This one was inspired by a RP with the wonderful Acee-- 

Remember how I said to be ready to be reminded tomorrow?
Yeah so this is what I meant-

Hope you like it <3

PS: 0xTonikix0  wiem że czekasz na SCYSF lore, więc prosze, pierwsza oficjalnie opublikowana praca w universie rewriteu, mamy troszke dzieciństwa trojaczków XDDD

-----

The day started like any other for the three brothers. They woke up with a slight jump, cried silently in each other's embraces for believing they could stay, went down and prayed quietly that tocycle was gonna be a good cycle.

Seems like Primus was partially on their side this morning.

The caretakers didn't even spare them a glance as they gave them their half-filled cubes, content with ignoring their existence for as long as they could. The triplets weren't going to complain about that by any means, quickly drinking the energon before putting the cubes back in their designated place for later washing and quickly running back to their room.

They didn't want to admit it, but... maybe they've gotten just a tiny bit used to waking up in a warm embrace, without having to be scared when they went for breakfast.

It didn't matter now though, especially as they opened the lock on their window and as quietly as they could jumped out the room.

The trek down a familiar pavement went by surprisingly quickly. The yellow sparkling walked in the middle, tightly squeezing his red and blue brothers's servos. They never went outside without holding onto each other.

A habit of safety. Or maybe it was just their bond naturally seeking out the other ends.

It was comforting nonetheless.

So they walked like that, not a particular designation in their minds, but a specific person to hopefully meet instead.

It seems luck was on their side this cycle too, as they saw a flash of the familiar paintjob down one of the alleyways, alongside the tell-tale sounds of metal against metal. A fight.

Entertainment.

The sparkling smiled eagerly and jumped into the alley, hiding behind some trash cans as they watched the fight unfold.

It was incredibly one-sided from the very start. The familiar bot with his sword gliding with practiced ease through the other bots, slicing and ripping cables when necessary.

The sparklings squeezed each other's servos. They hated the way they saw light leave their optics, yet at the same time they couldn't look away. The way energon splattered against the walls, to the grounds and the way the puddles got disrupted as peds and bodies stepped and fell into them.

For a fight five against one, it ended awfully quickly with one winner standing tall and proud amongst the carnage.

Deadlock.

The sparklings cooed and chirped in approval, finally running out of their little hiding spot and towards the bot. The bot flinched and turned to them quickly, sword raising automatically but lowering even quicker once he realized who it was. He only chuckled, shaking his helm in clear disapproval as he relaxed his body.

"Well, would you look at that? Guess I've got three little fledgelings left around." He joked.

The yellow sparkling snorted, not once loosening his hold on his brother's servos, carefully stepping over the rapidly graying body, pointedly not looking at its faceplates, his brothers practically in-step with him.

"Guess we've got our winner of the bidecacyclely junkie fight."

Deadlock curtly snorted, mouthplates twisting into a smirk as he put his sword back into its sheath, currently one of the only clean places on his whole frame.

"Where did you learn such language? You can't be, what, over 5 solars?" He asked incredulously. The only answer he received were three equally unimpressed, blank stares. "Alright, forget I said anything." He put his servos up in a sign of defeat before turning around, servos falling to his sides as he started walking away.

The triplets quickly fastened their pace, falling in step with him. Deadlock glanced down, raising an eyeridge at the three sparklings walking alongside him.

"What are you doing?"

"We're c'ming with cha!" The red one replied cheekily.

"...well, we might be walking for quite a while. I don't have a spot to sleep today."

"We can help 'u find sum'thin'? We know all the good hidin' places!" The blue one countered.

Deadlock only raised his eye ridge higher but, well, all things considered, he didn't have a real reason to shoo the sparkling away anyways. Not like he was going home either.

"...sure. Not like I've got anything better on my plate." Quite literally too, if the barely a cube's worth of energon sitting pathetically in his subspace was any indication. Primus, he was lucky he didn't take the shot yet, he really didn't want three sparkling to be left with a bot high off his aft. Knowing those three, they'd probably convince his high self to do something dangerous. Or stupid. Or both most likely, seeing as running away from literal cultists was how they've met in the first place.

...life in Kaon sure was something.

-----

As they walked like that, Deadlock couldn't shake off this horrible sense of pity for the three. If it was within his power, he'd honestly try and adopt the little fledgelings.

At the same time, he wasn't about to sentence the three to a life with a substance-abuser creator. He may be a junkie, but he had standards, Primus dammit.

He wasn't about to take them out of one Pit just to put them in another.

These sparklings have suffered enough as if.

A sudden thought hit him as he thought about it. Of what he could do to maybe give them a sense of normalcy. Something every sparkling liked.

Energon goodies.

He remembers getting them from a package he found in an alleyway, someone threw it away while it still had goods inside. He checked them himself, they were safe, too. He wasn't stupid enough to give unchecked food to sparklings, especially if said food was found in a Kaonian back alley. There were many things which could go in so, so many terrible directions it was almost funny.

He reached into his subspace pocket, looking around a little until- There!

He smiled as he took out the small foil packet, with exactly three energon goodies hidden inside. Carefully taking them out and throwing the now empty packet behind him, he whistled to get the three's attention and proudly showed his outstretched servo with the goodies out for them to see.

With the way their optics widened in wonder, doorwings standing up and gently quaking, he thinks they liked what they saw.

The yellow one jumped up and quickly snatched the goodies from his outstretched servo, like a turboracoon bringing them close to his chestplates in an almost protective manner, his brothers stepping around him, leaning in to get a better look, all three watching them in quiet awe and visible suspicion.

Scratch that, they all looked like turboracoons. The infamous trash-telkipandas, unlike the real deals he'd sometimes see back in Rodion.

He always heard people claiming they were ugly. He himself held the belief they could be quite cute.

The yellow sparkling brought them closer to his faceplates, taking a gentle sniff.

"...there aren't any drugs in those, are there?" He asked suspiciously. Deadlock physically did a double take.

"What?"

"You know, the caretakers sometimes talk about how sparklings shouldn't take en'gon goodies from strangers, 'cause they might've put drugs in them."

"...okay, that's just plain stupid. No dealer would waste their products on energon goodies for sparklings, what's the point in that?"

"...I dunno. To get them addicted?"

"Yeah, you'd need a lot more of something like this to get addicted. Believe the words of, heh, 'a junkie' as you said it."

The sparklings looked up at him, studying him for a moment, their doorwings gently buzzing on their backs before they all unanimously shrugged, each taking a single goodie and eagerly biting into it.

It was hard and kind of stale, and to be honest the taste couldn't even be entirely described as 'sweet', but it was an honest gift. They weren't going to refuse it.

Deadlock sure looked happy to see them enjoying the goodies, so they weren't gonna say anything.

-----

"And th'n we went to sleep for de t'ird time, rig't? And we woke up here again!" The blue sparkling finally finished telling the tale of their adventures in the 'sleeper world'. Deadlock nodded his helm, a somber semi-serious look on his faceplates.

"That sounds like quite the adventure, you three." He said, forcing a small smile as the three sparklings all nodded their little helms in agreement.

That sounds like a slag toned episode of trauma-induced derealisation... Or maybe they slept over three cycles and conjured this shared dream... He thought to himself as he watched the sparklings chirping softly between each other in Praxian, the gentle language unfamiliar to his audials. Wouldn't be the first time it happened, their dreams sure can be something, and Primus knows the caretakers won't give two slags if they don't exit their room for this long.

"...chu a mes'ge!"

Deadlock reset his optics before focusing on the sparklings again

"What?"

The yellow sparkling rolled his optics, looking incredibly impressed with Deadlock's lack of understanding before repeating what one of his brothers said.

"A message. For you."

"We got 'chu a messag'! From the other side!" The red chirped helpfully.

Deadlock looked at them for a moment before chuckling gently.

"Oh yeah? What kind of message?"

"Well, 't was from dis real cool guy, his desi' was Drift! And he was from Rodion too, how cool is t'at?"

Deadlock felt this weird sense of anticipation pool within his spark as he listened to the sparklings talk.

"Oh really? And what message did he give?"

At that, the sparklings looked at each other for a moment, doorwings flaring on their backs before settling again.

Their bond. Right.

"Well," began the yellow one, "he said that someday, everything's gonna be okay."

A sudden emotion caught Deadlock by his spark and squeezed hard. He wasn't sure what it was yet.

"And," after a moment he continued. "that... a couple of bad decisions don't define somebot, if they truly... regret them."

The sparklings were looking at him in expectation. They didn't appear to fully understand those words themselves. And it was okay.

If he was any less of a mech, Deadlock probably would be crying right now, especially after the emotion within his spark finally became recognizable.

It was hope.

He covered up his feelings with a small laugh, though by the triplet's expressions they didn't buy any of it. Slagging sensory panels, feeling everything down to the notch.

"Well, in that case... Can you send a message back?" He finally decided to say, something to draw their attention to. The sparklings looked a tad surprised, quickly glancing between each other before finally back at him, giving a small nod.

"We dunno when it's gonna happen again, but we could try!" The red one announced happily.

It's more than enough.

"Well, then... tell him I said "Thank you."" Deadlock finally settled on. "...and that he better go by his words himself." He added after a moment of thought.

The triplets laughed at that, even the yellow one letting out a small chuckle, which was a huge win in Deadlock's datapad.

"We'll make sur' to t'll 'im!" The red sparkling announced happily, his brothers nodding their helms in agreement.

Deadlock couldn't help the fond smile that spread across his faceplates at that.

"Well then, Sideswipe," he said to the red sparkling, before he turned to the blue one, "Smokescreen," and then to the yellow one, "Sunstreaker... I'll hold you to that."

The mutual smiles and confirmations of the promise gave him a slight prep in his step for the rest of the way.

And then, at the end of the cycle, long after he said his goodbyes to the poor sparklings, Deadlock laid there under a small roof built into the alleyway's wall, safe from the acid rain raining all around him, he wondered.

Whenever their words were truly just fantasies, or if they actually held some truth.

Whatever it was, he decided finally, it was still a nice thought to have.

-----

Worldbuilding notes:
Tocycle - Today (yknow, since they don't exactly have 'days' lmao)
Fledgelings - an affectionate way to call a sparkling of certain frametypes (mostly Vosian and Praxian, though it's often used for flyers in general too). Normally used to refer to the young of flying mechanimals, not necessarily only the 'bird-like' ones.
Bidecacycely - Biweekly (again, no 'weeks')
Turboracoons - Cybertronian racoons
Telkipandas - species similar specifically to red pandas
Trash telkipandas - a nickname for turboracoons, like we call our own 'trash pandas' lmao

Yeah so it was just an excuse to write this piece, but it's specifically with a dedication to you cause it was your Drift who gave the message in the first place sooooo-

This thing came to be! You better like it /j

Happy Christmas pompom! <3