Untouchable

Chapter 2

Smokescreen walked outside with no real destination in mind. He looked at the familiar streets of Cybertron around him, taking his surroundings in.

It looked way too familiar. Familiar it was, but not remembered. He could see the outlines of this place if he closed his optics, but he could not picture it. It seemed so long since he last took a drive outside. When was it? Last week? Month? Year? Yesterday?

It didn't matter to Smokescreen anymore. None of it did.

He saw Arcee outside. The blue bot seemed in a hurry to get somewhere. Smokescreen put up his hand to wave to her, but she transformed and sped away. Smokescreen watched the blue motorcycle drive away. So what, she probably has to get somewhere, he tried to convince himself.

But he wouldn't be able to, and he knew it. Another thing to make his life seem a little heavier, to heavy for him to carry on alone.

Transforming, Smokescreen drove to an Energon fountain. Going back to robot mode, he watched other bots sit and chat, having a pretty good time. He watched himself, looking down, thinking, I wish I could just talk to someone and laugh.

He sat down on an uncomfortable bench. After all, all the stone chairs had been taken by other bots. His mind felt blank, nothing going on inside him.

He heard the sound of a car screeching loudly. And some yelling.

"Be careful, you Decepticon! Your arm says you're an Autobot, but one look at you and we can tell you're just a filthy Decepticon!"

"Sorry, it was an accident..."

"Tell that to Megatron!"

Curious, Smokescreen went to see what all this yelling was about. He saw Knockout, the ex-con's red optics looking at the ground, embarrassed and humiliated. Although Smokescreen didn't exactly know for sure, he guessed that the red bot, driving too fast, almost crashed into someone. Knockout looked truly apologetic, but again, Smokescreen could never be sure. Somehow he still didn't trust the red ex-con.

The commotion died down, and Smokescreen went back to his bench, only to see that Knockout now occupied the spot. Anger rose through him, rising every second, only to die down with him realizing he was only angry because Knockout was an ex-con. But Smokescreen, although he could have sat on the spot next to Knockout, wanted that seat back.

"Move, please. This was my spot"

Knockout looked at from-wait was that a tablet? Where did Knockout get the human item? Whatever.

"Sorry" He muttered and moved down the bench.

Smokescreen felt guilt flush into him and took his spot back. Realizing that he would have probably left soon anyway, he felt more guilt overflow in him, threatening to spill with an apology to Knockout any moment.

He watched the red bot scroll through- wait was that TUMBLR? Looking over his shoulder he realized it was. As much as Knockout wanted to squish humans, he seemed to have a really big appreciation for human culture.

"How's it doing," Knockout suddenly asked, his optics still glued to the screen.