Title: Palette
Summary: Mixmaster sees the world in colour.
Continuity: G1
Rating: T
Beta'd by the wonderful DemonSurfer. Thanks again!
The colour of hunger
He decides it's purple. Only fitting, considering the glowing energon that provided them with life and sustenance, which his empty tanks were aching for. He tells Bonecrusher, who shakes his head.
"Yeah, whatever Mix." His teammate's too tired to humor him and waves him off, used to what everyone outside the team labeled as insanity. His teammates found out not long after they became gestalt and Hook, being Hook, decided to take it one step further and answer the question of exactly why. It turns out to be a little error in his sensory units up in his head, but it was so little a problem there was no need to fix it, even with Mr. Perfect's incurable need for perfection.
"F-fine b-be that way!" he snaps back, because everyone's been on edge ever since they arrived on Charr, and tensions are running so high he's surprised no one in the army's turned to cannibalism yet.
It's boring, he decides. Other than it being mind-numbingly painful and hunger inducing—obviously—it's downright killer in the boredom, and the lack of anything fun or interesting on the planet. The same old rocks, ground, scenery, lack of chemicals, and the same mechs every day. Granted the last part was the same back on Earth, but it was lively back down there.
And most of all, it was the same boring colour all the time.
It used to be a swirling palette of colours, mixing together to create all new ones. The chemicals, especially, blended together into a fascinating Technicolor blur that no one else except him could see, and it was the most entertaining thing in the universe. Now it's the same dull shade of purple everywhere he goes. It may have been the symbol of their allegiance, but it's always been his least favorite colour.
Mixmaster now thinks he knows why.
The colour of pain
He's not a sadist, because being insane doesn't automatically equate to being a psychopath, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy melting the occasional Autobot with a well-placed spurt of acid.
And what a time to try it to, considering the quivering form lying at his feet.
"Found him sneaking around the site." Hook asks why Long Haul didn't just kill the pathetic creature and he shrugs.
"Figured it'd attract the rest of them"
The coward is shaking and he tries to scoot away, pushing himself with his feet and struggling due to his bound hands. Mixmaster gives a wicked smile.
"He might have information we could get out of him."
"Don't be ridiculous. He's just a low level scout, who couldn't even do his job correctly. There's nothing of worth from him."
"You know Hook, for someone so smart you really aren't sometimes."
"Which is obviously why I'm working on blueprints, and you're stuck carrying materials left and right."
"Knock it off both of—MIXMASTER!"
Everyone turns around in time to see the scout melt into a sad puddle. Mixmaster giggles as he looks at his work.
"It's green," he announces, a sickly acid green that looks as if it could corrode the metal right off of you. In this case it did.
Scrapper merely sighs.
The colour of friendship
He remembers Omega Supreme clearly, though like the others, his views his memories like a movie, the person in the film far different from whom he is now, the present him merely a distant observer.
The guardian is so big, so huge, and so orange that it's impossible for Mixmaster to see any other colour on him. And he was so eager too, seeking them out to talk whenever possible, always carrying them up gently so they could sit on his shoulders while he walked.
They stay as far away from him as they can now. What with the slight problem of him wanting to kill them, but Mixmaster still sees him—sort of. He's in the interactions of Thundercracker and Skywarp when they hang out together, Rumble when he's tussling with his twin, the triple changers when they're drinking in the common room. He sees it often enough, though even then he doesn't really miss or regret anything to do with Omega Supreme.
Those are the stuff of Autobots anyways.
The colour of madness
They all say he's crazy. He knows and has accepted it a long time ago. Whereas the Autobots would have attempted to fix such craziness, in their delusional, well-intentioned, and ultimately unwanted desires, the Decepticons simply accepted it. Don't fix what isn't broken, and while Mixmaster was crazy he most certainly wasn't broken. The same went for half the army and he thinks it's why red is all he see when he looks at certain mechs.
The Autobots in their pristine, normal, and exact world that never allowed anyone who didn't conform to the exact requirements of their creed, were the dull white to the Decepticons polar opposite, and whenever he looks at the raging bloodlust mech display in battle, or that cruel awful frightening smile some get whenever they rip apart an Autobot's plating he knows why. They say he's crazy, but he thinks they're all a little mad.
This is the one thing he doesn't tell his teammates. Primus, only knew what Hook would say, perfection obsessed lout that he was, but he knows it's true. Being crazy, he decides, gives him a clear view through the fogged up window that everyone else viewed the world through.
He's laughed himself sick more than once about how the Autobot symbol it the same red that he sees in the delicious cruelty permeating the entire Decepticon army. Has wondered more than once why both sides didn't just get optics that matched their emblem.
Mixmaster ponders this, and thinks that maybe it doesn't come down to colour, maybe in the end both sides are just fragging mad.
The colour of pride
Whenever he sees Starscream the mech just blossoms in big, bright blue, resembling a peacock so much that the chemist has lost himself in fits of giggles more than once. No one ever notices, and he finds there's an advantage to it.
"There he goes again." Mixmaster can barely hear Long Haul over the air commander's screeching. No one is surprised at the familiar fusion cannon blast a second later. Bonecrusher grunted.
"You'd think he'd learn."
They all know he never will.
The colour of teammates
They're lime green and purple, but neither shade is what he associates them with. Instead they are a rainbow of hues, each of them the only one in his shade.
Scrapper is a barely contained sea blue. His commander really is way too calm for his own good, but Mixmaster's seen him when he's riled up and angry, and he immediately turns into a torrent of danger and pain, that's beautiful to witness. His art isn't bad either, but Mixmaster prefers chemicals over live specimens.
He's told Bonecrusher that he's a dirty brown, and got punched in the face. He lay laughing on the ground while his teammate just stared down at him, and he thinks it's quite fitting. Such a brawler. He was destined for his job.
It's appropriate that Scavenger's a soft pink, though he giggles quite a bit at the thought, and gets into full blown laughter when the excavator brings back a tiny ribbon pin—the humans wore it every month to signify some disease or another that inflicted their frail bodies—that's the exact same shade. He doesn't punch him like Bonecrusher does though he does look at him oddly, before Mixmaster explains though he still doesn't quite get it after, but he sits down and listens anyways. That's the good thing about Scavenger.
Hook is a regal violet, though Mixmaster snorts at the idea. Hook is snobbish, and while he isn't regal he does admit that it fits the crane. Dark too, which suits the unsmiling mech very well. Renowned among the Victory Crew to supposedly have a stick as long as North America up his aft, the mech never lost his serious façade. Scavenger always said it balanced him, the crazy one, out.
Long Haul was born to be mauve. There wasn't a particular reason why, other than it just seemed very Long Haul. Pale, and subdued it fit the dump truck enough, what with his constant bending to Scrapper and Hook's wills and being regulated the role of the custodian most of the time. The story of his life, as he'd told Mixmaster one time.
He sees the multicolored hues every time when he's around them—which is all the time, basically—and he remarks on it often enough. They shrug it off and nod, but secretly he's glad he has such a colorful team.