Sorry for the long gap in updating but I needed a little breather. So I went caving and hiking and I climbed an ancient volcanic fissure swarm also known as Eldborg, google it, it is magnificent.
Anyhow please ignore my self-satisfied rambling and enjoy the next chapter.
This chapter starts with a slightly triggery content - dub-con and immobilization.
The touch of broad fingers traveled down his hips, splaying over his thighs. Blurr's plating glittered in semi-darkness, illuminated by tiny electric arches - visual manifestation of pleasure that skittered over his receptors.
The digits of his phantom lover would travel towards the inner seams, enveloping the thicker metal, dipping into gaps, tweaking his whiring.
His circuits were starved for this kind of attention, venting lightly, feeling the hauntingly cool air on his backplates, he arched into the touch. Blurr was so immersed in the sensation that it took him a moment to notice the tell-tale purplish glow associated with living energon.
Confused and slightly agitated he glanced down. Instead of Longarm's blunt fingers, huge, sharp claws were now deeply lodged in his circuitry, streaks of energon trailing from under them. Judging by the amount of energon it should have hurt, Blurr's systems should have been pinging him about the breach of chassis but he felt only pleasure. With sinking feeling he concluded - the energon must not have been his...
For the first time he looked around properly and saw ghoulish faces in the shadows. Disfigured faceplates of mecha, optics dark, mangled chassis illuminated by the faint glow of energon oozing from their copious wounds. The more he focused, the more he saw - victims, strung up the walls by their circuitry.
Blurr wanted to scream, needed to get away but his body refused to respond to his distress. Unspilled coolant collected at the edges of Blurr's optics as he watched those nightmarish claws work their way to his codpiece and tamper with the seams there. He did not want this. Soon as his panel slid open, the sharp appendages dove in, making his chassis arch in response - there had been no time to adjust.
Locked inside his own body, unable to stop the touch forced on him, Blurr felt streams of coolant spill down his cheeks. That was the only thing he could do; his valve and thighs felt shamefully wet, the liquid heat in his circuits made him sick with the sticky feeling of betrayal. A heavy hollow gaped in his chest where the spark should have been and his body was on the brink of overload.
Blurr tried begging (for what?) but soon realised he could not even speak or whimper, or utter any sound at all. Blurr thought his spark would burst out of his casing when he finally felt whatever restrained his voice give.
A jewel-toned scream echoed through the old oilhouse turned bar and resonated through the neighboring street.
Blurr shivered on his sleeping pad, vents coming ragged and uneven, wetness on his faceplates making dreams cling and mingle with wakefulness. Blurr glanced around to make sure there was no energon, no bodies and no claws.
The loft remained silent save for his harsh vents, streaks of street illumination painted bright lines across the floor and his frame.
The feeling of wetness around his crotch gave him a pause, he reached down only to come away with a palm smeared in lubricants. Blurr grimaced, watching the strings of viscous substance stretch and snap between his fingers. Disgusted with himself, he hauled his feverish frame to the washracks. Another memory purge but now with an exotic twist of poorly-compiled data.
The dregs not cleared up by the defrag had coalesced to fake memories and played out in his recharge. Faulty memory or not, Blurr wouldn't have been able to look Jazz straight in the faceplates right now without a burning sense of guilt.
His tanks heaved but failed to come up with anything but a spittle of oral lubricants. Blurr felt too fragile to move so he stayed under the cool spray of solvent. Defrag Should have helped him with this but all it seemed to have done was make things worse.
Unable to share this with anyone else, Blurr succumbed to a bout of self-pity. He was so tired of this, tired of running, tired of being scared, tired of being strong when he didn't feel like he was. Even in his recharge he was plagued by the single-opticked spectre.
But as usual, there was no time introspection, the bar was due to open in a couple of hours and he had to be fully functional by then. Warily he rummaged through his med-supply cabinet for the long-forgotten patches Rung had prescribed him. After clicking one into his medical port he felt the immediate relief associated with mood suppressants.
With a vent of relief he slid down the wall adjacent to washracks and stared at the ceiling. A pleasant cloud of bliss and not-caring surrounded his circuits and tension in his cables evaporated. Rung had once told him that he would have to acknowledge what he felt if he ever wished to overcome his state. Sadly now was not the time, he could not face his customers in a fragile state of mind.
Blaster had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. The poignant notes pouring from the speakers revved up the attendants in a way that was both fun and sensual. Even Blurr, being a tad tone-deaf, rapped his toe-piece to the beat. Not to mention the clink of energon bottles and cubes on every surface - unsettled by the subwoofers installed in Blaster's own frame.
If there were enforcers in the area, Blurr was pretty certain they would have forced them to tone it down but...well. There was not much in a sense of neighbors in his direct vicinity and the dock owners did not seem to mind, not to mention that there literally were no enforcers yet.
What worried Blurr that night was Breakdown's performance. He was somewhat edgy, meekly casting glances around him, clenching and unclenching his palms; luckily his mere presence discouraged mecha from starting anything. Blurr reprimanded himself, remembering the meltdow he had had just hous before. It was his first night on the job and Blurr could get behind him being anxious. The bruiser caught his glance and approached the bartender thrrough the crowd.
-"Hey. Do you mind if I bring drinks to customers, too? I feel useless otherwise."
Oh so that was why he was so antsy, Blurr concluded. It was a generous offer but for time being he could not afford a waiter and he would rather have Breakdown properly rewarded for service. He explained it to Breakdown as politely as possible.
-"It is all right. I will do it because I want it, not because you tell me to."
Blurr found himself unable to argue with that and, as an added bonus, the bruiser actually relaxed after this. His taller stature and an uncompromising frame did miracles when it came to parting the crowd and delivering orders. Throughout the evening Breakdown remained civil and apologetic to whoever he accidentally bumped into.
Later that night, when Breakdown had dumped the last of the more stubborn folk out of the bar, Blurr smirked at the bruiser knowingly.
-"I am not sure if you noticed but there was a mech ogling you tonight. In fact, he insisted on buying you a drink but did not want to disturb your shift." Blurr pushed a carmine-red energex cocktail in direction of the bruiser.
The patron in question had a finish so sleek it almost looked liquid. Blurr had actually felt a pang of self-consciousness about his own plating - something he had not experienced since his early days in the office.
Being on lengthy solo missions meant that he dropped the need to care for his finish that much but having returned to a more public setting had caught up to him at that very point. He was clean but he was nowhere near how he used to be in intel office or even academy which was to say a lot. In one word - he looked scruffy and the shiny stranger ogling his personnel did not make him feel any better for it.
With a slight note of teasing Blurr added.
-"Before you ask, yes, his chassis match the color of this drink."
Breakdown stammered, opticks lighting with hope but then, surprisingly, his mouth drew into a tight line and he straightened up, looking at the drink as if it was about to attack him.
-"Is something the matter? Nobody tampered with it if that is what worries you." Blurr was quick to assure. He tried keeping a close optic on any possible date drugging going on in his venue because it was simply wrong, not to mention - bad for business.
-"Boss, you know what they say about fearing rejection? Well, acceptance is even more scary."
Blurr blinked. Oh, OH!
-"Breakdown, do you want that? I mean not the drink but the attention. Because if it makes you feel uncomfortable you absolutely shouldn't…"
Breakdown shook his helm. -"I was crazy about him back in the army days, even took up medical training to somehow end up closer to him…."
Blurr had to give the bruiser points for ingenuity - far-fetched, yes; but he could not blame him for the lack of trying. If what Blurr got from the red speedster was anything close to how he really was like… Breakdown needn't have worried about having a one-night stand, anything more might be problematic though.
-"So what held you apart before?"
-"Distance, we served in different areas and also, on several occasions I sort of bailed on him."
Behind the counter Blurr leant back slightly. Had anyone bailed on Blurr he would not have bothered even acknowledging the mech again but this red speedster was determined.
-"Alright and what worries you now? Assuming that you are still interested."
-"I am...but I do not even know how we would function together. We are so different, I'm not even sure we are compatible and then what?"
Blurr blinked, Breakdown was raising more obstacles for himself than any mech he had ever known, apart from himself, maybe. It was all in his head, at least mostly. Then there was social stigma associated to dating not only outside your build class but also outside your size class. Though that had started fading since there fewer of each frame-class left and dating strictly within those boundaries proved impossible. Likewise medicine had advanced towards making such couplings more likely to happen should the size difference be too drastic.
Blurr in-vented and adopted the best mixture of approaches he had experienced from Rung and Jazz. He leant in, placing palms or his hands on the top of the bar and staring Breakdown square in the faceplates.
-"I'll let you in on a secret." He urged Breakdown to lean in to be on his level. In a conspiratorial voice he continued. -"You want him, he wants you, you will figure out the rest as you go. This is a part of what relationship is."
From this distance Blurr could feel heat radiating from Breakdown's faceplates but there was a big, silly grin on them this time.
- "Boss..." It sounded affectionate and Blurr cold not help but grin back.
-"I asked him for his contact frequency just in case."
-"Boss?!" It was Breakdown's turn to pull away from the countertop as much as he could, optics almost round with horror.
-"Just kidding." Blurr chuckled, -"He left it himself." A datapad was pushed towards Breakdown with respective coordinates free handed on the tactile surface.
Breakdown was equal parts terrified and enchanted with his boss and he was about to say it too but they got a knock on the door.
-"I am not expecting anyone." Blurr stated while staring at equally bemused Breakdown; surprised by the fact that anyone would bother knocking on a bar door instead of ringing a doorbell.
They both turned to look in the direction of the door when they heard the knocks again.
Suspiciously and with a great deal of reluctance both mechs inched towards the door. Blurr took it upon himself to open the door just slightly, knocking was an odd behaviour.
Moments later a blinding flash of light sent Blurr staggering back against Breakdowns' chassis.
-"Experimental enforcer unit PR02Z here to collect you for questioning."
Blurr reset his optics, trying to get rid of any lingering static in his vision and took a conscious step back. Breakdown, being his protective self eased an entire arm's width between his employer and the drone. So enforcers were back in business, apparently.
-"Stay away." Breakdown stated in a low tone that made Blurr glance at him in surprise. The bruiser had never displayed such level of antagony towards anyone else. Not around Blurr anyway.
-"You are given one more chance to come calmly. Raise your hands to show compliance, subduing sequence starting in 5 clicks...4...3….2….
Not believing their optics, Blurr and Breakdown stared dumbly at the drone as it continued with the countdown, mildly curious and apprehensive about what it meant by subduing sequence. They did lift their hands only to feel two sets of pins lodge in their plating and deliver a heavy load of electrcity.
Blurr's circuits shorted first and he clanged to the floor. Breakdown followed shortly after.
And this, dear readers, is why we can't have nice things
