Sheer Dumb Luck: Chapter 10
Sheer Dumb Luck
Part Ten
By Dreaming of Everything AKA dream_it_all AKA dreams_of_all, betaed by the incomparable mmouse15
Series: Transformers 2007
Ratings/Warnings: M for sex and possible language, plus sexual themes. Warnings for multiple partner scenes and themes, plug-and-play, slash. Updated G1 characters.
Characters/Pairings: Ratchet, Constructicons, Ratchet/Constructicons. (Yes, all of them.)
Summary: The Constructicons found Ratchet and asked him to repair their sixth gestalt member. He couldn't say no, although he knew he needed to. Forced into an uneasy truce, he's almost starting to get attached...
Edited 8/14/09 to change "they" to "they're"--thank you, The Lively Art!
Sheer Dumb Luck chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Sheer Dumb Luck 10
Ratchet showed back up approximately fifteen hours later, feeling distinctly embarrassed. He was met on the road by Hook, and ungraciously opened up a comm. link between them when he was pinged with the nonverbal request.
“What is it?” he was asked.
“I forgot my tools.” Ratchet’s tone was harsh: embarrassment made him annoyed. The slight humor in Hook’s voice, almost unrecognizable it was so faint, only made things worse.
“I see. If you can wait for an hour Long Haul can help you transport.”
“Fine.” Ratchet’s voice was resigned: he really couldn’t manage to transport everything he had by himself, and there would be the typical problems of then stowing those materials once they arrived.
The Autobot followed the Decepticon as they reached an entrance-not the one he was used to, not one he’d used at all. The unfamiliarity threw him off, and he didn’t realize that they hadn’t headed for the med bay until they stopped outside Hook’s room. Hook slipped inside and picked up a small stack of datapads before saying a word of explanation. “I needed to pick these up,” he said simply. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” It wasn’t like Ratchet had anything better to do.
And it still felt-odd, to know that Hook had a room. One he’d seen-recharged in once, even. It wasn’t that it was all that unusual, but the Decepticon struck him as intensely, possibly to the point of paranoid, private. He was certainly obsessive.
Not that it mattered.
The med bay wasn’t far from the room, and Ratchet found himself happy to be back in familiar territory. He’d spent a lot of time in the place.
-Although he shouldn’t feel like he was on home ground at all, not on a Decepticon base. Or at least, that’s what he’d always thought. Somehow, he didn’t feel like he was doing anything wrong-
Except for deceiving his teammates and commanding officer, all of them friends.
Ratchet wandered over to Bonecrusher’s still form, briefly checking that nothing had gone wrong, but he was suddenly aware that there was someone inside the body he’d been working on, now, somebody-some Decepticon-he didn’t know. Even the borrowed memories he still had-and he really needed to delete all of them, or most of them, now this, all this, was ended-were fuzzy, blurred by time and distance. They were doubtlessly still strong for Hook and Scrapper, the ones he’d taken them from, but second-hand…
“Nothing’s wrong?”
“No, everything’s fine.” Ratchet could feel an uneasy silence building, and was relieved as Scrapper walked in, smiling at him a little sheepishly.
“Sorry I didn’t think to remind you about what you’d brought, yesterday.”
“You had a lot on your mind.” The sentence was phrased so that it served as reminder-for everyone-of who Ratchet was, of the fact that he was, inarguably, undeniably and unchangeably, an outsider.
“But you’ve done a lot for us.”
Ratchet couldn’t quite hide his surprise at Scrapper’s words-was he telling him that he was of higher importance to them than he’d figured? That made no sense.
He was going to ignore it.
“Here,” Ratchet said instead, holding out the welder they’d made him.
“Keep it.”
“We certainly don’t have any use for it,” added Hook, curling a hand demonstratively. Their builds were too different.
“Alright, then. Thank you.”
“I already told you: don’t thank me, I didn’t make it for you.”
“We made it,” Hook corrected pointedly, but Ratchet ignored him. There was an odd-challenge to Scrapper’s voice...
“But you’re still giving it to me,” he said quietly. “Which you didn’t need to do. Even if you don’t need the welder, it’s still a gift. Even making it at all-didn’t Scavenger tell you that I didn’t really need it? It still made things go a little faster, but mostly it just made things less frustrating. For me.” Ratchet paused. “Even if it wasn’t meant for me, I was the one who used it.”
Scrapper smiled suddenly. “Maybe you’re right. But if that’s the case, isn’t you helping Bonecrusher-us-just as much of a gift?”
Ratchet set down the scalpel he’d been holding as he searched for the correct box in his toolkit. “So what you’re asking is, ‘Is a gift not freely given a gift?’ I’d- Or a gift grudgingly given. I suppose you win this time.” His engine raced briefly, a sign of frustration. “You’re welcome. I’m…”
He stopped, waiting so long that Scrapper almost thought he wasn’t going to continue.
“I’m not sorry I helped.”
“Good,” said Scrapper lightly, pushing his stool away from the table he’d sat down at with a scraping noise, and walking lightly, measuredly, over to him. He stood slightly too close to the other mech. “Does that mean I can thank you properly?”
“Depends,” said Ratchet warily, leaning back. “Is it going to end up like how Scavenger ‘thanked’ me?”
“Probably,” Scrapper said, steel backing the soft words. “In the root of things, at least-on the most basic level.” He held a hand out, fingers almost brushing Ratchet’s side but not quite touching, and waited.
And waited. Ratchet realized, belatedly, that the matter was in his hands: it was up to him. And somehow that made up his mind for him.
“Fine. You’re welcome.”
Scrapper moved his hand away, surprisingly. Ratchet looked at him.
“You don’t want to go somewhere more private?”
“What? You’re a gestalt. Someone feels like watching, they're going to, aren’t they? Possibly even if they don’t, for all I know.”
“Good answer.” And then he was being pushed down to the floor, Scrapper kneeling next to him, eyes sharp.
“You know, the greatest work of art is the Cybertronian body. That is what I am trying to replicate when I create. …And you. You can repair those works of art. You’re part of it.”
Ratchet shuddered as the mech placed a single deliberate hand on his shoulder, hyperaware of the contact.
“The height of functionality, the definition, paired with beauty-”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Ratchet said, interrupting. “I am many things, but not particularly beautiful.”
“Quiet,” Hook announced from across the room, then stood and walked over. He placed a foot on Ratchet’s chassis, supporting most of his weight but letting Ratchet take enough for the threat to be tangible.
It figures he’s the kinky one, Ratchet thought, but he obeyed.
“-The definition of functionality, paired with beauty,” Scrapper continued smoothly. “The ideal to strive towards, knowing you’ll never reach it. I try too, with my creations. It’s a pale imitation, even our greatest successes: do you know Crystal City? I still consider it one of more inspired works. But it’s still nothing. Nothing. What you do is so much greater, in a way… Do you see the beauty in the bodies you repair, Ratchet?”
“Yes-” He thought about continuing, but didn’t. He assumed he’d made the right choice when Hook removed his foot, sinking to sit down beside him, so the two Decepticons were flanking him, one on either side.
“So… You know what I’m doing when I do-this?” He’d carefully shifted his fingers into the shoulder socket, just managing to get the tips of his fingers to brush against a row of neural sensors. Ratchet almost screamed at the sensation, the sudden intensity of touch after its absence.
“Answer,” Hook said shortly when Ratchet failed to reply, still trying to stabilize his processor from the feedback.
“You-agitated the ‘spine,’ or primary line, of the upper left medic-standard neural network, sector seventy-six subline five, sending data through the primary sector seven-six neural cluster which gathers to the primary sensor cable leading to my central processor-ah-!”
“I’m jealous,” Scrapper said softly, working his fingers back out of the seam in the armor. He took up Ratchet’s hands instead, one in each of his own, and placed them on his chassis. “You know how I work. You could take me apart and put me back together again.”
Ratchet sat up, tired of playing the doll. “I think not. That would be-uninteresting. There are better ways to utilize medical knowledge, you know.”
“Show me,” Scrapper said, looking happy again. “Prove it.”
“Give me your hand. You too, Hook.” Ratchet himself produced a pair of pliers, which he put aside momentarily. He took the nearest hand-one of Hook’s-and ran his fingers over it, pretending not to notice the shiver that caused-he had sensitive hands. Good. It didn’t take Ratchet long to find the primary sensory cord, even with its unfamiliar placement on the alien design, and then it was a simple matter to tear out a single wire, pulling it through a gap in the armor. He also didn’t miss the way jerking the wire out made Hook’s engine rumble, the moment of pain arousing. -That wasn’t somewhere he was interested in going.
He repeated his actions with one of Scrapper’s hands before he spoke.
“Most mechs are only aware of a hardline connection, when it comes to forming temporary ties. A fair number of medics are aware of the theory behind simply connecting two sensory systems, but they’re also aware that it’s largely ineffective on a feasible scale.” He drew the two wires closer, so they were almost touching. “Your already-established connection should make this interesting, though.”
And it was. Ratchet smirked as he watched Scrapper seize, temporarily losing control-he’d been mostly guessing, but he’d guessed right, which was what mattered. The theory had been sound.
“Not fair,” Hook murmured into one audio, reaching out to grip him with all four arms, possessively. “You didn’t feel that.”
“Then make it up to me. You were the ones insisting I-”
The sudden expansion of Scrapper’s energy field made him lose speech, fire racing along his nerves and veins, warmth filling him. The way Hook shuddered around him-and then Scrapper tried it again, syncing it with Hook, and Ratchet couldn’t help but moan, a low babble of static. He was almost painfully aware of the other two engines pressed against him, their vibrations.
Ratchet pushed his own energy field out in a quick pulse before the other two had the chance to react, slipping his smaller fingers into Scrapper’s armor as he did so, taking advantage of their distraction-
And they were still connected, by gestalt bond and by wire. They were close to overload, he knew, eyes overly bright-probably a lot like his own, although he couldn’t tell.
“I guess Autobots only pretend they play fair,” Scrapper said, voice laced over with static-he really was close to the edge, his composure cracking. Ratchet guessed Hook was just as close. “It’s too bad you’re outnumbered-cleverness only counts for so much.” The sudden surge of the two comming him, uploading the sensations pouring through them, pushing them into his processor, was too much.
Overload hit him hard, and he only had the satisfaction of holding out a few seconds longer than the other two.
“Thank you,” Ratchet said, back at the familiar shack and treeless, dusty hill that marked his material storage.
“Whatever. I always end up hauling things around…”
“Maybe you should change your name, then, Long Haul.”
“Huh.” He paused. “I should go. -Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” Ratchet said, and turned away to store his tools as the sound of Long Haul’s engine faded into the distance.
--End chapter 10--
Part Ten
By Dreaming of Everything AKA dream_it_all AKA dreams_of_all, betaed by the incomparable mmouse15
Series: Transformers 2007
Ratings/Warnings: M for sex and possible language, plus sexual themes. Warnings for multiple partner scenes and themes, plug-and-play, slash. Updated G1 characters.
Characters/Pairings: Ratchet, Constructicons, Ratchet/Constructicons. (Yes, all of them.)
Summary: The Constructicons found Ratchet and asked him to repair their sixth gestalt member. He couldn't say no, although he knew he needed to. Forced into an uneasy truce, he's almost starting to get attached...
Edited 8/14/09 to change "they" to "they're"--thank you, The Lively Art!
Sheer Dumb Luck chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Sheer Dumb Luck 10
Ratchet showed back up approximately fifteen hours later, feeling distinctly embarrassed. He was met on the road by Hook, and ungraciously opened up a comm. link between them when he was pinged with the nonverbal request.
“What is it?” he was asked.
“I forgot my tools.” Ratchet’s tone was harsh: embarrassment made him annoyed. The slight humor in Hook’s voice, almost unrecognizable it was so faint, only made things worse.
“I see. If you can wait for an hour Long Haul can help you transport.”
“Fine.” Ratchet’s voice was resigned: he really couldn’t manage to transport everything he had by himself, and there would be the typical problems of then stowing those materials once they arrived.
The Autobot followed the Decepticon as they reached an entrance-not the one he was used to, not one he’d used at all. The unfamiliarity threw him off, and he didn’t realize that they hadn’t headed for the med bay until they stopped outside Hook’s room. Hook slipped inside and picked up a small stack of datapads before saying a word of explanation. “I needed to pick these up,” he said simply. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” It wasn’t like Ratchet had anything better to do.
And it still felt-odd, to know that Hook had a room. One he’d seen-recharged in once, even. It wasn’t that it was all that unusual, but the Decepticon struck him as intensely, possibly to the point of paranoid, private. He was certainly obsessive.
Not that it mattered.
The med bay wasn’t far from the room, and Ratchet found himself happy to be back in familiar territory. He’d spent a lot of time in the place.
-Although he shouldn’t feel like he was on home ground at all, not on a Decepticon base. Or at least, that’s what he’d always thought. Somehow, he didn’t feel like he was doing anything wrong-
Except for deceiving his teammates and commanding officer, all of them friends.
Ratchet wandered over to Bonecrusher’s still form, briefly checking that nothing had gone wrong, but he was suddenly aware that there was someone inside the body he’d been working on, now, somebody-some Decepticon-he didn’t know. Even the borrowed memories he still had-and he really needed to delete all of them, or most of them, now this, all this, was ended-were fuzzy, blurred by time and distance. They were doubtlessly still strong for Hook and Scrapper, the ones he’d taken them from, but second-hand…
“Nothing’s wrong?”
“No, everything’s fine.” Ratchet could feel an uneasy silence building, and was relieved as Scrapper walked in, smiling at him a little sheepishly.
“Sorry I didn’t think to remind you about what you’d brought, yesterday.”
“You had a lot on your mind.” The sentence was phrased so that it served as reminder-for everyone-of who Ratchet was, of the fact that he was, inarguably, undeniably and unchangeably, an outsider.
“But you’ve done a lot for us.”
Ratchet couldn’t quite hide his surprise at Scrapper’s words-was he telling him that he was of higher importance to them than he’d figured? That made no sense.
He was going to ignore it.
“Here,” Ratchet said instead, holding out the welder they’d made him.
“Keep it.”
“We certainly don’t have any use for it,” added Hook, curling a hand demonstratively. Their builds were too different.
“Alright, then. Thank you.”
“I already told you: don’t thank me, I didn’t make it for you.”
“We made it,” Hook corrected pointedly, but Ratchet ignored him. There was an odd-challenge to Scrapper’s voice...
“But you’re still giving it to me,” he said quietly. “Which you didn’t need to do. Even if you don’t need the welder, it’s still a gift. Even making it at all-didn’t Scavenger tell you that I didn’t really need it? It still made things go a little faster, but mostly it just made things less frustrating. For me.” Ratchet paused. “Even if it wasn’t meant for me, I was the one who used it.”
Scrapper smiled suddenly. “Maybe you’re right. But if that’s the case, isn’t you helping Bonecrusher-us-just as much of a gift?”
Ratchet set down the scalpel he’d been holding as he searched for the correct box in his toolkit. “So what you’re asking is, ‘Is a gift not freely given a gift?’ I’d- Or a gift grudgingly given. I suppose you win this time.” His engine raced briefly, a sign of frustration. “You’re welcome. I’m…”
He stopped, waiting so long that Scrapper almost thought he wasn’t going to continue.
“I’m not sorry I helped.”
“Good,” said Scrapper lightly, pushing his stool away from the table he’d sat down at with a scraping noise, and walking lightly, measuredly, over to him. He stood slightly too close to the other mech. “Does that mean I can thank you properly?”
“Depends,” said Ratchet warily, leaning back. “Is it going to end up like how Scavenger ‘thanked’ me?”
“Probably,” Scrapper said, steel backing the soft words. “In the root of things, at least-on the most basic level.” He held a hand out, fingers almost brushing Ratchet’s side but not quite touching, and waited.
And waited. Ratchet realized, belatedly, that the matter was in his hands: it was up to him. And somehow that made up his mind for him.
“Fine. You’re welcome.”
Scrapper moved his hand away, surprisingly. Ratchet looked at him.
“You don’t want to go somewhere more private?”
“What? You’re a gestalt. Someone feels like watching, they're going to, aren’t they? Possibly even if they don’t, for all I know.”
“Good answer.” And then he was being pushed down to the floor, Scrapper kneeling next to him, eyes sharp.
“You know, the greatest work of art is the Cybertronian body. That is what I am trying to replicate when I create. …And you. You can repair those works of art. You’re part of it.”
Ratchet shuddered as the mech placed a single deliberate hand on his shoulder, hyperaware of the contact.
“The height of functionality, the definition, paired with beauty-”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Ratchet said, interrupting. “I am many things, but not particularly beautiful.”
“Quiet,” Hook announced from across the room, then stood and walked over. He placed a foot on Ratchet’s chassis, supporting most of his weight but letting Ratchet take enough for the threat to be tangible.
It figures he’s the kinky one, Ratchet thought, but he obeyed.
“-The definition of functionality, paired with beauty,” Scrapper continued smoothly. “The ideal to strive towards, knowing you’ll never reach it. I try too, with my creations. It’s a pale imitation, even our greatest successes: do you know Crystal City? I still consider it one of more inspired works. But it’s still nothing. Nothing. What you do is so much greater, in a way… Do you see the beauty in the bodies you repair, Ratchet?”
“Yes-” He thought about continuing, but didn’t. He assumed he’d made the right choice when Hook removed his foot, sinking to sit down beside him, so the two Decepticons were flanking him, one on either side.
“So… You know what I’m doing when I do-this?” He’d carefully shifted his fingers into the shoulder socket, just managing to get the tips of his fingers to brush against a row of neural sensors. Ratchet almost screamed at the sensation, the sudden intensity of touch after its absence.
“Answer,” Hook said shortly when Ratchet failed to reply, still trying to stabilize his processor from the feedback.
“You-agitated the ‘spine,’ or primary line, of the upper left medic-standard neural network, sector seventy-six subline five, sending data through the primary sector seven-six neural cluster which gathers to the primary sensor cable leading to my central processor-ah-!”
“I’m jealous,” Scrapper said softly, working his fingers back out of the seam in the armor. He took up Ratchet’s hands instead, one in each of his own, and placed them on his chassis. “You know how I work. You could take me apart and put me back together again.”
Ratchet sat up, tired of playing the doll. “I think not. That would be-uninteresting. There are better ways to utilize medical knowledge, you know.”
“Show me,” Scrapper said, looking happy again. “Prove it.”
“Give me your hand. You too, Hook.” Ratchet himself produced a pair of pliers, which he put aside momentarily. He took the nearest hand-one of Hook’s-and ran his fingers over it, pretending not to notice the shiver that caused-he had sensitive hands. Good. It didn’t take Ratchet long to find the primary sensory cord, even with its unfamiliar placement on the alien design, and then it was a simple matter to tear out a single wire, pulling it through a gap in the armor. He also didn’t miss the way jerking the wire out made Hook’s engine rumble, the moment of pain arousing. -That wasn’t somewhere he was interested in going.
He repeated his actions with one of Scrapper’s hands before he spoke.
“Most mechs are only aware of a hardline connection, when it comes to forming temporary ties. A fair number of medics are aware of the theory behind simply connecting two sensory systems, but they’re also aware that it’s largely ineffective on a feasible scale.” He drew the two wires closer, so they were almost touching. “Your already-established connection should make this interesting, though.”
And it was. Ratchet smirked as he watched Scrapper seize, temporarily losing control-he’d been mostly guessing, but he’d guessed right, which was what mattered. The theory had been sound.
“Not fair,” Hook murmured into one audio, reaching out to grip him with all four arms, possessively. “You didn’t feel that.”
“Then make it up to me. You were the ones insisting I-”
The sudden expansion of Scrapper’s energy field made him lose speech, fire racing along his nerves and veins, warmth filling him. The way Hook shuddered around him-and then Scrapper tried it again, syncing it with Hook, and Ratchet couldn’t help but moan, a low babble of static. He was almost painfully aware of the other two engines pressed against him, their vibrations.
Ratchet pushed his own energy field out in a quick pulse before the other two had the chance to react, slipping his smaller fingers into Scrapper’s armor as he did so, taking advantage of their distraction-
And they were still connected, by gestalt bond and by wire. They were close to overload, he knew, eyes overly bright-probably a lot like his own, although he couldn’t tell.
“I guess Autobots only pretend they play fair,” Scrapper said, voice laced over with static-he really was close to the edge, his composure cracking. Ratchet guessed Hook was just as close. “It’s too bad you’re outnumbered-cleverness only counts for so much.” The sudden surge of the two comming him, uploading the sensations pouring through them, pushing them into his processor, was too much.
Overload hit him hard, and he only had the satisfaction of holding out a few seconds longer than the other two.
“Thank you,” Ratchet said, back at the familiar shack and treeless, dusty hill that marked his material storage.
“Whatever. I always end up hauling things around…”
“Maybe you should change your name, then, Long Haul.”
“Huh.” He paused. “I should go. -Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” Ratchet said, and turned away to store his tools as the sound of Long Haul’s engine faded into the distance.
--End chapter 10--