Dark Dreamer

by Gatekat

Dead story. Bayverse, Jazz/Prowl. The young Prime is presented with a slave he doesn't know what to do with. Fortunately he has a long-standing place to put mecha that he doesn't want to think about. This'll be a long, dark one folks. You've been warned. Jazz ... is not a nice mech behind closed doors.

6. Testing Patience

Another chapter co-written with vaevade
Let's see: more no-name snuff, violent BDSM towards Jazz and a very distressed Prowl rather sum up this chapter.
And it's long.

Dark Dreamer 6: Testing Patience
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Morning smut. See Ao3 for contents.

archiveofourown dot org/works/562319/chapters/1068379

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Showered, clean and recharged with Prowl in the same state, Jazz lead Prowl down into the winding depths of the underground, deep into the endless maze of halls and rooms. He'd had just the perfect frame type set aside and he was looking forward to this test. From all indications, Prowl should pass with flying colors, so Jazz was really more curious about originality and technique than anything else.

He stopped in front of a room and palmed the pad to open it. The door slid back and Prowl followed him in, his field too small to read, as usual. Still Jazz could pick up the flare of excitement the moment Prowl had realized where they were going from the mech's sensor wings. That twitching excitement only grew stronger the closer they got to these doors.

In the middle of the room was a fully-repaired green and blue mech, strung-up by his wrists, his thrusters and weapons deactivated, left to hang helplessly. A Seeker, a frame-type with wings that were incredibly sensitive, and when grounded like this one was, vulnerable. On the walls surrounding him were dozens of different instruments, hanging in various categories, ranging from simple blunt tools to incredibly complex devices that did everything from freezing plating to the shattering point to sucking a spark clean out of a frame. Jazz allowed himself a smile, then turned to Prowl. He smiled darkly at the flex of anticipation in those sensor wings and the way ice blue optics locked on the helpless mech.

"Kill him, as slowly and painfully as you can," Jazz purred with a deep, anticipatory rumble of his engine.

"Yes Master," Prowl's plating shivered in an outward expression of just how much he was looking forward to this.

"You will break at least every four joors for energon and recharge," Jazz added belatedly. "No angering Temperance."

"Understood, Master." Prowl nodded, flaring his sensor wings wide in a display of dominance common to all winged frametypes as he stalked forward to circle his prey.

Jazz stepped back, enjoying the way the Seeker's red optics widened and fixed on the Praxian's frame, and leaned against the wall, settling in comfortably to watch. His dark visor glinted as he shifted his optics to watch Prowl circling, sizing up the dangling mech, looking at him from all angles.

Reading his playing field, instead of just diving right in. And, if the way his focus was shifting and changing, looking for vulnerabilities. Promising.

The Seeker dipped his wings down submissively and fearfully in response to Prowl's aggressive flare. He could read power and danger when he saw it. Prowl's optics tracked the motion with sharp interest and the Seeker trilled imploringly to the other winged mech, accompanying the sound by a further tucking in of his wings behind his back, a last-ditch plea for some kind of mercy.

Whether it was for the mercy of a quick death or to totally spare his life was hard to say, and depended on how intelligent he was.

Prowl rumbled in response, the low and aggressive vibration of a grounder. "Master wishes you to end slowly," Prowl leaned in to whisper in the Seeker's audial, but his optics were on Jazz. His hands slid along the tucked wings, a touch light enough to be a caress. "You will scream for us," he tightened the cables and powered up hydraulics in his hands until he felt finely tuned wing-metal cave under his fingers.

The Seeker had whimpered at the light touch, optics moving over to look fearfully at Jazz, correctly assuming that he was "Master," but when Prowl crushed his wing, he screeched and twisted. "B-but!" he cried. "I-I haven't-it was only-"

Pale blue optics flicked to Jazz, watching, performing for the minibot. Prowl's glossa slid along an audial spire at the same time his hands closed a little tighter. "It doesn't matter what you did. Master has condemned you."

The Seeker whined, a high, desperate noise and he made the same trilling noise again, but this time it was definitely a plea for a quick death, trying frantically to appeal to any part of Prowl that might feel sympathy for a mech that, while not quite kin, was still closer than the quicksilver one leaning so casually against the wall.

Prowl chuckled, a sound more from his engine than his vocalizer as his claws finally penetrated the wings, driving his fingers slowly through the thin metal skin, the dense mat of sensory filaments below, through the thin piece of protoform and out the other side until he made a fits through each wing, his claws curled against his palm plates. The Seeker arched and his wings instinctively tried to flare away from the damaging grip, only serving to make the damage worse as he struggled. He cried out again, then moaned as any last hope of mercy drained out of his frame, making him go completely lax in the chains.

His gaze locked on Jazz, Prowl pulled the Seeker back and licked at his throat cables from behind, then bit down hard enough to draw the first dark pink pearl of processed energon. The chemicals hit his sensors and Prowl shuddered into a moan nearly as intense as when he was buried deep in his master.

His victim heard the sound and it made him shudder with more than just pain as he realized exactly how much this mech was going to enjoy his execution. He wailed when that word went through his processor and couldn't keep his fear from spiking. He didn't want to die, but far more, he didn't want to die like this, chained up and tormented until his frame couldn't be kept functioning anymore.

"Such lovely wings," Prowl murmured, just loud enough for Jazz to hear clearly over the protesting screech of metal, sensor filaments and protoform as he tested if he had the strength to force his hands along that top wing edge until they came out the tip. "I should have had real wings, like these. My spark is Seeker, kindled for flight, to own the skies. Instead you have them," he hissed, forcing anger he didn't really feel to flare his field outwards and envelope the Seeker's back as he torn through wings with the slow force needed not to hurt himself. "Maybe if I please Master enough, he'll give me wings again."

"Maybe so," Jazz purred, and cocked his head slightly and gave an approving rumble and flash of a grin while the Seeker thrashed and whined. The victim's name was Shard, but Jazz didn't care whether or not Prowl knew that. Some of the agents he'd trained had hesitated in their first execution upon learning a designation, but Prowl quite obviously didn't even care if this mech was completely innocent. Master had ordered, and so Prowl did.

"Then-then we are nearly kin," Shard was saying, forcing the words out past the sharp bursts of static that Prowl's claws were creating. "Mercy, Primus, mercy!"

Prowl paused, a look of concentration on his features for a brief moment before he resumed, turning his fingers sideways so his claws did more of the work in cutting the wings. "He is the one to give mercy, not me."

The Seeker keened in pain as energon seeped from the gouges in his wings, still squirming uselessly. He could feel the minibot's focus on him and shrieked in sudden fury of his fate. "Who are you to condemn me while you enjoy watching my death!" he screeched, kicking uselessly back at Prowl, who barely noticed, too focused on what he was doing.

Jazz only smiled and looked amused. "Seekers," he said. "Plagued by an incessant need to talk." He tilted his helm and looked at Prowl, purring in approval of the way he was focused on his claws tearing through the metal and protoform and his pet's general lack of need to talk. "Lovely, my pet," he praised, watching as Prowl lit up in pleasure at it. It was another reminder that this was going to be one of those few cases where positive reinforcement was going to be much more valuable a tool in training that punishment.

Prowl thrived on praise, and even without spark contact, Jazz had seen enough of his pet's processors to know it was spark-deep.

Slowly those claws tore their way out of the wing-tips, causing Prowl to falter slightly at the sudden lack of resistance, but he recovered quickly and considered the wings of the whimpering Seeker before him. Energon ran down the flat planes in steady streams and Prowl leaned in to run his glossa up the surface, catching one of the trickles. It made his processor hazy with pleasure. With a malicious grin, he grabbed the frame-side edge of one wing in his hands, steadied it, and torn off the section that he's almost cut off. The flier's helm snapped back and his vocalizer released a shocked burst of static with his screech. Prowl dropped the piece in his hand unceremoniously and grabbed the other shaking wing, repeating the action. With his victim crying and thrashing, he caught both shoulder-mounts, slid his hands outward just enough to leave them intact, and drove a clawed finger into the interior of each wing, slicing and scooping out protoform and wires as he pushed further outward.

Shard shook with involuntary spasms and twitches as wire couplings and circuitry were torn away, mewling pitifully. "Not my wings," he sobbed, unable to stop himself, and knowing that pleas were useless here.

Jazz grinned cruelly, thoroughly enjoying watching his pet destroy the very wings he'd been denied.

"You'll never need them again," Prowl hissed with a hard bite to the side of Shard's neck. "Not until your Primus gives them back to you."

Shard whined sharply and still fought to twist his frame away from the Praxian as more of his wing's internals were slowly gutted, whimpering incoherently. Jazz's optics narrowed with interest behind his visor. That was the second time Prowl had acted oddly with Primus's name-the first time, not seeming to recognize it when Shard had cried for mercy, and now, apparently having no knowledge of who he was.

Prowl caught the look, or caught something in his master's shift and stilled for a fraction of a nanoklik before focusing on his prey once more, licking the bite he'd made. "Do you know how lucky you are, that Master gave you to me?" Prowl whispered to Shard, digging his claws in deeper until his finger was a full joint deep inside the wings' shredded top edge.

"Lucky?" Shard screeched, even as he desperately tried to fan his wing away from the invasive touch. "Pit-spawned-nng-sadist! Fragging-aah!-wingless groundkisser!"

To the side, Jazz made sure to keep his smile and field full of approval, not wanting to give Prowl reason to hesitate, and very curious to hear what his pet's answer to that was going to be.

It was a deep, genuinely angry growl and claws dug in deeper, piercing and tearing metal skin as Prowl tore his hands free and stalked around to grab the Seeker's jaw and pull him close, causing both shoulder joints to twist and screech in objection. "Yes, lucky. Master could keep you alive for vorns if it suited him. I'm not nearly so skilled. An orn, two if I'm lucky."

Jazz privately calculated that it was unlikely to be more than a few joors, but he did give credit to his pet for grasping the gap in their skills and giving a respectable difference. Accuracy of his own abilities and limits would come with experience. This was a good start, inaccurate as it was.

"Master also has tastes that I have not yet learned," Prowl continued when the Seeker balked and whimpered at the promise of orns of this. "I enjoy the pain and flowing energon," he smiled viciously. "Master enjoys your terror. Master knows how to twist your programming." He let go with a gentle caress, an effort to mimic what he'd witnessed in previous executions; mixing pain and pleasure, tender and savage. It was exhilarating in a way, though it was not as intense as completely letting go and simply shredding an enemy.

Jazz didn't bother to stop the grin from splitting his face as he watched Prowl trying to mimic his own style. Privately, he suspect that when the Praxian was fully realized, he would still prefer blunt savagery, but it was impressive that he was trying out strategies contrary to his nature, and even, if his face and movements were any indication, enjoying them.

Shard's optics moved wildly between Jazz and Prowl, his wings shaking in protest to the damage they'd taken. He was going to die, right here, there was no way to escape and the two grounders possessed an insanity he could not hope to bend. If the Praxian was to be believed, though, he was fortunate he was not in the hands of the minibot.

Desperately, processor almost crashing as he followed a thought on how to bring on his own termination sooner, he realized that the Praxian definitely seemed more unstable, and that...

He whined again as he realized what he was about to do, and the reaction he hoped to prompt. He gathered his strength and hissed, forcing his wings to rattle. "Filthy grounder," he spat out. "You never deserved to have wings, thank Primus they were taken from you!"

Prowl's wings trembled with sudden indescribable emotion and he lashed out with a primal snarl against the filthy condemned creature who would dare say that to him, racking new combat-grade claws across the Seeker's face. They tore open the thin armor and complex plates, ripping right through the lip components, daring the mech to speak to him like that again. The other hand pierced one optic and shredded through the cheek and down to the neck before both sets of claws then slashed down, tearing into chest plates with no regard to the bulk of the mech's function-sustaining components that rested beneath them, opening the body up to attack.

Shard released a guttural scream and arched his back, sobbing. "Ground-kisser!" he managed to bite out. Jazz straightened, optics brightening and his frame tensing as he watched the Seeker more carefully.

Fury blinded Prowl's senses as he grabbed the Seeker's throat and crushed inward, puncturing outer plating and straining wires, though not using enough strength to kill. He tested his grip, and then with a hard fling that put all his hydraulics and cabling strength to the test, Prowl smashed the Seeker's face to the ground, oblivious to the fact that it only worked because the chains in this room were coded to respond to his desires to move the prisoner. Shard shrieked in shock and pain, fingers reaching wildly out, trying pointlessly to stop the disorienting fall before he groaned hard at the impact.

Following the motion, Prowl coiled onto the Seeker's back, tearing at wings indiscriminately, ripping into the plating as deeply as he could and tattering every flat plain in sight, flinging energon and metal and wire back. The heated smell of spilled energon made him growl and shred with a wonderfully familiar ferocity, and it caused such wonderful screams to spill from the vocalizer of the insolent, insulting Seeker.

Jazz watched carefully, a little annoyed that a chatty Seeker had managed to provoke such an obvious reaction, but reminded himself that no matter how much raw talent Prowl possessed, it was still barely refined. Ignoring obvious taunts was something that could be learned. Still, if it weren't for the fact that Prowl was doing such an excellent job of torturing the Seeker on his own even now, Jazz would have liked to step in himself to punish him. But he stayed where he was, observing every bit of damage that Prowl inflicted.

Finally, there was nothing left of the once-proud Seeker's wings but tattered scraps flung about the room. Shard had been reduced to a quivering, incoherently moaning mess beneath the now energon-coated Prowl. The Praxian snarled when he realized there was nothing more of the wings to destroy, looked his victim up and down, and sank his claws deep into the Seeker's back. He pulled, tearing the bulk of the plating off in a single, violent movement that made Shard spasm and scream, arching up with a violent, agonized shudder. Prowl raised a hand, set to strike, pale optics wild and nearly white in killing-lust.

That was enough, Jazz decided. He took one step forward. "Prowl. Still."

The Praxian snarled, a sound directed more at the mech beneath him and frustration in general than his master, but he stilled. His entire frame trembled, his sensor wings wide, their three fingers, normally seamlessly locked together, flared wide and flickering lightly with a charge that danced between them. Prowl tore his gaze away from his kill and locked onto his master with difficulty, using his wings' passive sensors more than his optics to locate the smaller mech. The snarl was still on his features, his plating flaring in and out in an effort to vent, but not one of his struts so much as quivered.

"Time for a break," Jazz said firmly, stepping over and caressing Prowl's helm. The moment he touched, he caught hints of the emotions in his pet's field and realized that the anger, or at least the display, wasn't what he thought it was. Yes, it was a killing rage, but the rage was directed inward, turned on the Seeker for some other reason. Yet also in that touch, and the way Prowl leaned into it, submissive and content with a quickly cooling temper, told him something even more important.

Even in a full killing rage, his pet was his to command and happy to be at his side. A snarl meant nothing when the frame froze on command and the field expressed such desire for his master's nearness.

It was a priceless piece of knowledge, a foundation of a lifetime of training, and reason enough to purr. As Prowl all but melted into the contact and sank to his knees against his master, Jazz pulled the chevron helm in to rest against his front while he stroked. "You are doing very well. You must remember to make him linger."

"Yes, Master," Prowl murmured, his optics dimming in contentment but well aware that it was a correction. "I will do better."

"I have no doubt," Jazz smiled with a touch of softness in his field. It was true as well, and Jazz knew it was not because Prowl feared, but because Prowl desired to please him. It was a delicious thing to feel and know.

With a thought back to what he first felt in Prowl's field, he slid a thick connector cable from his lower chassis and quickly patched himself into one of the data cables in Prowl's neck. While Prowl's firewalls were now far stronger than when he arrived, upgraded by both Temperance and Jazz, they dropped all the way down to Prowl's core code the moment Jazz was recognized.

He'd have to work on that a bit before turning Prowl loose in the real world, but for now it was a good thing. He glided into active memory and tracked back to when the Seeker first insulted Prowl. There, a flash of anger that Prowl found as confusing as he did exhilarating. The slash across Shard's face had been in retaliation, but Prowl wasn't enraged yet. He was barely angry, and even as he struck there was a detachment from his emotions and the social protocols that linked the form before him with a person, or even an animal.

Then the rage flared, hot and blinding, but it was a rage at himself, at lashing out, and suddenly the disconnect from his social protocols, protocols that handled most emotional input, were a determent. When the rage flared, there was nothing to keep it in check and Prowl directed the rage at self towards the most appropriate target: the one who caused it.

With a thought, Jazz shifted to his pet's real-time thoughts and pointed his face towards the remains of the Seeker.

Food/provide/pleasure/energon/food/excitement/provide/kill/energon/food/provide...

Jazz hummed to himself and tucked that information away as interesting. More than anything, when Prowl looked at the mech on the floor, he saw a source of energon. He certainly wasn't seeing a sentient being, or even a living being, not on his most instinctive levels. Pleased with that, if not with the tendency to savage a bit too quickly that it created, Jazz disconnected and looking down at the quivering wreck of a Seeker.

Without wings, Shard looked much smaller than before, and his back was soaked with energon that continued to seep out of Prowl's gouges. He nudged the heap with his pede, unable to help his grin when the flier whimpered at the movement, before looking back at Prowl, turning his pet's face up towards him. "He will need repairs," he said. "I will call Temperance while you rest, and then give you one more chance." He saw Prowl's eager look at being given a second opportunity to prove himself. His gaze shifted up towards the tools on the walls and he clicked thoughtfully. "And perhaps some instruction, as well."

"Yes, Master," Prowl purred and nuzzled him affectionately.

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Two joors of instruction in the various tools of the trade displayed in the room, a quick shower to clean up, and a three joor nap for Prowl while Jazz went to his office to work on the more boring details of his duties to pass the time while Shard was repaired. When Temperance pinged him, Jazz was delighted to return to more enjoyable duties.

He commed Prowl to meet him outside the torture room and was pleased, though hardly surprised, to find him waiting when he arrived. Prowl had a shorter distance to travel, but it also meant he knew his way around, and the last metacycle trailing after Jazz had done its job of telling the other residents that Prowl belonged among them. Prowl would no longer need a chaperone to move about unmolested. All in all, a very pleasing result.

::Mind if I watch?:: Whiplash's comm was an actual purr. A sound the black mech almost never made.

:Sure,: Jazz pinged back. He wasn't about to deny his second such a request. The mech hardly ever showed interest in torture, his specialty being assassination, so it was more likely an interest in Prowl, or Prowl's reactions. Both things that he needed to understand in order to perform his function as Jazz's SIC.

As he set up the video feed and sent it Whiplash's way, Jazz palmed the door and let Prowl follow him in. Shard was strung back up as he had been before Prowl had torn him down from the ceiling, looking pitiful without his wings. Temperance's no-nonsense work was evident: clean, simple, and efficient. She hadn't wasted any time with the aesthetics; it wasn't worth her time to make a condemned mech look nice, but the Seeker was no longer bleeding and the worst of the gouges were welded back together.

::What's that one in for?:: Whiplash asked.

In response, Jazz sent over a packet full of images of mutilated younglings. Whiplash growled.

::I thought he was a fitting victim for Prowl.::

::I'd say so.::

Shard looked up at their entrance and moaned, letting his head fall again. Jazz chuckled. "I think he remembers you, pet." He turned towards Prowl. "I am giving you a second chance. Kill him and make him linger. Anything in this room is at your disposal."

"Yes Master," Prowl purred, eager for the second chance and to please his master. "I will use your instruction well," he promised as he stepped up to the selection of implements on the wall. He now knew some of the finer points of how to use some of them, but there was one that drew him to it as a first stage implement. Not just because of how much his master enjoyed showing him the use, but the way it felt in his hand.

Blades and shock sticks would come later. For now, Prowl picked up the heavy whip with small razors imbedded here and there and unfurled it with a crack as he turned to face his prey. He like the heavy feel in his hand, the way it conveyed power along the supple length, the sound and hurt it could cause with such a small motion.

But, oh, what really turned him on was the way his master could manipulate it. He would be vorns perfecting that skill, but if Master allowed him, he was eager to put in the time and effort.

Jazz felt Whiplash's attention go sharp and intense and he smirked knowingly as he watched Prowl feeling out the weight and balance of his chosen weapon. "Excellent choice," he praised, circling around the outside of the room to stand at a better angle before Prowl began. He chuckled darkly at the way Shard's optics went wide with terror.

"While you were repaired over that little incident," Prowl said matter-of-factly even as he purred at his master's praise. "Master taught me a few things to try out."

A snap of Prowl's wrist and the whip grazed across Shard's cockpit. Shard gave a short yelp and only barely reacted, the hit not really striking deep enough to hurt.

By Jazz's standards, the strike was completely clumsy and amateurish, but if he relaxed his standards - by quite a lot - it wasn't terrible for a first go. "Good," he said, always keeping in mind that this mech responded to praise far better than pain or criticism. "Firm grip, quick strike. Try again."

The instructions flowed over Prowl, cataloged, assessed and absorbed in the time it took him to reset. The next lash was as Whiplash walked in and created a fine web of cracks along the cockpit's centerline.

The deep rumble of approval from Whiplash was noted, as was his presence, but Prowl gave the mech no further attention as he shifted his grip slightly and cracked the whip along Shard's side, leading a long, jagged gash where one of the claws bit into his armor and tore through the flier's plating as Prowl pulled the weapon back with a snap of his wrist. It made Shard squirm and release a short, sharp cry. The first, faint tang of processed energon leaked into the air around them.

Jazz nodded in approval when Prowl looked to him briefly, automatically, before shifting his optics over to Whiplash with a slight inclination of his head in welcome, and a knowing smile. His SIC was focused on the weapon, and the way Prowl's frame put it to use. Though Jazz couldn't feel it across the room, he knew Whiplash well enough to know the mech was excited. Whips were not that common a weapon to favor and never had been.

The next strike was a display of precision on Prowl's part, a test to see if he could land the strike in the same place twice. While he was off by half a finger width, it was good for his first try and Whiplash's field caressed him with approval.

Jazz was pleased to note that, while he did not reject it, Prowl was not nearly as interested in Whiplash's positive reaction as his. He sent out his own caress and Prowl's engines turned over with pleasure while he made fine adjustments and readied himself for the next hit.

::You've done very well bonding him to you,:: Whiplash chuckled across a private comm channel with a smile for his boss.

Jazz watched the strike, this one even closer to the mark though still not exact. Prowl pulled away, taking more plating with him, and while he was resetting, making subtle changes to his stance, Jazz let his optics shift up to his Second. With Whiplash standing right there, he couldn't keep from imagining himself as the one hanging from the chains.

Whiplash noticed the change in the internal video feed he was still receiving and lifted his own optics, giving Jazz a very knowing smirk, one full of promise. Jazz's engines kicked to life and purred in growing excitement as he refocused on Prowl.

Perhaps the next lesson would be to watch how Whiplash handled a masochistic lover, offering up the kind of non-damaging pain that was also rarely favored in their ranks. Prowl's reactions to seeing his master bound and hurt, all while enjoying it, would be telling of so many things.

By the fourth strike Prowl had his repeat-aim down and could land a blow on top of a previous one smoothly, tearing at fine wires once the plating was gone, making Shard shriek when the sensitive internals were hooked and ripped out.

The Seeker was whimpering steadily by now, terrified under the intense gazes of Jazz and Whiplash, and completely vulnerable to the mech he had decided to be an utter savage. There had been no way for him to not feel Prowl's enjoyment at ripping apart his wings, the hunger when his back had been torn away. Shard wanted to spit curses at the quicksilver minibot for saving him when he had. Another strike curled around his body and he arched, releasing a shrill cry of pain, followed by a choked sob as jagged edges sank into his armor and shredded it when the lash was ripped away.

"You knew it was not a tolerated behavior when you abused those younglings," Jazz said casually, his optics sharp behind his visor as he watched his pet sink into the hurting and started to show real enjoyment at it. Shard's frame was quickly being covered in relatively shallow but razor thin wounds as Prowl figured out how to snap his wrist to cause the whip to twist around his body and really dig in before yanking away. He was currently trying to figure out how to best pull back, experimenting with different angles that created varied patterns in the armor. Yes, there was definite enjoyment on his face, though it was far more subtle than either Jazz or Whiplash's, and nothing compared to the enjoyment that came from using his claws. Shard screeched deliciously at one particularly vicious wrap. "This has been the penalty for as long as I have commanded SpecOps, and deactivation the penalty long before I took command," Jazz added. "Even if I do usually take the pleasure of the kill for myself."

Shard's optics shifted with difficulty over to Jazz and he hissed even as his frame shook in pain. "Lucky me," he spat.

"Very lucky you," Jazz agreed, taking slow, sideways steps to get a better angle as Prowl moved around the writhing Seeker, trying new approaches and techniques with a simple, honest curiosity. There was absolutely no recognition of Shard as another sentient being. No, the mech was just an animated puzzle, a thing, to be observed for responses and how best to extract the desired ones.

::What a gift Prime gave you in this one,:: Whiplash nearly moaned as he watched, optics locked on the movement of whip and the hand guiding it. ::Does he learn best this way, with such minimal guidance?::

::Yes,:: Jazz said. ::If he makes a mistake, I only need to correct it once, and he knows that taking initiative pleases me.::

::What a gift,:: the black minibot shivered with a flicker of charge dancing across his plating as the whip continued to dance. There was a sudden hard snap that shattered one optic, and then Prowl carefully looped the whip in a precise copy of what it looked like when he had retrieved it.

While Shard screamed and thrashed, his vocalizations no longer words, much less full glyphs, Prowl set the whip in its place on the wall and ran his optics over the other options. He felt reasonably confident with the whip now. It was time to try something new and learn it. His optics swept along the wall again, drawn back to a device so simple he'd been confused by its presence at first. Then Master had shown him the switch and tapped Prowl's arm in demonstration.

That he'd screamed and dropped to the ground to curl up, protecting his spark and helm, had been more out of reflex to the shock than reacting to the pain. The jolt of a charge the shock baton gave was nasty, but far from fatal unless it was directly inside the spark chamber, and maybe not even then, if the spark was strong enough. He glanced over his shoulder at his trembling, bleeding, whimpering prey and back at the shock baton. The glance at Master was a look not for approval, but in calculating, and a tiny smile crossed Prowl's features as he looked at the shock baton again and picked it up.

With a flick of his finger the device crackled to life, the striking portion alive with loose electricity.

"Master, does it have the virus to force him to feel pleasure installed?" Prowl glanced at Jazz with the most innocent expression.

"No," Jazz flicked his armor in a negative and paid careful attention to his pet, trying to read what was coming.

And a lot more smut over on Ao3.

archiveofourown dot org/works/562319/chapters/1068379