A/N: Was totally planning to write something else, but this came out instead. It is imperfect, but still I'm kinda partial to it. Megs still has many things to learn. Silly, precious mechs! I love them so...

Calling Home

First Vorn:

A nearly empty cube of high-grade sloshed, half-forgotten in the Decepticon's dull black fingers. His shuffling foot caught on an ill-laid paving sheet, and he cursed as he flailed for balance. His warrior's poise was definitely lacking on this night. But other, less apparent things, were paining him much more acutely with their absence.

"Starscream!" He grumbled at the sky. "Where have you gone, you lube-sucking little dipstick? Don't pretend you can forget me!"

He stumbled to a stop, and let his head fall loosely back on its suspension. He gazed with bleary vision up into the clouds of stars. Somewhere out there, they said, there was a place where all sparks would return to the One Source from whence they'd come. All one. One Allspark. All together, turning and turning forever.

"Boring!" declared Megatron. "'S boring, isn't it?" he called. "You know you're never satisfied. Not even with sat- sati- satiety. There's no one you can challenge, out there in your happy little world. 'S'all... 'S all just sweetness and light!" he cried. "You're gonna miss me! You're gonna come back!"

His heavy head dropped forward, and he slumped onto his hands and knees. "You've got to come back," he whispered. "It's no... no fun without you."

"All right, old man," said Prime kindly, as he rounded the corner. "It's time to sleep it off. We've got a busy day tomorrow. Elita's coming home with the ambassador from Earth, and the expedition force should be reaching the core of our own planet by mid-day, if all goes well." He huffed a little, tugging. "On your feet, now..."

Megatron mumbled some inaudible curses, but did not put up a fight as Prime half-dragged him to his berth. After all, it was in his dreams that the unspeakable traitor had once appeared to him...

"Come back," he pleaded.

"What was that?" asked Prime.

"I want him to come home," the gray mech whispered. Then his head thunked hard against the metal platform of his bunk, and he said not another word.

The light in Optimus's optics dimmed as he looked down upon the sleeping mech. "I don't know if he can, Brother." The old sorrow made the words come heavy. "I'm not sure even if he would."

Second Vorn:

"Come home!" called Megatron across the stars. "I wasn't finished with you yet!"

"That's why I'm staying far away," the voice inside his dream replied. "I'd like to keep my plating dent-free, thank you."

"Wait!" Megatron strained to reach out to the voice. It left him hanging in the dark, alone.

"That isn't what I meant," he whispered, shivering in endless blackness.

Third Vorn:

Before he knew what he was doing, Megatron had scrambled from his berth, vaulted across the little room, and flung his arms around the red and white mech standing there.

"I missed you!" he exclaimed. And then he realized what he'd said. What he had done.

From somewhere muffled against his shoulder, Starscream laughed. "Couldn't manage without me, eh 'Lord' Megatron? You know, I always said-"

"I perfectly remember what you always said; and it's just as annoying now as it was then. But frag it all...!" He pulled his arms, if possible, even more tightly around the Seeker's frame. "Slag it, Starscream, I don't care if this is only a dream. How are you? What's it like there in the Well of All Sparks? What do you do there? Do you think you'll ever be reborn? Are you still you?"

"The answer to that last one should be obvious," Starscream replied sardonically. He hitched a shoulder. "I'm supposed to let me spark rejoin the One, but I just haven't yet. I... kind of get a kick out of watching you all down here." He bent back his head and grinned that old lopsided smirk. "You're all fools, by the way."

"Takes one to know one," Megatron replied, his happiness undimmed.

"You know,'Great Leader,'" Starscream said, beginning now to squirm, "When I allowed you to see me, I didn't realize that you'd try to weld me onto your own body..."

"I'm not letting you go again," said Megatron. "You're mine. The Allspark cannot have you back."

"You know that sounds really creepy and psychotic, right?" asked Starscream.

"I'm Megatron! I'm supposed to be psychotic!" the big gray bot exulted.

"...Riiiiight..." Starscream let out the longsuffering sigh of a saint. "Remind me why I came back here again?"

"Because I wanted you to come back! I missed your obnoxious face!" said Megatron, as if that explained everything.

Starscream shrugged. He guessed it did, at that.

"You're blocking all my forward vents," the red Seeker remarked. Offhand, he added, "I'll explode from overheating."

"You explode just from your own internal glitches," said Megatron "At least once or twice a day," he added fondly.

"Slagger."

"Glitch-mouse."

"Smelter-loving waste-bucket."

"Spawn of Unicron and some errant fly-wheel, with just a dash of acid on the side."

"Pathetic overlord who pretends to be evil, but is really just a glob of wibbling mush inside."

They grinned. "Sounds about right," said one.

"That's me!" agreed the other.

"So. You having fun?" they both asked exactly at the same time, and with nearly the same dry-humored inflection.

Starscream laughed. "I guess so," he replied. "I want to bash your fool head in every few breems or so, but then, what else is new?"

Megatron snorted. "I am doing very important things, I'll have you know."

"Yeah," chuffed Starscream. "Because trying to decide if you just 'like' that newling RainbowSparkle, or if you, you know, like her is really important stuff. And so is stumbling around half-blind on cheap high-grade, yelling insults to your dead Second. You can let go of me now," he reminded his Leader in a somewhat peevish tone.

Megatron shook his head, his mouth turned down in what on any other mech would have been called a pout. "Nope," he declared. "Don't want to let you run away."

Starscream lifted his gaze to his beloved sky – so far away and out of reach. "You know," he said with exasperated patience, "It's not the best incentive for me to come back and visit, if you're just going to smother me."

"Can't let you go again," said Megatron, in a much smaller voice. "I won't."

The Seeker patted his Commander on the back. "Still the same old, same old?" he murmured, but with empathy. He shook his head. "All right then. Better luck next time."

Starscream then did something – Megatron couldn't quite see what it was – and suddenly the Decepticon Commander slumped back onto his berth. He shook his muzzy head, but there was no fighting this overwhelming tiredness.

"Won't... let you go...!" he repeated. Helpless, he fell onto his back, with Starscream still clutched close against him. "Won't let..." With a last effort, Megatron hooked his legs around his Lieutenant's, and subsided into stasis.

Starscream unlatched the now-limp limbs, and scrambled free. He stretched his arms, and popped a few small joints back into place. Then he turned back to the sprawled form on the recharge bunk.

He straightened the old mech's bulky frame. He made sure that the knees were straight, the feet aligned, the head majestic in repose. Lastly, he folded the black hands together on the flat gray chest.

He looked at Megatron a while, then rubbed a pale blue thumb along one chiseled cheekplate's edge. "You have to let me go," he whispered, bending close to the insensible mech's audial. "But if you do, then I can come back to see you again. Perhaps for..." He looked out at the darkening sky as if to question it. A few stars beckoned, flickering. "Perhaps for good," he finished. "Perhaps not. I'm still figuring all this out."

He bent, and touched his brow to Megatron's unfeeling one. "Until next time, oh Mighty Megatron..."