Chapter Text
"Good job, Sprocket." A hand that made all of his plating twitch like wire-wool worms had crawled from those cold-hard fingers with its slightly too-tight grip squeezed his shoulder. "You did good work this lunarc."
He smiled too wide, keeping his denta locked down behind the hatches, staring into optics that didn't blink back and held no warmth in them. "Yes sir. Appreciate the bonus."
The hand patted him, and little waves of static snarled down to the pits of his spark. "Keep this up and you'll have more than a bonus. Now go home. Clean yourself before you do."
He didn't talk like a real mech. Something wrong with the connection between those words. Didn't come in the right order, in the order a mech with a spark would make.
Sprocket didn't blink, and his smile didn't move as he flicked off a jaunty salute and stepped away from that cold hard hand. "Of course Black Echo, sir. Wouldn't want to scare the local population."
Something wrong with the way his words came out, too. Was there a spark behind them, either? He rolled it over and over until the words faded into fuzz and he couldn't even remember what they were, why he'd said them. Funny, that. Funny. Couldn't remember the words.
Couldn't remember how he'd wandered here, either. This wasn't the washracks. Why was it dark? Hum, had managed to make it out onto the street at some point—had he talked to someone on the way? Had a vague memory of a cheerful voice bouncing from one end of his helm to the other from his own vocaliser. Someone else had joked about the paint job. One of the others—another of Black Echo's mecha.
Funny, he hadn't spoken after that. Maybe it'd been the smile. He hadn't felt much like smiling. Maybe like ramming a sharp edge through that shiny clean throat and watching the pink bubble out. All the pink bubbling out down his hands.
Shining optics shrank back from him, and he blinked, fields pulling away and crackling discomfort on the street as he stared at them. Why were they staring?
His peds had stopped. Better not. Needed to make it back. Should clean up before he did, though.
Lights and blazing signs and laughing mecha reeled and stumbled around him. Some of them called, little too early for the ghouls, innit? And he grinned back.
They moved on in a blink and he didn't know where they went. Oh well.
A puddle shattered under his ped, or maybe that was glass. Had it been raining? Primus liked a good shower too, some orns. He'd heard they could melt a bot down south in the Acid Wastes. Couldn't remember if they had in Kaon. Hmmm no, couldn't remember. Hadn't rained, he didn't think.
Only pink. Wondered if it'd ever washed away if it didn't rain there, as he stared up at a neon pink glyph burned into a sign and rippling off the road, turning it all to enerblood. Ironhide didn't let him go back there. Didn't have enough shanix for it anyway. Didn't have enough plan.
Not yet. Not yet.
Somebody pinged at him, a little notification blinking on his syntex window, popping up in front of his optic. Ooh, he'd managed to summon Ironhide by thinking about him. Or maybe he'd just felt it over the bond. 'Cept he'd locked that down, hadn't he?
Couldn't really figure out how to unwrap it. Hm, didn't want to, either. Wouldn't be a good idea.
No no, wouldn't be a good idea with the hissing fog swirling all around in his helm. That'd worry him. Would worry any mech. Should probably worry him, too. He'd give the fog a name but that'd be cheating, wouldn't it?
So he flicked it away and the world kept tilting and reeling around him. Shuffling like an Empty. Hehe. He chiffled. Really was the day of ghouls, weren't it? Make Unicron think they were all dead so he didn't come by and munch the planet. As if he wasn't dead himself.
Bit of a shame. Could blame the hungry fragger for it all, otherwise.
He hummed to himself. Awful cold out here. Couldn't a mech shiver without the chill trying to crawl in through his vents? They kept whirring, too, like they couldn't figure out how cold it was. Bit annoying.
And here he was. Warmer in here. Quieter, less fear trailing along behind him like ghosts peering out of the dark alleyways, all warm lights and nice clean smells. Like anti-rust and aggressively scrubbed floors and walls, all neat and not too shiny, not too painful on the optics. Mm, the raw smell of metal and polymers. Almost tasty.
Shame his tanks went and crawled backwards at it though, scrunching up into a sour ball. Wasn't too hungry, admittedly. Maybe just a little energon.
He had to take a little lean on the wall, digging his chin and cheek-plating against it. Had to take a little moment to shove his tanks back in from leaping out in joy. It smelled like energon. Like enerblood. And all that smell crawled into his fuel pipe and stabbed straight into his middle.
The wall rattled at him, and a chiffle warbled back from the shadow staining it, all grinding vents wheezing in his audials. Ratchet wouldn't like a mess in his hallway. Better clamp down the overrides, make sure the doors didn't flip and all the nasty come out.
Wouldn't be anything but sludge in there. Wouldn't be any pink. Would there?
Felt like it'd crawled all in his mouth and down his nasal vents and into his internals. All seeping and dripping, dripping. Pink dripping from the hand clamped over his mouth and shaking, shaking.
Curling all up, his frame tried to override him, but his processor knew he needed to keep that. Shouldn't make a mess, no. Ratchet was too kind to make him mad over a little mess when his tanks got errors and started spitting they were too full.
He stumbled out, stumbling along, leaving a little stain on the wall, a little trail of pink. Dripping, dripping from his peds, pinging chimes in his audials. Better not, better not.
A laugh echoed softly from the walls and it sounded all wrong. Wasn't the laugh of a sane mech. Better keep it away from the wards. Just needed to find a little something to make the pink stop dripping, dripping from his hands.
All these doors moved so quietly, just a little hum in the wall, a spark of electricity slipping them open and closing them behind. All the racks lined out in neat little rows in front of him. Such a nice clean room, all organised. Should be easy to find a rag or a bandage.
No, not a bandage. Didn't need that didn't deserve it. Couldn't cover his sins after all! Just a little something to stuff in the pink. Just a little something.
Why did you....
He flicked through little tubes and little bottles, the little clinks and sounds shivering in his audials, all little soft clicks. Ooh that was nice. Almost made a little tune like fingers snapping in time. Could make a little tune out of that. Out of click-clacks and clatter-clinks.
Reminded him of an old tune Ironhide used to sing. Wasn't very good at singing. All made out of clicks and clatters and a deep bass tone a scream opening a mouth too wide. Now how'd it go?
“Click-clatter, click-clatter—”
Nothing stops for the war~
“Click-clatter, click-clatter—” Rattle, roll. Rattle roll. Flick, finger, one more dropped for the floor. Sheafs, wafers, where were the bandages? Needed a rag, needed a rag. Rag, not bandage.
“Click-clatter, click-clatter—”
That was it. A chiffle bounced off the walls, high and bubbling and bright and broken. Nothing stops for the war!
Red, blue, green, brown. No, not bottles. Bandages bandages rags. Towel. Mop mop mop, clean the floor, clean the floor. Wipe off the pink, pink, dripping into the drink, drink—
Stop stop stop STOP.
Pink spatters spattering, trembling fingers trembled, flicking past sheafs and wafers, sheafs and wafers, sheets and no RAGS. Mop up the pink, Sprocket. Mop up the pink. Too much of it, too much, all gone. Twisted metal and sputtering optics, sputter-sputtering, fizzle, pop. All bent and crooked fingers.
Why did you kill me?
“Spit-sputter, spit-sputter, spit-sputter~” a voice sang, rusty with static, keening off the walls why did you kill me? What did I do? Crying crying. Spit. Sputtering. His plating was trying to crawl off his frame, all pink stains.
Rags, towels, rags, bandages—
NO BANDAGES!
Nothing. Stops. For the war-ar~
Flick, finger, clatter-clack. Sheafs and wafers flicking beneath his fingers and dripping needle tips. Rumble rumble chiffle moan. A laugh racketing, clattering. Bouncing off the walls. High and clat-clattering like the deranged call of a cackler. Cackling cackling, click-clattering.
Drip-dripping. Needed a towel, too much solvent. Pink, pink, washing down the drain, dripping off his fingers.
Twenty-nine, eighty-two, all of them, num-bers~
Sheets flicking under his fingers, one by one by one, crashing into the floor.
Eighty-six, seventy-five, the sparks go un-der~
“Click-clatter click-clatter click-clatter click-clatter—”
Shoot them all SHOOT THEM ALL!
“Spit-spatter-spit-spatter-spit-spatter-spit-spatter-spit—”
I can’t scream. Loud-er!
“March! MARCH! MARCH BACK TO THE WELL!”
No, no, no! Stumbling stuttering peds tripped backwards, scuttling and crashing back through an aisle filled with debris, ramming his heaving backplating against harsh shelves, hiding from a scream a scream— who’d said that? Who’d howled that? Don’t find me don’t find me. A towel a bandage NO BANDAGES I can clean it. A mop a rag.
A wild chiffling giggle nearly jolted his plating out of alignment in sparks of pain, pain-sparks. Pink mauve magenta everywhere, it wasn’t Sprocket’s. It wouldn’t stop laughing. WHY DID YOU KILL ME?
He shoved an orange-backed white hand in his mouth and it flared with pain. Hand never done that before to his mouth. Did it have claws? Click-clatter claws, needles needles— could he shove them into his processor from here?
Strong hissingly sharp tips pressed, tipping-tapping, digging, settling, flipping around under trembling denta. Mangled plating, sputtering optics, shaking hands. No please. No please! Springload tips, a shot straight to the cortex shoot them all SHOOT THEM ALL—!
“NOTHING— STOPS—”
No no! They were coming. Slit his throat, energon pink on the ground Stop Sprocket stop Sprocket are you okay? Dragging around a bleeding frame. Not Sprocket’s not Sprocket’s who was Sprocket? I’m Sprocket I’m Sprocket the other one died. Had he ever been Sprocket or had Sprocket been the one who died? Mangled metal, small fingers, sputtering optics “stop stop please—!” A rumbling a rumbling, there was a rumbling for Rumbler, wheezing, dying. Don’t die, brother.
A spray of pink tore out of his intake, ripped from clinging denta buried in orange and white and silver metal, long long long claws needles slicing out of the tips too late too late to stab through his optics. Sputtering optics, twisted metal, a scream shrieking against his fingertips, optics sputtering out, thoughts dying WHY DID YOU KILL ME?
His frame arched over and heaved, claws/needles/talons of a monster not letting his fingertips dig into crumpled ground, straining straining to purge inside-out, insides refusing to shove up through his intake in a dry hicc jolting painfully through twisted chassis. Only steam. Only useless burning steam searing out of his optics and hissing against crumpled sheets and wafers and no towel no rag no—
SHUT UP!
SHUP UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
No- no— fingers trembling—
“SHUT UP!”
Wouldn’t it stop wouldn’t it stop couldn’t it stop? His fingers scrabbled at his helm, shrieking howling laughing laughing until his frame shook and the rust in his vocaliser burned burned “Bep bep I’m burning I’m dying—” Shrieks in his audials, things he’d never heard, all twisted up into a thousand angry/crying/laughing voices
His intake parted wide and again nothing came out. Not a sound not a choke not a scream not a howl— why couldn’t he scream? Only laughter, only chiffling grinding laughter shrieking through his systems until it’d catch and burst into flames and his frame would twist and writhe and melt like a reed caught in the scorching end of the Wastes.
Until a shrill scree lurched free of the bars of its rattling metal cage finally finally. And couldn’t he laugh? Couldn’t he laugh about that? He laughed and he laughed and chiffled pealing cackling howls until his systems went beyond raw to agony, shoving along into a corner skittering at the walls of his processor—
“Sprocket?”
...
He stared up into glowing optics. That weren’t blue exactly. More of a white. More of a horrified rough rasp.
What was Ratchet doing here?
Oh no Ratchet was here.
Where was he?
He stared around from his corner shoved at the back of a dim room and there were sheets of metal and bottles of nanites and liquids all over the floor, leaving all those empty shelves, and oh—
Oh.
So smart aren’t you, Sprocky?
A quiet chiffle stuttered in his systems— that immediately tried their best to reject his twisted insane spark. Doubling over, he hacked out something. Not a piece of himself, more of a word. Probably a curse.
And there was a medic in his face and an angry field battering at him and hands pinning his arms by his frame, locking away needles dangling out of the tips of fingers that might’ve just tried to stab inbetween a helm's armour panels. His own. Not the medic’s.
WHY DID YOU KILL ME?!
Some sound escaped him without his permission, something between a chiffle and a warbling high-pitched noise. His frame trembled. Violently.
A litany of “What the frag happened”s and “What got into you”s and “Talk to me, mechling”s played in a loop spiralling through his processor to the tune of “I’ve been looking for you everywhere— Ironhide’s been looking for you everywhere!”. Bit unfair when a mech couldn’t really gather himself to put out a response.
“Just needed a bit of alone time.” Perfectly normal response, there. Kind of one it was absolutely fair to give while sitting in a mess of medical-grade metal sheets, sheets and wafers—
Hshssssssss!
His frame rattled treacherously.
Ratchet gave him this frowny-frowny look that saw right past the copy-paste smile because he probably didn’t have amnesia and hadn’t forgotten that they were sitting/kneeling in a room that’d been torn apart, and had found him chiffling his systems to pieces a couple kliks ago. Could fix that.
He slammed that last thought into the wall and ripped its optics out.
“You’re bleeding. You ‘need’ medical attention.”
And with that he got himself scooped up in red and white arms and carried past the devastation before he could even give a mrup.
“Room’s... room’s a bit of a mess, innit?” He chuffled, all the unstable edges fighting to get first place in the sound. Click-clatter click— SHUT.
Ratchet plonked him down on a medical berth and immediately loomed menacingly, his optics glowing bright and his EM field tickling down from the top of Sprocket’s helm to the pointy tips of his peds. And all Sprocket really did was just miss the arms holding him to solid chestplating, wishing that warmth would stay a little longer. Couldn’t it stay a little longer?
Give a little donation to a touch-starved mech? A little chit? Just a fragment in exchange for some quality time?
Though who was he kidding nobody would give that to a full-grown mech all out in the big world with his big-mech job, not a cute little sparkling anymore but a crazy desperate wheezing ghost of a—
KILL ME
Was there— was there steam leaking from his optics or was that just little vision glitches? His optics hadn’t been that great. Vision a little funny. Didn’t seem to focus that well.
Ratchet was looking at him like he couldn’t recognise the pile of spare parts in front of him, and he tried a little chiffle before remembering that was a bad bad idea. No chiffling. No laughing. Oh the little frame stutters weren’t doing him any favours— why did his chassis feel like he’d clicked everything out of joint and popped it back in again?
He didn’t click. No. No clicking. Click-clack-clatter. Click-clatter. Haha no. Don’t think about the clicking, or the popping. Every little finger, a soft little KLIK under his hands and a desperate little vocaliser-less scream wheezing out of chuttering/clattering systems wrung so raw they couldn’t howl anymore.
No, don’t think about that.
His fingers twisted in his own grip, the joints well-oiled, only a soft jerk away from snapping.
Don’t think about it.
“Stop that.” A red-and-white hand reached out and held his firmly, pinning them down and stopping them from playing with each other.
He grinned at frowny-frowny blue optics, trying to stop his vents from grating. It probably wouldn’t help the severe look looking down at him, but it would help them both feel better, wouldn’t it? “Sorry.”
Ratchet’s scowl did soften, so it must’ve helped a bit. The fingers softened, twining around his, and he went melted-limp for no particular reason, hanging on like it was a hug instead of hand-holdy time. “Can you tell me what happened, Sprocket?”
Hm, Sprocket. Maybe Sprocket could, if he wasn’t attempting not to think about it himself right then. Could explain that he’d nearly stabbed through his own cortex from his mouth and fragged his processor up even more than it already was, but that might be a bit worrying. “Mm. Bad... job. Bad assignment.”
The energon dripping out of an intake stretched too far, not from the process, but from the screaming. So in a way it was the process, but not directly. Didn’t count if it wasn’t directly. Mecha really should try not to make their own situations worse by doing things like that. It’d been in enough pain already, yeah? No need to make it worse.
A click by click by click, clattering all the while, all the while clattering and chuttering and shaking. Click-click, fingers shoved in mouth and optical lubricants pouring down facial grooves that couldn’t hold the tears, all mixed with pink and bleeding, dripping to the floor.... Click-click and choked shrees.
It’d deserved it. It’d deserved it, hadn’t it?
“...assaulted several mecha over the vorns, including drinking energon from living victims. General all-round grease-cake of a mech....”
Not even a mech, innit?
Those wheezes were playing back in his audials though, right as he’d heard them like the blasting bot was stuck to his backplating, slumped in the corner, and he could feel the click of its fingers....
Fingers squeezed his. Oh, Ratchet was calling for him. Awfully patient of him, sounded like he’d been doing that for a while. “—rocket?”
“Mmyeah?” He hung onto those hands, repeatedly stabbing the itching hiss in the back of his mind trying to tell him to take hold of a finger and—
“Can you tell me how you were injured? There’s a lot of energon here, and I need to know where the leaks are.”
Leaks. Heh. He packed away the chiffles that wanted to rattle his frame. “’Fraid you might need to go looking in a different room for those. Somebody else’s frame, ‘s on somebody else’s frame~”
Mm, he was good at doing tones when he wanted to. Could be a professional singer. Could’ve been. Little boring, though.
“This can’t all be someone else’s.” Did Ratchet sound a little hoarse? Almost sounded a bit sick, there. Must’ve seen things like this before, though.
“No, couple scratches here and there.” There wasn’t that much on him, anyway. Was there? He craned his helm up, taking a look down at himself. See there was the dark grey, bit of a pinkish tinge on it, and the white wasn’t really there, but he could still see the orange, even if it was marred a bit by some spatters. Not that much, all told! Better than the other mech.
“He talked....” Oops, hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It sort of hissed out, all detached. Yes, he’d talked, told everything. And then Black Echo had given him his freedom, just as promised. He forced a smile. “Was just a bit messy in there.”
Ratchet’s optics went dark in the kind of way that meant imminent murder. Ooh, wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that. Maybe he was on the receiving end of that. Hm. It was a bit hard to tell with his field and everything so fritzed up.
“I’m going to put you in forced stasis for a short while.” The hand squeezed his, nice and warm, really. Solid. “Will you be alright with that?”
“Hmm.” He hummed, flicking his peds side to side and clacking them against each other softly. Nice sound but also not. Little too much like clattering plating. “Yeah, that’d be nice. Bit of a nap.”
Do a hard reboot on a fragged-up processor. Good idea. Might straighten everything out by the time he popped up to reality again. Had a feeling he wouldn’t remember much of this. Probably wouldn’t want to if he was future him, either.
Two hands wound around his, rubbing them gently, making tingles run over the metal. Mm, it was nice having more sensory nodes on hands. Maybe even a neck scritch if he was lucky. Probably wouldn’t happen. Not a cute little sparkling anymore, allowed to ask for all the pats and scritchings without a worry.
“Alright. Remember, don’t fight it.” One hand moved away and settled on his helm, warm and gentle. Aw, what a softie. A click followed it, in his Syntex port. A click straight to his cortex, little finger snap. Click-clack-clatter.
A click, a ripple, fuzzy tingly darkness, and a hand resting gently on his forehelm. He could conk out happily to that.
And he did.