Pairings: takes a deep breath Red Alert/Inferno, Inferno/Firestar, Jazz/Prowl, Ratchet/Wheeljack, Ironhide/Chromia, Optimus Prime/Elita One, Hound/Mirage
Summary: Late night conversations between old friends can lead to startling revelations and the realisation that high grade and horny mechs do not always go together…
Warnings: Mech. on mech. action
Disclaimer: As per usual, the good things in life are not mine to have, but belong to someone else... in this case Hasbro, Takara and IDW and anyone else I've forgotten
Feedback makes friends. Flames dealt with by the masters of paranoia and fire, Red Alert and Inferno.
How the conversation started, no one could quite remember. Prowl was adamant that it was Ratchet's fault, while Ratchet blamed Wheeljack, who blamed Ironhide who blamed Jazz who blamed Ratchet. Whoever it was that started it, the conversation would rank as one of the most revealing conversations in the history of conversations on the Ark.
The Decepticons had been quiet for a few days; intelligence showed no signs of activity at the Decepticon base, so the Autobots were taking the opportunity to relax. It had been Wheeljack's idea for 'the old gang' to get together over some high-grade. The old gang being the current officers on the Ark. The conversation had started off fairly normally, before Ratchet began reminiscing about a time on Cybertron where he wasn't always repairing mechs. It had been Hound who had joked that that must have been how Ratchet met Wheeljack.
"Of course. Just like Prowl and Jazz got together because Prowl arrested Jazz." He retorted tipping his chin at the black and whites nestled together before downing the rest of his cube. He barely managed to stifle his laughter at the open mouths of the rest of the group.
"You mean you really didn't know?"
"Heh, I think their expressions say it all Ratch." Jazz smirked.
"Seriously?" Mirage asked.
"Seriously man. He caught me red handed."
"Literally." Prowl put in, sipping demurely from his own cube of high-grade.
"Well I didn't know that crate was rigged did I?" Jazz defended himself.
"Come on then, what happened?" Ironhide asked, much to the relief of everyone else who been wanting to ask the question.
"I arrested Jazz for theft." Prowl stated simply.
"Details man, details!" Hound pressed for more.
"To be fair now Prowl, I let you catch me."
"Hardly."
"Fine. If you want to remember it differently."
"I remember it correctly Jazz." Prowl retorted, just a touch of affection coloring his voice.
"It were in the early days of the war." Jazz began. "I'd not picked a side and was scraping an existence, stealing what energon I could from wherever I could." He shook his head at the disbelieving looks he was getting. "Why d'ya think I went into Special Ops? It weren't because of the ease of the job." He muttered. "Where was I? Oh yeah… well, I ended up in Iacon. How I managed to stay there for what must have been about three weeks without anyone knowing I was there I'll never know."
"It was two weeks and two days." Prowl supplied helpfully.
"Huh. Well, I was swiping energon when I needed it and I guess someone must've noticed 'cuz the next time I open a crate to get at some of the stored energon cubes, it exploded all over me."
"You definitely look better in black and white." Prowl mused. "Red does not suit you."
"Didn't suit you either." Jazz nudged his partner in the side.
"Indeed."
"Wait… are we missing something here?"
"You are." Prowl replied. "I had known of Jazz's presence virtually since the day he arrived in Iacon. He was the only logical explanation for the missing energon. So I watched him, planning the best way to catch him."
"The first day? Man, I thought I was good."
"You were. I was just better." There was no superiority in Prowl's voice, he was merely stating a fact. "Besides, how long did you honestly expect to go unnoticed in the city where Autobot Headquarters was located at the start of the war?"
"Guess you're right." Jazz muttered.
"Anyway, I caught a glimpse one night of the thief and was pleasantly surprised by his appearance."
"You fell in love at first sight?" Hound asked, using a human phrase to express himself.
"I suppose you could put it like that. Unfortunately, that was not quite the case. My battle computer didn't like the sudden surge of emotion and froze putting me temporarily offline."
"You know, I thought someone were watching me one night. Guess that must have been you."
"It was." Prowl conceded. "Once I had seen the thief, I endeavoured to find out as much information as I could based on the data I had available. I determined that he would be useful in the Autobot ranks and set about devising a plan and a way to keep him out of the brig."
"So that's why you offered me the deal."
"What deal?"
"I offered Jazz a chance to join the Autobots and fight for us against the Decepticons in return for keeping him out of the brig and away from possible deactivation."
"Would they really have done that for a thief?" Wheeljack asked.
"Darn right." Ironhide answered the engineer's question. "We were running real low on energon back then if I remember correctly."
"We were." Prowl confirmed.
"So I took the best option. Course, it helped that the mech. who arrested me was cute. Always had a thing for officer types." Jazz smiled sweetly at Prowl who looked as though he was about to choke on his energon.
"So that's why you ended up with that paint job."
"My alt-form had nothing to do with it." Prowl defended himself in a slightly higher pitch than normal.
"So you two hit it off immediately?" Inferno ventured. He'd been sitting listening to the conversation quietly, attempting not to disturb Red Alert who had actually slipped into recharge.
"Not exactly. Took a few years for me to stop annoying Prowl and for him to realise why he kept offlining around me."
"Really?" Wheeljack looked fascinated. "I had no idea your battle computer was that sensitive Prowl."
"Lucky you." Muttered Ratchet. "I wish it wasn't so sensitive."
"Yeah… it were only after I caught him in the med. bay after a battle where his computer had been shut down and not rebooted that we were actually able to talk and decide to make a go of things."
"I am glad I was one of the last in line for immediate repairs." Prowl murmured, nuzzling Jazz's helmet.
"Me too!"
"Awwww… kinda sounds like me and Chromia." Ironhide said. "It wasn't until she and I fought side by side on the front lines that we realised what we felt for each other." He laughed loudly. "I think we stopped quite a few mechs recharging that night. That femme is damn near insatiable."
"I know you stopped quite a few mechs recharging. Several of them came to my office to complain."
"I would say I was sorry Prowl, but really, I enjoyed myself far too much to be sorry about it!"
"So I was informed."
"Yeah well. She just had this way of trailing her hand across my arm that made me wanna overload there and then. "
"Please tell me you didn't? Not on the battlefield?"
"Nah… not right then. We waited 'til we thrashed the 'Cons and got back to base."
"And kept everyone up?" Jazz asked, amused.
"Definitely. As I said, that femme was insatiable. Overload after overload 'til we nearly slipped into stasis."
"I think all the femmes in Elita's unit were like that." Inferno added wistfully.
"Heh, do you think that means Elita and Prime…" Jazz stopped as all the mechs round the table stared at him in abject horror. Silence descended. At which point Red Alert woke up and demanded to know what was going on.
"It's okay Red. Jazz just tried to give us all a mental image that would have Ratchet scouring our memory banks and replacing our optics." Inferno soothed the Security Director, watching carefully as he slowly sank back into recharge.
"He looks cute when he's confused." Wheeljack observed after they were all sure he couldn't hear them.
"He's always cute." Inferno replied.
"You say that, you aren't the one who has to fix him when his processor glitches. Although…" Ratchet trailed off thoughtfully, staring at Inferno and Red Alert, the Lamborghini curled up in the fire truck's lap once more. "He hasn't glitched since you two…"
"He just needs to feel secure." Inferno shrugged and smiled down fondly at Red Alert.
"And without Firestar here…" Ironhide started.
"Exactly. Me and him get on great now. And as you said, he's a helluva lot calmer now." Inferno almost leered suggestively at the group. "Which means he's far more fun."
"Sweet Primus, I did not need to hear that!"
"Oh come on Mirage, I'm sure you and Hound get up to exactly the same sorts of things!" Mirage looked affronted while Hound snickered beside him.
"He's got us there."
"Hound…" Mirage tried for a warning tone, but the scout was enjoying himself.
"Although, I dare say we've probably kept mechs up before."
"Hound!" Everyone roared with laughter as Mirage buried his face in his hands, wishing for all the world that he was back on Cybertron.
"What's going on?" Red Alert stared hard at the mechs gathered around the table, trying to work out what it was that had brought him out of recharge again. Was it not enough that he had worked a double shift only to have Inferno drag him down here when all he wanted to do was curl up and recharge? Against his better judgement, he had agreed, if only to spend some time with Inferno. However, exhaustion had taxed his systems too far and he had succumbed to recharge, lulled by the soft rhythm of Inferno's engines.
"Ignore them Red." Mirage waved a hand vaguely above his head to indicate everyone else from his position face down on the table. "They're just trying to embarrass me."
"And succeeding really rather well it would appear." Red Alert replied dryly, quickly deciding that it would be better if he returned to his quarters. It was either that or no doubt face a tirade from Ratchet when he completely ran out of energy on shift. "If you'll excuse me?" He clambered off Inferno's lap and stalked out of the room.
"Er… Inferno, I think you might want to go after him. He looked like a femme in a mood."
"Believe me, he can be worse than a femme. I never remember Firestar being that way." Inferno muttered, apologising to everyone before hastily following after Red Alert. The others could hear him calling up the corridor after the Security Director.
"That is one seriously unhappy mech."
"Probably ain't getting enough." Jazz snickered.
"Please!" Mirage's pleas went unheard as the others continued their conversation.
"Speaking of not getting enough." Ratchet murmured in the sultriest voice he could manage given how much high-grade he had consumed.
"Hehe, guess that's our cue to leave guys." Wheeljack almost stuttered as he spoke, holding a hand out to help Ratchet up. Carefully the two made their way out without stumbling over anything.
"I guess it's time to call it a night." Ironhide drawled, trying not to smile at the relief on Mirage's faceplates.
88088088088088088
Red Alert keyed the code to his and Inferno's quarters as quickly as he could. Inferno had followed him all the way from the rec. room. It wasn't that he didn't want to speak to Inferno; he just didn't want to get into an argument with him. His processor always tended to desert him if he got too emotional, and Inferno would be bound to bring up that infernal incident with Starscream. He barely had enough time to allow the door to shut and cross to the recharge berth before the door slid open again and Inferno's chassis was framed in the doorway, light streaming in from the corridor.
"Red?"
"Inferno please. I just need to recharge." Red Alert held up a hand in an attempt to stop Inferno from saying anything more. He didn't need to stay and listen to the others talking about all their interfaces. All he needed was a good long recharge ready for his shift tomorrow.
"Okay Red. Just thought you were upset."
"I'm just low on energy Inferno. And I had heard more than enough of that conversation. I saw you and Firestar together. I don't need a graphic account of how it was."
"Hey, we was only talking about our first times. Would you rather I talked about ours?"
"No!" Red Alert squeaked out, trying hard to ignore the fact that Inferno was still standing in the doorway and could be heard by any mech. who happened to be in the vicinity. The fire engine didn't know the meaning of the words quiet or discrete.
"Just feels like I ought to be apologising for something." Inferno continued, finally entering their room as Red Alert heaved himself up on the berth.
"You have nothing to apologise for." Not entirely sure whether that was true or not, Red Alert decided he didn't care at this precise moment and settled himself as comfortably as he could on the recharge berth. It always seemed far larger without Inferno there taking up space.
"Good." Inferno crossed the room with a grace belying his size and sat on the edge of the recharge berth opposite Red Alert. "Although I don't half like apologising to ya Red." Red Alert let out a soft sound somewhere between a moan and a groan. He really was too exhausted to even think about interfacing. Unfortunately, he just happened to have got together with the one 'bot that seemed to have interfacing on his processor all the time. Really, he should have learnt what Inferno was like by watching Firestar. The poor femme came on duty sometimes looking as though she were recharging on her feet. Sometimes, Red Alert would reason that Inferno was trying to be the first to interface someone into an early deactivation. Of course, he didn't really put up much of a protest when it happened.
Just like now.
Inferno traced a hand down Red Alert's side, smiling to himself as the smaller mech. started to arch away from the touch, before leaning back towards it.
"Inferno…" Red Alert started to speak, his vocaliser descending into static as Inferno's fingers dragged across a rather sensitive armor seam.
"Yeah Red?" Inferno drawled almost lazily, allowing his hands to continuing roaming over the smaller form of his partner.
"Tired…" Was all Red Alert could manage. Certain sensors were now active, passing information to his processor at high speed. Inferno just kept touching him and he couldn't do anything to stop it. Didn't want to do anything to stop it. It felt so nice. So relaxing and so good.
"Just gimme a minute." Inferno whispered; mouth tantalisingly close to Red Alert's helmet horns, glossa flicking out just to lick the top. Red Alert arched up and whimpered, trying to get as close to those hands as possible. Large fingers teased seams, flicking briefly against wires hidden inside. He whimpered louder this time, a small part of his processor trying to remember whether Inferno had shut the door, the rest of his processor concentrating on the sensations Inferno's wandering hands were producing. His lack of energy and the pleasure signals coursing through his system meant there was little resistance he could put up, even if he wanted to. He barely had the energy to turn over, trying to reciprocate, thoughts hazy in his processor.
It seemed to be over before it had started; energy surging through his system, warnings redlining. His optics flickered against the sudden onslaught of sheer power that was Inferno. A strangled gasp escaped him as his overload hit.
Inferno smiled at the still form of Red Alert before gently moving him so he could lie down on the berth, wrapping his arms around the Security Director; his grin widening as Red Alert snuggled closer against his side. He could barely hear the mumbled thank you, but he could feel the vibration against his chassis.
"Heh, you can thank me tomorrow Red."