Part 21: Rung faces the fish, Brainstorm faces Chromedome, Tarn faces Pharma, Optimus Prime faces the aftermath, the Constructicons face Prowl, and Reflector faces Megatron.

Title: Candy From Strangers

Warning: drinking, grief, references to rape, xeno, mild petplay.

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW, G1

Characters: Rung, Brainstorm, Chromedome, Tarn, Pharma, Optimus Prime, Constructicons, Prowl, Reflector, Megatron.

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): Prompts from Tumblr, and one from the kinkmeme.

[* * * * *]

The juvenile Sharkicons in the fish tank that Rung inherited from Ambulon - "molting"

[* * * * *]

He tries to tempt them. "Come on, little ones. Just swim through the hoop."

They eye the hoop. They eye the treat held beyond it. The whole swarm bobs about, pushing and rubbing against each other in the primitive communication attempts he's been observing develop. The burbling bubbles and nudging will eventually morph into the Sharkicons' distinctive grunting tones and rough hand signs, but that will be almost a hundred years down the line. The juveniles would finally morph into their adult, psuedo-amphibian forms around then, by his estimation.

As it is, they just molted their monoform shells a few days ago. They're still wriggling their limbs and transforming on accident.

Three days ago, the first Sharkicon who shed its shell emerged blinking from the dead outer scales. It tumbled about on the bottom of the tank, unable to sort out how to transform back to its finned form. Rung carefully cupped a hand under it to encourage it to swim, only to have it promptly panic and try to escape - by paddling headfirst into the palm of his hand, little clumsy hands pawing desperately and bitty teeth pinching as it tried to chew through to freedom. He laughed softly and turned it about, then boosted it on its way. The others were no less klutzy as they molted.

Turning on the light this morning startled the whole school in transforming and darting into the shelter of their miniature desk. Whirl insisted Rung construct a size-scaled version of Ultra Magnus' office to put into the tank. It made the ex-Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord twitch whenever he saw it, but Rung didn't make it for his benefit. He did it to encourage Whirl's tentative venture into normalcy.

Pet ownership is a very normal thing. Becoming attached to technimals encourages interaction with others who keep them, like an automatic pass into a society Whirl never knew existed. Also, there's something adorable in seeing thirteen juvenile Sharkicons lurking in the shadows under the desk. When they sleep, they pile on the seat in a sliding pile constantly in danger of falling off the side. Their toothy mouths gape in grins, and they bubble happily.

After their latest shedding, they've been climbing the chair and desk nonstop while in bipedal mode, launching off the tops as they relearn how to swim. Rung finds their determination charming.

However, it seems he overestimated their intelligence at this point in their development. "No?" He clicks his tongue and starts to withdraw his hand.

They swarm it in a tiny feeding frenzy, an impatient horde pouring through the hoop. There's much pushing and shoving.

Rung stays very still, letting them nibble the treat. If he keeps his hand in a relaxed curve under the water, fingers together, occasionally one of the small technimals will settle into the curve while chewing. They're cool and slick, very alive but impossibly trusting. Gentle, he curls his fingers and pets them. The teensiest hands, no more than primitive fins with vestigial fingers, clutch at his knuckles in return. The blue one chomps contentedly on the tip of his forefinger and hangs by its mouth.

He smiles into the tank even as the door opens. "Hey, whatcha doing with my fishies?" Tough and gruff, Whirl's aggressive question is no surprise. The quick stomping up behind him isn't, either. "How do you do that?" the rotary complains after a minute watching the tiny Sharkicons wriggle through Rung's hand, harmlessly allowing themselves to be pet. "It ain't fair!"

Whirl sticks a pincer into the tank. Suddenly, the school is a swarm of teeth, most of which clamp onto the pincer-tips with enough force to leave prickling dents. Whirl glowers sourly at the doctor taking his - nibbled upon but never bitten - hand out of the water. When Whirl takes his pincer out, he has to shake the technimals off it. The school retreats under their desk to shake their new fists at the ex-Wrecker. Whirl mutters something obscene back at them.

Rung takes note of what he says. It wouldn't surprise him at all if the juveniles grow up to mirror Whirl's language patterns as well as his behavioral ones.

[* * * * *]

Chromedome - "past loves"

[* * * * *]

He didn't care what he was drinking tonight, only that it was strong and plentiful. "Keep them coming," he told Swerve before staking out the back corner booth. He defended it from anyone who dared approach by glowering mightily. Not tonight, Trailcutter. Frag off, Perceptor, now was really not the time, and since when did Perceptor the Prude grace a bar with his presence? Ugh. Nevermind, just leave him be. No, Skids, he did not want to talk, wasn't interested in talking, and would find a way to weaponize words if not left alone immediately. Yes, right this instant, now go away.

Whirl would have bickered with him over it just to be contrary, but Brainstorm was in no mood for the ex-Wrecker tonight. He told him if there was a bar fight tonight, official tester status for those nice shiny new weapon designs would be revoked permanently. Not surprisingly, Whirl cleared out of the bar so fast a small dustcloud was left in his wake.

"I didn't know you were that close to Rewind," Swerve said while setting down the first of what Brainstorm intended to be many drinks. "Didn't know you were close to anybody," he muttered, because funerals could only subdue his motormouth for a little while.

Ouch. Brainstorm sucked down the drink in the gulping guzzle of a mech who didn't have to share a fuel intake with a main air vent. "Another," he demanded as soon as he hit bottom. "And no twirly straw this time." It was only when Swerve put up his hands in surrender and scurried away back toward the bar that he slumped over the table, chin on his hands and hands on his briefcase. "I'm close to someone," was said under his breath, but it was less a statement and more of an attempt to make himself believe a dubious fact.

He could build seven impossible things before morning shift, but color him a skeptic right now. Just…why. Why?! Why did it always end like this? Why did Chromedome never listen to him? Why did it always have to end in a lie? A real friend. The kind of friend that told the same lie every single time, and then that horrible blank look.

No point in getting mad at him, either. Chromedome didn't remember why Brainstorm was angry.

The second drink went the way of the first, but Swerve had the service drone programmed in a loop. It swooped off to pick up the next drink as soon as the weight of the glass left its tray. Brainstorm lifted the now-empty glass in the direction of the bar in a half-sparked toast. More drinks, more and more drinks, downed one right after another as fast as his tanks could handle them. Clearly, this was his most genius plan yet.

He didn't bother lifting his chin as he drank. Depression wasn't normally something he dealt with on more than a theoretical basis, but it seeped under his thoughts tonight.

He was close to someone, and that's why it hurt so much. Yeah, he and Rewind hadn't been best buds. They didn't even get along. That hadn't meant Brainstorm had wished harm on him. He wasn't Prowl, to resent change he couldn't control. Tumbler had been more dependent, easier to manipulate because he trusted fewer mechs and had less to lose, but Rewind touched far more lives. Just as Brainstorm knew and accepted - had known, had accepted, everything in past tense now and Primus did he need another drink - Rewind because of Chromedome, Rewind's many friends and acquaintances had done the same for Chromedome. Rewind had been a lodestone of interest and excitement. A focus of memory, making sure everyone remembered.

Brainstorm jealously guarded his few friendships, but Rewind and he had come to a sort of mutual ceasefire not long after the relationship started. Tumbler loved intensely, with everything he was. That wasn't new. Oh, that wasn't new. Brainstorm knew it so very well. It should have made him dislike the small flashdrive, or consider this the inevitable outcome, but Chromedome had been happy.

There and then with Rewind, Chromedome had been happy. It'd changed him. Moment by moment, Chromedome had changed.

Tumbler lived ever in the now. It was a painful fact that Brainstorm had tried yet again to fight, tonight.

Brainstorm leaned back in the booth and thunked his head against the wall behind him, optics dimming. Pivot. Mach. Scattergun. Tumbler loved deep and strong, but his past loves evaporated, erased for the present time. Of all of them, Rewind deserved to be remembered the most simply because of what he'd been, but no one deserved to be forgotten. Not by him, and especially not by Chromedome.

Once upon their own times, they'd been Tumbler's present. They should have been his past, but those memories were gone. The changes disappeared, the happiness evaporated, and Brainstorm's friend would reset back to baseline: a borderline depressive, thoroughly miserable mnemosurgeon who dreamed dead mechs' dying seconds and who couldn't remember how he'd changed. He could be easily twisted by the strings of old affection, because the frayed threads smoothed out when the memory of time and betrayals and differences all…went away. Prowl would be smugly pleased. Tumbler defaulted to relying on him every time.

Another drink arrived, and Brainstorm knocked it back, optics still off. In the darkness behind them, he added Rewind's tiny face to the line-up and burnt it into his memory. That line-up haunted them. They were past lovers of his recurring friend, like friends once removed. He hadn't been their friend directly, but he mourned them for the friend they shared. He remembered them with a pain that had changed, over the long years. It never went away, but it changed.

Like Tumbler, it changed. It reset every time, too.

Brainstorm's shoulders shook once, the reflex of a flyer testing a loadbearing harness. Could he carry the new weight? Yes, but it wasn't comfortable. And it hurt. That wasn't a surprise. It wasn't the first time he'd hauled this load.

With time, it would become something tolerable.

Tumbler lived in the present. Brainstorm remembered the past. It wasn't fair that this kept happening to his friend, nor was it fair that Chromedome kept doing this to him. Yet, somehow, he couldn't hold it against Tumbler. Chomedome took away everything when he reset, reverting to who he'd been. All the promises, the lies, they went away. Tumbler had the innocence of a wiped mind, leaving Brainstorm burdened by the deaths of lovers that weren't even his.

The bar hushed, and he didn't even need to online his optics to know who'd walked in. The sick churn in his tanks increased, but Brainstorm groped for the next drink recklessly. He didn't care. He wouldn't care. This time, he wouldn't even ask.

Another face looked at him from his memories, forgotten and gone, and he blindly brought the straw to his intake.

"Brainstorm..?"

He finished the drink before he even considered replying. "If you ask'n me why I'm gettin' fendered, I'll punch you through ther wall." Hmm, he was slurring a bit. Good.

There was a short silence. Brainstorm brought his optics online and blinked until the room stopped swimming. Chromedome sat opposite of him, nursing a drink along. Stupid mech. Brainstorm swiped it out from his loose grip and sucked it down, snarling his flight engine in angry mutters. He wouldn't ask, he wouldn't.

His friend - just a friend, only a friend, repeatedly and nothing but a friend, over and over again because every death erased away even if the death hadn't been confirmed, even if the past was still alive and coming back the memory files were still deleted - watched him drink. "Okay. I won't ask."

Brainstorm snorted, blearily satisfied by the quiet answer. He wouldn't say it this time. He wouldn't ask, and therefore someone else could get that terrible stare right before Tumbler asked why he'd be anything but fine. It was the worst look.

Pain jolted through Brainstorm just remembering it, but he did that. He remembered. Because they deserved to be remembered, by his friend more than anyone else, but since Tumbler wouldn't do it, Brainstorm would remember Rewind for him. Rewind, Pivot, Mach, Scattergun.

The pain wouldn't go away, of course it wouldn't, but eventually it would become something else. Another part of a different relationship. A constant burden, like an invisible briefcase shackled to Brainstorm's other wrist, but full of packed away feelings that belonged to a different mech. The Chromedome who had once been but no longer was: knots tied in his personality carefully picked back out until he unraveled, and only Brainstorm had the memories of the latest pattern to disappear. He'd add it to his memories of what the whole had looked like before the parts separated, and the particular Chromedome he'd loved, once.

Thank Primus, thinking about this stuff got complicated but somehow easier when he was totally drunk.

The tabletop was cool against his forehelm, and the booth swayed under him. Brainstorm keened, very quietly, way in the depths of his vocalizer where it could barely be heard. Eventually, the pain became something a mech could live with. Take it from someone who knew.

He knew all too well.

[* * * * *]

Pharma/Tarn - "Tarn has some other medical problem aside from tcogs that he stubbornly refuses to tell Pharma and it causes a problem"

[* * * * *]

Typically when a Decepticon made a threat involving physical harm to a weaker mech, that mech did anything in his power to evade the consequences. That was perfectly logical. The more fine-tuned that pain was to the particular mech, the more such a consequence was avoided. It made sense. The sadistic leader of the Decepticon Justice Division threatened intensely personal pain upon one paltry Autobot surgeon, and all expectations were that the surgeon would bend over backward to avoid said pain.

He'd made it simple for Pharma: deliver a certain number of T-cogs to him on time every month, or suffer under him in the berth to make up for welching on the deal. The bargain set high terms for an ethical doctor, but not unattainably so for a practical one. Tarn had wanted the Autobot to be able to deliver, after all. He wanted a steady supply of T-cogs to feed his transformation addiction, and Pharma wanted to save his clinic and Listed employee. Everyone benefited.

Failing to deliver had been expected, and Tarn had been prepared to deal with the defiant little jet. He had the confrontation planned out.

Vos would haul the Autobot out if Pharma wouldn't meet him voluntarily, and Tarn would inflict enough pain on him to make it seem like he would follow through on the berth threat next time. Because Tarn was gracious, and Pharma would be sullenly grateful to be let go this time. He'd make the surgeon thank him for that mercy. Pharma would almost certainly fall over himself to promise there wouldn't be another missed quota. 'Or else' would hover in threat over him as he scurried free.

A rough frag by a rival or enemy was a legitimate disciplinary tool in the Decepticon ranks. It was better than being sentenced to a beating and over with faster than a stay in the brig, although he understood the Autobots considered it worse than many corporal punishments. That was why he'd chosen to use it as a threat against Pharma. He'd expected fear, disgust, and a pompous medic who'd deflate into frantic desperation when faced with an actual rape. If anything, Tarn had expected the surgeon to try making a run for it if he missed quota.

He hadn't expected Pharma to be as inured to war conditions as a hardened Decepticon soldier.

"What are you waiting for? Get this over with." Pharma folded his arms and glared at the floor under his feet, refusing to look up at the tank. One foot tapped, jittering his knee, but he kept his thighs spread and panel retracted. Typical of his meticulous nature, he'd clearly prepared for his punishment. His valve had the unnatural glisten of synthetic lubricant smeared liberally around its rim. It left slick blotches on Tarn's berth.

Tarn stood there in the middle of his own room feeling completely unprepared for this. None of his plans covered this. Struggling, yes; running away, yes; attempts to bribe or threaten, yes. Outright insisting that his side of the bargain be upheld? Uh. Well, scrap. Hadn't thought about that.

The Autobot had shown up at the ship grimly composed, admitted he couldn't uphold his side of the bargain this month, and bluntly stated that he'd reported for the penalty as ordered.

Kaon had been dumbfounded enough to ask, "Why?"

To which Pharma had looked at him like a microbe that'd crawled out of a sterile operation kit. "Because I wouldn't put it past you Decepticons to take any hesitation to mean you should raze Delphi to the ground. Where is he?" Tarn had rounded the corner right then and walked mask-first into a bristling, aggressively defensive wall of wings and disdain. "You! I'm here. Get your slagging panel open and spike me. I don't have all night, and I'd rather not think about any part of you touching me any longer than I have to."

The rest of the D.J.D. had stared in appalled silence as Pharma marched over and almost climbed their leader, panel already open and clearly prepared to be interfaced in front of all and sundry. Tarn, of course, had backpedalled in confusion at first, then shock as Kaon transmitted an infopacket containing a briefing of the three minutes since Pharma had stormed on board.

"Open, fraggit!"

"I, ah." Dignity had drawn around Tarn like a cloak, but he couldn't quite manage his usual condescending amusement. Not while Pharma had been prying at his equipment panel in angry determination. "Your enthusiasm is noted, but I think we should retire to a more private location." He'd brought his arms up to wrap around the jet as much to stop the fingers worming behind his panel as keep Pharma in place. "If you'll excuse us…" he said to his mechs, who seemed just as baffled as he was.

"Why bother?" the surgeon had complained as Tarn turned to carry him toward his quarters. "They've seen worse."

That was entirely true, but the tank had jostled his passenger to shut him up. "Perhaps I have some molecule of modesty in my body, unlike certain surgeons I can name. Have you thought of that?"

Pharma had gotten his vents working again after being compressed by tank treads and immediately resumed needling his captor. "You, shy? That's something I never would have thought of, no."

"Modesty is not the same as shyness." Curse the jet for taking advantage of Tarn's lingering surprise.

"Pssht." One aristocratic hand had waved. "Semantics. You're taking me back to your quarters to violently rape me because you're modest, oh yes, I can see it now."

Even dumping Pharma on the berth hadn't rattled the jet's blasted composure. There he sat, thighs open and valve ready, and Tarn was still left in the lurch. "What's the matter, can't pressurize under pressure?" And now they were down to immature taunting.

His mind raced behind his bored tone as he said, "I don't particularly find you attractive. Interfacing an Autobot requires a certain mindset." That was true in a way, but not what sent him pacing in long, lazy strides back and forth across his quarters. Primus and Adaptus on a hotspot, the mech wasn't supposed to do this! He was supposed to be more terrified of forced interfacing than a beating, because Pharma wasn't intimidated by damage to anything but his precious hands, and Tarn needed those hands to keep the T-cogs coming.

Yet here the surgeon was, blowing air out his vents in an exasperated sigh. "What a weak excuse. Serial rapists like you don't pick their victims because of how attractive they are. They want a power imbalance. Here I am, your victim." He stretched out on the berth and let his voice fall to a bland tone as his hands curled gently above his helm. "Get on with the ravishing, you sick piece of pitspawn." He spread his legs.

Tarn didn't miss the flicker of fear in blue optics when he turned to face the good doctor, but those optics gave his interface panel a calculating look. Pharma was probably more afraid of how big his spike was, not whom it was attached to. It actually felt somewhat demeaning to be reduced to that. The surgeon had a way of looking at him that separated him out to important components, and right now it seemed that Pharma didn't consider Tarn himself to be worth acknowledging. He was ready to get down to business, and his business was with Tarn's spike and that spike only.

With the unfortunate problem of Tarn's hydraulic systems for his spike being faulty due to his frequent transformation. He suffered from what could be termed 'premature depressurization' at best, 'erectile dysfunction' at worst. He preferred using his valve for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because any treatment to allow him to use his spike would require him to give up his addiction first.

There wasn't a chance in the Pit that he was going to let Pharma know any of that.

But the surgeon was already getting suspicious. He could see it in Pharma's expressive face. The medic was an excellent surgeon. He'd have Tarn diagnosed and a laughingstock any minute now.

Quick! Improvise!

"Hmm. I can see you regret your infraction," Tarn said, bringing a hand to his chin as if pondering Pharma's sincerity. "If you've learned your lesson, I might be persuaded to let you go with a warning this time."

Pharma stared at him in disbelief, because there wasn't a shred of regret anywhere about him. Yeah, Plan A to H for dealing with a broken bargain just didn't apply in the slightest to this situation. "There is no way I'm letting you put me further into your debt. Take your price," his legs hitched further apart, "and call it even." He waited a moment, but Tarn had never been very good at improvising on the fly outside of battle. "Your sarcasm is wasting my time," the surgeon snapped after a second, deciding he was being teased. "Frag me!"

One optic squinted in a suspicious glare.

Scrap. That was the look of a medic thinking about symptoms. Distract, distract!

"Oh, Pharma. I never said I'd be spiking you," Tarn purred in a low, seductive tone.

He had to offline his vocalizer to prevent a squeak from following the words out as he processed what he'd just said. That hadn't come out right. He'd meant - he hadn't - the half-formed thought he'd been trying to articulate was that he intended to call in one of his subordinates to frag Pharma in his place!

Funny how one word emphasized wrong could change a whole sentence.

Pharma's mouth worked, and his optics went wide. "But…you said I'd be under you. I. You can't mean - !"

He couldn't take his words back without looking indecisive and weak. Fragging Pit. No, no, he could salvage this. He just needed to twist the conversation around until Pharma revealed something he could turn to his advantage.

That relied on Pharma talking, however. The surgeon just stared.

Then he rolled his helm to look up at the ceiling, blank-faced. Two clicks sounded unnaturally loud in the silence as a valve panel closed and a spike panel opened.

And Tarn really was no good at improvising off the battlefield…

[* * * * *]

Peterbilt ad ( post/85635282150/suddenlycomics-thefingerfuckingfemalefury)

[* * * * *]

He wouldn't have considered it, but she dared ask. None of the other women Spike dated tended to feel welcome among the Autobots, although not because they didn't open the ranks. It was just that the Autobots had a hard time telling the women apart. They tended to have longer hair, curling at the ends in a soft bounce, and even the hair shaded between light brown and blonde. Spike had a type, and the type looked an awful lot like Carly.

The Autobots had, after the fifth time they'd embarrassed his dates by saying the wrong name, decided that staying distant but friendly was the better route. It made the women uncomfortable, but to be honest, they were uncomfortable anyway. None of them fit in the way Carly had. Spike had friends among the Autobots, and Carly loved technology in a way that transferred easily to sentient mechanical beings irregardless of whether or not Spike was there with her. The other women that hung off Spike's arm weren't there for the Autobots or for friends. They were there because their boyfriend brought them.

When he stopped being their boyfriend, they stopped coming. They left, one of a parade of similar-featured women with their hair all pretty and their smiles slowly growing more strained.

Spike wasn't a very good boyfriend. The women realized it before too long on their own, but the way he dropped everything the moment Carly called certainly clued the Autobots in.

So Optimus Prime escorted Lisa to the park because she asked, but he wasn't surprised when Spike didn't show up. A discreet commcall to the Ark a half an hour after the picnic was set up told him what he already knew: Carly had shown up in Ratchet's medbay to ask about something for one of her college courses. Spike had been sucked into the conversation. Lisa sat in the park, forgotten.

Optimus Prime didn't want to tell her. He wanted her to give up on her own. He wanted her to be angry or disgusted. He wanted her to grow furious enough to see how she was being used as a placeholder, not a person in her own right. She should dump Spike and grow as a person, away from him.

Instead, by the end of the first hour, her smile was still there, still at the ready. Just in case. The sun was setting, and tears were slowly glittering down her cheeks, but she smiled.

Spike wasn't a very good boyfriend, but he had a habit of finding women better than he deserved. Lisa waited two hours, smile fading into a trembling line as her lips quivered and those big eyes of hers kept gleaming bright with liquid sorrow. Optimus Prime wished she had gotten angry. It would have been easier than this painful suffering.

When the moon rose, he transformed. There was nothing to say, but actions were a kindness he could offer. He knelt beside the blanket and held his hand down, optics sad. It was dark and getting colder. It was time to go home at last.

Her hands shook where they clenched in the blanket, but denial only went so far. He didn't mention the soft sobs that shook her shoulders, but a huge metal finger stroked gently down her back as she tossed everything up onto his hand. She looked up at him with the vulnerable eyes of a hurt animal, and he sighed.

"I don't want to go home," she said, throat closed but trying to sound normal despite the tears still on her face.

"You don't have to." He checked the local movie theatre for times and gravely extended his free hand. "Lisa Atwood, I would honored if you would accompany me on a date. There is a movie I believe we might enjoy together."

Shock slapped the sadness off her face, and she numbly set a hand on his. It was a tiny point of warmth against his metal. "I…I…" Swallowing hard, she straightened and sniffed mightily to clear her nose of crying. Regal as a queen, she tipped her chin up and gave him a firm nod. "I'd like that, Mr. Prime."

These humans. They lived a fraction of his life span, but they weathered an entire lifetime in their lives, and they would come out the other end of crushing defeat ready to fight. It was inspiring and quite admirable. Spike had no idea what he was missing tonight, and he wouldn't get another chance at this young lady's steel core. Optimus Prime would make sure of that.

His optics smiled for him, and he bowed formally to the woman before him. "Call me Optimus."

In the end, the picnic did get eaten, if only by one person while watching a movie. And maybe it wasn't what Lisa had planned by asking the Autobot along, but she didn't get home until dawn. She told her mother she slept the night with the Autobot leader as her escort, and no, she wouldn't be speaking with Spike Witwicky ever again. The cad. He'd stood her up.

So she said. Her clothing might have been suspiciously rumpled despite that.

[* * * * *]

"Prowl/Constructicons"

[* * * * *]

Okay, this wasn't what they'd expected when Prowl summoned them to his office. "I have a job for you, report immediately," didn't typically mean, "I'll be sitting on my desk waiting for you."

They piled through his door in their usual jostling pack, elbowing each other and laughing over some comment Long Haul had made that they forgot the moment the door closed because there Prowl was. He...he was certainly there, alright. Doors outstretched, chest pushed just a bit outward because of the twist of his hips, and those hips. Those hips were perched on the edge of the desk.

Even as they gaped, Prowl uncrossed his legs, one foot flicking out quick and elegant to recross the other direction. His heel rolled down the opposite leg's shin, a brief up and down that did nothing but shift his weight and make those hips rock on the desk.

"You have a job to do," he said, cold and commanding despite the narrow smirk cut into his face like a wound. Amusement bled from it. They could feel the heated air venting from him all the way across the room. Something had him hot and wanting, and they could only hope it was them.

"A job?" Hook said, voice a bit higher than usual.

Prowl ran the back of his middle finger down his thigh without breaking optic contact. "Yes." Down near his knee, the finger stopped to circle.

The Constructicons couldn't stop staring at the little gesture. Why, oh why, was that so suggestive. It made no sense. None.

"I want you," circle circle, "to get on your knees," circle circle, and the finger started its journey back up Prowl's thigh, "and clean the floor of my office."

"You want us to - " There was a collective shudder and blink as that broke the spell. "What?"

"Do I have to repeat myself?" Prowl uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, hands braced on the desk between his knees.

"...um."

This was not what they were expecting, and yet here they were.

Prowl's hips rocked the tiniest amount on the desk edge. "Well?"

"Fragging Pit, boss, this is cruel!" one of them said, and yet they all knew that floor was getting cleaned.

[* * * * *]

"some petplay involving Megatron/slowly taming" - . ?thread=14401280#t14401280

[* * * * *]

They have always watched. His body is one of brutal power, his profile chiseled instead of elegant, but his coloration is a statement. He wears silver in defiance. It is a symbol: chrome shining out as a dare. The humans have a history of warriors who wear their hair long as sign of their battle prowess, and the silver armor is a similar target and brag in one.

On a whim, they edit a picture of him and pass it off among the troops to get Skywarp in trouble. The image is an instant hit for the sheer ridiculousness. Not many mechs get the point behind the edit. Long hanks of hair looks ridiculous flowing from his helm, but it's a peculiar fit. The length is a dare to grab, just as the blinding armor is a beacon on the battlefield. It's pride and sheer combat ability, and they watch him because they cannot fight him, don't want to fight him, but they do so love to see his extremes.

They love to catch every aspect of him.

He has a miner's body, a poet's expressive hands, and a warrior's armor. The combination has overtones of immense power, but there are greater powerhouses. What screams from the chrome and pride is a kind of dignity that rides the rough rasp of his voice, the changeable nature of his face, and becomes charisma mechs will and have died for. They will kill for Megatron, but the fact that they will die for him speaks of their leader's violence and sheer presence. The Decepticons value their own lives above all others.

Reflector values their life most of all, so they watch. They want to touch, but the silver is death's lure. Touchit and die.

When death looks this good, unabashed staring is a decent compromise.

"Turn. Tilt your chin up. No, too far. Yes, like that. That's beautiful. You're gorgeous. Yeah, like that. Turn and - perfect. That's perfect."

It feels weird ordering their commander about, but the humans are so easy to fool. The little organics respond subconsciously to cues like facial expression and body language, simple enough to exploit, and Reflector is a specialist. Optimus Prime has a face mask and a Second-in-Command who talks and walks with the strict economy of movement humankind associates with unthinking, dead machines. Megatron, on the other hand, can be cast in the right light to be seen as ruggedly handsome and a benevolent ruler, and Starscream is both beautiful and passionate. Their expressiveness is gloriously visual, at times. Reflector can work with that.

The Autobots rely on human media to spread their images, but the Decepticons intend to take action instead of allowing for passive means. Reflector will turn the humans' feeble minds head-over-heels with subconscious cues. First impressions are vital, and humans trust their eyes.

"There's a smudge on your shoulder; use the rag to wipe it off. Show us that shine. Good. Wait! Hold that pose. Gooooood, yeah. Like that. Drop the rag but keep your hand there. Oh, that's beautiful. That's touchable. Oh yeah. Make them want you."

This is the second time Megatron has sat for him, and Reflector is more confident this time. The studio is where they have the most control, and they slid automatically into orders. They didn't mean to. There is not intentional disrespect. They were highly conscious of what they said and did the first session, murmuring suggestions in undertones meant to slide under any hint of insubordination. It'd worked, because they'd survived.

But they backslid into habit in the middle of that session, after Starscream left. Those two have a working chemistry together that the camera only had to tweak in order to capture, but by himself, Megatron doesn't quite get the cues right. He needs an audience.

Or orders. Reflector was fighting with a stubborn light shade when Megatron dropped out of pose again. Distracted by the work, impatience at their uncooperative model got through in the form of, "Stand straight and look directly into the lens. Stay that way."

They were polite. They were clipped and giving an order in no uncertain terms. They didn't even realize what they'd done until two poses on, still swearing their breath at the shade but far happier with the images they were getting. The photographer patter came out naturally, praising their model. Positive feedback worked so much better with live models. Let a model know what worked with the camera, and that model's talent could bloom.

Realization hit and they stopped, suddenly realizing what had just come from their mouths. The orders were bad enough, but the praise and flood of outright flirting had Reflector's collective jaws dropped. Megatron gave them a strange look out of the corner of his optic. Strange because it wasn't a glare, and strange because he didn't otherwise move a micron. He just patiently waited for them to tell him to move.

He actually asked if he was doing something wrong.

Stranger yet, he kept hesitating when they tried to go back to respectful silence. He didn't know what looked right in the camera's lens, and Reflector wasn't giving him feedback anymore.

Aware that it could mean death, they gave him an order. Then another. Then they started the pattern, awkward but easing toward natural, and he responded.

He responded beautifully to the camera. As a model, he was positively exquisite in how responsive he was. And they always reacted to what the camera loved, because they are a camera and cannot stop seeing the world through its lens.

Megatron followed their commands without a hint of resistance, and it lit something in their spark that they dared not name. By the end of the first session, they were purring praise on their model, and - they wanted to believe - he was soaking it up. He might have enjoyed it.

"That. Whoa! That's going to bring them running. Give us some hip action and - too far, too far, turn back. Chin down, optics at us. Smile a bit."

Turns out that death takes orders well.

Second session, same as the first, Starscream's louder and a little bit worse. Yet as soon as the noisy glitch leaves, Megatron gives them an expectant look.

Watching is easy. Directing is a pleasure, and they slide into their favorite role hesitating but hopeful. His optics gleam when they tell him where to stand, and Reflector smiles back. The patter is a subroutine on their vocalizer while their lens click, the sensual impact of light on their interior surfaces translating to data, and the images are glorious. The many aspects of Megatron are caught, and Reflector is a master at visuals. The humans won't know what hits them.

They keep the second session going longer than they have to, and a lot of the images aren't useable near the end. At least, not useable for the current project. They might raise morale around the ship if Reflector lets them leak out among the Decepticons, however. One of Megatron's many aspects is 'sexy,' and he knows it. If he didn't know it before, he knows now. Reflector thinks they should stop the patter, but the urge is too strong. Their instinct is to praise, to tell their model how spot-on that look, that pose, that everything is, what that look's doing to the camera, how that angle will enflame libidos like energon on an open flame.

Megatron is death, and Reflector admits to themselves that toward the end, there, they were flirting with death.

He leaves as inexpressive as anything, but Reflector wonders if he's flattered by the flow of words. It's the only reason they can think of that he was so cooperative.

It doesn't occur to them to think that it's the orders Megatron enjoys. Not even during the third, totally unnecessary session where Megatron just shows up and demands a 'personal' session.

"Don't turn like that. No. Look at us. Turn your head! Oh, for Primus - hold on, we're coming down there."

He looks amused when they hit the pose for him, but he still screws it up. The amusement becomes disbelief when they wrestle one of the light stands over to climb and bodily correct him, comparatively tiny hands on the shining silver of his jaw. His mouth turns down, but an odd confusion fills his face. They see it as they snatch their hands back, afraid they'd gone too far. It's directed inward. He doesn't seem to understand something.

"Continue," he says when they begin to apologize.

They hesitate and look at each other. "…yes, my lord," one of them says after a moment, words that have been left at the door the whole time this session, and that's not what he wants to hear. They know because a sweep of his arm catches the light stand and throws them across the room in a violent sprawl.

He storms from the studio.

Reflector quietly packs their equipment and relocates the studio to another room in the ship, trading Scavenger two Van Gogh paintings and a pencil for one of his storage rooms. They don't know what's going on, but death is most dangerous when angered and unpredictable. It's best that they stay out of sight for a while.

Staying out of sight doesn't help when the mech they're hiding from can simply summon them.

"My lord," they say as they bow, wary.

The throne room echoes, empty but for their commander, and the lighting is all wrong. The corners are pits of darkness, the ceiling a black nothing above them. Megatron is a shadow, dull glints picking him vaguely out against the gloom. His armor catches some of the light from overhead, but the lights are few and far between. Most of them are out, for some reason. The remaining few angle toward Reflector instead of the throne, and they frown at that. Spotlights barely provide any ambient light; except for stray beams reflected from the floor, darkness dominates the room.

They can feel him study them. Red optics in the black sweep them from helms to feet, and they shift uncomfortably.

"I wish another session," he says from the darkness, and they shrug. Far be it from them to deny him.

"As you command, Lord Megatron. Where and when should we prepare? Is there a specific plan for the pictures?"

He studies them further. The silence strains, and they shift some more. "Here," he says at last, and they blink. "Here and now."

That is unexpected, and they're not sure how he wants them to respond. Obedience is best. "As…you command, m'lord. Our equipment will take a moment to - "

"No. No equipment."

This time, they have no idea what to say. No equipment? How can they do a session without equipment? They combine into a camera, but in actuality, they work with cameras, lights, shades, and background screens. They're fairly ineffective at turning and shooting themselves in altmode.

"Lord Megatron, we…" Red optics stare, and Reflector looks at themselves. None of them know what to do but obey. "…will do our best. Ah." They look up at the inadequate lights, those spotlights which direct light nowhere useful. "Is there a theme?" they guess, grasping at any information they can. Mystery? Drama? What can they do with this?

The red optics ponder them. "Consider it an artistic exercise."

That is the exact opposite of helpful. "Of course, m'lord," they say. One of them lights his thrusters and starts toward the ceiling, intent on redirecting the lights, but a deep rumble of disapproval drops their component back to the floor.

They give each other confused looks and peer through the darkness at their commander, hoping for instruction. "The light is wrong. We need to fix the angle," they say, voices dropping out of sync as nerves rattle their systems.

Silver glitters in scattered slivers of light as the dark bulk of their lord rises. "I will move as necessary," he tells them.

But he remains standing there.

Waiting for orders.

Increasingly anxious, they respectfully direct him into the light, and the shoot is surprisingly artistic. Reflector is the master in this domain, awkward as it is to manage to drop and shoot at the same time, transforming before they hit the ground. Their heads grow muzzy with the influx of light and data flashing across their separating bodies. The images are dark, the light illuminating only parts of Megatron's body. The red pits of optics glare out from the shadows of his helm: red, black, and dazzling silver in the light from above. The black outline of his shadow from below, menacing and huge. The shadows parted by a hand reaching into the white light, somehow both yearning and demanding.

Reflector finds themselves enjoying the impromptu shoot, grueling as it is on their minds and bodies. The dizzier they get, the less they leash their mouths. The patter pours out in a stream of corrections, orders, and praise. The occasional bark of a quick change brightens Megatron's optics, but they're combining and falling, separating and leaping up, combining and falling. They can't concentrate. Death is turning in the light in front of them, and the rush of pleasure from directing, from control, pushes their limits.

"Move over there, to that one." They point before turning to brace their hands on their middle component's shoulders while their vents labor. Megatron strides past them, a dark figure in a darker room.

When they turn, he is kneeling, and his optics burn on them.

They stare back.

"Further back," they whisper on automatic, mouths running without input from their stunned minds, and they can hear his powerplant thrum through the floor. "Hands down."

He drops his hands further than they meant, and Reflector hears their own fans spin on as black hands touch the floor. Red optics darken, and Megatron draws a long, slow breath through his vents. If it were anyone else, if those eloquent hands weren't pressed to the floor, it would be a confession of uncertainty tinged with belligerent confusion. Megatron isn't sure what he's doing, and they're not sure what he wants. He hasn't spoken since they started ordering him around.

He doesn't speak now. Death stares Reflector down, silent and waiting.

Their legs shake, but not enough to stop them. Their feet take them across the room in short, erratic strides, skittish and ready to flee but drawn nonetheless. One hand ventures up, greatly daring, but quickly drops to their sides.

Megatron ducks his head. He chases the aborted gesture. It's a small motion that demands completion.

They've worked with this model before. They can read some of his cues. Small hands rise to brush fingers gingerly over chrome finish, white light reflecting hard off the helm bent before them and shadows covering the face beneath. Reflector exhales shakily and strokes a work of art. Their hands are careful, careful, careful times three, but gaining confidence. Slow and gentle, they pet him.

He is contained power. He is their leader. He is, "Beautiful," they tell him, and they can feel the minute shudder of his powerplant in the palms of their hands. He pushes slightly into their hands, just enough to be felt. A question like a model looking for direction, and the patter comes naturally to them. This, they know how to handle. "Just like that," they croon. "A little further. Like that. Good. Very good."

They watch him, and he soaks in their attention. They give orders, and he obeys them.

This time, the session ends early, but not taking pictures doesn't mean they're done. They praise him when he does what they want, and scold him when he doesn't. Fear swells in their chests and subsides a minute later, only to rise and ebb again. It's a rollercoaster of fear for their lives that dips on the power of his scowl, soars in disbelief at his obedience. It is fragile and sets them on fire all the same.

He is running hot under their hands when they touch him, and they touch him more than they have to because they're radiating just as much heat. To have this at their beck and call, willing - no, more than willing, eager - to earn the attention lavished on him…it is one of the most beautiful things they have ever seen, but then again, he always has been. This is simply a new aspect to observe.

Slowly, in the dark, Reflector tames death.

[* * * * *]