PAIRINGS: Optimus Prime/Hoist/Grapple,

WARNINGS (for this section): threesome, sticky sex, fingering, voyeurism

The next day's officers' meeting began with Optimus Prime announcing that he would be holding the Rite of Prima's Blessing. Yes, it would be at the traditional universal time, roughly five Earth days away. Yes, it would be for the traditional period of time (roughly three Earth days), involve the traditional strictures (uninstalled or temporarily deactivated weapons and as little armor as possible). Yes, he would be fulfilling the Prime's traditional role as grantor of Primus' blessing upon the assembled mechs and would expect all to pass it on as was proper. Including to any guests that might show up. And oh yes, he had already notified Megatron of the event and its location and told him that the Decepticons were invited, provided they observed the strictures and behaved themselves.

This announcement was met with stunned silence. Optimus sat back down in his chair and folded his hands on the table, waiting for the furor to start.

Ironhide gave Optimus a long look that faded into an incredulous headshake.

Jazz just grinned.

Ratchet, after a long moment of thought, declared that there was no way he was going to strip everyone down to ritual specs. Too many mechs, too much armor, too much kibble due to the Earth alt forms. Prime, yes. He could bow to tradition. Everyone else? Could make do with what they could take off themselves.

Red Alert finally got himself under control and asked for details on where the ritual would take place. When the answer was not "in the Ark, under full security lockdown", he nearly exploded into agitated motion, pointing out that it would be impossible to secure the area against Decepticon attack.

Prowl agreed, citing almost-calmly that Megatron's historical probability of breaking any given ceasefire was 74.9%.

Red Alert declared that as Chief Security Officer there was no way he could allow Decepticons near unarmed and unarmored Autobots-

85.6% of broken ceasefires involved assault or murder of unarmed mechs, Prowl supplied.

-let alone that close to the Prime-

59.7% of broken ceasefires involved attacks specifically on the Prime himself, Prowl added. Usually by Megatron himself.

-and the very nature of the ritual itself would provide easy opportunities for the Decepticons to hack distracted Autobots-

As happened in 53% of total Autobot encounters with Soundwave outside a battlefield.

...and so on. When, ten minutes later, Red Alert ended his (helpfully statistic-laden) list of objections, it was only because Ratchet had gotten fed up, threatened to put Red Alert in stasis through the entire ritual if he glitched, and told Prowl to stop encouraging him.

Everyone looked over at Optimus, who waited a klik and then replied that Red Alert had several good points and that he was certainly willing to allow a perimeter of armed and armored Autobots around the ritual site, if they were under strict orders to react ONLY in defense...and if and ONLY if they switched in and out during the ritual so that they got to enjoy themselves.

Red Alert sputtered static. Ratchet sighed. Ironhide rolled his optics. Prowl threw up his hands in defeat. Jazz grinned.

Optimus, being treated to a particularly pleasant vision of his senior staff, stripped to their protoforms and entwined in various combinations, smiled and asked if there was any other business.

Later that morning, Optimus called a brief gathering of Autobots and announced his intentions to the rest of the crew. The excitement that greeted him, especially from mechs who were too young to have participated in the Prime-led festivals, was palpable. It was dampened somewhat by his gentle reminder that all Cybertronians, regardless of faction, would be welcome. He cut off the protests by reminding everyone that the ritual was just as important to the Decepticons as it was to the Autobots and that any participant that disrupted the festival would be punished for blasphemy to the full extent of traditional law...as well as by not being allowed to participate in this or any other rituals. The hint that this was just the first in a revived liturgical calendar, as well as the unspoken reassurance that Prime would never do such a thing if he thought it would harm any of them, was enough to distract all but the most pessimistic bots. As he left the common room, Optimus was cheered to hear several conversations centering on the relative merits of various Decepticons.

His second stop that afternoon was a meeting with Hoist and Grapple. He met them at the entrance to the Ark, nodding to the both of them. "Sir," Hoist said, as they transformed and rolled out. "Is it true? I heard..."

"Yes, it's true," Optimus said. "In fact, that is why I wish to talk to you." He explained as they made their way to the site, the desert sands giving way to scrub and eventually to forest as they climbed up into the mountains. The road narrowed with every turn until they were moving along a dirt track. Branches caressed his outer plating just before the road ended and Optimus transformed, leading the two builders forward.

Optimus had found this place while exploring with Hound on a rare day off. The clearing backed onto the sheer gray face of the mountain, its floor half scrub and half stone. Cupped as it was in a valley, even the tallest of mechs wouldn't be visible to anyone not flying. Secluded as it was and technically part of the Autobots' legally-recognized territory, Optimus had never detected a human presence here. It was even sufficiently far away from human flight paths to provide them with some semblance of privacy from the air.

Besides, he liked it. It was quiet and peaceful. The mountain was old and curled protectively around the clearing, soaring up high enough to feel majestically Cybertronian-scaled. It reminded him, oddly, of home.

Grapple and Hoist examined the clearing with a critical eye. Hoist nodded to himself as he looked around, but Grapple's shoulders slumped.

"Something wrong, Grapple?" Optimus asked.

"No, Prime. I just..." Grapple gestured. "I will do my absolute best, but it will in no way do justice to you or the Rite. Not in five days, with the lack of materials..."

Optimus reached out, laying a hand on the architect's shoulder. "I know that I have not allowed anyone much time to prepare, and for that I apologize, particularly to you."

Grapple blinked up at him. "Prime, sir, no apologies needed!"

"Exactly," Optimus said. "Earth is our home now, as much as Cybertron. One cannot be the other. Please, do not feel the need to recreate the Great Hall." He swept his eyes over the clearing, from the towering mountain above them to the ancient stone beneath their feet to the hawks circling serenely above. "This is Earth. Let it be Earth. We merely want this small part of it to be sacred to Primus. And to us. It does not need to be anything but that." He squeezed Grapple's shoulder lightly. "Chapel. Not grand cathedral."

Grapple nodded slowly. "I understand, Prime."

"Good."

Optimus watched the two builders confer, two linked datapads in their hands. The image, as well as the fact that Grapple and Hoist had been friends and lovers for thousands of vorns even before they came to Earth, made his processor wander, briefly, in wholly inappropriate directions.

The Matrix, he thought, had grown tired of subtlety.

Optimus sighed, pulling his optics away to sweep over the clearing, feeling the wind flowing over his chassis. His plating felt heavy, constricting in a way that it hadn't in a long time. He raised a hand to Grapple and Hoist, turning to transform and leave them to their task, when Hoist called his name. Optimus turned back. The datapads were gone and the two builders now focused on him.

Hoist's voice was amused as he laid a hand on Optimus' forearm. "We ARE old enough to remember what the days before a ritual are like for the Prime."

"Though we are not, of course, high enough rank to even be offering," Grapple hurried to add, "we wondered if perhaps you might...?" His hand weaved uncertainly in the air before his EM field brushed Optimus' tentatively, warm and willing and slightly awed.

Optimus chuckled ruefully. "That obvious, am I?"

Hoist's field joined his friend's, the two of them moving with the ease of long familiarity as they stepped closer, their joined energies tickling against Optimus' sensors in a delicious caress. "Only now that we know to look."

Grapple tilted his head as he looked up at Optimus. "It's just an offer, sir. You look a bit...stressed."

Hoist snorted a laugh, "Is that what they call it on Earth? On Cybertron, we called it being in dire need of a good frag."

Grapple frowned at him, but Optimus just laughed and reached for both of them. His field pulsed in welcome and his sensors tingled as he knelt, slowly, to make them more of a height. Grapple grumbled something at that, but Optimus' focus was on Hoist, who had retracted his facemask and was grinning. Hoist stepped close eagerly, hands cupping Optimus' face as he brought their helms together. Optimus shivered at the buzz of Hoist's happy field, then again at the gentle press of his lips against his own, the stroke of skilled fingers down his neck and over his shoulders. His spark pounded, the charge rising embarrassingly fast. He drew a stuttering ventilation, saying as much, and Hoist chuckled. "Whatever you need, Prime. We're here for you. Just take whatever you need."

Optimus' groan almost covered the snick of his valve cover sliding back. "...please..."

"Mmm," Hoist murmured, against Optimus' neck. "If I might make a suggestion?" The fingers of one hand traced down Optimus' chest, down to his waist and farther, until they traced the rim of Optimus' valve. At the same time the fingers of the other tapped against Optimus' thoracic interface ports.

YES,echoed through Optimus' field, his knees widening their stance, his port covers retracting eagerly. His ventilations gasped as Grapple's nearly-forgotten presence slid into place at his back, the second EM field throbbing with Grapple's excited sparkpulse.

"I've got you," Grapple murmured in Optimus' audial. "Lean back. I have you."

"I...ah!...certainly hope so," Optimus said, leaning back into Grapple's solid bulk to give Hoist an even better angle. The medic took it, his plugs snapping into place with a groan of satisfaction. Optimus granted him access and moaned as Hoist's cheerful desire burst in his processor, then moaned again as Hoist slid sensor-laden fingers into the wet heat of his valve. Optimus arched, overwhelmed by the sensations of being stretched, being filled, as well as the unaccountably erotic level of sensory data Hoist was sharing. "I...ah!...Hoist...your hands...!"

Hoist chuckled as he added another finger, optics dimming behind his visor in pleasure.

Grapple's hands settled on Optimus' waist, his voice staticky with lust. "Medic's hands. Most sensor-dense place on him. I can overload him sometimes just by VENTILATING on them hard."

And THAT image did not help Optimus' control at ALL. The metal of his fingers creaked as he dug them into the ground. "Hoist...quickly..."

Hoist pulled back to look Optimus in the face again, his smile blissed out. "Just tell me what you need, Optimus."

Optimus arched, language failing him as his valve spiraled down hard on Hoist's fingers. "More. Hard. Quickly."

Hoist groaned assent, shuffling closer to get the best angle before giving Optimus just what he'd asked for. Optimus choked on a staticked scream as Hoist's last few fingers slid inside, their size difference making his hand just perfect to stretch Optimus' valve like a mech twice his size. The doubled feedback from their hardline connection made it torturously good, and when Hoist began moving slowly, then in the hard, demanding rhythm Optimus' frame craved, it got even better, the medic's fingers flicking out to tap and stroke and scrape every sensor cluster, every node, every slick inch of his wonderfully stretched valve until Optimus' roar of pleasure shook the stone beneath him.

Hoist, knocked offline by the force of the Prime's shared overload, rebooted slowly and withdrew his hand and plugs even slower still. Optimus, still gasping to cool his overheated frame, caught a collarstrut and pulled the medic in for a long, appreciative kiss, their fields fuzzy with satisfaction. Optimus didn't linger too long, though, getting his hands under him so he could turn to his other, very patient partner.

Grapple's overheated frame shook with suppressed want, his own valve cover open and slick, and Optimus didn't make him wait, pressing him back gently. Optimus' spike extended with barely a thought, and Grapple spread his legs wide. "Please."

Optimus smiled, leaning his helm down to kiss Grapple's lips before moving to suck on the sensory nubs crowning his head. He pressed his hips forward, slowly, his spark and the Matrix both throbbing hard at Grapple's ecstatic cries as he took in Optimus' spike inch by inch. When he was fully seated, Optimus paused, ventilating hard, struggling to control his own charge long enough to build Grapple's own.

"Just let go, Optimus," Hoist murmured, crawling around them to get at Grapple's back, hoisting him up cheerfully until his partner was lying back against him much as Optimus had been cradled against Grapple. Hoist smiled down at Grapple's own almost painfully contorted face, hand stroking over Grapple's cheek. "He's holding back for you, too. Aren't you?"

Grapple only moaned, optics flickering as he turned his head, taking one of Hoist's fingers into his mouth. Sucking, Optimus realized with a bolt of sheer lust, the very digits that had been in Optimus' own valve and probably still tasted of his lubricants.

Grapple tilted his head just enough to look up at Optimus without losing his prize, his optics dark, his valve clutching hard at Optimus' spike.

Optimus' own optics shuttered as he let go, losing himself in the tight slick heat of Grapple's frame, the heady pulse of his field, and the utterly wanton SOUNDS he made as Optimus drove hard into him, driving the charge higher and higher until all three of them overloaded and fell to the ground in a happy pile of utterly contented Autobot.

Next to Optimus' racing spark, the Matrix purred.

Perched high on the cliff above, watchful optics observed the unsuspecting Autobots. Once the Prime and the builders moved on to more...personal activities, Laserbeak took the opportunity to report in.

::Laserbeak: report.::

Laserbeak sent Soundwave a burst of his recent findings. Soundwave was pleased at the unexpected interception of the Prime's conversation, and Laserbeak preened slightly. He enjoyed being able to give more information than he'd been asked for, especially for the wordless wave of pride and affection it earned him.

::Resume observation of Autobots. Removal to Ark at your discretion.::

Laserbeak sent an acknowledgment and resumed his watch as Prime and the builders came together, laughing, fields flaring. An odd grouping, but then Laserbeak felt he had a good appreciation of odd pairings. He settled against the cliff face, circuits warming pleasantly.

Back on the Nemesis, Soundwave relayed Laserbeak's findings to Megatron. He watched his lord's reaction closely from behind his visor. There was little reaction to observe: merely a narrowing of optics and a thoughtful tap of fingers on the arm of his throne.

Soundwave chose to take that as a good sign. He continued. "More information available. Importance: ...unclear. Unusually personal in nature."

"Unusually personal? Oh, do tell," Megatron said, smirking.

"Prime's interfacing habits: altered. Increased interface drive: observed. New interface partners: present."

Megatron's optics narrowed again, the tapping slowing. "Really...how very...interesting."

Ever since Lord Megatron had informed him of the contents of his and Prime's communique, Soundwave had been very careful to have no opinion on the holding or not holding of the Rite. The possible Decepticon reactions were clear to him. Equally as clear was the fact that Lord Megatron had not yet chosen one.

Soundwave thus had no opinion on the issue. None at all. No matter what he and his cassettes might murmur to each other on their downshift.

Lord Megatron's palm slapped down on the arm of his chair as he straightened. "Summon Starscream." His slow smile was not entirely pleasant. "We have some...planning to do."