Oh! Look! Sequel!

I don't own any of the characters.

oOo

It was a fairly normal morning for Tracks. He was freshly waxed, waiting for his shift to start as he sat with Blaster in the Common Room, watching the red sip his fluorescent energon. Looking around the room, he saw many familiar faces doing much the same: the twins, Hound and Mirage, Arcee, various minibots, Hardhead and Blurr...

...wait a breem...

"Blaster?" he began slowly, suspicion just barely showing through in his voice and the faint glimmer of his optics.

"Hm?" his friend looked over.

"Have you noticed anything strange about those two lately?" a finger was pointed to where the tank and younger, blue mech sat at a table close to the door, just talking normally. As if it were normal for Blurr to let anyone else get a word in edgewise and for Hardhead to say anything at all other than the occasional one-word sentence or grunt.

Blaster stared for a few seconds then shrugged, turning his gaze back to Tracks. "Huh. Wouldn't've pegged those two as friends. It ain't any stranger than Hound and Raj over there bein' together, though. I'm more curious as t'why Arcee's in here without Springer."

Tracks huffed at that observation. Normally, he wouldn't have given a slag, but Blurr had been his roommate. And though the speedster had claimed that romance wasn't the reason for moving out, he couldn't help but wonder if this was maybe evidence to the contrary. And Tracks hated wondering anything. He either knew something or he didn't. Knowing there was something he didn't know was incredibly upsetting.

Meanwhile, over with Tracks' former roommate, all was absolutely, completely, mind-blowingly normal. Blurr loved this sheer sense of normalcy, that this was the way things were supposed to be. He hadn't felt that way in a long time. It felt nice now that he did feel it.

"You're quiet," Hardhead snapped him out of his thoughts. Blurr grinned.

"You'reloud," he replied, smiling brightly at the repaired blue visor. "Notthatthere'sanythingwrongwiththat. Ilikeyourvoice. No, Iloveit. Loveit, loveit, loveit. AslongashighgradeandJourneyaren'tinvolved."

Hardhead snorted in reply, trying his very best to remain neutral-faced. He didn't want Blurr to figure out yet.

"Hey, Hardhead?" the bright smile, that smile which had only recently began showing up, disappeared. "Areyoufeelingalright? You'reless... youthanusual..."

The tank sighed. How had the other figured out not all was well?

"What?" Blurr continued. "What? What? Thereissomethingwrongisn'tthere?! You'rehidingsomething! Iknewit, Iknewit, Iknewit! Tellmetellmetellme!"

The green mech merely stared until Blurr shut his mouth, looking at him nervously. Primus, why did he have to look at him like that? "I'm going to leave for an Earth-month..."

The blue gaped for a few moments, mouth moving up and down though no words came out, before finally, weakly, asking, "...what?"

Hardhead tightened his mouth in a thin line, not liking the way the other sounded, and de-subspaced a data pad that gave all the details. He really didn't feel like explaining. Blurr grabbed at it with his usual quickness, optics skimming the surface as he scrolled down.

"You'regoingbacktoCybertron?!" he finally blurted out.

"It's a standard mission. I'm not leaving forever."

The younger mech shifted uncomfortably, not looking his lover in the eye. "But..." He didn't want to sound too envious of his own home-planet, though secretly he was, and felt like an idiot for feeling that way. Logically, it made sense for Hardhead to go, if the mission was to eradicate Iacon of rogue Decepticons. After all, the tank was one of the best soldiers that the Autobots had. It was in his programming to be, after all.

Hardhead looked on stoically, watching the rapidly-changing shades of blue in his roommate's worried face as the thoughts cycled in the other's CPU. Then, suddenly, inevitably, the blue mech began rambling about all the possible things that could go wrong with the mission.

Among them were his possible death, as well as falling in love with some other mech while he was away from Autobot City on Earth. Blurr knew these claims were farfetched as much as Hardhead did, but that didn't stop him from voicing all his worries rapidly and loudly.

He was stopped mid-sentence by a flick on the forehead.

"None of that is going to happen. It's only a month."

"..." Blurr looked stunned as he tried to comprehend what had just happened. "...Ow! Whattheslagwasthat?! Primus, woulditkillyoutoputyourhandovermymouthorsomething?! Didyoureallyhavetodothat?! Owowowow!"

"Sparkling," the tank accused. His face and tone sounded serious, but Blurr knew he was teasing. Still, he glared at the tank for a few seconds anyway before softening his features.

"...I'mreallygonnamissyou."

Under the table, a green hand grabbed a white one and squeezed gently. The owner of that hand said with a rare softness, "I know, Blurr."

oOo

Hardhead wasn't gone five hours before that miserable expression started showing up on Blurr's face.

Arcee had grown so used to it not being there, that it was almost shocking that it had returned. Still, despite the fact that she and Springer couldn't begin to comprehend how the other felt about the situation, with his special circumstances to consider, they were doing their best to comfort the other.

"Don't be upset, Blurr," Arcee tried, softly, gingerly wrapping her arms around her friend's shoulders for, she realised, the first time. "Hardhead will be back."

"Iknowhe'llbeback! I'mnotanidiot!" Blurr snapped, then softened at the sight of the femme's surprised face. "Sorry, sorry..."

"No, I'm sorry. It was the wrong thing of me to say," the femme looked to Springer with a helpless look. When his reply was to nod at her words and then shrug, she glared. The exchange was short, but it made Blurr a little uncomfortable anyway. They hadn't touched, but he still felt like he shouldn't have seen that, like some sort of voyeur.

"You wanna talk about it?" the green triplechanger finally seemed to cave in under Arcee's glare. "What's so upsetting about it? You went without knowing the guy for vorns."

"That'sexactlywhat'ssoupsettingaboutit!" Blurr threw his hands up. "Iwasalonemywholelife, andevenafterImetHardheadIcouldn'ttouchhimuntilafewmonthsago! Doyouknowwhatit'sliketohavewantedsomethingyourwholelife, andthen, onceyougetit, tohaveitrippedawayfromyou!? GAH!"

"Yes," Arcee whispered at the same time Springer said, louder, "no."

oOo

It was later that evening when, in another room in another building in another sector in Autobot City, Rodimus Prime was doing standard paperwork. Or rather, he was trying very hard and failing to do aforementioned paperwork, unable to concentrate with his systems demanding recharge. It was times like this that he wished to be human, for his short foray into organic lifestyle had introduced him to a wondrous (if bad-tasting) object called coffee. If he were a human, able to get some of the stuff into his systems, he'd be able to stay awake long enough to get it all done.

He would have to have Perceptor look into that.

He was interrupted from such wandering thoughts by a light, raspy sound on his door. Not a knock; more of a soft scratch. He remembered similar noises when he was young, when he -

Rodimus shook the memory from his CPU. No sense dwelling in the past; it never helped with anything. He reached over to press a button protruding from the wall, opening the door to his quarters. Being the private area of the highest ranking Autobot official, the door was heavy and slow to open, but as soon as it was a flash of blue sped in.

"Blurr," he tried to mask his surprise.

"It'ssodarkinthehallsatthistimeofnight! EvenwithmyheadlightsIcan'tbesureifoneofthoseslaggingcassetticonsisrightinfrontofme, readytotryandkillme! Whyaren'ttherelightsinthehallsorsomething?!"

It took Rodimus a few seconds to work out what the blue mech had said before he asked, "what are you doing here?"

Blurr clamped his own mouth shut, looking at his feet uneasily before opening it again. "Uh, thatis, well..."

"Out with it, Blurr."

"...Iwaslonely..." the blue admitted, hesitating for a few seconds before continuing with, "Imean, uh, itjustgetstooquietinthere! Notthatit'snotquietanyway, butit'stoouncannytobeintherebymyself, Idon'tknowhowyoucanstandit, andit'ssocoldandlonelyand... and... You'retheleader! Surelyyouknowifthere'sanyoneIcanstaywithforafewweeks, right? Huh? AmIright?"

Rodimus didn't really know what to say. Quarters were tight as it was. Blaster had once had his own quarters, as he required more room for his cassettes, but he'd recently moved in with Tracks. Perceptor now shared a room connected to the Med Bay with his new apprentice, Brainstorm. And then there was Jazz, but somehow Rodimus knew that would be a bad idea. Poor Jazz just wasn't who he used to be, after all.

"I'm, uh, sorry, Blurr," he began, after a pause. "I don't think we have any rooms like that at the moment... Just empty ones..."

"Wait! I- Idon'twannabealone! Ican'tstandit; it'shorrible, horrible, horrible! Y-Youdon'thavearoommate, right? Right!?"

The Autobot leader was taken aback for a second, but it was obvious Blurr wasn't going to budge about this. The blue mech was stubborn. So Rodimus Prime stepped to the side to let him in.

"There's only one berth," he muttered, cursing this whole situation. He hadn't shared a berth with anyone since- No, this was no time for such thoughts!

"I'mnotgonnahurtyou," Blurr replied, more quietly than Rodimus had heard him speak in a long time. "Iwon'tevenhitonyou, orwhateveryou'renervousaboutmedoing. I'malreadyspokenfo-" suddenly, he clamped his mouth shut again, as if he'd said too much. Despite that, a little chuckle of nervousness managed to escape the blue's lips.

Rodimus realised at that moment that he hadn't really talked to Blurr since the change. "So you and Hardhead are..." he trailed off, using hand motions to finish the question.

The blue mech glared, sitting down on the berth. "Well, notatthisverysecond..."

"I should have known..."

"Whatisthatsupposedtomean?!"

"It's not like you to complain about the Cassetticons."

The blue gaped. Was Rodimus actually joking? Did he ever joke? Hadn't he always been serious and brooding since becoming Rodimus? He pushed such thoughts aside and regained enough dignity to admit, "ImisshimRodimus... Youhavenoideahowthatfeels..."

The Autobot leader lay on the berth next to his old friend, facing the wall. "Yes I do, Blurr."

-TBC-

I told you a sequel was in the works. Don't worry, Hardhead will be back next chapter. Thanks to the format I'm doing this story in, which is basically a series of firsts. Like their first separation, their first fight, yada yada. (And yes, for all you perverts, they'll eventually get a first interface. Like you didn't see it coming.) Also I started hinting at a couple very minor subplots, so look out for that. Uh, yeah.

Here's hoping this one matches up to the original.