It Shall Not Envy
(22 June 2006)

Sideswipe was lounging peacefully in his new quarters, one leg slung up on the table before him, one leg draped over the arm of the chair as he scanned through the Welcome-to-Earth-Suckers packet Prowl had put together. Terrain maps, economy charts, geological history, supposed human culture…it was all there in the datapad, and Sideswipe figured he'd better tackle it sooner than later. He was a champ at getting out of unnecessary drudge work, and this did qualify as a painful read. But even worse than slogging through this pile of boring data was being out of the loop, so while no one was looking, Sideswipe figured he better study up.

Without so much as a knock, Sunstreaker breezed on in and accidentally brushed by Sideswipe's table-slung leg with enough force to knock it to the ground. Hands on his hips, and ignoring a bit of a glower from his brother, Sunstreaker surveyed Sideswipe's quarters. "Nice digs," he commented.

"Would be nicer if the ugly slagger with the attitude would get out," Sideswipe retorted.

"Then leave."

"Ooh, good one," Sideswipe rolled his optics. Did you practice that on in the mirror? Oh wait – you do everything in front of the mirror. What was I thinking?"

Sunstreaker slithered a flat stare toward his brother, but chose not to comment. Instead, he ran his gaze over the room once more, and then began his trademarked bitching. "So whose exhaust pipe did you service to get this room?"

Sideswipe screwed up his face. "Nice visual, bro."

"Slag me," Sunstreaker stalked over to the corner of the room, where a stream of light poured through a window well that had been drilled through the rock. "You have a window. How the slag did you rate a window?"

Snorting, Sideswipe threw down the datapad. "Yesterday, you were moaning about the sun bleaching your enamel. Now you want a window?"

Glaring at the offending pane of plexiglass, Sunstreaker crossed his arms in a humph. "My room's a hole compared to this."

"So?"

"So give me yours." Sunstreaker turned to look down at his brother. "Now. You can move your stuff before your next shift."

"Like hell," Sideswipe sat up straight and slid his other leg to the ground. "You don't like your room? Go do your piss-n-moan bit for Ironhide. But keep your pretty-mech mitts off my room."

"Slag you, slagger," Sunstreaker snapped.

"Same to you, now slag off."

Sunstreaker left in his usual huff.

They'd only been on Earth for a few weeks now, and with the help of the humans Spike and Sparkplug, everyone was doing his best to adjust to the alien planet. But there was only so much the humans could do, and smoothing out the general internal rumblings of the Ark's rabble crew wasn't one of those things. For starters, Tracks had an unholy obsession with eradicating every mite of dust from his life, which was really a daunting feat, considering the Earthen terrain. Secondly, due to his new and sloppy and therefore mightily non-sterile working environment, Ratchet's mood had been relegated to that of a wildly offended helio-boar. He'd been ranting and fritzing since they'd awakened here on this mud-ball, and within that short time there had been no fewer than fifteen Ratchet-related injuries, and at least two Ratchet-induced KOs. Sideswipe, for his part, was impressed with the burly medic.

But that wasn't all, because thirdly, Sunstreaker, who was possibly the only Autobot on the planet who felt this way, still was not happy about his living arrangements. By all rights, he should have been. Back on Cybertron, space had been scarce, and they'd all been stuffed into crowded bays with rows of bunks and no privacy to speak of. Now that they'd crashed on Earth, and since not everyone had been revived yet, there were gads of rooms to spare. In fact, for the first time in Sideswipe's memory as an Autobot, he had a room to himself, and he had to admit that he liked it. For one, it certainly gave him a nice staging ground for planning various nefarious things, and secondly, it was just nice to have something of his own.

But Sunstreaker wasn't having it.

"I hate my room," he sulked, slouching against Sideswipe's wall.

"What's wrong with it now?" Sideswipe asked, without looking up from tinkering with an Earthen gaming console. The humans had something called 'Atari', and he was bound and determined to fix up some Autobot-sized controls on this one, and see what it was all about.

"Well, for starters," Sunstreaker replied, "it's too small."

"It's the same size as my room!" Sideswipe looked up, incredulous.

"It is not."

Sideswipe threw down a tool. "It's an Alpha-deck room, Sunstreaker. They're all the same dimensions. Primus."

Sunstreaker continued to simmer. "It's smaller, I swear. Come see for yourself."

"I'm busy." Sideswipe bent back over his work. Primus, what a nag.

"Well, if you think they're the same then switch with me," Sunstreaker demanded for the five-billionth time.

And for the five-billionth time, Sideswipe told him no. "No, no, no, no, NO, Sunstreaker. For Primus' sake, no. And go away. I've got stuff to do."

"Fine," Sunstreaker grumbled, and quit the room in a sulky brood.

Not two hours later, he was back. Striding into the room, he came to stand in front of Sideswipe's work table and crossed his arm. Optics frosted, he glared down at his brother, and without preamble, he said, "My room smells of minibot."

"What?" Sideswipe looked up, soldering iron smoking in one hand.

"I said," Sunstreaker repeated himself imperiously, "that it smells of minibot. And it does. It's awful."

"How the hell," Sideswipe asked, lowering the iron into its holder, "does a room smell like a minibot?"

"I don't know. It just does."

"Slagging hell, Sunstreaker," Sideswipe gave him another unbelieving look, "how does a minibot smell like anything?"

Arms crossed, Sunstreaker balled into himself, and looked for all the world like the universe's most longsuffering martyr. "Like I said, I don't know. But Windcharger's room is on the other side of mine, and I can smell wafting waves of minibot at all hours of the day and night. And I swear to Primus, it's driving me mad."

"Oh, I'll tell you what's driving me mad," Sideswipe informed his brother as he rose and began ushering him forcibly from the room. "You are driving me mad. Talk of minibot smells and magically smaller rooms, my aft, Sunstreaker. Now go away."

With a final shove, Sideswipe ejected his brother from his room, and hit the lock for good measure. Dumb slagger anyway.

The next day, he was at it again. At breakfast, Sunstreaker made his announcement over a cup of mid-grade. "The floor of my room goes downhill."

"Downhill." Sideswipe leveled his brother with a look.

Sunstreaker nodded. "From north to south, it slopes."

"Well," Sideswipe pointed out after a sip, "my floor doesn't slope."

"Yeah? Well, that's your floor, and it's different," Sunstreaker replied.

"No, it is not different," Sideswipe countered, his voice rising ever so much. "It's the same deck, same room as yours, just one room over, so if your floor was going downhill, then my floor would go downhill. And my floor isn't going downhill, Sunstreaker."

"Well, mine is," Sunstreaker huffed.

"You're a nut."

"So if your floor doesn't go downhill, then give me your room," Sunstreaker demanded in that nasally whine he always managed when he wasn't getting his way.

Sideswipe sat back, and took another long pull of his drink. "No."

"I hate you," was the sullen response.

"Good."

After that, Sideswipe rather hoped that Sunstreaker would stop, but he didn't. In fact, he got worse. Over the next several days, Sideswipe fielded complaints about how Sunstreaker's room had developed a draft, how the lights flickered in dire subliminal patterns, how the walls hummed, how the pipes banged, and how, during the wee hours of the night, the room's audio systems tuned into a sports radio talk show out of Laos. That sparked an entire litany about how Sunstreaker's room was haunted by an underground Laotian sports mob who was intent on using subliminal, hypnotic light and radio frequencies to turn Sunstreaker into a lifeless sports drone. Sideswipe, for his part, had read enough on Earthen governments and cultures to suggest that there probably wasn't an underground Laotian sports mob, and that even if there was, they probably didn't care to enslave Sunstreaker to their ways. But Sunstreaker was convinced. They, along with his room, were out to get him.

"I'm not messing around, Sideswipe," Sunstreaker was railing one evening, his voice taking on an almost frantic note. "I can't live in that room. I went to Ironhide, and he told me to shove it, so I went to Prowl to try to get him to make you switch with me, and even he told me to shove it, and now I'm here talking to you. And you better as slag give me your room."

"You went to Prowl?" Sideswipe gaped. "What the hell for?"

"Because it's not fair!" Sunstreaker wailed. "It's not fair, because my room doesn't bother you, but it bothers me, and your room doesn't bother me, so it's only fair that you should switch with me!"

He was really fritzing now, and Sideswipe could see the almost deranged light in his brother's optics. This whole room thing really was bugging him. "But Sunstreaker," he tried, exasperated, "there is nothing…wrong…with…your…ROOM."

In a display of supreme maturity, Sunstreaker hauled off and kicked the wall. "Yes there is! And I can't stay in it one more minute!"

"You just dented my wall!" Sideswipe cried, one hand on his helmet. "What the slag!"

"I don't care," Sunstreaker seethed. "I want this room, and I am prepared to harass you to your grave if you don't give it to me."

Sideswipe drew himself up, fists balled, optics drawn to beady slits. He thought seriously of pulling out his piledrivers. Instead, he said in a tight voice, "You know what? FINE. Have the room. I'm done."

And with that, he began dismantling his bunk.

They'd drawn a crowd by then, mostly consisting of mechs who had begun betting on the outcome of this little argument. It had been escalating for weeks now, and Smokescreen was positively glowing with scandalous levels of glee at how many bets he'd taken. Sideswipe made a mental note to extract a few credits from his hide later, one way or the other.

Snarling, Sideswipe stormed from his room to his brother's, dragging his own things in, and throwing his brothers things out the door with enough force to dent the bulkhead, and send a few of the grinning onlookers scurrying for safety. He even did Sunstreaker the courtesy of ripping his brother's bunk from its struts, and hurling it with all his might down the hall, where it bounced off the floor, walls, and Jazz a few times before spinning to a stop somewhere near the end of the hall. Having flung the last of his brother's crap, he seared Sunstreaker with a glare, and bellowed, "And STAY OUT!"

With that, he slammed the door.

The crowd broke into applause.

Things were quiet then. Moodily, Sideswipe put together his new quarters, taking care to note that it was stench-free, level-floored, quiet, and exactly the same size as his old room. With a grunt, he shoved his bunk into place, and threw himself viciously down to try to catch some sleep. Stupid piece of slag brother. Sideswipe may have lost his room, but he'd made up his mind about one thing: He was never speaking to Sunstreaker again. Not one slagging damn word.

Hours passed. The noise out in the hall dwindled. No one dared knock on his door, and Sideswipe had to give the other Autobots a little credit for being somewhat smart. He was in no mood, and if he was going to do any more talking tonight, it would be with his piledrivers. Of that, he was certain.

It was a little past 2200 hours when Sideswipe heard the knock. He ignored it. The door slid open anyway. Laying on his back, fingers laced over his chestplate, Sideswipe cursed himself for forgetting to hit the locks.

"Side?" came the tentative voice.

Sideswipe said nothing.

Sunstreaker took a step into the room.

Still, Sideswipe said nothing.

"Side?" his brother began once more. "You know my new room?" He waited for a response from his brother, and got none. "Well," he said, when the silence had dragged out for approximately two eternities, "it's too big."

For one clear, cold moment, Sideswipe did not move. And then, almost without thinking, he flung himself from the bunk, stalked across the room, and without a word, began laying into the wall with his piledrivers. Out of the corner of his optic, he saw his brother's jaw drop, but either Sunstreaker was too surprised or too smart to try to get in Sideswipe's way, and within minutes the wall between their rooms sported a brand, shiny new door, ragged edges and all.

Without pausing, and while Sunstreaker stood gaping at him like he was a lunatic, Sideswipe began once more with the process of flinging everything he owned through the door. Bunk, desk, chair, personal belongings, datapads, tools, everything, he stuffed through the hole in the wall. Then, welder in hand, he slammed his bunk down on top of Sunstreaker's, welded the legs to the posts, and at last threw himself with a growl onto the top bunk.

Hesitantly, and looking as though he suspected that Sideswipe had flipped his last breaker, Sunstreaker let himself carefully through the jagged hole. He stood for a minute, surveying the rabble of things strewn on the floor, the new sleeping arrangements, and the seething mech on the top bunk. Then, with a sort of a hitch of his shoulders, the yellow warrior waded through the mess and lay peaceably down on his own bunk.

"I figure we'll fix the door in the morning," Sideswipe snapped.

"I'll help," Sunstreaker replied mildly from the bunk below. He added, "So…what do we do with our extra room?"

"Entertainment center."

"Oooh, good idea."

"I figure so."

"Hey, Side?"

"What?"

"I figure this room's about right now," Sunstreaker told him.

Sideswipe rolled his optics, and threw himself over onto his left side. "Night, bro," he grumbled.

Below him, Sunstreaker shifted around. "Night," he said, sounding pacified at last, and as they both drifted off, Sideswipe couldn't help but wonder how the betting pool had turned out, and who Smokescreen would say had won this round.