Disclaimer: Not mine, obviously. I'm not connected to Hasbro or Takara in any way.

Just a note: I've seen other people on here writing "28 fill-in-character's-name-here" things and I wanted to do one for Wheeljack, who needs the love. But I'm a rank amateur, and have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what the prompts are. The only ones I remembered from here are "book-reading", and "drunk", so those are the ones I'm writing first. If anyone actually reads this and has some prompt ideas, I'm listening. Thanks!

Sparkplug walked into Wheeljack's lab, feeling in a particularly good mood. The Decepticons hadn't pulled anything for a few weeks now--which probably meant a big push from them sooner or later. But for now, it also meant that Sparkplug got to spend all his off hours helping out his friend on various fun and interesting projects. Usually Wheeljack was pressured to work on increasingly more exotic and deadly weaponry (which the mech didn't mind much, truth be told), but whenever the heavy explosives came out, Wheeljack forbade Sparkplug from participating.

Most 'bots would joke that Wheeljack was completely reckless and insane, with little regard for his own safety. But Sparkplug knew his friend better than most. He understood that with Wheeljack, everyone else's safety was of paramount importance, and Wheeljack always put everyone's well being before his own. Therefore, if something was likely to go boom in a spectacular way, Sparkplug (or anyone else, for that matter) didn't get to play along. But with a bit of peace for a change, Wheeljack's busy CPU turned to more 'tame' gadgets. Well, relatively speaking, anyway.

"So, what are we working on today?" Sparkplug asked cheerfully. He had missed his friend.

Wheeljack was sitting at a long workbench, doing some delicate work on a small metallic device as it hummed faintly. At the same time, he was writing something down on a datapad, occasionally tapping the stylus against the lower part of his helm in thought before rapidly inscribing more complex runes and equations. He didn't answer, being completely absorbed in his work.

Sparkplug was used to having to get Wheeljack's attention. "Say, that's pretty lucky there, the way you can work so easily with both hands. Me, I'm right-handed. Couldn't do complicated work and write at the same time to save my life," Sparkplug declared.

Wheeljack finally noticed Sparkplug's arrival and looked up. "Huh?" he asked blankly, his vocal indicators flashing surprise.

Sparkplug chuckled. "Never mind, buddy," he quickly changed the subject. "Is that the thing we'll be working on?" Sparkplug pointed at the small u.f.o.-looking widget under Wheeljack's left hand.

"This? Nah. This is just a little somethin' I was modifying while waiting for you to show up. I've got some rough schematics for today's project over there," Wheeljack said, gesturing at a datapad lying across from him on the workbench. "You can take a look at 'em while I finish up. It won't take me but an astrotick."

"Sounds great," Sparkplug responded, climbing up into the chair Wheeljack had modified for him. He pulled the 'pad toward himself and activated the touch screen. "Huh. Looks like it's in Cybertronian," Sparkplug said, frowning. The other odd thing about it was, the runes definitely did not look like Wheeljack's handwriting. Having read it often enough, through casual notes to elaborate plans, Sparkplug thought that he was pretty good at spotting it.

"Oh yeah, sorry 'bout that. Just tap the lower right-hand corner twice and it should come up in English. I wrote it out both ways," Wheeljack explained.

"Thanks," Sparkplug answered. He tapped the screen twice, and then he waited a moment or two. Nothing happened. "Uh, it's not working. Are you sure you translated this?" Sparkplug asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Lemme see it," Wheeljack said. He reached out to Sparkplug with a large gray hand, still gently fiddling with the inner circuitry of his invention with his other extremity. He picked up the datapad and read it for a few moments. "Oh, heh. This is one o' my...I guess you'd call 'em 'books'. I was reading it earlier while taking an energon break."

Wheeljack put the 'book' away in a drawer of the workbench. "Now I know that I left the schematics out for you...ah. Here it is!" Wheeljack exclaimed in triumph. "There ya go. It's all yours." He carefully placed the 'pad in front of Sparkplug.

Before he started to read, Sparkplug looked up at his friend. "So hey, Wheeljack? You like to read then?" Sparkplug inquired conversationally.

"Oh yeah, sure. All the time," Wheeljack replied absently, carefully connecting two extremely fine wires together.

"Great! So do I. What was that book about?" Sparkplug asked, tapping the new datapad twice. True to Wheeljack's word, the screen came up in English.

"Quantum mechanics," Wheeljack said, re-routing some connectors with what looked to Sparkplug's vision like a pair of small tweezers.

"Huh," Sparkplug responded, nonplussed. "Oookay. Just a bit of light reading, eh?"

"Yep," Wheeljack answered cheerfully. Apparently he completely missed the sarcasm in Sparkplug's voice.

Sparkplug shook his head, smiling faintly. Sometimes the gap between their two cultures yawned wide. But then again, he was sure that Spike had told him about how Bumblebee had shown his son the Cybertronian equivalent of comic books. Spike had been pretty excited to find that he shared yet another thing in common with his friend. So there had to be some form of recreational writing on the Autobots' home planet. Huh.

Dismissing it for the moment, Sparkplug began to look over the rough schematics. Now there it was! Wheeljack's familiar, meticulously precise, and blocky handwriting. Interspersed between the tidy paragraphs of notations (which were written out in all caps) were drawings. Each was carefully measured and rendered with equal precision. In the middle of each straight line, a number was inscribed, every eight or two or whatever exactly like the next.

The mechanic chuckled to himself. Sparkplug recognized the style. There was a certain universal standard of drawing up blueprints which engineers on Earth were taught. It enabled each person to read another's plans with ease. If someone misinterpreted someone else's plans and acted on them incorrectly, it could spell disaster. Apparently Cybertronian engineers were no different, and Wheeljack then carried out that type of writing in everything he did. Sparkplug appreciated it every time Wheeljack left a note for him, letting him know what Wheeljack had in mind for the day.

Quickly scanning through the rest of the document, Sparkplug noticed another familiar bit of scribbling written off to the side. Ratchet must have looked over the notes at some point too; no one else Sparkplug knew wrote with such an illegible scrawl. He squinted at it, barely making out what looked like, 'So no big explosions this time, Jack? Are you sure you don't want to increase the power input on this? Nothing would make my day brighter than to have to piece you back together yet again.' That was Ratchet all right, with his twisted sense of humor and his terrible doctor's handwriting. He must be keeping up his English writing practice. Some 'bots were more fluent in it than others.

"Ah ha! That should do it!" Wheeljack declared, his vocal indicators flashing a brilliant blue as he spoke. Wheeljack went and deliberately placed his creation in a carefully labeled drawer.

Despite his reputation for absolute disorder, Wheeljack's workspace was actually the complete opposite. At first glance, a mech who didn't know any better would think that the huge amount of stuff crowding the lab was a sign of filth and chaos. Yet Wheeljack not only knew where everything was and kept everything relatively clean (in between massive explosions, that is), but anyone else who was remotely familiar with his system would be able to find everything as well. Each part was neatly organized in its own spot. The problem was, there was so much of it. Wheeljack never threw anything out, claiming that one never knew when something might prove useful.

Wheeljack leaned over the table, his helm resting in one metal palm. "So, what'd ya think? Any good?" he asked.

"I think it's terrific! We should have some real fun with this," Sparkplug assured him. Speaking of fun... "About that book. You got any more lying around here?" he casually inquired. Surely Wheeljack didn't just read scientific text books for fun.

"Sure, though I don't keep most of them in my lab. Hey, that reminds me. There's somethin' I wanna show ya. I've been reading your Earth books too," Wheeljack said with obvious pride. "But they're a bit difficult to handle, being so small and all. So I made this device that can scan the books and put 'em into something a little easier for me to carry around."

"Let's see it," Sparkplug said, curious.

The engineer turned and retrieved something that vaguely resembled a smoothed and flattened clam shell. It was white and rectangular, with a hinge on one side, and a sliding panel on another. Wheeljack opened it to reveal a screen on one side of the inner flat clam shell, and some buttons on the other. He tapped some keys and the screen came to life.

While Sparkplug read the large screen, Wheeljack set a stack of hardback books down next to him. They truly did look minuscule in the 'bot's hands. The human did a double take. He couldn't believe it. Astrophysics, civil engineering, advanced calculus, texts on stellar phenomena...geez, what was this guy's problem? Wheeljack was the best friend a guy could ask for, but this was just...wrong. On the screen was more of the same. Quantum theory or some such nonsense. No wonder he and Chip got on so well.

"Errr, Wheeljack? This is what you read in your spare time?" Sparkplug gestured to the pile next to him. His distaste must have come through in his voice, because Wheeljack narrowed his optics thoughtfully.

"Um, yeah. Why? What's wrong with 'em?" Wheeljack's helm fins blinked an intense white in confusion in time with his words.

"This," Sparkplug repeated with emphasis, hitting the stack of books, "is what you read for pleasure?" His voice sounded incredulous.

"Yes," Wheeljack answered slowly and clearly, just a bit annoyed, "I thought I already said that. I enjoy them. So what's the issue here?"

Sparkplug sighed. "Lemme see if I can explain. I raised Spike on my own when things didn't work out with his mom. After holding down a job, helping him with his homework, and taking him around to all his activities, there wasn't much time for myself. So the last thing I wanted to do was relax with a book that involved more work. Ya get it?"

White light lit up the sides of Wheeljack's cranium once more. "...No."

"Look. Sometimes ya just gotta shut off your brain, or, uh, central processor--what-have-you, and just do something mindless for fun. Your problem is, ya think too much buddy," Sparkplug stated.

"But there's those horror movies that I pick up on Teletran 1," Wheeljack defended himself. "I like those, and Ratchet always says they're stupid."

Sparkplug laughed. "Yeah, but you spend most of your time pointing out all the flaws in the production values and how you could do it better!"

"Well," Wheeljack replied sheepishly, his vocal indicators glowing a pale pink in embarrassment, "that blood did look pretty fake. I know I could fabricate somethin' a little more realistic. And those wires holdin' up the vampire were really obvious."

"Tell you what. I'll let you borrow some of my books, okay? I like to read crime novels and science fiction mostly. They're lots of fun," Sparkplug offered.

"Science fiction?" Wheeljack questioned.

"Yeah, it's mostly fantasy-type stuff. What things might be like in the future, or what humans think life might be like on other planets. I think you'll get a real kick outta what the writers imagine aliens must be like, seeing as how you've met the real thing," Sparkplug said.

"I am the real thing!" Wheeljack joked. They laughed, and Sparkplug wondered if he dared to start Wheeljack off with I, Robot.

-END-

My first attempt at this. Pretty awful, eh?