Spike Witwicky should have known better than to think that nothing could surprise him any more. Since the arrival in his life of giant robots, giant evil robots, frequent space travel and girls who were better at maths than him, he had simply assumed that he could take whatever was thrown at him entirely in his stride.

He had, he now realised, been very, very wrong about this.

Two things had brought about this recent epiphany: number one, as it turned out, there really was a space virus for everything, up to and including turning robots into organic life forms. Number two was that the Decepticons had apparently discovered it.

If there was a third one, Spike reflected gloomily as he watched Thrust and Ramjet attempting to fathom the air conditioner remote control for the fifth time that day, it was that they really, really sucked at being human.

The Decepticons usually had a very simple standard operating procedure as far as dealing with medical emergencies went: one, kidnap Perceptor and/or Ratchet, two, make them fix whatever the problem was, and three, return them, if at all possible laying a trap for the Autobots in the process.

This avenue was, for obvious reasons, closed to them for the moment. Instead, Spike realised, they had settled on kidnapping him and attempting to force him to reveal the secrets of human society to them, so that they could manoeuvre unnoticed until such time as they regained their robotic forms.

If nothing else, Spike thought, at least the past few days hadn't been boring.

On day one, Megatron had forced him to come to the police station to explain to him what 'bail out' meant, and why he should do it for Thundercracker and Skywarp, who had been arrested, it seemed, for loitering, public drunkenness, throwing things off bridges, and taking Pizza Hut's all-you-can-eat buffet deal to inappropriate extremes, then headbutting the wait staff.

Day two, he had had to talk Dirge out of the bathroom, wherein he had locked himself with a packet of black hair dye and a Simple Plan CD, and from whence he was refusing to emerge.

Yesterday, while Spike was trying to teach the Decepticons how to use the stove, Megatron had (inadvertently, he said) set fire to Starscream's hair ("It's no use shouting at me," Megatron had bellowed as Starscream sprinted around the house, shrieking about having his revenge, "how was I supposed to know these accursed forms were flammable?").

Now, Spike thought, just when he had considered that things couldn't possibly get any worse, Starscream had started refusing to wear clothes. He and Megatron were currently in the middle of a blazing row about it.

"You heard what the flesh creature said," Megatron shouted, referring to Spike. "Clothes are necessary to operate undetected in human society. Until Shockwave contacts us with the antidote to this virus, you will do as I say and put some pants on."

Starscream, stark naked, looked defiantly at Megatron and put his hands on his hips. "I will do no such thing," he said. "They were impediment to my smooth functioning."

"You're an impediment to —" at that moment, Starscream bent over to get some cereal from under the sink. Megatron stopped shouting. A look of deep vexation worked its way slowly across his face. He looked down, then, suddenly, tore open his pants to look at the erection he was starting to develop.

"YOU!" Megatron shouted, swinging towards where Spike was tied to a chair in the middle of the loungeroom, and pointing to his crotch, "EXPLAIN THIS!"

Spike closed his eyes and whimpered softly, hoping with all the fervour he possessed that the Autobots would come and rescue him sometime within the next thirty seconds.

The end.