Male Is As Male Does

Authors Note: Yes, I know, the first chapter was supposed to be a oneshot. Sorry. Couldn't help myself, I'm having too much fun playing around with Prime's private life! And so are all the reviewers! Thanks guys!

Chapter 2

Major Lennox was muttering to himself at the mess hall table when Epps loped past. The heavily muscled soldier paused in his steps. Stopped. Turned. And walked right back to his superior officer. His head lowered to be level with Will's.

"You alright?"

Lennox didn't raise his head from his precious coffee cup, but his eyes lifted to stare at Epps's curious face. The cup was set down onto the table. A sigh came past his lips.

"Yeah... I think. Sort of. I just... saw something," Lennox's eyes dropped to the table top, "something... disturbing."

Keeping the rest of his face neutral (he'd heard and seen a heck of a lot of surprises and nasty shit in his lifetime) Epps lifted one eyebrow as his only expression of 'yeah?' and carefully took a chair at the table. "Define 'disturbing'. You know who we live with."

Lennox broke into muffled laughter. "Oh yeah, and I know 'how' they live with themselves too. Do I ever..."

Epps was now looking at Lennox like someone (Ironhide? That bad bot wasn't immune to jokes) had stuck a KICK ME note to his forehead. "Alright, lemme guess something here. You saw the 'bots doing something that they shouldn't be doing." Epps tried hard to think of things that the Autobots shouldn't be doing. Throwing darts at pictures of the President? Reversing over base personnel and saying 'Oops, that's the third one this week'? Ironhide using staff cars in the car park for target practise and protesting that it was okay because they weren't alive? Bumblebee pulling his famous trick and lubricating on someone?

This time it was Lennox who gave Epps the critical once over. "Nope, I think Optimus had every right to do what he was doing. I just don't think I should've been standing there to witness it."

Okay, now I've got some intel to go on, Epps thought. "This involves the big guy," he said carefully.

Lennox snorted, sitting up to lean back in his chair, one of his hands scratching at the top of his head, "Oh yeah, and I'm sure Arcee – all three of her – appreciated how big he is."

That statement stopped Epps cold. He was smart. He really was. Arcee was a female robot. Optimus was a male robot, a VERY male robot. The malest of the Autobots. Heck, even the female human staff of NEST thought he was the hottest thing ever - making the human men of NEST want to let down his tyres out of spite. All of them looked crap standing next to HIM.

"Oh... shit." Epps's hand reached out across the table, swiped Lennox's coffee, and chucked the semi-warm liquid down his throat. Swallowing the last of the coffee, Epps met his Commander's eyes, "Do we have to issue condoms to them now? Because, you know, we don't have banana's big enough to demonstrate on. No, stuff that, we don't HAVE big enough condoms for their species to use, and I ain't sewing the small ones together. No way."

Collapsing into feeble laughter, Lennox covered his face with his hands, rubbing at his eyes, "Oh my God."

Epps glanced around the mess hall. It was between meal times, hence it was empty. Thankfully. He beckoned towards Lennox to 'bring it on', "So tell me, what did you see? Or is this going in the 'classified only' file?"

Feeling a lot more relaxed now that he was sharing what he had seen with one of his best buddies, Lennox sighed and leaned his forearms on the table. "I hate to give you the wrong impression, but I didn't see him and Arcee doing the, ah, whatever they do, but she was in his room on his bed-"

"Berth," Epps corrected automatically. He was the technical sergeant.

"Berth, bed, whatever, don't interrupt," Will waved one hand around to shush him, "he was there too, and Optimus was making sounds like he was one very happy Autobot. Like a bad porn DVD, you get me?"

Both of Epps's eyebrows raised up. This was interesting.

"I was waiting in their hanger to talk to Optimus - had to ask him a question – and all these 'happy' noises were coming from his room. Ratchet and Ironhide didn't seem the least bit upset by it. The General told me to get an answer to the President's question, so..." Lennox paused to cringe, "I knocked on Prime's door. When it opened I saw two Arcee's on his bed – berth, sorry – and the third one was standing behind him and groping around just above Prime's, uh," the hardened soldier winced, "crotch."

On reflex Epps jerked up the coffee cup for solace. Damn it. Empty. Abandoning the cup he shook his head. "You know, they haven't really allowed us to do a lot of research on them, we don't know what they do for sex. They could plug themselves together with extension cords, or swap memory sticks, you know?"

Will stared back at him with a 'like hell' expression, "If they did that, why was Arcee intent on touching him close to 'down there'?"

"Good point." Epps's fingers clenched around the coffee cup. "You know the best thing?"

"No... there's a best bit to this?"

"This means Optimus isn't gay."

Lennox almost brought up the coffee he'd drunk all over the table. He forced down the bile that had risen in his throat. He was used to the alien robots that had landed on their planet. The Autobots were good friends. Good soldiers. Good companions. He'd never had pause to think about what they MIGHT be doing in their own downtime; personal downtime. He'd never caught them playing frisbee or sunbathing on the beach, so... adults of any species had needs. He supposed the Autobots did too. Or at least, Prime did. He hadn't ever caught Ironhide near Arcee, and he knew 'Hide well enough to know the older Autobot sometimes made very crude suggestions concerning females.

Epps continued on, "And another thing..."

Will became distrustful of what his soldier was thinking. Epps was the best, he really was, but he also had a very imaginative mind.

"Knowing how big Optimus Prime is; from a height point-of-view; and on evidence, considering that they may reproduce something like us, how damn big is his equipment?"

Lennox dropped his head down onto the table with a THUNK, whining softly and covering his ears with his hands. "Nooo... make it go away..."

"We could ask Bumblebee. He's the most friendly, I reckon we'd get some hard answers from him if we pressed him firmly enough," Epps suggested thoughtfully.

"...don't think Bumblebee has seen Prime naked..." Lennox mumbled tonelessly.

"What about asking Sam?"

This time Will lifted his head. He looked tired. "Ask him what? Hey Sam, nice to see you again and all, but have you ever seen Prime humping anything and what does he look like without armor?" He grimaced. "No. Just – no. And this stays between us, all right? No sharing this one with the other guys or NEST staff. Christ, if the scientists knew what we know now, they'd have poor Prime strapped to a bench and stripped for a good poke and a giggle. THAT I do NOT want to deal with, thank you very much." Lennox pointed a finger at Epps, "and the men of the world do not need to know how many inches Optimus has!"

Epps grunted. There was silence between the two. It didn't last long.

"Ask Ratchet? He's the uh, what did they call him, CMO, some type of doctor. We could ask him what they do for sex from a technical perspective. They use the internet, they must know what we do. They can return the favor."

Will's face shifted into soldier mode, "No, we don't do anything about this unless it becomes an issue on the battlefield. We see Prime trying to do it during a skirmish, then it becomes an issue, not before. If he can't keep his hands to himself that's when it threatens everyone's safety. Understood?"

"Yes sir," Epps began to smile, then his eyes widened. His mouth flopped open. "Ugh..."

Lennox jerked around in his chair to look at what Epps was seeing.

Arcee – one of them, at least – was walking in the hangar's oversized doorway. She was wet. Very wet. Sand covered her feet and ankles. Her optics brightened when she caught sight of the two human men. Her head nodded a greeting, "Lennox, Epps."

Epps gulped, "Hi..."

"Arcee," Lennox peered at her and the amount of water dripping from her purple physique. "Had a swim?"

"Yes. I enjoyed it. Water is rare back home."

With another smile, the femme walked past, followed by her other two selves. All of them wet, with sand in various places. The appearance of the majestic Optimus Prime striding along behind the last Arcee triplet made both soldiers sit up straight in their chairs. Optimus was also wet and suspiciously sandy. The big Prime appeared relaxed and pleased with himself, the chrome parts of his body glittering... similar stricken thoughts of what the big mech and sexy femme may have been doing on the deserted beach coastline together scrolled through each human man's mind.

Optimus halted momentarily next to the men.

"Major Lennox. Epps. Enjoying your break?"

"Y-yeah," Lennox stuttered, eyes wide.

Epps didn't trust himself to speak. He settled with a very slow nod.

Prime's optics brightened and his mouthplates lifted minutely in his version of a smile, "Good." He followed after Arcee, intent on washing the sand off his immense chassis. They watched him go.

"Lennox..."

Lennox kept staring after the big guy, trying to imagine what robots looked like when they did 'it'. It must be noisy, they were made of metal after all.

"Lennox!"

And if they were doing 'it' on the beach, that was a breach of security! They had to stop them! Even aliens must have a sense of decorum. Unless their lower body parts were under the waterline, then that was technically okay -

"WILL!"

Lennox returned his attention to his human soldier, exclaiming, "What?!"

Epps leaned closer to his friend to say softly and clearly, "Prime had the imprints of two femme sized hands in the sand covering his butt. Looks like a femme grabbed onto his butt from in front." Epps held out his hands to demonstrate. "Like this?"

Lennox slammed his head down onto the table and began to cry.