Male Is As Male Does

Authors Note: I was fumbling around in the dark a bit with this chapter. I had my ideas and plan all sorted out, but I was struggling to bring it together. Hopefully everything will work better with the next episode! ::smacks forehead::

Chapter 6

Will Lennox and Robert Epps sat still and silent in their Army Jeep parked at the edge of the base well away from the prying audios and optics of their alien friends.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, warm, with a slight breeze, and the pair of them had managed to arrange some time for themselves to discuss important matters – matters involving how the heck to 'prank' beings from another planet when said beings were taller, bigger, way more intelligent and much more experienced at pranking other species while still remaining 'civil' and diplomatic. What made the situation difficult was that while the mighty Optimus Prime had been underhandedly playing with their fragile egos, he had been careful to not allow real evidence of his activities to be held up as 'proof' that his species had sex. There was nothing that Lennox could satisfactorily hold up to his superiors and say, 'Look! Look what those crazy insensitive aliens are doing right under our noses!'.

Not a damn thing.

Will was determined that Optimus Prime and Ratchet were going to feel his human wrath for the subtle but neverending pokes to the humans dignity and pride. Especially Will's man pride. Remembering being stripped of his clothes and examined naked in front of everyone still gave him the creeps, and Optimus had refused to help him. Not to mention that stepping in Optimus Prime's 'reproductive fluid' - or whatever the heck they called it - made him want to beat his forehead in with a brick. He'd steered clear of hitching a ride in the back of THAT plane ever since. Prime's 'puddle' had been neatly cleaned up, but Will could still imagine the sight and smell of it. Heck, his brain kept coming up with images of Arcee doing THAT to Optimus so he was able to produce the damn puddle... he could visualise one of the Arcee triplets nimbly threading herself under Prime's truck chassis – maybe Prime even lifted himself higher on his suspension to give her more room - her hands stroking the metal covering his intimate parts, listening to the happy noises the big Prime was no doubt making when the femme's eager hands contacted his heated metal. Thinking of Optimus Prime's great and powerful mass shivering and trembling with pleasure made Will squirm.

"I still can't think of anything," Lennox groused unhappily, shaking his head to clear out his memory and staring out the windscreen at the view of the ocean.

His face behind his black sunglasses carefully neutral, Epps nodded, "Me either."

"C'mon, we're soldiers, the America's finest, surely we can think of something!" Will said with a trace of desperation. "Anything! Throw me a bone here!"

Only loaded silence filled the interior of their vehicles cabin. Lennox furrowed his eyebrows, thinking. Epps tapped his fingers on his thigh while he brooded. Something metallic clicked and creaked as it cooled under the Jeep's chassis. The silence continued.

"... we haven't got a hope in hell, have we?" Lennox groaned, joining his hands together on top of the steering wheel and thunking his forehead onto them.

"Nope," Epps agreed companionably. "But hey, look at it this way. If you do something he doesn't like, he could squish you. If you offend him, he'll squish you. Make him angry... again, he'll squish you. Maybe it's better to just leave some things alone, you hear me? No do, no squish."

"You like saying 'squish' a lot, don't you?" Lennox retorted nastily.

The next day...

Will was usually a good sleeper. Indoors, outdoors, in a bed, on hard rocky ground, squeezed into a tent with fifty other soldiers, or getting a few nods by resting his head on the shoulder of a fellow soldier in the cargo hold of an airplane midflight. Despite the considerable worries that rested on his shoulders when it came to war, he was always able to switch off and rest.

He was good at rest.

Not now.

He supposed he should find it significant that what was disturbing his rest now was his imagination showing him all the different techniques and positions Optimus Prime used on his harem of femme Autobots. He had neat dream scenes in his head of Prime sitting on some sort of robot-sized throne, using one hand to beckon the next willing femme in line to come and 'see' him for some attention, while the other hand wielded a hefty rifle and shot at passing Decepticons.

The final straw came when at 4:46 in the morning, the upset writhing and tossing of his body in restless sleep finally landed him in one-roll-too-many on the floor. Hard. And since the floor was concrete...

"Owww... crap..."

He stayed slumped where he had landed on his side. His eyes shuttered closed with a long groan. What eventually made him move was the cold seeping into his naked upper torso from the floor. Will clenched his fists, his nose pressed into the concrete.

"Right! That's it!"

He staggered to his knees and leant on his rumpled bed with his elbows, slamming one fist into the soggy pillow. If his body wouldn't let him rest peacefully, he was going to make it work. He was going for a run – despite the threat of Ratchet chasing him down and dangling him from his shorts in front of the whole base. Ratchet be damned, he needed some exercise.

Hopping around on alternate feet, he slipped on a pair of running shorts (not one of those gifted to him by the CMO, no way) and chucked on a pair of ratty running shoes. His head ducked out of his room and peered through the window across the hallway. Great. The sun was up just enough so he could see where he was going. He didn't want a frantic Autobot chasing him down for his own safety, yelling that it wasn't safe because he didn't have headlights to see with. Damn Autobots were overly obsessed with safety.

Will padded soundlessly on rubber-clad feet out of the human soldiers accommodation and onto the tarmac. Apart from the sentry soldiers, everything was quiet. Lovely. He indulged in a few stretches and shakes before he began. He was bending over and rubbing his calves when someone startled him.

"Going somewhere, Major?"

Lennox's head snapped around. Optimus Prime himself was standing tall and serene to his right, looking down at him with gentle optics. The half-light of the dawning sun made his red and blue metal glow like that of a God. How the heck had the insanely big mech sneaked up on him like that? Someone should put a bell on him. Epps would do it. Epps did anything he told him to do, reasonable or not.

Will straightened up. "Good morning. Yeah, I thought I'd try jogging again, if Ratchet can keep his paws to himself. I couldn't sleep." His brain turned over; why wasn't Optimus with Arcee exercising his 'rights'? Had he finally reined in his need to belittle the humans with his overt display of superior masculinity? Any off-duty free time Optimus obtained usually translated into 'Let's whisk the femme off somewhere and have fun!'.

Prime's optics brightened. "Ah. I guessed as much. Your species is at its most active when mostly naked, and you are only wearing one small patch of cloth."

Will's eyes widened. He didn't know wether to laugh at that or not. Now he thought about it, yes, exercise and sex meant the use of very little clothing. Very perceptive of aliens to notice that. Hey, had Optimus thought he was going out for sex?

Lennox jerked and then blurted with more force than he meant to, "Jogging! I'm jogging!"

One of Prime's optic ridges rose up comically, his blue optics glowing steadily. "You did inform me of that." The huge mech's head lifted to look at the sunrise, studying it. "Would you permit me to accompany you? Ratchet insists that I stretch out the parts in my legs after the repairs from our last incursion, and it is a beautiful morning, is it not?"

Lennox looked surprised. He stared at the length of the Autobot Commander's legs compared to his own. They were long, powerful, and from his tiny perspective; deadly. His gaze wandered higher, then he realised what he was intently staring at and snapped his eyes back to lower ground. He didn't want a close-up at the junction of Prime's thighs of what it was that Arcee found to be intensely interesting about the handsome mech...

"You want to run too? There's no way I could keep up with you, and you might.. uh..." he winced, pausing. "Hmm." He didn't know how to express his fear of being trodden on and squished into the pavement like roadkill without sounding rude.

"Step on you?" Prime rumbled with a faint smile. The massive mech unclasped his hands from behind his back and rolled the component metal of his shoulders and chest. It was an impressive display of latent strength. Standing right next to the alien warrior, Will heard the subtle hiss and digital whine of multiple parts in his chassis. "I will not be running. Walking is sufficient for my purposes, and I believe I can reliably restrain myself from stepping on your person."

Will had to let forth a smile at Prime's light tone. It was the closest Optimus ever got to being humorous.

"Alright. Sure. It would be nice to have company, and hey, if you're with me, we can run outside the base perimeter on the grass, the ground is better than the tarmac," he glanced up at Optimus sincerely, "I couldn't think of a better armed escort than you."

"Yes," Optimus cocked his head and nodded, understanding Will's logic, "like Ironhide is fond of saying, Decepticons tend to leak lubricants down their legs and flee when they sense my presence."

Lennox rolled his eyes with a chuckle, "Yep, I can believe that. Let's get going."

It was awkward at first. Will would settle into his running pace and find he was losing ground against the bigger striding Optimus Prime, then he would speed up at the same time as his big friend would slow down, and they'd leapfrog each other. But they worked it out. The base sentries at the fences stared up open-mouthed at their early morning three-storeys-tall metal visitor, ignoring Will panting and huffing his way along. Will was an ordinary human, while Optimus was a walking talking God. Some of them saluted, others just froze in place. Optimus Prime out for a walk was an awesome; if intimidating; sight for most of them.

Lennox was enjoying his time with Optimus. With no femmes, no accidents, no soldier duties, no emergency; nothing but a nice companionable morning walk and jog; it was relaxing. Their duties as Leaders and soldiers left behind for the moment.

Optimus Prime watched his friend run freely along, always mindful of where his own huge feet were in relation to the much smaller human. The Autobots would surely lose their status as refugees on Earth if their Leader stomped a human flat – accident, or no.

--You better be keeping an optic on that man, Prime! He likes to damage himself!--

Optimus paused in his next step at the abrupt intrusion over his internal comlink while glancing back at the main hangar in the distance. He could see the CMO standing on the tarmac and watching them. --Good morning, Ratchet--

--If Lennox overheats again, strip him, dangle him into the sea for a bit and call me. Don't worry about saving his slagging dignity, worry about his life. You got that?--

Prime shook his head and resumed his walk –Yes Ratchet--

He could see the disgruntled medic cross his arms defiantly over his chest, staring him down even though he was far from their position. Optimus' faceplates smiled faintly. Ratchet was a brilliant medic. Prime had never seen his equal. He often contemplated wether Ratchet's OTT tactless and bullish personality were the result of his own character traits or was due to his innate brilliance, with perhaps the medic realising that being 'the best' meant his manners fell by the wayside. Brilliance was like that.

Will didn't notice Prime's momentary pause, he was too intent on pushing his body at a pace that satisfied his need for a good workout. Hearing a soft grunt from Optimus behind him, and noticing the absence of the Autobot's heavy thumping strides, Will turned his head to look back at the giant mech – and tripped on a large clump of tussock grass. His arms flailed wildly.

"....argh!"

Prime snapped his attention forwards. "Major Lennox?"

The human in question was lying on his front with his aft stuck up in the air. Grumbles about 'dignity', 'idiocy' and 'stupid morons' drifted over to Prime's sensitive audios. When Will showed no signs of regaining his feet – settling instead to lie there on his squashed up arms and berate himself – Optimus closed the gap between them with two big strides and knelt on one knee next to the human soldier.

Prime's giant finger tapped gently at Will's back. "Lennox? Are you damaged?"

A muffled snort and a snappish "...go away... my ego just died..." came back at him.

Optimus shook his head. If Lennox didn't get back onto his own feet quickly enough, Ratchet would soon be charging over the hill and forcefully grabbing the human to check for injuries. His gaze locked onto the back of Will's shorts. Well, if it worked for Ratchet... Prime's fingers descended. Using a pinching motion, he latched onto the tiny shorts and lifted Will up off the ground. He almost unbalanced the man so he was hanging head down, but a quick poke at the man's thighs had his body dangling feet first instead.

"Not the shorts! NOT THE SHORTS...! Shit!" Will flailed and reached around himself to batter ineffectually at Prime's fingers. "HEY!"

After reassuring his struggling charge that he would not drop him, Optimus used the opportunity to dangle the man in front of his glowing blue optics, intently checking for injuries, turning Will's body so he could scan it. "Hmmm. No damage done that I can detect, however, I am not a medic."

"You can't DO this to people! We're not pets! And tripping over in sand doesn't KILL me!" Will screeched, swinging from side to side in Prime's pinched grip. His face was red and sweaty. Hands in fists. Feet jerking uselessly.

Optimus contemplated that it was unusual to see the Major so upset. He was generally a quiet, respectful and determined man who didn't let anything fluster him. He had adapted to the presence of the Autobots and Decepticons without question. In all of his lifetime, Optimus had met few creatures in his travels that accepted him and his soldiers with so little fuss, but Major Lennox was one of them.

"Prime, what are you doing to Lennox?" a deep voice with a more gravelly pitch than Prime's rumbling tones interrupted the duo.

"IRONHIDE!" Lennox yelled, struggling and swinging, "Thank God! Help! Evacuate! Rescue! Initiate Plan C!"

Coming up the hill on the other side of Optimus and Lennox was the black intimidating mass of Ironhide and the sweet curves of the Arcee triplets. The femmes whizzed in their upright forms on their single wheels up to the massive Autobot Commander – and Will was shocked to see two of them clearly reach out and smack Optimus on the aft mischievously as they went past. The remaining (and more civil) femme glanced at her sisters with disapproval at such an act. Startled; but not having minded the disobedient slap; Prime favored the two misbehaving femmes with a smirk, his own optics clearly watching the sexy sway of the femme's own afts with interest as they proceeded past.

Lennox hung open-mouthed at the rare display of affection between the mech and femmes. "Gah..."

Ironhide halted next to Optimus and growled, "Drop him. NOW. Stop treating the organics as play things. He has legs, let him use them." Lennox was his human and he didn't approve of the other Autobots messing around with him. He'd heard what Ratchet had done to Will the previous day, and now Optimus was doing the same thing. The humans were tiny, but they were also brave, intelligent, kept fighting no matter the odds, and made good soldiers. They deserved more respect.

Not paying attention to his Weapons Specialist, Prime jerked his head from studying the cheeky femmes to face Ironhide, "What?"

Ironhide huffed and hitched up his shoulders menacingly, "I said, put him-"

The tiny shorts Prime was holding between his fingers ripped. They'd given up being used as a handle. His underwear wasn't impressed with the situation either – they ripped too. Lennox let loose with a volley of expletives as he plummeted to the ground, landing on top of a sandy dune with a thump. Since Optimus had been kneeling, Will's fall wasn't too much of a distance for him to handle. But still...

Rolling his optics, Ironhide snorted, "Nevermind. Will, are you alright?"

Lennox rolled over onto his back, flexing his limbs gingerly. He grimaced up at the looming concerned Autobots, snapping, "NO!"

Prime was mortified. After staring at the flimsy tattered cloth fluttering between his fingers, and internally berating humans for ever wearing such blatantly flimsy armor, he lowered his head, "Lennox! I apologise! I didn't mean for that to happen!" He quickly ran a scan over Will's body, letting a sigh of relief out of his airtakes and settling back on his heels when he found no broken bones or squished bits. "You appear to be undamaged, thank Primus. Ratchet should take a look at you to confirm this."

Ignoring him, Will grumbled snidely to himself, sitting up. "You owe me so bad." He rubbed ferociously at the sand covering his upper body. "The Government owes me, America owes me, the SecDef owes me, heck; the whole flippin' universe owes me for putting up with you lot!"

Then he saw the three Arcee's return to halt next to Prime. The smiles on their faces reminded him he was naked again. He frantically covered his groin with his hands. "AND SOMEONE GET ME SOME CLOTHES~!"