A/N: Sooo... I don't really have an excuse for this. ^^ It's highly stupid and mostly cracky. It fell out of my headspace when my alarm clock poked me out of some delicious REMs, one morning, and I just had to write it down so it would leave me alone.

OK so it's a bit of a spoiler, as it's set some time significantly AFTER the end of "Future Tense" (which I'm still working on, I promise! I just have some major plot surgery to do), when a certain are-they/aren't-they couple have FINALLY decided that yeah, they've yelled at each other for long enough, and they've enjoyed interacting/playing mad scientist enought to want to get back together.

The reason for the little sojourn to Earth is probably just so that el Screaming one can upset the delicate inner balance of the Ark, but didn't count on his own inner balance being the one affected...

Hello, Chicken

...Skyfire was only gone for a breem or two, but he would later realise he really should have locked the door behind him.

It was probably rather naïve to think that a few vorns of politely ignoring each other would have completely negated all those millennia of vicious enmity between the Autobots and the former Decepticon Seekers, but... well, he guessed he was in such a good mood he really didn't pay so much attention to it. It wasn't as if the recent minor conflicts had been much more than nonlethal pranks. (Which in turn really should have made him more wary, but he felt like he was floating a foot or so off the ground, and that nothing could possibly go wrong, any more.)

He hadn't really wanted to leave his room in the first place. He'd wanted to stay curled up in there forever, wrapped around the incredible little jet that had finally allowed him back into his life; his (very best) friend (ever) and the finally-requited love of his life. They had quite literally thousands of vorns to catch up on, and he planned on making sure that his debt, every last fraction of a breem of absence, would be repaid ten times over.

But, a mech couldn't enjoy the subtle interplay of conflicting static envelopes if he was too damn stupid to refuel and went into stasis lock. So, leaving Starscream purring noisily in his berth, sprawled out in an exhausted heap of smudged armour with a silly, highly-satisfied little smile relaxing his stern dark features, the shuttle had sneaked out to fetch energon. The idea that something might happen in the time it took him to walk quietly down to the galley, swap a little small-talk with Jazz, and fetch some fuel? Never even flickered across his processors.

It took him three breems, tops, to return with two tall chilly flasks of high-grade... to find his room unexpectedly empty of all occupants.

"Um, Starscream?" he questioned, hopefully. Any second now and the jet would appear, now his plans to jump the mech as he appeared through the door had been foiled. Any second now. ...aaany second. "...um... Star?"

Although there was really nowhere for the smaller mech to have actually hidden, Skyfire did a quick investigative circuit of his room anyway. He found nothing, however, and received no responses to his location pings.

So Starscream had to have wandered off. Dammit! Skyfire covered his face with his hands and muttered quiet invective to himself. I thought I could trust you? You promised me, Star – is that all your word means now, a convenient way to use me and sneak around behind my back?

Turning to head tiredly back into the corridors to look for his errant friend, Skyfire finally saw the note stuck to the back of his door, written in a very familiar handwriting. The penny didn't so much drop as clatter down like a millstone. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker – who else but the Twins could have caused trouble in such a short timespan?

He snatched the note down. Yo Skyfire. We found a rare species for you! We parked it up in your lab for you to "study" later. S+S

"Oh, no..." Skyfire groaned, literally tripping out of the door in his haste to get through it. "Oh no no no-!"

Sprinting as best he could down the corridor, he found himself already preparing apologies. It hurt to think he'd been so quick to accuse his friend of betrayal. I didn't mean it, I promise, I'm sorry...

He crashed through the door to the lab he shared with Perceptor and Wheeljack, expecting a scene of utter chaos-

And he found it, although not quite the chaos he had been expecting. His Seeker, his beautiful tricoloured slip of captured starshine, as sleek and as deadly as any rare falcon... had been replaced by a... chicken? The shuttle's jaw sagged open, completely unable to come to a suitable response.

Having only a couple of breems to do it hadn't stopped the Twins from completely redecorating the unfortunate jet, and abandoning him to the tender mercy of whoever should walk into the lab first. Skyfire sent quick thanks to Primus that it had been him, and hastily pinged a command to lock the door.

Glaring with the heat of a thousand suns, but completely incapable of doing the slightest thing about his predicament, Starscream sat in the sink – or at least, Skyfire thought there had been a sink there at some point, but all the unspooled black cable wrapped delicately around the rim made it look rather more like a nest. The inflated balls of rubber glove nestling around him like eggs didn't help the illusion.

With his wrists and ankles all bound together in front of him, the unfortunate jet had been forced into a sort of awkward crouch, like a brooding hen. His formerly high-gloss plating was virtually invisible under a thick layer of spray-on yellow rubber glove, glue and white feathers. A filter funnel stuck over the lower part of his face formed a beak, and... was that one of the dusky red rubber gauntlets from the isolation cabinet, stretched over the top of his helm to form a chicken's comb? A piece of string held a cardboard label around his neck, although the words were invisible at this distance.

Murder blazed from the narrowed scarlet optics. Get. Me. Out. Of. Here. Right. This. Minute. If. Not. Sooner. The words spat across Skyfire's nonverbal relays like hard little bullets of anger. Primus only knew what Pit the jet would have been tearing up if he'd been free.

…Skyfire couldn't help it. A snort of involuntary laughter broke from his vocaliser, and the instant he'd started, he found he couldn't stop. And the more he laughed, the angrier Starscream got, and the more ridiculous he looked – and the harder Skyfire laughed.

Completely unable to see the funny side of it, the red Seeker's optics flared brighter and the transmitted words became next to incoherent. -GETMEOUTOFHERERIGHTNOWSOHELPME!-

Skyfire stumbled over, trying ineffectually to swallow his laughter. "I'm so sorry, Star-… you just, oh Primus-…!" After a quick glance at the note attached around his friend's neck – 'Hello my name is Starcluck and I am a 'poultry excuse' for an ex-Con' – he promptly dissolved back into cackles, propping himself up on the drainer. "I'm so sorry. You look-…" Adorably ridiculous? "You poor thing. Let me help you. I'm sorry."

Skyfire peeled the funnel carefully off Starscream's dark face, and thanked Primus that the Twins had elected to just use a simple water-based glue and not a permanent epoxy to adhere it in place. (Although that was probably more down to the fact they were more scared of what Prowl would do to them when he found out, than out of any concern for their "guest".) He peeled back the adhesive tape underneath, and removed the wadded foam padding from Starscream's mouth, at last releasing the physical lock on the other's vocaliser.

"I swear, the second I get out of here, I am going to kill them, messily and painfully and as slowly as possible!" the unfortunate mech explained, baring his teeth and thrashing his arms and wings in a futile attempt to get free. Exhaustion was no barrier to his volume. "Get me out of this ridiculous mess and help me get cleaned up, you big lug. Right this instant-!"

Thankfully, he didn't look injured; nobody capable of that much noise could be too badly hurt. It looked like his pride had taken the biggest knock. His static field was like a blazing storm of humiliated fireflies where Skyfire brushed against him.

The shuttle cupped his cheek and chuckled, softly. "…I'll get you out, just not right now."

"What do you mean, not right now?" The chicken's voice rose a whole outraged octave. "Can't you see how embarrassing this is?"

"I mean, not right now," Skyfire repeated, traced his fingers down the filthy, fluff-covered wings. Wherever had those two found so many feathers, anyway? "In other words, when you don't look like you're immediately going to fly off and kill someone. You need to cool down and see the funny side, and then I'll let you out."

"Funny side?" It hardly seemed possible but the shrill voice rose again. He was almost ultrasonic, by now. "WHAT funny side? I have never been so absolutely mortified, and you're telling me I have to laugh at this?"

"All right. All right, don't blow a fuse." Skyfire stroked his wing, affectionately. "Say please, and I'll consider it."

Starscream thrashed impotently, yanking back on his wrists, trying to free his bound limbs. "Argh, all right. Please, Skyfire. Please untie me. Please untie me, so I can go rain painful vengeance on the heads of those two useless dirtlimmf!"

The shuttle had already leaned closer, and halted the flow of words with a kiss; tracing his lips tenderly across his Seeker's. The struggling grew less co-ordinated – more of a wriggle than the spirited attempt to escape it had been seconds before. Breaking the kiss, he ensured his blue gaze was firmly locked with the startled crimson one before speaking. "No."

Miraculously, Starscream's volume instantly dropped away, almost all the way to a confused stammer. "What-... what do you mean, no?" He sounded so shocked by the unexpected negative that it was like dumping a bucket of cold water on a campfire. "You can't leave me like this-! Skyfire, you can't!" He leaned up closer to him, pleadingly.

"Oh, I don't know. I think I can. And you know what? I'm starting to quite like it," Skyfire murmured, leaning down close to Starscream's audio, hands on his shoulders and stroking firmly down his arms. "I mean, I can do exactly what I like to you, now, and you can't stop me."

Was that a shiver, in the filthy wings? "That-… that's-… that's not how it's meant to work…!"

"I know; how dare I actually take charge for once?" Skyfire chuckled, nuzzling softly at the side of the slender neck. "I think, deep down? You're looking forwards to finding out what I can think up."

This time the excited shiver was undeniable – a long, awkward tremble that spread all the way up through the pinioned body, where it pressed up against him.

Skyfire lowered his voice to a sweet, husky whisper, and let his lips brush against the side of his captive Seeker's helm while he spoke. "How better to pay the Twins back than to enjoy it?"

By the time the last word drifted free of Skyfire's lips, Starscream had finally stopped struggling; his helm had tilted back ever so slightly, exposing his soft throat, his lips had parted into an involuntary little slot of desire, and his fans had begun to puff, softly, venting hot air. His optics flashed brighter, embarrassed, but he coughed, and after a second voiced his assent with a single faint cluck.