Title: Third Wheel
Warning: This inhabits a weird area where it's a humor fic, but people sensitive to misunderstandings causing serious discomfort probably shouldn't read.
Rating: PG
Continuity: G1
Characters: Smokescreen, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Jazz.
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): People on Tumblr were talking about 'bots dribbling on themselves while fantasizing about voluptuous bumpers. It had to be written.
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Part Eleven
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"You're off," Ironhide announced as he entered the Security room. "My turn."
Smokescreen looked away from the monitors to stand and salute. "Sir? Where's Red Alert?" He could count on one hand the mechs the Security Director trusted monitor duty with, and it was down to him and Red Alert this week. Ironhide, while trustworthy in his own way, wasn't on the roster.
"Runnin' a patrol. Medical's on our afts 'bout exercisin' our t-cogs again," his commander said lazily as he returned the salute. "Seems some desk jockey stuck hisself in rootmode from not transforming, so orders are to change it up and get on out."
"Red Alert has an altmode?" Smokescreen mused on that. "Huh. I've never seen it."
"And that's why he's out runnin' patrol." Ironhide claimed the abandoned chair. Shooing motions dismissed the bemused Praxian. "Git."
"Yes sir." Smokescreen threw him a less formal salute, more of an acknowledgement, and sped out the door. Free! Bwahaha, wonderful, time-wasting, off-duty free time, here he came.
He slowed at the intersection. It wasn't as though he had big plans. Every couple of days, he did make a point of going down to the lock-up to spend time with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, but both of them were currently on sentry duty. Post-shift plan remained, as per usual, to head to the messhall. Even if he didn't want dinner, the messhall was still the first place to check out for what was going on in the outpost. Everyone tended to hang out there. Sometimes people gathered in the barracks, but recharge times cycled depending on duty shifts. Out of courtesy, they stayed out of the bunks so the night shifts could sleep.
The messhall was the main gathering spot. Other times it could be the firing range or the courtyard, but Smokescreen knew he'd found the right place today when a tray hit him square in the front grille. k-whaaaaang!
He nearly fell right back out the door. "What the fr - " Flailing his arms, Smokescreen managed a quick grab at the door jamb as he stumbled backward. He hauled himself back upright to glare into the room. Panic dropped into rage without pause. His doors were thoroughly ruffled, his vents were open, his fans were going full bore, and his voice climbed to an indignant shriek reflecting just how fed up he was with this slag. "Are you kidding me? What in Primus' name is wrong with you?!"
The laughter inside cut off cold. Half a dozen pairs of wide optics stared at him, caught red-handed. Oh, frag. A mistake had been made.
Dead center of the group, an extremely guilty visor paled to an unhealthy baby blue. "Unorthodox weapons practice?" Jazz offered in a tiny voice like a penitent sinner making excuses to an angry god.
An angry god that revved his engine in fury at the pathetic excuse. His wrath would not be appeased so easily!
He stalked into the room, doors held in a rigid V behind him, and battle-hardened agents hastily scooted out of the blast zone. No pretense at subtlety was made. They were abandoning their commander to his fate. When a Praxian frametype got his back up, he literally got his back up. Smokescreen's doors made him that much taller than the small black-and-white Head of Special Operations, and he loomed over Jazz as they scurried out of his way.
Their boss smiled weakly as he was left to face his doom. The stack of trays beside him bore various dents and dings, possibly from impact on the last few people foolish enough to walk through the messhall door before Smokescreen.
Smokescreen didn't care who else had fallen to the wicked Frisbee arm of Special Operations. All he cared about was that he'd been assaulted by a tray - again - and this time someone was going to pay. Oh ho, yes, somebody by the name of Jazz was going to pay dearly.
"You're off-duty?" he demanded as he stopped in front of the table. It was a flimsy shield between them.
"I - " Jazz started, but Smokescreen's glare scorched the lie to smoke and ash before it was fully formed. Ooookay, time to change tactics.
"Yeah, he is," Bumblebee said, the traitor, and kept talking over Jazz's immediate denial. "He's got third shift."
"Nothing but stupid hijinks on the schedule today?" Smokescreen pointedly asked everyone in the group but Jazz.
They forked their boss over to his tender mercies without a hint of shame. Survival instinct was strong in Special Ops.
"Schedule's clear."
"Empty m'mech."
"Booked full of nothing."
"Wide open!"
"All yours."
"Fat lotta help you are," Jazz muttered. He drew in a deep vent as Smokescreen rounded the table. In the pious tones of a condemned mech saying his last words, he proclaimed, "I, Jazz, do hereby leave all my worldly possessions to Lord Megatron, to whom I swear undyin' allegiance as a 'Con to the core!"
Reflex made every spy, saboteur, and sneak flinch, but Smokescreen didn't falter. "Red Alert's out on patrol, fragger," he said, engine growling, and Jazz's doors tucked as the black-and-white stared at the messhall security camera woefully. Betrayal! "No emergency alarm will save you now."
Only Jazz would consider being thrown in a cell by an overzealous Security Director a way out of the corner he'd been backed into. His visor shifted to the Praxian. "I, uh, just remembered I gotta inspect a wall. Bye!"
"Get back here!"
Jazz was fast, but Smokescreen had more experience dealing cards. The saboteur dove over the table; Smokescreen's hand shot out to grab his ankle at the same moment. Plating clattered as it hit the table, brought down, and Jazz twisted in an improbable move his frametype shouldn't have been capable of. In a real escape, a concealed blade would have probably sliced through Smokescreen's wrist, and the kick aimed at his face wouldn't have been slow enough for Smokescreen to duck under. Since this was the messhall and Smokescreen was nominally counted as friendly, Jazz skipped the blades and instead went for the first nonlethal weapon that came to hand.
Twisting with the kick, he sat up and brought his impromptu weapon down as hard as possible on Smokescreen's lowered helm.
Without really thinking about what he'd grabbed.
k-whaaaaang!
Until, of course, about two seconds after he did it.
Well, it certainly made Smokescreen let go.
Jazz let go, too, fingers curling into his palms as he drew back from the seething Praxian. Visor bleached a light blue closer to white, he looked wildly around the messhall for help. It wasn't coming. His mechs were all gaping at the tray swinging from Smokescreen's chevron. It's presence in front of the guy's face might have been the only thing keeping rage-fueled laser optics from punching holes in Jazz's face. That didn't mean Smokescreen wouldn't soon start throwing punches. Probably also at Jazz's face, given how his hands balled into fists at his sides.
"…they're really good weapons in a pinch," Jazz said. It was as though he couldn't stop himself.
Off to one side, Bumblebee appeared to be consigning his boss to the slaughter. Goodbye, Jazz, it was nice working together. Unfortunately, it was time to die.
"I," Smokescreen said as he pried at the tray impaled on his chevron, "cannot see Jazz at this moment. However, I'm assuming he's going to be right here," he stabbed his finger blindly at the table in front of himself, then went back to pulling futilely at the tray, "when I get this blasted thing off my head!"
Scuffling noises promptly began somewhere beyond the barrier of the tray. Smokescreen ignored them in favor of picking at the bit of metal jammed under the base of his chevron. The tray had been brought down on his head with such force the left tip of his chevron had bent, which not only slagging hurt but made getting the thing off an exercise in frustrated, blind fumbling. It was wide enough that he had to strain to get his arms up around it, and he flinched every time he touched the bent tip.
Bumblebee eventually had to stand on the bench to help him bend his chevron straight again. He knew it was Bumblebee because he could see yellow feet.
"Thank you," he said, painfully polite. One had to be polite when living in close quarters with so many other people. The little things in life made all the difference.
Bumblebee lifted the tray away. His optics held worry his bright smile didn't hint at. "My pleasure. We'll just, um, leave you two alone, okay?"
"That's so nice of you," Smokescreen said. "I appreciate that, folks." He sounded absolutely sincere. He looked completely unamused.
Everyone cleared out of the messhall as if evacuating on the heels of the Bomb Squad. It was the kind of situation where smart mechs ran for cover and worried about picking up the pieces after the explosions stopped. They got it, okay? An unspoken rule of the outpost had been violated in a big way, and everyone was just going to look away while justice was dealt. Balance had to be restored in order to keep life rolling along. The door closed quietly behind Mirage like the world's quietest death knell.
Smokescreen nodded once before turning his attention back to the object of his ire. He was Most Displeased. "You."
To nobody but Jazz's surprise, he was seated exactly where expected: right in front of the irate Praxian. A nervous smile greeted Smokescreen. "Hi. Can I apologize, or should I just start bequeathin' my belongings?"
Smokescreen smiled his best cardshark smile. Slinking forward, he slid between Jazz's knees and cozied up real close. Intimate close. Close enough to lean in and purr a promise against one audial horn. "I'm going to destroy you."
A shiver went down Jazz's back struts. He swallowed hard, sitting very still as Smokescreen exhaled hot air over the sensitive helm protrusion. "Kiiiiinda what I was afraid of. Right, so 'bout those belongings." Straightening up slightly, he reset his vocalizer as he looked up at the security camera. "I, Jazz, being sound of mind and body!" His voice screeked high as teeth lightly grazed recessed audio screens. "Scratch that, I ain't gonna be thinkin' straight in a minute, here. I, uh, give everything t' Prowl. He'll figure out what to do with it."
"Good choice." Smokescreen plucked Jazz's hands from where they hovered midair, unsure whether to push him away or pull him closer. They were studied for a moment, and then he selected a couple fingers to serve his purposes. He gripped them firmly to ensure no escape was possible.
Apprehensive, Jazz eyed him as he was pulled forward, but his visor went wide when the selected fingers were popped into Smokescreen's mouth. "Smokes? Smokes, what're you doin'?"
"Hmmm?" With a slick schluk, the fingers were pulled out, and Smokescreen shifted his grip to separate out another finger. Into his mouth it went. "Mm."
"This ain't exactly my kinda thing, Smokes," Jazz said. Conviction didn't overflow his words. This wasn't his thing, that tone told Smokescreen, but he could easily be persuaded into buying in.
Smokescreen swirled his tongue around the finger in his mouth like it was the end of a connector. A breathy noise mewled out of his victim as he drew back to dart quick little licks at the tip, but Jazz sucked a deep in-vent while Smokescreen chose the next finger. Control. This was all about control. All sorts of things were available for purchase if he could just keep control for once. He leaned forward when the Praxian nibbled on his knuckles, and Smokescreen made a small noise of his own as lips softly kissed the sore crease where his chevron had been bent.
"There, right there," Smokescreen said. Shutting off his optics, he turned his head enough to press Jazz's forefinger lengthwise across his mouth, taking it in to hold between his teeth. Jazz followed the movement, his own teeth clinking on the sensor-packed chevron.
That was a good spot. "Prowl will like that," Smokescreen said deliberately, taking care to enunciate his words around the finger he held. He bit down gently.
Too late. Jazz's mind had already left the station. The train had departed for Fantasy Land. He could practically see Jazz lose control, dropping helplessly into imagining Prowl in his place.
A hiss-click from the messhall speakers preceded Ironhide's voice. "That's done it."
Smokescreen snickered. He didn't even try to sound less than evil. "That it has."
The outpost commander sighed. "No murderin' my mechs."
"I won't." He let go of Jazz's finger, letting it drag off his lower lip. Jazz's visor fixated on it, and Smokescreen smirked. "Might wound him a little, but…"
"C'mon, he didn't mean it."
"Hmmph." There would be no forgiveness for the tray. None. He had every intention of cutting Jazz's pride off at the knees for that, if nothing else.
Speaking of which. "How many people are up there watching this?"
White noise spat quietly from the speaker for a moment.
"That many, huh?" Heh. Good.
More white noise. Ironhide wasn't going to get involved in the outpost's various relationship dramas, even if it was standing room only in the security room. He saw no evil, heard no evil, recorded no evil for distribution later.
Smokescreen, on the other hand, wanted this lesson seen, heard, and distributed far and wide. Don't mess with him, or he'd mess right back - and win.
Taking a good hold on both of Jazz's hands, he planted them right on his headlights. Jazz's mouth formed a stunned 'O' as his gaze dropped to staring in astonishment at Smokescreen's chest.
"Reciprocate," Smokescreen reminded the black-and-white. "How many times we have to do this before you remember to do something back? You started off so well."
"Mnnnaaa?" Jazz's visor glazed over as his fingers flexed on smooth glass. His palms rubbed in something near reverence but more like groping. Useless groping, since Smokescreen wasn't getting anything from it.
Smokescreen sighed and leaned in a bit further to close his mouth around the audial horn he'd been licking earlier. More strangled noises rewarded his efforts, and the hands on his chest fluttered about, abruptly trying to touch everything at once and achieving nothing in terms of giving Smokescreen anything back. Normally, Smokescreen would take that as his cue to step back until Jazz came back to the real world enough to at least close his mouth. Really. There was no dignity left when a mech couldn't reel his jaw shut.
Today's lesson wasn't about teaching Jazz how to do more than dribble on himself, however. Today was pure and simple breaking the slagging mech.
"You've earned at least ten minutes of this," Smokescreen said as he forced Jazz's head up. He ran a thumb under that wide visor. Ten minutes of vigorous molestation by a Praxian. It was a dream come true. It was a nightmare come true. Both truths, both going to happen. Somebody was going to have to scrape Jazz off the floor with a putty knife in ten minutes.
Jazz whimpered.
Smokescreen smile. "Ten minutes starting…now." Ducking down, he parted his lips just enough to truly catch Jazz's mouth in a kiss.
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