Disclaimer: I own nothing – at least nothing Transformers related.

AN: This is the first version I had in mind for this request. The second version is, well, tamer… (This is possible? Yes, it is…) I've never written something like that before so don't be surprised I cheated my way around certain things.

Corrected by mdnytryder. Thanks.

5/28 Bathtime (G1)

To say that Starscream was experienceing a bad month, would have been an understatement of cosmic proportions.

He had been stalked by a giant squid, ridiculed by everyone of his subordinates and his Commander at least ten times a day, had more paranoid fits than he bothered to count, had destroyed his already questionable reputation with even more embarrassing actions and had made Skywarp, Rumble and Frenzy (once he had finally seen through their cruel prank), the heroes of the whole base.

The names of the three culprits could be heard being praised everywhere, while he himself, was laughed at.

It held little satisfaction for Starscream, that his tormentors were currently hiding on one of the little islands around the base. Apparently, they were afraid of what Starscream would do to them if they ever came under his optics again. Only when Megatron led a new attack, the "Trio of Terror", what the other Decepticons had dubbed them, appeared warily on the horizon to follow the call. They had made sure during the entire battle, that at least three to four other Decepticons had been between them and their Air Commander and SIC.

Not that it really had been necessary.

After achieving only a few hours of recharge because of weeks of paranoia, fear, mental exhaustion, ridicule and his resulting anger over it, Starscream had no real intention of doing anything to Skywarp, Rumble and Frenzy... yet.

He had other problems like, for example, staying in the air, dodging the shots of the Autobots and shooting back.
In the end, he had little to no success executing all these three objectives, and down he went.

Hard.

And into something really, really slimy.

While he lay there, sinking slowly but steadily into the strange mix of mud, pebbles, sand, garbage and hot tar that would have become a street right next to the swamp not so long ago, he realized that he should have seen this coming. Well, at least it was over now.
Poor him….

It was not over.

The universe hated Starscream and right now it had been an especially arduous month.
He was "saved" from a dirty, muddy, sticky death by your favorite robots in disguise.

Hooray….

Now he stood, dripping, up to his intakes full of a slimy mix of things he didn't even want to think about, smelling like something organic rolled over and died, only to stand up and die again, and was almost as pleased to see Ratchet as Ratchet was to see him.

Ergo: Not the least little bit.

"What is that?" Ratchet sounded almost insulted. How dare the twins bring this… for the lack of better words, something in his clean medbay, where he tried to repair poor injured mechs and idiots who slagged themselves out of pure stupidity. Like Cliffjumper, who never seemed to learn that you couldn't defeat somebody in hand-to-hand who is more than three times your size.
For good measure, he gave the staring Minibot on his table a good whack over the head with a wrench at this thought.

Sideswipe looked at Starscream, who glared right back with his one not-cracked optic – and dripped more mud on the previously clean floor.

"A Seeker?" Even the red twin sounded doubtful about this statement. It had been Bluestreak who had downed the flyer with a well-placed shot but at the moment the young gunner lay on a medical berth next to Cliffjumper and was offline.

As all online mechs in the room looked at him, Starscream sighed internally and twitched his wings, splashing mud and dry tar everywhere. He winced as white-hot pain spread through his left wing. Fortunately for him, the tar had sealed every possible wound so he had no fear of about Energon poisoning or something nasty like that.

Ratchet wiped the mud off his face and ignored the complaining Sunstreaker. With a glare he held a wrench under the faceplate of the Decepticon – or under the red optic where the face would be under all the filth. "Don't do that again or I'll let them drag you into the Brig and forget about you until you rust to little flakes of really dirty rust!"

Starscream was too miserable to be impressed. And after the constant – if erroneous – threat of a giant squid waiting to eat you if you weren't looking, Ratchets threats really needed some work….

The medic turned to face Sideswipe again, while Sunstreaker cleaned the smeary spots off his poor abused armor with a rag.

"Who is this?"

Sideswipe glanced at Sunstreaker, who by now mirrored his own sheepish expression, even if somehow reluctantly. "We have no idea. It's hard to find some colored spot under all this mess and… well, he doesn't speak. We… err… we were not very gentle as we freed him."

"And?" This sort of voice was like the calm before the storm.
Cliffjumper scooted as quietly as possible away from Ratchet and grinned evilly at the twins.

"Well, there was this really big and sharp stone… Somewhere there." Sideswipe pointed at the dripping mess under the one glaring optic.

Sunstreaker came to his twin's help: "We think it damaged his vocalizer. He hasn't uttered one word the whole time. And you know how vocal most Seekers get when grounded."

"Let me get this straight. You saw the stone." Ratchet glared at the two culprits for conformation.

Nod, nod.

"And although you saw it," another glare in the direction of the sheepish bots, who involuntary moved closer together.

Nod.

"You decided to just pull it out of him." He pointed at the still dripping mess in handcuffs, who scratched, bored, at the drying mud on his chest. "Without checking first, if it would damage him even further?"

Nod?

"YOU SLAGGING SPAWNS OF THE UNMAKER! WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE YOU? I WILL…."

Starscream watched in glee how the most ruthless mechs in the Autobot army were reduced to mere bundles of shivering wires and clattering armor plates under the wrath of the medic.
He had never thought that he eventually could come to respect one of these fools – and then learn the finer art of cursing.

Some time, and much yelling later, Starscream was dragged by Sideswipe to the washracks. Sunstreaker refused to get anywhere near the dirty Decepticon when there were no cleaning supplies within reach.
Ratchet had sent them here to clean their prisoner up. As filthy as he was now, the medic could do nothing for him, but at least the Seeker wasn't in any immediate danger. According to Ratchet's scans, the injuries were painful but not life threatening, so the still angry CMO sent them on their way with more threats and yells.

The shower rooms of the Decepticons were nothing compared to the washracks of the Autobots. Luxury was everywhere, at least in Starscream's opinion, after millions of vorns suffering under poor standards.

Typical for Autobots. He would have snorted, if he could, but his self repair-systems still struggled with the damage to his vocalizer.

Sideswipe eyed one of the water hoses, and then the thick brown and black mass coated Seeker. There was no way he would be able to clean this stuff off all by himself. And the red twin had seen how the sludge had even dribbled out of his intakes.
The thought alone left him grimacing.

"Seems as if we have to help him." He took the hose and grabbed a hard brush from one of the shelves.
Sunstreaker groaned, "Please tell me you aren't serious."

"Sunny! Look at him!"

"I don't want to. He is an insult to my optics."

"He is handcuffed, injured and this stuff is tough and sticky. No way can he clean himself up on his own."

"And?" Sunstreaker frowned, his arms crossed.

Sideswipe sighed and tried a low blow: "Ratchet won't be happy if he isn't presentable in an hour."

The yellow twin winced involuntarily, grabbed an arm full of cleaning supplies and, with a disgusted but determined look on his face, turned to the Seeker. Starscream glared right back, not sure if his audios were malfunctioning.
They were kidding, right?

Right?

"How do we do this?" asked Sunstreaker, eying the mess before him up and down.

Starscream's remaining optic widened. No way were they getting near him with their Autobot, germ-infested fingers and those suspicious bottles.
They could contain acid for all he knew.

He backed off, inch by inch, while the two warriors discussed the best methods to remove the sticky mix that covered his body.
No way would he let them anywhere near him.
That was… that was….

He found no words to describe his horror, disgust and indignation.

Starscream was the Second in Command of the whole Decepticon army, Air Commander extraordinaire and most feared flyer of Cybertron.

No way would he be bathed like a… a… a fragging Sparkling!

"Now that this is settled..." Suddendly, two sets of icy blue optics turned to the Decepticon, who by now hurried to the door as if his life depended on it. He reached it only to find it securely locked. Dread found its way in his systems as he turned and faced his two tormentors, both grinning with sadistic mirth.

"Get him!"

Starscream struggled, flailed and writhed while he shouted every insult he knew at his two torturers and their ancestors.
This had no effect at all because his vocalizer still refused to cooperate.

He didn't even want to know why they had another pair of handcuffs in their subspace. The second pair of cuffs held his feet firm and securely together and still, and he couldn't even try to burn them with his afterburners.

And it had left such a nice scorch mark on the red mech the first time….
And too much molten tar for his liking, now that he thought about it. Ugh, he would need days to clean his thrusters of all this slag.

One of the Autobots, the yellow one, scrubbed his back while sitting on Starscream's hips, muttering curses under his breath the whole time, while the red one tried to loosen some of the crud with one hose at the highest setting. If the Seeker stopped his seemingly endless, if silent, tirade once in a while to cool his systems – not a simple task if your intakes and vents were almost completely filled with dry tar – he could see the brown and black traces of their efforts in the water flowing off around him.

The entire washracks were by now filled with an acrid smell as the twins had progressed to using stronger and stronger cleaning agents in their battle against the stubborn mix of mud, tar and other things. Starscream was sure, if the stuff hadn't budged now, his paintjob and armor would never be the same again.

He twitched as the hard bristles of the brush grated over the outer layer of his back armor and he tried to buck Sunstreaker off his back once again. The yellow twin wasn't impressed and scrubbed some more, then he stopped suddenly and made a face: "Sides! The universe hates us… it's the Screamer."

Sides grimaced in a perfect imitation of his brother while Starscream bristled.
Nobody had the right to call him Screamer! And by the way, he was prisoner of the friends of primary colors, so the universe hated him even more, right? What did they have against him anyway?

"You're sure it's Screamer? Not Thundercracker and you simply scrubbed his paint away or it changed its color because of the solvents?" asked Sideswipe hopefully.

"Nope… Screamer." Sunstreaker continued scrubbing while his brother moaned and whined in the background like a wounded animal.

"Bluestreak… out of all flyers to shoot… why him? Why him? I mean, you have six Seekers to chose from and still you have to down the most annoying, loudest, most insufferable, screeching, audio-cracking…."

It was hard work but Starscream managed to kick Sideswipe's shin with enough force to send him jumping around howling in pain like one of the dumb comic characters Skywarp loved to watch on the human TV.

He was quite proud of himself for that.

"Yep, definitely Screamer," was Sideswipe's final conclusion.
He picked his hose up, grabbed a thin brush and knelt to have a better look at something Starscream couldn't see because of his position flat on the floor and with Sunstreaker on his back. One second later the flyer jerked as something found its way into the insides of his thrusters and rubbed hard against the dirt there.

He frantically turned his head from one side to the other to see exactly what Sideswipe was doing there, but had no success.
The wires in his necks began to arch and protest, along with his vocalizer.

"You know, actually Ratchet should be thankful that we crushed his vocalizer," Sideswipe said, after poking and scrubbing the sensitive insides of Starscream's thrusters, showing no mercy and ignoring the squirming and twitching.

Sunstreaker's reply was a vacant grunt as he eyed the now shining clean armor plates on the back of the Seeker.

"I don't know anybody who's a more horrible prisoner than him. He screeches! He curses! He produces insults in a speed that others down high-grade and he never stops! I mean, how many times have we seen him saying something really offensive while standing right next to Megatron. He simply doesn't know when to shut up!"

Another grunt and Starscream really, really wanted his voice back to yell at Sideswipe that he wasn't the only one who didn't know when to keep silent. Like right now!He tried to tune the still blabbering moron out and to concentrate on…

The Seeker froze suddenly while the twins worked on without noticing anything.

His left thruster was almost clean by now and he could feel the brush on the ridges and surfaces of the insides of his thrusters quite well.

And it felt slagging good!

'Oh shit!' was Starscream's only thought, and he began to struggle even harder without success. He was stuck under the massive weight of the yellow twin, who by now concentrated his work on the even more sensitive wings, while the red twin had his feet in a firm grip.

Starscream could feel the heat rising in his systems already.

A silent moan of desperation escaped him, and he let his face fall onto the water-covered floor.

He was officially screwed.

"Ratchet?"

The CMO muttered something under his breath, then he turned on his comlink and answered the call: "What now?"

"Err…." The mech looked up from his medical reports and blinked his optics. That was clearly Sideswipes voice – as if it would be possible to forget a voice he heard at least once a day in his medbay, if he wanted to or not – but he sounded strange, unfamiliar.
Horrified, yes, that was the word he was searching for.
Horrified and a bit sheepish.

Ratchet sighed and stood up. Time to see what the Sparklings had done now….

While he hurried out of the medbay to the washracks, where the twins should be with their unfortunate prisoner, he tried to get some information out of Sideswipe. Exactly what crime had they committed now?
And, how exactly had it backfired, if Sideswipes behavior was anything to go by.

"What have you two spawns of the Unmaker done now?"

Sideswipe seemed to hesitate. Not good.

Ratchet walked a little bit faster.

"It's Starscream."

Oh no, not him. Why couldn't they have captured Thundercracker or Thrust…. Some other Seeker whose screeches you couldn't hear throughout the whole Arc.

"What's with him?"

"I think… I think we broke him…."

Some minutes later, Ratchet stood before two fidgeting and very nervous looking twins and a sparkling clean Seeker, by now lying motionless on the floor.
He folded his arms over his chestplates and tapped with one foot. "You think you've broken him?"

Sideswipe nodded slowly and tried to explain. "He struggled the whole time but then he suddenly went still. And now he's making these strange sounds…."

Under Ratchet's glare he trailed off, knowing that his explanation was worth next to nothing for the medic. He huffed in a short flash of annoyance.
He was a warrior, not a medic. He wasn't built or programmed to know what was wrong with mechs or to describe why he even thought something was wrong in the first place.

A jab in his side reminded him of the unnaturally still form of the Seeker and he felt the pang of dread and guilt return in his Spark.
He had often thought that the Autobots, and even the Decepticons, were better off without Starscream, but killing him while he was a prisoner of their faction?
Without even meaning to?

Ratchet, who had knelt down beside Starscream and scanned him thoroughly, stood up again, a nasty and smug grin on his face that neither of the twins liked.

"His wing is still injured, but that I can fix. Otherwise, he's healthy, if low on energy and recharge deprived."

"But he doesn't move," insisted Sideswipe stubbornly.
"And he sounds weird. Is his vocalizer really that damaged?", added Sunstreaker, more relaxed than his brother but still worried.

Ratchet grin grew even wider – and nastier if possible.

"He's in recharge and he purrs, my dear Sunstreaker. Who can blame him? After all he's currently a really contented bot, thanks to you two."

With these words, Ratchet left them to their confusion and made his way to the medbay to prepare it for a, for once, completely silent and cooperative Starscream.

And perhaps share one or two amusing stories with old friends….

I simply can't give the poor guy some rest.

If anybody could explain when I use –s and when 's I would be very happy. But please in simple words or I forget it again.

I'm not at home the next week so don't even expect a new chapter in this time.