Jack stared contemplatively up at the sky, his legs hanging over the side of a boulder near the Harbinger. He wanted to go another round of therapeutic rock smashing, but when he'd tried that yesterday Starscream had threatened to cut the wiring to his wings. Jack had no idea if the seeker could do that, but given that Starscream himself couldn't transform, he assumed that something had gone wrong with his flight capability.
Having gotten used to the feeling of flight but still a bit tentative about the queasy feelings of sudden altitude, Jack liked it. It was one of the few instances in which he felt free. 'Never thought I'd imagine Starscream being right about his assumption.' He thought, surprising himself with the lack of hostility toward the mech.
In fact, ever since he'd come back two days ago, Jack had been starting to see Starscream as less of an enemy and more of a…friend was too strong a word, so maybe a 'frenemy'? Could that word apply to this type of arrangement? He pretty much had no other interaction since there was still a sting when he thought about bailing on his mother and leaving without an explanation.
Venting to himself, Jack stretched his limbs and made his way back inside. His optics scanned the dangerously dwindled pile of energon crystals, and he knew that they'd need to resupply soon. He tilted his helm as he heard the grumblings from down the hall, and he curiously went to see what Starscream was up to now. Even if the attitude Starscream had toward him was beginning to change, Jack still couldn't let go of the instinct to keep an eye on whatever the seeker was planning.
Peering into the lab, Jack found Starscream at the smaller console. "Can I ask what you're doing?"
Starscream didn't look up. "Using the human internet to find you an alt-mode gave me the idea to try and find something useful," he said, "but with the trillions of gigabytes of data, none of its useful." He growled and slammed his fist onto the console.
Jack raised an optic ridge as he walked in. Vaguely he wondered just what kinds of things the seeker had found. When he reached the mech's side, he stared as a picture of a painfully familiar monkey. 'The tap-dancing monkey strikes again.' He thought, smiling sadly as he thought of Raf swapping out pictures of Bumblebee or the other Autobots with this little video.
"Though some oddly engrossing." Starscream said, and Jack was surprised to hear the seeker chuckling. The seeker met Jack's astonished gaze, and Starscream narrowed his optics. "Not a word."
Jack shifted his optics away. "I don't know what you're talking about." He said evasively.
Starscream snorted, but hummed distractedly as the console beeped. "What is this?" he asked aloud and Jack took in the sight of a pile of merged together red crystals.
"That looks liked energon." Jack observed, feeling unnerved by the dark chuckle that Starscream let out. "What is it?"
Starscream smirked at him. "These ignorant life forms have no idea what they've uncovered. Red energon," he breathed dramatically, but rolled his optics when Jack's expression twisted in impatience, "if I can possess its power, not only will I be stronger, but faster." He said and his smirk widened. "Significantly faster."
Jack looked at the picture of the red energon for a moment longer. "Speaking of energon though…"
The seeker blinked, and scowled. "Ah, yes, the other problem." He said and picked up the ground bridge remote. "You will head back to the mine where I found you, while I go acquire the red energon." He said and his wings flared proudly. "I expect you to retrieve quite a bounty for I will surely be in a celebratory mood when I return with my prize."
"Gotta get it first." Jack muttered, but Starscream sent him an annoyed glare. "I mean, it's you, what could go wrong?" he asked, but before the other mech could decipher if he was being sarcastic or not, Jack continued on talking. "By the way, you never did answer my question on how to work the comm. system." he said, and shrugged in the face of Starscream's incredulous stare. "What if you need backup?"
"With the Apex Armour at my disposal I think that's a rather moot observation." Starscream said. "Though it would be beneficial if you did get a working system." He muttered. He pulled the cable out of his wrist, and Jack grimaced as he uncovered the medical port on his wrist. "Since I don't have the time, I'll just give you the packet and you can sort through it yourself. Just don't call me when you think you've got it."
"Right, 'cause you're just gonna be swimming in messages." Jack said dryly, but winced when Starscream jammed the cable into the port with more force than was likely needed. 'Totally worth it.' He thought and in his processor, he was hit with the data being streamed in. It was an unusual sensation to be sure, and his port tingled a bit even after Starscream had pulled the cable out. "Whoa." He muttered dazedly.
The seeker chuckled. "Oh, this cable isn't anything compared to my other one."
Jack stared at him for a moment, but his expression twisted in disgust when he realized what Starscream meant. "Unbelievable." He grumbled and marched out of the room, intent on getting his mind off the tingling coursing through his systems.
Stopping briefly to grab himself an energon shard, Jack set out on his hike back to the mine, hoping in the back of his processor that he'd have an easier time finding it if he did a backwards trek from the direction he and Starscream had originally come to the ship in.
Peering up at the sky, Jack transformed and propelled himself into the air. 'Too bad I can't use that ground bridge to take me to the mine, but I don't even know where it is so I guess it'd be pretty useless in helping me.' He thought. Still, if it was going to be hard finding the mine from the air, it must have been just as hard for Starscream to get anywhere without the use of his wings. 'Never thought I'd feel sorry for him, he's lucky he's got that remote then.'
Without further delay, Jack set about finding the energon mine.
'Finally, I found the damn mine.' Jack thought in irritation as he landed outside the crevice where he'd first escaped from his Eradicon escort. Jack peered down into the darkness, his spark pulsing at the thought of going in and feeling pre-emptive claustrophobia kick in. 'How did Starscream manage to survive down in that cavern? I'd have been flipping out within minutes if I been like this then.' He added, but shoved the memories away with a scowl.
Thinking about his human life only caused the inevitable thoughts of Knock Out to appear, and he had enough of that mech to last a whole lifetime. 'I'll even take until his lifetime is over.' Jack thought darkly.
Shaking his helm, Jack sucked in a deep breath as he made a promise to himself to ask how Starscream did handle this, and he began making his way down the slope and quelled the impulse to turn back. Even if Starscream didn't mind keeping him around, Jack knew all it'd take would be shirking on an order to get him kicked out or scrapped.
As much as it pained him to admit, Jack needed the seeker. Still needed him.
Jack laughed bitterly to himself. 'And here I probably care more about him now than he does about me.' He thought shaking his helm again. Once he reached the bottom of the cavern, Jack let his optics adjust before he started his trek further into the cavern. When he saw that he'd have to once more crawl through the tunnel, he only sighed and crouched down at the space and carefully maneuvered around the crevice to avoid scrapping his wings against the tunnel walls or ceiling. 'If I so didn't think the cave would collapse, I'd just shoot a bigger hole in the wall.' He thought with a regretful sigh.
Wincing as he felt his wing scratch the wall, Jack hurried his pace and grunted as he staggered onto his pedes in the open cavern. Glancing around the place he hadn't seen in what felt like weeks, Jack could still see the imprints of where he and Starscream had been piled together, and where they had picked a different space to occupy on either side of the cave.
When Jack saw the third set of prints, his processor almost fried itself as he sharply recalled Knock Out telling him that he'd found this cavern already. 'Oh no, how could I have been so stupid as to come back here?' he thought, glancing around and keeping his audios open for any other sound, but there was just silence.
'Relax, even if the 'Cons would send someone down here, it would be mining drones.' Jack added, but that wasn't exactly reassuring. 'Just find some crystals, doesn't even have to be a lot, only enough to keep Starscream off my back.'
Jack kept his optics off the third pede trail and scanned the walls for any remaining blue shards. His spark pulsed as he saw that he and Starscream had both likely cleaned out whatever energon had been in this part of the mine, and he grumbled to himself as he realized he'd have to go further in. Jack clutched at the wall and trailed his digits along the crevices in the cavern until he could find another part for him to crawl through.
His digits hit something in the dirt though, and Jack blinked as he dusted away the debris and found a glowing blue shard. 'Great, there probably are more shards in here, but I gotta dig them out.' He thought and tugged the energon fragment out of the wall. He looked the shard over, and when he gave the same assessing gaze to the rest of the cave, he sighed. 'I really got my work cut out for me, don't I?'
When Jack eventually got topside again, he wasn't surprised to find that it was dark out. As he glanced back at the cavern, he was tempted to just cave it in case the Decepticons realized that there was still energon here, but they could find an empty vein for all he cared; he just hoped the bunch piled in his arms was the last of the energon fragments.
Jack grimaced at how after he got back to the Harbinger that Starscream would likely set him to working on cleaning the crystals off, and honestly, Jack wasn't going to be too adverse to making his 'food' presentable. Pausing, Jack looked once more up at the sky, his optics sad and remorseful. 'I've put it off long enough, time to see if it works.' He thought and with a deep sigh, Jack used the data package that Starscream gave him to dial his home phone number.
Ashamed as he was to admit, Jack hoped that like the last time, his mother wouldn't be home.
When the other line was picked up though, Jack knew there would be no time to gather his thoughts. "Who is this?"
Jack wasn't surprised to find his mother's tone was suspicious; he could guess that seeing a bizarre set of numbers on the caller I.D. would freak anyone out. "Mom, it's me. It's Jack. I…I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was that I left so soon."
"Don't hang up, young man!" June said, but there was an awkward pause for a moment. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I spent one of my vacation days sifting through Optimus' movements for the past few months," she explained, and Jack's optics widened, "and there's been no suspicious activity from what I can gather, but I really never understood much of this alien mumbo-jumbo."
Jack tried to stay calm. "What are you saying? Do you think I'm making it up?"
"No!" June said immediately. "I got the Autobots to agree at least to leaving you alone until I could convince you to come back willingly-which I'm guessing you'll be hard-pressed to do."
Jack pressed his lips tightly together. "Got that right. I'm not setting foot in that base again, but," he faltered as he thought of the other Autobots and his human friends, "how is everyone else?"
"Miko and Raf don't know about the accusation against Optimus, and everyone but Arcee and Wheeljack seems to be willing to put this behind them. I think it really shook them up though about what you said Optimus did. Arcee though still wants to hear the full story from you, but she's also willing to wait until I can convince you to come back." June explained. "Oh! One more thing, Wheeljack went out a couple nights ago to look for you, he'll know better now than to attack you or bring you here."
"He's looking for me?" Jack asked bemused. "Why? All we did was sort of get to know each other and he activated my weapons." He paused at that. "Maybe that's why, but I'll be on the look-out just in case." He couldn't very well have Wheeljack stumbling upon the Harbinger, not when Starscream already seemed to be suspecting that something was going on with the Wrecker.
"I…should let you go, just be safe, and call me to know you're all right." June said sternly.
Jack felt a flutter go through his spark at his mother's concern. "I will, and I love you."
"Love you too."
Jack let the call disconnect and began once more on his hike back to the Harbinger, keeping one optic on the sky for any sign of a ship. His steps felt lighter though, and as he marched across the mountain terrain, he actually found himself missing Starscream's griping.
He'd certainly been finding himself warming up to Starscream lately, but with how isolated and unsafe it was, who else was he supposed to talk to? Venting softly, Jack tried not to dwell on the irony that he was relaying on an enemy for any kind of emotional support.
Still, as unbidden and unseen as the feelings were, Jack suspected that perhaps this strange 'camaraderie' wasn't entirely all in his head. Starscream had certainly not reacted the way Jack thought he would to his little confession and then there was the almost-concern Starscream had shown him when he suggested clearing his processor in the first place.
Though, even if this friendship could be reciprocated, Jack knew better than to ever talk about his previous ties to humanity.
'That kinda brings the mood back down.' He thought sardonically, no matter how true it was.
Tuning out everything but the dirt beneath his pedes, Jack trekked along the mountains until he could see the familiar protrusions of the Harbinger's hull out of the ground. Picking up his pace, Jack became painfully aware of just how much his legs hurt. He'd likely gotten some dirt and rocks in his joints and he was so not looking forward to having to pick it all out.
After he walked up the ramp of the ship, Jack set the pile of crystals in the corner before he started to make his way to his room; his energon readings told him that he had some reserves left, and he didn't want to be around when Starscream noticed that the shards weren't clean.
As he passed by one of the other rooms, Jack paused when he noticed the faint red glow on top of a counter as Starscream stood in front of it, tapping one pede impatiently with his arms crossed. Jack furrowed his ridges as he walked over to the seeker's side and peered down at the hunk of shards that were slowly dissolving in a machine.
"What's this?" he asked, but Starscream only raised a ridge and Jack rolled his optics. "I know this is the red energon, I meant what's this machine?"
"The refiner." Starscream explained. "It took a while, but I finally found one buried in this slagging ship. No more having to feed on those shards like starving mechs."
"Right." Jack said slowly, his optics never leaving the sluggishly processing machine. "If this is gonna take long, I think I'd rather continue eating the crystals raw."
"Red energon takes a while to be refined, but the regular shards will not." Starscream explained, his expression going a bit uneasy. "So I suppose we'd still be eating them as they are any way for now."
Jack hummed noncommittally, but as he glanced at the seeker once more, he noticed the too-long stare he'd been given before Starscream looked back at the device as well, and Jack resisted sighing. He knew it had always been there, the seeker's itch that he'd wanted to get scratched ever since that night from what felt like weeks ago.
Though Jack had assumed he'd satisfied the mech's urges with the awkward rub down in the shower, he wondered if they had been merely staved off. Straightening up, Jack vented deeply as he looked at Starscream. "We're…friends, right?"
The seeker jerked back at that, his optics growing wide, but his expression schooled itself soon enough. "Minion." He insisted.
"Yeah, that, but," Jack muttered, pausing as he second guessed the validity of continuing on, "you take care of your…minions?"
Starscream's optics narrowed in a way that conveyed something other than suspicion, but Jack wasn't quite comfortable enough yet to name it. "Only if I am taken care of in turn." He said, but there was a faint trail-off, the option to back out now if he wanted too.
Jack steeled himself; he couldn't keep hiding forever from himself; he wouldn't let Knock Out continue to haunt him even when he wasn't around. He just wanted things to be okay, to feel okay. "I…I can't go all the way, but I am willing to-" he fumbled over his words, embarrassment heating his faceplate-"to touch."
"Very well," Starscream said, and like a switch from the twitchy mech Jack had gotten used too, he seemed to morph into a more refined one, "my room or yours?"
The question, so…well, not innocent, but close enough, was also a loaded one. Jack could go with Starscream into his room, but there he'd undoubtedly feel restricted and it'd be like being back with Knock Out, something he wanted to avoid at all costs during this. If he chose his own room though, at least there was the probable safety net that once Jack said 'stop', that the seeker would actually listen.
He'd stopped himself before after all.
Gesturing to the hall, Jack evenly met Starscream's gaze. "Mine."
AN: So, uh, no sex next chapter, just awkward fumbling and more relationship development. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm saving that experience for a 'special' moment. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait.
