Title: Homeward Bound: The (Not So) Incredible Journey
Warning: Decepticons being Decepticons, and the Scavengers in particular being themselves. If you can't take it, don't read it.
Rating: PG
Continuity: IDW
Characters: Spinister, Fulcrum, Krok, Crankcase, Misfire.
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.
Motivation (Prompt): Schrodingers-tailgate wanted to see more of this fic. Halloween prompts were timely.
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Vampire who's too old for all this shit.
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This was not a diagnosis medical training had prepared Spinister for. An entire war hadn't prepared him. From the befuddled expression he wore, even life aboard the W.A.P. hadn't prepared him for a patient exhibiting symptoms of sheer cosmic bad luck.
That's not to say that Spinister hadn't examined Fulcrum expecting the usual array of unusual problems. Forced chassis alternation was par for the course for the K-Class, and the process could hardly be considered healthy. All sorts of things went wrong in the aftermath, or they would, except the majority of K-Cons simply didn't survive long enough to worry about side effects. Survivors, both medics and patients, tended to note minimum safe distance instead of solutions to the K-Class' health problems.
Spinister had been handed a patient chock-full of incompatibility issues and the barest slivers of information on how to treat the glitchy fragger. It made Fulcrum's physicals interesting. Krok called them learning experiences. Spinister wasn't sure what Krok was learning, but Grimlock had picked up a lot of bad language in Spinister's accent, lately.
The things Spinister lost his temper over were lucky problems, however, no matter what Fulcrum complained. Trying to reattach combat-rated armor to a technician's frametype was a pain in the aft, but it was a living person's problem. Fulcrum might have to be dragged in by Krok for maintenance appointments, but he definitely wanted to stay alive. Spinister knew that.
This? This wasn't a lucky problem, and Spinister didn't know the first thing about treating luck. This was beyond a possible side effect and into the realm of infinitely small probability. Fulcrum shouldn't be alive enough for symptoms. He should be dead. K-Cons didn't complain of tank-clicks. Tank-clicks meant death. Dead! Shuffled off the mortal coil and scattered all over the landscape for good measure!
Spinister didn't know how to explain how improbable Fulcrum's condition was, but he had a better grasp on the situation than anyone else crammed into the medibay with him right now. He gave it his best shot.
Crankcase dodged. "Watch it!"
The gun swung back toward Fulcrum, who clutched the edge of the medberth so hard his knuckles creaked. Fear-bright optics paled to an ill shade of pastel yellow as the K-Con stared down the barrel. Gathering charge swirled, hypnotic.
Fulcrum really didn't want to be sitting here right now. He felt like a big fat target. "Spinister…the point's to prevent me from exploding, not set me off…"
A firm hand smacked down on Spinister's forearm just as the violence-prone medic fired. Nobody else flinched at the loud THOOM, but Fulcrum squeaked, knees jerked up to his chest and shoulders hunched around his helm.
He straightened out after a second. At this point, he was more startled by the noise than truly afraid. Burn marks pockmarked the medibay.
Misfire sniggered and Crankcase cracked half a grin as Fulcrum glared at Spinister, but Krok kept his hold until Spinister released the trigger. "Focus!" their commander barked. "Less weaponry, more medical jargon. That's an order, Spinister!"
Spinister reluctantly holstered his sidearm. "Heightened volatility in current supplies are inducing trigger seizures as the fuel evaporates in his tanks," he said, narrowing his optics at the weirdo K-Con he was somehow supposed to treat. "He should be dead. The glue I put in the trigger mechanism's not enough to stop the process. A trigger seizure should be warning of imminent ignition, not a repetitive sensation." Glancing at Krok, he shrugged. "Treatment's gonna be one of those 'medical firsts' you keep telling me to document, Krok."
Everyone stared at him. Misfire's mouth moved as though sounding out the words one at a time.
Krok gave every appearance of a disapproving scowl, face mask or not. "Too much medical jargon. Dial it back." 'Medical firsts' he understood. He didn't like those. They had a high failure rate.
"Uh." The befuddled look returned. Spinister ran on two settings: Low or Extra High. It was as true in the medibay as it was on the battlefield. Dumbing down his explanation for everyone else did nothing but dumb him down.
Fulcrum jolted as a hand came down on his shoulder from behind. "Wait, no, I get it!" Misfire said, and Fulcrum all but teleported out from under his hand to go hide behind Krok. Misfire gave him a hurt look but kept talking. "We picked up those cubes in Havolk Station, remember? They boosted our supply pool. I didn't think anything about it 'cept we got the good end of the deal, but yeah, it kicked our ration grade up."
Spinister's confusion cleared. "That'd do it. Still don't know how he's alive, but a higher mix would certainly cause a reaction."
Misfire tried a weak smile. "Reaction. Right." Managing the unit's energon was his responsibility, the one thing everybody trusted him not to screw up, and he'd screwed up. Frag, had he screwed up. He was only now realizing how bad it could have been. A fluttery, queasy sensation flopped about in the depths of his tanks. Mistakes happened, but for some in the unit *cough*explodey McSploderson the K-Coward*cough* what Misfire measured into their ration was a life-or-death kind of deal, every meal a misjudgment away from being the last.
Spinister shrugged the consequences off, clinical and uncaring, but Misfire was no doctor. He didn't feel much like a Decepticon at the moment, either. A solid lump lodged in his throat as he stared at Fulcrum.
The bomb-mech didn't look like he was quite following the conversation. He peered out from behind Krok with his optic ridges furrowed and chin jutted out as he figured out the connection between his tank-clicks and fuel evaporation. "Reaction? So…the clicking is, what, my systems adjusting to the new mix? That doesn't sound too bad. I mean, I'm obviously not dead, so it can't be too bad." And maybe Fulcrum was being optimistic, but Spinister did overreact a lot. He was sick of Krok pushing him into the medibay for stupid small problems like a click-click-click in his tanks after he drank a cube. Little maintenance problems weren't worth being shot at.
Spinister and Misfire gave him identical horrified looks. "Your systems don't adjust to higher grades," Spinister said, almost offended. That wasn't how it worked at all.
"It's not a higher grade," Misfire protested automatically, on the defense because it wasn't his fault except it totally was and a part of him hoped Krok ripped his wings off for this. It'd be a decent penance for nearly blowing Fulcrum up. Misfire didn't believe in Primus, not really, except for the teensy part of him that had listened to Flywheel's preaching and set up shop as a believer sometime around when the W.A.P.'s engine block declared itself a Dark Lord, but that was a small, easily ignored part of himself, much like his common sense. More importantly, all Decepticons were fervent believers in tit-for-tat, and Misfire owed the universe in general something for not killing Fulcrum.
"Then what's going on?" Fulcrum asked.
Krok held up a hand to cut Spinister off. "Enough. You," he turned his disapproving scowl on Misfire, "explain. How can our ration grade be a higher mix but not a higher grade, and what does that mean in terms of Fulcrum?"
Wings wilting down, the jet twiddled his fingers together. Aw, scrap. Here came the Wrath of Krok. Also the harder to bear Fear of Fulcrum. "It's not a higher grade because it's still fine in the cube, but it's more volatile once the cube's open. Put it in the pinhead's tank, and that lower evaporation point's a real killer."
Krokian disapproval ramped up to full power, crushing the sad attempt at humor flatter than it'd already been. "Not now, Misfire."
Misfire gulped. No humor, not even as a coping mechanism. "Eh-heh, yeah. Um. Sorry. And, um, sorry," he said in humbled voice to Fulcrum directly. "Didn't catch it 'til Spinny said, well." He looked up and away, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. An apology didn't make up for this. "It makes sense when you think about it. This mix evaporates a lot faster, and the fumes are a way higher grade once they condense in your intake, so the inside of your tank's coated in a higher grade than you drank."
"That'll make me explode!" Fulcrum yelped in terror, finally catching on. He made useless grabbing motions over his midriff, a foolish attempt at taking the fuel out before his killswitch registered it.
"Calm down," Crankcase said, although observant crewmates might have noticed him stepping back out of the medibay to take shelter in the hall. "If you're not dead yet, it's probably not going to kill you."
"He should be dead," Spinister corrected him. "An active killswitch isn't a benevolent medical condition, given the incredible odds against his survival at all. Continued exposure to the fumes increases the likelihood of death." There, he'd finally put into words the absolute insanity of this diagnosis, odds beyond long odds. Spinister felt proud he'd thought to warn that every muted click in Fulcrum's tank probably meant the killswitch was gradually wearing a path through whatever lucky piece of grit or glue had gotten in its way. Sooner or later, the trigger would flip all the way.
A terrified whimper brought his attention back to his patient. Spinister cocked his head at the shaking mech. "How do you feel?"
Fulcrum had chalked the odd clicking in his tank up to to his overactive (and somewhat cowardly) imagination. How did he feel? Belated, teeth-rattling terror had him sinking to his knees as fear swamped him. "I'm going - I'm going to - d-die. I'm going to die." The unfairness of it made him wail, "All I did was take a cube off the stack!"
Spinister nodded philosophically. "Bad batch of ration grade. It happens." A fair few of the K-Class' medical files ended abruptly, with cause of death just a footnote on fuel blend.
"It happens?!" Fulcrum shrieked.
"Well. Yeah." Misfire looked embarrassed, as if he'd accidentally given Fulcrum exhaust hitches instead of a bad case of near-death. "It's hard to maintain a level mix." The K-Con stared at him, optics rounded in terror, and the embarrassment deepened. Real shame showed ugly and desperate in the way the corners of his mouth turned down unhappily. "C'mon, don't look at me like that. I didn't mean to." Observant crewmates might have noticed him leaning toward Fulcrum, but he kept his distance. Just…not for the same reason as Crankcase.
Fulcrum was scared enough right now.
It was more consideration than most expected from a Decepticon, much less this one, but Krok demanded that and more from his crew. He looked at the jet, glanced down at his panicking techhead, and sighed. "Nobody's blaming you," he said.
"I am!"
Krok nudged Fulcrum none-too-gently with a foot. "Nobody besides Fulcrum is blaming you."
"Why aren't you blaming him, too?!" It wasn't fair that Misfire got away with trying to kill him again!
"Shut up," Crankcase said. He came back into the room to glower at the K-Con for good measure. "He didn't do it on purpose, and you know it. He's not smart enough to kill you off by giving us better energon." How he said it implied a decent cube would be a sufficient bribe if Misfire had actually planned it that way.
Which everyone in the room knew was a lie, but Fulcrum started hyperventilating anyway. He wasn't known for his courage.
A lack worsened when Spinister bent down to lay a hand across his mouth. "Try not to circulate air too heavily. It'll increase the evaporation rate."
The lenses in Fulcrum's optics cycled down into pinpricks. They fixed on Spinister as though willing him to fix this before exploding death.
Unfortunately, Spinister was fresh out of solutions. Or rather, his processor was still stuck on the symptoms, and the bizarre lack of death on Fulcrum's part. That was so weird.
Fortunately, Krok wasn't half-bad at planning once he knew the situation. "We need to get that fuel out of him," he said.
"I'll go get my siphoning kit," Misfire volunteered, happy he could do something, but a faint squeal of sheer, undiluted fear squeezed out from behind Spinister's hand. Not the siphoning kit! Fulcrum had bad memories of Misfire and that kit!
Misfire remembered that about two seconds too late, and a wince replaced his eager expression. "Not like that, loser. Fulcrum. But like that. Kind of like that. We gotta get it out of you, right? And, like, you probably don't want to go through all," he waved his hands around at tank-level in vague reminder of tank surgery without pain patches, "that again. Do you?"
Fulcrum's optic lenses dilated to wide, reflective disks. No. No, he didn't.
Krok nudged him again, studiously neutral. "It's your choice. Siphoning or surgery?"
A pathetic little whine answered him. Pure fear shone behind yellow glass, wide and bright and trembling as Fulcrum hugged himself in poor protection against what had to happen. Krok wasn't going to give him a choice about draining his tank, but that choice didn't matter. Fulcrum wanted to live too strongly not to do it, one way or another. Deciding on a method was just nitpicking over the details.
Krok neither kind nor gentle, but he did try to honor the Decepticon ideal of bodily autonomy, ridiculous as that was applied to the K-Class. He could be patient. He waited.
Eventually, Fulcrum ducked out from under Spinister's hand and whispered, "Siphon."
Misfire brightened, looked crestfallen, brightened a second time, then stuck somewhere between elated and upset. On the one hand: helping! On the other hand: soooooo not helping. Fulcrum looked sicker by the second.
"Go get your kit," Krok ordered the jet. Their commander turned back to Spinister as Misfire darted out the door. "What can we do to stop this from happening again? We can't unmix the supply pool." Fulcrum was going to be pretty slagging hungry after Misfire drained his tanks, but the current blend would stay too rich for Fulcrum's tanks until they diluted it with a weaker batch. It'd take another week to reach somewhere they could buy energon. Krok didn't trust anything bought at the nearest ports. Their kind weren't well-liked around here.
Starvation was preferable to explosion in the short term, but Krok needed a better answer and soon.
Spinister's masked face twisted into the peculiar look of a medic saying things he rightly shouldn't have to say. "We'll have to fuel him."
Krok waited, but his patience was wasted. That seemed to be the extent of Spinister's answer.
"Oh, for the love of bolts…how?" Crankcase demanded. "How do we fuel him? Shove a tube all the way through him or what?"
"We could do that," Krok said, squinting as he pictured it. "Wouldn't too hard to rig up a drip."
Crankcase eyed Fulcrum with an alarming amount of interest. This sounded like a project. Crankcase didn't like much, but he liked building things. "I have a couple straight struts I could fuse to his back." It'd give the mech a backstrut for the first time in his life. Heh. "Hardest part will be attaching an arm to hold the cube steady."
"No, the hardest part will be feeding the tube down through his tank and making a good seal at the bottom. Can you do that, Spinister?" Fulcrum made a noise Decepticons weren't supposed to make even under torture. Krok spared him a look but otherwise ignored him, for which the rebuilt techie was grateful. Sometimes he forgot he was surrounded by combat-rated mechs used to jury-rigging survival out of whatever they had on hand.
But Spinister shook his head. "A tube would trip the killswitch." Both officer and mechanic hrmmed in unison, but the medic had his own solution. "I didn't mean tube-feeding. I meant he needs preprocessed fuel. From us," he added when that got three blank stares. "Once it's out of our primary tanks, most of the evaporation's finished. He can safely drink it then."
Krok took a moment to digest that. He blinked a few times. His mask made it difficult to tell what exactly that expression meant.
Crankcase, who looked revolted by default, managed to twist his face further. "You're talking slag."
"Nope."
Fulcrum stared up at the medic, dearly wishing he dared open his mouth because his jaw should hang slack right now. Talk about a reversal of expectations. He had been bracing to have a tube shoved down his throat, but -
Spinister suddenly looked thoughtful. "Do we have a really long straw?" Misfire bustled back into the room, and Spinister turned the thoughtful look on him. "Did you bring your mixer kit?"
"Uhhhhh. Yeah?" The jet looked between the medic and the others. Fulcrum slowly bowed his head, bringing his hands up to cover his face. Krok stared off into nothing, resigned to the lunacy of his crew. Crankcase looked as Crankcase as ever. "But I thought we were getting the energon outta him, not putting worse stuff in." That had been the plan he'd heard last, anyway.
Spinister nodded. "Yup, but he needs a really long bendy straw, the lucky mech."
"Lucky?" Fulcrum asked faintly from behind his hands.
"Dead people don't need straws."
Well, when he put it that way.
"We could still let him die," Crankcase muttered from the door.
"Stow it," Krok ordered him, then held up a hand to cut off the question on Misfire's lips. "Don't ask why he needs it. Just don't." He didn't want to talk about it. He was trying very hard not to think about what it would feel like.
Fulcrum bounced his face off his palms. Only repeated facepalming could express his level of exasperation.
At least he was alive to be exasperated.
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