Chapter 1
Prowl is having the nightmare again. The one he's had so many times. The one based off reality.
He's standing on the ice, standing between Megatron and Auri, and he can't protect her because he's outgunned and outnumbered by Megatron and the Seekers standing behind Megatron. He can't protect her, but he can keep her from being taken by the Cons.
He kisses her. He thinks it will be the last time he will kiss her, so he kisses her on the lips for the first time, deep and tender with the intensity he'd wanted to give her on a special day.
Then he shoves her off the ice toward the ocean, the icy sea. Her leg hits the edge of the ice with a horrible crack, and he's terrified for a second that she'll get caught, but she falls, smashing into a sheet of ice hard enough to break it and damage her back and crumple her wing.
He found out about her injuries later, but he knows about them now because time and knowledge are warped in dreams.
As Auri falls to sink into the ocean, Megatron yells, yells at the Seekers to get her, yells at Prowl for trying to save her. The Seekers take off, but Prowl calculated correctly: they won't go in the freezing water for a little bargaining chip. They come back.
"She smashed through the ice and sank," one says. Megatron's optics widen and then narrow in rage.
Prowl doesn't move. He waits for the beating to start and the thrashing to begin. A swift death would be nice, but that isn't Megatron's way. Megatron will brutalize him for days and weeks. Maybe Megatron will lose his temper and deal a death blow, but Prowl expects to suffer for months.
Megatron strikes him across the cheek with an open hand, and then as Prowl stumbles from its impact and the impact of losing Auri, Megatron backhands him across the other cheek. Falling sideways, Prowl catches himself on his hands and knees. Life energon drips on the ice. It's his life energon mingled with his tears. Pain explodes in his side and sends him rolling in the snow. Megatron has kicked him for the first time of this encounter, but not for the first time of their acquaintance. He knows Megatron's pedes all too well, and Megatron knows how to kick all too well. Hard enough to damage, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to inflict quickly fatal blows.
Megatron beats him.
There is no point in making a sound, so he is silent, silent lying on the frigid ice as his life-energon stains it. Then they are on the Decepticon ship. Megatron is still beating him. This is only the beginning. He takes the blows and waits for the humiliation that will come next. He remembers what will happen.
Megatron takes a seat on his command chair, but this is where the dream becomes inaccurate. When it really happened, there were only Decepticons watching and smirking. In the dream, though, the Decepticons have been replaced by scores of overpaid humans wearing suits with ties and holding the latest iPhones in their hands. They want him to answer the phone and explain exactly why he thinks they should allow certain funding to go through. They don't understand the basic needs of other living beings, and they talk down to him. They have better places to be, and he's holding them up because he's an over-entitled alien refugee who wants too much. The basic necessities are too much.
Megatron laughs. He taunts Prowl. Useless little mech. Certainly childish, pouting in silence. Bad mechling. Prowl wants to fight what comes next, but Megatron's hand painfully on his doorwings keeps him still, and he is forced to tolerate being bent over Megatron's lap, forced to tolerate having his after-plating pulled off. Megatron hits him with an open hand again now, stinging him with humiliation as well as pain, then Megatron pulls a piece of cable from subspace after a minute and begins to whip him with it. Prowl knows Megatron will not stop until his aft is raw, and then Megatron will transfer the whipping down to his thighs.
Prowl didn't kick when this happened, but he kicks now, kicks in the dream.
He kicks hard.
"Ow!" He never said this. He didn't say this. Someone else did. "Oh-! Prowl! Prowl, Prowl, wake up!" He is shaking; someone is shaking him. "Prowl, mech, wake up."
A little voice chirps sleepily, "Wake up, Pruddle! Wake up an' bad dweams won't get ya!" Tiny hands pat and tap his helm. They are Starlight's hands, and it's Starlight's voice. "Wake up, Pruddle!" she calls.
He shudders and drags himself out of recharge, optics blinking online. He is on his own berth in his own quarters, and the lights are dim because he hasn't been able to sleep in the dark since the Autobots got him back from the Cons. During the long months in med-bay, there had always been lights on, and once he was released to his quarters, he still needed them. He needed to see what was in his room. He still does. He feels hot and cold, and it's too early to be awake, even for an early morning bot. He feels sick from the nightmare and the memories that made it. Praxus and Starlight help ground him, though; they calm him.
"It otay now," Starlight says as she rubs Prowl's helm. "Pwax an me are here."
"Yeah, we're here," Praxus says. His hand is on Prowl's shoulder.
Prowl runs air through his system in a shaky sigh and then shifts onto his side to face his purple-opticked roommate. Praxus is sitting up amid the blankets, his jet black armor reflecting the blue light of Prowl's optics while his doorwings loom dark behind him. Prowl tilts his helm to look up at Starlight, and the tiny blue-opticked sparkling give his nose a gentle poke.
"Ya otay now," she says with a smile, but her little doorwings, just like his own wings and Praxus's wings, silently communicate their concern with little shifts.
"Yes, I am okay now," he answers softly, reaching to give her helm a rub in return. "Thank you," he whispers and then looks toward Praxus again. The younger mech could have been sleeping on the couch in the other room –where Starlight has a little crib- but more often than not he and Starlight sleep in Prowl's oversized berth because Praxus hasn't stopped worrying about Prowl since Megatron brutalized him. The nightmares especially worry Praxus since he is no stranger to their horrors himself.
"It must have been a bad one," Praxus says softly as Prowl's cooling system sighs again. "You really kicked me."
"I'm sorry." Prowl moves his optics to Praxus's legs, and the younger mech shifts to show him the scuff.
"It's just superficial," Praxus says, regarding the mark himself as Starlight scoots to inspect it and trace it with her light blue fingers.
"Still, I'm sorry," Prowl says softly, wings hitching with regret.
"Really, it's okay." Praxus shifts his wings with a bit of a gentle smile as Starlight plants a little kiss on the scuff. "You woke up to handle my nightmares. Now I wake up and handle yours."
"You shouldn't have to, though. You've already been through so much…" Discouragement seeps into Prowl's spark as is has so many times before.
"Aww, don't start that again," Praxus says. "I'm okay now!"
Prowl looks at him and knows he will never be fully okay. Mechs created in a Decepticon lab and experimented on and forced to be child soldiers and later trafficked can never be fully okay.
"I mean okay enough," Praxus says, reading Prowl's look. "And I barely have my nightmares anymore, so that's a good sign. We just have to look after yours now and help them go away."
Prowl decides not to pursue the subject further, knowing that Praxus will not give in. Prowl is stubborn, but Praxus is just as stubborn and has an unrealistic streak that makes him think anything can be attained if he works hard enough for it.
Starlight pipes up since her elders aren't saying anything. "I don't gets bad dweams."
Prowl and Praxus both smile at this; Prowl's is a gentle relieved smile, and Praxus's is a warm, delighted smile. Praxus scoops Starlight up and snuggles her.
"And that is such a good thing, Little Star!" he says. She giggles as he nuzzles her tummy. "I hope you will never ever have a bad dream."
"Ever!" she adds exuberantly.
"Ever," he echoes. He kisses her on the helm.
"Now Pruddle," she says, and Praxus plops her down by Prowl so she can get a kiss on the helm from him as well. Prowl shifts up to oblige her, and then he settles back down. She looks at his left hand, the hand that Ratchet remade almost completely after Megatron all but destroyed it. "How yo Watchet hand today?" she asks softly as she's asked many times before.
Prowl flexes the digits of the hand slowly, and they tremble as they move, motions still jerky even after months of therapy. "It's a little better than last week, I think," he says, and he knows it is true even if it doesn't quite feel true. Recovery can be discouraging when it is slow, and so it is with his hand. However, because Starlight is the one who is asking, he adds, "I'll have to check, but…"
Her optics twinkle because she knows what he's going to say next.
"I'm fairly certain I can tickle with it."
"Nooo…" she squeals with delight, giggling. He tickles her belly, gently pulsing little charges of energy from his fingertips, making her giggle more. She giggles and giggles and pretends to attempt to avoid his hand. He gets her little side, and she squeaks, flopping over. "Helwp, Bwuvver! Helwwwp!" –giggling harder.
Praxus is laughing softly. "What do you want me to do?" he asks.
"Safe me fwom the Watchet hand! Get Pruddle!"
"I dunno… I'm kinda sacred of Prowl."
She giggles so hard that she snorts, a tiny noise that makes Prowl chuckle. Then she scrambles away from Prowl and hides behind Praxus. "Now he gonna ya instead," she squeaks, peeking out at Prowl and trying to wink at him; she hasn't mastered this and squints before closing both optics.
Prowl smiles back at her. "I don't think so right now. He's so big that I need both hands to tickle him, and I'm not ready to get up or put forth that much effort."
She looks up at her brother and giggles. "I guess ya safe fo now."
"It might be a trap," Praxus says, chuckling softly.
Prowl settles a little more firmly on his pillow. "No. You're safe, mechling," he answers gently.
Starlight giggles again. "My bwuvver not a mechling, I telled ya yesterday. He taller nan ya, an ya gwown-up."
"That is true," Prowl acknowledges gently, "But he is still a mechling to me."
Starlight thinks this over for moments, her little wings shifting slightly. "Well," she says presently. "Will you still fink I'm a femwing when I up-gwade even though I'll be all tall an big?"
"Yes," Prowl says, honest as ever. "But that is a long way away."
A little wing twitches, and Starlight frowns doubtfully at Prowl. "But I'm gonna up-gwade soon. Watchet says so. Ya can't say him didn't say so."
"Oh…" Prowl halfway smiles as he realizes that they are thinking of two different upgrades. "I was thinking about when you upgrade to your adult frame. That is a long way away. Your upgrade that is going to happen soon is into your first youngling frame. You'll be a bit bigger, but not as big as an adult."
Starlight purses her lips thoughtfully and looks down as she tries to remember exactly what Ratchet told her during her last checkup. Then, after another few moments, she smiles slowly as she nods. "Oh, eyah… I kinda forgot." Her optics twinkle. "I be bigger, but not all big."
Prowl nods.
"How big will I be?" Starlight asks him.
He blinks sleepily and holds his finger and thumb apart about the length of his fingers. "Maybe about that big," he says.
She looks at him is disbelief and then giggles. "Ya silly!" she says, shaking her helm. "I'll be at yeast this big." She holds her little hands about an adult hand's width apart.
A soft chuckle rumbles up from Prowl's chest as he smiles at her. "I think you have it figured out," he says, thoroughly pleased that with her return of his joke.
"An ya'll up-gwade, too, an be this tall!" she holds her fingers a small space apart.
Prowl smiles fondly at her. "And how tall will Praxus be?"
"He'll be dust a yittle bigger than ya. An we'll all yiv in th toy-house with mine pwushies!"
"That sounds like fun," Prowl muses sleepily.
Starlight nods. "But, Pruddle, how big really will I be when I up-gwade for actual?"
"I don't know exactly, but when we stand up, your helm will about reach the middle of my thigh."
Starlight looks at the blankets covering Prowl and then at her brother's legs. Her helm reaches their knees at this point in time. "That a good bit taller," she decides.
Prowl nods as Praxus agrees with her and rubs her helm gently.
"An after I up-gwade, we'll have a party, eyah?" she asks, optics wide and wondering. She remembers, albeit vaguely, the party that Auri was given after her final upgrade.
Praxus looks to Prowl for the answer; he'd like to give her a party, of course, but he doesn't know if that's the proper tradition.
"We will indeed," Prowl answers.
Starlight bounces in excitement. "Can we inbite evewybody?!"
Prowl pauses, and Praxus guesses that while a party is traditional, inviting everybody for a first upgrade party is a bit unorthodox. Starlight interprets his pause differently.
"I mean, may…?" she amends, dipping her wings to show respect to her elders even as her optics sparkle eagerly.
Prowl is melted. "Yes, we may," he answers.
"An we can all wear sparkles?!"
Prowl laughs softly as he dispenses with another tradition. "Yes, we can all wear our gems and jewels," he answers.
"An ya'll be my excort?!"
Now Prowl falters. Looking after Starlight for the duration of a fancy party would be stressful, to say the least. Not because of Starlight, but because of having to be around all the other bots constantly.
"I thought I would be your escort," Praxus says. Prowl would probably glitch if he had to socialize for a whole evening or afternoon or whatever time a tradition-flouting first upgrade party is held.
Starlight giggles. "Naw… ya gonna excort Moonracer," she says, watching him with twinkling optics.
His wings flick in dismay. "What?! Ew! I don't even like Moonracer."
"I teasing," she giggles. "Ya gonna excort Arcee."
Praxus makes a grudging face. "That's… slightly better. I'd still rather escort you, though. And Prowl has to escort Auri, anyway."
Prowl, his optics slightly closed now, nods in agreement.
"Oh…" Starlight's little wings shift. "I guess we'll fink bout it," she says slowly.
"That's a good idea," Praxus says. "We should go back to sleep now, anyway."
Starlight looks up at him in surprise. "Why?"
"It's still nighttime, and we haven't slept enough."
She frowns doubtfully but starts to scoot toward her pillow. "I don't know bout that…"
"Go check out the front window," Prowl tells her gently.
"Otay," she says obediently and scoots to the foot of the berth. She climbs down the blanket at the end of the berth and then walks off in her cautiously little wandering gait. Ignorant neglect and mistreatment earlier in her sparklinghood had impaired her development, and while her wings have recovered completely, she is still slightly unsteady on her legs. Ratchet expects her to grow out of that, though.
A sigh runs through Praxus's system as his wings lower.
In response, sensitive to the younger mech's spark, Prowl opens his optics. "She'll be okay, mechling."
"Everybody says that," Praxus murmurs with a little nod. "But that's not why I'm sighing –at least, not right now."
"What is the reason, then?"
Praxus lies down, settling his helm on a pillow so he is optic to optic with Prowl. "I… I'm going to miss this… miss being a family… it'll all change when you bond with Auri, and… I'll be happy for you two, but…" he trails off, and rolls his helm to hide his optics against the pillow and look for words. It's hard to find words to explain. He was nearly dead when the Autobots picked up his distress signal, and Prowl dragged him back from the darkness. Prowl hadn't wanted a roommate, but Prowl still said yes when asked to have Praxus room with him. Primus alone knew why. Prowl had let him tag along to the showers when he was scared to go by himself. Prowl had woken him from nightmares and sat with him until he fell asleep again. Prowl had done a hundred little acts of kindness that healed Praxus's spark. Prowl had directed him and guided him, taught him and accepted him. Prowl was father and brother, mentor and guardian. Hero. Best friend. Now that Prowl is dealing with the effects of Megatron's abuse, Praxus has become the giver of care and support and comfort. Still, though, Praxus doesn't know what he would do without Prowl so much in his life, always there for him in the morning and evening and night at home.
Prowl finds words before Praxus does. "Are you thinking that I'm going to evict you when I bond with Auri?" he asks slowly.
Praxus snuffles and nods. Then he turns his helm to peek at Prowl. "Aren't you?" he asks.
"I've never considered it," Prowl answers gently.
"Oh…!" Praxus perks up and smiles. Then he pauses. "Won't we be a bit… snug?"
Prowl shifts a wing. "I'll have to figure out how we're going to all fit and have privacy-"
"Eew, yeah, privacy will be a thing."
"But we have time to sort it out."
Praxus reaches over and touches Prowl's helm. "I worry about your processor sometimes. You should have had this all figured out months ago."
Prowl halfway smiles. Then his focus shifts. "Starlight?" he calls, "Why are you opening the door?"
"I can't see out the window cause it aw dark."
Prowl meets Praxus's optics in amusement at the dark winger chuckles.
"I wonder why," Praxus whispers, teasing.
"She'll figure out," Prowl says gently, optics looking sleepier than before.
"And this is just one reason why I need you," Praxus says, sighing with contentment now that he knows Prowl isn't going to evict him when Auri moves in as his sparkmate. "I usually want Starlight to just listen to me, but you always make the time explain things and help her understand… or have her see for herself."
The door shuts in the other room. "It IS dark!" Starlight announces, amazed.
Optics closing now, Prowl smiles. "Now she knows that you were right," he murmurs.
Starlight comes scampering in and trips on her own pedes. "Oof!" she catches herself. "We gotta sleep lots more yike ya said!"
"Uh-huh," Praxus says, helping her gently back onto the berth.
"An then the earth will roll aroun so we can see the sun again an wake up."
"That's… yeah," Praxus says though he hadn't considered it that way before.
"An then-"
"Shush for now," Prowl says softly.
Starlight snuggles down on her pillow in the middle of the berth and beams at her brother and hand-signs "I love you" to him. He signs the same back to her and then at Prowl who has opened an optic to see what they're doing.
Prowl nods and then settles into recharge.
Morning slips in, and Auri reaches for Prowl's hand in her sleep as her systems start to come online. As she wakes, she realizes that Prowl, of course, isn't there with her. During their months in med-bay, she and Prowl held hands for hours on end, finding comfort in each other's touch when words weren't there. Now, though, she's in her guardians' quarters, in their berth. She's snuggled up against Chromia for warmth, the entire blanket having been kicked off the berth by big pedes. She thinks about retrieving it for herself and bundling up, but that sounds like a lot of effort, given how big the blanket is. And it's about time for her to get up, she realizes on checking the time. She smiles. It's early enough that she can catch breakfast with Prowl, if he isn't hurrying, which he rarely does these days.
Carefully, because Ironhide and Chromia are still in recharge, she rolls away from Chromia so she's closer to the edge of the big berth. Then she stretches, stretches her arms and legs and back, all of her, feeling out the stiffness in her frame. There's always a hint of an ache in her back in the morning, but she's glad that she no longer has to wear a brace and glad that she wasn't taken by the Cons.
Slowly, very slowly, she stretches out her right leg and lifts it delicately, pointing with her pede like a dancer. One day it won't twinge when she tries to hold it out and up. Gently, she lowers it and sits up in one fairly smooth motion. Then she slips off the berth and tiptoes into the main room where she can turn on the lights and check her dusty-rose pink and white and gray armor for scuffs. With the help of a little handheld mirror, she decides that she'll pass inspection after she rubs a little polish on her shoulder and buffs the chrome on her chest plating, going over the circles of the Audi logo of her alt-mode.
Then, because she's feeling adventurous, she picks out a boldly dark lip gloss from the set Elita gave her a while back. She rarely wears lip gloss, but now and then she likes to do something a little different with her looks. This one is shade she's tried in private before but not worn around. Prowl hasn't seen it. It's more of an evening color, she thinks, but she likes it for this morning, and her optics twinkle in anticipation of Prowl's reaction. He thinks he doesn't like surprises, and usually he is right, but she's noticed, noticed for quite a while now, that he likes her surprises.
Smiling to herself, she slips out the front door and shuts it quietly. As she makes her way to Prowl's quarters, she doesn't focus on her limp; she savors the morning, savors its quietness, the slight humidity detected by her doorwings, the pastel colors in the sky, the potential the day has. It could be a very good day.
On reaching Prowl's door, she knocks on it firmly as she shifts to face away from his security cameras. Knowing him, she knows he'll check them reflexively as he moves toward the door, and she wants the lip gloss to surprise him.
The door opens, and she turns a playful smile toward-
Praxus.
The dark mech's purple optics go wide, and his engine makes a little sputter sound. He doesn't look pleased with her, but she knows that her adopted brother has bad mornings sometimes.
From within the quarters, Prowl asks, "Who is it, Prax?"
Without giving Auri his usual happy smile, Praxus turns away, partially closing the door. Auri hears him walk away, and she feels concern build up in her spark. She hears Prowl reiterate his question, and this time Praxus answers.
"A hussy."
Startled, Auri covers her mouth with her hand because her lip gloss is the only thing that could have made Praxus say that.
She hears Prowl say, "What?" in the slow way he uses sometimes when he's trying to figure out what another bot in up to. "There aren't any hussies on this base. If there were, I would know," he says as he comes over to the door. He peeks out and sees Auri, sees her embarrassed look and her hand hiding her lips. A tiny frown turns one corner of his lips down, and he gently makes her lower her hand with a soft touch of his fingertips. He sees the color and the frown vanishes into a tender pleased smile.
"Oh, nothing wrong here," he says gently. He touches the tip of her nose, but she knows from the sparkle in his optics that he would love to kiss her fully on the lips in utter disregard of standard Praxian propriety. They've disregarded propriety more than once, but not in full view of a street, so he simply gives her a sweet little kiss on the cheek and says, "Good morning, sweet spark."
"Good morning," Auri answers with a smile. Then she shifts a wing and leans in toward him a little. "Praxus seemed to think I was hussy, though…" she trails off.
"Mmm…" Prowl thinks this over, and Auri sees a little twinkle enter his optics. "Well, in that case, being an Enforcer, I should probably bring you in for questioning. Make sure you're on the straight and narrow." He raises an optic-ridge in parody of Ironhide's disapproving look, and Auri can't help but giggle.
"Whatever you deem fit, sir," she teases, dipping her wings.
Nudging the door farther open, Prowl draws Auri into his quarters by the hand and then shuts the door behind them.
Praxus is huddled on the couch now, and he looks unhappy. His wings flick angrily when Auri looks at him.
"Praxus, what's-?" she starts to ask, stepping toward him, but he grabs a pillow.
"No!" he shrieks, hurling the pillow at her and ducking down against the couch's seat. "BAD! Bad color! No hurts! Prol!"
Prowl goes to him quickly as Auri swiftly turns away and pulls up her subspace inventory to find a cloth to wipe the lip gloss off with. She finds one and retrieves it, using it while Prowl calms poor Praxus.
"Sh-sh, Praxling, it's okay," Prowl soothes; he makes Praxus sit up and wraps Praxus in a hug. "Auri is making the bad color go away. It won't hurt you. No one's going to hurt you."
Praxus's cooling system gusts hard, his wing hitching as he chokes back sobs of distress. Auri, lips clean now, watches with aching spark but knows Prowl can comfort and settle Praxus better than she can.
"You're safe now," Prowl tells Praxus. "I'm here, and I won't let anyone hurt you." Prowl keeps one arm around Praxus but move one hand to rub the black armor of Praxus's helm and caress his thumb across the purple chevron that accents his forehead. "You're okay, mechling."
"I glitchy," Praxus murmurs, sniffling, settling down.
"We all are to some degree or another," Prowl says comfortingly.
"But you not have M-Y virus to help you glitch," Praxus points out. He shudders and then stills. Then he shifts so he can lean against Prowl and rest his helm against Prowl's helm.
"Are you feeling the virus more?" Prowl asks as Auri starts to venture over cautiously.
"No…. or, I don't think so," Praxus murmurs, still looking somewhat distressed. "It was just a really bad color."
Auri hesitates as Praxus notices her approach. She doesn't want to upset him again, but he seems mostly okay now and gives her a tiny bit of a smile as he motions her over. She goes and slips onto the couch beside him and gives him a snuggle.
"I'm sorry that happened, Prax," she says softly. "I had no idea a lip gloss would trigger a panic."
"Me neither," he sighs. "Stupid virus," he murmurs. "Everybody wears lip glosses, and we have no problem, and then… then you wear one, and it's over. Why can't I be normal?!"
"No one is normal," Prowl says logically. "Normalcy is largely a myth, and-"
"Don't do philosophies at me right now." Praxus sniffles. "I know we're all broken. I just wish I was less broken. Glitching lip gloss for mercy's sake, Prowl."
"I'm sorry, Prax," Prowl answers.
"It's okay," Praxus murmurs. "It's okay. We're okay." He meets Auri's optics. "Most lip glosses should be okay."
She smiles at him and rubs his arm. "I know. I've worn quite a few over the past number of months, and you never panicked."
"Oh… that's good." His system makes a tiny sigh, and she knows from past experience that that tiny sigh usually means the panic has fully subsided.
"Maybe on a good day you can look at my lip gloss set and make sure the rest of the colors are okay," she says. "I don't wear them all that often, but I don't want to risk distressing you when I do."
"That's a good idea," Prowl says gently.
Praxus doesn't say anything for several moments, and Auri knows he's thinking about it.
"I think I can look at them right now," he says after another couple seconds. His smile comes back, betraying his small fangs and making his optics sparkle. "That way you can put more lip gloss on this morning to tease Prowl and make him suffer," he explains mischievously.
Auri giggles softly, glad that her Praxus is back to himself.
"You are the one more likely to suffer, Praxling," Prowl puts in, the mischievousness of his tone far more subtle than Praxus's. "We'll start kissing, and you'll be grossed out."
"Oh, right," Praxus says, making a face. "Never mind, Auri. I take it back. No lip gloss inspection."
"Too late," Auri giggles. "I have the case out, and you shouldn't go back on what you say."
"Scrap. Well, okay."
Auri opens the small box and tells Praxus to wait a moment while she sneaks the "bad" lip gloss out and puts it back in subspace. Then she says presents the rest of the box's contents for his examination.
"That one's bad," he says almost instantly, pointing at one of the glosses. "And I don't think I like that one either," he says, pointing to another.
She removes them.
"Okay. The rest are good," he says with a peaceful sigh.
Auri hesitates. "Even this one?" she asks, pointing out a color very similar to the one that had triggered his panic.
"Uh-huh, that one's fine."
"It's… almost basically the same color as the bad one, though."
"It is almost, but it's not completely. There's a difference. I can tell the difference."
Prowl takes the gloss and looks at it. "I can't…"
Praxus takes it from him, removes the cap, puts two fingers under Auri's chin, and starts gently painting the color onto Auri's lips. "You couldn't see colors for a long time, anyway. I see so many colors that it makes me tired sometimes."
Auri wants to smile at the way Prowl tilts his helm to watch Praxus work, but she keeps her mouth still and keeps her happiness in her spark. Prowl is taking notes, she's fairly certain. What Praxus is doing is intimate, and Prowl can get ideas from it. Another time, Prowl will be the one she lets polish her lips. She wouldn't allow any other mech to do this intimate thing, but Prowl will be her sparkmate, and Praxus is her brother. There is something sweet and close about letting another bot polish her, and Praxus is wholly innocent about it, his past experiences locked away in different compartments.
"There," he says, sticking the cap on the lip gloss container. "All done. Now Prowl can question you for being a hussy."
Auri giggles and shakes her helm. "Oh, Praxus."
"Enforcer, do your job," Praxus says, motioning Prowl toward Auri.
With a soft chuckle, Prowl picks himself up off the couch and takes a few steps to stand before Auri. She meets his optics and her smile answers his smile of approval. Then she watches his wings shift in tiny ways as he tries to figure out how to play this game. He's good at games, but sometimes it takes him a little while to figure out what to do and how to get into them. And sometimes he needs a little help.
Auri gets to her pedes and leans up to Prowl just a bit. "Hi, big mech," she says, making a tiny come-hither motion with her wings.
Prowl pauses as Praxus stuffs his face in a pillow. Then he raises an optic-ridge. "Is that how you address an Enforcer of the law?"
Auri widens her optics and gives him the most innocent look she can manage. "Oh…! Why… no, sir. I have the utmost respect for Enforcers. I…" She puts a daring little finger on his chest and draws it along a line in his armor. "I admire them greatly. Sirrr."
"Mm-hmm… We'll see about that," he says. "Come over here." He leads her over to his desk and sits in his chair, leaving her to stand before his desk. She hops up to sit on his desk instead as he takes out a data-pad. "What's your full name and where are you from?"
"Aurion Blaze, and I'm living on earth right now, sir."
"That's a disreputable place," Prowl muses, and Auri giggles.
"Yes, sir. Some parts of it, anyway."
"Where exactly do you live?" Prowl asks.
"I live with my guardians, Ironhide and Chromia, sir."
He taps a finger on his data-pad, and Auri smiles, anticipating a good question. "Why are you wearing that shade of lip gloss?" he asks. "Or, to be more specific, are you wearing that lip gloss with the intent to seduce mechs?"
"Oh, no, sir. I have a mech already, so I have no intent of seducing any other."
"You have a mech already?"
"Yes, sir. A perfectly lovely mech," she answers, and she sees him hide a smile at being called 'perfectly lovely.' "Shall I tell you about him?" she offers.
Melting, forgetting to play at being a tough Enforcer, Prowl nods gently.
Auri scoots off the desk. "Well, stand up and come over here," she says, and he complies, coming over to stand before her. She gazes up at him and nods. "For starters, he's about as tall as you," she says, reaching up and caressing the top of his helm. "And has these nice broad shoulders…" She runs her hands from the base of his throat out to his shoulders and then down his arms. "But what I love most about him is how good he is to me." She slips her hands into his hands. "His logic core is a little glitchy, but even when it makes him difficult, I know that he still loves me." She gives his hands a light squeeze. "He has hands like this… strong, able to punch to a flagrant offender, but also gentle, always ready to help out another bot. And sweet, capable of the tenderest caresses."
"Ewww, mushy," Praxus gripes from the couch, but Auri and Prowl both know he's only pretending to complain and roll his optics. He ships them completely.
"What else?" Prowl asks softly, his optics warm and gentle when she meets them.
"He has this jaw..." She traces with her finger. "It can be very stubborn sometimes, but I find it very kissable most of the time."
"Oh?"
She shows him.
"I see," he says with a smile.
"Sometimes I don't know if he's being stubborn or if he's being patient, but he's consistent and steady, and I like that. I like that I can trust him."
"Trust is important in a relationship," he says with a nod.
"I can trust you two to be mushy faces," Praxus calls from a pillow.
Auri smiles and goes on. She slips around behind him and touches the outer edges of his wings. "He has these wonderful wings. He tries to keep them very still around other bots most of the time, but they still telegraph and tell me things. They whisper secrets. They tell me when he's happy and relaxed. I look forward to making them tell me that he's in absolute bliss."
At this, his wings shift in delight. She detects a bit of anticipation in their motion, as well. As Praxians, doorwingers, she and Prowl will have a pleasure additional to that shared by non-winged pairs.
She plants a soft kiss on the upper-outer corner of his left wing, and then she touches the armor of his back gently. "My love has this strong back that often seems like it is tight and hard from dealing with stress and standing up to difficult situations. When I bond with him and make him all mine, I am going to give him back massages and work all that away so he can relax completely."
"It's a scarred back," Prowl says quietly.
Auri traces his dorsal plating. "I will make him lie down, and I will bare his back and kiss every scar. I will do whatever I can to replace every pain with joy and pleasure, to wipe out every hurt he's suffered and endured. I'm alive because he is scarred, and I won't ever forget that. Ever, ever."
Prowl turns and in draws her close, kisses her, kisses her on the lips this time since they're hidden from most optics. She feels his hands trembling a little as he holds her, but hers are firm on the smooth warm armor of his back. His cooling system gusts, and when he's done kissing her, she smiles up into the loving glow of his optics. His lips part, but he falters for words.
She doesn't mind. He struggles for words at times, but she knows his spark.
Then she smiles because her lip gloss, not fully cured yet, has smudged on his lips. With her finger, she gently smooths the gloss more evenly over his lips, and he keeps still though she senses his spark start to pulse faster in response to such touching on so sensitive an area of his face.
"There," she says softly once the gloss is smooth. By this time he has found some words.
"I love you," he whispers.
"And I love you, my Prowl," she answers. "I'm going to keep you forever."
He caresses her cheek with his thumb, and she shifts her helm to kiss his hand. Out of the corner of her optics, she catches Praxus watching them with tender fondness, his expression completely content and happy. When he realizes that he's been seen, though, he grabs the pillow and presses it against his forehead.
"Eeeew, mushy faces! Hussy mushy faces with lip gloss!"
Auri chuckles softly. "I think you're just jealous that you don't have any lip gloss on," she teases gently.
"Oh, nope!" he says. "I'm not. I'm already a sweet temptation without it."
"Now you're making things up," she giggles. "What color would you like?" she asks, getting out the box as she starts toward him.
"I'm not wearing lip gloss!" he yelps, laughing as he scoots off the couch and scampers away, but Auri knows he isn't truly trying to get away because he doesn't try to dodge when Prowl moves in to intercept him. "Grrr!" he growls playfully, resisting Prowl's grasp lightly and engaging in a mock scuffle.
Watching her mechs wrestle, Auri grins, taking delight in the powerfulness of their frames and the tension between their bodies, the sturdiness of Prowl's well-trained ways and sparkling-like erraticness of Praxus's tactics. Their cooling systems gust softly, and Praxus's wings flick in mock aggression while Prowl's only shift slightly now and then with control. As they tussle, Prowl subtly maneuvers Praxus back toward the couch without him noticing until Prowl tumbles him onto his back on the couch and pins him down.
"Here you are, Auri," Prowl says as Praxus kicks lightly and chuckles at how Prowl tricked him into this position.
"Which color shall I use?" she asks, optic twinkling.
"I see a rich purple in there," Prowl says, eyeing the box with mischief.
"No!" Praxus objects, squirming. "Something subtle because I'm a mech!"
"What about this one?" Auri asks, picking out a color only slightly darker than Praxus's lips and tinted with a hint of lavender.
"That's okay," he says, looking content, so she applies it lightly as he holds still. When she's done, Prowl lets him up, and he shakes his wings as he sits. "Now we're all glossy," he says as Auri settles down on the couch beside him. "Where are you going?" he asks Prowl as the older mech starts to move away.
"Someone has to get us energon for breakfast, no?" Prowl responds.
"Oh, okay." Praxus cuddles Auri contentedly. "I'll look after Auri while you're over there."
Auri giggles. "I can look after myself, you know," she says, snuggling against him.
"I know. But it's more fun to look after somebody."
Prowl smiles to himself and opens the energon cupboard. He gets out three regular cubes and a little cube of light grade because he knows Starlight will be waking up before very long. After pouring off a small amount of the energon, he sprinkles in some spices –their favorite copper and a pinch of iron- and then he tops the cubes off with sweet energon. He does all this slowly because of his unsteady hand and because he's amused by the preposterous story Praxus is concocting for Auri's entertainment about how crowded they are going to be when she moves in.
By the time Prowl finishes preparing the energon, Starlight has woken and made her way to the doorway of Prowl's berthroom.
"Good morning," Prowl says to her.
"Good mo'ning," she answers happily. "Oh!" she exclaims with surprise and scampers into the room, heading for the couch. "Evy'y body wearing yip gwoss! Are we having a party?"
"Not officially," Prowl answers with a half smile.
"Aw, Pwax, what's that word?" she asks, reaching the couch. It's always Praxus's job to explain Prowl's difficult vocabulary because Prowl may or may not end up using more words she doesn't know when he tries to clarify something.
Laughing softly, Praxus scoops his baby sister up and cuddles her. "It means we weren't planning on having a party, but we could go ahead and have one."
"Oohh…!" She giggles. "Guess I need yip gwoss, too, huh?"
"I have a bunch you can pick from," Auri says, taking out her set again.
"Um," Praxus says, his wings shifting with doubt. "I don't know if lip gloss is for sparklings."
"Oh." Starlight's wings lower. "Do ya know?" she asks Auri.
"I don't know…" Auri says. "I never had any until I came here. What do you say, Prowl?"
Prowl hands her a cube of energon with a smile. "It's not very common. But a little now and then won't be an issue unless it makes her vain," he says, handing Praxus a cube.
Starlight makes a face. "I wouldn't be a pwetentious bain," she declares. "I don't yike 'em!"
Praxus chokes, and Auri stifles a giggle.
"I couldn't imagine you would," Prowl says with a soft chuckle. "Nobody does."
Prowl settles down on the couch beside Auri while Starlight peers at Auri's lip gloss box.
"I want a… bwue color," she decides. "'Cause mine armor bwue. Pwease."
"I think this silvery blue would be really pretty," Auri says, pointing one out.
"Ooooh! Yeah! It's perfic!" Starlight bounces. She beams up at her brother but finds him looking a little pensive. "Is it a perfic color fo me?" she asks.
He halfway smiles. "It is a perfect color for you."
Starlight looks back at the lip gloss and thinks for a few moments. Then she smiles up at her brother reassuringly. "It's okay, Pwax. I won't kiss mechs wiff it."
He doesn't say anything as Auri applies a light layer of the pretty color to Starlight's lips, and then he shifts his wings as Starlight scampers off to see how she looks in the mirror in Prowl's berthroom.
Auri looks at him and sees his expression. "What's wrong, Prax?"
"She's going to grow up," Praxus says softly. "And…" He falters and swallows. "She's going to show up with a mech-friend one day, and what if he's a fragger?!" he yelps.
Prowl chuckles at Praxus, amused yet sympathetic. "Praxling, she's a pretty sensible little femme even at this age. I don't think you will need to worry at all about what kind of mech she'll pick."
Praxus recovers a little. "I guess that's true…"
"And in the odd chance that she does find a bad one, we'll scare him off," Auri says.
Praxus considers this and then smiles. "Okay."
Starlight comes back giggling. "I look funny," she says. "Pretty, but also funny."
"It does make you look a bit different," Auri says with smile as Prowl lifts the sparkling onto the couch and gives her the little energon cube.
"Thank-you," Starlight says, holding her cube with both hands. She sips the energon and declares that it is "yummy" and then she looks up at Prowl with a question. "What's the denda for today?"
"The agenda for today is we have breakfast, and then we tidy things up," Prowl starts. "After which, we go to med-bay so Auri and I can do our physical therapy and you can get a checkup."
"So I can up-gwade?!" she asks, and the adults smile at her excitement.
"Your upgrade doesn't rely upon the checkup, but the checkup is… helpful regarding your upgrade," Prowl answers.
"Okay!" She wiggles her pedes. "Then what?"
"Auri and I will go to work at the office, and Praxus will do his studies and you will do your pre-school."
"Oh-! But can I go to the office instead? I did pre-school last week."
"Did you learn everything?" Auri asks with a soft giggle.
"I learned colors an I drew things, an I learned 'bout Pwaxus –not my bwuver, but our city- 'cept our city is all gone because bad bots came an killed it!"
Prowl's wings twitch. "What?" His tone is suddenly sharp, and Starlight looks up at him with startled optics.
"Our city got killed," she says softly. "Bad bots did it. Didn't ya know? I thoughy ev'y-one knew…"
"I knew," Prowl says, wings lowering. "I… didn't mean to speak sharply. It's just… I didn't know you knew. You're little and don't need to know that kind of thing yet, or bear that kind of burden."
"Oh," she says, but she doesn't seem to truly understand, and she moves on. "I learned other things, too, an I learned a Merry-can human baby song for my cultural awareness class. It goes 'head an shoulders, knees an toes, knees an toes… eyes an ear an mouth an nose…' an… so on." She giggles. "It's kinda silly, but I yike it."
"It sounds fun," Auri says.
"Yeah! But, I still would yike to go to the office."
"Well," Prowl says, hiding a smile. "It is on the agenda that you and Praxus will pick up lunch and bring to the office so we can have lunch together."
"Oh! Okay!" Starlight beams. "That's good nuff!"
"And then after that, Auri and I will have some work, and you and Praxus will go do art."
"An get paints on us maybe," Starlight giggles.
"Maybe," Praxus says, though he fully expects so.
"An then do we come back here for dinner?"
Prowl looks a little wistful. "Yes, after you do art, you and Praxus will come back here for dinner with Auri and me."
"But why ya look sad, Pruddle?" Starlight asks.
"Because while you and Praxus are doing art, I have to do meetings and listen to conference calls with difficult humans, and that won't be very fun."
"Aw. But… Auri will help ya, yeah?"
This brings Prowl's smile back.
"I definitely will," Auri says, meeting Prowl's optics lovingly. "I'll make everything I can a bit easier and nicer."
"Then it's a good denda for today," Starlight decides.