kinkfest | Transformers G1 (Ratchet/Perceptor, Hook/Perceptor, Scavenger/Perceptor, Hook/Ratchet)

Title: Junkyard Wars
Author:

raisedbymoogles
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word count: 1489
Summary: Hook and Ratchet compete for the privilege of going home with Perceptor, who is Less Than Amused.
Prompt: Transformers, Hook, Perceptor, Ratchet: Perceptor as the prize in a competition - Do you think you'll be the guy/To make the king of the angels sigh?

Ratchet was barely gone five seconds before Hook slid easily into the seat he'd vacated, gazing over Perceptor coolly. The Autobots' chief scientist eyed him over his three-quarters-empty cube of energon like he expected Hook to attack, never mind that the bar had a very firm "no interfactional slag" policy in place and no one felt like testing the owner's patience. Besides, Hook wasn't overcharged enough yet to do much more than look.

Until Ratchet thundered over him, two fresh cubes in danger of being squeezed to death in his hands. "That's my seat."

Hook directed his gaze slowly upward, indolent and unconcerned. "That so." The Autobots' chief medic was practically smoking from the audials with rage and protectiveness, his stormy glower promising dire things if Hook didn't vacate his sight right slagging now. And the Constructicon hadn't even done anything yet.

Suddenly Perceptor became a lot more interesting.

Obstacle Prime was still looming over him, though, wielding his glare like a deadly weapon. "Yes, that's so," he growled. "That's my seat, and that's my drinking partner." He jerked his head at Perceptor, who was in the middle of performing an impressive "deer in the headlights" impression. "So you can just take your ugly green aft and clear out."

Oh, now that was getting personal. "Maybe you," Hook suggested, deadpan, "should go have a swim in a smelting pool. We were just getting to know each other when you showed up."

"We were?" Perceptor protested faintly. Both his suitors ignored him.

"You're a slate-handed hack," Ratchet rapped out, setting both cubes on the table, "and you couldn't treat Perce half as well as I can. Why don't you scurry back to your workshop? Maybe in a few millenia you'll have the chops to stand up to me."

Hook affected lazy unconcern, if only to take Ratchet by surprise when he swiped the nearest cube off the table. "And you're a miswired factory drone," he said, raising the cube in toast, "and your friend here would get a better surge out of ten minutes with me than he would in ten days with you." Hook drank the entire cube in one long, smug pull as Ratchet's optics flashed in wrath.

For a moment Hook thought the Autobot was going to haul off and hit him. Then a smile, ruthless and sharp, broke the fury in his expression. Snatching the other cube off the table (seconds away from Perceptor, who yelped a protest), he drank it down and slammed it on the table. "Junkyard Wars?"

Hook grinned. "Junkyard Wars."

"Kaon rules?"

"Kaon rules."

"Winner gets to take Percy home?"

"You're on." Hook stood and pitched his empty cube in the general direction of the bar. "Let's go."

"Do I get a say in this?" Perceptor demanded to his back. If Ratchet replied, Hook didn't catch it over the barflies' rumble of approval.

***

"It's Kaon rules," Scavenger explained animatedly, arm slung over Perceptor's shoulders. "You go to the nearest junkyard - nearest as the Seeker flies, not by over-ground commute - and you've got one hour to gather parts and two hours to build. Solo projects only, so Hook doesn't get any help from me. Then we mark out an arena and let their mad creations battle to the death!"

"It sounds fascinating," Perceptor said weakly.

The scientist would have preferred to lag behind the group of babbling mechs who'd followed them from the bar laughing and joking and already making bets, or even better to have not followed at all. Scavenger, however, was a rather hard person to say no to given his great strength and relentless cheeriness. Silently bemoaning his imminent fate, Perceptor allowed the Constructicon to drag him along by the neck at the forefront of the procession, just behind the two combatants.

Not, he qualified, that the view is all unpleasant. Ratchet was his established partner, and he had well proven his ability to activate Perceptor's pleasure centers in a most skilled manner time and time again. Hook was an unknown quantity - while not technically illegal, fraternization with Decepticons was severely frowned upon - but intelligence reports had his skills as a builder roughly on a level with Ratchet's, and he had a reputation for patience and a surgically precise intelligence. Both of them were built with function rather than aesthetics in mind, but Perceptor often found he preferred such builds to more classically beautiful individuals.

"Who do you think will win?" Perceptor asked his genial captor, then immediately wished he could take the question back. Of course Scavenger would support Hook, they were on the same gestalt team. It was almost an insult to suggest otherwise.

Scavenger, to Perceptor's surprise, only laughed and patted his shoulder. "I wouldn't dare to guess."

"I would have thought you'd support Hook..."

"Oh, I do." Scavenger grinned. "I'm just realistic about it. Your Ratchet is good."

"He is that," Perceptor admitted, with only a hint of a smile. But Hook is good too, he couldn't help thinking.

***

Spectators lined the junkpiles or perched on them in some cases, trading insults and bets with equal fervor, as Hook and Ratchet presented their creations to the crowd. Perceptor, afforded the place of honor on the highest junkpile - who knew honor was so precarious - couldn't help but think both of their entries rather shabby.

The small-minded might have even said hideous. Both battle-constructs were a nightmare of sparking wires and exposed circuitry on wheels, Ratchet's with two electrified prongs on the front, Hook's with a single massive claw. Perceptor eyed them worriedly as they were wheeled forth into the semi-cleared arena, unsure whether to fear them breaking down or working perfectly. And my immediate fate rests on those two monstrosities. Grand.

The referee, a primer-gray Neutral chosen by virtue of being just overcharged enough to be entertaining, gestured expansively to the crowd. "Honored guests of the Delerix Pan-District Junkyard and Bar!" he bellowed. "We are proud to present an epic battle for the ages - and for the company of a lovely tech - a Kaon-variant Junkyard Wars Battle!"

The cheers and catcalls of the crowd just about drowned out Perceptor's groan. "Combatants, salute the crowd!" the referee ordered. "Salute your opponent! And en garde!" He then wisely hightailed it out of the arena just ahead of a spark-streaked lunge from Ratchet's spitting monster.

Hook swore and drove his fighter to one side, letting the right prong score along the side armor of his machine rather than getting two electric prongs right in the vitals. "Went with the tank approach, I see," Ratchet shouted across the field.

"Always had more luck with it than the underarmored glitchmouse type you're using!" Hook roared back, and took the claw control. The claw rig snapped out, but Ratchet's fighter hurriedly reversed, kicking up a curtain of dust just ahead of that deadly crushing claw.

"That's the thing about glitchmice," Ratchet taunted, "they're faster than they look."

Hook swore and accelerated. "They still squash," he commented loudly as the fighter's claw reached out for its opponent's back bumper. "Just wait 'til it runs outta juice - hah!" The claw closed around the tread of a wheel; Ratchet's fighter shrieked against the ground.

"You slagging son of a glitch!" Ratchet bellowed, in the same tone that could make even the most belligerent patient cringe. "Just wait 'til I-"

His fighter shrieked again - a supersonic cry that spoke of internal damage, electricity jumping where it wasn't meant to jump - and exploded, taking Hook's masterwork halfway across the arena with force and shrapnel. Ratchet's jaw dropped and Hook dropped his controller as the spectators erupted in pandemonium.

"Um," the referee said, forgetting in his surprise to turn down his vocoder volume; his indecision echoed throughout the area. "So, just who won that?"

"Rematch!" someone called.

"Slag no," Ratchet roared back, "we'll be here all night!" But other spectators had taken up the cry, and the medic faltered for a moment.

Hook sauntered up to him, the shattered remains of his fighter hanging from one fist. "Why not let our prince decide, instead?"

Ratchet brightened. "Great! Hey, Perce-" His gaze swung up, to where Perceptor -

- wasn't. "Perce?" Ratchet called, scanning the surrounding junkpiles. "Perceptor?"

"Scavenger!?" Hook's voice rose to as close to a squeak as he ever got.

Ratchet followed his gaze just in time to spot Perceptor, his Perceptor for whom he'd just blown up half a junkyard arena, walking out the gate on the arm of Hook's teammate. Without pausing, Scavenger glanced over his shoulder to give them both the most smug look Ratchet had ever seen from someone with a mask.

"That slagger," Hook said, and his tone was almost admiring. "So what now?"

"What do you think?" Ratchet grumped. "I just lost my drinking partner to your teammate."

"Ah." Hook nodded wisely. "Comfort sex, then?"

"Thought you'd never ask."