#bluehound

As soon as Bluestreak had that thought, he cringed internally and offered up a silent prayer of apology. He knew that there were some things even Primus couldn't fix.

Bluestreak was completing his fourteenth visual sweep of the ruined street when Smokescreen reappeared in the doorway. "It's clear. C'mon," he said, and Bluestreak followed him inside.

Like most of the other stores they'd searched today, this one looked like it had already been looted of anything useful. But Bluestreak started opening cabinets and boxes anyway, hunting for anything they could take. "I don't think we're going to find anything here, Smokey," he said. "This is a waste of time." He knew he sounded petulant. He didn’t care anymore.

"Maybe there's something in the back," Smokescreen said. With a sigh, Bluestreak followed him through the doorway into the rear of the store.

As expected, there wasn't much in the back of the store, either. Bluestreak found a packet of rust crisps in the drawer of a desk, and Smokescreen found five small datapads. He pulled the battery cells from them and slipped those into his compartments. Then he jerked his head towards the back door. "Let's head back up the alley and see if there's any places we missed on this stretch."

He had just come through the door to the alley when Bluestreak saw it: a long black tentacle dangling from the sky above them. Reflexively, he swung his gun up and fired, severing the tentacle so that it fell onto the ground in front of them.

Dropping into a crouch, Bluestreak skittered back into the safety of the doorway, waving his gun back and forth above him, looking for the rest of the prosecutor. Or worse, rest of its argument. But all he could see above him were the bombed-out and crumbling towers that sat above the retail space.

"Where'd it go? Where'd it go?" Bluestreak hissed.

Something touched his shoulder. Bluestreak yelped and spun around. His finger twitched on the trigger, and fired before his processor even registered what he was shooting at...

Smokescreen.

Smokescreen's hand closed firmly around Bluestreak's wrist. "Maybe we're done for today," Smokescreen said quietly, and glanced at the hole in the wall right beside his head.

"Oh. Oh!" Bluestreak dropped his weapon, wincing again as it clattered to the ground. "Oh Primus Smokey, I'm so sorry!"

Smokescreen picked up Bluestreak's gun and tucked it into his compartments. "I'm fine," he said. He gave Bluestreak a smile, but this time it looked forced. "But we should go before someone – or something – comes to see what that noise was."

"The prosecutor!" Bluestreak whirled around again to look at the tentacle he'd just severed from the prosecutor.

Except there was no tentacle. Instead, a length of wires, wrapped with black insulation, lay on the alley floor. One end was torn and bent, obviously ripped from its connector, while the other end was smoking and melted from Bluestreak's blaster shot.

"I thought..." Bluestreak walked a step, then two, into the alley to nudge the cabling with the tip of his pede. "I thought it was..."

"I know. And I understand," Smokescreen said. He put his hand on Bluestreak's shoulder again, this time telegraphing his movements carefully. "It's starting to get late. Let's get back home."

***

Bluestreak sat with his back to a corner with his head buried in his arms. He hoped that if he made himself small enough, no one would notice him there. Inside his chest, it felt like his spark was singing a mournful dirge.

Everything was broken: his job, his life, his planet. Nothing was right. And nothing he did was making anything better.

Maybe he could just put himself into stasis. Someone could wake him up when the world had fixed itself again. But for now, he just wanted to be left alone.

At the sound of a pede scraping the ground purposefully, Bluestreak sighed. He should have known.

"Skyfall found three whole cases of Nukecool. I grabbed a bottle for us to share," said Smokescreen's voice.

"I don't want it."

A pause. "Are you sure? It's the good kind, with the red label. You always told me how much you really liked this flavour."

"You can have it."

Another pause. "Are you all right?"

Bluestreak's reply was sharper than he meant it to be, but who cared? Everything was broken. Maybe he could break his last remaining friendship, too. "No."

Smokescreen slid down the wall to sit next to Bluestreak, and set a bottle down beside him. Bluestreak didn't have to look up to know that Smokescreen was looking at him with that intent expression he always had when he was listening fully and attentively. "Did you want to talk about it?"

"You can't psychoanalyze me out of feeling like... this," Bluestreak said.

"No," said Smokescreen agreeably. "But I can still listen."

"What's the point of talking about how absolutely fracked we are?" Bluestreak lifted his head and looked up at the ceiling of the half-crumbled transport tunnel they were taking shelter in. He gestured with both of his hands, taking in the shadowy walls, the small piles of gathered supplies, and the groups of bots huddled here and there among the scavenged crates. "You've lived through the same things I have. The Quintessons arriving. The attack on the Senate. Praxus losing comms with the rest of the planet, then the invasion coming here, and-" Bluestreak's voice cut off in a warble of feedback, so he shook his head and looked at Smokescreen. He didn't care if his friend saw the streaks of coolant that had been running down his cheeks.

"I definitely remember," Smokescreen said quietly.

"Yeah." Bluestreak blinked several times, trying to clear the image of the Quintesson prosecutors' tentacles smashing through doors and windows of the shops on his street, and dragging out the people they found inside. Bluestreak could still hear the screams of those they took. He remembered watching Treadlight, the paint specialist across the street, get pulled into a prosecutor, shrieking in terror. He remembered scuttling from building to building, trying to avoid the squads of allicons roaming the city. He could still smell the acrid burnt metal of corpses who had been shot in the back as they ran. "And now... I almost killed the only friend of mine I know who's still alive."

"You didn't. I'm still here."

"But I could have! I almost did!" Bluestreak glared at Smokescreen. "So no. I am not 'all right.'"

Smokescreen was silent. When Bluestreak glanced away again, Smokescreen put his arm around Bluestreak's shoulders. "I am sorry. I didn't mean it like that. How about... Are you going to be all right for the moment? Right this second?"

Bluestreak grunted, realizing what Smokescreen was angling for. "Yeah. I guess. I'm not going to start screaming for the Quintessons to come finish us off, like Padlock did." He directed his glare at the ground in front of his pedetips, but leaned into Smokescreen's embrace. "I just feel useless like this, jumping at everything."

"You're not useless," Smokescreen said. "You're really observant. You're good at spotting things that others have missed. You're an excellent shot." When Bluestreak just grunted again, Smokescreen patted his shoulder. "And you're not the only one who's struggling." With his other hand, Smokescreen gestured at the other bots in the tunnel with them. "Everyone here is going through something. No one's been spared. So, you aren't alone in feeling like this."

Bluestreak looked around. Scattor was sitting with a group, but rocked back and forth muttering to himself. Evac stood by the tunnel entrance on guard duty, but flicked his rotors at every little sound. Windrazor sat alone like he always did, staring off into space just like he had ever since his spark resonant was killed. Every single bot in the shelter looked haunted in some way or another.

"I know," Bluestreak said with a sigh. "Thank you for that little reality check."

"Here," Smokescreen said, and handed Bluestreak the red bottle. "This might help, too."

Bluestreak accepted the bottle, and made a small sound of surprise. "It's cold!"

Smokescreen grinned. "Yeah. Glyph broke out some of the chill packs for this. I think it was worth it."

With a happy sound, Bluestreak took a big swig from the bottle. He savoured the familiar flavour, rolling it around in his intake. He sighed happily, then handed the bottle back to Smokescreen. "And what about you? How are you holding up?" When Smokescreen did not immediately reply, Bluestreak added, "You're always so... steady. And I really appreciate that. But you're struggling too, right?" Bluestreak waited while Smokescreen took a drink from the bottle. "But if you need to unload on me, you can."

Smokescreen tipped his head back and rested it on the wall behind him. "All I can think about is how nothing is ever going to be the same," he said. He stared up at the ceiling, expressionless. "Even if the Quints left tomorrow, so much is destroyed now. Buildings. The city. People. And who knows how bad things are outside of Praxus." He closed his optics. "It seems so unreal to me that just a few months ago, everything seemed normal. We knew that the Quints had arrived and there were some negotiations happening in Iacon, but... That was so far away. It was just news and politics. Who cared?" He opened his optics again and looked down at Bluestreak. "That last night, I dragged you out to that horrible movie-"

Bluestreak laughed at the memory. "That was really bad."

"I am sorry. Barricade suggested it. He said that his partner Prowl had really liked it. I should have known better than to trust his judgement about anything art related," Smokescreen said with a grin, then sobered again. "I wonder where they are. I hope they're both all right." He sighed, then continued. "After the movie, we went to The Rusty Strut for drinks, and I remember we got out of there way too late..."

"I was late opening my shop the next day," Bluestreak said.

"Like I said, way too late. And that morning there was news about the attacks in Iacon. Then something about the Senatorial Guard getting decimated. That afternoon, planetary-wide comms went down. And then that evening, just a few hours later..." He shook his head. "Like I said, I can't believe it's only been a few months."

Bluestreak shuddered, and Smokescreen fell silent.

After a few minutes, Smokescreen patted Bluestreak's shoulder again. "Did you want to sing a hymn together?" When Bluestreak sat up and stared at him in surprise, Smokescreen shrugged. "I hear you humming them sometimes, especially when you're feeling really stressed."

"A hymn?" Bluestreak narrowed his optics. "You don't have a religious circuit in your entire frame," he said.

"No. But you do. And if it'll help you feel better, I'm willing to give it a go. Who knows, maybe it'll help me relax, too," Smokescreen said. Then he smiled. "But be forewarned, I am a horrible singer."

With a quiet laugh, Bluestreak said, "That's all right. Primus doesn't care how good of a singer you are. He just cares what's in your spark." He thought for a moment, then said, "Do you know the words to Gather the Sparks? That's the one I think I hum the most."

"Nope," Smokescreen said. "But if you sing it through once, I'll join in the second time around."

***

Bluestreak did not know whether it was the bottle of his favourite drink, or singing a calming hymn, or talking with Smokescreen the previous night that had done the trick, but he definitely felt better in the morning.

Things still felt pretty dire, of course. The shared rations were still slim. Everyone still looked like they were on edge, except for Windrazor, who was still in shock after the loss of his spark resonant. At least Skyfall seemed to be able to get him to take some fuel once in a while.

But this morning, Bluestreak's spark felt lighter. The future didn't seem so dark, somehow. Even the colours of the early morning sky seemed more vivid.

The whole world felt more hopeful.

Smokescreen noticed Bluestreak's new attitude, of course. He had always been tuned into his friends' emotions like that. When Bluestreak didn't have a good explanation for why he was feeling better, Smokescreen shrugged. "I'm just glad to see you smiling again, a real smile this time," Smokescreen said, slapping his friend on the back. "I missed that."

Bluestreak ducked his head, but felt his smile broaden. "Me too."

They were just discussing where they should start their scavenging run for the day when Stakeout tore into the shelter, his tires sending up bits of glass and gravel as he braked.

"What's wrong?" Evac asked, his rotors flaring outwards. He peered down the tunnel. "Are you being chased? Is it Quintessons?"

"No!" Stakeout said, transforming. He looked... Well, he looked elated, an expression that Bluestreak hadn't seen the dour Enforcer wearing before this. "It's the army! They're here! They're setting up a triage center with fuel and doctors and shuttles and everything else in Lucent Plaza." He laughed. "I think we can finally get out of here!"

As excited voices rose around them, Smokescreen spoke over the noise. "Wait... What army? Last we heard the Senatorial Guard got wiped out, and we all saw what happened to the Civil Defense here. Who is actually down in the plaza?"

Stakeout shook his head. "I don't know. The livery on the shuttles is all different. Some of them have Senatorial Guard emblems, some have Vosian insignia, and I saw at least one with a mining company logo. But I saw the people myself, and they're Cybertronians, not Quints."

Smokescreen pulled Bluestreak aside while Evac and the others started making plans to get everyone to the plaza. "Maybe I've just been too stressed for too long, but..." He sighed, a frown twisting the corners of his mouth downwards.

Bluestreak felt the same excitement in his spark that the others in their hideout were expressing, but Smokescreen's frown tempered his reply. "What is it? Do you think that the Quintessons might be using Cybertronians to lure people in just to capture them?" Bluestreak asked.

"Something like that," Smokescreen said with a small smile. "Am I being too paranoid?"

"Maybe a little. Usually being paranoid my job," Bluestreak said, returning Smokescreen's smile. Bluestreak flicked his wings. "But to be safe, let's not go rushing down there. Let's go scope it out first, and then we can decide what to do."

The drive to the plaza was mostly clear, although they needed to detour around two destroyed bridges. They approached from the east, circling to the top of the Torus Bridge that overlooked the plaza.

Even though Bluestreak had felt more and more happy as they'd gotten closer to the plaza, he paused at the top of the bridge and scanned the horizon carefully. Even bombed out like they were, the tall towers of Praxus could still be hiding any number of the smaller ships that the Quintessons used. But the two larger ships, the ones that had hung in the air like coiled razorsnakes over the city for months, were nowhere to be seen.

Bluestreak's elation ratcheted upwards once more.

In the large plaza below them, a dozen shuttles were parked, with bots streaming into the plaza from all directions. It looked like organized chaos, with some bots directing weary Praxian residents where to go, while others helped bots form neat queues in front of various tables. Obviously injured bots were being escorted to one of the ships, while more bots circulated handing out what looked like energon cubes.

All Bluestreak could feel now was an insistent urge to be down there, in the plaza. It felt like an almost visceral pull on his spark.

Smokescreen's sensor wings tipped upwards. "Is it me, or do a lot of the bots down there have the Prime's insignia on their shoulders?"

Bluestreak squinted, then gasped when he confirmed what Smokescreen had seen. "They are! It's the Wing of the Prime! And can see a few Hand members, as well."

"I thought the Hand of the Prime was just... I dunno, protection from paparazzi," Smokescreen said. "And the Wing is just clerics and curates. The Prime is just a religious leader. He doesn't have an army."

"Well, yeah. But maybe they've been, I dunno, training for something like this." Bluestreak gestured at the motley array of vehicles in the plaza. "And they obviously have some help, right?" His wings quivered behind him as he peered at Smokescreen. "Do you believe now that they aren't really Quintessons trying to trick us into getting ourselves captured?"

"Yeah. I believe it now." Smokescreen backed away from the edge of the bridge. "And I can practically feel you vibrating with excitement. Let's get you down there before you blow a relay," he added with a laugh.

The pull on Bluestreak's spark got even more insistent when they entered the plaza. A red-plated truck waved them down at the perimeter path. "Do you need medical care, or fuel?" he asked. His shoulders bore the insignia of the Prime's Hand.

"No. We're fine, thankfully," Smokescreen said. "Honestly we're just looking to get out of here." He glanced skyward. "Are the Quints really gone?"

The red bot gave a half shrug. "They peeled out of here about a week and a half ago. No idea why. We waited to make sure they were really gone before moving in." He gestured at the ships. "As soon as we were sure, the Prime gave us orders to get as many people to safety as we can. If there are more here than we can carry, we'll call for more ships. But we will get everyone who wants to leave out."

"Where to?" Smokescreen asked.

"We've got a couple of bases set up, places where we can regroup and figure out how to fight back." The red-plated guard pulled himself to his full height. "We're gonna take Cybertron back from those squidbrains, one way or another."

Bluestreak listened to the exchange impatiently, scanning the crowd behind the Prime's guard. He didn't want to leave, not yet. What he wanted to do was drive through the crowd. He wanted to see all the people here.

...Which was weird. Bluestreak normally hated crowds. As Smokescreen thanked the guard, Bluestreak shook his head to clear that thought. Seeing everyone here was more important than his dislike of crowds.

The moment Smokescreen turned away from the guard, Bluestreak grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, into the crowd.

"Whoa, Blue, where are we going?" Smokescreen asked. "The bot back there said that the signups for an evacuation flight are over that way."

"I want to go this way," Bluestreak said, his optics scanning bots they passed. He wasn't sure what - or who - he was looking for. All he knew was that he'd know them when he saw them.

Smokescreen laughed. "You're acting like you found your spark resonant or something."

Bluestreak barely even heard Smokescreen as he wove around groups of bots, tables of supplies, and ramps of shuttles. He knew that this was the direction he needed to go in to find...

...? What was he looking for?

Bluestreak slowed as they circled around the landing gear of a squat, utilitarian transport. As they came out the other side, his optics landed on a boxy green truck. The truck was helping a blue Vosian load boxes into the bed of a hauler.

When he stopped and looked up, the truck's gaze met Bluestreak's immediately.

He had the bluest optics Bluestreak had ever seen. And when he smiled, Bluestreak's processor could only catalogue the way it made the truck's optics crinkle up at the corners, and how kind it made him look, and how much Bluestreak wanted to have that smile directed at him forever and ever.

Bluestreak was suddenly standing in front of the green bot. He didn't remember walking over to him.

Smokescreen was talking to someone behind him. "I'm sorry, I know we're probably not supposed to be back here, but my friend-"

"I'm sure we can help you out," said another voice. "And I think I know what's going on." Bluestreak assumed it was the Vosian talking. But that wasn't important now.

"I know you, I think," the green bot said. His voice thrilled Bluestreak's audials, as though he'd always wanted to hear this voice in particular. The green bot held out his hand, and Bluestreak reflexively reached out his own. "I'm-"

Their hands touched.

As soon as their fingers made contact, something surged inside Bluestreak's spark. The excited twirl that his spark had been doing all morning suddenly swirled into a dance, weaving a complex design with another, matched spark. From that dance rose a song, a joyful anthem of celebration. And for each note that Bluestreak's spark sang, the harmony was sung by its mate.

"Oh," said the green bot softly. His smile grew, as did the brightness of his optics.

That single word sent Bluestreak's spark into another burst of radiant joy.

Smokescreen was saying something, but Bluestreak wasn't listening. He wanted the green mech to speak again.

"I'm Bluestreak," he said.

"Hound," said the green bot, his optics not leaving Bluestreak's. "I'm Hound."

"I'm so happy I found you," Bluestreak said, but those words didn't feel adequate to describe how he was actually feeling: the rapturous elation of finally finding what he didn't know he was missing his whole life.

"Same. Yeah, I feel the same," Hound said. "All morning I've been... I mean, I felt something that..." Bluestreak could feel him – his name was Hound! – fumbling for words, and he felt a surge of sympathy for him.

"Did you seriously just find out you have a resonant?" Smokescreen said. With an effort, Bluestreak peeled his gaze away from Hound to look at his friend. Smokescreen was smiling and shaking his head. "Only you would discover your sparkmate in the middle of a warzone."

The blue Vosian touched Smokescreen's shoulder. "Let's give them a little while to get acquainted," he said, and he winked at Hound.

"Thanks, Thundercracker," Hound said, not looking away from Bluestreak for a moment.

Bluestreak looked back at Hound, and was lost in his optics once more.

***

"You mentioned you had a shop here. What did you sell?"

"I'm a glass smith, and I sold the art I made, along with some other stuff."

"Art? Like what?"

"Oh, mostly glass pieces for decoration. You know, stuff like sparklers and window spinners, but I also did a lot of custom works for bots to have installed. Have you see those taillights some people have, with the internal prisims? I made those first, before they got really popular."

"Those were yours? That's amazing! They look so neat!"

"Thanks! I was pretty proud of them," Bluestreak said, and shifted closer to Hound. He was finally able to look away from his spark mate (wow, what a weird thing to think, that he had an actual spark resonant) at the bustle of bots working around them. After recovering from the initial shock of discovering each other, both Bluestreak and Hound wanted to help unload supplies or organize the medical queues – something to help the effort. But Smokescreen and Thundercracker (the Vosian who had been working with Hound) told them to sit and take a little time to get to know each other better, and Smokescreen offered to take Hound's place for a while. Neither Bluestreak nor Hound argued too loudly about that, since getting to work meant not touching each other.

Hound turned and looked at Bluestreak again. Every time he did that, he looked as though he was surprised to see him sitting there. "So, did you ever think you might have a resonant?" Hound asked.

"Sure, I thought about it," Bluestreak said. "Who hasn't? I've seen the same romances as everyone else. It's appealing, thinking you might have someone out there who's your perfect match." He rubbed his hand up Hound's arm, feeling the slight texture in his matte finish. They hadn't stopped touching each other ever since their first meeting; there was something about keeping that contact that made Bluestreak's spark sing even louder. He leaned into Hound's side as he kicked his pedes back and forth over the edge of the crate they were sitting on. "But resonants are so rare and so... I dunno, almost mythical, something that happened to other people, that it was more of a fun fantasy than thinking I might actually have one. Of course, I did eventually make a trip down to Greater Monoplex, just to see if I could feel anything. But aside from the excitement of being on a trip to a place I'd never been, I didn't feel anything odd. Maybe we just didn't get close enough or something."

Hound listened patiently as Bluestreak rambled on, waiting until Bluestreak finished before replying. "When did you go to Monoplex?"

"Oh... It must have been about thirty or forty quartexes ago." Bluestreak smiled. "I needed to save up for the trip."

"I was called to serve Primus about seventy quartexes ago. That was in Sentinel Prime's service, of course," Hound said. Hound's fingers curled around and under and through Bluestreak's as he talked, tangling and untangling their fingers over and over, just like he'd been doing since they first sat down. Hound smiled and shrugged. "I wanted to come to Praxus, eventually, just to see, but... Other things seemed to be more important. And like you said, resonants are so rare. I never once thought that I might actually have one."

"We were both so wrong," Bluestreak said. He flicked his sensor wings upwards as he added, "And hey, if you're in the Wing, just think! Since you've got a resonant, you might be the next Prime, and I could be your Protector!"  But as soon as the words left Bluestreak's vocalizer, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. Even if he couldn't have sensed the horror and distress and do not want he was feeling from Hound's spark, the expression on Hound's face would have made him back up immediately. "Oh, Hound, it's just a joke. I'm joking! I'm sorry," he said, squeezing Hound's arm tighter. "I wouldn't know the first thing about being a Protector."

Hound nodded and relaxed, both in body and spark. "I can feel that now," Hound said. He smiled. "This is going to take some getting used to, especially as we get to know each other." He started twining his fingers around Bluestreak's again: over, under, through. "But I have no doubts about your ability to be a Protector. It's the thought of losing the current Prime that made me..." He shuddered in Bluestreak's embrace.

"Have you met him?" Bluestreak asked quietly. He remembered seeing the ceremonies and celebrations when the new Prime was selected by the Matrix. When Hound nodded, Bluestreak asked, "What's he like?"

"He is kind, and intelligent, and thoughtful," Hound said. "When you talk to him, you can tell that he really cares about every single bot on this planet, whether they believe he is the voice of Primus or not." Hound looked around the plaza and at all of the bots there: those of the Prime's Hand and Wing, and the survivors they had come to help. "This was all his doing. He wanted to make sure we rescued as many bots as possible from places where the Quintessons have been. Without his leadership, pulling together disparate forces from all over the planet, none of this would have happened."

"I hope I get to meet him some day," Bluestreak said.

Hound smiled at him, sending another swirl of joy through Bluestreak's spark. "Well, I'll need to report back to the Master of Songs when we return to Tyger Pax," Hound said. "After that, if you stick with me, I can definitely introduce you to Megatronus Prime."

Bluestreak leaned his head on Hound's shoulder, watching the bustling around them. "I'd like that," he said. "And I have every intention of staying by your side for as long as I live, now that I finally met you."

"Nothing would make me happier," Hound said softly.

THE END