Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.
This took way too long to get finished, but here it is at last. Enjoy. ^-^
Chapter 18
Panic makes a sound.
Believe it or not, it does.
True, honest, life altering, panic does at least.
It's own unique kind of symphony that most—if they are lucky—go their whole lives without ever hearing. Some have heard it before though. The unlucky ones, will hear it more than once.
But all who hear it, never forget it.
For it's a finicky kind of sound.
It never makes itself known for things that concern the well being or safety of those that hear it.
Oh no.
Because that would be too simple, right?
See, the true sound of panic—the sound itself—is only ever heard in the face of panic for others. Real panic for others.
It's an eerie kind of sound; a deep ringing in the back of the mind mixed with a squealing rubber kind of pulse that leaves hands shaking and sparks pounding. All encompassing, it blocks out everything but itself and the fear it swells behind it.
Wardrums was very familiar with it and all its horrible glory.
The mech was older then the planet he now lived on, but he had much more reason then that for understanding it.
He had fought more world destroying battles then should be possible, he had crossed the black emptiness of space from vast endlessness to vast endlessness, he had watched dynasties rise and fall, he had led countless lives to victory and even more to slaughter, he was the last surviving member of his house, he never had the chance to burying any of them, he was the last General of Cybertron's Grand Army, he was the heir to the Desert Throne, he had outlived his usefulness, his Prime, and his purpose.
He knew loss.
He knew it for all that it was and would be.
Panic in all its noise and fuss was old hat to him. However, he hadn't felt it for what it really was in quite a long time.
He wasn't sure, to be honest, when things had stopped hurting like they once did. If he had to put a mark on it, he would normally say loosing Mercy. Losing his creators, his Kings, his war, his world, and his brothers; that had hurt him, but losing the last thing left he had cared about protecting . . . that had broken him.
Wardrums was not a foolish mech.
He was arrogant, angry, and argumentative on his best orns; violent, volatile, and vengeful on his worst.
He had grown cold, distant, and void while time marched on around him. He'd stopped doing much more than existing for quite a few vorns now, fifty-one to be precise.
But he was in no way foolish.
He knew what he had been becoming long before it happened. After it did, he had done nothing to stop it, let alone change it. There were nights he laid awake staring at nothing, wondering when he had lost the young, stupidly brave, overly confident, and eager for life mech that once been. Truthfully, deep down, he knew the answer. For it was all the reasons that he blamed everything else on.
There was one thing he didn't know though.
It was why the kind, stubborn, hopeful doctor that lay beside him most nights still bothered to do such a thing.
Sparkbonds were forever, mates were for life, it was a law as old as the dust that made the universe. Once made, sparkbonds could not be tossed aside or thrown away. Cybertronians were not like some species of the universe that could form connections, love, and families and then leave them.
Once a spark linked itself to another in a mate bond, there was no undoing it. There was no growing apart, or falling away.
It was a gift of their race, he guessed.
It certainly made him a lucky bastard, he knew that.
Right now, it was annoying the pit out of him though. For he knew all too well there would be no Dustoff living with his attitude anymore. Not after he felt and heard that emotion flare though War's spark as the ground gave way beneath too small yellow feet.
Not after War tucked his wings, boosted his thrusters, and dove head first into blackness.
Damn it all to pit.
Grinding his fangs together, the colossal shuttle surged downward, the sound of panic ringing in his chest and audios no matter how hard he was trying to ignore it. It pulsed in time with his hammering spark, boiling in his energon, and shivering in the tips of his claws; though he would deny that last bit to the end of his fraggin' orns.
He'd been trudging along through the dark tunnels following the feel of his mate after picking his sorry aft and stinging cheek up off the ground when he registered the first eerily familiar shake beneath his clawed feet. There hadn't been time to so much as think about what it was before the world exploded into bits of stone, metal, and the overpowering whirling thunder of a creature he'd thought long gone.
He didn't think.
He reacted.
Powerful flight engines singing to life he twisted, spun, and dodged his way out of a collapsing tunnel. Breaking for the sunbaked desert surface in a boom of echoing engines just as the two hunting Sharks surged their way to the surface of shifting red sands.
The panic bit in his chest a few moments after that.
When he twirled himself around in a dizzying arch through the bright blue sky trying to get a good look at the ground below again to find the form of his mate he could feel only to come up with the image of that damn yellow runt getting himself swept up by gravity instead.
Primus forsaken, land-bound, flightless, misfit.
Couldn't he even run away properly?
Wardrums was going to fraggin' ring the little runt out of this, after he caught him that was.
Tipping himself into a sharp dive, the powerful shuttle locked his wings back behind him to twist him into a steep of fall as he dared. Engines screaming with the boost he rocketed through them, not to mention the pitch gravity put on him, he let himself fall.
The scream of air and turbines meant he couldn't hear the roaring of the two sharks he was falling toward. He didn't hear the Autobots' panic, or Dustoff's lack of sound. He didn't care about any of it either.
Fire colored optics simply narrowed on a bright yellow blip vanishing into the inky blackness to the side of a twisting Shark before he to let himself vanish into the blackness after him.
Gravity mixed with red lining flight engines meant he ate up the distance between himself and the youngling in a handful of sparkbeats. Careening around the spinning, sharp, whirling plating of the Shark he barely felt the nicks of pain along his hide from bits of stone and metal. Optics locked below him he glared through the inky dark until suddenly a flailing yellow runt came back into view.
Scowl twisting his lips, he burst another flare through his engines when around the tiny yellow thing a bit of solid surface—be it ground of tunnel wall he couldn't be sure, didn't care honestly—came into focus.
The runt was closer to the oncoming stone then War was to him.
Fangs clenched.
One sparkbeat thudded in his audios.
His engines roared.
Another sparkbeat.
He flung an arm out, claws extended.
Another sparkbeat.
Wide, terrified, too familiar blue optics shown through the darkness to meet War's fire colored ones as the ground closed in below him.
Another sparkbeat.
Black claws snatched obnoxiously bright plating.
Bumblebee let out a high pitched squeak—the youngling squeaked, could he not even be terrified properly?—as he was yanked forward. Colliding hard with ancient, thick plating the air was knocked from his vents in a whoosh, but War was a little too busy throwing every ounce of his power and strength into a truly spectacular turn to notice much else.
Now if only it hadn't hurt so damn much.
Throwing out his wings from where he had tucked them down behind them to reduce wind drag his neural net came alive with error readings and agony. All of which he quickly dismissed in favor of rerouting six of his turbines to drag air hard through his turbines while the others switched over to pushing it hard right back. The result was a frame shudder stall in the middle of the nose drive.
Wings screaming at him, thrusters choking on the swirling air he trapped inside his turbines, the huge flier pitched himself into a banking turn that only the experience of a few millennia worth of flying let him even begin to pull off.
One nano he was hurtling head first into a stone wall and the next he was barely scrapping the hard wall in a spray of rather painful red sparks before he was once again climbing.
The youngling clutched tightly to his chest in a one handed, clawed grip let out another squeak of shock or terror, War wasn't sure which, as suddenly the world around them shifted.
Vertigo was something the old shuttle overcame eons ago, but he had no doubt the tiny runt clenched to his chest was doing his level best to not purge at the moment with what would have just hit him.
The thought made War sneer to himself even as he mentally rerouted warning signatures as well as pain notifications blaring through his processor while he righted himself. Pulling away from the hard stone wall and the shower of sparks his wing was making until he was once again throwing his thrusters back into overdrive and rocketing himself back toward the surface.
Deep in his chest, he rumbled as they soared back toward the surface, or more accurately the two Sharks he was going to have to go through to get there.
"Hold on tight." He growled out through clenched fangs, satisfied when the tiny yellow thing against him clenched his fingers and toes even harder into the grooves of the massive shuttle's frame as they roared back toward the surface. "And if you know what's good for you, you will not purge on me."
Bumblebee couldn't quite speak around the lump of fear and what was likely his dinner in his throat. So instead, the mechling nodded, clinging as hard as he could to the massive black chest swirled in thin lines of gold. Optics squeezing shut, he hid his face in the thick panels of armor as the world spun, twisted, and roared around them. When the audio shattering thunder of the Sand Sharks grew even louder though he couldn't help but peak out from the hold that had him. Glancing up just in time to see and hear the 'shink' of a massive sword being yanked from over the towering flier's head. The arm that wasn't holding Bee tightly across his chest was thrown up and over him. Grasping at a hilt tucked between powerful wings spread out wide on each side of him. Long, sharp black claws wrapped the huge hilt that Bee doubted he could lift, as easily as the other hand grasped him. One, smooth, long yank freeing a truly massive sword from whatever collection of plating or sheath that had housed it.
Bee's bright optics widened just a tad more at the sheer size of the longsword suddenly brandished before them. However, it was likely that his optics got even wider on account of the giant, sharply scaled, twisting, spinning, roaring, metal worm suddenly looming in front of them.
A sharp gasp—the mechling would deny it as a scream for as long as he lived—left him. A half formed warning coming with it before Wardrums swung the sword hard before them, slicing through sharp grey plating, bits of stone and metal lodged between thick armor plates, and then finally the weak protoform that lie underneath.
Bumblebee had never heard a Sand Shark scream in agony before.
But he had now.
Thrusters shooting them like a rocket toward the surface combined with the sheer power behind War's swing meant that one slice nearly cleaved the Shark in two. A wave of sickly hot, sticky blue crashing down on them after the hit. The sudden feeling making Bee suck another sharp breath that he quickly came to regret when the thick taste of processed fuel flooding down his throat.
He choked on it.
The thick, sticky, hot, tangy taste making everything inside him rebel. He clamped his mouth back shut. Swallowing down the rising bile and taste alike in favor of snapping around to hide his faceplate against the sound and feel all around him.
The Shark's scream vibrated the air itself. Rattling War and Bee both down to their struts. A sound so loud it ached in the tight confinement of a collapsing tunnel as the huge creature fell away from the source of pain slicing deep into it.
It's tightly drilled hunting tunnel to the surface wasn't made for easy escape for something as large as it. No matter that most of its long, sharp plating was still whirling around it cutting into the ground around it. Falling back away from the source of pain meant it was no longer thinking about where it was going. It was just trying to escape.
Another hard swing of War's massive sword, another sticky surge of blue crashing in a wave over them, and then suddenly they were out. The echoing roars and screams bouncing back and forth on the walls around them opening up into the wide open world above ground.
Bumblebee sucked in another sharp breath as War's thrusters roared through the steep climb. The sudden open sky around them so bright it hurt, making him squeeze his optics shut once again. Head hiding in the thick panels of the shuttle's chest while he twisted through another dizzy loop.
Then, as quickly as Bee had found himself snatched, he found himself thrown.
A yelp leaving him as he went sailing downward, arms once again flailing before he crashed into a rather hard surface. A hard surface that wrapped strong, long arms around him just as War growled.
"Hold this."
Bumblebee found himself dangling in Dustoff's arms, blinking somewhat stupidly up at the helicopter mech, while he got smirked back at before both of them tipped their gazes up to follow the streaking trail of the shuttle mech flying back toward the twisting forms of two Sand Sharks.
Well, okay, one half dead Sand Shark and the other one that was rather upset about this fact. At least Bee thought it to be rather upset.
He wasn't sure.
It looked kind of pissed, you know, with the roaring, and thrashing and throwing bits of ground this way and that as it twisted around from the hole it was emerged from. Twisting around again it threw its head toward them. Gaping mouth just as terrifying as the first time Bumblebee had saw it. A huge hole of teeth like nothing else he had ever seen as they spun so fast they blurred.
Hanging there in Dustoff's arms like some kind of headlight blinded circuit fawn he stared as the huge shuttle that had just saved his skinny little aft rocketed back toward the two twisting giants. Their roars still shook the ground they stood on, but Bee hardly registered it in favor of staring in wide optic wonder at the flier.
Longsword sweeping out before him, Wardrums twisted into a spinning surge toward the struggling Sharks. The one that he had already cut streaked in a long rows of blue as it seemed to be struggling with even holding itself up. The other twisting around it while it roared, cutting into it and the ground around it.
When the other Shark swung its massive head down toward the other that was when Wardrums hit it broadside. Sword slashing out before him, he twisted with a flare of his thrusters. A sickening shred cutting through the still desert air as the roaring cut out with a shriek.
Bumblebee watched through wide blue orbs as with an explosion of gushing energon and shredded metal the Sand Shark was cleaved clean in two. Head still twisting as its massiveness came crashing down to the sand beside the tunnel, the body flailing this way and that, twitching like some kind of giant viper as it crumbled back into the tunnel it had come from.
Wardrums soared out the other side of the crashing blue wave of fuel. Banking hard to the right, sword throwing a stream of blue behind him, as he righted himself into another charge. He pulled up short mid-air though when the other Shark he had already hurt ducked back into the sand. The red sand shivering and shifting, the roar of shredding stone and metal rising up before it was gone, vanishing into silence.
For a moment the silence ruled—well as silent as a desert could be mid-orn—as War hovered there mid-air before with a heavy turn of his turbines he pitched himself forward again. Looking like he was doing more coasting through the air than anything else.
A mech that big shouldn't be able to look like he was floating that effortlessly through the sky. Especially when he was doing little more than controlling a fall back toward the surface.
Must be a flier thing. The young mechling thought to himself, still dangling in Dustoff's safe grip. Unable to take his optics away from the huge shuttle that effortlessly glided back down to the sand near them.
If it wasn't for how hard his weight hit the ground Bumblebee might have believed him to be weightless after seemingly floating back down. The crunch of sand under his sharp toes and the way so much of it displaced itself proved the weight that went behind that towering frame though. If that didn't do it, the way he wielded that longsword sure did.
Bright blue optics flickered to that impressive blade. Balanced seemingly effortlessly in a large clawed hand, the hilt itself almost as big as Bee was. The blade, a dark grey metal that glowed faint red with heat under the coating of sizzling blue energon dripping steadily down it, was one smooth expanse of cybertronium. A metal that Bee knew in an offhand kind of way—bots were made up of a little bit of it after all—but had never seen in such a way as that before.
The blade itself was taller than Wardrums. Held seemingly effortlessly in one had while he stood there in the sand a few paces away from them staring down at the blade dripping rivers of energon down to sizzle in the sand as he flexed his claws around the black painted hilt.
It was when Bee saw the long streaks of sticky blue dripping down War that he finally registered how much of the slag was on him too. The realization coming with the tingle of the sheer amount of sticky, sliding, sizzling slag dripping down his bright plating. Seeping into grooves, down to protoform and wiring that lie underneath making him watch to twitch and itch at the icky feeling.
It was hard to do much more than hang there limply though when those fire red optics finally stopped assessing the sword glowing faintly under the coating of blue in his hand in favor of cutting over to Bee where he still hung in the 'copter mech's arms.
Those fire colored orbs narrowing slightly as they swept up and down the small yellow frame made even small in proportion of the mech that held him effortlessly there like some kind of turbo pup. Unsure what else to do in the wake of all that Bee found himself making an effort to twitch his lips up slightly. The effort fell a little flat in the wake of Wardrums' lifted optic ridge over a very unamused expression.
Bee wilted a little at that while the shuttle mech huffed hard, effortlessly twisting the longsword around him in a glittering arch that sent energon slinging in all directions. The huge slab of sharpened metal twisting from the pivot point of his wrist in a graceful circle that Bee could hardly comprehend at the size of it. One rotation, another, another, another, and then War swung the blade up over him. Twisting the hilt around his fingers once more before he drove it down behind his back. Powerful wings flexing behind him as they seemed to stretch wider for just a moment when the blade drove down behind his back. A complicated serious of clicks of transformation following as the blade vanished.
War pulling his hand back from over his head, now free of the sword. Long, powerful arm coming to hang at his side as the mech turned from the collection of mechs. Fire colored optics skating back across the mess that had been made of the desert surface. Two large holes now erupting from the piles of shifting red. Before long the sands would shift and the wounds cut in the desert's surface would look as if they belonged. For now, though, with the carcass of a Sand Shark laying in the sand it looked the short battleground it was.
The shuttle huffed at it.
"You attract a lot of trouble for a mechling as tiny as you are." There was no real heat in the words. A growl, sure, but War very rarely managed to speak without a sound such as that. So somehow, though his doorwings twitched a little at the growl, Bee found he didn't flinch so bad from it while Wardrums turned away from them. Stalking across the sand toward the severed head of the Shark laying in a steadily growing pool of blue at the edge of one of the massive holes. Leaving the rest of them clustered there together in the sand, most of them blinking rather stupidly after his back until Dustoff let out a long breath that had more amusement in it than anything else.
Shaking his head slightly back and forth the big flier carefully went down on one knee. Giving Bee back his weight with a measured hesitation of those large arms retreating only after the slight swaying in young yellow legs stopped.
Catching his balance was a little harder than Bee thought it would be, but considering he didn't immediately pitch to the side and purge up everything in his tanks, he was counting it as a win. His insides still felt like they were swimming around, and the sticky itch of sliding energon all over him wasn't helping him keep his fuel in his tanks. He managed to pull it off though.
Somehow.
Swaying just a tad more on his feet when he pitched his gaze up to find the weathered faceplate the flier medic looked down at him with. Red optics softened to an emotion Bee wasn't quite sure what to make of while it stared down at him.
That was about as long as it lasted though, because he suddenly found himself snatched up again. The yank startling a half gasp out of him when before he found himself plastered to Ironhide's thick armored chest once again.
He melted.
Easy as breathing.
Tucked up safely against the warm black armor of his sire's chest he let himself go limp. Pushing the wrong-wrong-wrong feeling of the energon seeping down under his armor away from his mind, as well as the dull ache in his shoulder. He was doing his best to push away the left over terror that had wrapped around his internal vents and choked him when the ground had vanished and he'd been swallowed up by darkness and sound, but he doubted he was doing quite as well as he hoped at it. When his bond with Hide flooded with feeling now that the big black mech had a hold of him again.
The chilly fear washed out under the wave of warmth the big black mech shoved at him. Wrapping him up tight in spark, frame, and field. The feeling of Hide's strong, pulsing energy field flexing around him and crashing into Bee's making the young mech finally aware of just how much his was twisting about him. Crackling with static as his emotions tossed themselves back and forth with how much his spark didn't understand what had just happened around him.
The searing flow of Hide's emotions wasn't much better. Bee figured the big ebony mech was trying to hide some of the thick terror swishing through him, but he wasn't doing that good a job of it. Under the swell of reassurance that was being shoved up front through the link between them there was a thick glob of a fear that was both similar and very different to the one that had been swimming through him.
Instead of touching it or point it out though, the mechling just let it be. Feeling a little better about the terror that still bubbled in him at the feel of it. Instead of worrying too much with it, he let himself get swept up by the relief and warmth surging through all his links as his family closed in around him once again.
Tight in Hide's arms he burrowed into the center seam of the big mech's chest. Quivering slightly there in the safety of those thick, cannon welding arms, soaking up the feeling and touch. Not caring that his doorwings shivered more than a little bit at his back, he let himself be snatched tight, drawn in, and held onto while the big ebony mech rumbled around him. Rocking him slightly back and forth as a broad faceplate buried itself in his neck. Hot, slightly shaky breaths puffing against the sensitive wiring of his neck.
Bee's fingers just tightened in the familiar holds in scared armor he knew like the back of his hand. Clinging tightly while Hide clung just as hard back until finally with a shaky breath the deep voice beside his audio rumbled.
"I am never letting you off the damn ship ever again."
The low grumble tore a laugh from the slightly quivering mechling before he could stop it. A slightly hysterical laugh sure, but a laugh all the same.
The sound bubbling around him as he burrowed just a bit deep for a moment until he finally pulled back just enough to lean and look sidelong into the scared deep blue optic squinting back at him. When he darted forward and chinned lightly at the hard slope of Hide's jaw he finally got a deeply vibrating slight laugh back. The big black mech turning his head to dig the sharp point of his chin down between Bee's flicking antennas.
For a nano the big mech rumbled deeply—as close to a purr as Hide could make—back at Bee's much higher pitched purr. The two of them losing some of the tension and fear flowing between them in the reassuring motion and sound until finally Hide was able to loosen the plating creaking hold he had on the small mech.
Bumblebee was not put down, but he was allowed to lean back when Ironhide took a deep breath. Frame flexing with the intake when he let his grip shift enough for Bee to tilt back enough to smile timidly at him.
Dark blue optics narrowed at the sight he was sure he must make covered in Shark energon.
A familiar silver, clawed hand pulled Bee's attention. Snapping his attention around to find Jazz sliding his claws gently up his arm, sliding through the splatters and globs of energon all over him looking for what they both knew was there. The young mech still flinched and pulled back a little when Jazz's claws found the scrapes they had dug through his shoulder trying to get a hold of him earlier.
He didn't mean to flinch at the touch, but he did. Hating himself a little bit at the pain and regret that flared through that bright blue visor.
Bee snaked out one of his hands to snatch up the silver claws before they could retreat too far from him. Whining low in his throat when Jazz kept trying to yank his hand away from the damage he'd done.
Jazz's expression twisted, but he stopped pulling back as Bee tightened his smaller fingers around those claws. Tugging slightly to keep the silver mech from retreating he pulled out his best kicked puppy expression to make sure Jazz wouldn't go far.
The silver mech huffed at the look. Slight exasperation curling the edge of his thin lips. Head shaking ever so much as slowly the spy stopped trying to pull away. Instead of settling there on his feet just a pace away, squeezing his claws around those thin yellow fingers. Yellow fingers that at the moment Jazz couldn't keep himself from remembering just how small use to be.
Shaking the memory of tiny yellow digits curled as wide as they could go around little more than a tip of his clawed finger, Jazz leaned up to bump Bees' forehead with his own. Getting a happy purr for his trouble before settling back down on his clawed toes when Ratchet appeared at his side.
Optimus was hoovering behind Ironhide. The tall mech able to lean over all of them to rub lightly at the little yellow mechs antennas. It got him his own purr, pulling a slight smile to the Prime's faceplate as well. That large hand nearly covering all the little mech's head as he massaged at those small antennas. Until he finally pulled away when Ratchet slipped in around Jazz.
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were around Hide's other side. The two of them quivering ever so slightly. An action that most beings likely would have missed. Ratchet's quick glance their way said that he didn't though. Just as the way Bee tipped his head back to grinning silly, upside down at them did.
It earned him a lip twitch from Sunstreaker, and a snort from Sideswipe, but it did succeed in making the two of them stop shaking.
"Accident prone little squirt." The low grumble had Bee finally snapping his attention around to attempt a grin at the yellow and red medic.
The look got him glared at, but he didn't drop the smirk when well-known hands were quickly mapping him. It wasn't an easy thing to do with how he was wrapped up in Ironhide's arms and still refusing to let go of Jazz's claws, but Ratchet didn't gripe at either of them.
Instead he just danced his fingers along seams and plating. Nose crinkling at the feel of the sticky energon coating him, but seemingly relived when he found almost all of it wasn't Bee's. His touch did settle on the dug in claw marks along his shoulder for a while. The tingle of a scan making the little mech wiggle in Hide's hold. It got him scolded at lightly a few times until Ratchet was apparently satisfied with the results of his scan and what he could touch.
"Well," He sighed, finally letting his hands fall away. "Not as bad as it could be, that's for sure."
"Yes," Wardrums' deep baritone of thunder suddenly echoed from a ways away where the huge mech was still circling the severed Shark head like he was looking for something. "Considering he could be dead, I'd say a bit of splattered energon and a cut is much better than that."
The mechs around him bristled up like offended robo-cats. A growl bubbling to life deep in most of their chests as they all swung their gazes around to find the huge shuttle where he was. However, before the twins could hiss out whatever it was building on Sunstreaker's tongue as the golden mech opened his mouth Bee spoke up.
"Yep." Popping the 'p' he got a whole lot of blue optics snapping down to him, including one pale red set, but he paid attention to none of it as he gaze around Ratchet's and Jazz's shoulder to find the big shuttle that had stalled in his looking. "Would be, if you hadn't caught me."
The truth was, Bumblebee wasn't quite sure what had happened. Let alone why it had happened. After the way the huge mech had acted since they had found him, it didn't make sense for him to go diving down into a pit next to two raging Sand Sharks to save him.
It didn't make sense for him to care.
Not after the way he had acted, the things he had said.
Then again, Bumblebee was starting to wonder if Wardrums was just simply one of those mechs that didn't make a lot of sense. At least to most. After all, Bee lived with quite a few mechs likes that.
The sharp way the towering shuttle tensed up, wings twitching ever so slightly behind his back as he threw a glare back over his shoulder, spoke more than any words ever could. Those fire colored optics smoldering in their intensity as they narrowed down at him. Then, he let out a booming snort, turning back to whatever task it was he was assigning himself in assessing the carcass.
Bee smirked.
Antennas flickering atop his head as he darted his gaze over to the side now to find Dustoff right where he had been. The tall tan mech staring down at him with something soft in those pale red optics of his. Lips pulled up into a satisfied tilt that made the youngling's doorwings wiggle.
Rotor blades twitching and flickering behind his back Dustoff, finally stepped forward. Cutting off sight from the stewing Autobots and his mate while reaching over and around Ratchet to grasp carefully at Bee's arm.
Clawed fingers longer than his arm turning over his limb with an ease that didn't think a mech that size should be able to pull off with one of his. Bumblebee didn't so much as twitch though.
Held there against Hide's chest he stayed as still as he could while the big mech leaned in around the others to pear at the slight cuts in his armor. He hummed lowly after a few moments, nodding to himself when he righted back up.
"Get you cleaned off, and you'll be find." Dust said easily, smile tugging at his lips while those pale red optics held Bee's bright blue ones. "How you feel about a sand bath, little one?"
Antennas twitching, Bee grinned.
Ironhide wasn't much inclined to let Bumblebee go for a while—not that anybot blamed him—but he did eventually let the little mech have his feet again after Ratchet smacked him over the back of the head yelling about how if he didn't get all that slag off of him it was going to start corroding things.
So that was how Bee found himself sitting on his aft between Hide's legs scrubbing handfuls of sand into his armor. Giggling to himself about the irony of getting dirtier to get clean, the small yellow mech couldn't help but laugh outright at Sunstreaker every now and again.
It was quite possible the golden mech was going to have some kind of fit about how filthy Bumblebee was getting before all was said and done.
"Do you have any idea what you are doing to your slaggin' paint!" The elder twin barked from where he was standing just to the side of Ironhide. Hoovering like a golden thundercloud of discontent Sunstreaker stood with his arms crossed and optics narrow. Glaring down at Bee while he smirked back with a chuckle on his lips.
"You'd rather I leave the Shark energon?"
"No!" Sunstreaker bit.
Shrugging in the face of the powerful warriors temper Bee simply turned his attention back to scrubbing sand into his plating. "Only thing there is, Sunny."
"It's ruining your finish!"
"And you can fix it later, Sunstreaker." Ratchet appeased in a long suffering kind of tone. Sat next to Ironhide in the sand cleaning at the scrapes on Bee's arm while the young mech cleaned the rest of him. Granted, Ratchet was using a cleaning cloth for his task, but there wasn't enough of those to get the rest of the slag off the little yellow mech.
Sunstreaker would just have to get over the scruffs until they finished this damn hawk-chase of a mission and went back home.
"Relax, Sunny." Sideswipe told him softly, standing beside him.
The golden twin growled at both of them, fingers twitching against his arms where he had them crossed, but said no more. Instead, his gaze flickered up and across to find Wardrums where they had left him.
Dustoff hadn't lead them very far away from the giant holes and dead frame, but they still had walked far enough away that they couldn't hear what the massive mech was saying to himself as he worked at whatever it was he was doing to that dead Shark.
Bee was half paying attention to the shuttle and half focusing on the task of scrubbing this sticky mess off of him. Jazz and Optimus were standing behind Ratchet and Hide, blue gazes watching much like the twins were at the huge mech that they couldn't seem to figure out.
He acted like he'd rather skin Bee then have to look at him, but when the mechling falls down a pit to be ate by a Shark he dives in after him.
It apparently didn't make any more sense to them than it did to him.
The difference was, it was making them all rather testy, while Bee sat there quietly figuring things to himself.
Waiting.
Thinking.
Figuring.
Watching.
He didn't understand, not yet, but he was working on it.
Bright blue optics flickering up once again to find Dustoff. The big tan mech was standing just off to the side of them, pale red optics watching his mate as War tugged, pulled, drug, and circled at the dead frame across the way.
The tension had bled out of the huge helicopter mech now.
He stood less tightly, his rotor blades lax behind him, his armor looser. Optics less full of dark things Bumblebee didn't know how to question.
He seemed . . . almost amused now.
Watching his mate wondering around a dead thing mumbling to himself after having saved Bumblebee's hide.
Antennas flickering with thought, Bee rubbed another handful of sand down his sides. Picking at the clusters of hardened, caked on fuel and dirt it made as a result. It was easier to get off of him after it all clustered together, but it was gross too.
Wrinkling his nose up at the latest bit it picked off he let his optics dart back to Dustoff again. Watching the mech watch Wardrums. Turns out, it wasn't Bee that needed start up the questioning though, Sideswipe did it for him.
"Bastard always did have a weird way of caring."
Dustoff's blades twitched behind his back, head twisting enough to let him look back at the red mech. "Figure that bit out on your own, did you?"
Sunstreaker snorted back at him. "Oh, don't start. He's a bastard and you know it. He hates pretty much everybot."
"So do you." Dustoff shot back, turning his optics back to his mate while Bee bit back a laugh at the affronted expression that came to life on Sunny's face.
"At least I didn't try to take chunks out of youngling with words because of all the ways I've screwed up." The golden mech snapped back.
"I never said what he does when he's angry at himself is right, Sunstreaker. In fact, I hit him in the jaw for it, if you might remember. He's a prickly jerk on his best of orns. You know that well. But he was willing to leak for you and your brother with no ties between you but what he saw as potential. What do you think that means he's willing to do for his sparkling sister's son? Did he not prove enough of that just now?"
For a long while after that, Bee's family was silent.
Each mech wrapped up in his own mind and thoughts about what all had happened lately until finally Bee softly said.
"So . . . you meant it . . . when you said he didn't hate me."
Dustoff turned fully then.
Those pale red optics taking up that soft quality to them again as he nodded slowly. "Yes, young one. I meant it. Because he doesn't. He'll figure out how to tell you that one orn, because I won't do much more then this for him. For now though, just stop worrying about. It will take far too much from you to please him at this point in time. You don't owe him that. Just remember this right here."
He nodded his head off toward the destruction one mech had caused to save something he called a useless runt. Bee followed the motion. Bright optics watching the huge mech for a little while before Dustoff went on.
"I think you're starting to figure it out, young one." He said, smile curling at the edges of his lips. "Hold on to that thought."
Bee's antennas flickered back and forth atop his head, but he nodded all the same.
"Now," Dust's rotor blades wiggled a bit behind him. "Are none of you going to start yelling about supposed to be extinct monsters coming back to life? I figured that was going to be happening sometime soon."
"Those things were a little too loud to be extinct." Ironhide grumbled back at him.
"You don't say?" Amusement colored Dust's voice, as well as the way his rotor blades twitched behind him.
Ironhide glared over the top of Bee's head.
The little yellow mech snickered.
"Yes, well, anyway." Dustoff shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly, I'm not quite sure about this one. Because we thought they were all gone to."
"Does that have something to do with what War's doing?" Bee asked, flicking his attention back out to where the big shuttle was . . . doing whatever he was doing.
"Yes." Dust nodded. "He's trying to find age lines."
"Age lines?" Bee's head tilted, and he wasn't the only one.
"What the pit are age lines?" Jazz tagged on.
"Sand Sharks have marks, lines so to speak, inside their struts. A line for ever fifty vorns they've been alive. A pair that big . . . well pit, it takes a long time for them to grow that big. War is not convinced a pair that big could have gone this long without being noticed. If for no other reason than the amount they have to eat."
"But they were there." Optimus said. "They were very real. What other answer could their possibly be besides that that they have simply been living out here where no bot has been looking?"
"Not a good one." The amusement left Dustoff's voice as quickly as it came. His pale optics narrowing as they turned back to watch what War was doing.
After a few moment of silence followed that Jazz let out a deep growl as he gripped. "And are you not going to elaborate on that?"
Dust's rotors stiffened behind his back. "Until War is sure what is happening there is not much answer I can give you. However, there is only one thing in this whole universe that can alter a living being such as the way those would have had to be to have been what we think they are. And if that damn thing is doing that, then we have a problem."
"What are you talking about?" Optimus pressed, shifting a bit where he stood behind Ironhide.
Dustoff shrugged a shoulder. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"We might." Ratchet shrugged.
Letting out a long breath, Dust turned his attention back to them all. Pale red optics narrowing slightly as he rolled his gaze over all of them. "Your generation has lost the truths to time, I'm not sure if you could even possibly understand it."
"Try us." Sideswipe glared.
"The All Spark." Dustoff rumbled, effectively making every jaw before him drop. "The Cube as your age group calls it. The only relic of the original Cybertron left. The thing the first Kings used to speed the growth of this planet after we found it. The creepy sentient hunk of space rock left over from universe destroying wars that have been lost to time. It can create worlds, a few extinct giant worms to defend itself is sparkling play to a being like that. And if that is what it has done, if it has started defending itself again, then we have a very real problem. However, considering it seems you little mechling was born with a gift I haven't seen on this world in a very long time we might be in luck. Because whether he likes it or not War is going to need all the help he can get. Its going to take more than one Seer to talk that damn space rock down from whatever fit its worked itself into."
"What?" The others breathed, but Bee was a little too hung up on the word the mech had used to get worried yet about the rest of it.
"Wait . . . Seer? Help War? You mean . . . what I . . . ?"
"The fact that you see and talk to dead things?" Dustoff said as if it was fine. Like it was normal. Like it didn't make Bee's spark lodge up in his throat. Like it didn't make every mech behind and around him go very tense. "Yes, that is just what I mean. There is a word for that gift, little one. Though I doubt you know it. Spirit Seer. And I wasn't lying before, it has been a very long time since I saw another do that. The only mech I know left alive that can do it is War. Then again, considering your coding I guess it isn't too far fetch a stretch that you might have got the code for it to."
Spark tight in his chest, breath lodged in his throat, optics wide, and mouth hanging open Bumblebee just stared at him.
There must have been something in his optics, or at least the way he looked that made Dust's expression pinch while the big mech turned away from War at last. Taking a few steps to close the distance between them until he was looking directedly down at the tiny yellow thing looking impossibly young there playing in the sand between his adopted sire's legs.
"You really thought there was something wrong with you, didn't you?" Dustoff asked quietly, pain and guilt swimming in those pale red orbs. "That's why you haven't told any of them about it. Isn't it?"
Bee's jaw worked for a nano more until he finally managed to clamp it shut. Turning enough to catch sight of Ironhide's dark blue optics staring down at him with a look Bee wasn't sure he was brave enough to pick apart.
He shrank down a little at it.
Doorwings and winglets plastering down to his back, antennas tucking down, as he swallowed hard.
Ironhide's mouth opened, jaw working a few times, then it snapped shut. He shook his head once. Optics narrowing, then widening, then finally he got his voice to work. Even if it was only to squeak out a few words. "Bee . . . what?"
Shrinking down a little bit more the young mech breathed. "I . . . I just didn't want you to think there was something the matter with me."
Poor little mechling, he just wants to be normal. He never will be though.
Anyway, hows that? Did you catch all the things I threw in? Are you starting to notice there is something else going on around here that Dust and War really need to start explaining?
Yeah.
We're getting there. No worries.
Well, my schedule has just gotten very busy again (two new jobs and another semester of classes), not going to lie. I am not yet sure how it is going to effect writing time. Hopefully not too much. I promise you I am still picking away at GG and WOWL when ever I have a free moment though. Hang in there with me and keep an eye open on Sundays.
Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing. It's your feedback that motivates me through the parts that don't want to flow right. I'll see you next chapter! ^-^
-Jaycee