A/N: This was originally a prompt by DeathStallion and chimeradark on LJ. All transformers are property of Hasbro/Takara and their respective creators. I own nothing.
The forest of Darkling Wood is drear, it is all of shadow and black trunked tree. The moon peeks not through the gathering storm as night fills with their dreadful forms. Oh brilliant moon, child of Primus' light even you hide weeping, for through our silent city dear the nightwalkers come creeping.
"If this is the norm on this route then Ratchet has a lot of explaining to do." Aid grumbled as he stormed through the scraped and salted streets of Pax Crystalia. Soft blue lamp light filled the darkness as he headed to Arachnia's inn through the late night chill. He nodded his greetings to the night clerk at the front desk, slipped past the tavern that spilled light and laughter even at this late hour and stormed to Ratchet's room barging in without knocking and uncaring of the warning glare he received from his master's nightwalker brother sitting at the bedside of the target of his wrath.
"First Aid!" Ratchet snarled, surprised by Aid's uncharacteristic intrusion, making his apprentice dodge a hastily thrown quill pen aimed straight for his optic.
"I inspected Unicron's Gate." Aid seethed flatly after the silence had stretched with Jack's nervous shifting in his chair as the only sound in the room.
"Did you listen to Ejector?" Ratchet asked blandly with an unusually calm smirk, his sudden shift in mood startling his apprentice with his disturbing calm.
"Who the slag is Ejector?" Aid threw his hands up in frustration as he cursed which only caused his master to chuckle lightly.
"The very tall intimidating guard who should have told you that, 'dark things dwell within the keep'."
"Uh, oh." Aid sighed as his shoulders slumped tiredly. He pulled another chair into the berth room from the sitting area and plucked the pen from where it stuck from the thick wooden wall. He sat tiredly, nasal assembly wrinkling in distaste at the sour scent in the air. "No, I didn't listen to him. Ratchet, some femme healer nearly gutted me!"
"Were you hurt?" Wheeljack immediately asked in concern, sending his brother a scathing look as he worried over the apprentice, who Wheeljack suddenly realized was three vorns older than he was – or the age his creators had said he was. The thought was disturbing in a vaguely unfathomable manner, and Jack could only wrench his attention back to the apprentice and block his other thoughts away.
"No, no, another healer, Fixit, he stopped her." Aid mumbled tiredly, somehow feeling like a younling crying about imagined wrongs to an overly amused caretaker.
"Good" Ratchet grinned, "Listen up, Flipsides is a dhampiel, and she probably claimed she was harmless," Aid nodded, "Which is a load of slag. Dhampiel's are just as dangerous as nightwalkers and often more so."
Ratchet watched as his apprentice's optics grew wide, brightening in fear. "She can drink high grade, walk in the sunlight and is only slightly weaker than Wheeljack." He jerked his thumb in 'Jack's direction for emphasis as the younger healer gaped in horror. "Dhampiels can act as nightwalkers, attacking mortals and draining them, they can turn their victims into ghouls and they can form psychic bonds with them. The only difference between a vampiric dhampiel and a nightwalker, is that no matter how desperately they want to make their own children, they can't. Dampiels do not turn mortals." Ratchet tapped his finger against the tome that lay across his lap to emphasize each word then fell silent, letting his lesson sink into the tired young healer's processors for a moment.
"But, why?" Aid wailed tiredly, "Why send me there alone? Why not warn me? I'm not like you I was never raised as a hunter!" His voice rose, laced with static as he stared at Ratchet with hurt optics.
"Would you have entered that dark hall if I had told you what they treated there?" Ratchet countered sagely, sounding to Wheeljack just like Chromia when they were younglings learning the dangers of being hunters, and the lethal promise of failing their lesions.
"I – uh, no." Aid admitted weakly. He would have fled Pax Crystalia and the entirety of the Steele Sector back to Imperial City if he'd known. "This was a test?"
Ratchet nodded once, "So, why did I throw you to the darklings without warning?"
Aid stared at his hands, fingers twitching from his toils and tension from the day, "A healer upholds an oath to help all in need. Not mortal, not wealthy, not poor, but everyone. We can't do our duty if we shutter our optics against those we choose."
Ratchet nodded, "That's the simple answer." He caught Aid's gaze with his own, "Our ends never justify our means, remember that. So, you inspected and you survived. Did Lady Flipsides escort you out of Unicron's Gate?" Ratchet finally asked with a tired yawn that only highlighted how terribly drained he still was after his miracle healing. Though Aid could only second guess himself as Wheeljack somehow managed to leer amusedly at his brother with his face mask still in place, a leer that got him a sound punch in the arm that would have heavily dented a normal mortal. Still, Wheeljack swore under his breath and rubbed his arm with a rumbled complaint.
"Yes, she said her doors were always open to the master healer and his apprentice." Aid sighed as he corralled his train of thought, coming back to the discussion at hand.
"Odd, she told me after my first encounter with the darkling ward that if I ever came back and interfered with her work again she would personally steak me out for the next nightwalker and made me find my own way out of the labyrinth she has the audacity to call award." Ratchet mused worriedly, he and Flipsides had never been on good terms with each other. He could only wonder what had changed.
"Ever consider your charming bedside manner might have affected her decision?" Wheeljack asked with a cackle that only got him a solid whack to the helm and some inventive cursing that made Aide stare at Ratchet torn between shocked awe and terrified horror. Despite his flippant words Wheeljack could only wonder if Sun Storm had spoken of Ratchet's true nature to the Lady of Unicron's Gate. A dawn sprite had the ability to destroy nightwalkers and dhampiels alike, such a revelation could have made the dhampiel Lady nervous.
"Ratchet, you've performed two miracles in ten years, both in Pax Crystalia. If she doubts you still then she's an idiot." Aid spoke in his mentor's defense, still miffed at being sent off alone into the dhampiel's den. Still his words were true, Ratchet was a powerful healer, so powerful and notorious that carriers across Imperial City used his name as a threat to get their younglings to recharge. 'Be good and go recharge or Healer Ratchet will come for you.' His carrier had pulled that one on him more than a few times – and normally it had worked.
Twin shadows eeled through the dark alleys of the slums, slinking past crowded hovels and slovenly open doors that served as ale houses to the poor. Here, everything was mired in the rank stench of mortal despair. The crowded masses who filled this cesspool of poverty and crime pressed in every corner of the blackened scar below the docks. Yet, to the shadows passing through their mists they were the thrumming promises of life that filled the night with their vibrant coronas of heat and the sweet pulsing of living sparks.
Sunstreaker grinned malevolently as they passed, enjoying the slight flicker of energy that stilled mechs and femmes alike, bringing them to stare nervously into the darkness, waiting for something to show itself. It never got old, he mused, tormenting the mortal chattel that filled the living ranks. They cowered in their pools of light, ignorant to the dangers around them and pretended all was well when nothing struck.
Beside him, Sideswipe frowned, noticing increasingly larger pockets of the living that could no longer sense them, too entrenched within their cycles of working and overcharging that nothing intangible could faze them. Yet they moved out from the slums, earlier business completed, allowing them to make their next stop for the evening.
Every city has its underbelly, a living cesspool of darkness that seethes with all the depravity the mechanoid race could produce. In this city that seething darkness existed in the crowded high society chateaus nestled in the shadow of the palace proper. There, in the bright candle light of a warm parlor three mechs waited for their arrival.
"Swindle," Crimson stepped forward, dark violet optics raking dangerously over the young nightwalker and his two new creations. The three younger immortals trembled at the other's sudden appearance, afraid of one of their own, an ancient who defied the passing centuries that graced him with his frigid thrall yet kept him eternally young.
The purple and black grifter sneered at the ancient, red nightwalker as he hid his fear. "You have the merchandise?"
"Soon," Sideswipe assured smoothly, "And what of your part of the bargain?" The words were asked with a rich smoothness, as sinful as long aged high grade.
"Uh, it'll be at warehouse 409 at the witching hour. Make sure my servants return with the merchandise, or I will hunt you down come dawn."
"Until the witching hour then." Sideswipe replied as he faded from sight, vanishing from the room with a leering grin that chilled the three nightwalkers to the core.
Ratchet paced within his quarters, waiting through the darkest hours of the night for the coming dawn. Jack and Aid had left him for their berths hours ago when the apprentice had become too weary with the day's toils. Now, with the candles and lamps blown out he paced in the pitch black room with only the faint misty light of the bright moon outside to relive the darkness.
Tomorrow, once the first breath of dawn encroached, would be his last in Pax Crystalia. He had finally been swayed by Jack's concern and Aid's proposal to request apprentice healers from each of the wards throughout the city to aid in treating the half feral younglings that ran the streets. Aid's argument had been sound, and grudgingly Ratchet agreed, the city had to ensure the health of their poorest citizens lest one develops a viral code that should become a plague.
He was ready for the coming dawn, letters requesting assistance had been written and sent by late courier to each of the wards now all he could do was wait for dawn and wonder if either of his new lovers would seek him out before his duties called him into the dark city beyond the darkened window pane.
:: This was the best you could come up with? :: Sunstreaker sneered at his twin, sipping repugnantly on the foulest low grade swill he had ever encountered. They did not belong here, in this filthy tavern thick with the oxidized stench of overheated plating and gunked up gears. The mechs here were shabby, plating thick with grime and optics hazy from too much energon.
Those patrons here came willingly for the cheap rations no sane mech would touch that would allow them to get over energized for as cheap as possible. Mechs and femmes of nameless shades and forms shambled in from their daytime toils only to choke down the foul dregs other wealthier establishments refused to sell before staggering off in their blissfully overcharged states to whatever miserable lives they came home to.
Still, the proprietor of the Broken Helm, a massive black mech known as Konboi, held one rule all followed religiously; there was no fighting within the Broken Helm. If there was he or any of his bouncers and bully mechs of varying race and sizes would physically remove the combatants and leave them in the gutter outside with their helms broken, just as the crudely crafted and graphically depicted tavern sign outside displayed. Helms were not designed to shatter that way.
Sideswipe looked the place over, sensing it was unusually subdued and smirked, noting as many of the silent gawkers noticed his glance and huddled within themselves hiding from him and his twin. Sideswipe finally grinned mischievously at Sunstreaker, dark violet optics and lethally sharp fangs shown for all to see. :: We don't have to hide here. ::
:: Moron :: Sunstreaker seethed, his own sundrenched golden plating glimmering ominously from their corner table. The Broken Helm tavern held the dubious reputation of being the most dangerous ale house in all of Pax Crystalia. Situated north of the docks, well away from the slums it catered to the sell-swords, rough side bawds, and those who bartered in more dangerous trades. The sins of the patrons supported the hidden population of darklings filling the lower class ranks that lived side by side with mortals.
Workers coming for their nightly ration huddled by the bar and nearby tables while casting furtive glances towards the pair that radiated an aura of purest evil. Bloody crimson and brilliant sunset gold the terrible beauties held all in silent terror. Here, the twin's nightwalker heritage would only aide them in spreading their presence through the darkling masses.
Dressed in garb befitting nobles, their long sir coats and fancy jerkins made them into glinting starlings amongst a roost of drab petro-sparrows. Here, in the stench and filth of the tavern they waited for their 'host' and the commodity he sold.
"So you two are still alive. We heard you had been sealed for all eternity – a death sentence for any of your kind if held long enough." An old voice wheezed by Sunstreaker's elbow. With a start the pair turned to the mech who had crept upon them and gaped at a mech they had last seen months before their imprisonment.
"Triatoma?" Sideswipe stared at the ancient, hunched old mech, the once matte black plating now a dim charcoal hue.
"You two haven't changed," the mech smiled, his wizened face creasing with age as his denta gleamed dimly in the tavern light. "Any other moon borne bastard of the Beast would have perished long ago."
Sideswipe cast a thought incredulously towards his twin, the same thought running through their minds as they looked on the once youngling they had taken under their guidance so long ago. "Tria, how long has it been?"
The old mech smiled at Sideswipe genially, "Ten thousand vorns have come and gone since you two were taken." Optics still the same near turquoise hue from long ago pierced the two with an unfathomably wise gaze, "You two taught the mechling I once was to stand strong against the Beast. You raised me as a younger brother, and now I look on you as an ancient assassin and necromancer on his last energy traces. I've waited ten thousand years for my brothers and masters to awaken."
Sunstreaker studied the mech he remembered as a toddling youngster brought to them as a rare treat to consume. The Beast had given them a three vorn old spark as a reward for services rendered. Yet somehow they could never bring themselves to feast upon the strangely hued mortal with wise blue optics that could stare into their long cold sparks.
"You took sacrifices to live?" It was more a statement than question, but at Sunstreaker's words Triatoma nodded as he sat down, ignoring the rising murmur from the patrons now free of the nightwalker's spell of fear. "How can they still know of us after so long?" Sunstreaker spoke of the darklings in the healing ward of Unicron's Gate, unsettled and disturbed that so long had passed since their departure from the living realm into their eternal limbo only to find that they were still whispered of as the fiends of nightmare and legend.
"After you vanished I took my many apprentices and fully trained master assassins to the Primes of Iacon, offering our services to Nemesis, the shadowed Prime, as you two had before us. We were accepted and, once every two thousand years the Primes of Iacon re-fabricated your tale, using my guild to stage attacks on villages on the night of your imprisonment, resurrecting the fear your names once brought.
"Four times my younglings killed in your names, and now, on the eve of their fifth task, I ask you to take the two who were to remind the living to fear you under your care as you once bore me and guide them."
Sideswipe pinched the bridge of his nasal ridge, venting long and slow as he shushed the black form with a single upheld finger. "You extended your life by ten centuries just to – what? – See us back to life and give us two younglings in your stead?" He snorted darkly as he slouched impudently, highlighting the dangerous gleam in his optics as he challenged Tria's aged gaze.
"Ha! You two might be ancient but you have not lived past your imprisonment, you are like new younglings with the memories of Spin-out and Skid-out to guide you. No, I have not endured ten thousand years just to resurrect you, but my time is running out." With a slight gesture two small mechs stepped out from the shadows, bright blue optics radiating their youth and determination.
"All of my affairs are in order, but these two never belonged with the Shadowed Prime's assassins. They are kind-hearted and loyal, they need a chance at a life without constant killing. Can you guide them in my stead?"
Sunstreaker looked beyond Tria's dark form to the smaller mechs emerging for the encompassing shadows at the edges of the tavern, red and yellow both bore small horns on their helms but despite their similarities they could never be mistaken for brothers. "They were going to represent us? You insult us, Tria. They're tiny."
"Watch it pretty mech." The miniature Sideswipe impersonator growled dangerously as he glared up at Sunstreaker impudently.
"How did you know we had been awakened or where to find us?" Sideswipe asked with a grim smirk.
"The current Shadowed Prime. He sent orders for us to infiltrate some young upstart healer's route, said you'd been let loose. The orders came in three weeks ago." Tria kept his gaze steady with Sunstreaker's, not truly knowing how to read this pair who both were and yet were not the mechs who had been his only family.
"What do you call yourselves?" Sideswipe asked the pair, meeting the smaller yellow mech's wide opticed gaze with his own.
"I'm Bumblebee." The yellow mech replied firmly, a hint of titanium filling his soft voice and innocent optics.
"Cliffjumper." The slightly taller red mech spoke curtly.
Sideswipe laughed softly with a low shake of his helm, "They're just like we were, aren't they? One gentle, one hard; I hate to break this to you Tria, but we're no longer those weak younglings. Isolation changes a mech."
"Tria?" Bumblebee asked suddenly, looking around the tavern uncertainly, "Do you mean Triatoma? The creator of the Assassin's guild? He died a really long time ago. They say he lived for eight hundred years, but I think the stories were altered." Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked to where their adopted youngling had stood and found only shadow.
"Great, we get orders to shadow these two and they spot us on our first day. How did you mess this up, shrimp?" Cliffjumper glared at Bumblebee harshly.
While the shorter pair bickered Sunstreaker and Sideswipe could only share an uncomfortable silent question along their twin bond. The specter of their adopted little brother had clung to the living realm, waiting for their return. Unsettled at their encounter the pair could only look over the miniature pair before them, wondering if Ratchet would kill them for taking on the young assassins – on the word of a ghost.
"Besides," Cliffjumper groused drawing Sunstreaker's intent glare back to him, "What does some old ruster have to do with anything?"
"That 'old ruster' was our baby brother." Sunstreaker warned with a dangerous hiss, optics narrowed to thin lines of piercing dark violet above long fangs that shone startlingly bright in the dim tavern.
Cliffjumper swallowed nervously, looking from the taller pair, red and yellow, suddenly feeling inferior for the first time in his life and shifted angrily at the feeling. "So what are ya gonna do about it?"
Sideswipe gave a cold, calculating grin, "We never said we'd take you." He pointed to the open tavern door, "Find Arachnia at the Black Fang, you two are now the personal bodyguards of First Aid. And, neither he nor his master can know about you."
"Or," Sunstreaker rumbled flatly, optics staring coldly at the pair, "You could take your chances with them." He flicked a flexible audio crest in the general direction of a table behind them filled with five large femmes of lycan descent.
Bumblebee gulped nervously, not wishing to tangle with the lycans any more than he wanted to fight the dangerous nightwalkers before them. "We're going." He pulled Cliffjumper with him, heading bravely towards the door, pushing past other mechs large and small through the suffocating crowd that filled the Broken Helm.
"How entertaining," a smooth cultured voice purred as it approached their table, "To have such littles of your own."
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked up to the regal features of the mech before them. Sunstreaker sneering contemptuously at the red-faced mech before them that dared to sit with them without fear. "You have the merchandise?" Sideswipe asked drolly, allowing amusement to tint his voice.
"Do you have what I require?" the other mech demanded imperiously.
"Of course, it is being delivered to my warehouse, as we speak." Sideswipe grinned, holding out his hands calmly.
"Fine, but if it's not there, or you double cross me in any way, I will steak you out for the sun." the other mech promised, gently placing a shimmering white cube of rarest energon wine into the waiting black hand.
"Pleasure doing business with you." Sideswipe spoke as he left the table.
"Ugly scrap," Sunstereaker moved from the table behind his brother, avoiding touching the standing noble at all costs.
"Ugly!" the mech cried aghast, his fury driving him to his pedes.
"Insidiously, ugly" Sunstreaker looked the mech over with disgust before stepping through the massive doorway from the Broken Helm. The pair stepped from the tavern into the night, disappearing before their 'host's' optics into the darkness without a trace.
"Why did they have to be nightwalkers?" The mech sighed, turned from the inn and headed to his waiting armed escort to return to the safety of the palace on the opposite side of his city.
"What happens if her majesty discovers what you've taken?" a roughened, world weary voice asked from the mech's shoulder.
"If carrier discovers her precious treasure is missing I can truthfully claim that invading nightwalkers were last seen vanishing from sight with it. Besides, Landmine, she can hardly claim that one cube will damage her treasury."
"I don't know Lord Tracks, Lady Overdrive and Lord Hot Shot won't take too kindly to losing their last wedding energon ice wine. Besides, if you're dealin' with nightwalkers we need to tell the guard." Prince Tracks' guardian and head bodyguard Landmine spoke softly as they hurried to safer parts of Pax Crystalia.
The young prince waved his hand absently, "That can wait until tomorrow, after sunrise. After all, any noble witnessing a nightwalker attack would be wise to sequester themselves until the nightwalkers had to go to ground." Behind them the other guards looked warily at each other, none wanting to risk their lives for the selfish prince's whims.
"You two are out late," the alchemist Mainframe greeted as the merchants Sunstreaker and Sideswipe entered his dockside alchemy shop. "However, I'm glad you could make it. Firebolt and I have finished your device, fascinating thing, and its ready for pick up." The mech smiled, displaying the ancient portable energon generator Sideswipe had brought in the evening of their arrival.
"Perfect," Sideswipe grinned easily, "two days for a complete overhaul on an antique must be a new record."
"Something like that, although the big dolt won't admit it." A miniature black and grey faced mech stepped from his small workshop from a door that led directly onto the counter top the others leaned against.
"Firebolt likes to believe I am a better alchemist and natural philosopher than I really am." Mainframe demurred as he humbly held his hand out for payment.
"Then I think you deserve more than mere gold credits." Sideswipe replied genially, "How about real platinum gold coins from the old kingdom?"
"You may be a good customer, Sideswipe, but you're an evil mech. The platinum gold of old kingdom was slagged six thousand years ago, everyone knows that." Firebolt replied hotly standing between the red mech and his master despite being the size of either's forearms.
"Then these must be fakes." Sideswipe set two of the legendary coins out on the counter at Firebolt's pedes. The miniature mech knelt in awe, running sensitive hand plating over the metal, sensors embedded there detecting the metal alloy and age from mere touch.
"Primus, they're real." Firebolt stood quickly, stepping swiftly to stand in the safe shelter between Mainframe's hands as his taller master eyed the coins warily.
"That device is worth a lot of cred is, but just one coin's worth more." Mainframe spoke carefully, not wanting to anger a mech who could possess such riches so easily
Sunstreaker, in his nightwalker glory, finally stepped forward from the shadows he had waited for his brother in. "Call it an incentive for silence, for all services rendered." The lethal threat from the mech's beautiful smile sent chills down the alchemists' spinal struts.
"Done." Mainframe and Firebolt replied in unison, venting easily only when the two mechs had left their shop and the door had shut behind them. "I'd say its high time to close up shop." The two moved swiftly to bar the door and head their quarters in the small tenement above their storefront. No one would know of the merchant nightwalkers that had come to them in daylight.
:: Mortals truly are pathetic. :: Sunstreaker sneered as the raced across the city as little more than blustery gusts of wind that churned up loose snow and encouraged all within their path to huddle tighter within their heavy winter cloaks.
Sideswipe picked up the snapshot image from his brother's side of the bond, the snooty mech from the Broken Helm only now back to the upscale tavern he had left his cyber-steeds and carriage that would transport him safely to the warehouse where his 'payment' was waiting. With a smile the red mech smirked, oh yes, it was good to be an immortal, especially a cunning one.
Within moments they had traveled from the easternmost edge of the warehouse district at Mainframe's alchemy shop and had arrived at 'their' warehouse, number 409, on the southern west waterfront. As they stepped from the darkness, once more as the nightwalker Blood Twins their delivery was just arriving at the hands of the new nightwalkers with lilac pale optics.
"I don't know Ransack, I mean this new master we're serving just doesn't seem right." The larger of the supply delivery mechs complained loudly, heavy jaw guard moving ponderously with each word he spoke.
"Come on CZ, he may be one mean master, but he's not gonna kill us as long as we serve him." Ransack wheedled his companion as they shifted heavy flats of stolen energon from the nearest energon mill into the dark, creepy, cavernous building. As they worked, bantering and mocking each other, the night grew colder and a heavy fog rolled in from the frozen river.
"Uh, Crumplezone?" Ransack asked timidly, "Is it just me or did it suddenly get real cold in here?"
"Ransack, uh, I don't think we're alone." The larger mech replied as he stared into the heavy fog.
"Why do you say that?" Ransack looked to where his partner was staring and squeaked in fright. Two sets of floating disembodied eyes hovered from within the mists, staring at them.
"Because you're not." A deep voice rumbled from the fog. The words ensnared their audios, enrapturing them where they stood, both suddenly still and limp as Sunstreaker stepped from the hazy vapor to drink deeply from the larger mech. Sideswipe, followed just behind, once more impressed with his brother's control over the thrall that had taken the pair over. Together the twins drained their victims, removing their helms at the shoulder and their sparks from the gaudy plated chests before rendering their victims to metallic char from white-hot magnesium fire.
"Such a waste, to send a mere childe out on mortals' business," Sunstreaker mused as the last of the young nightwalkers' remains finished smoldering and was whisked out of the warehouse by a stray wind cast as so much dust to mingle with the freshly falling snow.
"Yeah well, sucks to be them." Sideswipe shrugged impassively as he turned to the stolen energon. "So," he rubbed his hands together greedily, "The head nightwalker in town sent his youngest to steal enough energon to start a business foothold in the mortal's market. Young Tracks, the naïve and greedy lordling, wants stolen energon to fund his whoring ways since his parents cut off his finances. And lastly we need energon to keep us in the trade without being fingered for stealing the energon in the first place."
"Ratchet is in that big berth all alone, sprawled openly, seductively and waiting hungrily for our attentions, and you want me to care about your precious energon?" Sunstreaker deadpanned even as he projected his fantasies across the bond.
Sideswipe sighed as he desperately attempted to ignore his brother's words and the accompanying images, "You have no sense of adventure." With a shrug the red mech turned deeper into the warehouse pulling stores of energon stolen from the palace earlier that night. With a grin he glanced at his brother, who finally grinned at the ploy his brother was using.
"Lordling takes the stolen palace energon, attempts to pay the brothel mistresses with stolen rarities and gets fingered for all your misdeeds since we came into this pit begotten city."
"Our misdeeds dear brother, ours; you helped me steal the energon from the palace, and you stole their credits which paid for Ratchet's new cloak, and –"
"And I took the paints and the canvases from that spoilt lordling's precious suite of rooms that he was absolutely wasting. Primus, you're annoying." Sunstreaker cursed as the pair shifted the stolen mill energon to the back of the warehouse, moving the palace energon to the fore while they bantered. "Now can we go?"
"Not yet, brother." Sideswipe stepped back into the shadows, guise rising to hide him from mortal sight, "your part is not yet over."
Sunstreaker huffed dramatically as he stepped back and joined his brother, casting his guise to include the palace crates as they vanished into the deep shadows. The illusion over the merchandise making it appear as the stolen mill energon the young lord was anticipating.
Ratchet wrenched himself from his nightmare flux, rejecting the montage of Decepticons and Autobots slaughtered within the sacred walls of Steeldale's holy temple. Despite the night terror induced fear that trembled through his lines and relays he woke feeling safe. With a sigh, comforted and contented he snuggled deeper into the chilled, firm embrace – embrace?
Suddenly awake he moved to fling himself from the encircling arms, only to be stopped without effort by all too familiar faces looking worriedly down on him. It was déjà vu. He had awoken after their love making chilled and alone, spark agonizing that he had been tumbled in the berth and left without warning. And, yet, hours later, in a room that had been locked from the inside with them somewhere off doing whatever they did for fun, the merchant twins were back in his berth counting his intakes as he rested.
"You were having purges," Sunstreaker prompted gently, using an archaic term for the night terrors Ratchet had only come across in ancient texts from long ago. Violet optics watching Ratchet's face he waited next to his twin for the healer to speak
Vocal processors frozen, Ratchet could only stare at the mechs who should not have been there yet were. "How the slag did you get in here?" He finally demanded, voice hard, optics shining with a confident light he in no way felt, but he'd be slagged before he let the ruffians in his personal space find that out.
"Arachnia did assign us this room first." Sideswipe reminded the healer gently, dangling a key above him with a triumphant air. Ratchet scoffed with a gust of air. The pair smelled of stale energon and heady perfume, their optics the wrong hue yet Ratchet could not place why. With a sinking gut he figured they could have only gone to the brothels and knew he would never be able to keep the pair's attentions.
"Have fun out there?" Ratchet finally sneered, wrinkling his nasal ridge at the familiar, heady perfume surrounding them his interface circuits warming mindless of his wish to send the pair from his life forever.
Ratchet pulled himself from his disturbing recharge, glancing outside he knew the morning would come shortly. Shuddering, he donned his healer's robes, gathered his satchel and fled the too silent room. He had much to do, and not enough time. In the back of his processors he could feel the nightwalkers from Pax Crystalia stirring, and silently wondered why his unconscious mind had made the merchants into the very creatures he feared. A shifting in the back of Ratchet's processors alerted him that his time was up, they were here within this city the nightwalkers of Steeldale had arrived. With a nervous spark he strode into the darkness and the many patients in need of care.
"I thought that brat would never leave." Sunstreaker spat venomously as they finally, finally, returned to the Black Fang and their waiting healer within. Tracks had spent hours double checking each and every fragged crate for damaged merchandise before loading it up on his accompanying transport mechs to return to the palace. In addition to taking most of the night, holding such a meticulously detailed glamour was tiring. His nightwalker childe snack was wearing thin already.
Sideswipe merely nodded mutely as they slipped silently into Ratchet's locked room. Just as Sunstreaker had described, Ratchet lay sprawled across the berth, sheets tangled between his legs, night shirt riding high to reveal one bare thigh and just a sliver of that tantalizing, cherry red, perfectly sculpted aft. Without a thought Sideswipe moved to a hidden safe in the room's wall, pulling from it a single cube of their special blend. Despite having fed just recently, the thin energon of the nightwalker childe Ransack had been a mere appetizer compared to the intoxicating nectar filling Ratchet's lines, the mechblood of the Dubhan ceann chòsach.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe each downed a cube of their mechblood substitute, drinking the heavy brew in a single gulp before approaching the berth and the object of their desires. As soon as the berth room door shut Sunstreaker slipped from his clothes, sliding lightly onto the berth and gathering the resting healer up into his arms. Sideswipe, constantly amazed in the changes in his twin from before their imprisonment to now watched Sunstreaker's confident motions with brotherly admiration. The mech Sunstreaker once had been would have never held this strong surety at attaining so admirable a creature's affections. Comfortable that Sunstreaker was settled securely with their lover Sideswipe slipped onto the berth, and slid into Ratchet's unconscious embrace.
They finally reached the door to Ratchet's locked room, the fantasy playing through their processors shattering like a soap bubble bursting on the wind as the stared at the empty berth waiting rumpled and cold in the dark, still room.
:: He left us. :: Sunstreaker breathed, systems falling silent to match the hollow, bleak, emptiness of the room.