Chapter Text
Deadlock needed to kill something. Badly.
He’d kept it together through Ratchets confession. And he kept a relaxed mischievous banter going from the Hangar all the way to Ratchets makeshift clinic. When they finally arrived in the Dead En-
The refugee camp. It was called a refugee camp and nothing else.
Deadlock almost transformed in the fragging middle of a human refugee camp.
The memory snuck up on him okay?
Ever since he cracked open that one, tiny, memory from before he was Deadlock, pieces of Drift kept floating to the surface.
He gave Ratchet a quick goodbye, saying he needed something to eat, and sped off before the medic could question him.
He needed violence and isolation. Needed to reset his whole damn processor and banging his helm against those hard-organic-stick-things? Whatever the fuck. Frag? Ugh. It wasn’t working.
He was shaky, couldn’t focus. His chassis felt like it was put inside a vise and someone who hated him had control of the handle.
Ratchet had been a breath of fresh air when Deadlock hadn’t even known he was buried alive. And since then the medic had been stubbornly digging him the rest of the way out.
It. Just felt good.
Being cared for. Being able to relax around someone. And knowing with absolute certainty it wasn’t just an act.
He got used to it. Comfortable with a certain level of vulnerability. Then Ratchet brought in Hot Rod.
If Ratchet was a breeze that slipped inside Deadlocks mental fortress, then Hot Rod was a Fragging bunker busting missile. None of it felt like he deserved it.
Ratchet laid out his spark for judgement. Because Ratchet, amazing and wonderful and impossible Ratchet, didn’t want Deadlock to be stuck with someone like him.
Something shitty inside him whispered, “But what if Ratchet doesn’t want to be stuck with someone like him?”
He ignored it. Pushed it down. He didn’t leak coolant over slag like that. He didn’t need people like Ratchet or Hot Rod in his life. He just really, really wanted them in his life. For completely selfish Decepticon-y reasons.
You’d die for them you know.
Shut up.
Deadlock’s processor wouldn’t stop spinning.
He felt exposed.
He felt like slag.
He felt like Drift.
So Deadlock set out to do the most Deadlock thing he could think of.
———————————————————————
Deadlock fucked up.
Deadlock fucked up very badly.
Snow was getting caught in his optics, melting on contact into a slush that made it that much harder to see.
The fragging swarm of quintesson scouts surrounding him were not having that same problem.
They moved in a pack. Smaller and smarter than the standard issue quints that normally devastated the planet, these things unfortunately had a tiny sense of self preservation which made mowing them down that much more difficult.
Deadlock was forced to constantly turn on his peds to avoid the majority of the quints that kept going after his back. There wasn’t a moment he wasn’t beating them off with the stock of his rifle. He couldn’t switch to any close range weapons because if he stopped fighting them off for even a second, the quints would rush him all at once, forcing him to continue.
Couldn’t stop moving for the same reason.
They kept trying to get behind him. Snapping barbed tendrils at the backs of his knees, the gaps of his armor. Trying to force him down.
If I fall I’m dead.
Deadlocks vents were screaming. A brave little fragger went for his face, and Deadlock swung his rifle like a bat.
Distraction.
Shooting pain went through the back of his left knee joint. Something with barbs was forcing it apart. Something tore.
Deadlock immediately brought down the barrel through an eye socket and pulled the trigger. Didn’t have time to register if the quint was dead before another one came at him from the opposite side. His peds dragged furrows through the earth and snow. Spinning. He had to keep spinning.
He was slowing.
If I fall I’m dead.
The quints redoubled their efforts to get behind him. More lashes at his back. Another quint darting the other direction. Didn’t even attack. But Deadlock wasn’t ready for the feint and swung at empty air.
The pack leapt at his back as one.
I’m going to die.
Deadlock wedged his rifle between him and the ground. The quintessons tore into his back but the weight was too much to throw off without help.
I’m not gonna see them again.
The rifle dug into his pauldron.
I don’t want to die.
A tendril wrapped around his neck. He clawed at it.
I don’t want to die like this.
One of them was dragging a ped backwards. Forcing his weight onto his injured knee.
I don’t want to die alone.
Drift screamed.
For a moment, from the corner of his blurry optics, he saw a light growing brighter and brighter.
“Huh”, Drift thought deliriously. “I always figured the light of the Well appeared in front of you when you died.”
IMPACT against the mob at his back sent Drift and the quintesson scouts scattering across the ground.
He fell.
He wasn’t dead.
Deadlock scrambled into an upright kneel, ignoring the lightning like pain shooting up his knee.
Leaning on his rifle, Deadlock saw another mech. Orange and gold with propane blue lights, he had multiple quints trapped in a bear hug, but what hit him the hardest was an EM field overflowing with wild, unrestrained joy.
“HOT ROD?!?”
The mecha pilot only got about half the squirmy, bite-y little scrappers in the hold. The other half were quickly shaking off probable Roddy-induced concussions and began leaping at the nearest, newest prone target.
Hot Rod waved.
“Hey dude! Holy shit, that gun looks awesome!” Deadlock looked on in disbelief as more quintessons piled onto Hot Rod.
“What are you doing?! Rod get up!” Deadlock lurched to his feet, his last few thoughts repeated like a skipping track.
I was going to die. I was going to die. Hot Rod is going to die.
The cybertronian rushed towards the mecha. Hot Rod released the remaining quints who quickly turned to join the crushing mass subsuming him.
Hot Rod raised a hand, “Stop! Stop! Don’t get closer!”
Deadlock stopped just short of where the quints would turn on him. “Are you insane?! I’m trying to help you!”
“Just trust me!” Half of Hot Rod’s helm was covered in blackish tendrils. “And then help me in about five seconds!” Orange and gold disappeared under the writhing mass, the light snuffed out before Deadlocks optics.
He finally subspaced his rifle, switching to duel short range handguns that were both messy and loud. He counted five, fucking human seconds.
Something happened to the mass. The squirming suddenly stopped, and in the gaps of the knots surrounding Hot Rod, Deadlock saw something start to glow.
In the next instance, the quintessons exploded off of the mecha. Partially from the act of fleeing, entirely because Hot Rod was completely engulfed in flames.
“WOO! Now the party can get started!” Hot Rod wasted no time in engaging duel flamethrowers and began chasing after the remaining quints with manic glee.
Deadlock stopped questioning shit and started shooting with a vengeance.
Soon enough, the field around them was littered with the quintesson scouts burned and shredded remains.
Deadlocks vents were finally kicking down from maximum as he at last managed to wipe the stupid slagging slush out of his optics.
For the moment his eyes were offline, Deadlock felt a spike of happy that almost bowled him over. A half second before Hot Rod physically bowled him over.
Deadlock’s overtaxed fight or flight systems just gave the fuck up and let the tackle happen.
Hot Rod had him in a tight enough embrace he wasn’t sure he could have gotten away anyways.
“Holy shit I thought you were going to die.” Hot Rod crushed him to his chassis. The twin waves of Worry and Relief were doing things to his processor again. Deadlock (Drift?) was still feeling the aftershocks of it all. Memories skipped again. I’m going to die.
Dea-Dri- he wrapped his shaking arms around Hot Rod. Later, he could just say his knee gave out. Everything was spinning. Wait. No. Hot Rod picked him up and was spinning with him.
“You’re so lil now!” Hot Rod was ecstatic.
Deadlock was back. “Put me down. Gently.”
Hot Rod acquiesced, but seeing Deadlock nearly fall on his own, took the liberty of slinging one of his arms over his shoulders.
“M’kay. You look like shit. Need help walking back to Ratchets? Or can you drive?”
Deadlocks knee and entire back ached, but it wasn’t so debilitating once he’s had a chance to process it for a click.
“Uh, I think I’ll be okay to drive once I get to a road.” Hot Rod pulled him a little more securely into the supporting hold and started walking in the direction of the nearest road.
“Man, that’s still so cool you can do that. I wish I could turn into a car.”
Deadlock snorted, “Oh I’m sure if you keep practicing you’ll figure it out. Try stretching.”
Hot Rod laughed. It was so weird to think there was just a little guy in there. Sitting in like, a fancy cup holder. He sounded like the real thing. Moved like it too. If Deadlock hadn’t met Hot Rod the human first, the uncanny valley would have tipped him off something was wrong, but teeny tiny guy in a big person-puppet would not be his first guess.
Hot Rod stopped short, snapping his helm toward Deadlock.
“Wait. Do you ever drop off Ratchet at the shatterdome?”
Deadlock rolled his optics at the third near spark attack Hot Rod had given him that day.
“Yeeeah?”
Excitement started bubbling over.
“YOU’RE THE MOB BOYFRIEND?!” Hot Rod was stomping his peds while scream-laughing, probably because he couldn’t go for a run without dropping Deadlock.
“Dude! Dude dude dude. Pharma haaates you!”
Well that put Deadlock in a better mood. Albeit, only due to a “misunderstanding”.
“S’not like that. I just give him a lift sometimes. Make sure he doesn’t forget his lunch. Or to take care of himself. We’re not, you know.” Deadlock was pointedly looking the other direction.
Hot Rods cackled at the confirmation of the rumor, and his field steadily shifted towards mischief.
“Oooh Ratchet!” Hot Rod had begun speaking in a falsetto voice. “I love you sooo much! I’m from space but my favorite stars are the ones twinkling in your eyes! I wanna drive you to every beautiful place on this planet and when we finally come home we can watch Golden Girls while you pet my big bald metal head!”
“I’m going to punt you into a fragging Sun.”
Hot Rod laughed harder. He started making some weird wheezing noise that Deadlock hoped meant the imaginary strangling he was doing was working.
“THE UNICRON DAMNED SUN.”
Deadlock’s threatening was severely undercut by the fact that he was laughing now as well. They’d just about made it to the edge of the forest when Hot Rod asked a question that made Deadlock freeze.
“How’d you piss off so many scouts at once anyways? They’re normally way too spread out to all be grouped together like that.”
There were only two times when a pack of quintesson scouts were all gathered in the same place. When they first get dropped off, and when they gather to get picked back up.
Deadlock unhooked his arm from Hot Rod, turning behind them.
The change in air pressure made his finales tingle. Between the snow and the darkness, it was almost impossible to spot with the untrained optic, but the snow had stopped falling around them. It was being blocked.
“Oooh shit.” Hot Rod checked the fuel levels on his flame throwers, glancing between those and the telltale green bio lights of the fuck off massive quintesson descending like the lethargic offspring of a meteor and a shark.
Deadlock brought out two of his heaviest duty guns. And then a third he handed handle first to Hot Rod. After all, Ratchet had only warned him against encouraging Hot Rod’s stupid ideas.
The orange mecha was now looking rapidly between three points of interest.
“Wha-?”
Deadlock gave Hot Rod a gun.
“Do not tell Ratchet.”
Hot Rod held up the side arm. Focus zeroed in. It was a pretty nasty piece that looked more intimidating than it was. Slagged range but it packed enough of a punch to be worth keeping. Covered in spikes and blades and heavy enough to act as a crude but very nasty club, it was also one of the most over the top looking things Deadlock owned.
Hot Rod’s free hand started flapping faster and faster. His peds similarly bounced rapidly in place, until Deadlock was certain he was about to combust. Hot Rod was making A Noise, one that was steadily rising in both pitch and volume. His field going supernova.
The quintesson broke through the clouds, maw open, carving up the earth before them with the bottom of its jaw. A cliffside of teeth was closing in at speed.
Hot Rod screamed.
And Deadlock followed suit.
Sprinting towards death, guns blazing and voices raised in preemptive victory, Deadlock and maybe also Drift, had a deep suspicion the he and Hot Rod were friends in every universe.
Much to the terror of everyone else.