Strutting His Stuff.

Like any good party, it only got going an hour after it was meant to start and lasted long into the early morning. Jazz's and Blaster's parties were never pre-planned – one moment one would turn to the other and with a single shared expression they could find a way to have everything ready for a good time before the end of their shifts.

Bluestreak was sitting in the main lounge when Eject and Rewind stumbled through, carrying a lighting rig. The gunner did not even look up as they began setting it up over the bar.

"Hey Blue!"

"Blue Boy! What'cha reading?"

"A book." The automatic reply was not intentionally meant to be rude, but whenever someone saw him reading they always asked him the same question – and it drove him crazy. He could avoid all of the questions by hiding away in his room, but after spending so long in there working, Bluestreak preferred a change of scenery. He pressed the button to bring up the next screen on the data-pad and hoped that the cassettes had not taken his comment too seriously.

"Yeah, well, I can see that," Rewind said as he fixed his end of the lights into place. "But what are you reading?" He placed in the power core to check that the lights were working. The bluish, electronic glow of the battery looked like it was one of the lights itself.

"'Touching the High Towers'."

"Fantasy, eh?" Jazz had been silently choosing his music selection in the other corner with Blaster but interjected his own question.

"Fantasy, drama, a little bit of spiritualism…" Bluestreak did not say any more but went back to his book. Out of the corner of his optics, he watched someone come through the door, falter and come crashing down to the ground.

"Ow! Hey, Blaster: are you gonna give us a little help with the sound system?" The voice belonged to Eject.

"Oops – be right there." Blaster ran across and began lugging the next heavy object into place. The Communications 'bot always made sure that there was a dedicated sound system whenever there was a party: he always preferred to be a part of the action and show off and had learned fast that he could not provide the music and dance at the same time without affecting the sound quality. "Aww – the corner's dented!" The noise only became worse as the four mechs bickered between themselves over the object's placement, the drinks and the music. Bluestreak sighed and realised that he was not going to get any more peace in here tonight. He sub-spaced the book, stood up and began an almost acrobatic exercise over the equipment and the scrambling energetic cassettes.

"You leavin', Blue?" Jazz barely looked up from connecting up the wires and power supplies.

"Yeah."

"Will I be seein' ya later?"

"Probably not. Sorry Jazz, but I want a quiet night in tonight."

"Aww, c'mon, Bluestreak! Stay for a dance! Do ya know how many times I've been in an' out o' the med-bay recently? Keep me some company!" Bluestreak shook his head and closed more distance between himself and the exit. "Well, stay for one song!" He grabbed Bluestreak by the door-wing and pulled him back to the centre of the room. Eject started the music. A horrible, static and high-pitched squeal emerged from the box.

"Whoops! Got my wires crossed!" A moment later, Blaster's 'Dance Disco Mix: 1989' was playing 'She Drives Me Crazy'.

The special operations officer moved with the dexterity he was renowned for on the battlefield. Blaster and the cassettes occasionally passed a glance in Jazz's direction but were busier trying to do his share of the work as well since it seemed that he had given up on it. Bluestreak stood there, rocking back and forth from his heel-joint to the balancing-ball of the front of his foot. There was no chance that he could match Jazz's dancing skills, and there was no way that Jazz was going to let him leave until Bluestreak danced with him. In other words, Bluestreak was not going to be leaving the room with his dignity intact.

"C'mon, Bluestreak!" Jazz grabbed his arms and began swinging him from side to side, forcing him to move his legs unless he wanted to fall over. "Get into the rhythm!" Bluestreak began to move his body of his own accord, relying less and less on Jazz and moving closer and closer to the hallway back to his quarters. Unfortunately for Bluestreak, Jazz was not slow. "Get back here!" The Porsche began to spin him round, pushing him back into the lounge and making sure to stay between the Datsun and the door.

The song came to an end and changed to 'Another Day in Paradise'. "One more song – stay for this song!"

"Eeurrgh…" All Bluestreak wanted to do was read about the 'High Towers'; he wanted to know whether Blackcross had sacrificed himself for nothing – whether the cruelly named Avarice had become wiser from his mentor's knowledge and could break the cycle of hatred and despair within his peers that his creator had started and that he fed. It seemed that his enlightenment was not to be.

Hound and Trailbreaker found their way to the unexpected party and immediately joined the two of them in the room's centre. Bumblebee and Spike came in together and settled at the bar, despite no one being there to serve drinks.

"You're too early, people – we're not finished yet!" Blaster shouted from under the bar's table. One song after another passed through Bluestreak's audios and he was no closer to escaping. Over one twenty-fourth of one of Earth's days had elapsed when a crowd gathered and began surrounding them. Bluestreak realised that there was only way that he was going to get free: find a new victim for Jazz.

Blaster was suddenly and quite pleasantly surprised to see Bluestreak finally get into the music: he was dancing around the others and had quite a reasonable sense of style and balance. His hips moved one way and his arms the other, snaking through the air and through the collection of bodies. He twisted around the tables, looking from person to person to see who Jazz would want to dance the most. He locked onto Ironhide, smiling alone in a corner and tapping the beat on folded arms. Bluestreak moon-walked over, but Ironhide could already see what he was up to.

"Try it and you'll be spittin' yer feet pistons an' parts out fer a lunar cycle," came the deadpan reply. But the Porsche had been watching, and for Ironhide it was already too late. Duran Duran became the artist for the dancers as Jazz sidled over.

"Hello, Ironhide."

"Oh Primus, no." All effort in the room was immediately channelled into getting Ironhide out on the dance floor, and under these circumstances, Bluestreak successfully fled. "Jazz, there ain't no way ah'm dancin' to this!"

Bluestreak returned to the lounge once he was sure the party was over. Tip-toeing over the sticky patches on the floor, he went straight for the clearest, cleanest table. Sitting down, the gunner took out his book file again and began to read.

"What are you doin' up?" Bluestreak jolted up to look at the voice; Ironhide was leaning against the bar, other hand on hip and staring at him with a cheeky smile.

"Couldn't sleep – everyone's making too much noise."

"Prefer the quiet, eh?"

"Not always… just tonight. What are you doing behind the bar?"

"Makin' drinks – it was the only way t' get me out a' dancin'. You want one?"

"Go on then." He trotted over and watched as Ironhide tipped out the contents of the few remaining bottles and juggled and spun them around his arms, under his leg and into one of the few clean receptacles left. "Hey, you're pretty good."

"Ah'm a terrible dancer, but ah used to have a lot o' jobs before ah became a – what ah am now." Ironhide's eyes distanced and Bluestreak saw his hand stir violently before being stilled. "You'll have a long life yet, Bluestreak – you'll become more than a gunner." Ironhide's tone was wary and less than convincing.

"…Yeah."

"How's yer book?"

"It's 'Touching the High Towers'. Read it? I'm almost finished."

"Yeah, ah've read it all the way through a couple a' times."

"I haven't finished it, but why does Blackcross put so much faith in Avarice, Goldglow and Dunesear when they're all such terrible people?"

"Blackcross yearned fer the past – fer a time when people thought and fought for themselves an' their ideals. He wanted to show 'em all something greater, but he wasn't sure whether they wanted t' change and were just oppressed by ah bleak society, or whether they were all passive to it, or indoctrinated enough t' be rooted in it. All a' his options were tragic, but he had the chance t' change somethin' an' he tried. In th' end, he only succeeded with Av'rice; only he had the will t' turn away from the easy path o' compliance."

"But he only made the other two worse."

"He did, but t' him he saved one, an' the most driven one at that. An' that's enough hope t' start a new future." Ironhide stared at the tumbler in his hand, considering the simpler past that he had once lived and how unenviable Prime's task was. "Strange how everythin' changes in an instant. Enjoy what you've got now, kid; things can turn fer better or worse all too soon."

"…Yeah." Bluestreak went back to his book whilst Ironhide twisted and turned his tumblers with showmanship – grasping hold of a buried moment that would never come again.

End.