Chapter 4 - Stash

A/N: The idiots do some binge drinking in this chapter, which, if you're going to enjoy alcohol, is probably the worst way to go about doing it. Cause, you know, these boys are all about doing things the smart way.

"Is anybody else hungry?"

"Skywarp, this is like your third energon cube in an hour. Slow down – they're not going anywhere," Thundercracker said from his usual position on the was too engrossed in a textpad to offer one of his usual sharp remarks, but a spark of irritation entered his optics at the sound of Skywarp's voice.

"Yeah, but I'm hungry," Skywarp complained.

Thundercracker jerked his head towards his cabinet. "You know where I keep my stash." Ever since energon prices started rising, everyone had a private stash, it seemed.

"I know," Skywarp replied, tapping his fingers against his knee joint. "But I don't like your energon."

"Don't whine," Starscream commanded absently from the berth, ankles crossed delicately in the perfect picture of repose.

"But I don't like your energon," Skywarp repeated quietly.

"Just cause you do it quieter," Starscream growled, "doesn't mean it isn't whining."

Skywarp vented in frustration.

Thundercracker set aside his datapad to give Skywarp his undivided attention. It was clear the purple mech wanted something, and he was going to have a hard time articulating what it was if TC didn't help him. "Why don't you like my energon, Skywarp?"

"And don't whine," Starscream added, swiping a finger lazily across the screen of his datapad.

"It tastes funny, TC. My energon is better."

"Warp," Starscream warned, a threatening tone creeping into his voicebox.

"Oh shut up, Screamer," Thundercracker countered, glancing over to the mech who'd stolen his berth. "He wasn't whining that time. You're just peeved that we're making noise."

Starscream's lipplates grew thin, but he kept his optics on his datapad and continued to read. When Thundercracker turned back to Skywarp, the other mech's wide eyes were fixated on him in wonder. He was always in awe when Thundercracker called the thin mech "Screamer" and managed to not die. Even more so when Thundercracker did it while chastising Starscream.

"Okay, Skywarp. How 'bout we go get you some of your energon then. Will that make you feel better?"

Skywarp suddenly refused to meet his optics and started to fidget uncomfortably.

Thundercracker sighed. "Right. How about you go get some of your energon - and could you bring back some extra? If you don't mind sharing, that is." He offered Skywarp a kind smile. "I'm curious as to what makes your energon better than mine."

Skywarp suddenly perked right up. "Okay, TC." He was suddenly gone.

Starscream, without looking up, asked "What was that all about?"

"What was what all about?" Thundercracker asked, leaning back on his elbows in a more relaxed position on the floor.

"You offered to go with him and then suddenly changed your mind. What gives?" Starscream still hadn't looked up, and indeed, he seemed rather preoccupied with whatever it was he was reading.

"I'm surprised you noticed anything at all, what with that fascinating chemical breakdown of an organic, photosensitive, non-sentient creature under your olfactive receptors."

Starscream just made a vaguely hostile growling sound.

"Well, it's kind of obvious - "

"Not to me - "

" – but Skywarp gets freaked whenever I suggest the idea of going into his room. I think the mech's got trust issues there."

Starscream snorted. He still hadn't looked up from his datapad. "Skwarp's too trusting to have trust issues."

"Or he developed them because he's too trusting," Thundercracker countered.

"That makes literally zero sense-"

The debate might have continued, but the mech under discussion suddenly vomped into existence by Thundercracker's knee. He looked excited. "This is my favorite stuff," he said more quickly than usual. "It's more expensive, but I guess it's supposed to be better for you? Also, it tastes way better, so I always get it when I can."

He handed Thundercracker a cube from the rather large armful that he had. He whirled around, miraculously not managing to spill anything. "I brought one for you too, Starscream. I know you didn't ask for one, but I thought you might want one anyway." He carefully set a cube on the table near Thundercracker's berth, then turned again to sit down with Thundercracker. He meticulously arranged his cubes so that they were out of the way, but within easy reach.

Skywarp was nearly bouncing where he sat. "Well? What are you waiting for? Try one!"

Thundercracker smiled fondly at Skywarp's enthusiasm, then raised the cube to his lips. Over the cube, he noticed that Starscream's eyes were finally off the datapad as he watched Thundercracker with nearly as much interest as Skywarp. There was a faint smirk on his face.

Thundercracker took a sip and nearly choked at the flavor.

Once he'd gotten control of himself again, he managed to say "Skywarp, this is high grade!"

Skywarp's head cocked to one side. "Yeah, that's what the guy I get it from told me. That means it's really good for you, right?"

There was a moment of silence. Thundercracker stared at Skywarp. "No, Skywarp," he said. Somewhere behind him, Starcream had started laughing. "That's, that isn't what it means."

"Oh," Skywarp said, his face falling. He perked right back up again as he thought of something. "What does it mean, then?"

Starscream's laughs tapered off, and he gave Skywarp an amused look. "You're not serious, are you? You actually think this stuff is 'good for you'?"

Skywarp nodded. Starscream started laughing again.

Thundercracker's mouth twitched, and he had to stomp on his own rising desire to laugh, powered by Starscream's amusement. "High grade...ha-um...is w-when...Screamer, stop..." which only made Starscream laugh harder. "It's when energon is ref-fined so well that it...that it messes with processing power-for Primus' sake, Star, shut up you diva..."

Skywarp looked between Starscream and Thundercracker in distressed confusion. "Is Starscream okay?" he asked tentatively.

Thundercracker rolled his optics, giving up. "Yeah, he's fine. Just…just drink your high grade, Skywarp, and ignore him. It's what I always do when he's getting too annoying."

Thundercracker was about to pick his datapad back up when he realized that there were an awful lot of cubes on the floor, even for all three of them. Skywarp had also started pulling more cubes from his subspace pockets. "Hey, Warp?"

"Yeah, TC?"

"Well, I don't mean to…um, just how many of these do you think we'll be drinking exactly?"

Skywarp shrugged. "I dunno. I like 'em a lot, so I brought enough for you guys to drink as many as you want."

Thundercracker frowned a little suspiciously. "How many drinks can you handle?"

Skywarp shrugged again. "Dunno, exactly."

From the berth, Starscream flashed them both a wicked grin. "Wanna find out?"

Thundercracker was a bit surprised by that challenge, but before he could respond, Skywarp's head dipped to the side. "Um…okay?"

"Excellent," Starscream said, and he jumped off the berth to begin dividing the cubes evenly between the two large mechs.

"Wait a minute," Thundercracker said, putting a servo on Starscream's arm, stopping him. "You're not competing?"

Starscream rolled his optics dramatically at Thundercracker. "As if I would participate in such a pointless, plebian contest with you galoots. Besides," he added, shaking off Thundercracker's servo, "someone has to referee to make sure you two don't cheat."

Thundercracker snorted. "It's cause you're a lightweight, isn't it?"

"Excuse you?" Starscream said, suddenly bristling.

Thundercracker explained, unconcerned with Starscream's sudden offense. "You're too slight a frame. You couldn't burn off the high grade nearly as fast as Skywarp or me. We could drink you under the berth."

Starscream smirked. "I'm partial to on the berth myself, but if it's the only way to get you on your back, Mr. Never-'Faced-Before…"

Thundercracker rolled his optics, disgusted with himself that he didn't see that coming. "Nevermind. You can be the ref. Assuming you can stop being a pathological liar, a con artist, and an all-around jerk for all of an hour."

"I will have you know," Starscream said, returning to Thundercracker's berth and stretching luxuriously on it, "That my record for that has been a week."

"Oh yeah, I remember that," Thundercracker said, helping to divide up the last of the cubes. "You were in a coma."

"Shut up and drink your damn high grade," Starscream growled, projecting a stopwatch on the wall across from him. "You both drink as much as you can, as fast as you can. First one to give up or pass out loses. Readysetgo!"

And with that, Thundercracker and Skywarp started downing high grade as fast as possible. Skywarp was hesitant at first, but when he saw the enthusiasm with which Thundercracker was going at his pile, he merrily picked up the pace, matching the other cube for cube.

Eleven and a half cubes in, and Thundercracker's world was spinning. Shakily, he lowered the cube he'd been trying to chug. He'd consumed too much, too fast, and error messages kept popping up, telling him involuntary recharge was imminent. He looked up to see how Skywarp was doing and it took a minute to register what he was seeing.

Skywarp was stilling knocking back the cubes with the same coordination and enthusiasm he had at the start.

"Alright, I give up," Thundercracker said, throwing his servos up. His speech was slurred, his quickly fading processor lagging and affecting his voicebox. Everything else seemed to be lagging as well - even the simple act of throwing his servos up seeming disjointed and uncoordinated.

Starscream stopped the clock and called the time. "Not bad, boys. I was gonna put money on you, TC. You were doing so well, too. Too bad you're too much of a useless loser to do anything - "

"Sh'up, Scream," Thundercracker said. "Warp, you can…you should. Er, ssssstop. Stop. You won."

"Cool," Skywarp said. He stopped guzzling the cube he had in his servo and started sipping it more appreciatively.

"No," Thundercracker said, trying to knock the cube out of Skywarp's servo. He nearly succeeded - or at least, he thought he did. Skywarp kept weaving. Why was he doing that? "You're gonna…you're gonna hurt yourself, Warpy. You ca' handle that much high grade. 'S no good."

"What our inebriated friend is trying to say, Skywarp," Starscream cut in, "is that most mechs fall over after they've consumed over seventeen cubes of high grade."

Skywarp turned to look at Starscream. "Enibree-what now?"

"Oh Primus," Starscream said, venting melodramatically. "You really are a hopeless case. I don't know why I put up with you, I really don't."

Thundercracker had started to babble uncontrollably and Starscream rolled his optics. He slipped easily to his pedes. "Help me get him up here," he told Skywarp, gesturing towards the berth. Skywarp did as he was told, and together, they managed to get the largest mech among them into a comfortable position. When Thundercracker tried to sit up, Starscream pushed him down and got into his face. "Now listen up, you uncoordinated drone," he hissed at Thundercracker. "I want you to lay here, and stay here. You are to count backwards from one thousand, and if you move before then, I swear I'll come back here and whip your aft within an inch of its life. Is that clear, you unintelligible miscreant?"

Thundercracker nodded, wide-eyed. "Y'know," Thundercracker said, "You'd be much scarier if there were always three of you."

Starscream gave a long-suffering vent. "Count," he commanded. Obediently, Thundercracker started to count slowly backwards from one thousand.

Starscream just shook his head and muttered quietly under his breath "Idiot." He turned to look at Skywarp, who was busy arranging the empty and full cubes of high grade into neat stacks. "Come on neat-freak," Starscream said. "Grab the cubes and let's get you to your room."

Skywarp flinched at that, and Starscream rolled his optics. "Oh for pit's sake, I'm not going to go inside your room. I'm just going to make sure you get there alright!"

Skywarp hesitated. "Um…couldn't I…couldn't I just stay here?"

Starscream gave him a dubious look. "Why would you want to do that? Don't you have a berth? Aren't you tired?"

"Well, um, yeah, but - "

"Then I don't see what the problem is." He grabbed Skywarp's arm. "Let's go, big boy."

Skywarp didn't pull away exactly, but he didn't budge at all when Starscream tried to pull him out of the room. "Um…it's…it's kinda scary at night. So…so sometimes Thundercracker lets me sleep here."

Starscream just stared at Skywarp for a minute. Finally he said "You have got to be kidding me."

Skywarp shook his head.

Starscream dropped Skywarp's arm in favor of crossing his arms. "Are you telling me that you two are 'facing?"

"What? No! TC would never - "

"Fine fine," Starscream said, massaging his faceplates. "Look, Skywarp, I don't really care where you sleep, who you're sleeping with, or who you're not sleeping with," he added, raising his servos defensively as Skywarp seemed ready to argue. "Primus above, you'd think I was insulting your progenitor. Anyway. My point is, you're gonna crash sometime soon, and I'd rather it not be in the hallway where someone can take advantage of you."

Skywarp had a confused expression, which Starscream pointedly ignored. Skywarp always looked confused.

"Stay here if you want, go to your own berth if you want. It's all the same to me."

Skywarp thought about that for a minute. He rather decidedly went to sit in the chair he usually sat in when he read. "I'll stay here."

"Excellent. Great. Good. Fine." Starscream turned to go. "You have my comm frequency if something happens."

He managed to get all the way to his dorm before getting a message from Skywarp.

[[Hey, Starscream?]]

Starscream just sent a ping back that confirmed he'd gotten the message.

[[I can't sleep.]]

Starscream sent him another ping and entered the activation code for his hab suite door. He'd left Skywarp three minutes ago. The grown mech needed to figure out on his own that he needed more than three measly minutes to fall into recharge.

The door didn't open.

Dammit.

He'd changed the code. Again. Which wasn't a problem or anything - really, it was a very smart thing to do, an opinion he told himself repeatedly whenever he reprogrammed the lock. After all, it'd be absolutely terrible if somebody were to break into his room and contaminate his more delicate experiments. His delicate, illegal experiments. Highly illegal, in fact. Technically, he wasn't supposed to have corrosive chemicals outside of the Academy's official laboratories. Upon a lifetime of imprisonment he wasn't supposed to have them in his quarters. Still, it was fine. It was fine. It just meant that he had to keep changing his lock combinations frequently.

Trouble was, he kept getting them confused. It took him a good six tries to get it right. He'd initially wanted to install a self-destruct device if the first three tries were incorrect - also illegal - but that project had blown up in his face. After that, he decided to stay away from explosives as much as possible.

Starscream picked his way around various piles of garbage to the false wall he'd installed by the side of his berth. Inside, there was just enough space between his wall and the room next to his to house a number of chemicals. It didn't offer great ventilation, but it was fine. Really, it was fine.

Starscream took measurements on his various solutions, and jotted down the numbers on a datapad he kept beside the beakers in question. He added some organic material to his freshest batch and then went to tinker with some of the scrap metal he'd picked up from the scrapheap a few weeks ago.

There was an assortment of different materials, and he set out to organize them by composition. Some metals were more useful in chemical experiments, while others contained helpful wires and circuit boards. Within this pile alone, he'd already identified six motherboards and eight wireless routers. If he continued scavenging, he might even find enough parts to build his own computer...

It took time, but soon he'd finished sorting through the pile. Sweeping the more reactive metals in a bin for future use, he finally turned to the plastic wires, circuits, pins, and glassware. Potential computer parts, he thought, reaching for an old holomatter component. He turned it over in his hands, studying the seams and metal pathways. If he worked long enough, he might even have time to begin assembling some of the baser components today. He grabbed a screwdriver and began fiddling, mentally cataloguing the pieces he had and the pieces he'd need. This was going to be a project.

[[Starscream?]]

[[Busy,]] he returned absently, carefully turning a tiny screw into position on a piece of metal.

[[Oh. Sorry.]]

Starscream set the piece of metal aside and reached for an interesting hinge he'd found.

[[Starscream?]]

[[For Primus' sake, Skywarp, what do you want?]]

[[I still can't sleep.]]

[[It has been ten minutes, Skywarp.]]

There was a moment of silence. Starscream had just finished convincing himself that Skywarp was going to leave him alone, when the other mech's voice crackled over the comm. [[It's, um…kinda been two hours.]]

Whinging moron. [[What? That's ridiculous, you expect me to believe that heap of slag? I'm looking at my chronometer right now, and it's only been…]] Starscream cut himself off as he realized that Skywarp was right.

He cursed himself silently as he examined his work table. He squinted. Maybe it was because he'd been working on this project for two hours, but everything was looking a little blurry. No, not blurry…it was almost like there was an extremely thin veil in front of his optics…almost like smoke…

He swore louder and bolted out of his chair to where he'd been letting his chemicals bubble away. He bumped one of the vials with the more volatile materials, and some of it spilled on his servo, burning away some of the armor on it. Even as he hissed out obscenities, he could feel the nanites going to work on it, so he grabbed the burning pot of organic material. He darted back into his room, looking for something to do with the pot of boiling liquids. He submerged it in a half-empty energon cube under his berth, knowing the stale energon would probably help cool down the viscous liquid faster.

The stale energon and the organic solution bubbled ominously as they combined, but Starscream had bigger issues. He darted into the middle of his room and scanned his piles of junk for something, anything, that'd pull the smoke from the air. While the smoke wasn't any more of a problem for Starscream than the chemical fumes had been, if any staff came by and detected the smoke, he'd have his aft handed to him. They'd find his secret lab, his stolen scrap…why did they care so much that he was stealing garbage anyway? Whatever. He'd worry about that after he'd dealt with his smoke problem.

Buried in the back of his cabinet, he finally found an air purifier he'd stolen from the lab, which he promptly used, denta gritted together in frustration the entire time. For the first few minutes, the purifier didn't seem to want to work. Starscream wasn't sure which was more of a miracle – that he managed to refrain from flinging the pit-slagged thing against the wall, or that he actually got it functional after fiddling with it for a few moments.

Starscream stuck the air purifier on his berth and vented for a few moments, relieved to have averted the near-catastrophe. After he'd recovered from his panic, Starscream opened his pinging message box. Skywarp had clogged Stascream's inbox while he'd been darting all around his room.

[[Starscream?]]

[[Starcream, are you okay?]]

[[Starscream, please don't be dead.]]

[[Or in trouble.]]

[[Trouble's no good. Dead's probably worse, though.]]

[[Usually.]]

[[So if you're not dead, can you tell me a story?]]

[[TC usually tells me one when I can't sleep.]]

[[But he's asleep.]]

[[So will you do it?]]

Starscream rolled his optics. Skywarp would probably just keep sending him messages until both of them passed out.

[[FINE, if it'll get you to SHUT UP.]]

[[Thank you, Starscream,]] Skywarp said, with obvious relief.

[[So help me Primus, if you interrupt even once, I will turn off my comm and you can tell YOURSELF a glitch-spouting story.]]

Starscream waited a moment, and when he got no reply, he decided that meant that Skywarp was going to shut up and listen.

[[Okay so. When I was a kid, my friends slash roommates and I were hanging in our hab suite, bored out of our processors. The kinda night where there just doesn't seem to be any action going on, you know? Well Steerclear goes "Hey, you guys wanna see something cool?" He's the kind of guy who wouldn't know cool if it came up and bit him in the aft, but we had nothing better to do, so we said sure. So he pulls out this box from his subspace like it's contraband or something. "I didn't want to show this to just anyone," he says, "but you guys are okay." Clearly not a bright mech.

[[So he opens the box. It's this boring looking thing, and what's inside isn't any more interesting. It's just some kind of servo, only it's tiny and rusted. "The slag is this?" I ask him. "You told us you were showing us something cool!"

[["It's a hydro-weasel's claw," he tells us. "This box appeared in my room one day with a note carved inside. 'This claw will grant you any three wishes. Use carefully.'" Me and Aircurrent are like yeah right, but Steerclear's adamant that this thing has gotta be rocking the supernatural mystic mumbo jumbo somehow.

[["So what are you gonna wish for then?" we ask him. "Dunno," he says. "You guys help me think of something."

[["Oh like it's really gonna work," Aircurrent chimes in. "Don't be boring," Steerclear says. Blah blah blah, they bicker for a bit, like the mechs of lesser intelligence that they are. I, of course, remain detached and above such pettiness.]]

There was a laugh across the comm link.

[[That wasn't a joke, Skywarp,]] Starscream snapped.

[[Sorry, Star.]]

[[I told you no interruptions!]]

[[Sorry - ]]

[[Just shut up!]] Starscream snapped. After a few moments of silence, to ensure Skywarp wasn't going to interrupt again, Starscream continued. [[So the idiot manages to come up with an idea, and it's because his fuel tank starts pinging him that it's low. Thinks with his pumps, just like you. So he says "I'm gonna wish for enough energon to last a lifetime." I told him it was a stupid waste of a wish, but my excellent advice was ignored, as usual. So he wishes over the thing, and we all rush over to the closet where he keeps his stash. Nothing. "Told you it wasn't gonna work," Aircurrent tells him. "Only cause you didn't believe in it," Steerclear retorted. They start fighting again, and I, being a sensible mech, decide to leave them to it and recharge.

[[The next day after classes, I go back to the room and find Steerclear on his berth. He's sitting there rocking back and forth, so I ask him what the frag is wrong. He just points at the closet, so I fire the locking code at the door. Piles of dead mechs, all of them dripping energon. It's nasty and gross, with them all half-melted over each other, so I slam the thing closed again. Seriously, they all looked like slag, and I thought I was going to lose my lunch.

[[Aircurrent finally shows up, and neither of us want him to open the closet cause we do not need to see that mess again. The idiot doesn't want to believe us about the abomination in the closet, even though he can clearly see the pool of energon leaking out from under the door.

[[Takes us for-slagging-ever to convince him that it's real, that it isn't some sick trick. Eventually, Aircurrent says "Well, they are full of energon. That's what you wished for, wasn't it? Maybe the servo was just granting your wish."

[["If I'd wanted a closet-full of dead corpses, I would have said that!" Steerclear snaps. I tell him to stop griping and get the damned disgusting mess out of his closet. So being the sheer genius that he is, he wishes on the claw again: "I wish there aren't any corpses in my closet." And that's when the closet starts moaning.]]

There was a whimpering sound coming from Skywarp's end of the comm, but he still hadn't interrupted. Starscream smirked to himself and continued.

[[And then there's pounding and scratching on the door and all hell breaks loose. Steerclear and Aircurrent start to panic, spouting glitches everywhere. Aircurrent even decides to just open the door and let the abomination out, and you understand why that would have been a bad thing. But I, being a cool-headed mech under pressure, grab the turbo-weasel's claw. I wish the bodies are dead, far away, and that there's no evidence that they'd ever existed.

[[Aircurrent opens the closet and BAM; nothing in it. So I saved the day once again, but did anyone think to thank me? No. Anyway, Steerclear got rid of the claw somehow. I don't really remember how he did it, but the important thing is that he never used that last wish which means he now lives in fear that if he even thinks "I wish" the claw will grant it. There, story's over, the end.]]

For a moment, there was no noise at all over the comm. Starscream was about to probe Skywarp for some sort of response, when all he got over the comm was static. At first he thought Skywarp was messing with him or something, but then he realized.

[[Skywarp…are you crying?]]

[[Th...Th…Thundercracker…won't wake up…]] came the small voice from the other end of the line. [[A…and…I'm s-scared…]]

Starscream was going to make a snide comment about how Skywarp shouldn't ask him for stories if he wasn't prepared to handle them, but the comm suddenly went dead.

'For frag's sake,' Starscream thought. 'I think I actually scared the moron sparkless.' Granted, it was Skywarp, which meant that wasn't particularly hard to do.

Starscream glanced over at his make-shift chemistry lab. He had majorly screwed up his last experiment. That meant he wasn't going to be able to go to sleep anytime soon, especially not when his servo still hurt from where he'd spilled corrosive liquid on it. He picked through some supplies, gathered up a few, and quickly made his way to Thundercracker's quarters, wishing for Skywarp's ability to teleport so he wouldn't get caught with illegal contraband. Still, better that he be caught with this stuff in the hallway and not in his actual room.

Starscream kicked Thundercracker's door, his servos being full of beakers and burners, his subspace pockets already nearly overflowing with the things he'd thought he would need. [[Yo Warp, open the damned door, will ya?]] Starscream hailed. At first, he thought Skywarp was ignoring him, but after a long moment, the door slid open.

Starscream strode easily into the room and unloaded the supplies in his arms on Thundercracker's table. "Warp, get over here and help me, I don't have enough servos."

When he didn't immediately hear the clicks, humming, and gentle thumps that are the tell-tale sounds of a mech moving, Starscream looked around the room. Skywarp was on Thundercracker's berth. Thundercracker was sprawled across the slab, and Skywarp was curled around him on the very edge of the berth, optics wide.

Skywarp put his servos on his hips. "Will you stop being a pathetic little sparkling for a second and get over here and help me?"

"Is that why you're so mean?" Skywarp whispered.

Starscream scowled. "I'm sorry, I don't live in Skywarp land. Do you want to explain what the hell it is you're talking about, or are you gonna make me play twenty questions?"

"Are you so mean because…because of that story?"

Starscream just stared at Skywarp. Oh Primus, the little idiot actually thought the story was a real one. The mech just took everything too damn literally. He wasn't sure if he found that funny or pitiful. Probably just a mix of both.

Still, he didn't particularly feel like explaining to Skywarp that sometimes "this actually happened to me" is just a story mechanic. He rolled his eyes a little and said "Yeah. Sure. Why not. Now get your aft up and gimme a servo."

Slowly, Skywarp released his grip on Thundercracker's arm and swung his legs down off the berth. He went to stand cautiously next to Starscream. "I don't understand - "

"So what else is new?" Starscream interrupted, pulling beaker after beaker out of his subspace.

"But I don't understand what you want me to do. Or…or why you want me to help."

Starscream made a sour face. "Well, maybe once I get out of this damned institution, I'll install extra limbs so I can do everything for myself. Until then, I'm just going to have to rely on morons like you to do my grunt work."

"Okay," Skywarp said. He still sounded more subdued than usual, but he seemed pleased with that explanation. "So…what do I do?"

"Well first, you don't touch anything unless I say so," Starscream snapped, smacking Skywarp's hand as it hovered over the desk. Skywarp cradled his hand protectively but didn't protest. "Here's what I need you to do," he said, pulling several beakers full of chemicals closer to the edge of the desk.

"This one," Starscream said, holding up the biggest one up under Skywarp's olfactory sensor so he could get a good look at it, "is the most important one. Every time you use it, you usefive hundred milliliters. No more, no less. How many milliliters do you use?"

"Five hundred," Skywarp parroted back faithfully.

"Good," Starscream said. Next, he held up a jug of water. "You dilute that with one liter of this clear stuff. One liter, you got that?"

Skywarp nodded.

Starscream gestured at the array of empty beakers on the desk. There were at least a few dozen. "You mix them in these." He pointed at a stirring rod he'd put on the desk. "And for Primus' sake, stir them with that. Otherwise you'll pollute the samples and they won't work right."

"Five hundred milliliters, one liter, mix in those things with the stick," Skywarp repeated. He looked very focused now, and seemed to have forgotten his earlier fear completely.

"Right," Starscream said. Next, he pointed at the other jars full of liquids. Each was labeled as some chemical or other. "After you've mixed that up, add anywhere from two to three hundred milliliters of one of these chemicals. One of them, Skywarp."

"Just one," he repeated, nodding.

"One to each beaker." Starscream picked one up. "That's these things, by the way. I need at least one beaker with each of the chemicals in it, but the more you can mix up for me the better." He handed the beaker in his servo off to Skywarp. "Get to work, grunt."

Skywarp slowly, carefully, began setting about measuring, pouring and mixing chemicals. Starscream began setting up his own work station: He swiped all the datapads off one of Thundercracker's shelves and used that as a worktable.

From behind him, Starscream heard a gasp. "Starscream," Skywarp said, excited and breathless, "Starscream, it changed color!"

"Of course it changed color, dummy," Starscream said without bothering to turn around. "All those little jars make it turn a different color. That's why I need at least one of each. And I can't actually do anything until I have enough samples, so get on it, you idiot."

After that, there was mostly silence in Thundercracker's room, except for the occasional suppressed gasp from Skywarp as he discovered a new color. For a few hours, the two mechs worked diligently on their various projects. Finally, Starscream pulled his attention out of simmering leaves, cellular walls, and isolating proteins long enough to notice that Skywarp had passed out at the worktable.

Starscream smirked. He stood up to stretch, his joints popping in and out of place as they realigned. As quietly as possible, Starscream started collecting up all of his projects, stowing them away in his subspace. After carefully prying one of the half-finished beakers from Skywarp's servo, he gathered up the rest of Skywarp's supplies in his arms, quietly exited the room, and crept down the halls back to his own hab suite.

Once safely in his quarters, he replaced his projects in his secret lab space. He was pleased to note that his room had aired out nicely with the help of the purifiers. He dumped out the useless beakers of Skywarp's brightly colored liquids into the half-empty energon container. As all the colors mixed, the ominous bubbling returned, and the mixture took on a nasty brown color. Starscream just rubbed a servo over his face at the mess and winced as he bumped the burns on his servo. He should probably take care of that at some point.

Instead of trying to dig through his endless piles of junk for a first aid kit, he returned to his own work desk to continue playing with the bits of scrap. He had a supercomputer to build.

The first thing Thundercracker noticed when he came out of recharge was his processor pinging error after error at him. He quickly flicked his optics on, hoping his lights would have turned off when they stopped sensing movement for more than an hour.

They had, and Thundercracker sent silent prayers to Primus. He accessed his light system, turning off autolights and switching over to manual. The system sent a ping of acknowledgement, and he dimmed the maximum light output to a dull glow.

Thundercracker sat up and swung his legs off the edge of his berth, cradling his processor in his hands, and then his fragging lights blasted on at max power what the hell. Thundercracker let out a little yelp of pain and nearly fell off his berth. He muttered under his breath, cursing his screwed up lights, and any other light systems that didn't work properly but still insisted they were fine. He settled on putting a darker filter over his optics to reduce the number of errors the light would send to his processor.

He'd managed to stumble to his closet to retrieve a cube of energon and had downed nearly half of it before Thundercracker noticed the slumped form at his workdesk.

Thundercracker poked Skywarp on the shoulder strut. "That doesn't look like a very comfortable place to sleep, Skywarp," he said.

The mech didn't move.

Thundercracker vented and shook the mech gently. "Come on, Skywarp, up an' at 'em."

The mech still didn't move.

Thundercracker shook him a little harder this time. "Warp, I can't carry you to the berth. You're too heavy for me, bud."

Still, Skywarp didn't move.

Thundercracker checked to make sure the mech was still venting and that his spark was pulsing. Skywarp's armor felt warm to the touch, but no more absurdly warm than it usually did.

Thundercracker put his energon cube down on the table and started really shaking the stocky mech. "Skywarp," he said right in the mech's audial receptor. "Wake. The frag. Up."

With a quick burst of static, Skywarp sat up and mumbled "-jon?" He was looking around with glassy optics as though he wasn't quite aware of what was in front of him.

"What's 'jon'?" Thundercracker asked. Right at that moment, Skywarp's optics rested on the cube Thundercracker had left on the desk and Skywarp immediately grabbed it and chugged what was left. He looked around the room, then up at Skywarp . "Energon?" he asked, voice still thick with sleep, optics narrowed and unfocused.

Thundercracker just stared at Skywarp. "Are you kidding me? The smell of the energon is what woke you up?" He shook his head. "You're so strange sometimes, Warp."

Skywarp tugged Thundercracker's arm. "Energon," he insisted. It was clear that he wasn't going to be any more coherent than that until he got some fuel into his system.

"Yes, energon," Thundercracker said. He helped the other mech to his pedes. "Come on, big guy. Let's go get refueled."

Skywarp gave a weak cheer as he stumbled out of Thundercracker's quarters leaning heavily on the blue mech's shoulders.

Thundercracker winced. "And please keep the noise down. I have a wicked processor ache."

"You snore," was the first thing Starscream told Thundercracker when he walked into the big mech's quarters after his last classes of the day. "What the slag are you doing?" he asked when he actually took a proper look at the room.

Thundercracker was lying on his berth, one of his rags draped over his optics, two more muffling his audial fins. Skywarp was nowhere to be seen.

"Please," Thundercracker said weakly. "Don't speak. Your voice is like my own personal version of hell, Screamer."

Starscream snorted. "Serves you right for drinking yourself half blind last night."

"I'm serious," Thundercracker moaned. "You're killing me, here."

"Where's Skywarp?" Starscream just asked, noticeably raising the volume of his voice. "I'd've thought he'd be right there at your side. I mean, he does practically live here now."

A very loud shushing noise came from the closet, and Skywarp emerged, a cleaning rag in his hand. "Thundercracker's sick," Skywarp said, whispering nearly as loudly as Starscream had spoken. Thundercracker winced.

"Oh. So sorry," Starscream said, changing his voice to that of a whisper as well, but not bothering to lower his volume. "Whatever were you doing in there, Skywarp?"

"Cleaning," Skywarp said. "Organizing."

"Yes, I thought his room looked a little nicer," Starscream commended him. "You do good work, Skywarp. Maybe you should be on the janitorial staff. Or even better, maybe you can come and fix up my room sometime."

"With you both please shut up," Thundercracker wailed, covering his audial wings with his servos and curling up on his side.

"Oh but Thundercracker - " Starscream began.

"Get out! Both of you get out and leave me in peace!" he begged. "Just let me die in peace!"

Starscream snickered, but he grabbed Skywarp's arm and towed him out of the room. Skywarp tried to protest, but he let Starscream drag him outside.

"Oh relax you overgrown mousebot," Starscream said. "He's not really dying. He's just hung over. He'll be fine by tonight."

Skywarp looked fretfully at the door. "Are you sure? He seems really sick. Maybe he needs to go to the nurse's - "

"Stabilizer's a hopeless quack," Starscream interrupted. "And even if he wasn't, he'd just tell Thundercracker to do exactly what he's doing right now – to sleep and refuel regularly."

"Maybe we should bring him some energon," Skywarp said quickly. "I can go over to my place and bring him some of my high grade. That'd help right?"

Starscream just laughed. "I never woulda took you as a believer in 'energon of the turbofox that bit him'. You realize that doesn't actually work, right?"

Skywarp just looked at Starscream blankly for a moment before he rushed on with "High grade is better than regular energon, right? So it means he'll get better faster, cause it's better for him!"

Starscream frowned. "What are you…" His optics narrowed as he examined Skywarp's face. "Skywarp…do you have a processor ache? At all?"

"No," Skywarp said.

"Did you this morning?"

Skywarp shook his head.

"Any sensitivity to light or sounds?"

Skywarp had to think about that one a little longer than said "…no?"

"Are you sure?"

"I mean…no more than usual," he said.

"Have you ever had any of these things after drinking as much high grade as you did last night?"

Skywarp shook his head again.

Oh please. Air escaped from between Starscream's lipplates in a hiss. "Primus, you're a little glitch, you know that? How many cubes do you even need before you start to get properly overcharged?"

Skywarp first looked taken aback, then confused. "What's 'overcharged'?"

There was a moment of silence as Starscream looked at him. "What - what do you mean 'what's overcharged'? Have you never gotten overcharged before?!"

"I don't know what that - "

"Overcharged!" Skywarp could not be serious. He wasn't serious, was he? "You know, you can't balance and your processor slows down and you get stupid and can't control yourself. Overcharged."

"That sounds awful. Does that happen to you a lot? Maybe you should go Stabilizer about it."

Starscream couldn't believe it. "Do you seriously…no. No, no one is this stupid. You're messing with me right now as payback for that story I told you last night. You know, everyone thinks you're this innocent little mech, but you're a real piece of work. Who told you? Was it Flyaway? That half-wit will do anything to make me look bad…"

Skywarp just watched helplessly as Starscream seethed, confusion overtaking his thoughts. Why was Starscream upset? Why was he mad?

"You know, this is what I get for trying to be nice. Well, forget you." Starscream started to walk away, but then he turned around and stormed back. "You know, right, that everyone thinks you're pathetic? That they all see you as this big dumb oaf, who's only good for a frag? Personally, I don't see why anybody even sees that much in you."

With that, Starscream turned on his heel and stormed down the hallway to his own quarters.

Skywarp stared after him. What. What had just happened. What had just happened.

Was it his fault? Did he do something? What had he done? Had he done something bad? Something irreparably bad? Had he ruined this? Skywarp fought back the static that was building up in his vocalizer. Starscream could be mean, but he'd never been that awful to Skywarp before - but then, Skywarp had long ago realized that he tended to inspire the worst in others. Perfectly nice people would lie, would anger, would tire of him. It was nothing new. He was a tiring person.

This is my fault.

And the worst part, he thought with growing dread, was that the one thing he could trust about Starscream was his honesty about his feelings. If that was how Starscream felt, then maybe - and Primus did it hurt to think this - maybe the friendship Skywarp thought they'd been developing hadn't meant anything after all.

It was a crushing thought.

In all the yelling, Skywarp hadn't noticed the pings from his inbox. He checked in, and his spark contracted slightly at the words that flashed across his HUD:

[[When I kicked you out of my room, it wasn't so I could hear you two shouting right outside the door. Argue where I can't hear you, morons.]]

Even Thundercracker was mad at him, then. Thundercracker - infinitely patient, kind, booknerd Thundercracker - couldn't stand him. This is terrible, this is awful, this is my fault, I did this, I screwed up –

Static building, optics fritzing, Skywarp ran straight to the one safe space left for him, knocking mechs aside in his hurry to get back to his room. He couldn't hurt anybody there.

A/N: School is starting for me, and I'm gonna need time to edit things between homework and classes. Bad news is, that means the next chapter will be up a month from now, which I know is a long time, but it helps ensure I have the same quality writing I've had up til this point. This fic has gotten a lot of followers, favorite, and review (for me, anyway) and I just want you guys to know that it means a lot to me. I'm excited that you're excited to continue on this twisting journey with me.

As always, my love and thanks to my magnificent editor/beta/co-conspirator Jideni3. Some days it feels like all the best stuff actually comes from her. Next time, we get to see the aftermath of this little debacle as TC tries to pick up the pieces. See you guys on October 4th. Until then.