Disclaimer: don't own, except the idea... yada yada... Give me a break. It's my birthday.

Warnings: Canon typical violence, a romance between machine and sort-of human, bloodshed. That sort of stuff... And well Yaoi, but that's a given at this point.

So I hope you all enjoy it. I know it's kind of short but I was kind of pressed for time. It's more of a prologue then a chapter, but it's not actually a prologue. Whatever. It's One in the morning again... I'm so done.

Love, Keta

Diesel Fuel and Cigarette Smoke

Chapter 1: The Human with a Spark

The small form lying on the medic's table rolls over to slide off of it when he hears a familiar voice talking with the captured human. He sneaks to the door to listen in, and he smiles when he hears the bot threaten to squash the squishy if he doesn't get to the point. The smile slips away when he hears "the spark might kill him. Humans just aren't meant to house them."

Megatron comes in a short while later and lifts the tiny man to put him at eye level. "You were eavesdropping."

"So what?" Allen replies, eyes narrowing as if to dare the other to start something. "It's my body. I deserve to know what's happening to it."

"That's not the point! You were supposed to let me figure this out!"

"No, we're in this together! You're just being bullheaded like usual!"

"Bullheaded?! I'm not the one that refused to let Knockout look at him when you were ejected from Starscream's cargo hold and wound up with a concussion!" The albino's glare softens, and he relaxes in the decepticon's hold, making Megatron start to smile. "You know I can't help but worry about you..."

"But you shouldn't. I'm a squishy..." Allen's eyes are saddened and downcast; he hates that he's not like the other.

"Your shell may be, but you have a spark and therefore are a transformer. If anyone tells you differently, I'll tear their spark from their chest just for you..."

Buttoning up his black jacket, Allen walks outside to find Starscream's trine in a contest high above his head, and he waves, temporarily catching his friend's attention before continuing on down to the human village a few miles away. Every couple of weeks, Allen goes down to this place to buy groceries and spend some time among his birth species, and Megatron comes and picks him up when he's had enough.

The village barely qualifies as that, a small bazaar of sorts surrounded by eight buildings and tents, but some trips, it's more than Allen can stand. Too many people, too close of a space... So he quickly picks up a few things and turns to walk away when he hears a language he hasn't been exposed to in a few years, because deep in this desert, there's no reason to hear English. "These men say that they saw the specimen." Allen looks over his shoulder and disappears down an alleyway before darting off into the dunes; Megatron finds him a few minutes later.

"What happened?" the towering bot asks once they're safely inside the base.

"Humans... They're looking for me again."

Curled up in the decepticon's hold, Allen falls asleep that night, as he has since they broke out of containment. Megatron cradles him with a care that most would think he was incapable of possessing, his affection for the human with the spark greater than his hatred for the shell, for Allen had been there, trapped beside him for many years. He had been the experiment, a great achievement in the advancement of technology. He had been the cast away that no one would pay attention to if it disappeared. He was a freak among the conformists then and a freak among the entirety of humanity now. He doesn't care anymore.