Archive of Our Own ^beta

Prowl shot out an arm to keep Mirage behind him-- patience and an undisturbed crime scene saved lives. He revved up his tactical processor, leaned into the ruin, and began calculating object trajectories. 

There were no laser-burn marks on the portable accordion dividers (walls Hound had set up in order to work without Autobots pestering him for tastes and whether everything was ready yet) or on the massive, multi-drawered supply cabinet Hound had wheeled in here on his trailer-hitch. The cabinet was ransacked, though: its [Prowl squinted] 52 small drawers had been yanked out and plundered, their contents (variously colored powders and crystals, the identities of which were secondary to the current investigation) scattered all over the floor, walls, and [Prowl glanced up] yes, even ceiling. Prowl resisted the urge to reset one [visible] drawer that had fallen to the floor. First find out the facts. This room would give him critical information if he was patient for another nanosec--

--An army-green foot pointed skyward from behind the cabinet. Prowl gasped, and charged headlong into the little pop-up kitchen, crying out Hound's name.

Mirage stared in through the doorway, now that Prowl's doorwings didn't block his view. He'd never seen a kitchen this destroyed. In fact he'd very seldom seen a kitchen. He'd never questioned where confectionaries came from when he'd lived up in the Towers... and he'd seldom seen confectionaries since the Towers' fall. Autobots drank simple energon for fuel. If Ratchet prescribed them some vial or packet from his medical dispensary (and glared), they'd sprinkle it obediently into their next energon ration and cross fingers that it wouldn't taste too awful. If they wanted to feel buzzed (which Mirage rarely understood) or half-dead-numb (which Mirage always understood) they drank engex mixtures concocted by the more adventurous chemists among them.

Hound's treats were something totally different from all that. They had form. They had beauty. They had artistry and creativity of flavor. How Hound constructed them was a mystery akin to magic, as far as Mirage was concerned. He had never thought to question the assumption that all food-prep was beneath him, so he'd never learned a thing about it. Now here he was in the thick of food-prep mayhem. Somehow, he'd assumed it would be... vastly more orderly than this.

Perhaps something had exploded. That would explain why Prowl had panicked. Coughing delicately on the unknown powder that hung glittering in the air (and fighting the urge to go invisible), Mirage stepped into the catastrophic unknown.

"Hound! Hound!" Prowl crouched beside the green Jeep lying sprawled out on the floor, scanning him rapidly for wounds. He couldn't see anything obviously wrong, but the Autobot was so covered in splashes of chemicals that Prowl worried he might miss an energon bleed amid all the other smears gunked into multicolored dust. "Hound!" he called again, desperately. This was a situation his tactical computer had no data for.

"Primus...!" Hound's lips moved in a whisper.

"No! Not Primus! Don't go to the Allspark yet! We need you here! No one else tracks or cooks as well as you do!"

Hound's optics came online. He rolled them. "Mech, your social skills are--" He turned his head. "Oh. Prowl?"

Prowl slumped in relief. "Your visual perception is accurate, at least. It's me."

Hound heaved himself up to a more nominally-sitting position, glared blearily at Prowl, and leaned against his spice-trailer. It rolled away from him. He slid back down onto the floor and lay there. "Why're you here?" he groaned. "I'm all out. Go get yourself a cube from the dispenser if you need fuel. I'm absolutely not making any more energon treats today. You can't make me."

Mirage stared down at the sprawled Autobot, appalled. "Are you hurt?" he demanded.

Hound looked up at the blue and white noble. "Hurt?" He blinked his optics, slowly and not quite in sync. "I'm not wounded or anything, if that's what you mean. If you're asking whether I am hurt that everybody ate the treats and left me to clean up the mess alone, then yes, I am a little hurt. But I will live. So if you'll both let me Primus-fragging rest a little longer, I'll start clearing up."

It was Mirage's turn to blink. He looked around the quote-unquote kitchen. He looked at Hound. He thought about the little perfect squares of iridescent color, and how he hadn't tasted anything so fine since long before the war. He looked down at his hands (still clean), and at his frame (also clean), then down at the crusted countertops and sticky floor. Mirage sighed deeply from his very soul. He squared his shoulders. Then he started gathering kitchen detritus that looked like it might have a use and separating it from mess that looked like it was maybe trash. 

Prowl was still gaping down at Hound, his whole frame taut. "You seem to be low on fuel," he observed, making it sound like an accusation. "But surely you must have eaten some treats as you worked. Why are you...?" 

Hound did not reply either to reassure him or negate.

Prowl grasped Hound's upper arms and shook him none-too-gently. "Hound! Tell me you at least saved yourself some treats for later!  The pyrite-sprinkled ones alone were--!" 

Hound just let his eyes go dark.

Prowl felt like he was going to cry. The tragedy of this situation -- the rank injustice of it -- was appalling. "Hound!" he begged. "Those treats were the best things I've ever eaten! Tell me you got to taste them!!"

A rasping chuckle rattled in the room like the last abortive gear-grind of death. Hound's chest shook. Then he slowly raised his head and met Prowl's blown-wide optics. He looked further up to where Mirage was gingerly carrying a sticky slicer between two fingers over to a bucket and then dropping it in with a shudder of disgust. Hound smiled. "I love you two weirdos so much right now," he declared. "Thank you for checking on me."

Prowl had not relaxed a micron. "Did. You. Get--"

Hound held up a hand to stop him. "Prowl. There's a tray of treats stashed in the cooler in the corner. I saved all the ones where I messed up on the decorating. There are plenty. I was going to enjoy them after cleaning up." He patted Prowl's arm. "Breathe, mech," he advised. "You're overheating."

Hound looked back up at Mirage. "A Tower-mech in my kitchen. Will wonders never cease."

Mirage glared down his nose. "Don't mock me."

"I'm not mocking! Cleaning up a kitchen is much harder than holding court or whatever!" Hound grimaced and tried again. "Be proud. You're doing something none of your lords would have dared. Thanks, Mirage. Really. I appreciate that you're getting your hands dirty. I just don't know how to tell you without sounding flip about it." Hound raised himself on an elbow and pointed to where a mass of plastic sheeting had been flung into a corner of the prep-space. "That's a poncho I made to keep energon out of my joints; but I forgot to wear it. You're welcome to use it. There are clean rags and a solvent-faucet on the end of my supply-trailer there. Wipe everything down and light the solvent; it'll do most of the work." He smiled gently. "You don't have to roll in all the stickiness to clean the kitchen."

Mirage looked at everything Hound indicated, visibly processed all the new tools and new information, looked at Hound for one last confirmation, and then nodded once like he was going to diffuse a bomb. He pulled the plastic poncho on over his head, wetted a cloth, and started wiping down the countertop.

Prowl had gotten up while the two other mechs were talking, and retrieved the saved treats from the cooling chest. He came back to where Hound lay, sat cross-legged on the floor, and pulled Hound into a more comfortable position with his head resting on Prowl's knee. He wiped his hands on a clean, solvent-dampened cloth, and lifted up a little blueish square with silver curls of soft aluminum on top. "These were my favorite," he said, bringing the treat to Hound's lips. "You truly possess a wonderful skill."

Hound smiled up at him, and took a bite.