The Things You Learn To Forget

[stainless]

Title: The Things You Learn To Forget
Characters: Soundwave, unnamed human boy, various other humans, the Seekers
Verse: G1
Wordcount: 1,465+
Rating: PG for some non-explicit violence
Warnings: Some non-explicit violence. And it's rather sad.
Summary: When Soundwave, stuck in his tape-deck alt mode, is found by a human boy, he spends a day far from his kind and far from the war. But nothing remains untouched by that war for long, and there is no room in the Decepticon army for sympathy for an ally of his enemies.

Written for this month's challenge at crimson_optics, for the prompt "The Things You Learn To Forget."

Thanks to meaisin_caoin for beta.

Soundwave sat on the human boy's shelf. It wasn't the first time that his disguise had done its job. It wasn't the first time that a young human had mistaken him for an especially desirable "boom box" and made off with him.

It was, however, the first time he'd been stuck that way. Night had long since fallen, and he'd been here too long already. The young human who'd found him had carried him far from the area he'd been assigned to research, traveling by bicycle to a neighborhood untouched by his kind and their war. There were no secrets to gather in a small human town that figured that stories about giant robots were rumors, far too strange to be true.

Still, it didn't bother him much that he couldn't leave. He'd managed to get a short message out through his damaged comm link a few hours ago, and knew that the others were on their way. He was nothing if not patient, and there was nothing else he could do until the other Decepticons arrived to retrieve him and repair his malfunctioning transformation circuits.

It would not go well for these humans when the others arrived. It was the Autobots' fault that his transformation relays were not functioning. These humans had nothing to do with any of it. Even knowing that, however, Megatron would not take kindly to humans attempting to "keep" his communications officer for their own petty entertainment.

His reel spun, its faint, dejected hiss the only sound that came from the Decepticon on the shelf. Soundwave was thinking, not playing music, and he had to be careful not to wake the human boy recharging in his bed on the other side of the room.

As strange as it was to admit, his time with these humans had been... pleasant. The boy had brought him to his home, yelling excitedly about his find. The other young humans, boys and girls, had gathered around, chittering in their high-pitched immature-human voices, gleeful at the sight of "the boom box" despite Soundwave's damaged frame.

They had expected music, so he had obliged, playing songs that his datafiles told him that young humans would enjoy. They had danced, their strange organic limbs flailing in an oddly pleasing rhythm, and said over and over in odd, illogical human slang that they approved very much of their friend's discovery.

His discoverer's creators had emerged from their dwelling, surprised. At first they had insisted that the boy locate whoever had misplaced Soundwave and return him.

Soundwave laughed rarely, and in his current form he was not capable of doing so anyway. Still, he might have, if he could. Immature human confronting Megatron: amusing.

Eventually, with enough wheedling from the human boy, and a few songs Soundwave had determined would be particularly persuasive to the adult humans -- "catchy," they called it, for some reason he could not deduce now -- the boy's creators had reluctantly relented. Soundwave had increased the music's volume, and the adult humans had joined in, dancing along with their offspring. Hearing the music, others had peeked out of their doorways, and soon it seemed the entire small neighborhood was joining in the fun. Everywhere Soundwave's optic sensors could detect, the small aliens writhed and shouted and mimicked the music he played, most of them quite poorly.

Still, their mirth was infectious, especially to a mech with telepathic abilities. Everywhere around him, their glee floated, noisy and raucous. Perhaps it should have irritated him, but somehow it did not. If one of the humans sang especially poorly, he simply increased the volume again. Which was its own reward, sending new waves of euphoria through the crowd.

Of course, Soundwave had not forgotten his duties. He was not Rumble or Frenzy, easily distracted by a celebration. He was third-in-command of the Decepticons, and would be missed. He had far more important things to do than provide the entertainment for inferior life-forms' parties. As the songs he had selected played, he'd worked tirelessly on getting a distress call through his damaged comm link. When he'd finally succeeded, he'd been so pleased to detect a Decepticon signal on the other end that he'd almost forgotten himself. The music had stopped, startling and irritating the humans. He had quickly rectified the problem, making the playback stutter so that it would seem that some small error had occurred, but after that he had been careful.

Their party had lasted the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. After that, they had gradually dispersed. To refuel, he assumed. It was, he knew, a human custom to do so several times a day. Some had returned afterward, and some had carried their fuel out with them and ingested it and then resumed their dance, but some had not. From then on they had slowly dispersed, exhaustion and satiation traveling from one to the next as though they shared minds in a way he'd always assumed humans could not.

The boy had waited to refuel until the party ended, perhaps afraid someone in the crowd might steal Soundwave. He'd taken the Decepticon inside, attempting crudely to clean him and wondering aloud how to repair the many scratches and nicks that the battle with the Autobots had left on his frame. He had placed Soundwave almost reverently on the shelf before leaving to refuel, and come back some time after that for recharge.

"This was the best day ever," he'd said, running his hands almost lovingly over Soundwave's pitted frame before lying down on his berth, covering himself with soft cloths (for warmth, Soundwave assumed; humans were remarkably intolerant of temperature variations), and falling into a surprisingly noisy recharge.

Soundwave, for his part, waited.

For many hours, he heard nothing but this planet's noises: the boy's snores, the chirping of small insects, the wind. Then he heard a roar overhead, and knew the others had come for him.

The wave of panic came before he thought to shield himself from receiving it. Jolted out of recharge by the noise, the humans fumbled awake, some surprised, some annoyed. Most, however, were frightened: deep, consuming panic. He heard someone, crying out into the night.

"Look! Look! Jets! Those people in the cities --"

"-- they were right --"

"-- those things, those things are real --"

"-- they're here. What are they doing here? What did we ever do? What do they want with us? For God's sake --"

"-- we're nobody! We're nobody. Oh God, oh God, what did we ever do --"

The human boy's parents called for him, terror laced through their vocalizations. Soundwave's spark lurched as the boy, suddenly awake, called back to them, his voice quavering. Fear lent the boy speed as he rushed out of the room, desperate for his creators, needing the protection they offered. But they too were human: organic, small, vulnerable. Not even built of metal. Whatever protection they could offer their offspring would be paltry indeed.

Soundwave concentrated, willing his whirling spark to calm itself. He had called for the others, and they had come. That was all.

Aliens: inferior. Fate of community: irrelevant. He repeated it to himself again and again, a reminder of what he was. These creatures were in league with his enemies. These creatures only desired him as a possession that brought them amusement. It was Megatron's right to destroy them for their arrogance, should he choose to.

Small already from being stuck in this mode, he willed himself to be smaller still. He willed his spark to draw tight inside himself, to pull away from the primitive, alien minds, from the terror grabbing at him, pulling him along with it.

The sky rained lavender fire, unnatural and unforgiving. Through the human boy's window, Soundwave saw flame. He heard the aliens' screams, a cacophony of cries, agony speeding from mind to mind as joy had mere hours before.

But he could not feel it. Not now. His attempt to seal himself off from the aliens' minds had been entirely successful. He was himself again, albeit still stuck in a disadvantageous physical form. He could no longer sense their panic, no longer feel their fear as though it were his own.

Hearing a cry he recognized and seeing the boy, his boy, the one who'd taken him and brought him here and tried to claim him, huddled in his creators' arms as the Seekers landed just outside the window and tore through the wall, reaching for him, his spark twinged one last time with regret.

Then, slowly, it stilled, calm suffusing his processor as the Seekers transformed and rocketed skyward, Soundwave safely ensconced in Starscream's cockpit.

Far below them, everything burned.

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

Ooooooooh...

Yeah.

I... Soundwave...

I really, really like this.

[stainless]

Thank you.

[caiusmajor]

Oh, wow.

Yeah, between Soundwave's alt and his telepathy, he's got to maintain quite a strong degree of reserve to keep from turning into Blaster, poor guy.

(And poor humans.)

[stainless]

Eeeek. I should hope he'd never quite turn into Blaster. (I'm not a fan.)

But yeah, I always did figure him for someone who, if he'd been sparked in a very different time and place, would be... well, still rather quiet and efficient, but also rather sweet.

[lost_carcosa]

That was really interesting, and very nicely written. I particularly like Soundwave's internal monologue - his observations, and his perceptions of the humans and his situation work really well.

I'd be interested to read something that goes into greater depth about the reasons that Soundwave can read and understand human thought as well as Cybertronian, as I've not come across that concept before.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, that was intense. I really like it though; you so often see fics which deal with a Transformer interacting with humans via a vehicle mode, but I don't think I've ever seen one where the character in question had a non-traditional alt. It really changes some things. And this opens up some great emotional levels in Soundwave. - Zuzeca

[stainless]

Thank you. I'm glad you like it.