[* * * * *]

"Storytelling"

[* * * * *]

It was hard, being laid up.

Sure, Krok could move. They could all move. Thank Primus, they were all mostly functional but for poor Flywheels. Encounters with the Decepticon Justice Division didn't usually go that well for mechs, even Decepticons who weren't on the List. So the Weak Anthropic Principle's little crew had gotten away comparatively unscathed, and they all knew it. Fulcrum probably thanked his lucky stars for that quite frequently.

That didn't make the injuries any easier to suffer. Fulcrum got tackled by Spinister the minute he showed up on the W.A.P. toting his first load of scavenged stuff from the P-6 Worldsweeper. The K-Class mech had gingerly walked away from that encounter wrapped up like a mummy in ugly swathes of repair nanite-culture bandages knotted around his battered body. Misfire and Crankcase had made sure to point and laugh at him.

They didn't laugh at Krok. Krok's whole head had been carefully covered in the bandage swatches, building layer upon layer of metal-rich resources for his self-repair system to use to rebuild his torn face. There was nothing else Spinister could do for their sole officer. The medic just didn't have the resources to do anything to replace what had been yanked out. Vos' face had torn hideous chunks of Krok's own metal out, and the W.A.P.'s medbay had no supplies. Spinister operated three times using his own tiny emergency surgery kit just to cap off the worst of the damaged systems, but beyond reconnecting or taking out irreparable mechanisms deep within the various gashes, he could really only amp up Krok's own body. While the other Scavengers were off stripping the P-6 down, the surgeon had bandaged Krok's face and fed enough energy into him to send his self-repair into hyperdrive.

That'd been excruciatingly painful at first, then just a dead drain on him. Krok found himself passing out periodically as his other systems attempted to compensate for the drain. Spinister insisted he stay in the medbay until the black-outs passed, but then the surgeon had had some sort of brain spark that'd ended up with a frankly scary surgical schedule. Spinister had raided the P-6 on his own and come back toting supplies that made no practical sense to anyone without medical experience, apparently. One day after the launch from Clemency, and Krok had been flat on his back again, groggily recovering from the first of what appeared to be a list of vital operations.

Between the surgeries and continued black-outs, that meant he couldn't really go anywhere. He was laid up.

Laid up Decepticon officers were basically targets, but that wasn't what had Krok restlessly pacing around the room by the second day. Unlike most officers, he'd have been more relaxed with his unit members here with him. He'd lost Flywheels. As ridiculous as it was logically once they left Clemency, Krok still felt like he could lose the rest of his unit. It was paranoia speaking, he knew. Seriously, where could they go? Space?

…well, Crankcase and Fulcrum were complaining continuously about repairs, and eventually someone would have to go out onto the hull to fix the navigational installations. If not that, then Crankcase would take a crack at fixing the fragging shield projector. The perpetual pessimist had been bitching about that since he'd joined the unit. He seemed convinced that they were all going to die in a hail of asteroids if he didn't bring it back online.

Krok didn't know he found that idea of random death by asteroid field more or less alarming than one of his mechs leaving the ship and not coming back.

The blinded officer took another turn around the medbay, tense unhappiness radiating off his stiff shoulders as he walked. He realized he was only working himself up, letting his imagination conjure unlikely scenarios, but there was only so much he could do stuck in here. He'd already pinged Crankcase, Fulcrum, and Misfire for locations and gotten a set of amused and annoyed pings back reporting where they were and what they were doing. Any more than that, and he'd be exposing his own weakness. Decepticon officers who got too attached to their subordinates were setting themselves up for those subordinates either turning on or being used against him. It was no secret that Krok wanted his unit close-knit and working well together, but…he couldn't afford to let his mechs know that he was, ah, slightly protective of their well-being.

He turned and walked back the way he'd come, resisting the urge to ping again. He'd really prefer it if they were all within visual range. Audio range in Misfire's case.

"You okay?" Spinister asked from the direction of his workstation. He'd gotten absorbed in hammering out one of Fulcrum's shoulder panels, and that was good. The less Krok had to remind him of what he was supposed to be doing, the more work the rotary mech actually got done.

It did mean that it'd taken Spinister about twenty minutes to clue in to his commander's pacing, however. Observational abilities weren't ranked in Spinister's best skillsets. Krok suspected that he'd been moved from the medical ranks to the grunts because some casualty had bled out before the rotary mech had gotten around to noticing something was wrong.

"I'm fine," Krok said, mind still busy. Maybe if he snagged Fulcrum for a 'getting to know the new subordinate' chat when he came in for a fitting from Spinister? He had been re-evaluating his initial opinion on the little K-Con since Spinister had filled him in on what'd happened after Vos took him out. He wanted the story in Fulcrum's own words before deciding how much responsibility could be entrusted to the ex-project manager. Theoretically, having an ex-officer in the unit could be a good thing. It just depended on how much Krok would have to lean on him to keep him in the unit instead of running at the first hint of trouble.

That'd keep Fulcrum in place for quite a while. Misfire would naturally gravitate toward any group, the larger the better, and getting a conversation going with Misfire around was not going to be a problem. Fulcrum hadn't been exposed to the chatterbox 'Con long enough to develop the ability to tune him out, either, so the K-Class mech would end up trapped in the conversation. Even if Krok had to sit on him to keep him there. That left Crankcase, but despite how hateful the mech seemed, eventually he'd come looking for the rest of the unit. That accounted for all of them, but that wasn't the challenge. The challenge was Krok managing to keep them here once he got them in.

Hmm.

He turned a suddenly speculative gaze on Spinister. Er, well, he turned his head in the right direction, anyway. His optics were theoretically on the mend, but they were useless for actual sight at the moment. From what proximity sensors and audios told him, the rotary medic was turning the piece of armor over and over. Knowing Spinister, he was totally caught up in the glitter of light on the dents. It was Krok's task to keep him working, but that could serve another purpose right now.

"Spinister, hammer the dents out," he reminded the brilliantly stupid surgeon. Because otherwise the mech would start putting more in instead. He walked over and leaned against the wall beside Spinister, making sure that he was facing the direction of the door. It was open, because he'd propped it open himself. Pathetic as it probably was, he'd wanted to catch any sound of the crew that he could. "Do you want to hear about the battle of Cromnick's Pass while you work?" he asked Spinister.

"What's Cromnick's Pass?" the medic asked, predictably enough, and Krok launched into the tale.

There was a method to talking to Spinister. To Misfire, too, although that was less about avoiding complicated concepts and big words. As long as Krok kept things moving along at a fast enough clip, varied his voice, and threw in lots of arm gestures and sound effects, his two twits would listen to whatever he had to say. Dealing with Misfire and Spinister had turned Krok's flair for dramatic speaking into a necessity. He'd had to hone it, because the universe was full of really distracting things in direct competition with him for their short attention spans. He knew that he had to be the most interesting thing around in order to keep them focused on him.

So when Krok started storytelling, Spinister paid attention. And his voice spread through the halls outside: a rich, ringing lure of droll humor and tidbits of oddball information to troll in front of passing mechs. Heeeere, Scavengers. Come here. Here! C'mere. There's a good unit.

Two hours later, and the whole crew was gathered in and around the medbay listening to him. Misfire was talking over and around him, excited by something as per usual. Fulcrum and Crankcase were debating whatever piece of the story they'd picked up on, but half their attention remained on the officer still pretending he was only speaking for Spinister's benefit. The medic worked steadily, prodded on by the nearest mech whenever he got distracted. Even Grimlock was there, curled up on the floor as that entertaining, factual voice narrated a past he didn't remember.

Krok was a war historian. He had a lot of tales to tell, and every reason to tell them well.

His Scavengers stayed in the medbay with him for a long time.

[* * * * *]