[Transformers] Ghosts of Cybertron (5/11) - written with <lj site="livejournal.com" user="raisedbymo

[atalan_fic]

Title: Ghosts of Cybertron (5/11)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What with exorcisms, possession, and the occasional kidnapping, it's a wonder Rodimus Prime gets any work done. Especially with a ghostly Starscream making trouble around the base. But when the stirring of Cybertron's restless dead isn't limited to sarcastic ex-Seekers... Who you gonna call?

Contains an assortment of pairings, general bot-sluttery, crack, humour, and Decepticon/Autobot... 'alliances'. And Starscream. Lots and lots of Starscream.

*

"So, anyone else feel like we oughta be breakin' out the black velvet and candles?" inquired Jazz with a grin that showed no nervousness at all, though he was surely feeling it. "I wonder if they do ouija boards in our size?"

Starscream - who paid about as much attention to Earth culture as one generally did to something nasty one had just stepped in - glared at him, suspicious he was being mocked. Skyfire sighed, wishing Rodimus would hurry up and get here: everyone was edgy about what they were trying to do, and some of those present had shorter tempers than others.

"There is no mysticism involved, Jazz," said Perceptor, without looking up from the voltage meter he was tinkering with. "It is a simple matter of detecting displaced spark energy, based on the readings we've taken from Starscream, and attempting to guide it into a more coherent pattern."

"Which doesn't explain why we've got fragging ghosts hanging around the place." Sunstreaker scowled at the walls, as if expecting more spirits to pop out at any moment. He and his brother had insisted on being present. "Little fraggers got at my high-grade, I swear."

Silverbolt - who didn't technically need to be there, but had developed an inexplicable tendency to be where Starscream was (and Skyfire had no idea what to think about that, or about the way the two of them occasionally looked at him simultaneously and then exchanged unreadable glances) - seemed suddenly uncomfortable. Starscream snickered. Sunstreaker turned narrowed optics on them both, opening his mouth to demand an explanation - but at that moment Rodimus made his entrance.

He looked distinctly unnerved.

"I think you'd better come and look at this," he said, apparently to Skyfire and Perceptor, although his optics flickered to the others in the room.

"Now?" demanded Starscream. "We just got everyone here! We're ready to start!"

"Yeah, but, um." Rodimus rubbed the back of his helm helplessly. "Seriously, just come and see."

So they all traipsed out after Rodimus, Skyfire shooting a worried look at their equipment - technically there was no reason not to leave it unattended, but some of it was rather delicate and most of the base was frantically curious about what they were up to - and followed him up from the lab, through the common area corridors, and into the Prime's office.

Skyfire could not, immediately, see what all the fuss was about - but then, he had hardly ever been in Rodimus's rooms, private or official.

Starscream, on the other hand, took one look and shot a surprised glance at the Prime.

"When did you tidy up?"

"That's just it. I didn't."

"So Ultra Magnus finally snapped?" suggested Jazz, peering around Sideswipe, who had stopped in the doorway in surprise.

"He's on Earth," replied Rodimus, "taking a much-needed vacation. And anyway, he wouldn't move things without asking me."

"Well, that's a new one." Sideswipe threw a grin at his brother. "Never occurred to me to prank someone by tidying up for them."

"That's just it." Rodimus had moved into the room and now gestured vaguely at the neat shelves and the desk noticeably lacking its usual piles of paperwork. "No-one's been in here. I've checked and double-checked. The door's not been opened since I last went out."

There was a thoughtful silence.

Then Starscream gave a snort of laughter.

"Someone," he said, tilting his head up and apparently addressing the ceiling, "hasn't got the hang of this whole poltergeist thing."

Rodimus blinked.

"Why would Ratchet tidy up my desk?"

"Oh, I don't think it's him." Starscream floated thoughtfully over to the shelves, considered the neatly alphabetised datapads. "Your ex-second-in-command, now... this seems like more his style."

There was silence.

"Prowl?" This from Jazz, who looked like he didn't know whether to grin or freak out. "You're tellin' me we've got Prowl, too?"

Starscream shrugged. "I don't know, but the energy signature doesn't feel the same here as it did in the rec room. Besides, if one of them's going to show up, why not the others?"

As if on cue, a muffled explosion shook the building. All present exchanged startled, slowly comprehending glances - it had been a while since that particular sound, with those particular connotations, had been heard in Autobot headquarters.

"No way," said Sideswipe, beginning to grin.

"Quickly!" Perceptor declared, and turned toward the source of the sound with his ghost-detecting equipment clutched to his chest. "We must get to the source before the ghost activity subsides!" He took off at a run, Skyfire and Silverbolt in hot pursuit, the Twins trailing after. Rodimus and Jazz were left behind with Starscream, blinking in shock.

"Is it my imagination, gentlemechs," Jazz said slowly, "or have we stumbled into one hell of a Twilight Zone?"

"What, you take me in stride, but Ratchet and Prowl are something to get excited about?" Starscream scoffed. "Prowl can't even get poltergeist activity right!"

Rodimus peeked over his desk. "But I like Prowl's poltergeist activity," he murmured. "He even found my Slinky."

Jazz splorfled; Starscream stamped a foot in the air like an impatient horse. "Why are you two wasting time!?" he demanded. "Let's go!" He flew, not bothering with the door or indeed even the hallway in favor of a more direct approach to the site of the explosion; Rodimus and Jazz exchanged amused looks.

"Your Slinky, huh?" Jazz grinned.

"It's been missing for weeks." Rodimus shrugged one shoulder ruefully.

"Well, leave it to Prowl to find it in the most sarcastic way possible. C'mon." Jazz took his leader's elbow, guiding him out.

*

"We can't hold it, Perceptor! It's too powerful!"

"Give me more, Skyfire! More, I say!"

"I can't change the laws of physics!"

"What are you two tin cans doing?" Starscream demanded, hardly flinching as a beaker floated through him.

Perceptor and Skyfire barely looked up from their rig on the floor, hooking up sparking wires and connections with speed and accuracy if not that much grace. "You needn't be so smug," Perceptor snapped harriedly. "You may have donated your time and advice, but Skyfire and I are doing the real work. Our ghost is in this room," he went on, studiously avoiding saying Wheeljack, "but if we cannot tag him before he moves on..."

"I don't think that will be a concern," Starscream pointed out dryly, watching the beakers and test tubes dance on the tables. "Our ghost is perfectly happy where he is - and currently attempting to replicate his earlier explosive feat, if I'm not mistaken." Those definitely looked like Chemicals That Should Not Mix in those two beakers that were getting closer and ever closer together. "I suggest you hurry and anchor him to this plane before he blows you both into the Matrix."

"We are hurrying!" Skyfire snapped. "Perceptor, that cable-"

"Here." Perceptor handed it over and Skyfire made the final connection just as Rodimus and Jazz arrived on the scene. The jury-rigged ghost-catcher yelped into life like a particularly cowardly hellhound, sprayed sparks, and suddenly flashed with a blinding light.

When it faded, an insubstantial Wheeljack stood at the table, suspicious beakers in both hands. "Oh, hey guys," he greeted, and made to pour one into the other.

"Wait-!" Perceptor cried, echoed by the others-

Boom.

*

"But I don't feel dead."

"And what, exactly, did you expect 'dead' to feel like?" demanded Starscream.

Wheeljack paused to give that due consideration.

"I gotta say, explosions weren't part of it."

"And whose fault was that?" Skyfire's voice was mild, however, and he was smiling. "You certainly know how to make a comeback."

Wheeljack laughed, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment (how did that work? It felt solid to him, but he'd walked through a wall earlier...), and cast a sheepish, apologetic glance around the medbay. Fortunately, no-one had been seriously hurt in the blast - Perceptor had been knocked temporarily offline and First Aid was in the process of booting him up again, while Skyfire had had the presence of mind to step in front of the others in the room, and his tougher, space-worthy plating had weathered the heat and shockwave without too much damage.

Though the shrapnel had left him pocked with little black marks that made him, as Starscream had pointed out, look like he'd contracted some horrible human ailment.

"Sorry, guys," Wheeljack said for the fifth or sixth time. "I dunno what I thought I was doing, I just had this weird idea in my head that I was in the middle of something and I had to finish it off..."

"Clinging onto patterns in life seems to be a way of maintaining coherency," Starscream put in, arms folded as he floated near the ceiling. "We return to the places familiar to us, engage in the routines that were our habits."

"So, hang on..." began Rodimus Prime (and man, that was weird - Hot Rod? Little Hot Rod? Prime? Wheeljack remembered the first day he'd showed up on Earth, all bright and eager to please and totally incapable of sitting still for five minutes together...), "what, exactly, were you doing hanging around the Decepticon Crypt when I found you, Starscream?"

Starscream spun around to glare daggers at him, while the others present sniggered or hid faint smiles. Wheeljack was finding that part almost as weird as the idea that he was dead - that Starscream of all mechs could be an apparently accepted member of the Autobots, that they were conversing relatively civilly, that Starscream was, by all appearances, actually trying to help him. He guessed being dead changed your perspective somewhat, although he hadn't noticed it in himself yet - but then, Starscream, for whatever reason, seemed to have been hanging around as a ghost for a lot longer than the rest of them.

Speaking of which...

"So who else is in the Cheerful Casper Club?"

"Prowl for certain," Rodimus answered, trying not to notice the disbelieving looks Wheeljack was trying not to give him. Yeah, yeah, Hot Rod's the Prime, get it out of your noncorporeal system. "Probably Ratchet too. And I have a feeling you three won't be the last to show up."

"It would be rather disconcerting if this phenomenon extended to all of Cybertron's dead." Typically, Perceptor had been successfully rebooted and came up babbling. "At present it seems confined to the recently departed, but..."

"Nine million years' war generates a lot of dead guys," Jazz pointed out dryly.

Rodimus groaned. "One problem at a time, okay, guys? We can deal with the takeover of the planet by the restless dead if and when it happens."

"But Perceptor raises an excellent point," Starscream said, passing through Rodimus's shoulder without seeming to notice. "Why us? Why now? What is the common thread between Wheeljack, Ratchet, Prowl and myself?"

The others exchanged glances, then Silverbolt spoke up. "You're all dangerous to be around?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Starscream graced his ex-lover's current flame with a wicked, lascivious grin.

"It has to be the battle at Autobot City," Wheeljack volunteered as Starscream and Silverbolt settled comfortably into a glare-and-smirk contest. "We all died then."

"No good," Rodimus said heavily. "Starscream survived that battle. He died on Cybertron several hours later."

"Since when does Starscream follow the rules?" Wheeljack answered, and the Prime had to admit he had a point.



(TBC)

Comments

[mapleflavored.livejournal.com]

I just had to comment on this chapter: You had me alternating between squee-ing in joy and giggling hysterically. The slinky. *snort**grin* And my happiness level rises drastically every time Starscream gets suggestive. *hugs you and pets your wonderful brain* I am off to read the rest now.

[bruised-skin.livejournal.com]

"splorfled" I have no idea why that isn't a word yet. And I dearly want it to be.
It just WORKS. I "splorfle" all the time!