational mechs behind himself for protection, again, and he shuffled a bit to keep his little flock together as curiosity overrode common sense. He shooed Misfire and Spinister back together as he watched Fulcrum and Rodimus warily. He didn't know what the young captain was up to, but he hoped he wouldn't have to get between his unit's unexpectedly feisty K-Con and the Autobot.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'." The brightly-colored mech walked over and deactivated the bars. "You guys be good, now," he said as he opened the cell. He smirked and waved over his shoulder as he left. "I'll clear your presence onboard. Check in with Ratchet, will you? That head thing probably should be looked at." Crankcase stiffened.

Fulcrum just marched straight to the Autobot on guard duty. "Where's that fragging stylus-chewer's office?!"

"What…just happened?" Misfire asked a few minutes after Fulcrum got his directions and took off to find Ultra Magnus.

Krok made a command decision. "I don't want to know."

And that's how the Scavengers ended up wandering freely around the Lost Light.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Sixteen

[* * * * *]

"Universal pet antics"

[* * * * *]

"Lookit. Lookit." Misfire elbowed Crankcase, who lowered his cube to glare at the jet pestering him. "Lookit what I got him to do."

Crankcase followed Misfire's pointing finger and blinked. "What the slag-sucking Pit-spawn…"

The flyer grinned. "Isn't it great?"

"'Great' isn't exactly what I thought of first," Ratchet said, and his head tilted slowly to the side as if the change in perspective would help him understand. "Why the frag would you teach him that?"

Sunstreaker shrugged and quickly reached out to adjust the tiny cube of energon before it slid off Bob's facial grill. "Why does anyone teach a pet tricks? Because I was bored, and I wanted to see if he could do it."

Crankcase shook his head and went back to drinking his ration, but his optics kept straying toward the spectacle. "Uh-huh. And how long did it take you to get him to do it?"

Misfire's grin took on a guilty cast. Fortunately, Grimlock was going cross-opticked trying to concentrate on the cube on his nose, so that was a good distraction. "Okay, Grimsy."

One lightning-fast snap-gulp later, and even the grumpy mech had to conceded that, "It's amazing he can catch the thing without spilling it all over."

"What can I say? He's talented." The pet in question got a pat on the head. There was an engine purr in response.

"Glitch," both medic and mechanic said, a sector apart but in much the same tone of voice, and it wasn't clear whom they were referring to.

Which was fine. Not everyone had to be impressed by pet tricks. They didn't even all have to like the things, although even the grouchiest of mechs would be hard-pressed not to melt when the cuddle-seeking started. Pets were all well and good, bundles of energy and affection.

Riiiiiiight up until they weren't.

"What's wrong with him? You've got to fix him!" Fulcrum hovered over Spinister, wringing his hands. Krok looked toward the ceiling as if asking for help dealing with the anxious mech. Spinister merely looked at the K-Con with the unruffled composure of someone with no emotional connection to ongoing events. Grimlock curled tighter, hiding his head under his tail as he whined hoarsely.

"If it'd just uncurl a bit - "

"He. He's not a thing."

Ambulon gave the impression of sneering without actually moving his face. "As you wish," he said with frigid politeness as he angled to squeeze a little further under the bar. "I don't know what you expect me to do, however. He is making it extremely difficult to check his vitals, and his specs aren't labeled in any of my databanks with anything but 'shoot here to hopefully kill it.'"

Swerve looked to Sunstreaker. "Can't fault that. Most of the time, we'd shoot on sight."

Fulcrum made a face back at Krok but nodded. "True. But c'mon! He's been onboard for two weeks, and nobody's done a scan of him? Can't you tell anything about what's wrong with him?"

Spinister prodded the Dynobot curiously. "In my expert opinion, he's in pain and not happy and this isn't normal."

There was a moment of silence for that statement of the obvious.

"…thanks."

"No problem." Ambulon inched in further and smoothed a hand over Bob's thoroughly miserable form. The Insecticon was tucked as far under Swerve's bar as he could fit himself, and the flutter of scans over his overheated form only made whimper and curl tighter. "Hmm."

"'Hmm'? That doesn't sound good." Fulcrum's hand-wringing picked up. Krok blew out a gust of air and gave the impression of giving up any pretense of believing the slender K-Con had a macho strut in his entire body. "What does 'hmm' mean?"

Spinister struggled to peel up the tailtip clamped stubbornly over Grimlock's snout. "It means this is either good or bad news, and I haven't made up my mind yet."

"That doesn't sound like something I want to hear, either way," Krok said slowly.

Swerve paused, optics squinting further. "Especially since he kinda chose my bar to do this in."

Sunstreaker glared at him. "Excuse me if the state of your fragging bar is the last thing on my mind right now!"

Krok glared right back.

"I mean. Uh. Sir." Fulcrum pasted a bright, slightly frantic smile on as he hurriedly turned back to the matter at hand. "So what's the news?"

Ambulon squirmed his way back out from under the bar. "From the activity of his internal forge and extrapolating from what structure's already been built, my diagnosis is that he's molting." He finally managed to get loose and sit up, and he used his new freedom to clap a hand on Sunstreaker's shoulder. "Congratulations," he said, deadpan. "You're going to have a flying bug in a few days time."

Fulcrum was too stunned to help extract Spinister from the ball of Dynobot now firmly curled up around the surgeon. "But…if his self-repair fixes whatever's wrong with his head…"

"Consequences are on you," Swerve informed Sunstreaker. "It's gonna be chaos when he comes out of it."

"But Misfire's the one who decided to bring him along!" Fulcrum protested.

"And you're the one who decided not to shoot him in the head when he was down and out."

Pets. They almost weren't worth the blackmail they created.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Seventeen (Rewound: V.1)

[* * * * *]

Grimlock & Rewind - "Drunken Mistakes" ('Rewound' continuation)

[* * * * *]

You can't remember why Krok thought this was a good idea. In fact, you can't remember who suggested it, or if it was less of a good idea than a dare. Knowing these guys, it was probably a dare. They would have been far less enthusiastic about it if it were a good idea.

Regardless, your head hurts worse than normal, so bad that your remaining visor glass feels cracked even where it's still solid. You're using the walls to stay upright. You can barely remember where you put the keycard. However, you can still remember that hiding it was one of the better ideas possible after the fact.

Krok glares you from the other side of the brig door. You're using that term loosely, because you're pretty sure a glare is what it's supposed to be. The pained squint of his optics really just makes you think his brain module split open and will dribble out his optics if he opens them any wider. You try to look suitably intimidated, except you can't draw in on yourself further without losing your balance entirely. You settle for ducking your head a bit.

"I trust there's an explanation," he inhales and the words stutter off into a suppressed moan as his ventilation system spasms. You can hear his fans clattering from here.

When the spasm finally dies off, Krok straightens and attempts to relocate his dignity from where it'd splatted to the floor. You'd help scrape it back into his hands if you weren't afraid your head really has split open further. You don't want your brain to fall out. It was a risk before, and you think it might actually happen now.

His voice is icy cold, no matter how his vents sputter. "I trust there's an explanation for the condition of my ship?"

You look everywhere but at him. When's the last time anyone cleaned this brig? It looks - well, it looks like the rest of the ship does. "Beat up, broken down, and sailing merrily on to destruction?" you ask miserably.

Glaring.

"Ugly?"

More glaring.

"…on its way to Cybertron, theoretically?" Hey, maybe you'll get lucky and distract him. Primus knows it's hard enough holding a single coherent thought steady in your own mind right now. He can't be much better off. You saw him chugging shots as fast as Misfire could pour them.

"Under the control of Autobots," he hisses. Okay, so no hope for distraction. "I trust," the emphasis makes you uncomfortable, because he has trusted you as much as a Decepticon will ever trust an Autobot prisoner, "there's an explanation."

Behind him, the pile of limbs formerly known as his crew stirs. There's a whimper, and the whole group subsides. Yeah, lesson learned? You don't drink what Misfire distills from hemoglobin-tainted energon. Ever. You definitely don't keep drinking as long as he can still get it in the glasses, because his aim with a bottle is far better than his aim with a gun.

"I wasn't the one who gave Grimlock engex," you say quietly. You'd have preferred to just have walked in and opened the brig door, but no. Krok just had to be conscious. All your plans went out the airlock, just like that.

The Decepticon folds his arms slowly. You can actually see the moment he realizes he's disarmed, because the hilt of his pistol is not in his hand. The intimidation factor of an officer folding his arms like that is lost when the weapon he dramatically rests his hand on isn't there to be rested on. For a split second, he looks completely rattled.

Strike now, before he recovers! "You gave him engex. It got him overcharged. It jogged his memory and no, I'm not going to tell you what he remembers."

You're fortunate you have a distinctive frametype. Even drunk and reeling, he recognized you. He didn't consider you a threat and nominally acknowledged you as belonging to his faction, and you're glad for that. An overcharged, rage-crazed Dynobot bellowing and throwing himself against the walls was terrifying enough without any of that rage being directed at you.

Fortress Maximus was rescued from Garrus-9. The Autobots didn't get Grimlock out. You sincerely hope that Prowl didn't know about Grimlock surviving, because if Prowl knew and didn't save him...you're small and crippled, not powerless. You will make him pay, if Grimlock's survival in Decepticon hands is just another move on the playing board for him. You've lost too much not to take this personally, anymore.

(You can't think about specifics. You can't. It hurts too much, the wounds are too fresh.)

You will hold onto what little you've gained, and for their sake, you will remember the wrongs. You may not be able to right them, but you will remember them. It's all you can do.

It's your function. What's left of it.

(You stop the thought there. You can't.)

Krok's head jerks back, but you were there last night. If he put away half of what you saw Spinister guzzle, his memories are a hazy blur of singing ribald bar songs and playing on Fulcrum's team in the inevitable Star Cross game. The uproarious laughter at the proposal of getting the Scavengers' bizarre unit mascot overcharged to Luna 1 and back again is probably in there somewhere as well. Knowing Krok's peculiar responsibility quirk, he likely remembers putting his stamp of approval on the idea.

"I tried to warn you," you say, just a tad smugly. You know memory loss and head injuries. You're no mnemosurgeon or psychotherapist, but you consulted with Rung about Chromedome's nightmares, and Chromedome's suppressed memories have always -

(It hurts too much to think about that, and you turn your thoughts down a different path. You have to. It's the only defense you've got against yourself.)

Krok's glare becomes, if possible, more pained. "You did," he finally grumbles.

He looks at his mechs, at the pile of pitiful, hungover, disarmed Decepticons that they are, and sighs. "Why are we not dead?"

Because Grimlock looked over the table full of good-natured concern staring back at him, and somehow they'd all been mysteriously labeled 'not a threat.' These Decepticons looked right into the jaws of death, leaking flame as distress hit an unprepared mind, and asked if he was okay. You're still not sure if that says something about how drunk they were, or if it's just their underlying personalities. They're either fundamentally not bad under the Decepticon gruffness, or hemoglobin-laced engex should be force-fed to every Cybertronian left alive.

You're glad they made it, in any case. Grimlock lost it, but they survived. Even Crankcase somehow escaped a pounding.

"He took it out on the ship," you say tactfully, because if Krok doesn't remember getting thrown into and through walls as Grimlock kicked the whole lot of them down here, then you're not going to remind him. The Scavengers are moaning pathetically for more than just hangover reasons.

"Why are you not letting us out?" Krok asks, quiet and intent. His optics squint, but they stare you down. You wonder how much he does recall of last night.

"Because Grimlock doesn't deserve to die for sparing you," you reply.

You like these Decepticons, you really do. But you spent the latter half of the night sitting on the W.A.P.'s bridge console, trying to calm an Autobot drowning in anger and fear so deep it verged on hysteria. Overlord's atrocities caused that, not these Decepticons. Some part of Grimlock knew that, too, but the rest of him buried his head in your lap and shook to pieces with the strength of his horror. You held him tight as if your small arms could hold him together. You tried to project your confidence that a hug can chase the nightmares away -

(Not the same nightmares. You can't think of comparisons. You can't.)

Garrus-9 has broken a mighty Dynobot. The mind inside the legendary body is fragile. You think it may mend. Eventually. You saw how Grimlock looked at that table of Decepticons. There is something left in that tortured head to save, if only you can help him.

You are small, weak, and crippled. That doesn't mean you can't protect your fellow Autobot here and now. Grimlock spared these Decepticons, and as much as you like them, you won't let them kill him in turn.

"Let us out," the leader of these Decepticons lies smoothly. You almost believe him. "We won't hurt him. We still need him."

No, they don't. They have another Autobot they can use to bargain their way back onto Cybertron with, and Krok will eliminate any threat to his unit. He won't feel a lick of regret afterward, either.

Krok was conscious, when you snuck into the brig. That takes the choice from your hands. You hoped to open the door and pretend it was all a dream brought on by tainted engex and overindulgence. Too late. If you let Krok out now, Grimlock may die. One or more of the Decepticons in the pile behind the officer likely will, during the fight. Grimlock, damaged and vacant as he woke up, still won't go down easily if it comes to killing him.

You refuse to let any of these mechs you kind of sort of like die, and you refuse to lock Grimlock in any more prisons. You have lost too much. Holding on to what's left is all you can do.

You look right back at Krok and tell the truth. "I hid the keycard before I passed out." Heavily implying that you don't remember where it is now, although that's a lie. But you work with information. You know how to use the truth to tell a lie.

Autobot and Decepticon look at each other through the brig door. You both know the lies you tell.

Engex brings truth. Sobriety brings consequences.

"There's an explanation," you tell Krok. "The question is whether or not you trust me."

Because you sure as slag don't trust him.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Eighteen

[* * * * *]

"Rewound" continuation - AU

[* * * * *]

You don't look up from your puzzle when Fulcrum groans awake. The pile has been groaning for a while now. Making noise is no guarantee of consciousness. Neither are online optics. Spinister has been gazing up at the ceiling, optics online but mind not home, for at least half the shift.

"Why do I hurt so much?" Fulcrum moans, however.

"Because your commanding officer's an idiot," you reply.

"Krok, you're an idiot." A pause. "Sir." Another pause. "Wait...what'd Krok do that I hurt this much?"

You shake your head. Obviously, the good news is that the memory files didn't save through the overcharge interference. Now if only that's true of all of the Decepticons, you might get out of this situation without needing to take drastic measures. "He approved Misfire's request to get Grimlock as drunk as all of you already were."

"Oh." Fulcrum's grinding thoughts can almost be heard turning that over. "Yeah, that seems like a bad idea. Krok," he repeats more fervently, "you're an idiot."

Clang!

"Sir! I meant sir!"

When you glance up, Krok's hand is dropping limply back to the pile. The unit's ad hoc commander doesn't even have his optics turned on. "Who'd we fight? Did we win?" he mumbles.

"You fought Grimlock. You all lost," you report in a loud, cheery tone designed to punish the sins of the drunkard to the third and fourth generation of those who overindulged.

"Gaaaah," the whole pile moans. Hands feebly seek audios to cover, not caring who they belong to.

"Guess that explains why Grimlock's laying on us," Misfire says from somewhere near the bottom.

"Doesn't explain why we're in the brig," Crankcase mutters back. Of course he's the one to notice that.

Krok forces his optics online and peers at the bars in blurry outrage. "Why are we in the brig?!"

"Shhhh," the Decepticons plead. The Dynobot on top of them whines and curls up further.

"I arrested you," you inform them all. "Civilian arrest for public indecency and blatant stupidity."

"Stupid, I'll buy," Fulcrum says in a low tone. "Why indecency? What'd we do? I thought we got in a fight, not - "

Optics go wide. Then they shut off, because half of the group isn't prepared to face the obnoxious white light of the brig yet.

Even with his optics off, Krok turns to menace you. Sort of. His aim's a little off, so he' menacing the bulkhead. "You have no authority on this ship, Autobot. Let me out of here immediately, and I won't shoot you."

"I disarmed you, so you won't be shooting anyone. Think about the fact that I," tiny crippled Autobot with no weapons and one fully functioning arm, "could do that. Do you really think you're fit for duty right now?"

Krok hesitates.

"Tell you what, Krok. I'll let you out, but I'll have to narrate the entire night to you before I do, from start to finish." You tilt your head to the side as the slowly moving pile of 'Cons freezes, panic in every line. They really don't want you to narrate what they did last night. You're good with details. "Or, you can sleep the rest of the charge off, and I'll let you out when you can tell how many of me is sitting here."

Blurry optics squint in your direction. In the direction he sees you, anyway, so you're plenty safe.

"Deal," Krok croaks, and he burrows back under Grimlock.

You go back to your puzzle. That worked out well, you think.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Nineteen

[* * * * *]

The first thing Grimlock says to the Scavengers when his head gets fixed.

[* * * * *]

"Aw, frag," Misfire said fervently as he tore at the door lock. "Aw frag, aw no, aw frag!"

"Less talk, more hack," Krok snapped. The officer had a rifle cradled in both arms, a conscious attempt to not clutch it like a lifeline.

Spinister ducked out of his line of sight just in case, because a tense Decepticon officer was a Decepticon officer soon to be one subordinate down. He kept his helm turned down the end of the corridor even as he moved, and he slipped under Crankcase's pistol to join Misfire at the door. "Looks like a standard lock to me."

"Then hack it!"

Misfire laughed, a hollow sound devoid of amusement. "Yeah, right, because getting through locked doors is always as easy as 'just hack it.'" He shook his head when Krok snarled wordlessly at him. What could be said to that? They were a race of sentient robots. Of course their locks were more complicated than simple overrides or short-circuits. "Hey, Spinister. The door's looking at you funny."

Spinister eyed the door. "No it's not."

"If that had actually worked," Fulcrum muttered, "I'd have given you a medal."

"I'd have made you one to give him," Crankcase agreed.

Fulcrum looked at the other four Decepticons and went back to trying to access the central computer via a wall panel. He still wasn't clear on why exactly everyone was scared lubeless. He'd been minding his own business ransacking his sector of the empty warehouse when the others had raced in like the D.J.D. had just landed outside. Before he knew it, they'd hauled him along in the stampede. Now they were all crammed in the end of this corridor yammering at each other while nervously staring down the hall as if expecting Tarn to turn the corner any minute.

Instead, the door bleeped as the door disengaged. "Good job," Krok said grimly, turning to herd them through.

Misfire blinked up at him and protested in a faint voice, "But I didn't do it…"

Fulcrum tensed - and then relaxed with a sigh of relief when the door opened to reveal none other than the hulking brute of their resident brain-damaged Autobot. "Grimlock! Wow, I'm glad you're okay. Did you open the door for us? Good boy."

Grimlock looked down at the Decepticons, four clustered together in a frozen tableau and one moving forward to pat his arm while smiling up at him. He slowly tipped his head down to stare at the hand on his forearm. Then he looked back to Krok's group, who were collectively winced in preparation for the minced salad of Fulcrum parts they fully expected to be flung upon them.

"You are the worst Decepticons I have ever met," the Dynobot said flatly.

Fulcrum's smile went wide and brittle. That…was not Grimlock's unique speech pattern. The gravel-voiced boom spoke slow but articulated each word with care.

In the words of Misfire: aw, frag.

He swallowed hard and tried not to squeak. "O-oh. Is that bad?"

His strained question was met by a glare. "I'm taking that slagheap ship back to Cybertron. Ask me again when I get there."

Broad shoulders rolled back as the Autobot straightened to tower over the unit. Krok's peep of protest died mid-word, and the Decepticon officer suddenly decided he should study the wall. Yes, a very interesting wall. He should assume command of this wall, since the notorious Decepticon-killing Autobot berserker warrior had just relieved him of command of his ship. Krok, commander of walls and scavenged units.

Grimlock snorted and turned to stride back toward the W.A.P. "Any poor excuse for a Decepticon who wants a ride on my ship should get his sorry aft onboard in the next five minutes," he tossed back toward them.

The Decepticons stared after him.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty

[* * * * *]

What might happen: Take Two

[* * * * *]

"Sir, we saw your speech. It was broadcast everywhere." Krok's hands shook as they framed the camera, poor substitute for laying his hands on his ex-leader's shoulders and speaking earnestly to him. "It was an okay speech, I'm sure you meant what you said, but saying all the fancy words in the universe isn't going to stop us from dying because of you, your Cause, and the fact that you've trapped us in the consequences of your war." He either didn't notice or didn't care about how Megatron's optics narrowed as he spoke. "My mechs and I just want to get back to Cybertron. That's it. No more war, no more fighting. We want to survive, sir, and all you've done with your declarations and - and switching sides is withdrawn your support from those of us who're still stuck fighting your war."

Krok didn't give Megatron a chance to interrupt, although the ex-Decepticon tried to speak. Rodimus' hand on his chest made him jerk back, offended, and Krok ran right over whatever they'd been about to say.

"My mechs. Are. Dying, sir. I lost one whole unit to your war, and now you say it was a mistake, you regret it, but that doesn't change the fact that my new unit is going to die if you don't help us. Words are useless." He leaned in, earnest appeal melting into a snarl of, "Do something."

His head whipped up, and fear filled his optics right before the vidfeed cut off. The two captains were left to argue over what to do. There really wasn't much of a question what they'd end up deciding on, but the formalities of bickering had to be observed aboard this ship. The Lost Light ran off of complaints and whining.

Meanwhile, Krok sagged back from the camera, looking defeated in every sense of the word. "There. I did it." He lifted his head, worried but consciously stopping himself from begging. He had his pride. "Now let us go."

The other Scavengers stared back at him, bound and gagged. They were shaking, scared, and furious. Fulrum was in front of Helex, where he'd been hauled up in front of the smelter as insurance against any funny business. If Krok had tried to warn Megatron, he'd have had a front-row seat to watching Fulcrum melt alive. Just in case that hadn't been enough threat, Vos casually turned his face over and over where he stood on the other side of the camera facing Krok.

Menacing intent thickened the air until Krok could barely move.

Tarn slid easily through the oppressive atmosphere. "You will be released when Megatron is within our grasp. Another plea for help may be required." His optics glittered madly. None of the Justice Division seemed sane, anymore, no matter the veneer of civil politeness Tarn wore. "You may wish to practice your acting, or we'll have to provide motivation for you."

Grinning, Tesarus revved his torso tunnel. The blades ground, and Misfire's wings flicked desperately as the rim scored the flats of his wings.

"That won't be necessary. I'll do whatever it takes, as long as you let us go afterward." Krok met Tarn's optics, resolve meeting madness. He was the steel armor protecting his unit against the icy pit of obsession they'd dropped into, and he would do anything Tarn demanded to win their freedom.

Decepticons in general were not nice people. The Scavengers were lucky that their commander cared for his own above all.

Tarn smiled behind his mask. "Your lives for Megatron's. A fair bargain."

Krok didn't even hesitate to nod. "It is." It really was. He cared for his unit more than he cared for his ex-leader.

He felt not a twinge of regret. After all, Megatron had betrayed them first.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-One

[* * * * *]

Fulcrum - Have you interfaced in the washracks?

[* * * * *]

Krok came out of the washracks looking ready to commit murder. Misfire took off, but fast as he was, Krok was faster when he was pissed off. A hard hand threw him into a wall and pinned him there.

"What did I say about harassing the rest of the unit?" the officer said softly into his audio, and quiet anger was bad. That was worse than loud shouting. Misfire knew these things, and he knew that the soft words meant real trouble.

So he started apologizing. "I didn't mean to! I don't even know what I did, but I'm sorry!" He blinked. "Uh, what did I do, anyway? I just, uh, asked a question." He'd hit on the K-Con. So what? Was hitting on Fulcrum not allowed, now? Everybody else aboard the W.A.P. had made at a pass at the new guy. Why was he the exception?

Krok made a sound like an irritated Sharkicon chewing through sheet metal. "You ever been to a prison? Not a stockade," he interrupted Misfire's sighed 'Of course' by forcing him further into the wall, "a real prison."

"Er…no, I guess not."

For a second, he thought he'd said something wrong. The hand on the back of his head tightened until metal creaked, and Misfire winced.

Krok banged his helm against the wall a last time and released him. "Fulcrum has. Don't talk about anything that happens in washracks." When Misfire had shaken the ringing from his helm, he gave his commander a confused look. Krok just glowered back at him. "Don't ever. We clear?"

No. But he didn't dare say that to someone who could stomp a hole in his wings. "Yeah."

"Good. Now get out of here."

Fulcrum still hadn't come out of the washracks. Krok folded his arms and leaned against the wall beside the door, but nobody came out. He looked like he was prepared to wait a while. Misfire stared over his shoulder the whole time he walked down the corridor, but the loser didn't come out, and Krok patiently waited.

That was the last thing Misfire saw as he turned the corner.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Two

[* * * * *]

Spinister - Do you own any sex toys?

[* * * * *]

"I did, yeah." The surgeon glanced around the medibay as if trying to remember where he'd put them. "Huh. Think I might have left them in the bodies."

Krok and Crankcase suddenly relocated across the room, identical looks of disgust scrawled across their faces.

Spinister blinked at them. "What? Didn't seem right to use them again after I killed people with 'em."

Crankcase leaned toward Krok. "You ask."

"I can honestly say that I'm afraid to."

"Ummm. Me too."

Because neither of them wanted to know if the dead mechs had been Spinister's lovers, his enemies, or both.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Three

[* * * * *]

"They're not nice people."

[* * * * *]

This had to be the most inefficient way to get energon he'd ever had to resort to. Krok peered at the bio-reactor as if looking at it would somehow make it produce more output. One of the little organic creatures Spinister was locking into the machine twitched and gurgled as the stripping process began, and Krok turned away in disgust. Organics. So fleshy and messy. He'd shot Autobots in the head who died more neatly than these creatures did via harvesting. Every layer of the things stripped off was funneled directly into the bio-reactor, and yet the floor was somehow awash with filth.

The things' byproducts could be processed as well, but it was a disgusting chore to shovel it up off the floor between rounds.

"Misfire! Scooping duty!" he barked as he stalked back toward the ship.

He couldn't summon any ire at the pathetic whine of complaint that answered him. "Again? Make Fulcrum take a turn!"

"Fulcrum's busy. Get to work."

"Awww, scrap." More grumbling, but that meant Misfire was on his way. Misfire was a productive complainer. Let him whine and talk, and he'd get the thing done that he was complaining about. He got confused and defensive when people took him seriously. Krok hadn't known that at first, but an officer who had Crankcase in his unit figured out productive versus unproductive complaining fairly quick.

Speaking of grouching for no productive reason whatsoever. "Update on the Autobot?" Krok said into his arm projector.

Crankcase clicked on, looking like he hated everything, as per usual. "Still more interested in the mud puddle wallow than getting in my way. While I'm fine with him not getting in my way, maybe he could get off his fat aft and help!" The last was yelled, presumably in the direction of Grimlock. Because yelling at a braindead Autobot berserker was a smart idea. Sure, why not.

Krok looked down at the ground, reflexively sending a short prayer to Primus for the common sense of his unit. "Just be glad he doesn't remember those Autobot ideals about protecting aliens, even patently inferior ones." The Autobots held some bizarre beliefs about the sanctity of other races' lives. He himself might have hesitated about draining the life and energy from another mechanical race, but the Decepticon ethics about organic creatures were less sketchy. The Scavengers had landed and set about harvesting the natives without a dissenting comment from the lot of them. Fulcrum had actually seemed relieved.

They'd all been wary about letting Grimlock out of the ship to see what they were doing, but the Dynobot was naturally curious. He was also naturally twice Spinister's size. When he'd stomped toward the loading bay's ramp, none of them had been able to stop him without shooting, and they'd all agreed that pissing off Grimlock was a bad idea. So they'd followed him as he sniffed around the pink alchemy set-up Fulcrum had cobbled together.

They hadn't known what to expect, but complete indifference hadn't been it. Grimlock had looked blankly at the holding pen full of squeaking native things, nudged the bio-reactor, and then gone off to explore. The entire extent of his reaction had been from chomping the first energon cube produced by the process.

"This…good," he'd said in that slow, fumbling way of his, and Krok had quietly told the others to let him have as much as he wanted of the finished product. Better to keep Grimlock happy than court trouble.

Someone had to keep an optic on the big galoot, however, so Crankcase got stuck hauling him along on foraging missions. That worked out well. So far the fleshies hadn't mounted any sort of defense, but it never hurt to have backup in the form of a giant Dynobot who breathed fire when one of 'his' Decepticons yelled for help.

Good memories, there. Krok had never seen a docking bay clear so fast.

Taking the loading ramp in three large strides, the commander glanced around for his missing technician K-Con. Fulcrum had been the Project Manager for the cyberforming process before he'd gotten himself an execution sentence, and it turned out that he still knew the technical side of some of the process. Bleeding the meat had been one of the more distasteful aspects of cyberforming in terms of sheer grossness, but it was energon that the Scavengers sorely needed. Between him and Crankcase, they'd built the bio-reactor and the stripper.

Fulcrum was usually outside monitoring the bio-reactor, but he'd taken an armload of energon cubes into the ship earlier. It was somewhat odd that he hadn't come back. Misfire was more the kind to slack off if Krok turned his attention away, not Fulcrum.

"Fulcrum?" He'd already tried pinging the techie over commlink. "Fulcrum, answer me!" Krok called again as he walked toward the bridge, wondering if the computer had decided to go whonky again. Fulcrum would drop everything to get into a fight with that thing.

A fight was what Krok never had a chance to put up. The sword flashed from the ceiling, and a white form dropped lithely to the floor in front of him as he staggered back.

The Decepticon commander started to say something, coughed, and looked down in surprise at the sick, wet plop of fuel-soaked internal components spilling onto the floor in front of him. Optics wide but already dimming, he looked back up in time to get a second slice on the backhand. Krok's scream didn't come out. Sparks burst from his cut vocalizer instead.

The red Autobot symbol stood out from the white figure, even as the details blurred into smears against the ship's darkness. Krok stared up at it. He didn't remember stumbling against the wall, off-balance, and sinking to the floor. Shock rattled his body and wouldn't let him think. Death rattle. He wouldn't be getting back up, and the knowledge sank cold into his suddenly numb limbs.

'But the war is over,' he thought but couldn't say.

Pink dribbled to the floor from the Autobot's swords. Both swords. Oh. Oh, no. Krok knew with bitter certainty that it wasn't his fuel on the other sword. No wonder Fulcrum hadn't come back out. It'd been a trap. The Autobot had turned the W.A.P. into a trap. He'd take them out one by one until every one of the Decepticons was down, and then he'd probably go free the worthless organic creatures and congratulate himself on murdering his own kind for the sake of vermin.

The white-and-red Autobot gave him a sneer, full of self-righteous conviction.

A defiant rasp was the best Krok could muster in response. Colors were dimming and his vision was fading. 'Spark casing compromised,' his HUD informed him, as if he couldn't feel his spark fading out. Falling out and shrinking. As Flywheels would say, Primus spare his spark. 'Spark casing compromised.'

Regardless, he squinted and reset his optics, trying to make a positive I.D. He was more the type to study tactics, but he should at least know who his murderer was.

The Autobot turned and melted back into the shadows, but Krok's optics widened. They blinked offline a second later, but he'd seen. That face had been plastered everywhere after Deadlock turned traitor and turned back up fighting for the Autobots.

Well, at least Krok had been taken out by someone he probably couldn't have taken in a fair fight anyway. It made the sting of not getting a fight in the first place a bit less. The agony of dying like this didn't change, but it was the little things. He kind of hoped Fulcrum hadn't seen it coming. Dying in undignified terror would have really just made death worse.

His head slumped against the wall without his permission. Dizzy and weak, Krok struggled to lift his arm. His own weight pinned it against the wall under him, but this was important. This might be the most important thing he'd ever done, and it would certainly be the last.

'The war is over,' he thought, but it was a thought filled with nothing but black humor.

'Spark casing compromised,' blinked on his HUD, the alert fizzling and turning into white static as power failed.

Falling, fading, but not failing. He would not fail his unit.

He couldn't speak into his commlink, but the text function open, crashed, and opened again on his HUD. Static erased the words even as he wrote them. The list of recipients clicked up and crashed the program. The controls to bring it up again slipped from his mental hold, a sign of his processor beginning to shut down.

'Sp- - k caszzzzink com-com-compr-mised.'

'War is over.'

Finally, he settled for a single recipient. The text function was glitching so badly it wouldn't support anything more, and he was afraid the text box itself wouldn't let him type. His cursor stayed unmoving for an endlessly long moment while he tried to access it over and over.

'Is over.'

The cursor moved at last, and Krok's body shuddered in a triumphant laugh.

*Help,* he pinged. One word. Just one word to one recipient, to the one mech on his crew with a chance to take Drift out in fire and bestial fury. The fight would give the rest of them a chance to get away, if nothing else.

'Over.'

His error-ridden processor distantly hoped that he'd find his unit this time.

*?* pinged back, but the incoming text shut down mid-transmission.

Krok wasn't alive to receive it.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Four

[* * * * *]

"Fulcrum"

[* * * * *]

Fulcrum was indignant. He was beyond indignant. He was livid!

Krok just sighed. "Misfire, you know the rules. No letting your mouth write checks you're no good for."

"But - !"

"Oh? Can he cash in, or are you incapable of delivering the goods?" Krok jerked a thumb at the fuming K-Con. Fulcrum continued being hot, bothered, and completely unsatisfied.

The jet hunched his shoulders and mumbled, "Nosirsorrysir."

"Then you'd better get on with paying up the penalty."

Misfire winced. Fulcrum snagged him by a wing and pushed him forward onto the desk, apparently too riled by what he'd read to even care that Krok was still sitting there working.

Krok just moved the desk tidy to the other side of the desk and let Fulcrum take Misfire's forfeit.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Five (Breeder: 1)

[* * * * *]

"Kill It With Fire" (there was a thread with an idea, and it got out of control)

[* * * * *]

Of all the ways being on the List could have ended, this really wasn't a bad ending at all.

Fulcrum reclined on the fuzzy chair out on the balcony and sipped his drink. It fizzed. Misfire had gotten him the good stuff this time around, or rather, Fulcrum's status as Most Wanted had given Misfire the pull to find and acquire the good stuff. So really, Fulcrum had gotten himself this drink, and Misfire was just the legwork necessary to transport it from supplier to glass.

He wasn't used to having this kind of influence. He could get used to it.

All Hail Megatron, and the victorious Decepticon Empire.

Quickly followed by All Hail the Breeding Class, or watch the Empire fall into extinction. With the Galactic Council eyeing up Cybertron for colonization and even chasing down Neutrals bringing only a few more mechs back to the planet, Megatron had kickstarted Phase Seven with a sense of urgency that infected the whole faction. They'd begun a ruthless search for mechs who bred strong.

It was a search that didn't yield many results. There weren't a lot of mechs with sparks capable of splitting for cold construction - Fulcrum had heard a rumor that spark-splitting was a Functionalist lie, anyway, to cover for cloning sparks from the Matrix - but even fewer had true fertility. The hot spots had all cooled during the war. Without cold construction or the hot spots, the Decepticon scientists had fallen upon an even stranger method of reproduction.

The Justice Division had had a hold full of deserters, Neutrals, and even Autobots by the time they tracked down the Weak Anthropic Principle. The Scavengers had put up a fight, but they'd gone down even faster than the first time they'd faced off against the unit of murders. Fulcrum had expected death, slow and painful. He'd been out of his mind panicking when the D.J.D. tossed him and the other Scavengers into the overpacked brig, but the expected execution hadn't happened.

Instead, the Justice Division had delivered their captives hale, healthy, and scared out of their wits to Megatron. Each one of the prisoners had been forced to touch something, blindfolded and deaf. Fulcrum had been one of the lucky ones. The shard of the shattered Matrix had lit up like a solar flare the second he came into contact with it, and his spark started broadcasting wildly.

Blind and deaf, he hadn't understood a thing. Minutes later, when the blindfold came off and scientists bustled around him, poking and prodding and confirming that his spark could breed, he understood just enough to beg mercy on the rest of his unit on the basis that, hey, if they were going to spare him, why not the others?

'Hot' sparks were rare enough that the scientists insisted on catering to his whim on it. They wanted him pliable and willing, and they weren't sure that terrified, screaming rape victims would breed true. That made negotiations with the scant handful of surviving Autobots who turned out to be breeders kind of…tricky.

Fulcrum wasn't thrilled that his spark could be coaxed into budding, the metal of his spark chamber acting like a miniature hot spot to grow the start of a protoform, but he understood why he was being urged to breed as often as he was able. The Empire pampered and treasured its breeders because the Empire's survival hinged on the continuation of their species. Cybertron's continued independence from the Galactic Council's rather suspicious colonization plans depended on a large enough population to repel an invasion.

In light of that, Fulcrum was one of the most desirable breeders in the Empire. Not only was he extraordinarily fertile, but the K-Con reformat had done something to his spark. That was the theory, anyway. He was one of six surviving K-Con reformats, and the only one with a 'hot' spark, so it wasn't like the theory could be tested. It seemed like a solid theory, however. Nobody could think of another reason why every one of the tiny newsparks cultured from the protometal scooped from his aching spark chamber had turned out to have an explosive altmode.

The actual altmode depended on the mech he merged with and siphoned spark energy from to power the process, but the smallest yield he'd budded off so far was a flashbang, and that'd been Misfire. Of course it'd been that.

Krok had contributed to an entire litter, probably through multiple merges as Fulcrum's former captain had tried to express without wussy words that he was infinitely grateful Fulcrum had saved his crew. Six teensy minibots had had Fulcrum cursing Krok's name during extraction. Krok had stood by proudly while the scientists carefully carved out the necessary protometal from the inside of the K-Con's spark chamber for the culturing process. Six hand grenade altmodes, of course, something that Crankcase had tried to top.

They weren't sure if he'd succeeded. Whatever that altmode was, nobody knew anything about it other than the explosion would be spectacular. Fulcrum had refused to let Crankcase influence the poor guy's choice of name. Nobody deserved the names Crankcase thought up.

The merge with Megatron had created a megaton-yield missile that towered above both of them in root and altmode. If Fulcrum wasn't so intimidated by his leader - and Megatron weren't dedicated to diversifying Cybertron's population growth - the K-Con would have been transferred straight into Megatron's bed to keep popping out the planet-killer altmode newsparks. As it was, Megatron was scheduled to return to him after cycling through the rest of the breeders willing to merge with the leader of the Empire. Fulcrum was already freaking out that he wouldn't be able to repeat their success.

Fortunately, distractions abounded. If it wasn't Krok borrowing him for the status boost of having Fulcrum in his unit, it was the pile of new applications that all but buried him every time he opened his inbox now. The offers and pampering had really taken off after Megatron, because suddenly everyone knew that Fulcrum not only bred strong but fragging dangerous. Fulcrum eyed most of the applicants warily, having become much more conscious of what he was doing.

He was breeding a K-Squad of his very own.

On the one hand, it took a certain mindset to know and accept that one was going to blow up in battle. It probably was doing the newsparks no good at all coming online knowing they'd explode for the Empire. That was a bit more definitive than a Decepticon soldier knowing he might die.

On the other hand, Fulcrum took great pleasure in making the separation announcements. He knew the Galactic Council got them, and if it came down to fighting for the freedom of his planet, he wanted them to know that he might be a craven coward - but he and his would die defending it. Krok's crew had spread the word almost as well as the D.J.D. had: give them a good enough reason, and even a cowardly K-Con would drop. Get them angry, and they'd voluntarily throw themselves where they'd do the most damage.

Everyone made a huge point of being friends with the feisty bunch of explosives Fulcrum was slowly but steadily producing. The Empire wanted its K-Squads willing to die for it.

And it dearly wanted its K-Con breeder to keep going. It would do whatever it took to keep him happy enough to bud.

Footsteps approached from inside the flat. Fulcrum didn't look away from his drink. He just raised a hand and curled his forefinger in a beckoning gesture.

Tarn's engine rumbled, disgruntled, but the massive mech wasn't about to pass a chance to get this close. A questioning, rather heated energy field folded around the K-Con, fuzzy chair and all, as the tankformer bent over him and glided a large hand down his side, fingers sliding into sensitive spots. "Yes?"

Fulcrum arched and moaned silently. The hand not stroking his thinly-armored midsection plucked the drink from his hand to keep it from spilling.

Not a bad ending at all, but nothing was finished yet.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Six (Breeder: 2)

[* * * * *]

"Following the leader"

[* * * * *]

"No buds yet, huh?"

If Tarn hadn't been trying to crawl into the engex shot and drown himself before, he was now. "No."

Tesarus gave him a slag-eating grin, too self-satisfied that his former commander was getting what he deserved to feel any sympathy. "Getting pretty near the deadline for your app, ain't it? Your license is gonna get revoked, and you're gonna have to go through all the health tests again, and, frag, those things sure cost a shiny shanix the first time around, but it's not like anybody's gonna look twice at the app of somebody who failed with that guy, of any breeder. You might as well throw in the ammo after this." Kaon glowered at him from Tarn's other side as the tankformer hunched lower, but Tesarus didn't care. Sure, he felt a bit bad that Tarn would effectively be banned from the donator pool, but deservedly so. That's what happened when a Decepticon applied to donate to a traitor.

Helex elbowed him in the side and hissed, "Knock it off. You know he only did it 'cause Lord Megatron did."

Yeah, well, Tesarus wasn't sure how he felt about that. Lord Megatron took one for the Empire. He'd merged with the Autobots who were willing to breed for their species, too, so Tesarus considered it leading by example instead of a taint. The fact that Tarn applied straight to a traitor instead of a more worthy breeder, however, was appalling.

Tarn ran a hand down his face and sighed. "He's being…difficult. I only just managed to talk him into accepting my application, and now Vos is saying how we're going to serve as a case study for why involuntary breeding is both unethical and unproductive." That got raised brow ridges down the bar. When Vos said something was unethical, the rest of the planet was already up in arms. That was like seeing Unicron recoiling in unease.

No wonder the breeding class was so smugly broody. They were so valuable they had Lord Megatron as their personal guardian angel ready to destroy whoever tried to rush them. They'd bud at their own pace, when and how they wished, and nobody was going to say otherwise.

Even the Autobots with 'hot' sparks were given their pick of donators. They didn't even need to consider applications, if they didn't want. The Empire just fussed and pampered and pleaded, urging them to consider it.

And then there was Tarn, whose application would have been accepted by any Decepticon breeder out there, yet he chose to apply to the traitor. The bizarrely fertile breeder who bred strong and dangerous sparks, but a traitor nonetheless. Tesarus would never forgive that, no matter what the List said. Lord Megatron had erased Fulcrum's name, but only because the K-Con's 'hot' spark was rare. That was the only reason.

Tarn seemed to have forgotten that fact. It drove Tesarus crazy.

Now it seemed the tankformer was getting his comeuppance. It'd taken weeks of coaxing and courting to get Fulcrum to accept his application, and now the famously 'hot' spark had gone cold because of him. That was a stamp of Unacceptable Donator for any future applications to other breeders.

Tarn turned his head enough to glare at Tesarus. The grinder muffled his snickers but couldn't bite back the grin. So deserved. So very deserved.

Someone's commlink pinged, and they all checked on reflex. Tarn swore mightily, pushing back from the bar so hard he had to flail to stay upright instead of going over backward with his chair. "Why now - ? No, no, no, wait, just hold that thought!" It sounded like a cry of despair as he turned and pelted from the bar.

Tesarus, Helex, and Kaon stared after him.

Helex caught Tesarus optic and shrugged. "There, but for the grace of Primus, goes the Empire. When a breeder calls…"

The dignity of the Justice Division was dead and gone. Ugh. "When you gotta go, you gotta go," Tesarus said, reaching for a philosophical acceptance of Tarn's idiocy.

"Frag, but he's on a short leash."

"Whh-pssh!"

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Seven (Breeder: 3)

[* * * * *]

"Voyeur"

[* * * * *]

"You…what?"

The little coward took Tarn's quiet anger well. He hid behind the couch instead of making a dash for the door. When Tarn made a point of staying where he'd sat, Fulcrum peered over the couch back to eye him warily. "I accepted another applicant."

Tarn squashed the first eight ideas that sprang to mind. Too violent, too violent, too loud, too hard on the furniture, too hard on the building, too undignified, definitely too undignified, and the infuriatingly talkative jet probably wouldn't cooperate. Hmm. Well, dignity rebounded better than people did, and if Tarn's application was wholesale rejected at this point, he'd never live down the disgrace. Worse, knowing he'd failed the Empire would prey on his spark.

So he made himself stay compacted into the seat, as small and unthreatening as he could possibly be, and dipped his voice into the sultry purr that'd convinced the wretched traitor to accept his application at all. "I realize we're having some troubles, but I thought you did quite well the last time." He swept a lewd look down the length of the mech, and Fulcrum coughed into his hand. Terror was a charge-killer, no lie, and every bit of Tarn's efforts interfacing with him centered on calming Fulcrum down enough for fear-fueled chill to boil over into building charge.

Under the right circumstances, they could manage it. Tarn generally stuck with allowing the small mech to take the lead, going so far as to let himself be dominated if that was what got the K-Con's charge spiking. It was demeaning to take orders, but Tarn could handle it. He made himself available, he let himself be used, and Fulcrum had seemed to be calming down. They'd gotten a couple overloads, at least, but they hadn't reached the vital tipping point yet.

At that point, a 'hot' spark went from generating charge to grabbing for external energy. That's when the donor spark became a necessity, as the process of budding off a new spark apparently required a lot more energy than just popping some new code in. It explained why hot spots had always come after the huge energy bursts, and why cloning sparks out of the Matrix had apparently taken so much carefully applied outside energy.

Learning about the lies told by the Functionalists and the real source for the cold-constructed sparks had left Tarn in a dark mood for days. He'd immediately started the application process for donating to a breeder. Phase Seven of the Empire had become that much more important to him after that.

Hence why being turned down after his best efforts felt so personal.

"It's not working, okay? You're just - well, you're you, and I'm me. So it's not, um, that I'm rejecting you, not really." Fulcrum dithered a bit, inching toward the door. "It's just kind of hard to think past the whole List thing - "

"You're not on the List anymore. Lord Megatron erased your name himself."

That got him a sickly smile, because Fulcrum had been right there as their leader shouted the Justice Division's protests down, snarling survival statistics in Tarn's masked face while the trembling K-Con stood there awaiting judgment. "Yeah. Right. I just had a thought about maybe I'd feel better with someone else there, and they've been doing studies about whether a three-way merge contributes more energy or not, so it might even improve the odds of a separation!" His voice pitched higher as he threw the idea at the tankformer seething across the apartment from him. "When I asked, they even had an applicant for me! They said nobody else would be alone with him, but I figure, um, well, the two of you can probably handle each other."

Tarn stared at him. This was unbelievable.

No, it was believable. He just didn't want to accept it. Fulcrum's yellow optics had deepened to the golden hue he'd come to recognize (and hope for) over the past weeks, and the K-Con's sickly look had turned to a quirked grin before Fulcrum flattened it.

The fragging coward was turned on.

Tarn bent forward to put his elbows on his knees and his hands over his optics. "You just want to see us together."

"No! Of course not!" The coward zipped behind the couch again. That wasn't enough to hide the way he bit his lower lip when he looked at Tarn. "…it would be fragging hot as a smelter. He's…and you're…well. Yeah."

And the point was to get the breeder's spark in the right condition, which required arousal and enough energy poured into him via a spark-merge to drain a donator to the dregs and trigger one Pit of an overload when Fulcrum finally reached capacity. Something that Tarn hadn't managed yet, despite trying. Instead of rejecting him, however, Fulcrum was now proposing a threesome.

With Overlord, of all mechs.

Oh, the things Tarn did for duty.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Eight (Breeder: 4)

[* * * * *]

"the other way"

[* * * * *]

It didn't end that way, here.

Here, the List was made up entirely of Decepticons because it was written by the victorious Autobots.

Here, survival of the species and practicality necessitated the stockades be set up differently. The news went out in careful exploration by Autobots who were very careful not to kill the Decepticons who hadn't heard about Megatron's defeat as more than a rumor yet. The Lost Light went on a different quest. Things happened out of order, and Shockwave's plans never went into play.

Here on Messatine, a tank muttered unhappily to himself, warm and swaddled in multiple layers of insulation on a berth like a spoiled pet during winter. A doctor idly crooned praise to him, attention on what he read but absent-mindedly rubbing under Tarn's chin until the Decepticon subsided to involuntary purring, engine shaking the berth while his optics dimmed. When the half-dozing mech was rolled onto his back, he opened his chest almost without urging, tamed by the fingers scratching his throat and the sweet words dropped into his audios. It was hard to remember he had a life beyond the cycle of breeding and recovery. Life filled his spark chamber and blurred his mind with contentment he'd never experienced nor ever thought he would.

Here on Cybertron, five very stubborn Decepticons refused to open their 'hot' sparks unless the Autobot intended to breed them agreed to a more permanent arrangement. The Autobot chosen for them didn't know what they meant, then recoiled when they spelled it out for him. The opening stayed open. None of the Autobots were willing to agree to their terms. After considering their options - which didn't really exist, because defeat and extinction were both flattening pressures on their backs - the Constructicons started to hunt for someone to fill the opening instead of waiting for that someone to come to them. The person they wanted didn't know about their interest yet, but he would. Oh, he would. They would find someone to be their sixth.

Here on a scrapheap hunk of junk ship, a salvaged crew of leftover Decepticons hatched a plot to get back to Cybertron without ending up shot or stockade drudges. One of them had to be fertile, right? It was just a matter of figuring out who. Then they could approach the Autobots like, hey, look, they had a breeder. Ready and willing was a big deal for Autobots, yeah? And here they were! Fulcrum had said it best: big fans of survival, all of them. Sign them up for some of that.

Here on Luna 1, Tyrest's madness fastened on the travesty of cold construction and went unhindered. The war had ended differently, after all, and so many Cybertronians had died. Then more died, bodies piling up like the worst of the war's slaughter as sparks boiled away where containment fields ruptured. The Lost Light wasn't there, the Scavengers hadn't been caught, Megatron hadn't come back, and a species already at the brink of dying now faced extinction.

Everyone was more desperate afterward, and the Decepticons in a worse position yet. The List was rewritten, a hunting List for Autobots instead of Decepticons. The Autobots acted on their victory, because if they didn't act, where would they be in a hundred years' time? A million?

Where would they be? Here. Where it didn't end that way.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Twenty-Nine (A:1)

[* * * * *]

Other, other universes: "Misfire/Fulcrum"

A/N: I think I may be the only one who doesn't see the Scavengers as a giant orgy waiting to happen. Therefore, time to write it. And…then I ended up not quite.

[* * * * *]

Crankcase, oddly enough, was the first one to ask. Plus five points for him a sort of gruff directness, but negative ten points for a total lack of tact.

Fulcrum blinked at him, processing the request. It took a moment to get through. "Ah…no, thanks. I'd rather get this done." He jerked a thumb at the console he was reprogramming.

The grouchy Decepticon scowled. "Later, then."

That was the weirdest demand disguising a question that Fulcrum had ever heard. "Uh, I'll think about it," he hedged awkwardly, turning back to his work to hide his incredulous expression. Seriously? No. Now was not the time for this sort of issue. He had work to do, and anyway, someone would probably walk in.

Crankcase muttered something that sounded derogatory but oddly disappointed before clomping out of the bridge like the ray of sunshine he was. The K-Class technician looked up at the ceiling and heaved a relieved sigh. He bent back to fighting the W.A.P.'s computer with a will. He swore the thing was alive and evil.

He got so into his work that he didn't noticed the fingers dancing lightly over his back until there were suddenly overheat warnings flashing on his HUD. "What that - ?"

The slender Decepticon shot upright, alarmed, and smacked his back panels against Spinister's chest. Oh! Okay. Spinister was fondling him. That was…weird, but better than getting aroused from troubleshooting lines of code. He liked his job, but he'd never thought that he, well, liked his job. That way. The way that involved fondling.

Speaking of which. "That's not the reaction I was going for," Spinister said, bending over his shoulder to look at him from the side quizzically. He sounded like a scientist fascinated by unpredicted results, and he wasn't moving away from the back panels now pressed flush to his chest. "Are you ticklish?"

Fulcrum turned his head and stared at him for a moment. He absently upped his ventilation system's power, letting the fans disperse the accumulated heat. "No? I was just surprised." That seemed like a legitimate reaction to him. What was with the wandering hands now resting on his shoulders? "I didn't expect you to just walk up and start," molesting him, "touching me. Why are you touching me, Spinister?" He pointedly took a step in the other direction, taking himself out of the inexplicable up-close and personal contact going on.

"You looked tense," the surgeon said, looking at his hands as if bewildered by their sudden emptiness. "I thought you could use a break. Working nonstop introduces undue stress to vital systems."

That peculiarly intelligent shift to the brilliantly dumb mech's speech pattern always took Fulcrum off-guard. "Uh. Well, er, I haven't really been doing much beyond staring at program code. It's not really labor-intensive work. I'm fine." He pasted on a smile and gave a somewhat lame thumbs-up to the surgeon. "Systems are all reading normal. I'll, um, take a break if that changes."

Spinister blinked his optics at him. That definitely looked like disappointment. "Let me know?" he asked a bit forlornly.

"If my system-status changes?" Of course he would. Fulcrum liked running normal. 'Normal' meant 'not about to die,' and he was a big fan of that.

"When you take a break." A hand lifted toward him like Spinister was going to stroke his back again.

The smaller 'Con hastily found a reason to walk cross the bridge. Hello, small screw he'd forgotten to add to the pile when he'd opened up the console casing. "Yeah, sure," he agreed vaguely as he stooped to pick it up. He was close enough to the end of his shift that he wasn't going to take a break before then. Even if the shifts were kind of unofficial, he figured that he could justify stopping work afterward as 'end shift' instead of 'breaktime.' Thereby meaning he could weasel out of letting Spinister know when he was finished.

There was a small, almost mournful hum, and the surgeon reluctantly left him to work.

"Strange," Fulcrum muttered, walking back to the console to put the screw down with the rest. He resumed scanning for errors, but he kept a wary optic on the doorway this time. The bizarre touchiness the other Decepticons in the group seemed to like had always struck him as odd, but this was the first time it was actively making him uneasy. He didn't quite know how to deal with mechs hitting on him. Hitting him, yes; S.O.P. was to run away when that happened. He wasn't sure what S.O.P. was for getting hit on. Running away didn't seem like a viable solution. He suspected that there would be chasing.

*"Fulcrum. Where are you?"*

The techie didn't even twitch when the comm. frequency opened. Krok checking on everyone was so normal by now that he didn't have to think about it. "I'm on the bridge."

There was a pause. *"What that was meant to ask,"* his commanding officer said slowly, *"is why you're not in the officers' quarters with the rest of us."*

Huh? This time, Fulcrum did twitch. He looked over his shoulder and squinted as if that'd help him see across the ship to where Krok was. Apparently with everyone else. "Why's everyone there? Did Misfire make more engex?"

Another drinking party? He unhooked himself and started to muscle the console casing back into place. He couldn't drink anything but ration grade, but he did enjoy watching the rest of the group get completely drunk off their afts. Besides, he sort of felt like they all needed a sober mech present to supervise their drinking. It was only a matter of time before someone got the bright idea to try riding Grimlock through the corridors. That just wouldn't end well for anyone involved.

*"No,"* Krok said, and Fulcrum hesitated, wondering why the officer sounded like he was explaining the obvious to Spinister. *"We're relieving some built-up charge."* 'Duh' was heavily implied. As if a group interface were the most natural thing to be doing at the moment. *"Get down here and join us,"* Krok ordered, a bit impatient now. 'Silly mech, get with the program.'

The K-Con's head cocked to the side. Maybe that explained why Crankcase and Spinister had been hitting on him. It was probably some military unit ritual to deal with delayed combat-high. Huh, well, to each their own. He was glad they'd found what they were looking for with the others, since he obviously hadn't helped them out. A group interface actually worked out pretty well, too. Four mechs could pair off easily enough, and it left the odd mech out to stay alert.

Good thing him and Crankcase could talk technical at each other, or Fulcrum would start to feel left out of group activities at this rate.

"No, that's okay," he said as he put the panel back on the floor and crouched to find the cable hook-up again. "I'm not charged at all, so I'll just keep an optic on things while you guys, uh, have your fun." The timing was inconvenient. He wished they'd have told him about it earlier; he'd have started working later so they'd be back on their feet before he was ready to recharge.

This time, the pause went on for longer. Fulcrum figured Krok had busied himself with something - or someone - and forgotten he'd left the channel open. Or he just didn't want to lose track of his stray subordinate while he was busy. That was a distinct possibility. The tan-and-orange mech glanced up at the ceiling in fond exasperation and shook his head. Krok was the strangest commander he'd ever heard of.

*"…you've got no charge?"* the officer said after a while, however. *"Are you alright?"*

That actually sounded concerned. Fulcrum frowned and looked at his forearm's commlink projector. It was pinging him, but he didn't want to see whatever was happening on Krok's side. What was all this about, then?

"I'm fine," he said firmly, refusing the request for comm.-projection. A thought struck him, and he nearly laughed aloud. Oh, rust him. Was it that simple? Did none of these combat-frames know? "Sir, no offense, but look up my former frametype's stats when you get a chance. Not now! It's, uh, not urgent. But I'm still a techie under the K-Class reformat, and my frametype's low-charge. We disperse most built-up charge through normal physical exertion." Which was why his frametype hadn't been made for assignment to military units. They just weren't high-energy enough. Most of the charge they accumulated went into their work, and what was left over got burnt off with the minimal physical labor technicians did.

Fulcrum had been doing way too much of that to worry about built-up charge. He'd been running from the D.J.D. as well as working on salvage before and afterward. Anything that had managed to make it beyond that was getting drained by his self-repair system. Compared to what his frametype was made for, the extra labor should have been causing him to recharge more than he already was. Looking at it that way, he was mildly surprised that Spinister had been able to drive his temperature up at all. Heh. He had more endurance than he'd ever known.

He grinned to himself over that. "So, no. No charge." The idea of joining the others while they fooled around was enough to make him smother a chuckle. He'd be in recharge before anyone even cabled in.

*"That…ah. I…see."* Krok sounded abashed. There was nothing quite like mistakenly making assumptions about a mech's sex drive to hammer home that some things really weren't the unit's business. *"I apologize for pressuring you. Thank you for - for minding the ship. I'll relieve you when I'm, uh, finished here."*

"No hurry," Fulcrum said, now just plain amused with the whole situation. "I'll go find Grimlock and bring him up here to keep an optic on when I'm done with this console. Have fun." With that, he courteously cut the channel and went back to work, chuckling to himself.

Military units had some strange customs, he was finding. Good thing they had a tech-head around to keep them in line. Not that he'd ever say that to any of them, but yeah. He was totally thinking it. Krok might lead this unit, but Fulcrum kept everything in working smoothly, be that reminding Spinister that the lights weren't out to get him or hauling Crankcase's snoring chassis over to a berth after everyone else got too drunk to help.

Which he didn't mind. Unofficial second-in-command was a position worth putting up with even Misfire for.

Two hours later, and Fulcrum had Grimlock drawing in greasepencil on a wall. He had no idea what the Dynobot was drawing, but the big lunk seemed absorbed in getting the details right, so that was fine. Fulcrum himself had his feet up on the main display as he leisurely read through what little historical data the W.A.P.'s databanks held. Most of it was pure propaganda, but it was something to do. He figured the others would probably stagger out of recharge in about four more hours. He was looking forward to seeing if Crankcase were any less cranky post-overload. He intended to be a witness if so, because nobody would believe it ever happened, otherwise.

"Hey," came a tired voice from the doorway. The door itself had long since been used elsewhere to patch a hole. Misfire leaned in its place.

Of course Misfire was the first to recover. "Hey," Fulcrum said back. He kept his feet up. The purple jet looked ready to go to sleep on his feet. "Go back and recharge. I've got this."

"Don't wanna," Misfire mumbled as he drifted across the bridge to slump over the back of the bridge's lone chair.

Fulcrum was sitting in it, and he wasn't giving it up. The techie looked at the jet draped partially over him and sighed. Touchy. The whole crew was so fragging touchy.

Then there were lips on the side of his neck, and that wasn't just touchy. "Wanna 'face you," Misfire murmured into his neck as the K-Con jolted, startled. "Wanna 'face you so bad, and I waited, but you didn't come. Heh heh, 'come.' You didn't do that, either. Why not? Don't you like us?"

The usual babble was accompanied by tiny nibbles going downward. Fulcrum shivered in his seat. A bare hint of teeth nipped, and his hands rose to clutch the arms now wrapped around his shoulders and across his chest. "I…I like you plenty, Misfire," he wavered uncertainly. Although the touching was as blatantly sexual as Crankcase's proposition and as intention as Spinister's groping, this had a different feel to it. The jet kissing back up the side of his neck was taking it slow, exhaustion evident despite the desire crackling off his words. "I'm just, well. Built different."

It felt good. Misfire gently mouthed at a select cable and closed his lips around it to lick and suck before letting it go to drag his kissing attention around to the back of Fulcrum's neck. He nuzzled up under the K-Con's helm, venting softly into the vulnerable area. More kisses and nibbles headed downward. Fulcrum jerked and made a small noise as teeth closed on his main back strut where it was exposed at the open space before his back paneling closed over it. Misfire hummed, tired and pleased by the reaction as his teeth held the strut firmly. His tongue slowly explored, sweeping around behind the support to find all the wires and fuel lines hidden in the hollow interior.

Fulcrum squirmed a little. It felt nice, it really did, but the charge just wasn't there. His mind liked the interest being shown in him, but the body didn't care. His temperature gauge wavered, but it stayed within normal parameters. He was nearing recharge levels. He could and would force himself to remain online to keep watch on the W.A.P., but his body wasn't up to anything more.

And…truth be told, Fulcrum had never been one for interfacing. He did, as he'd said, like Misfire. He liked all of the crew, even Crankcase. Maybe even more than just as unitmates or friends, but that didn't change the fact that he didn't feel anything sexual for them. Spinister could have turned him on with his clever surgeon's fingers, but Fulcrum still wouldn't have wanted him. He liked the surgeon's mind, but the bodily attraction just wasn't there. He'd never truly held that for anyone. He suspected that he could have walked into the middle of the orgy down in the officers' quarters and felt nothing but happiness for their pleasure.

It was common enough in low-charge frames like his that it took him a moment of confusion to understand that Misfire just didn't get what was going on.

So he pushed at Misfire's arms until the jet reluctantly let him go. "No? Did I do something wrong? Come on, just tell me what you like, and I'll - "

"I don't get turned on," Fulcrum explained. That was simplistic, but true. He didn't want to interface, and probably would never want to unless something went wrong with his power converter. "If you've still got charge, go back and get one of the others to frag you."

"They're all in recharge." Misfire still leaned against the back of the chair. Disappointment radiated off him. "I thought you were, I dunno, just shy." His forehelm thunked against the back of Fulcrum's head. "You're not charged? At all?" So hopeful. So sad, when Fulcrum shook his head. Hands snuck back around to hug the K-Con and seat alike. "Awww. That's too bad. I want you to be okay, loser."

That got brightened optics, and Fulcrum twisted to look at Misfire with them. "I'm not broken."

"You're not? But - "

The confusion was kind of cute. "I'm just built this way," the K-Con said patiently. "We've got different frametypes, Misfire."

That ticked over in the jet's head. "I didn't know that was something built-in," he confessed after some thought. "So…you're alright? It's not a short or something, right? Because Spinister can take care of that, y'know."

Dumbaft jet. "I'm fine. I'm not going to 'face anybody, and that's normal for me."

"Oh. Okay." Misfire stiffened suddenly, and he stood up straight, looking down at Fulcrum in horror. "Are you okay with me touching you? I mean, we don't have to frag, I just wanted to hold you 'cause you're all small and warm and kinda cuddlier than Crankcase, and I'm always afraid I'm going to accidentally roll over and knock his brain out - "

"It's okay, you're okay!" the K-Con interrupted him. The concern was actually rather sweet. Especially considering how nobody had ever asked if Fulcrum minded the touchiness. And, thinking about it now, it really was okay. He was fine with the way everyone onboard casually bumped and brushed and grabbed. It was only the molesting that'd been bothering him. "Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that you're a cuddler," he said wryly as Misfire's wings eased back down.

The jet sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "I like knowing I'm not by myself."

Sadly, no other explanation was needed. Misfire had a needy glitch in his software somewhere, and it sure didn't seem like it'd been indulged before joining Krok's unit.

The winged mech stepped around the chair and dropped to his knees at Fulcrum's side. "You'll tell me if it gets weird?" he asked.

That was absolutely weird when said in tandem with a tired flop of arms, wings, and torso over the legs Fulcrum still had propped up on the console. It wasn't a bad kind of weird, however. Just…weird.

"Yeah," the K-Con said, a smile twitching at his mouth. "No problem." There was a jet in his lap, burrowing into him as if the mech could nest there. He was strangely okay with that.

"Does it bug you when the rest of us do it?" Misfire asked sleepily, systems already winding down as he headed toward recharge. He pillowed his head on one arm to look up at his makeshift berth.

Fulcrum glanced over at Grimlock, idly checking on progress on the scrawled picture. The Dynobot was still absorbed in his work. Good. "No," he replied absently, and just as absently ran a hand over Misfire's helm. "It just doesn't do anything for me. It's like when you and Spinister spar, you know? It's interesting to see you guys go at it, but you'd have to force me to get in the middle of that. I'm not made for it."

"Combat or interfacing?" Misfire tilted his head into the absentminded stroking and shut off his optics. "Mmm…"

"Neither, I suppose."

He looked down when no more chatter started, but it seemed that the jet had finally been worn out. It was just not natural for a mech to have that much energy. Fulcrum patted Misfire's helm and went back to reading.

When Krok came to relieve him, the officer found Fulcrum asleep at his post, Misfire in his lap and Grimlock curled around them both.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Thirty (A:2)

[* * * * *]

Other, other universes: "Aren't Scavengers sort of a kink into and of themselves?"

[* * * * *]

Krok had stopped dead in the doorway. He'd been there for a good five minutes, watching the impromptu show. "That…was incredibly kinky."

There were still fans going. Spinister and Misfire lay tangled together on the berth, engines happily purring in heavy airframe vibrations that only extended their afterglow. "It really was," Misfire hummed from underneath the bigger 'Con.

Fulcrum glanced over from the other berth and blinked. "All I did was connect your cables."

"Mmhmm," the two flyers agreed contentedly.

"Thanks," Spinister added. His systems were slowly cycling down toward recharge. He always got sleepy after a good frag.

Misfire, on the other hand, would be hyperactive in about two more minutes. He lay under the rotary mech's chest for now and nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

The K-Con shook his head. "No problem."

Krok was still just standing there. Finding out Fulcrum was low-charge had initially unsettled him, as he'd been worried he'd somehow offend the slender mech. The rest of the Scavengers had settled into the typical rampant sexual groove of high-charge fighters trapped in closer quarters, and he encouraged the frequent interfacing. It burnt off charge before it got taken out in more violent ways. He hadn't been sure how Fulcrum would handle the other Decepticons running around fragging every which way from Cybertron.

Turned out that Krok had nothing to worry about. Fulcrum had no problem with everyone interfacing each other's brain modules out. He just…wasn't interested. He didn't avoid it. He didn't comment on it. He didn't really react beyond smiling as if glad they were having fun.

It seemed, however, that he also didn't have a problem with lending a helping hand. Krok had walked in to the officers' quarters to see Fulcrum standing above the tangled, urgently moving pile of limbs Spinister and Misfire had devolved into. The K-Con had been holding a handful of interface cables as he carefully reached between various appendages to hook them in. He hadn't been touching them in an even vaguely sexual manner. He'd just hooked the two mechs up, given them an approving pat on their uppermost parts, and retired back to his berth to continue rewiring the tiny motor he was building.

That was, somehow, both the cutest and hottest thing Krok had ever witnessed. Watching someone taking care of the rest of the unit just turned Krok's engines. He didn't precisely want to frag the techie through the berth, but he wanted - he wanted something physical. He was an aggressive mech. He understood physical contact. He understood the urge to grab and hold, even if knowledge of Fulcrum's disinterest had his interface systems looking elsewhere for partners. It was a little confusing.

"Want some company?" he asked, still standing in the doorway.

Fulcrum looked up from his work again. "Hmm?"

Misfire was making intent little motions that were waking Spinister up in all the right ways. Krok's fans began whirring away as the encore started. "Not in that way," he assured the K-Con, however. "Do you mind if I..?" He went over and put a knee on the berth, edging between Fulcrum and the wall. "Like this?"

The smaller Decepticon shrugged. "Alright?" He amiably shuffled engine parts and himself around until Krok could hold him between his spread legs.

This. Yes, this was what he'd wanted. The officer leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees as he watched his mechs get back to burning off excess energy in the best way. Fulcrum looked at them every once and a while, in the sort of absent way a mech glanced at a vidshow while busy working. Misfire and Spinister were background noise while the K-Con put together his little motor. Krok half-rested his chin on the techie's shoulder and held him in a loose cage of limbs. Holding someone - holding Fulcrum - like this felt different than he was used to. His fans kept whirring, the charge rose, but it wasn't directed toward the mech sitting on the berth with him.

He was used to feeling lust toward his mechs. He wasn't used to this, whatever it was.

Fulcrum looked up and gave him a lopsided grin. Krok brightened his optics back at him before looking back to the free show.

This was…nice.

"You're looking at me funny," Spinister complained from under Misfire, this time around.

The jet laughed. "Yeah! Get over here and do something about it!"

"In a bit," Krok said. He was going to enjoy this difference for a while longer.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Thirty-One (A:3)

[* * * * *]

Other, other universes: Misfire/Fulcrum - making out

[* * * * *]

He was eager, Fulcrum would give him that.

"Stop, stop!" The K-Class Decepticon pushed Misfire back and sighed at the injured look he got in return. "Look…" How to phrase this? He knew how to write a user manual, but this was outside his comfort zone.

"What'd I do?" Misfire's lips made a wonky shape as he bit the inside of his cheek anxiously. "I was trying to get the input receiver where the vocalizer cues your tongue to move for a diphthong, you know, right when you have to move your mouth to change the sound? It's sensitive, at least mine is," he revised that statement hastily, "and I try to get at it. Didn't I find it? I could've sworn that I did!"

He looked really worried about it, and Fulcrum waved his hands to head off that, uh, rather odd concern. "No, no - wait." He blinked, suddenly thinking about what had just been said at him. "How do you even know anything about diphthongs and how our tongues..? You know what, never mind." That train of thought got chopped off, because otherwise Misfire would sprint off on another verbal sidetrack, and he'd never get a word in. "No, look, it's not about that. Although that makes more sense about what you were trying to do, but no."

The K-Con sighed and pulled his hand down his face. Since he was currently located in Misfire's lap, that bumped his elbow against the flyer's chest and got another injured look. "Sorry. Okay, look, I've got no other way to put this, Misfire. You asked me to give you an objective opinion on your technique, right?"

For once, Misfire seemed afraid to speak. He'd asked Fulcrum to play judge on his kissing abilities because Crankcase had pulled out an expression of revulsion extreme even for, well, Crankcase's normal level of disgust with the universe. "…yeah?"

Fulcrum looked him straight in the optics. "You kiss like Grimlock eats: wet, sloppy, and trying to stuff way too much tongue into too small an area."

Purple wings drooped pitifully, almost hanging down from their hinges as Misfire's shoulders dropped into a slouch. It was actually rather sad to watch. The normally upbeat jet went from wary to utterly depressed in two seconds flat. "Oh. That's…oh." That would explain Crankcase's expression, yes.

The level delivery didn't take any sting out of the words. Fulcrum had sounded like he was giving someone under his command a performance evaluation: here were the facts, the facts were that failure ran rampant, now deal with said failure. Misfire blinked repeatedly and worked his mouth as if trying to find words to reply with. For once, he utterly failed.

"You asked me to assess you!" Fulcrum protested, panicking a bit at how the flyer completely deflated. "That's what I think, which is what you asked for! What, did you want me to lie and say you're a fantastic kisser? Because you're not. You're kind of awful." Misfire's mouth shaped a strange 'o' as he stared at him. "Frag, stop that. Stop looking at me like that. I'm not even interested in you!" Stricken red optics kept looking at him, and the K-Con shook his head violently. "Not like that! I didn't mean that I'm not interested in you just because you kiss so badly." Misfire's face fell further. He seemed kind of horrified by now, really. Both of Fulcrum's hands went up and gestured vaguely, trying to convey exactly what he meant and failing miserably. "I'm not interested in you at all! I'm sure you've got very nice qualities to make up for your terrible kissing deficiency, but I don't want to 'face you in the least and - oh, come on. You have to have something to cover the lack!"

Misfire looked downright depressed by now, optic frames at their widest and mouth falling open yet further as he stared. When Fulcrum fell to sputtering and trying to illustrate how unfraggable he found the flyer with hand puppets, Misfire's vents wheezed sadly. It took him a bit, but he gathered some coherency out of the stunned dismay.

"Thanks for your help," he said helplessly. "That's, um. Yeah. I'll work on that."

Fulcrum put his hand back over his face and made a frustrated noise. None of that had come out how he intended at all. Now he knew what Misfire felt like on a regular day. "Well, now that I've tripped over my own tongue and flattened your ego," he huffed wryly, "I'll give helping you a try."

The fear returned, and Misfire would have leaned away if Fulcrum's other arm wasn't wrapped around the back of his neck. "No, really, that's okay!" He'd just never attempt to snog with Crankcase again. Or anyone else. Ever.

"No, it's not," the technician decided. "How did you get this far without learning a proper kiss? Did everyone in your old unit have face masks, or is it physically impossible for you to shut up long enough to kiss someone correctly?" It was, sadly enough, a legitimate question. Misfire shrugged uncomfortably. "Anyway, first off: it's not you, it's me." He looked up, yellow optics level and serious. "You know that. I'm sure you're a highly attractive example of a nonstop babbling war machine to somebody out there, but not me. I'm low-charge. It's - this is nice. I like the preliminaries," he wriggled, digging his skidplate into Misfire's legs and reminding the purple flyer that he currently had his arms wrapped around Fulcrum's waist, "but nothing you do is going to charge me up. It's not a reflection on your skill." Or lack thereof, but he didn't say that. Out loud, anyway. From the flinch, Misfire had picked up on the unspoken words loud and clear for once. "It's just how I am. It's why you asked me to do this, remember?"

Right. He had asked for this. For the relentless crushing of his pride into a whimpering whisp hiding under his inability to hit anything he aimed at. Misfire swallowed hard and offered a sickly grin. "Yeah. Alright. I did." Because he was an idiot, apparently, but as Krok would say, that was nothing new. It'd also never stopped him from continuing a stupid idea once he got started. "So, uh…now what?" He really wasn't looking forward to a clinical dissection of his Grimlock-esque kissing ability.

The tan-and-orange K-Con in his lap blew out air irritably. "So, now second: we try it again. C'mere." He slid his hand up behind Misfire's helm and immediately had to put his other one between their faces when the flyer all but lunged toward him, wings hiked up eagerly. "No!"

It took more to keep Misfire down than merely jumping up and down on his sexual prowess. Kissing classes sounded awesome! Sign him up for some of that! They should be mandatory when a mech joined the Decepticons!

His wings meekly drooped again, however, when Fulcrum kept his hand over that over-enthusiastic mouth. "Nnmph?"

"No," the slender Decepticon ordered sternly. "You stay still this time. Respond, but don't initiate. Got it?"

One red optic twitched in confusion, but if it involved Fulcrum kissing him? Misfire was all for that, however it came about. The Scavengers had gotten it through their collective incomprehension eventually that different frames meant different levels of charge. That hadn't stopped them from interfacing the bolts of each other and discreetly bickering over who got to cuddle the K-Con afterward. Fulcrum was relatively small and cuddly in an unarmed way, and knowing he could kill them with his brain module was kind of exciting. There were lots of heavily armed mechs in the Decepticons, but not quite so many smart ones. At least, smart ones who good-naturedly hung out with the rest of the grunts and tolerated spontaneous hugging.

Misfire wasn't the only Scavenger developing a weirdly chaste crush on his unit-mate. And he knew it wasn't going to go anywhere, but like Fulcrum had said: the preliminaries were nice. And frag. They were all expropriation specialists. They were experts at using what they got, knowing it was all they were going to get.

He nodded, smiling under the hand.

"Okay." That hand slid slowly off Misfire's mouth, but it didn't leave the jet's face. Fulcrum ran his thumb over Misfire's lower lip while his hand cupped the mech's jaw and gently tipped the confused Decepticon's face down at a better angle. "Okay, let's try this again," he muttered as he leaned in. "Pay attention."

Brassy, almost orange lips brushed against silver, a butterfly hint of pressure that lifted and came down again on Misfire's bottom lip. A whispering touch lit the sensors waiting under the thin plating to tingling anticipation, but the touch merely pressed down a second longer before flitting away to give a lingering caress to the neglected upper lip. Fulcrum parted his lips and breathed a hot ex-vent over silver metal, letting the bare hint of moisture and heat tease as the caress swept from one side to the other, where he kissed the corner of Misfire's mouth. He returned to that abandoned lower lip, smiling against the pouty frown of concentration he'd provoked. Misfire had unconsciously puckered his lips slightly, trying to figure out how to respond, and that gave Fulcrum that whole plump curve to play with.

He lipped at the outside of that pout, the front of his teeth clicking off it, and Misfire's lips parted in surprise. Fulcrum nuzzled his face closer, nose nudging Misfire's cheek as he angled his mouth to suck that lower lip in to trace with the very tip of his tongue. There were sensors there that'd just been waiting for his attention, and who was he to disappoint? Misfire's vents hitched in an odd way, and Fulcrum used the hand still on his jaw to pull him forward and down enough to cover that silver mouth with his own.

For a second, their lips fit perfectly together, mouths parted just enough that they tasted the breath shared between them. Then Fulcrum pushed, lips crushed to the flyer's to steal that air like he'd devour Misfire from the inside out, and the flyer's jolted in his seat with a breathless squeak of shock.

When the K-Con sat back, Misfire stayed frozen, optics seeing nothing and mouth hanging open a little. "More like that, less like Grimlock," Fulcrum said, nodding firmly.

"I, uh. You. What."

"Are you okay?"

"I think I need to practice," the flyer said hoarsely. If Crankcase pulled a grimace after a kiss like that, the mech had a gearbox for interface hardware. "A lot."

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Thirty-Two (A:4)

[* * * * *]

Lipstick challenge 2014 - That's one reason why

[* * * * *]

He saw it while passing a broadcast screen somewhere they were running through because a Scavenger's life consisted mostly of running from angry authorities they didn't agree on the authority of. They mostly respected the authority of Krok. If Krok said they needed to be locked up, they'd whine and complain and sulk as they let him. They weren't going to let these guys lock them up.

Station security didn't have enough authority for them. Hence the amount of running they did.

But he saw the picture as they hauled aft, and it was an interesting picture. Fulcrum felt a twinge.

It wasn't a twinge he normally felt, especially after all the effort of screaming in panic and running for his life. Although they had gotten armloads of energon out of the attempted-purchase-turned-raid (hey, they hadn't known the shanix were counterfeit), so he was fully fueled for the first time in…well, in a long time. Larger and made for combat as the others were, they barely even noticed the levels go up in their tanks, but his body had adjusted to running off of fumes. A tank at three-quarters was luxury.

The sudden influx of energy already had him feeling a bit punch-drunk. Then he thought about the picture, and he felt a twinge.

There was a difference between roused charge and lust. He wasn't completely sure what the second one felt like, but from watching high-charge combat frametypes versus his fellow low-charge technician frames, he thought it had more to do with attraction to someone in specific instead of simply feeling a thrilling swell of arousal up from his core. The tingle when he remembered that picture had nothing to do with wanting to interface the mech in it. He just really, really liked the look.

Fulcrum eased out of the ongoing party on the W.A.P. as it turned toward fragging, as it typically did, but this time he carefully didn't attract the attention of Grimlock as he went. Let the others deal with a nosy Dinobot for once. He wanted some privacy for a while.

The bunks weren't private in any sense of the word, and Fulcrum needed some alone time. He went down into the cluttered depths of the ship and ended up in the engine room. It wasn't quiet in there, but it had a door and privacy. Good enough.

Once he'd cleared an area for himself, he sat down a piece of junk and started to set up. His plating fluffed a bit to let out excess heat as he arranged the shiny slab of plate metal at the right angle, and he grinned wryly at how bright his optics were once he could see his reflection. Yeah, it'd been a while since he'd wanted to do this. He hadn't had the energy to power his low-charge frame up to even generating the extra charge, much less had the motivation to actually do anything about it besides work it off. Here and now, it pulsed through his wires in steady, purring thrums.

The excess charge hovered on the border between arousal and the restless awareness of energy to burn. It reminded him of the times he'd chosen arousal over work, retiring to the officers' quarters back on B'lahr 39 to let the charge build. Some privacy, a lazy day, and a good set of fantasies about the programmers and what they got up to behind closed doors, and he'd gotten there.

He'd seen those programmers die. He didn't fantasize about their group hook-ups anymore.

On the other hand, he had a new thing to daydream about.

This felt naughty. The illicit feeling was getting him excited, and he hadn't even done anything, yet. Ducking his head, he gave himself a smirk before resetting his vocalizer and getting back to more serious business.

Everybody had touch-up paint, even if it was thin and smelled like paint remover instead of real paint. He'd have to get something nicer eventually, but it wasn't like anybody else on the W.A.P. had a shiny finish at this point. Krok tried to get them to look less like vagrants by shoving them all in the single functioning washrack in the medibay, but that didn't do anything for the scuffs and stripped finish. They strained for 'presentable, please don't refuse entry' when stopping at ports.

Fulcrum wasn't going to touch up his various chipped areas right now. Instead, he set the paint jar on the precarious makeshift table in front of his improvised mirror and cycled a deep vent. Here went nothing.

He nibbled on his bottom lip as he used the tiny paintbrush he'd nicked from Spinister to stir the paint. He could have shaken the jar, but this felt nicer. Slower. He liked slower. It let him really savor what he was about to do. Wiping the drips off the paintbrush's tip onto the rim of the jar, he cycled another breath and pushed his shoulders down, meeting his own optics in the mirror. Then he leaned in close and very, very carefully painted a narrow stripe of tan paint along his lower lip.

It wasn't big. It wasn't impressive. It matched his helm and half his armor, but it was a thin, wet streak that - well, he'd never seen it before. He'd never even thought of it before. It looked so different Fulcrum clonked his helm against the mirror and had to scramble to catch it as it fell because he'd leaned in too close to hungrily stare at his own changed mouth.

His interface array lit up.

Okay. This definitely worked for him. It could be either the act or the look itself, but he didn't care which. He only cared that the rising charge had shifted from energy to arousal in one fell swoop that left him shifting where he sat, optics bright and excited as his fans kicked on.

He almost bit his lip again but stopped himself at the last second. The sheen of wet paint faded quickly, but he pressed his lips together and tried rubbing them. The tan paint smeared over the coppery orange of his lips, almost translucent as it dried. It marked his lips even further, making them stand out from the plain, unadorned paint of his face. He stared, his free hand leaving fingermarks indented in his own thigh.

The brush shook a bit from leashed charge as he dipped it back into the jar and wiped off the paint from the tip. This worked just fine for him, whatever the reason.

The first attempt to follow the outline of his lower lip looked ridiculous even to his undefined standards. He scrubbed it off on the heel of his hand and licked at the rest to clean it off.

On the theory that maybe the upper lip would be easier, he accidently bumped the mirror with his chin while straining to check his work from every angle. "Stoppit," he hissed at nothing.

He forgot about his annoyance fairly quickly, however, and was soon making an odd expression into the mirror while trying to paint his upper lip. He had to drop his jaw a bit, mouth in a relaxed droop as he concentrated on keeping his hand steady. He didn't want a flat line, but a slight indent under his nose where the lip naturally dipped. Then out to the corner, working his jaw from side to side as he dabbed the brush in tiny motions to keep the color within the bounds of his lip.

He was running hot by the time he had the upper lip. Optics glittering in triumph, he sat back and grinned at himself, greedily drinking in the sight of his tan lip glistening against the orange of his face. That looked good. Frag, maybe he should keep this. New part of the paintjob. Something to set him apart beside the K-Con reputation constantly looming over his head.

He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and rolled it back and forth, still grinning like an idiot. The flash of teeth visible out from under the paint looked awesome. He liked this so much. He couldn't even explain why it had him so riled up, but something about the contrast, the effort in painting, the slow slide of the brush and the wet dab of the brush tip? Sign him up for this idea.

His free hand had dipped into his hip joint to pinch at a sensor conduit while he worked, but now he put down the brush and ran his other hand up over the welded, badly-healed mess that was his chest plate. His chin ducked down, and he gave himself a coy look out from under his helm as his fingertips teased over the top edge of his chestplate. He couldn't take his optics off the way his lips parted, upper lip painted tan and the other still coppery orange. There were a couple smears of half-dried tan paint where his lips had met. It was sexy as the Pit. When he licked the smears away, the ring of paint stain looked sinful.

Primus, he didn't even need to fill in his lower lip. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten this worked up and - why wait?

Fulcrum leaned back in his junkpile seat and kept one optic on the mirror as his hands wandered.

At the door, the surgeon who'd come looking for his stolen paintbrush silently decided to not demand Fulcrum return it. He could wait. It was only polite, under the circumstances. After all, Fulcrum never complained when the rest of the unit hijacked his berth when they needed the extra room for a foursome. Spinister couldn't really complain about one measly borrowed brush.

Besides, he wanted to watch.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Thirty-Three (A:5)

[* * * * *]

Fulcrum - Touchy

[* * * * *]

Krok being who he was, he considered the state of the unit to reflect on him. That reflection was depressingly filthy, broken, and scuffed.

He didn't let that get him down. Despite everything, even now, he was actually something of an optimist. He took the first opportunity that came along to fix the unit up. Using the broadest definition possible of 'fix,' of course, since nothing but time and a better medibay would repair some of them. 'Conceal' might have been a better word for it. He took the first opportunity to conceal how bad off they were.

Weird as it was for a race known for transforming, Decepticons judged each other by appearance. Krok needed that initial impression to be a good one if they were going to get anywhere once they encountered other Decepticons. Possibly once they encountered Autobots, if that was the faction in charge when they finally arrived on Cybertron. The unit at his back had to look…well, not impressive. They'd probably never manage impressive. Formidable was out, too. Not ready to keel over or rust out on the spot was more realistic. His goal was to make them look, uh, functional.

Okay, to be honest, Krok was more of a realist than an optimist. A mech didn't get too far in war thinking the best of everyone. Sometimes, people had to make do with the slag life handed them. He was a specialist at that.

An optimist would hold some supplies back in order to be prepared for when his old unit caught up at last. A realist would throw everything and the bridge console at the current unit and let the future handle itself. Who knew when his old unit would catch up, right? Better to expend resources on sprucing up the scrapheap rejects he was responsible for right now.

There was nothing to be done for Crankcase's helm, unfortunately, but that was only the most obvious injury. The pilot had a massive footprint indented into his back as well, size Helex Extra Large. Spinister had the matching toe indent in his side, and looked like he'd been punched in the face repeatedly. Go figure, since that'd been exactly what Helex did to him. Fulcrum's armor had been reattached after that suicidal jump tore him up, but lumps of solder were everywhere on him to knit up the huge rents through his metal. Bitemarks chewed up Misfire's left arm, healing but ragged. Krok's face had been reconstructed and the gunshot wounds in his chest patched over, but he looked a nightmare and knew it.

"We can't do anything to repair our damage faster," he said briskly during a meeting called specifically to address the issue. "However, we can at least fool any people we meet by disguising the worst of it with a decent coat of paint."

"From a distance," Crankcase muttered.

Misfire barked a short, sharp laugh. "If they're blind!"

A long-suffering look swept through Krok's optics. It would have been a familiar look to these two Decepticons in particular, as it'd frequently crossed the faces of many a superior officer before this one. Since they were nodding across the table to each other instead of looking at their current officer, they didn't see it coming.

Hands met heads. Smack!

Head met head. Crack!

It worked like magic. Poof! Suddenly, two well-behaved Decepticon grunts sitting quiet and attentive at the table, attention locked on their commander. Ignoring the fact that Crankcase was muttering under his breath, but Krok had long ago learned how to tune that out.

The officer resumed his seat as if nothing had happened. "As I was saying, since we now have the supplies," scavenged from a derelict orbital platform full of corpses and miscellaneous useless stuff, "we should make use of them. I want each of you to strip and sand down in preparation for a new coat of paint."

Fulcrum looked down at his lumpy, scarred armor and turned an incredibly unhappy look on his commander. Sanding down welded wounds before the solder absorbed naturally hurt. "But Krok - "

Misfire and Crankcase both scooted their chairs back as Krok's hand went up.

" - shutting up, sir."

"That's what I thought."

Paint stripping was easy enough. Spinister left the caustic paint remover out in the medibay, and the rest of them avoided drowning in it. That seemed fairly self-explanatory to Krok, who temporarily forgot that this was his crew. He had to rescue Crankcase after a mutual paint-removing session between the pilot and Spinister turned into interfacing the paint off each other in a more metaphorical sense. It left the surgeon happily asleep on the repair slab and Crankcase bubbling gently in a spilled puddle of paint remover.

"Hey, I don't see you doing any better," Crankcase protested after Krok shook him out of the overload stupor. "You fell asleep on the quantum generator last time we hooked up!"

"I wasn't in danger of drowning in - "

One finger stabbed at the officer, because there wasn't a mech onboard that Crankcase hadn't drilled on this. "First rule of interstellar travel!"

Don't stand next to a quantum generator when it was in operation, which translated to staying away from it unless absolutely necessary because the W.A.P. had been known to quantum jump at random. Krok still argued, "It's not the same. There were two of you in the room to get me back to my bunk."

Crankcase had a case of smug glitch that only a fist to the face could cure. "And whaddya know, I count two people here." He pointed a finger at the recharging surgeon, "One," then at his fuming commander, "two. Do I get a free ride to my bunk, too?"

Krok glared at him. The pilot smirked back.

"Fine," Krok growled after a tense minute of debating about whether or not the cure should be applied. "Be more careful in the future, or I'll leave you to drown just to teach you a lesson."

"Yessir, Krok sir. I'll make a sign." The pilot folded his arms and let the smirk grow. "'Safety First: No fragging unless supervised by two or more mechs.'"

Oo, the sarcasm was strong with this one. He was well and truly infected with the Insubordinate Disease, Krok could see.

Knuckle joints cracked.

Suddenly, disease remission! Crankcase dropped his arms and stood at attention, visor wary on the slow flex of Krok's hands. Eh-heh. Pushing a Decepticon officer was never a good thing, not even with an officer like Krok. Nobody knew what he'd do if he got mad. None of the Scavengers were curious enough to seriously consider pricking him until he lost his temper, either. Let sleeping cyberhounds lie, as the saying went.

Krok considered his own balled fist for a long moment. "Go get Grimlock," he said after he felt his point was made. "We might as well use this." He looked down in distaste at the puddle of paint remover. They could roll the stupid Autobot through it if they had to.

At least they had plenty to waste. He didn't know what that orbital platform had been set up to do, but they'd scavenged enough detailing equipment out of it to strip and paint the entire ship if they wanted. Plus sixteen sets of Jenga, for reasons unknown. Just their luck that they'd raided an orbital station full of paint fanatics and Jenga enthusiasts instead of heavy drinkers. They'd been keeping Grimlock distracted by teaching him how to play the game. It was an exercise in futility, but it kept everyone busy on their off-shifts.

Crankcase grumbled off to herd the Dynobot to the medibay, and Krok steeled himself to wake Spinister. He was going to need the surgeon's help to strip the paint of Grimlock. Dumb or not, the Autobot still dwarfed him, and he had the feeling that the smell of the paint remover would spark a struggle just to get Grimlock in the room, much less get all the paint off him. The Dynobot seemed to have a better sense of smell than the rest of them.

In the excitement of Dynobot wrangling, Krok forgot about the incident. Who could blame him? It wasn't just wrestling Grimlock around and dousing him something he most certainly didn't want to be doused with. That, Krok had been prepared for. He hadn't been prepared for the side effects of cramming the whole unit into the medibay in order to control the Autobot.

The huge puddle of paint remover filled the medibay with vapor. Grimlock whined and tried to bury his nose in whoever was closest to hide from the smell. Spinister's medical-grade filters strained it out. Krok, Crankcase, and Fulcrum clamped their vents shut to keep out the worst of it. Misfire's flight engine, geared up from helping drag Grimlock around, promptly sucked in a dozen full ventilation cycles of the vapor.

The unit had found out the hard way through their various adventures that Misfire had a slight sensitivity to such things. That was a tactful way of saying he had no tolerance and was high as a kite within two minutes.

Crankcase, Krok, and Spinister watched him flit down the hall with the tolerant expressions of mechs who'd not only seen this before, but no longer thought it was a problem. Fulcrum, on the other hand, shut himself in the engine room the third time a paint-stripped jet streaked by him shrieking, "I'm nakeeeeeeeeeeeeed!" at the top volume of his vocalizer.

So Krok was a tad distracted.

Hence the reason he had no idea why Fulcrum filed a complaint with him four days later. It was a neatly filled out form. Sometimes, the K-Con's professionalism really shone through the rabble. None of the others ever bothered to fill out a complaint form, which was why Krok occasionally had to remind them via blunt force trauma that he was in charge. They were soldiers in a faction that gave officers every right to punch them repeatedly for forgetting the formalities, after all. He was an unusual officer in that he didn't typically resort to violence when a lecture could make his mechs wish for the simplicity of a beating.

Most Decepticon officers regarded the complaint form as a request to deal with the person filing the complaint instead of dealing with the complaint itself, but Krok appreciated the little formalities the rest of his unit let slide. He felt proud of himself that Fulcrum respected him enough to submit the form instead of just whining behind his back.

Although he wasn't sure he understood the complaint. "There's no rule requiring you to supervise anyone." Krok swept his optics down the form again. "I'll admit that the situation here has made the divide between duty and pleasure more blurred than I'd like, but we're four high-charge combat-frames. Anything to burn that charge without undue violence is within the regs. You know that." He'd been encouraging Spinister and Misfire to frag as much as possible, quite frankly. Misfire was naturally hyper, and the more relaxed Spinister was, the fewer holes in the wall they had to patch. Krok had been looking the other way about fragging on duty, as long as work got done and the ship didn't crash. "Wait, is Misfire dumping work on you? Is he calling you to 'supervise' so he can 'face until you do his job for him?"

Fulcrum did tend to keep his hands busy. Krok would put it past Misfire to exploit that. Or Crankcase. Probably not Spinister. It'd take too much planning for Spinister.

The K-Con shifted uncomfortably, hands behind his back and feet shuffling. "No, I - well, that one time, but no. They keep calling me away from whatever I'm doing just to be the third person, and it's bugging me."

Krok blinked. "What?" Third person? When had Fulcrum started hooking up? Had Krok missed something? With a ship this small, they were already practically living in each others' sockets as far as privacy and interfacing went. He'd have thought he'd know about something that like the moment it happened!

Oh, Primus in the Pit. What had happened? Had Misfire been an idiot? Krok should have known. There had been that thing in the engine room that everyone pretended not to know about and secretly found really slagging hot because now they were all ultra-aware of Fulcrum's mouth, and Krok should have known he'd have to sit on Misfire over that. It was ridiculously sexy, but Fulcrum didn't seem to want any of them involved. That pretty much nailed the door shut on the subject. How exactly could they bring up wanting to jack off while watch him get himself off? His temperature didn't even blip when he saw them go at it. He'd probably lose charge from being stared at.

"Are you alright? If they've been making you do anything you're uncomfortable with, you have my permission to shoot them where it hurts," Krok said, then clarified, "Nonfatal wounds only. They know better. They can handle fragging on their own, and I don't care what reason they invent, there's nothing requiring you to join in if you don't want to."

"Huh?" It was Fulcrum's to blink in confusion. "What? I didn't…oh. No. Not supervise like that, sir. They're not looking for authorization or anything. It's just that the Safety First rule says three mechs or no 'facing, and it's really bugging me that they keep asking me to be the third mech when I'm working. And they ask me a lot. Can't you take a turn at it? And do we have to have that rule?" His voice dropped to a resentful mutter. "I don't mind watching, but it gets boring after the second round. Not all of us like an audience."

Krok stared at him. There were so many things wrong with what he'd just heard that he couldn't immediately reply. Coerced voyeurism under false pretenses? Aggressive exhibitionism? Depriving a unitmate of privacy and/or release?

"Uh…sir? I know you want us to be safe, but - nevermind. I knew this was a mistake. I should have just - "

"You didn't do anything wrong. I'll handle the problem," the officer said absently. Nervous, Fulcrum eyed his fists, but Krok only patted him on the shoulder as he strode past. Misfire and Spinister might be involved in this, but he knew who'd started this particular nasty prank on the K-Con. "Keep Grimlock busy up on the bridge and send Crankcase down to the medibay. It seems I need to have a talk with him about who makes the rules around here."

Time to apply the traditional Decepticon cure for the Insubordinate Disease.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Thirty-Four (A:6)

[* * * * *]

Fulcrum - Fixed

[* * * * *]

The whole lot of them looked disgracefully shabby on close examination even after Krok all but sat on Misfire to make sure the paint dried. Dents could be popped out and smaller dings could be covered by a coat of paint, but anyone who took a close look at the Scavengers would see them for what they were: the dregs of the Decepticon ranks, scraped out of the junk they'd been abandoned as.

It was a problem. Nobody would take them seriously if they looked like rejects.

Krok was drumming his fingers on the desk in the captain's quarters turning the problem over in his mind when the door swooshed open. Startled, Krok's head jerked around to look right as Fulcrum strode in looking ready to take on the D.J.D., already impressive chin jutting out and shoulders squared.

See, if the rest of the unit looked like that all the time, people wouldn't care about the state of their finish.

The officer shook off the thought. "Fulcrum? Did you need something?" Usually, the K-Con was the politest person in the entire unit, pinging for entry even at open doors. Missing doors, in the case of most of the ship. It was weird in a pleasant way having someone who was almost absent-mindedly respectful of rank and manners.

So heading straight for the engex locker without even looking at him was extremely odd.

Bewildered, Krok sat and stared as Fulcrum got the first canister out. There was nothing stopping the K-Con since the actual lock on the locker door had been yoinked to install on the starboard airlock's external door to prevent any more neutral pirates from wandering aboard on a search for scrap. The W.A.P. just looked derelict, okay? They weren't actually dead in space, and it was rude to assume so. The engine might have been offline for Crankcase to replace a busted piston, and yeah, Spinister did kind of look a bit dead when he napped in zero-G, but come on.

Krok had spent most of that fight yelling indignantly at the pirate captain over an open commline for that. The aliens hadn't even kitted out for a proper raiding party; they'd just been bored enough to poke the wreck they found floating out there in space. That was just insulting.

The aliens hadn't known what to do when the dead ship came back to life, luckily. Soon after Krok started giving them a piece of his mind, the pirate ship peeled away and took off before the Decepticons could turn the fight back around on them. The slagheap squishy organic freaks of nature. Hmmph.

Crankcase went around reinforcing all the external doors after that. The locker's lock was the first to go, so nothing but Krok's authority stood between the Scavengers and the small store of engex that they'd traded for at the last port. As Fulcrum was currently demonstrating, that didn't mean much to a mech determined to drink himself into oblivion.

And Krok wasn't entirely sure he should be angry about that. In fact, he was fairly sure he should be panicking. The urge to take shelter behind his desk hit in a wave of fear for his life. "Killswitch! You have a killswitch! Fragging Pit, mech, are you trying to kill us all?!" He'd lunge over to tear the engex canister out of the K-Con's hands, but he didn't want to get any closer to the oncoming explosion.

Fulcrum surfaced after the longest, most satisfied pull of engex that the officer had ever witnessed. "Ah!" Wiping his forearm across his mouth, he grinned somewhat wildly at his commander. "Not a problem anymore, Krok. Sir." He shrugged and upended the canister to continue chugging directly from the spout. "Whatever."

That was unsanitary and alarming in one. "What do you mean?" Krok edged out from behind the desk, optics flickering from the door to his apparently crazy subordinate. That's it, the K-Con had finally flipped. How far could he run before the trigger in Fulcrum's tanks met the engex and ignited?

Spinister's hulking shape filled the doorway suddenly, and Krok nearly yelled at the surgeon to stand clear before the thing in his hands registered. That looked like -

"Got it out," Spinister said proudly. Tossing the killswitch up and down casually, he puffed up. "Knew I could do it. I just had to freeze up the intake itself, and then it hit me that, hey," he shrugged, "we've all got intakes to spare. I could just take the whole thing out and replace it with one of mine. None of us are using our auxiliary tanks, anyway."

"I have never been happier that we're on strict rations," Fulcrum said fervently. He'd come up for air again, or maybe he'd finished off the first canister of engex. Yeah, looked like that's what he'd done. He dove back into the locker grabbing for another one to drain.

Krok stood there digesting this new information. He slowly relaxed from his half-crouch between door and locker as it dawned on him what Spinister had really said. "So…you're disarmed."

"Frag yeah."

"Fully disarmed."

"Frag yeah!"

"You checked?" he asked Spinister suspiciously. They'd been living under the threat of Fulcrum's finicky tanks for so long that he couldn't quite believe it was over that simply. Spinister had dragged Fulcrum off for a check-up, not for this. This was amazing. "You're absolutely sure?"

Spinister tossed the killswitch up again and caught it, absurdly pleased with himself. "Yup."

The surgeon had every reason to be proud. The K-Class were designed to be nigh-impossible to disarm. Spinister had done it not once but twice now, using only a field kit and a gutted medibay. Krok straightened up and walked over to clap a hand on his arm in congratulations. It got him a beaming, happy look he'd only ever seen from the surgeon during combat.

"Good job," the officer said, and Spinister somehow brightened further.

Fulcrum shouldered between them carrying three engex canisters under one arm, a fourth one in that hand, and drinking from a fifth as he elbowed Spinister aside. "Yes, good, I'm not going to die, thank you very much, now I have a date with all the engex you guys promised me when you were drinking in front of me. I am cashing those promises in right now, so help me Primus, so somebody pick up the rest of the canisters and bring 'em!"

They gazed after the K-Con, Spinister snickering and Krok helplessly amused. "Well, we did kinda drink in front of him a lot," Spinister said after guffawing for a while. "It's only fair he's the one getting fendered for once, I guess."

Krok glanced back at the locker and did some quick calculations. They'd traded for a decent amount of engex, but he'd intended to portion it out to four Decepticons aiming to relax, not one Decepticon attempting to drown himself in every missed drink they'd ever taken in front of him. It was hard to argue Fulcrum's right to it, but Krok sighed. "Crankcase isn't going to be happy."

"Crankcase ain't never happy."

"Mm, true. But I don't think Fulcrum's going to share."

The look Spinister gave him had more in common with kicked cyberhounds than a Decepticon warrior. Krok just shook his head and went to go collect the rest of the canisters. No wonder nobody ever took his unit seriously.

[* * * * *]

Title: Big Fans of Survival

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW MTMTE

Characters: Scavengers, D.J.D., crew of the Lost Light, Grimlock, Rewind

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): I finally took all of the Scavenger ficlets out of Candy From Strangers. None of these are related to the story Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey.

Part Thirty-Five (A:7)

[* * * * *]

Fulcrum - Sex and sexuality

[* * * * *]

Fulcrum had found a spot. It was a very uncomfortable spot. Good thing he wasn't the one being put on it.

The rest of the unit were the ones squirming.

"I don't get it," he said for the ninth time. "I just don't get it. It doesn't make sense. Pfft, sure," he waved a dismissive hand, "I get the frametype thing. I'm not dumb, but I don't get it. I don't get it at all." Misfire gingerly popped the next engex canister and slid it across the floor toward their ranting techie, who picked it up without stopping. "How do you get anything done? Seriously, how? You strip your paint; you get a charge. You sand down; you get a charge. You put on new paint; you get a charge. You polish; you get a charge!"

The others winced, guilty as - well. Guilty as 'charged.'

Krok had corralled the unit on the bridge to at least productive while they kept the K-Con's one-mech drinking party company. That meant there was only one chair available, and he'd claimed it. Rank had its privileges. That also meant that everyone turned to him automatically for words for wisdom since he was a big, obvious authority sitting there above them all. He concentrated on continuing to rub polish into the back of the Autobot sitting at his feet.

"It feels good," he said in his best confident voice. There. That made sense, didn't it?

Fulcrum snorted and took another swig of engex. Crankcase glowered enviously. "No slag, I think I got that part. And yeah, I know, it feels good. But you can't control it half the time, and then it takes so much time to build it up enough to disperse! Why the frag - heh, 'frag' - don't you guys ever, I dunno," he made an aimless gesture, "do something about it? Put grounders on your generators, or - or install battery rechargers, or something. Something that's productive. You waste so much time 'facing or wanting to 'face and trying to get someone around to 'face you. I got myself completely polished by the time you were all done huffing and grunting!"

He looked at them as if that proved his point. Misfire and Crankcase avoided his optics, because it'd been their clanging that set off Spinister and Krok, and then the polishing really had devolved into shoving as many cables into as many ports as a mech could find. Meanwhile, Fulcrum had steadily shined himself up and still had time to sit there watching them, evidently drinking courage in the form of all of their engex. Or maybe just losing his sense of tact with every canister. It was a toss-up if this was a spontaneous thing from him or if he was just turning the tables on Misfire's nosiness.

Either way, he was as shiny and perfect as he could be while they were a mess of paint transfers, scuffs, and bewilderment. Because, seriously. Who confronted a group of mechs about how much they fragged? Frequent fragging was healthy. It burnt off charge while in transit, which was important for combat frametypes. And sure, maybe they did get aroused at the drop of a bolt, and sure, he walked in on them interfacing everywhere and during every shift, and okay, yeah, he might have a point about how much time it took. And how often they thought about it. And wanted it. And did it. And did it again, because one time sometimes wasn't enough.

It was a little inefficient, now that they thought about it.

"That's how we're built," Spinister pointed out reasonably enough. "You're built low-charge. We're not."

"But it's - yeah, no, I get that, but it's so weird!" Fulcrum didn't seem to realize the oddity of saying that where he was, sitting among a group of combat frametypes.

The other Scavengers exchanged a glance as if asking each other if they'd ever found their drive to interface strange, but he leaned forward and shook his current drink at them. That immediately nailed their attention to him, because engex. Engex that they couldn't have. Crankcase might have whined a bit.

"Think about it! You're designed to be high charge because you're supposed to be active, but why's it gotta redirect to fragging when you're not fighting or whatever? It doesn't make sense. My excess charge doesn't do that!"

"You're low-charge - "

"Hey, no, just because I don't get a charge often doesn't mean I don't get charged at all. Takes more energon to boot my energy levels up to where my generator can push out more, but trust me, I get charged. Doesn't happen often, but that's what I mean, y'know? I've had the excess charge to burn, but I've never gotten obsessed about it! None of the other - nobody I ever knew like me, uh, dwelled on it like you guys do. You're always on about it, and thinking about it, and it's kinda obnoxious how everything's gotta be about it, or refer to it, or - or yeah. We can take it or leave it. 'S easy. Don't get why you gotta…gotta have it all the time."

The sudden passion drained away as fast as it'd hit, and the K-Con blinked and squinted, swaying where he sat as the engex interfered with his gyros. ''M pretty sure I had a point 'bout that but there're a lotta words and I just wanna…" He tried to get up and failed. His heels squeaked across the floor as he sat there looking confused and not entirely with it. "Did we lose gravity again?"

That was a relief for the rest of them. At least he'd stopped picking apart the foundations of what they thought of as normal. Besides, it frankly wasn't fair that a mech his size could down that much engex without showing the effects. It all made sense in a way because of how his systems ran, but they weren't used to thinking about everyday stuff in terms of low-charge frames. Support staff and combat units didn't usually mingle.

That might have explained why Misfire kept asking inappropriate questions about fragging, except Misfire always asked inappropriate questions of everyone. This was just the first time Fulcrum had turned it back around him by being curious in return. Now everyone was feeling awkward and second-guessing themselves, and they still weren't polished up. Yet more time wasted by interfacing, or at least talking about interfacing.

It was hard to disprove an accusation about obsessing over interfacing when everything seemed to come back around to it.

Heh. 'Come.'

Argh.

"No, gravity's fine. You're just overcharged," Krok said as he bent back to buffing Grimlock's back kibble. The Autobot was all but drowsing, undisturbed by Fulcrum or fragging alike. He sat in front of the officer with his systems purring in standby mode.

Fulcrum blinked at them both. It took a few seconds to process the words. "Oh. That makes sense." His head wobbled to the side, but he corrected in a jerk, blinking some more. "Huh." He groped for the next canister of engex and idly started downing it.

Crankcase sneered, getting up to walk over and prop the K-Con up before he slumped down to lay on the floor instead of sitting. "You ever think we think about fragging so much because we're surrounded by people we're attracted to?"

He said it somewhat sourly. Fulcrum was a slender twig of a techie compared to the rest of them, but the rest of the unit had agreed that he was hot. It was the chin, or maybe the fact that he could think them into tangled knots of logic. He was smarter than most of them put together. That was hot. They'd frag him in a second if he was interested, but he'd made it clear he wasn't. That made things a little odd when he happily curled against one of them like this.

Not that Crankcase was going to push him away. No way. He'd seen a chance for Fulcrum cuddles and gone for it before Misfire or Spinister could grab the opportunity. He put his arm around the fendered techie and smirked at the other two. They scowled back at him.

Fulcrum hummed and burrowed closer, soaking in the contact. It was nice. Crankcase would never admit it, but it was. Physical contact with the others was normally a precursor to jumping their cables, an invitation to spar, or both. There were none of those overtones when Fulcrum was involved. It was strange being able to touch someone without - alright, Fulcrum had a point. Now that he was thinking about it, the constant background awareness of interfacing was right there in his thoughts.

That didn't mean he could explain why. Crankcase shook his head and pulled Fulcrum closer, hoping the K-Con would pass out soon so he'd have first dibs on the leftover engex.

[* * * * *]