Title: Erstwhile Inmates

Author: Red Wasabi

Disclaimer: It's not mine and we all know that I'm not making any money offa this!(But I wish)

Notes: Smokescreen/Flamewar/irresponsible This is my first fic involving a Femme, so tell me how I did! This is a friendship/romance fic if you squint. It's part of my fic of the day series.

Rated:G

"If you had asked any bot what was the most notable thing about Smokescreen they all would have said,"Luck". Smokescreen ran on luck, he lived on it, he ate, drank, breathed, and slept it; but it his luck had run out out."

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If you had asked any bot what was the most notable thing about Smokescreen they all would have said,"Luck". Smokescreen ran on luck, he lived on it, he ate, drank, breathed, and slept it; but it his luck had run out out.

Smokescreen's optics causally flicked side to side as he quietly observed his captors. The cowards had caught him unawares as he had been patrolling; and he hadn't put up much of a fight. It had been three against one, with the odds stacked against him; he hadn't survived as long as he had by fighting useless battles. He knew that sooner of later another chance would come by—they always did.

Smokescreen's optics came to rest on the stoic blue bot who was leading them—him. Briefly he wondered where his castes were. The bot that flanked him on the left caught his optics next. His slow and awkward movements told Smokescreen that this particular bot was badly in need of a tune-up and would probably be able to maneuver quickly should 'something' happen. Finally his optics focused on the bot to his right; he had been saving her for last. The femme's attractive purple and black curves blinded most meches to her violent and powerful abilities. Most-but not him, he knew first hand exactly what she was capable of.

'Flamewar…'

Suddenly as if she had felt his optics tracing down the contours of her body the femme's optics turned to glare a deep red warning at him. Smokescreen looked away with a rueful smirk. Three against one…he'd faced worse odds.

"Hey Autoscum, you worried yet? You should be." Smokescreen resolutely ignored the grinding voice of his cell guard, they always tried to piss you off. It was their job.

"Backfire will be here soon..." The taunting voice crowed at him.

Smokescreen tried to suppress from a shudder running through his frame at that name. Backfire, every bot, Autobots and Decepticons alike, feared that name. Megatron's notorious torturer, was a different kind of bot altogether; he claimed no fraction, gruesomely killed either, and despite all of this Megatron had let him live.

Smokescreen's optics closed and he leaned heavily the hard wall of his cell. Once Backfire got to him, he'd have no more chances. The sound of the energy field surrounding his cell dropping startled him from his dark thoughts.

"What are you doing here?" He growled towards the grinning deceptions standing before him.

A low cackle ground forth from Mixmaster's voice receptor, and without warning Smokescreen found himself being restrained by the two burly bots that had flanked the mad scientist in.

"This won't hurt a bit," Mixmaster chuckled lowly, and drew a long syringe from his chest compartment. "Well it won't hurt right now anyways...It'll hurt later, after Backfire is finished with you. You see what I'm injecting you with is just a little something that I whip up especially for occasions like these. This will make you...compliant with our dear resident inquisitor—very compliant."

Smokescreen's optics instantly became fuzzy as the needle pierced through the main coolant cord in his neck. Slowly the faces of his captors faded slowly from his sight as he helplessly watched their mocking faces grow further and further away from him.

The sparkling's optics onlined to face an eerily familiar linkway. Which was odd because he had never left the Youth Sector's before. The sparkling gave a perplexed look around him as he slowly sat up and began to inspect his surroundings. This was not the Youth Sector's, not by a long shot. His optics widened as he realized that he was sitting amongst old energon cubes, and bits of scrape metal. He was in the refuse shafts!

The Youth Sector Nurses had always threatened to send naughty sparklings down the refuse shaft, had he been naughty? Was that why he was here in this cold and dark place, rather then the warm and bright halls of the Youth Sector?

Bravely the sparkling tried to stand up without trembling. Yes, that must have been what happened. He must have been naughty, and they must have put him down the refuse shaft! A cold wind blew through the refuse shaft and the sparkling shivered violently as it pierce straight through his thin exoplating. Well, he just have to go and apologize to them, then they would let him back in and maybe if he acted sorry enough they would give him a bottle of warm energon. Yes, that's just what he would do.

As the sparkling made to move out of the shaft a thunderous roar exploded from somewhere above him. Suddenly the air around the shaft began to explode in similar sounds, all thoughts of apologizing to his nurses were wiped from the sparklings logic processor as he ran for the nearest hole in the piles of scrap.

The hole was just big enough to allow him to move around in it, but small enough for him to feel safe in it. Just as he was settling down into a harsh voice that made him jump in surprise whipsered at him from behind.

"Hey, this is my hole! Find your own!"

He tired to protest against the unseen bot who shared the hole with him. "You can't own a hole, and besides something scary is happening out there..."

The bot behind him snort unimpressed with his logic, "Jeez, what are you some kind of droid? Something 'scary' is happening? Of course something scary is happening thats a battle out going on out there!"

A brilliant explosion from above filled the hole with a brief light. The bot behind him gasped in surprise, "You're a sparkling!"

More curious now then ever the sparkling carefully eased his tiny frame around in the arrow hole to face his companion, his bright blue optics meeting red ones for the first time.

"Of course I'm a sparkling, what else would I be?" he asked incredulously, as he studied the pair of ruby optics beside him.

He could almost feel the impatience roll off of his new friend as she spoke again,"How did you get here?"

Another blazing ball of light exploded and for the first time he saw his friend. She was probably only a few vorns older then he was, she was probably from the Youth Halls, not Sectors. Her frame was black instead of silver like his but other then those few differences he couldn't really see why his Nurses would always tell them scary stories about bot's with red optics. She was no more scary then he was.

"I think one of the Youth Sector Nurses put me down the Refuse shaft while I was re-charging, or something. They're always telling us that they would do that, but we never listened. Is that why you're her too? Did you get put down the shaft too? What's your name?" For the first time worry entered his mind, what if this femme had been put down the shaft cause she was bad too? Would he be allowed to come back, or would he have to live out the rest of his life in the refuse heaps?

His worry grew as the bot beside him said nothing, then right as e was about to start panicking, she finally spoke, "The Youth Halls, are go—I ran away...My name's Flamewar." she said flatly.

He nodded his head even though she couldn't see him do it; he had thought that maybe she had run away, cause he had never heard of another bot beside himself of course who had been put down the refuse shaft.

"That's a funny name." He said distractedly as his optics looked to the entrance to the hole.

"It's not any funnier then yours," the femme whispered huffily as some of the battle noise began to get closer.

"Ha! You think! I don't even have a name yet, so there!" He bragged back at her.

"That's fragged-up," she said bluntly not noticing that the sparkling blushed at her words, "You're old enough for a name...I'll give you a good name hold on, l et me think of one..."there was silence for a while as his friend sat contemplating slowly the sparkling began to feel worn out.

"I've got it!Your name from now on is Smokescreen!" she exclaimed in a high whisper.

The sparkling snorted tiredly, "That sounds like silly name, what does it mean?"

"Smokescreen is good name, it means that you're devious, and that you can hide things good!" The young femme went on brightly.

"Why would I wanna hide stuff, an' be dev—dev—devious." The sparkling got out with a tired huff.

"Cause you're name means that you'll be good at surviving." she quietly replied.

"Hmm..."was all he said back to her and for many breems no bot spoke.

The silence was broken by the femme's quiet voice, "You can stay here with me tonight...but in the morning you have to go find your own hole."

"I can't, I have to go back to the Youth Sectors tomorrow, and apologize to the nurses." he replied quietly as his approaching re-charge cycle began to make his optics flicker.

The small femme next to him made low noise of sadness, "You know if anything does happen to you though, you can come back here...just find another hole ok?"

The sparkling grunted sleepily as he slipped into full re-charge, "Goodnight Flamewar,"

"Goodnight Smokescreen." she replied in a hushed voice.

Then he slept hardly even noticing the dazzling battle that still rage around them, anymore.

Smokescreen woke up with his entire frame jerking painfully. His panicked optics quickly scanned the room and came to rest on a very familiar con. The 'con who had taken him in after he had discovered he was a virtual orphan with the Youth Sector's gone. The 'con who had taught him everything he had needed to know about surviving on the mean linkways of Cybertron. The 'con whom he had considered like a spark mate—that was until the day she left to go join the other 'cons. The day she told him to go join his own kind if he wanted to survive.

"What happened to Backfire?" He questioned warily as he sorely eased his frame up.

"He got called away--so did your guard." The back and purple femme quickly explained as she yanked him up to his pedes.

For a moment they stood chassis to chassis, staring into each other's optics. In that moment it was all gone, everything that had separated them for so many vorns. The war, their opposing races, and ideologies, for that moment it was just them against the whole fraggin universe again.

Then that moment had passed and they were enemies again, they were supposed to hate each other again. Flamewar's optics quickly moved to glance at the door to the brig as she spoke, "You've only got 10 joors to get out. Ten joors ya understand? I've rigged the system to only be down for that long, no more no less. Now get out of here."

As Smokescreen moved quickly to the cell doors, her voice called out to hi once more, "And don't you be getting caught again, you hear?" she darkly growled out," cause I might not help you next time."

Smokescreen smiled lightly but he didn't look back at her, "Of course I won't get caught again, that would be irresponsible." he replied smartly as he disappeared around a corner. Flamewar's disapproving huff still echoing in his audio receivers.

As he spotted an unguarded opening, he quickly made his way through it and out towards freedom. His luck was back.