Title: Tyrant of the Seraglio, Pt. 2
Warning: uREAD THE WARNINGS/u, PLEASE
Torture (medical and not)
BDSM (dominance/submission, slavery)
Coercion
Mutilation/Gore
Author overthinking a joke-fic
Rating: NC-17
Continuity: IDW/G1 (AU)
Characters: Soundwave, Megatron, Optimus, Breakdown
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Fic-for-Pic Motivation (Prompt): Soundwave – "The sound of music"
From TFWiki –
vorn = 83 years
deca-vorn = 8.3 years
stellar cycle = ~7.5 months
orn = 1 Cybertron day
joor = 6 hours
cycle = 1.25 hours
breem = 8.3 minutes
klik = 1.2 minutes
mechanometer ~ meter
kil ~ kilometer
[* * * * *]
He missed music the most.
It had never seemed important before. No style of music had appealed to him prior to Megatron's overthrow. It wasn't that he'd disliked music, but it seemed to be one of the more useless of the various types of data available. His job had always been surveillance and information processing. His body had been a specialized assessment tool, constantly filtering through layers of sound and transmission that made up Cybertron. Music had often been an obscuring background noise, requiring one more refinement of the gathering process. It had rarely provided any information on its own.
He couldn't recall ever listening to it for its own sake.
Regret for that panged sharp and aching through his spark these days. These days, he couldn't listen to anything.
When his audio receptors had first been removed, Soundwave had steeled himself against the inevitable comedy of errors. Being unable to hear would result in much laughter - perhaps even anger – at his expense. It was inevitable. Communication was only the most obvious and immediate problem. Misunderstandings would prevalent and humiliatingly awkward for the ex-Communication Officer. He wouldn't be able to hear sounds of warning or danger, like footsteps around a corner or the bleep of an airlock opening.
His hearing had been the price of survival, however, and he'd tried to prepare himself for life without sound. A difficult life, but better than the alternative.
He hadn't been able to prepare himself for the other consequences. How could he have? He'd known it would be a challenge, but he had never experienced deprivation to this extent. He hadn't known how completely it would throw him off. The lack of sound had been bad, but it was the absolute absence of input that broke him.
Although the memories seemed inapplicable these days, he remembered losing his hearing before. In war, damage happened. Soundwave had blown out his audios on the battlefield under sonic assault, burnt out his transmitters on extended attacks, and even deliberately disabled the hardware himself in order to foil software hacks. He remembered it being vastly irritating. The damage had interfered with his duties. But even then, it had been battle damage: incomplete and usually physical in nature. He'd been able to compensate for the temporary handicap. It had, after all, been temporary.
The removal of his audios wasn't temporary. It had been complete. He'd gone under the surgeons' hands expecting to wake up deaf, but they'd been so much more thorough than that.
The surgery had gone well beyond mere hearing. His audios were removed, but also every transmitter and receptor in his entire body. That included comm. link-ups, old-fashioned radio relays, speakers, network drops, inbuilt antenna, and even his interface cables. His chest was an empty hole, gutted of transistors, reel-processors, and the connector cables for his Cassette docks. The docks themselves had been unbolted and taken out, as well as the motors and heads for playback. He was a carrier mech no longer able to carry a single symbiote. The sparkbonds to his symbiotes were still there, but the surgery had taken out his actual ability to host. He couldn't exchange data with anyone, much less a symbiote.
His vocalizer was gone, down to the language setters lining his throat. They had given him the ability to mimic the minute clicks and scuffs of a tongue and dental molds he didn't have. He'd frequently been accused of speaking in a monotone, but without the setters in his throat, his voice would have truly sounded like a computer's. Now he had no sound at all. With those gone, he couldn't even beep affirmative/negative. Telegraphs and binary data squeals weren't physically possible anymore.
Worst of all - if only for the sheer havoc wrecked during their removal - the router points for his wireless capabilities were gone. Telepathy among robots was really just an extreme sensitivity to the electromagnetic fields put out by every living robot. Soundwave had been a specialist among specialists; his wireless telepathy had been a dark secret before the war and a source of great fear during it. He'd been notorious for his ability to locate, intercept, and translate neural circuitry field-pulse. His transceiver bank stole the data streams right out off mechs' electrical current, stealing information from even the most firewalled processor.
Or rather, it had been able to do that. The whole system had been taken out during the surgery. That…had caused its own set of unpredicted problems. He'd expected, even been grimly resigned to, the removal of his audio receptors. Specialized as he was, it was a logical way to neutralize one of Megatron's most loyal supporters. Removing his vocalizer as well had been…unexpected, but again, logical. His telepathy had required a much more extensive removal, and one he hadn't anticipated. He should have.
His surgery and subsequent enslavement hadn't been an idea sprung from cool-headed, rational logic. Slavery had been the result, but the goal was revenge, and physical vengeance hadn't been complete enough. Revenge had made nullifying his capabilities a minor goal. The surgery hadn't been a means to an end; Soundwave could have come back online deaf and mute, but still somewhat useful.
But he hadn't. He hadn't been meant to be useful, ever again. The surgery had been the end itself: crushing him. Punishing him for millions of year of betrayal and loathing and confinement. Using him as a slave had been tacked on when it was decided keeping him alive was a better bargain. Slavery was an afterthought, an instance of his master's cruel sense of humor at play. The slave-band was a statement: Full circle, Soundwave.
His master liked making unspoken statements. The new capital reflected that. The resources for building an ornate palace had been allocated elsewhere, part of a goodwill showing for the newly-surrendered Autobots, but stark, clean lines of the resulting buildings had ended up a visual reflection of the new Decepticon regime. Outside of the richly decorated harem, the capital building resembled an office building more than a palace. An opulent office building in the very center of the rapidly-expanding Cybertronian Empire, true, but it was really nothing more than a glorified government building. A building his master lived in and ruled from.
Arguably, that made it a palace no matter how little it looked like one, but by the time resources had become abundant enough for palace-building, the not-palace had become an unspoken statement. It said something about the new regime's commitment to rebuilding Cybertron, perhaps even a denial of the Iacon Senate's pre-war excesses. Underlying that was the fact that visitors found its simplistic style and ruthlessly barren halls intimidating. The building was a perfect example of architecture focusing attention instead of diverting it; Starscream stood out from it in a vivid blaze of color and sound. Just how he liked it, really.
He'd already been a holy terror before…well, before. Encountering him, here and now as Soundwave hurried through the halls, would be enough to skip the slave's pump with sudden, magnified fear. Not that there weren't enough reasons to fear the Seeker, but encountering him in the plain halls sort of felt like running headfirst into a visual explosion.
Soundwave didn't have the luxury of avoiding him anymore, however. It wasn't like Starscream didn't know where to find him, or couldn't order him into his presence on a whim. The slave-bands welded onto both his arms were there as ownership claim - and punishment if the slave foolishly disobeyed. The inhibitors wired into Megatron's circuitry damped his code and prevented behavioral deviations. The slave-bands Soundwave wore were meant solely for punishment. They mainlined into his pain sensors.
Disobedience wasn't an option. Running away was a privilege he no longer had. His master had delighted in taking away from him every right a free mech laid claim to. The more inherent, it seemed, the better.
Physical torture would have been tolerable, or even the naked exposure of a full hack. Losing all his communication hardware in one prolonged surgery had stripped away abilities Soundwave hadn't known he relied on, but it had still been acceptable, in a vanquished-foe kind of way. Bodies could be rebuilt, after all. Soundwave had been the Decepticon's Communications Office for over 9 million years. He'd betrayed his former position under the Senate to take up Megatron's cause. Physically removing his specialized abilities was an appropriate penance for his crimes. He simply hadn't predicted to what lengths revenge would take that penance.
Uninstalling the software and removing the connections had disoriented him, but he'd come online after the surgery to a blank world. Not just removed, but permanently blocked; he had nothing left by the memories of sound and transmission, because his body no longer even recognized their existence. The connection points had been soldered over, prevented reinstallation. The software had been wiped, and the download protocols hopelessly scrambled by a complex circuit-bypass. It manually jumped the primary permits, denying Soundwave access to his own code. Updates to would have to be done by a professional medic or someone with the new primary-user authority keys – namely, his new master.
He'd woken up crippled and slave-banded, his very programming informing him it belonged to someone else, now. He'd been reduced to something even lower than a deaf-mute slave. He'd been neutered.
Over the course of 167.9 vorns, he'd come to understand his master's sharp, digging point. He understood why he'd been humbled. It didn't make it easier to bear, but at least there were reasons for his suffering. There were calm, well thought-out reasons behind all of it.
That almost made it worse, if that were possible.
He understood Megatron's enslavement. The former gladiator and miner retained an aura of power and former glory. Finely detailed and polished to a mirror shine, the ex-leader of the Decepticons would have turned heads in the Iacon Towers at the height of the Golden Age. Handsome? Unmistakably so. More alluring, however, was Megatron's uncompromising determination to never break. Tales of his many escape attempts circulated widely, ever awe-inspiring in the re-telling. Rumor of his insolence and refusal to submit pumped the tales along.
Slave or not, Megatron was still the ideal Decepticon: powerful, unyielding, and kept from tearing apart those who chained him by only the thinnest means of control. Everyone knew that Megatron would rip his master apart given half a chance, even after 167.89 vorns of slavery. Keeping the former Decepticon leader alive was statement of prestige. A smugly unspoken gloat: Look at my slave. Am I not more powerful?
Keeping Megatron as a haremslave had a devious sort of efficiency to it. Not only did it display control over the former tyrant's regime, but it took full advantage of Megatron's remarkable charisma and body. Only the best of the best on their master's new Cybertron were granted the supreme reward of access to the harem. To be a reward worth striving for, the harem slaves had to be extraordinary.
Megatron was certainly that. He had been legend, and his notoriety had only grown after his downfall. Cybertron as a whole vividly remembered his eons of rule. Now, he was the undomesticated wild beast of the harem, magnificent and untamed.
Mechs outdid themselves for the opportunity to come and see for themselves the chains of jewels and flowers keeping the snarling creature down. There were strict rules for interfacing with him, which were entirely necessary but made the experience no fun. Yet that wasn't why Decepticon, Autobot, and Neutral alike fought to be noticed and commended. They wanted to be granted the chance to go inside the harem to see. They wanted the visceral thrill of standing in the presence of a feral, fiercely beautiful mech. They wanted the excited sense of danger from the option of touching the ideal Decepticon, like visiting a petting zoo containing a hungry T-Rex.
Megatron held himself aloof, just barely restrained from destroying them all, and some mechs came just for that. They wanted to feel the rollercoaster-ride of enjoyment from fear for their lives. They came to give the ex-leader an order and have it grudgingly obeyed, not to frag him. Megatron had obeyed fewer orders in the berth than a harem slave rightly should. On the other hand, he'd also stood on one foot, sat on the floor, and fetched a ball. He'd glared in such a way that the mechs who'd dared give such orders had nearly overloaded on the spot from the danger. They'd wobbled out of the harem afterward on a pleasure-high just from surviving the encounter. Actually touching the ex-tyrant in a sexual manner probably would have made them explode.
Optimus never got such commands. Or rather, no matter the order, he didn't mind. He'd stood on one foot gravely, fetched the ball with a smile for the game, and sat on the floor as if all the world were a chair. He was enthusiastic, impossible to embarrass, and a wonderfully dutiful harem slave – but even Skywarp handled him with a strange sort of reverence.
Megatron and Optimus were as different as night and day, but oddly, almost as closely matched. Optimus was desirable in a different way altogether, but there was still some of Megatron's untouchable allure in the ex-Prime. His untouchable state centered on who he'd been rather than what he'd become. The Matrix Bearer had passed on the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus, but everyone knew that it had refused to Choose another Autobot as Prime. Optimus was the ex-Prime, leader of the Autobots, but he led the Autobots nonetheless.
The mechs who came to the harem approached him with an odd sense that they could never violate him, never fully touch him the way interfacing with a regular mech allowed.
The ex-Prime was a slave, yes, but a highly valued one. He was the gorgeous, cherished gemstone of the harem. Megatron came from the opposite end of the spectrum: admired as the brutal savage, the untamable beast of legend endlessly pacing his cage. On the rare occasions they'd been taken out of the harem and paraded before Cybertron's ogling optics, not even the bravest mech had dared so much as leer at them. They were intensely vulnerable, toys for the taking, but - conversely - protected by their owner. Nobody would risk laying a finger on either of them without permission.
Beyond the punishing shocks and code-deep restraints built into Megatron's slave-band, the two harem slaves weren't hurt. No beatings at all, ever. Their master even refrained from issuing degrading orders beyond the confines of the harem walls. Megatron knelt to their master, and Optimus wore chains, but never in public. It was an aspect of their master's possessiveness, but also a strange sort of dignity. They were tools and treasured toys, not whored-out prisoners of war. It was a fine line, but a line never crossed.
That line didn't exist for Soundwave. Megatron and Optimus had been spared for their use in an elaborate system of rewards, but that meant the physical revenge had fallen on Soundwave. He was the next available target. Possibly the more hated one. Soundwave had always obeyed Megatron's orders, standing as the Decepticon leader's closest subordinate, but he'd fulfilled those orders with an air of inescapable competence that had made him…disturbing. Megatron's fusion cannon and combat skill had inspired a fear approaching awe. Soundwave's telepathy and information-gathering skills had just creeped everyone out.
That creepiness had been physically removed. He'd been cast down, lower than even a harem slave. He was, in fact, the one was one who polished the jewel's setting and mucked the beast's cage. He was the menial labor. He was the servant to the slaves. He was the harem eunuch, with no status or worth outside of its walls.
Therefore, he was afforded none of its protection. Outside the harem walls, Soundwave was a target for every bit of petty thuggery that wouldn't permanently offline him. Inside, he was subject to his master's revenge, served cold and painful.
Megatron had his own problems as a slave. The ex-tyrant had adjusted poorly to life as a harem slave, and his long, slow road through learning obedience had prevented him from helping Soundwave. Even if he could have. Megatron had few privileges, and he'd had none at all when the welds on their slave-bands had still been fresh.
Which left his ex-subordinate essentially on his own. As he had been since the moment the virus had infiltrated his systems and knocked him out, 167.9 vorns ago.
Regaining consciousness had been a horrible experience. At first, Soundwave hadn't understood what had happened. His body had been feverish, running hot and overclocked from the knock-out Trojan that had somehow slipped through his defenses, but his firewalls had merely crashed. They hadn't been hacked. He'd been restrained by statis cuffs and access-blocks, but there were Decepticons standing guard on him. Not Autobots. Decepticons.
Decepticons whom he had few files on, little or no blackmail, and that was very, very strange. He didn't recognize the guards. He should have. He had information on everyone in Decepticon ranks, down to the grunts, or so he'd thought.
That'd alarmed him more than the restraints. It was a gaping hole in his information, calculated and concealed over a long period of time.
When the usurper finally put in an appearance, he'd understood. He'd understood the meticulous planning, the nameless guards, the missing data, and even why he hadn't been hacked. There had been no need to. He was Megatron's Communication Officer, his invisible hand, but there were ranks above his and more undetectable spies hiding among the shadows. Decepticons made for strange bedfellows, and political allies went beyond strange into kinky.
Oh, Soundwave had understood. He'd been taken out first because physical force hadn't spearheaded this coup. Megatron's staunchest supporter was also the one who would have put the pieces together before it was too late. Soundwave had understood, and he had despaired.
Time had passed too quickly. That 'too late' came all too soon.
Locked down into immobility, heavily guarded and fed taunting slips of gossip, he'd lain in the prison awaiting death. Once Megatron had been overthrown, the extent of the underground planning had been revealed, and Soundwave's spark had clenched into a knot as more immobile forms were carried into the prison. The powerhouses, the loyalists, the Decepticons who might have fought for Megatron's place; all of them disabled and imprisoned in the cells beside him. Too late.
Starscream had relished stopping in just to inform him of the newest neutralized threats. The list of names had been demoralizing, recited cheerfully from the behind the brilliant lights that kept his symbiotes from sneaking past the guards. Soundwave had felt the Cassetticons, faint and angry, at the limits of his telepathy. The circuit-block drilled through his helm kept him from contacting them, but the sparkbond was deeper than circuitry. Their fury had come through. He'd been bound to a table and trapped in an enemy prison cell, but there had been hope so long as they'd been free.
Then came the day when Megatron was slave-banded in front of the assembled ranks, the people of Cybertron, and Soundwave had heard the roar of the crowd even from the depths of the prison. The fury became something faster, more frantic: fear. It had trickled through the sparkbond and infected him, but he had nowhere to go. The countdown had started, and he had no means to race the clock.
Megatron had been enslaved. That had made Soundwave's life forfeit. First, the enslavement of the old leader. Then, the executions of the loyalists would begin.
The new regime focused on efficiency. Brute-force warfare was Megatron's favored tactic, but there were other options: more subtlety, better usage of available resources, even the possibility of peace. In order to streamline the process of shifting tactics, the new regime had to do away with the last. Megatron became a symbol and a valuable tool. Instead of wasting time trying to convert mechs who would likely betray the new regime anyway, the decision came to just do away with them. It'd been a more…satisfying decision. It'd been personal vengeance reasoned into logic, disposing of those who'd gotten in the way for so long.
Soundwave was at the head of that disposal list. He'd lain there, paralyzed, and his symbiotes' fear had compacted over his spark.
Instead of execution, there had come the frailest wisp of hope from the sparkbond. Suddenly, two Decepticons were there rearranging the blinding lights: Hook and the sinister red shininess of Knock Out. Soundwave had hated the way his spark whiplashed into hope as the two medics prepped for surgery. He hadn't dared hope for release, but he'd guessed what had happened even before Knock Out gleefully filled in the juicy details.
His Cassetticons had bartered their loyalty for his life. Or possibly for their own lives. Frenzy and Rumble wouldn't have suffered much beyond the initial shock, being that they hadn't originally been Cassettes, but the death of a carrier sometimes dragged the symbiotes offline, too. He'd known that. Ravage, Buzzsaw, and Laserbeak had likely convinced the new Decepticon leader that their abilities were worth their lives, their lives were worth their fealty, and it'd all be his for the small price of Soundwave's life.
The quality of that life was…questionable.
He was alive. He was inexpressibly glad to be alive. It was just, well, the life of a slave was bad enough. The life of a harem eunuch?
Soundwave didn't run through the halls, but it wasn't because he didn't want to. He'd hustled out the door as soon as Skywarp had entered, but it took him almost 2 breems of fast walking to reach the dispensary. Optimus pinged refinery orders the moment guests arrived, so the tray would be prepared and waiting. That wasn't the problem. The dispensary drones would log the tray contents to micron, but he had enough control to not spill things nowadays. The scanner at the harem entryway would verify delivery. That wasn't a problem anymore. There was the slight risk that Skywarp would finish before Soundwave got back to the harem, but Optimus was fully capable of keeping the Seeker entertained until the highgrade arrived. So that wasn't the problem, either.
The problem was that 4 breems outside the safety of the harem was 4 breems waiting for the axe to fall. If Soundwave were physically able to, he'd have sprinted through the halls.
Some grudges lingered. If Skywarp's reward were common knowledge, Soundwave could expect to run a gauntlet of mechs bent on revenge for past discipline, blackmail, or whatever indiscretion they felt like making a helpless slave pay for today. Speed was his only defense. There was only one entryway to the harem, and if he didn't make it back before someone staked out that hallway, the results would be most unpleasant. He knew that all too well.
He'd been far, far slower in the first vorns of slavery. Taking out his transceiver banks hadn't just taken away his telepathy; it had removed entire subsets of coding for basic functions. Hook and Knock Out had been under instructions to remove anything relating to communication. They had, as they helpfully informed him via writing afterward, considered cutting off internal system communication entirely. They'd ultimately decided bestow their own strange brand of mercy on him, choosing instead to merely disconnect and burn out any subsets running through his transceiver bank.
Oh, he'd been slower alright. He'd barely been able to move, the first stellar cycle. He'd had to relearn motor skills at a level even more basic than code. Without access to his own CPU, he hadn't been able to rewrite the missing code or adjust his function parameters. He'd had to learn how to use his limbs when he didn't have the keys to the systems controlling them. He'd mapped out work-arounds for the system links eventually, but it had been an horrendously slow process. Moreover, his master had taken frequent, vicious pleasure in erasing the bits of repairwork self-repair managed to cobble together. Handicapping him further had been an amusement, especially when it made him miserable all over again.
It'd taken him a deca-vorn to relearn how to crawl. Crawling about on all fours didn't seem like much of an accomplishment unless the alternative was inching along the floor. Which is what Soundwave had been doing, at least when he had enough control of his body to do so. His master never grew bored with tormenting him, even when he did his best to remain stoic, but there were other entertainments available. Megatron hadn't been able to do much for him, but distracting their master as an easy task under the circumstances. The more training Megatron required, the less attention was paid to Soundwave's suffering.
There weren't words for how grateful he was to his ex-commander for that humiliating sacrifice.
He could walk now. 167.9 vorns later, and he'd regained enough control of his body to sometimes manage a clumsy jog. He tended to trip and fall when slowing down again, however, which wasn't acceptable when carrying a tray of highgrade and energon goodies. Soundwave was not allowed to spill anything. Even a micron of highgrade missing from the harem order would be calculated into ration-grade amounts and subtracted from his already meager energon allotment. His master took a perverse joy in watching him starve.
Had, in fact, watched and enjoyed it quite a few times over the course of the years. Soundwave had spilled a lot of highgrade between his first shaky orns of crawling and the vorns it'd taken him to relearn balancing a tray and walking at the same time. A lot of highgrade.
Not all of it had been the fault of his lack of coordination. Outside the harem walls, he was fair game to anyone who felt like giving him a push or a punch. They wouldn't go so far as to drink the harem's highgrade, but Soundwave had been held down and forced to watch while the cubes were tipped over in front of him, one at a time. He'd knelt in the spilled energon and used his fingers to write frantic, begging script in the pink fluid as his attackers taunted him with the last cubes.
Most of the time, it didn't work. Sometimes, however, they'd given the cubes back.
The bitterest lesson he learned from those encounters was that sometimes, just sometimes, begging worked. Begging rubbed in how much power he lacked now, which made the lesson all the harder to swallow. Every time, it was a spiteful 'Are we not merciful?' reminder of his past position and current slavery.
He didn't need the reminder. The returned cubes were gifts, and Soundwave always, always traced words of gratitude at the feet of the merciful. Because it was the times when begging didn't work that he starved.
Begging never worked on his master. His master didn't care who was responsible for the spills. All he cared to see was the waste, and waste was punished. The slave's shaking limbs and vulnerability had caused many spills. With as much punishment as he'd earned, Soundwave should have deactivated from starvation vorns ago.
He should have, but he hadn't.
He'd gone hungry. His empty tanks had been a draining, consumptive pain for stellar cycles at a time, but he'd survived. He was still alive.
The mechs who entered the harem touched Optimus reverently, still treating him like the Matrix Bearer and leader of the Autobots. Soundwave felt that reverence himself, but not because Optimus had been Prime. Megatron wryly accused Optimus of being the 'patron saint of interfacing,' but Soundwave...
It had taken slavery with the ex-Prime to discover Autobot compassion extended even to Decepticons. And the kindness didn't make Optimus weak, no matter what Megatron still claimed. The Autobot had kept him alive on sips of his own rations, dregs smuggled from the highgrade cubes Soundwave was forbidden to taste, and even an occasional energon goodie hidden away during the ex-Prime's berthplay. Megatron grumpily did likewise, but only Optimus went so far as to plead, graceful and pretty as a natural pleasurebot, for pity on the starving slave's behalf.
Their master did listen to the ex-Prime, even if he didn't always grant favors. Their master knew everything that went on in the harem. He had to know the lengths his tame Autobot went to save his whipping 'bot. But sometimes - again, just often enough to make bitter hope rise - begging worked. If Megatron had submitted enough to also plead, Soundwave might have, might have, been spared, just for acting as a chink in the ex-tyrant's uncompromising independence.
But Optimus had stood alone as Soundwave's personal savior.
Soundwave had no way to defend himself. He was pathetically thankful for any protection whatsoever. Reverence? Slag that. The feeling edged closer to adoration every orn.
Soundwave acknowledged that his master owned him. Denial of that fact would be sheer stupidity. He was a slave. He was also Megatron's soldier, even after all this time. Soundwave's loyalty hadn't wavered. Were they to break out tomorrow, Soundwave would remain at Megatron's right hand. But in his spark, secret and hidden, he knew who he really served.
He was his owner's slave, the harem's eunuch, Megatron's officer - but he was Optimus' servant.
There was only so much protection a harem slave could provide, however, which was why Soundwave hurried. Inside the harem, most of the visitors abided by the ex-Prime's wishes and left him alone, especially if he was servile to the point of invisibility. Megatron, seething danger and barely leashed, put himself between less respectful visitors and the defenseless eunuch. Soundwave made a point of anticipating those particular visitors' needs and catering to them as best he was able. There wasn't much hope of appeasing mechs Pit-bent on abusing him, but sometimes, like begging, it worked.
It was better than nothing. Because that was all Soundwave had outside the harem: nothing. He hurried because peace and rebuilding Cybertron didn't make Decepticons any less inclined to dominate the weak, and it certainly hadn't made the Autobots forget millions of years of civil war. So he ducked into the dispensary, stuck his wristbands in the drones' scanners, and picked up the prepared tray all in one smooth move. It was a practiced motion, and he had indeed practiced it. When the equivalent of half a stellar cycle's worth of energon allotment lay in his hands, he did everything possible to avoid spilling it. Starvation or fueling hinged on dodging a beating today, and only speed would prevent said beating.
He paused at the door to cautiously peer out. That required sticking his head further out than he would have liked, but all he really had left to detect an ambush was his sight. And even that had been severely limited after -
No time for bad memories. The coast was clear. Soundwave headed for the harem at his quickest walk. He tried not to slow down, but he tried even harder to keep the cubes from sloshing. His head turned constantly, visually scanning for danger. The hall lights were dimming gradually, signaling shift-change. That made it more difficult to see, but Soundwave preferred the scant shelter of the shadows to standing out like a target under the lights.
It was late, past closing for his master's preferred operations shift. Maybe he'd get lucky. There weren't many mechs who stayed in the not-palace when the main meetings and audiences ended. Those who did were mostly maintenance staff or dronemasters. Even if he did run into someone, maybe they'd think he was fetching refreshments for his master. While that could still lead to a beatdown, he might be allowed to set aside the tray first. Hurting him carried no consequences, but only an idiot wasted the Decepticon leader's personal highgrade.
Of course, anyone hanging around this wing of the building had to have come intentionally. Had to know who was currently reaping his reward in the harem, and it wasn't Soundwave's master.
Sound had always been Soundwave's most prominent sense. Without it, perception narrowed to the few remaining senses, and his sight had limited his awareness of his surroundings even before he'd been half-blinded. So there was only a rippling tremor through the floor to warn him that his range of vision had been directed in the wrong direction.
He stiffened and threw a glance back over his shoulder, staggering slightly as the move threw his balance off. That was the least of his concerns when he spotted the navy and cream Lamborghini Countach drifting around the corner behind him. The floor-tremor increased as the Stunticon revved his engine. It could have been threat, or even excitement. Perhaps fear.
Soundwave snapped his head forward again and risked trying for a shuffling jog. Concentrating on controlling his own limbs kept him from tracking the car's progress, but Breakdown wouldn't have come to this wing unless he was looking for Soundwave. And Soundwave knew why.
The tremor turned to hard vibration a moment before the Stunticon swung his backend around in front of him and whipped through transformation. Soundwave stumbled to a halt, desperately clutching the tray as one foot scuffed on the floor and nearly tripped him headfirst into the smaller Decepticon. Pink fuel slopped, scattering a couple drops across the tray before he could recover his balance, and Soundwave immediately backpedaled.
A blue hand caught the front of the tray, threatening to pull it from his grasp and dump it on the floor.
He froze. He didn't dare move.
No. Not Breakdown. Anyone, even Drag Strip, but not Breakdown! Drag Strip could at least be distracted or flattered into letting Soundwave go, and all it would cost was some pain and abject groveling. Breakdown…Breakdown wouldn't let him escape.
Soundline offlined his optic sensors and dropped his head submissively. His world, already silent, went completely black. He would have no warning, but he also couldn't see Breakdown any longer. It was voluntary, if only partial, sensory deprivation. The darkness seized his tanks with fear, terror crawling up the sides to burn at the base of his intake valve, but it was his best bet. Keeping his visor lit would aggravate Breakdown's paranoia. The Stunticons's sensitivity to being watched had been a source of annoyance and idle amusement during the war, but the tables had turned.
The Stunticon who'd been convinced Soundwave had done nothing but watch him, stare at him, now had the power to stop him. Full circle, Soundwave.
He kept his head down and prayed as he never had in all the millions of years of war. It'd been 167.9 vorns. Surely he'd learned his lesson. He'd paid for his betrayals and done penance for his crimes. Someone out there had to start showing him mercy. Primus? His master?
This never got any easier.
The tray tugged from his shaking hands, and Soundwave had no choice but to let it go. He was slave to the harem slaves, the lowest of the low. He couldn't disobey or struggle. Something tapped against the side of his visor, and he dropped his head further. Another tap, harder and more insistent. Soundwave reluctantly brought his optic sensors back online, just barely lighting them enough to peek upward. He didn't raise his visor enough to meet Breakdown's optics - that would have been unacceptable - but enough to see the bottom half of the Stuncticon's face. Reading and writing were the one form of communication not yet taken from him; through total necessity and patient repetition by both Megatron and Optimus, Soundwave had expanded that to become an adept lip-reader.
Breakdown's lips weren't moving. The Stunticon never bothered to give him orders, but Soundwave had hoped.
It'd been 94 and a quarter vorns since Motormaster had first been rewarded for service to the Empire. The other Stunticons had hung around these halls, leeching pleasure off the gestalt link as their team leader enjoyed Optimus' talents, but Breakdown had fixated on Soundwave. Dead End and Wild Rider hadn't cared what Breakdown started with the former Communications Officer, but Drag Strip had considered it a game to win: who could hold the harem eunuch down and pop the most optic sensors. The popkish of squished sensor bulbs had been excruciatingly agonizing.
Breakdown had laughed along with his competitive teammate, but his laugh had been framed by a malevolent smile. Soundwave hadn't been able to hear the laughter, but he clearly remembered the smile. Through the blazing sparks of color and agony shooting through his head, he remembered the smile. Every time, every time Motormaster earned a reward, Breakdown waited for Soundwave outside. In the 94 and a quarter vorns since that first time, he'd kishpopped his way halfway through the dense socket-field of bulbs behind Soundwave's visor like a human child playing with bubblewrap. He never hurried, fingers picking at the sensor bulbs almost delicately, and he always wore that same self-satisfied, manic-tinged smile.
Soundwave's tentative hope bombed as he looked up. That smile.
The slave collapsed to his knees and folded forward, hands fumbling for the Stunticon's ankle tires. Primus, master, someone - please, not again. Please! Sound had already been taken from him. Let him keep his sight!
The floor vibrated with displeased tremors from Breakdown's engine, but Soundwave only shook harder and pushed his face into the Stunticon's feet, nuzzling desperately. Yes, he'd cringe and scrape to retain what little vision he had left. He was a good slave, an obedient slave, and if Breakdown would only spare him, Soundwave would never look at him again. He'd beg for that order, because the alternative was blindness!
But he was a slave. He had no right to deny a free mech. When Breakdown knelt and forced his head up, Soundwave had to comply. He tried to distract himself, grabbing for anything that would brace him for the pain as Breakdown pried off his visor. Anything to take his mind off the blankness encroaching across yet more of his senses. Anything to not think.
All he could think of was music. He missed it. He missed the way it had once vaguely annoyed him, because he'd thought of it as meaningless sound produced for no other purpose than distraction. He needed that, now. He needed distraction. If he could have anything, right here and now, it would be a song to keep his helplessness at bay. Strange as that seemed, he was too hopeless to ask for more. It'd been a long time since he'd thought in terms of rebellion.
A simple melody surfaced, just notes in a scale he'd heard once in the background of a more important recording, and he latched onto it as though it could numb his panic. Do Re Mi Fa So La ~
It repeated in his head while he knelt and trembled, stripped of his visor and so, so vulnerable. ~ Fa So La Ti Do Re Mi Fa ~
Fingertips daintily singled out a sensor bulb.
~ please no no please La Ti Do Re ~
Breakdown's smile never changed. His fingertips shifted and began to squeeze.
~So La Ti ~
popkish
It was obvious when the music was no longer enough to distract him. There was no sound, but sound wasn't required. Body language hadn't been taken from Soundwave - yet, anyway.
[* * * * *]
[ A/N: Next up: seriously, where are the pillows? Skywarp's hard on the furniture. Also, a distinct lack of sex, despite what the Combaticons want. ]