PAIRINGS: Starscream/Optimus/Megatron, Thundercracker/Jazz, Thundercracker/others
WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER:
Consent issues: One commenter once said they wished there was a warning on this section for noncon. I had wavered on whether or not to put it on there to begin with, but then decided not to. I'll lay it out: Primus wants everyone to get along. Some folks at this shindig might not trust that or want that going in. Does use of persistent offering of peace and prosperity as well as a religiously-driven aphrodisiac to break down resistance rooted in trust issues count as noncon? I'll let you decide, but if you say "yes" and don't like that thing, you might want to skip this part.
Nonsexual warnings: Mention of previous psychological torture.
Sexual warnings: sticky, plug 'n play, orgy, multiple partners.
The breathtaking pulse of power spread outward from the dais like a shockwave, driving a few of the more sensitive mechs to their knees, their electromagnetic sensors spinning wildly as the resonance of the Prime's energy changed. Still strong, still high and sweet with the tenor of the caring divine but now deeper, heavier, more weighty. It shuddered along every sensor like the rumble of contained thunder wrapped in velvet, power tempered by compassion, strength guided by love.
To the older mechs, those who had been in Iacon oh so long ago, who had attended the Prime and Lord High Protector, that combined frequency was familiar. Ratchet and Ironhide leaned on each other, their fields nearly incomprehensible with joy and hope. When the younger Autobots looked at them in half-confusion, Ironhide picked up Cliffjumper (who looked as if he was halfway uncertain as to whether this change reflected an attack on the Prime) and swung him around, laughing, answering with glyphs heavy in ecclesiastical meaning: balanced power, strength-in-unity, and the paired forms of the glyphs for Prime and Lord High Protector that were never used separately.
Jazz and Mirage, at some unseen signal, stood and made their way down opposite sides of the dais, moving into the crowd, where they were met with enthusiasm and not a little awe. Ratchet and Ironhide hadn't even waited, precipitating a knot of bodies all on their own.
The Decepticon side of the plaza was a bit more subdued. The Constructicons conferred excitedly. Astrotrain shifted on his feet. Soundwave's cassettes shivered, expressions rapt and sensors flared. Starscream was inscrutable, his trinemates at his side, even as the Prime and Lord Protector separated, turned...and waited for him.
The core of the Rite was to share Primus' blessing with all, but tradition had a hand in the order. The Lord High Protector first, then the acolytes, then the next-highest-ranking mechs attending. These had usually been the Emirates or any of the old municipal inherited titles. Which, many slowly realized and informed their neighbors, was the mech holding the old, old title of Air Lord of Vos.
Starscream stepped forward, resistance clear in every cable and strut, fighting his frame's insistence on relaxing into the pulses of power that crashed in waves off the dais.
Someone had to keep their head. Someone had to be the pragmatist since MIGHTY Lord Megatron had obviously LOST HIS MIND.
Starscream knew this ritual. He'd attended several before he'd given up most of his title's benefits to join the Academy. He knew what a blessed Prime felt like and knew what he felt like when he was properly synced with his Lord High Protector. He had been there after, had sensed how Megatron and Prime's energies had shifted over the vorn as they fought the bond between them, stretching it to the breaking point.
Now? Now they both resonated through the valley in a two-note harmony that was unmistakable, as if the intervening millions of years had never happened.
This had NOT been in the plan.
This...whatever it was...was unacceptable. Ridiculous. What did Megatron think he was doing, all but handing himself over to the Prime? Continuing the ritual, taking his rightful part in it, Starscream knew, would only compound the stupidity, drawing them all further into the idiocy.
But Starscream also knew the spark-spinning resonance of a true blessing. Primus, the slagger, was HERE. What could Starscream do? Refuse? Yes, refusing a blessing from your deity was BOUND to be a wise decision. Not to mention that Thundercracker appeared to have (as the humans said), drank the Kool-Aid and was looking at him with that little knowing smirk that meant that if he ran he wasn't going to get far.
Refuse and snub a god, losing the respect of half of the army. Accept and draw them all even further into this web of insanity.
Starscream seethed as he climbed the dais.
The first touch of that inner field, of that well of acceptance, to his own was painful. Not because it didn't feel good, but because it DID. Starscream had concluded long ago that he would make a better ruler than either of the two nitwits who had torn their society apart, and yet he had had to fight claw and talon for every rank, every victory, every scrap of recognition.
Nothing, he knew to the center of his struts, was free. Nothing was unconditional. Everything had to be earned, bought, scraped for, or stolen. The blessed resonance sliding ease and comfort and pleasure across his sensors was a lie. He had done nothing to earn it and it thus must be worthless, empty, meaningless.
The fact that his own spark responded to it, instinctively translating the Prime's blessing as pleasant and relaxing, made it all the worse. His own reactions stolen from him by instinct and base coding, he raged internally at the loss of control, at the situation, at Primus himself. ::What have you done?:: he hissed at the two smug leaders. ::I don't care what farce you have going here, or what tricks you've got up your valve to turn my glorious leader here into your berthpet. I do not want you, and I refuse to submit to you!::
It was a lie, of course, the not wanting part. Only a dead mech would have not wanted them. Starscream was-they all were-coded to respond to that resonance, instincts primed (hah!) to respond to blessing frequencies with unthinking acceptance. Submission to the divine.
A divine that had been silent for millions of years. A divine that now, after millions of years of destruction and struggle and pain, NOW reared its head, reaching out its meddling servos, having the godly BEARINGS to demand their obedience after millenia of abandonment.
Starscream wasn't certain who his remarks were aimed toward, the mechs in front of him or the light shining from their optics.
Starscream stopped, one foot on the top of the dais. He reset his sensor net, hacking through his own code ruthlessly to turn off his EMF sensors. Whatever happened, he would have space to THINK. The sudden lack of EM fields was like being dropped into frigid water. He was alone, as if floating in deepest space.
It was, as usual, painfully isolating.
And he still couldn't think, logic scattered and torn from this unexpected turn of events. This hadn't been the plan. The plan had been to ruin the Autobots' day, perhaps destroy them, and lacking that spike Prime and mock the entire proceedings for the farce that they'd expected them to be. This...an actual Primus-blessed ritual...this had not been in the plan.
All one's schemes and plans tended to go awry when a god became involved. Not the least because the EMF sensors were not the only access point. There was a force, incalculable, unstoppable, surrounding his spark, humming with emotions and memories and images and FUTURES that Starscream refused to examine. No. No, it did not matter. It was a lie. It WAS. It could not be that easy. It was a LIE!
...it had to be. Because otherwise, what had they been fighting for?
Megatron stepped forward, just out of arm's reach, and Starscream, looking in those white optics, knew fear. Because what stood before him was not just Megatron. Not merely the Decepticon warlord. This was, Starscream knew, spark-deep, the Lord High Protector, chosen and blessed by Primus, speaking words Starscream hadn't heard in vorns. "We need you."
"I will not submit," Starscream hissed, even as his spark thrummed like a struck crystal.
"No," Megatron said, approval and amusement entwined in his voice. "Never. Luckily for the universe at large, that's not what's happening here, Starscream."
"Not submit," Prime said, and Starscream felt him step closer like one would mark an approaching supernova, if one were made of desire and fulfillment and a love and acceptance that Starscream could not understand, could not believe in, but which he wanted with a sharp, painful NEED.
Prime held out his hands, and even without EM sensors, he was a wash of warmth against Starscream's spark, an indefinable resonance that shivered over his bared protoform.
Prime stopped, hands outstretched, an offering.
"Not submit. JOIN."
The valley was filled with a tense, waiting silence at Prime's offer, at Starscream's hesitation. Thundercracker found his hands clenched, wings tight to his back as if expecting a blow. Here, in these circumstances, at just the right angle to see the suspicion and fear on his trine leader's face, Thundercracker wasn't sure if he trusted Starscream or not.
Starscream's optics offlining as he slowly stepped into Prime's field was a minor miracle. The almost pained moan as Prime's hands settled at his waist was a revelation. The choked cry of pleasure as the Lord High Protector closed in, smirk as evil as ever, hands stroking over his Air Commander's wings, was a vision.
And the slick sounds of fragging-in-progress from the Autobots' side of the field were giving Thundercracker ideas.
Before he could turn to trip Skywarp, though, black hands and a field like a warm updraft settled against his chest. Thundercracker shivered, not entirely in pleasure, as he found himself looking down into the white optics of the head of Autobot spec ops.
This was, given the situation, less alarming than it usually would be. Especially since the Autobot was thrumming with the high, sweet resonance of blessing. Thundercracker was no youngling. He remembered Rites long ago, remembered being on the outskirts of the crowd, of laughing and groping his friends, and of there suddenly being another pair of hands and a frame-a nameless stocky blue grounder that he never would have looked at twice anywhere else-entwined with them, white optics gleaming. The memory of the next quarter-joor, of the blessed reaching for, caressing, connecting to, taking each of them in joyful turn was one Thundercracker still brought out on cold and lonely nights.
The memory of the blessing itself sliding into his systems, of that peace and love and presence filling him with contentment and a tiny sliver of deity-scale perspective? Thundercracker held that even closer.
Of course, he also had the memories of being captured. Command Trine, yes, high-level prisoner, yes, which just meant that the interrogation hadn't left any marks. Confinement, intermittent "power failures" in his cell, striking unerringly at the instinctive seeker fear of being trapped in small, dark places. And that was before they'd started putting the hallucinogens in his energon. Jazz's had been the face he saw when the lights came on, always friendly, always reasonable, always with a meaningless apology for the "poor accomodations", and always, ALWAYS asking questions. Watching, assessing the armor, planning the next blow.
Luckily Thundercracker had usually been exchanged or rescued before Jazz could do much more than soften him up, and of course, Thundercracker and Skywarp had taken it out of Jazz's plating whenever he'd been in the Decepticon brig. However, it did not make having the saboteur pressed up against his plating a particularly comfortable experience, no matter WHAT color his optics were.
Thundercracker's sensors, though, disagreed. They thought that this was a FABULOUS idea.
Evidently so did his traitorous wingmate (the other one), as Skywarp, upon turning and seeing the state of things, merely grinned and took out Thundercracker's legs with a calculated jab of foot to the curve of his knee. Seeker and saboteur fell to the ground, Thundercracker twisting on instinct so he spared his wings as well as come out on top.
Jazz was not perturbed by being pinned by an ambivalent seeker one bit, evidently. By the time they had stopped falling, Jazz had his legs wrapped around Thundercracker's waist and his hands dug into the seeker's shoulder vents, clever fingers pinging the temperature sensors along the thin inner walls. Thundercracker hissed, trying to resist, and Jazz rebutted with a roll of his hips that was, the seeker was fairly sure, ILLEGAL in several galaxies.
"What do you say? Let bygones be bygones?" Jazz purred in Thundercracker's audial, and the tone of his voice, the tenor of his field, the press of his hips all cracked Thundercracker's resolve, but what undid him was the wetness of lubricants sliding over Thundercracker's panel and the realization that Jazz, generally ranked as one of the scariest and sexiest of the Autobots, had sauntered over to him with his interface panel wide open.
Absolutely nothing in the universe, up to and including the return of Unicron, would have kept Thundercracker's spike behind his panel at that point.
Frag it, Thundercracker thought, his own field swamped and syncing helplessly with the heat of the blessed mech's frank, honest LUST. Jazz's hips tilted up and onto Thundercracker's thrust and the slide into slick, tight heat felt better than anything Thundercracker had felt in longer than he cared to remember. His hands gripped the Autobot's hips, lifting the bot's light frame effortlessly and slamming home again, harder than he'd meant, in the search for friction. Jazz's moan was not of pain, though, and he gave Thundercracker just what he wanted, his valve clenching and holding, his hands clawing at Thundercracker's shoulders to pull himself closer. "Yes! Frag, c'mon, give it to me hard, yes, just like that..."
Thundercracker would have laughed at the constant litany of impassioned filth that streamed from the Autobot's mouth if it hadn't been so fragging HOT and if he hadn't been busy fragging said Autobot into the ground. So busy, in fact, that he only gradually became aware that Skywarp was pinging him and had been for Primus only knew how long.
::TC TC TC look look LOOK AT STAR OR YOU WILL FRAGGING MISS IT.::
Thundercracker lifted his head from the muzzy haze of lust that hung about him and Jazz, optics skating irritatedly to Skywarp, who was kneeling on the ground not far away, knees spread, one hand on his spike, the other thrusting fingers into his valve while his optics were riveted on the dais. Thundercracker shuddered, biting back a moan as Jazz's valve clenched impossibly tight, the Autobot writhing under him like a turbocat in heat, moans nothing but incoherent WANT now as he overloaded hard. When he could think again, Thundercracker lifted his optics higher, to the dais, to find his wing leader.
His wing leader, who was sandwiched between the Prime and the Lord High Protector, spike buried in Prime's valve as his own was busily taken by Megatron. Megatron was crouched over Starscream like some great predator, hips slamming forward in a rhythm that had Starscream living up to his name. As Thundercracker watched, Megatron latched onto Starscream's neck, biting with a force that sent Starscream into an overload that spiraled into the ultrasonic range and sent every organic nonsentient for miles fleeing. The Decepticon leader's hands, though, were on Prime's, pinning them to the dais, holding Prime down as Megatron drove his Air Commander's hips hard into the Prime's frame.
Thundercracker had never seen anything hotter in his entire life, and all it took was the rake of Jazz's fingers and the barest flutter of his valve walls to send Thundercracker into an overload that started in his spike, caught his field like a plasmafire, and sent his spark resonating, his entire world nothing but pleasure.
When he came to, Skywarp's familiar field was pressed against his side and Jazz was laughing at something the teleporter had said. Skywarp's field pulsed want-hunger-greed-need at both of them indiscriminately, and Thundercracker pulled him in, rolling all three of them in a laughing spill of limbs that expanded as others joined them, hands sliding over their plating from all sides. A glossa delved into Thundercracker's valve, sending him into another arching overload. A plug was pressed into his fingers, hot and tingling with charge. Thundercracker jammed it home in his aching port, and from there the entire world devolved into slick heat and hard spikes and the unbearable, delicious lust and pleasure and warmth branching across his circuits.
Yes, was his only thought for a long time, echoed in fields and processors both Decepticon and Autobot.
YES.