FIC - Squishy, Chapter Two
On to the next chapter!
Title: Squishy
Rating: T for swearing
Characters/Pairing: Barricade n' Frenzy, hints of Barricade/Frenzy
Summary: Post-2007 movie, not compatible with later canon. After Frenzy undergoes an inexplicable transformation, Barricade has to deal with having a human for a partner.
Note: I'm using BW time units. Cycle = ~1 minutes, Megacycle = ~1 hour, stellar cycle = ~400 days.
Chapter Two
Things were mercifully silent as Barricade cruised down the stretch of highway. He had driven out of the damnable town where this entire mess had started and headed straight out to nowhere. Civilization had fallen away behind him along with traffic, and now he could actually go for cycles without seeing another vehicle. Now there was just him, the hum of his motor, and the slow breathing of his sleeping partner.
After his gorging and subsequent illness, Frenzy had fallen into a deep sleep that had lasted most of the day, the sun now sitting just above the horizon and making its slow creep down. The human certainly seemed to have calmed down from when he was awake, and had shifted in his sleep to curl on his side with one arm hooked around Barricade's seatbelt and being used as a pillow. He also happened to be drooling slightly, but thankfully his oversized shirt was currently absorbing the leaking fluid, otherwise Barricade would have had to wake him. The issue being that he'd then have to put up with Frenzy's endless jabbering and bitching again, not that he was worried about disturbing his partner's slumber.
Honestly, humans and their incessant leaking. No wonder they had to constantly ingest fluids with all the liquid they kept losing, through their skin, eyes, mouths... Any Cybertronian losing fluids at that rate should go straight to the scrap yard. Slagging organics.
Disgusting tendencies aside, Barricade had to admit that Frenzy looked rather... peaceful, and the feeling was strangely contagious. Driving along the nearly empty highway with nothing so interesting as even a turn to keep him occupied, the Decepticon was left with his thoughts.
Things were different now between himself and Frenzy. While his partner had always been smaller and physically weaker than Barricade, the little 'Con was still tough and could certainly take of himself. He'd even known Frenzy to take down a much larger opponent by himself on a rare occasion when cornered. The two of them appreciated, perhaps even enjoyed, working together, but they could have parted ways at any time and both of them would likely have done fine. Now, however, his partner had become so much more fragile, more vulnerable, and could no longer be considered fully independent. If Barricade were to leave him now, trapped in a body that he was still learning to understand, who knows what would happen to him. Frenzy might find a way to survive alone in human society, but then again, maybe not, and probably not well. Now he needed Barricade to take care of him and protect, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that. He should feel disgust at his partner's weakness, shun him, ridicule him for his dependence and leave him to his fate since Frenzy would only slow him down now. Instead it felt almost... nice to be so needed. Not wanting to pursue that avenue of thought further, he switched tracks.
Barricade wasn't sure where they were going. What exactly was he supposed to do now? His partner had been mysteriously transformed into a human, they had no clues as to how it had happened, and there wasn't anywhere for them to go for help. As far as he knew they were the last two Decepticons on this rock. Not that most of the Decepticons that he knew would have been any help even if they were still alive. Yeah, he could imagine how well that would go over:
'Hey Bonecrusher, my partner turned into a human, can you lend me a hand?'
'I hate you.' Squish.
'You killed Frenzy, you glitch!'
Uh-huh. Sure Bonecrusher was pretty much the worst possible choice, but none of the others would have been much better. Decepticons didn't suffer the weak. They'd have told him to abandon Frenzy at best, and tried to put him out of his fleshy misery at worst, and Barricade had decided that neither of those was a viable option. He wouldn't abandon Frenzy. He couldn't.
Which left Barricade back at square one: a partner with a bizarre affliction, no leads, and no help.
Except- Except maybe- But no. There was no way he was going to them for help. Even if they would agree to aid him - which they wouldn't - Barricade couldn’t accept assistance from them. From the enemy. He wouldn't. Yet he couldn't deny that his supposedly aimless wanderings were taking him closer to what could be considered enemy territory, though technically the whole planet was enemy territory. There were certain areas that they were more likely to patrol, and he was headed straight into them.
But there was no way a Decepticon like him could ever ask the Autobots for help.
Further thoughts were derailed as the cadence of Frenzy's breathing changed with a loud snort, electric blue eyes fluttering open. Sitting up slowly, the human looked around blearily and absent-mindedly wiped the dampness from the corner of his mouth. He glanced down at his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and promptly scowled and began to curse under his breath. Yes, he was still caught in this squishy prison. Yes, he was still as annoyingly vocal as ever.
Picking at some crusty build-up at the corner of his eyes - and flicking it onto his floor, much to Barricade's chagrin - he paused and peered down at his abdomen. Looking rather displeased, he reached out a bony finger and prodded at his lower belly. "B-b-barricade," he said.
"What is it now?" Barricade said, his exasperation clear. He swore, if Frenzy was sick again... Was there no end to the troubles a human body could develop? Maybe it was because they were so short-lived. They had to fit their lifetime's worth of glitches into a short period or something.
Frenzy jabs Barricade's seat with a sharp elbow, not appreciating his partner's tone. "There is a new ache in my lower abdomen."
"And you... expect me to do something about it," the cop car replied. "I'm not a slagging human vet." Honestly, what did he know about humans to figure out what the slag was wrong with them and how to fix it?
Letting out a long-suffering sigh, Frenzy said, "Humans are ineffective at processing materials, yes? I ingested large quantities of water and I have to get rid of the excess s-ss-somehow."
Barricade thought about that for a moment. Then a moment longer. Then he screeched to a halt in the middle of the highway and flung open his door. "Get out now. I swear, if you urinate in me there won't even be enough left of you to-"
Frenzy cuts him off with a growl and a kick to the back of a seat. "We are in the middle of nowhere! I refuse to p-p-pi-piss on the side of the road. I do still have enough control over my own body - even if it is horrible and treacherous now," he mutters under his breath before continuing, "to be able to 'hold it.'"
It seemed like Barricade was going to argue and force his partner out onto the roadside, but instead he slammed his door shut and started driving again, snarling, "You had better be able to control it."
"Less talking, more finding me somewhere with a b-b-bathroom." Frenzy was actually less sure about his ability to control his bladder than he let on, though he solemnly hoped he could hold it in. He doubted Barricade was making idle threats about the level of insult that pissing on he seats would involve. Then again, death might be preferable to the mortification he would feel if he wet himself. Oh how he despised the lack of control he had over his own body, but maybe the threat would keep it in line.
Barricade pulled up to a small gas station that boasted a bathroom. "Fill up my tank while you're out there," he said. "And buy a new shirt or something. You've already managed to get that one filthy."
Frenzy glanced down at the remains of his blueberry pie which now encrusted his sweater and grunted, shoving out of his partner.
"And be quick about it!" Barricade called after him.
Growling, the human turned and glared at his partner, the Decepticon's holo-driver lounging lazily and smirking smugly. Rolling his eyes, Frenzy flipped him the bird and hurried into the gas station and its awaiting bathroom. Its filthy, filthy bathroom as he soon discovered. Locking the door, he turned to stare at the toilet in both disgust and defiance and unzipped his pants.
Well, that could have gone worse, Frenzy supposed. The place was already disgusting when he got here, and he hadn't added much to the filth. If nobody else was going to clean up after themselves, he certainly wasn't going to do it. He was no more interested in dealing with human bodily fluids than his partner, especially not waste ones. Stupid inefficient human body...
Walking over to the sinks to cleanse his hands, he paused. Hanging on the wall over the sink was a mirror, and reflected back at him through a thin layer of grime was the face of a pale, sickly human. Leaning forward, he wiped a hand across the glass and peered closer at this strange, unfamiliar face. His most striking feature was his eyes, the shocking blue standing out while the rest of him was pale and faded, from his sallow skin to his silvery-white hair. Not that he had much hair anyway, the majority of his scalp smooth and bare on either side of a spiky band of hair, currently mussed from sleep. Running a hand idly through his Mohawk, the strands spring back into place behind it, reassuming their original and rather gravity-defying arrangement that rather resembled his true body's crest.
Frenzy squinted in confusion. That didn't seem entirely normal for human hair. Further contemplation of that was interrupted by another mystery. Leaning even closer to the mirror, he eyed what appeared to be a thin, barely visible line of slightly lighter flesh running down his face. Rubbing a finger over it, he found the line to be slightly raised. Trailing down his forehead, it bisected his eyebrow, ran down around his eye and across his cheek, before finally hooking under his ear. Turning his head, he found that the line looped back behind his ear and up his scalp, forming a complete ring.
"What the slag is-?" His hand jerked from his head to his throat, where he had noticed a second pale line encircling his neck. What were these? Scars?! But why- He suddenly remembered two rather significant injuries he had received not-so-long-ago: that squishy bitch cutting off his head, and when he had found his head cleft in two in an incident that definitely had nothing to do with his own weapon. His eye began to twitch, strangled noises escaping his throat. What the fuck was going on? This fragging body held so many ridiculous details that screamed him, and yet the face that stared back in the mirror was not him, not at all!
He hated this situation, he hated this face and this body, and he hated that none of this made any damned sense. He was supposed to be a Decepticon, not a disgusting little human! It shouldn't be possible for him to be a disgusting little human. Just... hate. Hatehatehate. And... Barricade probably hated it too. Hated him too. His partner hated humans, and since Frenzy was a human it was probably only a matter of time before his partner gave up on him and left him to rot. He didn't want to be left alone, not like this. He was so weak now, so confused, so helpless... and that pale face just kept looking back, mocking him.
With a snarl, Frenzy jerked his head back and slammed it forward, his forehead colliding with the mirror with a loud crack.
Frenzy shoved angrily out of the gas station store, heading back to where his partner was parked by a gas pump. Jerking open the passenger door he tossed the plastic bag he was carrying onto the seat, uncaring if its contents decided to spill out: a crappy t-shirt, some sandwiches, some wet wipes, a box of band-aids...
"What took you so long?" Barricade said impatiently, idly examining the objects invading his interior. "And you better not have forgotten to buy gas-" Finally he turned his attention to Frenzy and did a double take. "What the slag happened to your face?"
In the short time he had been gone the human had acquired a charming new addition to his forehead in the form of a colourful bandage slapped over a blotchy and swollen-looking patch of skin. Though Frenzy had obviously wiped a lot of it away, there were still a few smears of drying blood decorating his face and neck and adding further stains to his soiled sweater.
Grunting in response, Frenzy tugged his dirty shirt over his head and tossed it in the direction of a garbage can. Digging out his new t-shirt - just some random, boring thing he had picked up first - he wriggled into it, and muttered, "Got into an argument with a mirror."
Barricade snorted in amused surprise, as his partner moved to the gas pump. "You... you did what? You are such a freak, why the slag would you- ow!" The cop car winced as Frenzy jammed the gas nozzle into the filler neck of his tank with much more force than necessarily. "Watch it, flesh-bag!" he growled.
"Take it like man!" Frenzy sneered back then muttered under his breath, "Bitch, next time I'll just piss in your gas tank..."
"Try it and there won’t be enough of you left to identify as human!"
"I'm not human!" he shrieked, yanking the nozzle back out and slamming it back into its holder. Pausing, he glanced suspiciously back at the store, wondering if the attendant was listening. Aw, screw him. He should go die in a fire. Quieting down, he mumbled, "I'm just... ss-sss-stuck in a human suit."
"Just get in," Barricade said. He could hear the pain in Frenzy's voice, and whether its source was the wound on his forehead or something less physical, it still made him feel uncomfortable and he refused to dwell on that.
Sulking, Frenzy shoved his bag off the front passenger's seat and flopped down. Fishing for the wet wipes and flipping down the sun visor, he began to search out and eradicated any traces of blood still left on him. "I need to buy new clothes," he said as Barricade left the gas stop. "This shirt is - hngh! - awful."
Do not engage in banter, do not engage in banter, do not- Slaggit, Barricade couldn't resist. "So, the perfectly normal shirt is awful, but the absolutely hideous sandals are fine?"
"They're s-ss-sparkly!" Frenzy argued, perking up slightly at the sign of an argument. He lifted a leg to rub the sole of one lime green sandal all over Barricade's dash. "They're interesting and f-ff-fun, unlike you. A lot better looking than you, too."
Barricade growled back a retort and the argument continued on, comfortingly familiar. Meanwhile, he'd keep driving and find his partner a town or city so that tomorrow he could go shopping. Just to shut him up, of course.
"Get out."
Frenzy paused for a long moment, glancing between Barricade's holo-driver and the sidewalk his partner had parked by. Was he being kicked out? Had Barricade finally decided that he wanted nothing more to do with a stinking, squishy human? Would he now be abandoned to face the wide, cruel world all alo-
"What are you waiting for?" Barricade said. "You wanted to go shopping, didn't you? So go shop!"
"Oh! Oooh. Oh." Frenzy got it now. "Right, shopping." Peering out his partner's window, he eyed the variety of shops and restaurants lining the street. None of the ones he could see from here looked like clothing stores, though. "You're nnn-not going to drop me off in front of a clothing store?"
A snort. "You still have two legs, and they're made for walking. Go shop around yourself." Barricade flipped his passenger side door open, watching Frenzy scramble out and slouch nervously on the curb. Snapping the door shut, he said, "I'm going to go scout around, maybe power down for a bit. I'll be back in a megacycle, and you better be here on time."
"B-b-but I don't have a watch!" Frenzy protested. "Don't l-l-l-leave-!" But Barricade had already pulled away from the curb and headed off into traffic. Don't leave me alone. The human pouted angrily, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. Fine, be that way, Barricade. He'd just go shopping then. And by all the most awesome, most obnoxious clothing and accessories he could find! He fingered the wads of cash he had divided up among his pockets. Even though he had left much of the money back in his partner, he still had more than enough to acquire an impressive haul.
Setting his chin in determination, Frenzy set off down the street, eyeing each store he passed in turn. Ooh look, a backpack that looked like a rainbow had puked all over it! His frown rapidly twisted up into a grin as he pushed into a store with the jingle of a bell. This was going to be fun.
Frenzy hurried back to where his partner had left him, swinging his garish and now rather stuffed backpack onto his shoulders. Running was certainly easier in his new footwear, having traded his sandals for a pair of sneakers that blinked little lights as he walked. Not that he'd gotten rid of his lovely green sandals, no. Those were carefully stashed away in his backpack with the rest of his new things. The t-shirt and pants he had started out with hadn't fared as well, and were now sitting in a garbage can somewhere. In their place he wore a glittering silver shirt and a pair of stretchy, eye-smartingly colourful pants. And that wasn't all! There was the spiky, spiky belt which he didn't actually need to hold his pants up, but had instead slung around his hips for the sole purpose of draping and clipping a wide variety of chains and bangles on. He had matching spiky arm bands, too! And an assortment of cheap colourful bracelets. And a bright blue wristwatch with sharks on the strap. And a flashing whistle on a strap around his neck. That wasn't even getting to all the other stuff he had in his bag!
As happy as his new belongings made him, they didn't stop him worrying. He'd already taken longer than he intended to, possibly over a megacycle, and he couldn't shake the horrible feeling that if he didn't get back on time then Barricade would just leave him. Forever. He couldn't handle that, not now, and maybe... maybe not even if he was normal. He recalled a time in the past when we had thought his partner might just leave him to die, and it had felt just as bad back then as it did now. But Barricade had come for him then, and he would come back for him now, right? Even if he was human. He hoped.
Hurrying as he was, Frenzy received a painful reminder of how dull his reflexes were as a human, especially when distracted. The air was knocked out of him with an 'oomph' as he collided with an unyielding shoulder and went toppling to the sidewalk. Hissing, he grabbed his elbow, skin stinging where it had scrapped against the pavement and beginning to leak a mall amount of blood. Lips drawing back from his teeth in a scowl, he glared up at the human he had smacked into.
A very large and rather muscular man glared back at him, dusting imaginary dirt off his jacket in apparent disgust. Accompanying the man were two other males, one to either side. The one on the left was taller than the middle stooge, and thinner, his muscles wiry. The one to the right was lefty's opposite, short and fat, and possessing of a massive, tangled beard. To Frenzy's chagrin they were all taller and bulkier than him. It seemed that human or robot he remained a particular shrimpy specimen.
"Watch where you're going, freak," the middle man sneered.
Frenzy's hands clenched, one of his eyes twitching slightly. Oh, how he wished he still had his built-in weapons. He'd like to see the fleshy bastard sneer with a razor sharp disk lodged in his ugly, chunky face and his friends shot full of holes. Watching angrily as the trio continued past him, he muttered rapidly under his breath, "Sss-st-stupid insects, hope a ravenous flesh-beast devours your entrails - hrnk - want to rip out your stupid fleshy t-t-tongues..."
"What did you say?" a voice hissed. Twisting around, Frenzy saw that the men had stopped and were slowly moving back toward him. For a moment he felt a chill of fear, but it was quickly swamped out by anger, fuelled by his exasperation with life and hatred for this damn body. Pushing himself to his feet, he bared his teeth further and gazed defiantly back.
Barricade had to wonder why he was cursed with a partner who kept on disappearing. Frenzy was far overdue to return, again, and his initial annoyance was quickly giving way to something akin to worry. It wasn't actual worry of course; he just disliked being inconvenienced, especially by humans. Any other human and he would have left long ago. In fact, he still might actually leave! His partner Frenzy might be, but he wasn't going to wait around for an unpunctual human. However... he'd better take a look around first. Perhaps his partner had gotten lost, or at least lost track of time. Humans had no built-in direction sense and Frenzy had made the point that he didn't have a watch before Barricade had left. Maybe he shouldn't have brushed off that observation as unimportant.
He cruised away from the drop-off point, making gradually wider sweeps of the area in as close to a circular fashion as the roads allowed. How familiar this all was. Maybe this time when he finally found Frenzy he'd be back to normal again. Then things would go back to the way they were and they could both begin to forget this whole freakish experience.
Continuing his patrol, he paused occasionally to roll down his window question random bystanders with his holo-driver. As negatives piled up with no sign of Frenzy whatsoever, he became more and more irritable and anxious. Pulling up in front of a haggard, and most likely drunk, man slouched against a wall, he practically snarled, "Have you seen a young man, few inches over five feet tall, grey or silver hair, Mohawk, extremely skinny?" Pause. "Probably wearing green flip flops?"
The man looked at him blearily for a long moment as though struggling to understand the question, prompting Barricade to repeat the question, slowly growling out each word. Finally the man grinned slightly and nodded. "Oh, skinny little fellow you say?" he said, speech heavily slurred. "I think- I think I mighta seen someone... like that..."
Barricade waited impatiently for the human to continue after he had trailed off, but nothing seemed forthcoming. Oh for- slagging fleshbag! Giving up, he prompted, "Did you see him or not?!"
"What? Oh! Right. Pale, too, right? Wearin' a funny shirt. Saw 'im pass by 'while back with some big guys. None of 'em looked too happy, I tell ya."
The Decepticon mentally cursed up a storm and demanded, "Where did they go?!"
The drunk pointed vaguely to a small road heading off the main street, and within seconds Barricade was roaring down it. He streaked past a secluded parking lot, but a flash of sensory information had him screeching to a halt and backing up to the entrance. The lot seemed abandoned, but had he seen something there? He swept his sensors across the lot, and yes, there was something, a warm lump in the farthest corner... No. No no no no. Pulling into the deserted lot, he eased up to the crumpled form, careful not to run it over. That small, bony body and spiky crop of silver hair was unmistakable. Even through all the blood.
Oh slag no.
Uncaring of whether or not there was anyone to see him, Barricade transformed, kneeling next to his partner. Leaning closer, he was infinitely relieved to hear a wheeze of breath from Frenzy's limp body. He reached out with a large hand, ignoring the slight tremor in it, and gently shifted the human further onto his side. The sight of Frenzy's face drew a hiss of anger from him: it was covered in dark bruises, one eye swollen completely shut, and his nose was a mass of blood. The cut on his forehead had been bared and was bleeding again, now joined by numerous other scratches and lacerations.
"Frenzy?" he asked, his sensors scanning over the rest of his partner's bruised and beaten body. Stretching out a finger, he oh-so-carefully brushed a few strands blood-caked of hair away from Frenzy's face.
One electric blue eye flickered open, looking unfocused. Pale lips parted, blood dribbling out from between them, and from the nasty split in one of them. Suddenly Frenzy choked, spewing out a gush of blood, vomit, and something else. Cringing slightly in disgust, Barricade eyed the object lying in the vile puddle. Was it part of a human ear?
Frenzy continued to gag for a few more moments, tears beginning to course from his eyes to mix with the blood on his face. Finally he subsided into shudders, and when his head began to drop towards his expelled fluids, Barricade fought his revulsion at touching it and slipped a finger beneath his partner's head. He had to be careful, so very careful, as his partner was soft and fragile and his fingers with hard and sharp. The claws of his other hand dug deep into the pavement, scratching deep furrows into it.
Frenzy's lips opened again, this time in an attempt to speak. "B-b-b... b-b-b-ba..." He paused, wheezing, and continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "B-b-b-barri..."
"Don't," Barricade growled, completely failing to keep the rage and distress out of his voice. His mind was filling with white-hot rage, and there was only one thing he could think of that could make it better. "Frenzy, who did this?"
"B-b-barr... c-c-c-hkh-cade..."
"Yes, I'm here," he answered, then snarled, "Who did this?"
It was a simple question and he needed the answer. He needed to know, needed to find the slagging meatbags he knew must have done this, had to punish them. Whoever it had been had hurt his partner, had taken advantage of the fact that Frenzy wasn't as strong as usual, had taken advantage of how he was only a fragile human and hurt him. Badly. He wasn't sure how bad, he didn't know enough about humans to tell and there was no time to look it up, and what if he was going to die? What if he died because Barricade wasn't there to protect him and- When he found the slagging piece of putrid flesh that had done this he was going to rip them open and force them to eat their own entrails.
"Who was it?!" he shouted. "Just answer!"
But Frenzy wasn't answering, just wheezing quietly and occasionally stuttering out a few syllables of Barricade’s name. That was when the Decepticon noticed that his partner's visible pupil was dilated despite the light that was shining directly into his eye. That wasn’t normal. He didn’t know much about humans, but he knew that defeated the purpose of even having an iris. Barricade’s anger deflated for the moment, replaced with apprehension. His claws dug deeper into the pavement, and he asked, "What... what's wrong?"
"H-hh-hurts," Frenzy whispered. "B-b... b-b-b-breathe."
"You... you have a broken rib," Barricade said following a quick scan of his partner's chest.
Frenzy merely moaned in acknowledgement, his eye sliding closed.
"Frenzy? Frenzy!" Wrenching his claws from the pavement, his hand darted toward his partner, hovering over him. He was still breathing, still alive, but Barricade had to do something. But he shouldn’t touch him more, shouldn't move him, his partner was so fragile at the moment he might just make things worse. There was nothing he could do to help, not now. He had already failed Frenzy by not being there to protect him, and there was nothing further he could do to for him. He needed someone else to help, someone who actually knew how to deal with injured humans.
Unable to think of any other option, Barricade did what he had to do. He called 911.
Tada! I haven't started revising Chapter 3 yet, so it'll be a bit longer before I have it up. However, in the interim I have some pr0n that fits into the middle of this chapter to post. :P
Title: Squishy
Rating: T for swearing
Characters/Pairing: Barricade n' Frenzy, hints of Barricade/Frenzy
Summary: Post-2007 movie, not compatible with later canon. After Frenzy undergoes an inexplicable transformation, Barricade has to deal with having a human for a partner.
Note: I'm using BW time units. Cycle = ~1 minutes, Megacycle = ~1 hour, stellar cycle = ~400 days.
Chapter Two
Things were mercifully silent as Barricade cruised down the stretch of highway. He had driven out of the damnable town where this entire mess had started and headed straight out to nowhere. Civilization had fallen away behind him along with traffic, and now he could actually go for cycles without seeing another vehicle. Now there was just him, the hum of his motor, and the slow breathing of his sleeping partner.
After his gorging and subsequent illness, Frenzy had fallen into a deep sleep that had lasted most of the day, the sun now sitting just above the horizon and making its slow creep down. The human certainly seemed to have calmed down from when he was awake, and had shifted in his sleep to curl on his side with one arm hooked around Barricade's seatbelt and being used as a pillow. He also happened to be drooling slightly, but thankfully his oversized shirt was currently absorbing the leaking fluid, otherwise Barricade would have had to wake him. The issue being that he'd then have to put up with Frenzy's endless jabbering and bitching again, not that he was worried about disturbing his partner's slumber.
Honestly, humans and their incessant leaking. No wonder they had to constantly ingest fluids with all the liquid they kept losing, through their skin, eyes, mouths... Any Cybertronian losing fluids at that rate should go straight to the scrap yard. Slagging organics.
Disgusting tendencies aside, Barricade had to admit that Frenzy looked rather... peaceful, and the feeling was strangely contagious. Driving along the nearly empty highway with nothing so interesting as even a turn to keep him occupied, the Decepticon was left with his thoughts.
Things were different now between himself and Frenzy. While his partner had always been smaller and physically weaker than Barricade, the little 'Con was still tough and could certainly take of himself. He'd even known Frenzy to take down a much larger opponent by himself on a rare occasion when cornered. The two of them appreciated, perhaps even enjoyed, working together, but they could have parted ways at any time and both of them would likely have done fine. Now, however, his partner had become so much more fragile, more vulnerable, and could no longer be considered fully independent. If Barricade were to leave him now, trapped in a body that he was still learning to understand, who knows what would happen to him. Frenzy might find a way to survive alone in human society, but then again, maybe not, and probably not well. Now he needed Barricade to take care of him and protect, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that. He should feel disgust at his partner's weakness, shun him, ridicule him for his dependence and leave him to his fate since Frenzy would only slow him down now. Instead it felt almost... nice to be so needed. Not wanting to pursue that avenue of thought further, he switched tracks.
Barricade wasn't sure where they were going. What exactly was he supposed to do now? His partner had been mysteriously transformed into a human, they had no clues as to how it had happened, and there wasn't anywhere for them to go for help. As far as he knew they were the last two Decepticons on this rock. Not that most of the Decepticons that he knew would have been any help even if they were still alive. Yeah, he could imagine how well that would go over:
'Hey Bonecrusher, my partner turned into a human, can you lend me a hand?'
'I hate you.' Squish.
'You killed Frenzy, you glitch!'
Uh-huh. Sure Bonecrusher was pretty much the worst possible choice, but none of the others would have been much better. Decepticons didn't suffer the weak. They'd have told him to abandon Frenzy at best, and tried to put him out of his fleshy misery at worst, and Barricade had decided that neither of those was a viable option. He wouldn't abandon Frenzy. He couldn't.
Which left Barricade back at square one: a partner with a bizarre affliction, no leads, and no help.
Except- Except maybe- But no. There was no way he was going to them for help. Even if they would agree to aid him - which they wouldn't - Barricade couldn’t accept assistance from them. From the enemy. He wouldn't. Yet he couldn't deny that his supposedly aimless wanderings were taking him closer to what could be considered enemy territory, though technically the whole planet was enemy territory. There were certain areas that they were more likely to patrol, and he was headed straight into them.
But there was no way a Decepticon like him could ever ask the Autobots for help.
Further thoughts were derailed as the cadence of Frenzy's breathing changed with a loud snort, electric blue eyes fluttering open. Sitting up slowly, the human looked around blearily and absent-mindedly wiped the dampness from the corner of his mouth. He glanced down at his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and promptly scowled and began to curse under his breath. Yes, he was still caught in this squishy prison. Yes, he was still as annoyingly vocal as ever.
Picking at some crusty build-up at the corner of his eyes - and flicking it onto his floor, much to Barricade's chagrin - he paused and peered down at his abdomen. Looking rather displeased, he reached out a bony finger and prodded at his lower belly. "B-b-barricade," he said.
"What is it now?" Barricade said, his exasperation clear. He swore, if Frenzy was sick again... Was there no end to the troubles a human body could develop? Maybe it was because they were so short-lived. They had to fit their lifetime's worth of glitches into a short period or something.
Frenzy jabs Barricade's seat with a sharp elbow, not appreciating his partner's tone. "There is a new ache in my lower abdomen."
"And you... expect me to do something about it," the cop car replied. "I'm not a slagging human vet." Honestly, what did he know about humans to figure out what the slag was wrong with them and how to fix it?
Letting out a long-suffering sigh, Frenzy said, "Humans are ineffective at processing materials, yes? I ingested large quantities of water and I have to get rid of the excess s-ss-somehow."
Barricade thought about that for a moment. Then a moment longer. Then he screeched to a halt in the middle of the highway and flung open his door. "Get out now. I swear, if you urinate in me there won't even be enough left of you to-"
Frenzy cuts him off with a growl and a kick to the back of a seat. "We are in the middle of nowhere! I refuse to p-p-pi-piss on the side of the road. I do still have enough control over my own body - even if it is horrible and treacherous now," he mutters under his breath before continuing, "to be able to 'hold it.'"
It seemed like Barricade was going to argue and force his partner out onto the roadside, but instead he slammed his door shut and started driving again, snarling, "You had better be able to control it."
"Less talking, more finding me somewhere with a b-b-bathroom." Frenzy was actually less sure about his ability to control his bladder than he let on, though he solemnly hoped he could hold it in. He doubted Barricade was making idle threats about the level of insult that pissing on he seats would involve. Then again, death might be preferable to the mortification he would feel if he wet himself. Oh how he despised the lack of control he had over his own body, but maybe the threat would keep it in line.
Barricade pulled up to a small gas station that boasted a bathroom. "Fill up my tank while you're out there," he said. "And buy a new shirt or something. You've already managed to get that one filthy."
Frenzy glanced down at the remains of his blueberry pie which now encrusted his sweater and grunted, shoving out of his partner.
"And be quick about it!" Barricade called after him.
Growling, the human turned and glared at his partner, the Decepticon's holo-driver lounging lazily and smirking smugly. Rolling his eyes, Frenzy flipped him the bird and hurried into the gas station and its awaiting bathroom. Its filthy, filthy bathroom as he soon discovered. Locking the door, he turned to stare at the toilet in both disgust and defiance and unzipped his pants.
Well, that could have gone worse, Frenzy supposed. The place was already disgusting when he got here, and he hadn't added much to the filth. If nobody else was going to clean up after themselves, he certainly wasn't going to do it. He was no more interested in dealing with human bodily fluids than his partner, especially not waste ones. Stupid inefficient human body...
Walking over to the sinks to cleanse his hands, he paused. Hanging on the wall over the sink was a mirror, and reflected back at him through a thin layer of grime was the face of a pale, sickly human. Leaning forward, he wiped a hand across the glass and peered closer at this strange, unfamiliar face. His most striking feature was his eyes, the shocking blue standing out while the rest of him was pale and faded, from his sallow skin to his silvery-white hair. Not that he had much hair anyway, the majority of his scalp smooth and bare on either side of a spiky band of hair, currently mussed from sleep. Running a hand idly through his Mohawk, the strands spring back into place behind it, reassuming their original and rather gravity-defying arrangement that rather resembled his true body's crest.
Frenzy squinted in confusion. That didn't seem entirely normal for human hair. Further contemplation of that was interrupted by another mystery. Leaning even closer to the mirror, he eyed what appeared to be a thin, barely visible line of slightly lighter flesh running down his face. Rubbing a finger over it, he found the line to be slightly raised. Trailing down his forehead, it bisected his eyebrow, ran down around his eye and across his cheek, before finally hooking under his ear. Turning his head, he found that the line looped back behind his ear and up his scalp, forming a complete ring.
"What the slag is-?" His hand jerked from his head to his throat, where he had noticed a second pale line encircling his neck. What were these? Scars?! But why- He suddenly remembered two rather significant injuries he had received not-so-long-ago: that squishy bitch cutting off his head, and when he had found his head cleft in two in an incident that definitely had nothing to do with his own weapon. His eye began to twitch, strangled noises escaping his throat. What the fuck was going on? This fragging body held so many ridiculous details that screamed him, and yet the face that stared back in the mirror was not him, not at all!
He hated this situation, he hated this face and this body, and he hated that none of this made any damned sense. He was supposed to be a Decepticon, not a disgusting little human! It shouldn't be possible for him to be a disgusting little human. Just... hate. Hatehatehate. And... Barricade probably hated it too. Hated him too. His partner hated humans, and since Frenzy was a human it was probably only a matter of time before his partner gave up on him and left him to rot. He didn't want to be left alone, not like this. He was so weak now, so confused, so helpless... and that pale face just kept looking back, mocking him.
With a snarl, Frenzy jerked his head back and slammed it forward, his forehead colliding with the mirror with a loud crack.
Frenzy shoved angrily out of the gas station store, heading back to where his partner was parked by a gas pump. Jerking open the passenger door he tossed the plastic bag he was carrying onto the seat, uncaring if its contents decided to spill out: a crappy t-shirt, some sandwiches, some wet wipes, a box of band-aids...
"What took you so long?" Barricade said impatiently, idly examining the objects invading his interior. "And you better not have forgotten to buy gas-" Finally he turned his attention to Frenzy and did a double take. "What the slag happened to your face?"
In the short time he had been gone the human had acquired a charming new addition to his forehead in the form of a colourful bandage slapped over a blotchy and swollen-looking patch of skin. Though Frenzy had obviously wiped a lot of it away, there were still a few smears of drying blood decorating his face and neck and adding further stains to his soiled sweater.
Grunting in response, Frenzy tugged his dirty shirt over his head and tossed it in the direction of a garbage can. Digging out his new t-shirt - just some random, boring thing he had picked up first - he wriggled into it, and muttered, "Got into an argument with a mirror."
Barricade snorted in amused surprise, as his partner moved to the gas pump. "You... you did what? You are such a freak, why the slag would you- ow!" The cop car winced as Frenzy jammed the gas nozzle into the filler neck of his tank with much more force than necessarily. "Watch it, flesh-bag!" he growled.
"Take it like man!" Frenzy sneered back then muttered under his breath, "Bitch, next time I'll just piss in your gas tank..."
"Try it and there won’t be enough of you left to identify as human!"
"I'm not human!" he shrieked, yanking the nozzle back out and slamming it back into its holder. Pausing, he glanced suspiciously back at the store, wondering if the attendant was listening. Aw, screw him. He should go die in a fire. Quieting down, he mumbled, "I'm just... ss-sss-stuck in a human suit."
"Just get in," Barricade said. He could hear the pain in Frenzy's voice, and whether its source was the wound on his forehead or something less physical, it still made him feel uncomfortable and he refused to dwell on that.
Sulking, Frenzy shoved his bag off the front passenger's seat and flopped down. Fishing for the wet wipes and flipping down the sun visor, he began to search out and eradicated any traces of blood still left on him. "I need to buy new clothes," he said as Barricade left the gas stop. "This shirt is - hngh! - awful."
Do not engage in banter, do not engage in banter, do not- Slaggit, Barricade couldn't resist. "So, the perfectly normal shirt is awful, but the absolutely hideous sandals are fine?"
"They're s-ss-sparkly!" Frenzy argued, perking up slightly at the sign of an argument. He lifted a leg to rub the sole of one lime green sandal all over Barricade's dash. "They're interesting and f-ff-fun, unlike you. A lot better looking than you, too."
Barricade growled back a retort and the argument continued on, comfortingly familiar. Meanwhile, he'd keep driving and find his partner a town or city so that tomorrow he could go shopping. Just to shut him up, of course.
"Get out."
Frenzy paused for a long moment, glancing between Barricade's holo-driver and the sidewalk his partner had parked by. Was he being kicked out? Had Barricade finally decided that he wanted nothing more to do with a stinking, squishy human? Would he now be abandoned to face the wide, cruel world all alo-
"What are you waiting for?" Barricade said. "You wanted to go shopping, didn't you? So go shop!"
"Oh! Oooh. Oh." Frenzy got it now. "Right, shopping." Peering out his partner's window, he eyed the variety of shops and restaurants lining the street. None of the ones he could see from here looked like clothing stores, though. "You're nnn-not going to drop me off in front of a clothing store?"
A snort. "You still have two legs, and they're made for walking. Go shop around yourself." Barricade flipped his passenger side door open, watching Frenzy scramble out and slouch nervously on the curb. Snapping the door shut, he said, "I'm going to go scout around, maybe power down for a bit. I'll be back in a megacycle, and you better be here on time."
"B-b-but I don't have a watch!" Frenzy protested. "Don't l-l-l-leave-!" But Barricade had already pulled away from the curb and headed off into traffic. Don't leave me alone. The human pouted angrily, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. Fine, be that way, Barricade. He'd just go shopping then. And by all the most awesome, most obnoxious clothing and accessories he could find! He fingered the wads of cash he had divided up among his pockets. Even though he had left much of the money back in his partner, he still had more than enough to acquire an impressive haul.
Setting his chin in determination, Frenzy set off down the street, eyeing each store he passed in turn. Ooh look, a backpack that looked like a rainbow had puked all over it! His frown rapidly twisted up into a grin as he pushed into a store with the jingle of a bell. This was going to be fun.
Frenzy hurried back to where his partner had left him, swinging his garish and now rather stuffed backpack onto his shoulders. Running was certainly easier in his new footwear, having traded his sandals for a pair of sneakers that blinked little lights as he walked. Not that he'd gotten rid of his lovely green sandals, no. Those were carefully stashed away in his backpack with the rest of his new things. The t-shirt and pants he had started out with hadn't fared as well, and were now sitting in a garbage can somewhere. In their place he wore a glittering silver shirt and a pair of stretchy, eye-smartingly colourful pants. And that wasn't all! There was the spiky, spiky belt which he didn't actually need to hold his pants up, but had instead slung around his hips for the sole purpose of draping and clipping a wide variety of chains and bangles on. He had matching spiky arm bands, too! And an assortment of cheap colourful bracelets. And a bright blue wristwatch with sharks on the strap. And a flashing whistle on a strap around his neck. That wasn't even getting to all the other stuff he had in his bag!
As happy as his new belongings made him, they didn't stop him worrying. He'd already taken longer than he intended to, possibly over a megacycle, and he couldn't shake the horrible feeling that if he didn't get back on time then Barricade would just leave him. Forever. He couldn't handle that, not now, and maybe... maybe not even if he was normal. He recalled a time in the past when we had thought his partner might just leave him to die, and it had felt just as bad back then as it did now. But Barricade had come for him then, and he would come back for him now, right? Even if he was human. He hoped.
Hurrying as he was, Frenzy received a painful reminder of how dull his reflexes were as a human, especially when distracted. The air was knocked out of him with an 'oomph' as he collided with an unyielding shoulder and went toppling to the sidewalk. Hissing, he grabbed his elbow, skin stinging where it had scrapped against the pavement and beginning to leak a mall amount of blood. Lips drawing back from his teeth in a scowl, he glared up at the human he had smacked into.
A very large and rather muscular man glared back at him, dusting imaginary dirt off his jacket in apparent disgust. Accompanying the man were two other males, one to either side. The one on the left was taller than the middle stooge, and thinner, his muscles wiry. The one to the right was lefty's opposite, short and fat, and possessing of a massive, tangled beard. To Frenzy's chagrin they were all taller and bulkier than him. It seemed that human or robot he remained a particular shrimpy specimen.
"Watch where you're going, freak," the middle man sneered.
Frenzy's hands clenched, one of his eyes twitching slightly. Oh, how he wished he still had his built-in weapons. He'd like to see the fleshy bastard sneer with a razor sharp disk lodged in his ugly, chunky face and his friends shot full of holes. Watching angrily as the trio continued past him, he muttered rapidly under his breath, "Sss-st-stupid insects, hope a ravenous flesh-beast devours your entrails - hrnk - want to rip out your stupid fleshy t-t-tongues..."
"What did you say?" a voice hissed. Twisting around, Frenzy saw that the men had stopped and were slowly moving back toward him. For a moment he felt a chill of fear, but it was quickly swamped out by anger, fuelled by his exasperation with life and hatred for this damn body. Pushing himself to his feet, he bared his teeth further and gazed defiantly back.
Barricade had to wonder why he was cursed with a partner who kept on disappearing. Frenzy was far overdue to return, again, and his initial annoyance was quickly giving way to something akin to worry. It wasn't actual worry of course; he just disliked being inconvenienced, especially by humans. Any other human and he would have left long ago. In fact, he still might actually leave! His partner Frenzy might be, but he wasn't going to wait around for an unpunctual human. However... he'd better take a look around first. Perhaps his partner had gotten lost, or at least lost track of time. Humans had no built-in direction sense and Frenzy had made the point that he didn't have a watch before Barricade had left. Maybe he shouldn't have brushed off that observation as unimportant.
He cruised away from the drop-off point, making gradually wider sweeps of the area in as close to a circular fashion as the roads allowed. How familiar this all was. Maybe this time when he finally found Frenzy he'd be back to normal again. Then things would go back to the way they were and they could both begin to forget this whole freakish experience.
Continuing his patrol, he paused occasionally to roll down his window question random bystanders with his holo-driver. As negatives piled up with no sign of Frenzy whatsoever, he became more and more irritable and anxious. Pulling up in front of a haggard, and most likely drunk, man slouched against a wall, he practically snarled, "Have you seen a young man, few inches over five feet tall, grey or silver hair, Mohawk, extremely skinny?" Pause. "Probably wearing green flip flops?"
The man looked at him blearily for a long moment as though struggling to understand the question, prompting Barricade to repeat the question, slowly growling out each word. Finally the man grinned slightly and nodded. "Oh, skinny little fellow you say?" he said, speech heavily slurred. "I think- I think I mighta seen someone... like that..."
Barricade waited impatiently for the human to continue after he had trailed off, but nothing seemed forthcoming. Oh for- slagging fleshbag! Giving up, he prompted, "Did you see him or not?!"
"What? Oh! Right. Pale, too, right? Wearin' a funny shirt. Saw 'im pass by 'while back with some big guys. None of 'em looked too happy, I tell ya."
The Decepticon mentally cursed up a storm and demanded, "Where did they go?!"
The drunk pointed vaguely to a small road heading off the main street, and within seconds Barricade was roaring down it. He streaked past a secluded parking lot, but a flash of sensory information had him screeching to a halt and backing up to the entrance. The lot seemed abandoned, but had he seen something there? He swept his sensors across the lot, and yes, there was something, a warm lump in the farthest corner... No. No no no no. Pulling into the deserted lot, he eased up to the crumpled form, careful not to run it over. That small, bony body and spiky crop of silver hair was unmistakable. Even through all the blood.
Oh slag no.
Uncaring of whether or not there was anyone to see him, Barricade transformed, kneeling next to his partner. Leaning closer, he was infinitely relieved to hear a wheeze of breath from Frenzy's limp body. He reached out with a large hand, ignoring the slight tremor in it, and gently shifted the human further onto his side. The sight of Frenzy's face drew a hiss of anger from him: it was covered in dark bruises, one eye swollen completely shut, and his nose was a mass of blood. The cut on his forehead had been bared and was bleeding again, now joined by numerous other scratches and lacerations.
"Frenzy?" he asked, his sensors scanning over the rest of his partner's bruised and beaten body. Stretching out a finger, he oh-so-carefully brushed a few strands blood-caked of hair away from Frenzy's face.
One electric blue eye flickered open, looking unfocused. Pale lips parted, blood dribbling out from between them, and from the nasty split in one of them. Suddenly Frenzy choked, spewing out a gush of blood, vomit, and something else. Cringing slightly in disgust, Barricade eyed the object lying in the vile puddle. Was it part of a human ear?
Frenzy continued to gag for a few more moments, tears beginning to course from his eyes to mix with the blood on his face. Finally he subsided into shudders, and when his head began to drop towards his expelled fluids, Barricade fought his revulsion at touching it and slipped a finger beneath his partner's head. He had to be careful, so very careful, as his partner was soft and fragile and his fingers with hard and sharp. The claws of his other hand dug deep into the pavement, scratching deep furrows into it.
Frenzy's lips opened again, this time in an attempt to speak. "B-b-b... b-b-b-ba..." He paused, wheezing, and continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "B-b-b-barri..."
"Don't," Barricade growled, completely failing to keep the rage and distress out of his voice. His mind was filling with white-hot rage, and there was only one thing he could think of that could make it better. "Frenzy, who did this?"
"B-b-barr... c-c-c-hkh-cade..."
"Yes, I'm here," he answered, then snarled, "Who did this?"
It was a simple question and he needed the answer. He needed to know, needed to find the slagging meatbags he knew must have done this, had to punish them. Whoever it had been had hurt his partner, had taken advantage of the fact that Frenzy wasn't as strong as usual, had taken advantage of how he was only a fragile human and hurt him. Badly. He wasn't sure how bad, he didn't know enough about humans to tell and there was no time to look it up, and what if he was going to die? What if he died because Barricade wasn't there to protect him and- When he found the slagging piece of putrid flesh that had done this he was going to rip them open and force them to eat their own entrails.
"Who was it?!" he shouted. "Just answer!"
But Frenzy wasn't answering, just wheezing quietly and occasionally stuttering out a few syllables of Barricade’s name. That was when the Decepticon noticed that his partner's visible pupil was dilated despite the light that was shining directly into his eye. That wasn’t normal. He didn’t know much about humans, but he knew that defeated the purpose of even having an iris. Barricade’s anger deflated for the moment, replaced with apprehension. His claws dug deeper into the pavement, and he asked, "What... what's wrong?"
"H-hh-hurts," Frenzy whispered. "B-b... b-b-b-breathe."
"You... you have a broken rib," Barricade said following a quick scan of his partner's chest.
Frenzy merely moaned in acknowledgement, his eye sliding closed.
"Frenzy? Frenzy!" Wrenching his claws from the pavement, his hand darted toward his partner, hovering over him. He was still breathing, still alive, but Barricade had to do something. But he shouldn’t touch him more, shouldn't move him, his partner was so fragile at the moment he might just make things worse. There was nothing he could do to help, not now. He had already failed Frenzy by not being there to protect him, and there was nothing further he could do to for him. He needed someone else to help, someone who actually knew how to deal with injured humans.
Unable to think of any other option, Barricade did what he had to do. He called 911.
Tada! I haven't started revising Chapter 3 yet, so it'll be a bit longer before I have it up. However, in the interim I have some pr0n that fits into the middle of this chapter to post. :P