Script Title: Candy From Strangers, Pt. 2

Warning to Audience: Interfacing, torture, gore, rape, and fluff. Seriously, all of that. Read at your own risk. Here there be robots in ugly sweaters.

Show Rating: R

Continuity Stage: IDW & G1

Characters: Starscream, Thundercracker, Ratchet/Prowl, Overlord, Fortress Maximus, Rung/Ambulon, Pharma, Tarn

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

Acting Motivation (Prompt): Kinkmeme and random prompts, this round.

[* * * * *]

Starscream/Thundercracker - "Baby take me back"

[* * * * *]

"You're being as pathetic as a scientist," Thundercracker snapped, and regretted immediately.

Not because he didn't mean it. Primus on a pogo stick and Skywarp teleporting blind, he meant every word he said. It just really, really wasn't the time to pointedly refer to the brief time he'd actually known Starscream as a scientist. That'd been fresh after his return from losing that giant white shuttle the first time, and stirring those memories after losing him a second time was sure to get a strong reaction. Probably not the one the blue Seeker wanted right now, however.

The mech who whipped around in the corridor to confront him, teeth bared and optics wild, was no Science Academy reject too depressed to walk anywhere straight unless it was to the nearest bar. No, this was the Decepticon Air Commander, who had once upon a time soared through the War Academy like failure wasn't an option. Thundercracker shouldn't have brought up anything that reminded this current mech of the past one. It only brought up bad memories and a point to prove.

"Oh?" Starscream queried sharply. "You want this 'pathetic' scientist to remind you why you don't lead the wing?"

Starscream the Drunkard had been a very short phase of the prickly Seeker's life. Mostly because he'd been too busy running ragged the blue mech he was currently backing down the corridor one slow, threatening step at a time. It'd been difficult to continue drinking after a certain time, at least once Thundercracker stopped his half-sparked attempts to escape. To be fair to the blue Seeker, the drunken, depressed scientist who'd first latched onto him had seemed like the kind of wingmate a flyer avoided at all costs. He'd been intrigued even then, but had still restlessly tried to slip away. The fact that Starscream kept finding him again only made him more interested in the feisty, if drunk, red Seeker.

Catching an unattached set of wings while lolling in the gutter had been a stroke of luck, although neither Seeker would confess as to whether that luck was good or bad - or who had caught whom. Keeping those wings had required a great deal of effort and attention. Hence why Thundercracker's acquaintance with Starscream the Scientist had been so very brief. Designing and placing the tiny trackers on the blue mech had required sobriety, and once Starscream dried up enough, he'd tackled the task of making them into a wing formidable enough to attract a third. The scientist had been buried under fierce, proprietary skill-learning and, eventually, entrance into the War Academy.

Starscream never stayed depressed long. There were always new projects to obsess over.

Recognizing the look stealing the last of the pout from his wingleader's face, Thundercracker turned and unashamedly fled that obsession.

He wouldn't get far.

[* * * * *]

Ratchet/Prowl - "topping from the bottom"

[* * * * *]

Warning: tactile interfacing.

"Yes...like that. Mm. Harder." Ratchet smiled, letting his head loll back between his upper arms. The nips turned to chewing as teeth dug in. "Good, Prowl. You're learning."

"Thank you," the tactician said against his tire, mouth never leaving the rubber. Because he had learned. His optics stayed on his work without straying. Ratchet hadn't told him he could stop, after all.

The medic's hips slowly rose up, leisurely grinding against nothing. His back arched, pressing his chest against an invisible partner. There was no hurry. The gradual swell of arousal through his circuitry built without urgency; just an inexorable surge that ebbed less with every gentle bite into the rubber. The air was cold on his plating, and it felt good. His joints steamed faintly as his frame struts conducted the building heat from core systems, and his vents drew in a long, slow breath. Air billowed over his heated internals in a ripple of comparative chill, adding another flicker of sensation to the mix.

With his hands bound like this, he could only take. He couldn't give. He was a medic; giving was what he did. Here, however. Here and now, he could do nothing but take.

He flexed his vents as wide as they'd go and let his fans go on full. Another cool rush of air flickered over his internals, biting sharp and almost burning. "Lick the rims."

Prowl obeyed, but he took his time getting there. His mouth - teeth, tongue, lips, even the hot cloud of breath pushed out and pulled immediately back in as if to tease and taste and touch any cranny too small to touch - explored every groove of the tire he was working on until he reached the rim. Obedience, of course, was a given, but thoroughness was a reward in and of itself. Meticulous attention to detail had brought him this far in the war, and he could devote no less effort to this battleground.

Yet there was a relief in not being in control, in surrendering the planning to someone else. In Ratchet's strategy, Prowl was only a pawn. A piece to be moved and used however his controller wished. Freedom from responsibility relaxed a knot of tension he carried everywhere, and his doors haltingly eased downward a bit more after every order.

He was a tactician; control and planning was what he did. Here, however. Here and now, he could do nothing but obey the commands given him.

The medic's engine rumbled, a deep thrum of pleasure. Prowl shut off his optics and devoted even the scraps of attention and energy otherwise wasted on sight to laving the grooves around every rim until the high, sweet rasp of sleek metal-on-metal filled the room. He closed his lips around the recessed lug nuts and sucked, tongue tracing the cracks and probing as if to turn them. His vents pulled in air, and he exhaled it deliberately over his engine, letting the steam cloud the silvery metal and bead tiny droplets of moisture on the rubber.

"Good." Ratchet crooned as he shifted his hips. "You're doing so good. Just like that, mmm."

Prowl knelt between his spread legs, neck outstretched and head cocked to one side to reach the foot propped against his right shoulder. One hand cradled Ratchet's lower leg, helping support it as he lavished kissed all the way around the circumference of the rim currently getting its share of attention. The Autobot Second's other hand was lowered to the floor, occupied in rolling the tire on Ratchet's other ankle. His thumb dragged down the treads, catching in the tracks and popping loose in a steady thuck-thuck that had the tire not quite spinning. The motion wasn't hurried enough for that. No, he just rolled it languidly, letting his hand cup the rubber with tender care that promised he'd attend to it momentarily. It was not forgotten. It was at the forefront of his thoughts, lined up neatly behind his next idea for the tire his mouth was on right now. He was already thinking how he would to slide his lips along the rim. That other tire was only an order away from what was owed it, his hand assured with a pat and lingering stroke of one finger around the rim.

Ratchet's wrists twisted slightly, hands curling with the urge to touch. To…give. The medic pulled on his bound wrists again, fighting the need. It ramped up behind his arousal, undeniable and deeper-rooted that the lust. He needed. To give. This was so one-sided, and his palms ached to return the attention as a sudden nagging urgency undermined his desire. He swept scans over Prowl and came up with results that had his medical programming sternly kicking him in the back of the cortex. Prowl was barely running warm.

That was wrong, and it rattled him as physically as a punch to the chest. It jolted him painfully like an electric shock under his armor. "Prowl, let me go. I have to - "

The Autobot executive officer was on his feet in a flash, but not to unbind Ratchet. No, he was standing up to reach for Ratchet's bound wrists and hold them firmly in his hands. "Ratchet, no," he said sternly, leaned forward to press his mouth against the side of the medic's helm. It was less seduction than reassurance. "That isn't you. Remember."

It wasn't him. It was his programming. His programming insisting he should give, not ever take.

"Let me take care of you," Prowl coaxed, pushing his thumbs into the medic's tight fists. They made tiny circles on Ratchet's palms, massaging and trying to urge him to stand down. To open to accept, for once, instead of constantly give away. "You know it's necessary. You told me so. You've trained me on this. I know what to do, and you're right here observing me. Let me do this for you." His lips pressed again to the medic's helm. A little more was needed. He could feel that ambulance engine sputter anxiously against his chest. "Doctor's orders, remember? You told me I had to let go of my responsibilities. This is for me. This is for me, Ratchet. Supervise patient treatment by letting me assist you."

So logical, but it was convoluted rationalization, too. It was a necessary half-turn of the facts to sooth hard-coded programming. Prowl was here to deal with something every commander had to know about his medical staff, because mechs could only give so much before they were left hollowed out and empty. Burnt out husks, guttering into suicide statistics as despair replaced spent passion because no one gave the medical staff anything to replace what they recklessly, compassionately sacrificed to keep the Autobots alive. The frontliners died in battle, giving it their all, but the medics died by their own hands after doing the same. They required some loving care all their own, but getting them to accept it was the hard part.

And it wasn't something that could be delegated to a subordinate when the medic in question was the Autobot Chief Medical Officer.

But Ratchet could get loose any time he wanted. This wasn't something that could be forced. Every unit commander knew how to carefully unweave the coding that left Autobot medics stressed to the breaking point. It couldn't be torn apart. It could be hacked, it could be tricked, but ultimately, that would only snarl things further as combat programming backlashed to cause worse strain yet. The only way to pick apart the tangle of medical programming versus personal needs was to convince the core personality strained by the conflict that there was a way to walk the narrow line between them.

Peacefully, because struggling would bring out the combat programming already at right-angles with medical programming. Both demanded control. One would lash out if it felt threatened. One wanted to sacrifice itself.

It took a deft touch to balance the programs and revitalize the mech caught up in them.

It took understanding to surrender control even when tying someone up.

Ratchet slammed his head back and ex-vented forcefully. Behind offline optics, his mind railed at the directives that hammered need to give in throbbing, headachy pulses into his cortex. The lips pressed against the side of his helm moved until a slick tongue ran over the lines of his helm, up to his chevron, and began to give it dainty little licks. A distraction, yes; a seduction, yes; a patient necessity? Who was the patient? Who was being treated?

The licks gained pressure as worry revved the medic's engine. Lips ran along the top edge of his chevron, up to the point, then repeated the motion with the tip of a moist, hot tongue. The scans still showed that Prowl wasn't running hot, but they also showed that his systems were calm. Low levels of anxiety. Fluid pressures finally dropping into acceptable ranges. Fuel tanks full and systems purring tranquilly. All the nonstop weight bearing down on the Autobot Second were temporarily on hold, here and now.

The facts cleared Ratchet's head enough to get ahold of himself. Yes. The need...it wasn't him. It was part of him, but not what he wanted. What he wanted wasn't a bad thing. Wanting was not wrong.

He was allowed to take. Sometimes, Ratchet just had to be reminded of that fact.

And, well, sometimes a logical loophole had to be found.

Prowl needed this as much as Ratchet did.

"Give my hands something to feel," the medic demanded harshly. "Now."

Prowl obediently abandoned his chevron and began mouthing the nearest of the medic's sensitive hands. He let go of the other hand and focused on unfolding just one. Ratchet's hand resisted, still trying unconsciously to fight accepting when - no. Ratchet heaved, body bucking protest against that entire line of thought. The fingers unclenched, seeking to give, and a cross whine came from the medic when the cuffs prevented him from reaching for the other mech. Prowl blew hot air over the trapped fingers and lapped at them without getting close enough to be stroked in return.

When it seemed that Ratchet had wrestled his coding down a bit, the executive officer bent close enough for his cheek to be touched before nipping reproachfully at further attempts. He opened his mouth and gathered the fingers in, rubbing his tongue broadly over their undersides. They curled into his mouth and ran over his teeth, and he sucked gently on them. His tongue found the joints, pushed into the chinks where tools unfolded, licked at fingertips and knuckles. A growled command had him switching to the other hand, opening it from the clenched fist it'd tightened into so that he could lap slowly up the palm. Long, slow licks to relax and care for and shower worshipful attention on someone who deserved it but couldn't accept it unless it was almost forced upon him.

"Tell me," Prowl breathed against that palm, seeking direction. "Tell me what to do."

And Ratchet guided him.

[* * * * *]

Fortress Maximus - "harmless"

[* * * * *]

**
Warning: outright rape and torture. This was something I tried to write as physically fast as possible.
**

Rung called them harmless fantasies. Frag dreams: the things the mind thought of when the body needed release. The mind still knew right from wrong, but sometimes the body desired. And it was alright, he said, hand soft on Fortress Maximus' arm as if he didn't dare apply any pressure. It was the first time the warden of Garrus-9 had outright asked his advice on something, and even though the psychotherapist knew the topic was a delaying tactic to dodge more questions until the end of the session, he still answered.

"Our bodies gather charge in different ways, and often in ways we don't wish." A wry smile twisted the slender mech's thin lips. Fort Max saw it and wondered. "Imagining what you wish to release it does no harm. It's a fantasy. Some fantasies can be given form, but not all." He leaned forward, eyeridges asking the question about just what his patient was dreaming about that he was so uncomfortable. But Rung didn't press verbally; not about this. "There's no shame in using your imagination, Max."

There was. Fortress Maximus hunched over the edge of his too-small berth and marinated in it.

Yet some part of him had fastened on the psychotherapist's assurance. The little mech was millions of years older than him. As stubborn as Fort Max was when it came to acknowledging the therapist might be right about opening up about what had happened at Garrus-9, the depths of his mind wanted to believe Rung about this. No shame. No need for embarrassment or humiliation. It was just a harmless fantasy that never had go beyond the door of this room, that didn't have to last a second beyond what it took to get release.

He glanced around the room, licking his denta. The camera was blocked, which he was sure would drive Red Alert mad, but Fortress Maximus wasn't the type who could screw under surveillance. Even - no. His glossa ran around his mouth again, less nerves than an automatic gesture being in a coma hadn't stopped. The medics at Delphi had done a good job. His denta were all in place again. He'd only been missing three from the left side, but every absent denta had held significance. He wondered what they'd thought of that: his perfectly unharmed mouth, but for those three pulled-out denta. Everything else had been worked over, pried at and raked over and mutilated, but not his mouth.

He didn't want to think about what they'd thought while repairing his interfacing equipment. His internal threads had been stripped. It'd been a long and painful process of repeated violation by too wide a diameter that'd - why was he even thinking about that?

The warden glanced around the room again, gaze lingering on the console. He'd turned the communication frequency on and left the volume on low. He couldn't tell who was talking, or about what. The voices murmured erratically, which was what he wanted.

The room was never silent.

Shame slowed him, but not as much as he kind of wished it would. He pulled his legs up on the berth and rolled until he was up on his knees. His glossa ran another automatic circuit around his denta, probing the places there'd been holes, and he tried to feel more shame than sick arousal for caving this way. His body wanted this, but did he really need to give in to it? It seemed he did.

On his knees, he retracted his interface panel and unfocused his optics. It added up in his mind: the distant sound of voices, the dim lighting of the room, kneeling back on his heels this way. The perverted desire burning in his circuits brought his screw turning out of its tap. That already was more than he'd managed in the washracks listening to Rodimus's clever fingers coax Ultra Magnus into forgetting every footnote ever memorized. That should have been hot enough - frag, who didn't have half an optic locked on their captain's aft at all times? - but it hadn't been.

Fort Max stroked his fingers up between his own threads, and it wasn't Rodimus' flirty colors that ran through his mind's optics. He wished it was.

Fantasy. Harmless fantasy. Most of a memory, but whatever his body needed to get rid of the charge, right?

His screw finally extended all the way, teased out as far as he could manage like this, and he let his head fall back. One hand worked the helix, petting between the threads and trying to force the turning. His interface systems whined, grinding angrily the longer he stalled this way, and Fort Max groaned. Of anyone, of any place his charge could fixate on, why this? There were a thousand reasons why this was a bad idea, a million reasons his hate should eradicate lust, but still his body didn't listen to reason. The quick, vivid mental images roused his systems no matter how he tried to purge them. His imagination clung to Rung's assurance, and his body just didn't care.

He lowered himself grudgingly, joints hissing. Down, subjugated by nothing, bending before no one but the shadows in the corners and his secret fantasy. Lower and lower until his chest pressed to the berth and his aft was the highest part of him. His knees spread

feet carelessly kicked apart before the nails were pounded through, and he'd only just managed not to scream

until the blunt tip of his screw rested against the berth's surface. That felt entirely too good. The slight burn in his hip cables from his knees being positioned this way felt even better. He grunted quietly as his screw gave a turn, and his hips swayed in a small circle that worked the tip against the berth. It wasn't someone's tap, but the small spot of contact had his optics flickering already. He hesitated, scrunching his face against the berth as shame fought a squirming battle in his gut with the blaze of building charge, then reluctantly extended his arms up underneath his shoulder treads. His hands slid up the berth, depriving him of their support completely. His wrists crossed

one nail through them both, angled just enough that he had no leverage to pull it up no matter how hard he strained

but kept restlessly moving. His systems heated rapidly, something about the debased position revving his engine even as his mind tried to block the hot rush of lust. His hips bucked slightly, working the tip of his screw in tiny, blissful circles on the berth, yet it wasn't enough. Not quite. Something was missing, and he was ashamed that this couldn't be enough. Why did his body need so much re-creation? Why, if Rung was right, couldn't this stay a mental exercise? A harmless fantasy that could stay hidden in his head. He could stare into space and daydream while his fingers squeezed between his threads and his screw drilled into his tight fist over and over until the charge finally tripped.

Why couldn't that be it?! Over and done with - but the charge wasn't going anywhere. It was still building. It still had his hips flexing and a muted sound of shuddering lust trying to escape his throat. It just wasn't bleeding off. It kept climbing higher without discharging, because it lacked something.

Blind with the heavy curl of pleasure snagging his hips in a twisting thrust against the berth, he reached over and fumbled on the berthside table. He found something suitable after knocking a couple things to the floor. It was a box for things. Polishing cloths, maybe. Who cared.

He put it under his chin, propping his head up at an incredibly awkward, almost painful angle, and crossed his wrists far up on the berth again. Yes. Yes, this.

Fortress Maximus couldn't muffle his moan, and his hips jerked. His screw's turning picked up, drilling an indent into the berth surface. The blunt tip rubbed into it, lapping waves of indomitable, sick and filthy pleasure up the inside of his thighs in small surges of charge.

His glossa licked, and he chose to pretend there were missing denta. Just one. It'd…it'd gotten worse after the second one, and the sickness in his tanks swelled too far if he thought about that. So he kept his chin up on the box, his limbs down on the berth as if they were nailed there, and let himself sink into the memory. Later, he'd hate himself for how his screw spun to it like a fantasy. Later, not now.

He wasn't allowed to look away. The gag in his mouth kept him from shouting protests, and the nails kept him down. Nothing prevented him from shutting off his optics, but his mechs deserved this much from him. He couldn't stop their suffering, but he could at least witness it.

The Autobot on his knees before Overlord had suffered much already, and Fortess Maximus cringed inside when the Decepticon pushed the used guard away. "You know what I want, Fortress," came that silken, liquid voice. It sounded almost kind. I'dt sounded the exact same when Overlord had ordered the guard to open his mouth and suck him. It hadn't even changed pitch when the poor mech refused, but the warlord's lips had curled in a pleased smile. The smile had stayed while he picked up a pair of pliers and set about making the guard want to obey.

The Autobot at Overlord's feet now had no denta left, and wide strips of upper palate had been peeled out of his mouth before Overlord had pretended to notice the screamed pleas. They'd been shrieked for an hour before then.

Fort Max steeled himself and snarled a refusal behind the gag.

"Oh?" Again with the pleased smile. His refusal had been predicted. From the smile, probably anticipated.

Charge snaked up and down the rib crests as Fort Max's screw turned. He ground the tip against the berth faster, the friction less important that what was happening in his head. His fingers opened and closed, helplessly wriggling even though there was nothing holding him down, and his optics dropped to a dim, unseeing light. His hips hitched up slightly, pushing and dropping in miniscule thrusts that were the best he could manage in this position.

He could move, but he wouldn't. The imagined restraints made the bottom drop out of his tanks and a fire lick at the root of his screw, tracing fingers of aching pleasure up it in a slowly twisting spiral. The box dug under Fortress Maximus' chin, and the warden's glossa worked inside his mouth, licking obsessively at his own denta.

"Then perhaps you'll give me what else I want." The pliers were picked up and examined, apparently uncaring of the dripping trail of vital fluids meandering down his wrist from them. The guard huddled on the ground mewled, completely terrorized by the sight, but Fort Max turned the gag against his missing denta and swallowed before jerking his head as much as he could in denial. "I'd say it's a pity, but I enjoy this too much to regret your willfulness." The smile stretched wide. "That's not to say you won't."

His hips squirmed, dropping and bucking until the first narrow thread caught on the berth cover, then rotating upward to scrub the sensitive upper half over it again. His optics blindly watched a fast-forwarded memory of the first guard put through Overlord's terrible game. The mech had sobbed and begged as the massive pistol rested against the top of his head and Overlord shoved his screw back into the empty hole of the tortured Autobot's mouth. Overload, it had been promised, would be met with a single shot.

No hope. No escape. Just using Fort Max's mech for a sadistic frag to punish the warden for refusing. Afterward, the corpse had been kicked to the side, and Overlord had laughed at the warden's helpless fury. Then came the pliers, and an extraction.

And repeat.

He couldn't surrender. Aequitas was more important to the Autobots than any garrison, no matter that they were his.

That didn't mean he didn't want to just give in as Overlord purred his honeyed lies to the disfigured guard. "Make him overload, and I will allow you to leave this room. Understood?" Oh, he'd be allowed to leave the room. In pieces. Fort Max had already seen that promise come true. "Good. Then get to work."

Obedience won nothing from this Decepticon, not until he won everything, and only absolute conquest would be enough. Fortress Maximus could not allow that, no matter how high Overlord kept setting the price of defiance. He braced himself to pay that price yet again.

A whimper of apology came from behind the nailed-down warden, and he yelled furiously behind the gag as the smaller Autobot scooted between his knees. A head nudged under him, the top of a helm wedged up against his belly, and then poor guard set about licking and sucking Fort Max's screw out. It did not, shamefully enough, take too much effort. It spiraled out, and that's when the real horror began for the warden.

Primus, he wished this wasn't firing him up this much. His hips shuddered in tiny motions, more circling in place than making individual thrusts, and his screw turned and turned. The feel of a glossa stroking against his threads was a vivid memory. A vivid, gross memory of pushing against damaged stripes of raw wounds on one side while a frantic glossa worked on the other. He remembered the gaping, hollow place where denta should have been, how they should have scraped into the roots between threads, and but they hadn't. They'd been pulled out to the tune of screamed, pathetic pleas and had been scattered on the floor of the room that had never been silent. The contented rumble of Overlord's engine echoed out of Fort Max's memories, and the stuttered whine of distress from the guard who'd been trying so hard underneath him.

It had all somehow made the soft, continuous motion of lips all the worse because it'd felt so fragging good. That skyrocketing pleasure hadn't faded. The memory still had him gasping in lust more powerful than humiliation or hatred.

He was a monster. This wasn't a harmless fantasy. This was bucking and quivering to a memory, and yet he couldn't stop

thrusting against the hot suck and building charge. Overlord couldn't make his tap react no matter how he fingered the warden's threads, but a screw's reactions were far more involuntary. That's what made this so very terrible. The drive to finish was physical pressure that had Fortress Maximus keening as his limbs twisted desperately against the nails. His neck ached, his wrists shrieked pain, and his hips were pumping into the guard's frenzied mouth. His screw turned, trying to catch internal threads that weren't there, and the lack drove the charge higher. It'd be a painful shock into the smaller Autobot's jaw when he finally discharged; there were reasons that oral wasn't very popular.

But that wasn't what had Fort Max bellowing protest into the gag. Overlord had put down the pliers in front of him - a promise for later, for another denta - and held up his pistol with a sinister grin.

The Decepticon walked around behind the pinned warden and waited. They both knew for what.

The hopeful, despairing guard kept sucking. The hips bucking into his face blocked his view of the pistol pointed at his spark.

Fortress Maximus' hands flattened to the berth, fingers clawing. His back arched up as the overload snapped, at long last, over his systems.

When he could unlock his joints again, his optics had reset so he could see more than static. Trembling with the aftershocks of pleasure, he nudged the box under his chin aside, and then the warden hid his face between his arms. The fantasy had driven him to the peak, past the point of caring that it'd gone beyond imagining and down into wallowing in memory. He couldn't even pretend it'd been a dream he'd climaxed to.

Even so, it hadn't been as good as the real thing. Not…not even close.

He tried not to think about it, but trying not to think about it made him think instead about next time. He burrowed his face into the berth, muffling a pained groan because he already knew, loathe himself though he did, that there'd be a next time.

Rung had been wrong. It hadn't been harmless.

[* * * * *]

Ambulon/Rung - "repainting"

[* * * * *]

Warning: tactile interfacing.

The small hands aren't delicate. They were not made for hard labor, but neither were they made to be useless. They are simply frame structures from a career that has never called for a rebuild into tools of war. They are light and not meant for combat, but they're not meant to be coddled, either. They're just…hands.

They used to be common on Cybertron. Now they are unusual.

Their rarity makes their touch far more erotic than Ambulon had thought possible. The task they perform is mundane, and they make it - and him - feel incredibly special.

"He what?" Ratchet was the master of his domain. When the master fumbled a tray of tools and spilled them over the counter, then his subordinate had better take a second look at what had just been said.

Ambulon took that second look. He took a third. It remained totally normal to him. "He's offered to touch up my paint," he stated again after a moment of analyzing the sentence from every angle. Pharma and First Aid had helped him repaint several times. It'd been one of the few activities any of them could tolerate doing together outside of work on Delphi, and like shoveling snow or clearing accumulated ice off the landing pads on the roof, it'd only been tolerable because it'd been a necessity for work. Pharma had considered it professionalism; First Aid had collected it as favors toward overlooking the times he wandered off to indulge his stupid Wreckers fantasies.

Ambulon just considered it a pain in the aft, but he was resigned to it by now. His paint nanites wouldn't accept reprogramming unless it came through the dominate gestalt controls. Since that was an impossibility because of that whole switching factions thing, that required an outer coating of paint. That kept chipping off, of course, because paint on metal eventually wore away. Requiring yet more repainting.

It was an endless cycle of futility, and Ambulon had been somewhat relieved that someone else had offered to help for once. Things between he and First Aid were a little awkward at the moment. Delphi stood between them, still.

Ratchet had been pushing them both into working and reporting events separately until they got over their issues. That'd meant a lot of speaking with Ultra Magnus, Ratchet himself, Blaster, and Red Alert. Also Rung, but only because the little psychotherapist had offered to put together a psychological profile for Pharma's descent into madness. The orange Autobot had made it clear that he would not consider either of the Delphi Clinic medical professionals as patients unless they felt they needed his services.

Leading indirectly to this offer, in fact. An offer that had Ratchet gaping, apparently.

His body twists up the couch, starting at his knees and rolling up his body until his head tosses back into the cushioning. He isn't trying to escape. He isn't trying to press into the hands. He doesn't want the first option, and knows better than to try the second. It isn't that he doesn't want more of those hands on him, but pressing his still-tacky paint to something will only mess up the new paint. No, he's honestly trying to stay still, but oh. Ohhh. That is more difficult than it seems.

"Is this alright?" the thin voice asks, as it's asked every time its owner started on a new body part. The gentle, tickling scratch of the micro-sander working down the inside of his left arm pauses politely.

Ambulon's vents hitch and ease a fraction further open. "Yes," he breathes. The stripped, carefully prepared areas all over his body tingle, and the pricking to his network has only climbed higher as paint has been applied. Yes, this is more than alright.

It's been a slow process of removal and application. He is covered in hot spots. His sensors shouldn't even be able to sense the missing layer of pigment, but he seriously believes the heat laid down by those hands are lighting him up like a hundred small fires lit directly on his plating. It is becoming harder to control how he squirms every time the sander is taken up to grind away the old paint and reveal the arousal glowing underneath. Every chipped surface is left warm and wanting, like Ambulon is being peeled out of his plating until his naked spark will be poured out and tenderly touched into a moaning, writhing ball of pure, rampant desire.

The sander lifts away, and a hand - just a hand, a normal Cybertronian hand without the taint of war - wipes the dust away. The feel of the mech sitting beside him comes through it: endlessly patient, a tad worried for Ambulon's continued comfort, a little nervous for his own sake, but mostly just open and receptive without betraying anything more than surface concerns. It's an electromagnetic field as controlled as any Ambulon has ever felt, and as dense as history.

Given who it belongs to, that makes sense. It makes as much sense as the meticulous attention to detail that has the ward manager shivering in effort to stay still. The sanding with the micro-machine is done with experience even Ratchet doesn't have, and wiping the dust by hand takes patience the old medic certainly doesn't have.

Patience, and a peculiar type of intimacy.

"Have you seenhis model collection?" Ratchet said, face less dumbfounded now that he'd had a moment to process what he'd heard.

"Yes?" It would be hard to miss. Rung's office was filled with the bitty ship models. Ambulon didn't collect material things himself, but he'd been impressed by the level of detail in the models. Each ship was reproduced down to incredibly small internal features visible through the windows, and even working cargo bay doors. "It's...extensive," he said when Ratchet seemed to be waiting for a reply. "I'd think it'd be difficult to haul them around without damaging them."

The older medic nodded as if that were the point. "They get damaged a lot, but he's reassembled them from scrap more than once. You couldn't tell to look at them, could you?" Ratchet shook his head, admiration and rueful dismay in one. "I've never seen anyone put so much effort into something so useless before, but I have to admit, it fits his personality. Eh?" Ambulon was trying not to look like he didn't have a clue what his superior was talking about, but it must have leaked into his expression. "He's rather obsessive about caring for others, you know. He redirects it to those models instead of pressing himself on patients."

That stuck in Ambulon's head. "Obsessive..."

"Yeah." The lingering shock and a hint of envy were in Ratchet's optics when he looked at the smaller mech. "When Rung makes an offer to retouch your paint, he's not talking about an hour of spray-painting and a half-sparked buffing. You'd better clear your day and fuel up beforehand, because - ah. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it." Those optics turned away, reminded that they were medics talking about their resident civilian adjutant. He was a colleague, not someone to be tossed crudely into the rumor mill.

Not when Ambulon's mind could make up all the fantasies it needed without outside help, anyway. It hadn't even occurred to him that the offer could be anything but a courtesy between professionals. There wasn't any reason that Rung would possibly make an offer to do…more. Was there? "Why would you think that at all?" the ward manager asked stiffly.

Ratchet's optics turned back for half a second, checking him over head to toe in a way that had Ambulon straightening in reflex. Right. Horrible flaking paintjob; nothing to be self-conscious about, really, but that didn't make him less embarrassed before he caught himself. "He likes projects that help without involving the complications of patient treatment. I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it, but you're, hmm. Something of a perfect candidate for it." One side of the Chief Medical Officer's lips tugged up in a mischievous grin. "Lucky you."

The sticky cloth wraps around one forefinger, and it chases the dust away. Then another cloth, silkier to catch the finer particles, strokes down Ambulon's forearm. That's it, and blazing heat pours from fingertips to spark in a crackling flood of electricity as circuit breakers trip. It's an overload in miniature, and it's the fifth one he's suffered since firm orders and those deceptively normal hands arranged him on the couch. The ex-Decepticon cannot stop how he cries out, brow furrowed and body jolting.

Somehow, and don't ask him why, the order to stay still lest he mar new paint has only made the tiny overloads more intense. He's not complaining, but he doesn't exactly understand. He's never pegged himself for the submissive type. Mere tactile contact shouldn't be riling him up this much, but it's hard to deny how responsive he's become to the slightest touch.

A pause, and that history-dense field dips closer to sample his emotional state. It'd be impolite to check on the circuit-status of a patient, but this was definitely not that kind of a session. Finding only heady lust and the strange, attention-gorged happiness that's been fueling Ambulon since he's laid down on the couch, the inquiring field withdraws again. The closely-held energy permits the ward manager to feel a pleased wash of emotion before it goes, however. His painter evidently enjoys watching him writhe with pleasure under attention.

The dazed medic forces his optics online and his arms to stay above his head. The absent expression above him says that its owner is concentrating heavily on preparing the latest spot on the larger Autobot's arm. Yet Ambulon's blinking afterglow and vague confusion is picked up on effortlessly. One hand immediately frees itself to run the fingertips along his face, the thumb tracing up to smooth under a yellow optic.

Ambulon's unformed unease settles back into the odd thrill of being the absolute center of someone's world for once. The calm, focused field gives him one more reassuring nudge before the hand goes back to sanding and sweeping.

How had he not immediately sensed the aura of age held closely to Rung's chest? One touch, and he had the feeling that the psychotherapist had seen everything and judged nothing. He'd melted to relaxation under that neutral regard, and the mech's confident hands were sculpting that trust into something astonishing. And hot.

The hands, and the paint brushes.

Ambulon fidgeted outside Rung's door, still wondering just how to phrase this. He wasn't looking for an attachment? He hadn't been aware Rung looked at him that way? He wasn't comfortable forming a romantic relationship with a colleague? Dating wasn't something he wanted to try, ever? Thanks, but no thanks, but could he still have the psychotherapist's help with repainting him anyway?

This was guaranteed to be an exceedingly awkward conversation.

He pinged the door chime and sucked in a deep cycle of air, hoping to pull in some inspiration. Dealing with Autobot emotional sensibilities, even after all this time, didn't come easily to him. Blunt bludgeoning or subtle manipulation was so much more the Decepticon way. Either one tended to offend Autobots in a way he couldn't afford, however, not on a new assignment. Ultra Magnus had made it clear that he thought Ambulon to be a potential reoffender because of his past, well, faction. Red Alert was all but venting down his ex-Decepticon neck. Risking offense to one of the few mechs he thought of as a potential ally was making him jittery.

Thus, the awkward. There had to be an inoffensive way to diffuse this situation, but frag him to the Pit if he knew what it was.

The door slid open. "Come in," Rung greeted him with a tilt of those silly brow-ridges.

Ambulon looked at the slender orange mech with the optics of someone who hadn't previously looked at this person as potential interface, and - um. Okay, that was a little unnerving. He'd never thought about the frametypes he liked. He had a career. As Pharma and Ratchet had proved, it was either career or significant other. There weren't many medics who could pull off both at once. Emotional entanglements were distasteful, and he was too impatient for more than a casual glance at an attractive mech. Self-servicing was done quick and quiet, just getting it over and done with.

He had to manually shut off his fans, now. Rung would never win a beauty competition, but dear Primus did he have presence. As soon as Ambulon entered the room, it was like being transported from the hectic life of Rodimus' ragtag ship crew into an office suite in some stable psychotherapy practice. Under any other circumstances, the ward manager would find that quite calming.

Instead, the presence of the tiny ship models and the painting equipment laid out on the table beside the couch were revving him up.

"I'm not interested in a relationship at this time," he blurted out, panicking more than he'd admit to later. He caught himself as soon as it was out, covering a grimace at how offensively blunt that had probably sounded. "I. I mean to say that while I appreciate the, er, offer, I would prefer to keep our dealings on a professional basis." There. That sounded complimentary enough to take the edge off the rejection, hopefully.

Rung gave him a puzzled look that morphed into gentle amusement. "Ambulon, ah. I'm a psychotherapist. My most frequently repeated piece of advice is that clear communication is a key point. I follow that advice as a matter of course to prevent misunderstandings like this."

In other words, his offer to touch up Ambulon's paint had been exactly that: an offer to touch up paint. Nothing more. Nothing less.

…so this was what death by mortification felt like.

There was also an echo of unreasonable anger. So it hadn't crossed Rung's mind that Ambulon was frag-worthy?

That was backward logic, but it didn't prevent Ambulon from straightening ramrod taut and clearing his vocalizer. He cursed himself for it the second it happened because it made him sound like a pretentious fool - Pharma's words, painful because they were accurate - but did his best to sound as formal as he could. Served him right for presuming that anyone could be interested in him. "I apologize for assuming. I. I was led to…reconsider your offer in light of," his optics flicked to the models, "what have turned out to be nothing but crass rumors." He took a step back, retreating toward the door. He would not run like a scared retrorat. Although he had every intention of hiding in his quarters for the rest of the day and refusing to even speak to Ratchet if this subject ever, ever came up. Primus spare his spark if First Aid every found out. The nurse positively thrived off of gossip. "Perhaps it would be best if I left and - "

"Wait," Rung soothed, one fine orange hand outstretched as if to calm a shy 'bot. Which was absurd, really. Ambulon? Shy? Hmmph. "I meant no disrespect or offense by that, Ambulon. I honestly had not considered you might be interested in more than an opportunity to converse while repairing your paintjob. I hope you might stay to do that still, but if you find the situation too uncomfortable, then I do apologize."

Was the smaller Autobot apologizing to him for Ambulon's own stupid blunder? "For what?" the ward manager asked suspiciously, wondering if he was missing something.

Those overly-expressive brow-ridges lifted in the centers, giving the rattled medic a disarmingly earnest look. "For making you feel threatened," Rung said, and the larger mech somehow managed to stand yet straighter.

"I am not - " Ambulon started to lash out, but the psychotherapist was giving him a small smile that was both weary and rueful. Defensive much, yeah? "You." A blast of air ex-vented in a rush that did nothing to clear the ward manager's scrambled thoughts. "I. Yes, fine. You are…correct, Rung." The thought resisted being pinned down, but Rung only waited with that peaceful patience that practically permeated the office. There was something strangely nice about knowing this mech had been the one to detail all the models on the shelves in here. This was not a mech who would rush him.

"I - do find you…attractive," Ambulon said at last, looking away from those compassionate, nonjudgmental optics. "Physically. I hardly know you in any other way." Well, that didn't sound horribly awkward at all. No, wait, it totally did. Oops. "I let it affect how I saw the situation, and I am. Uncertain. How to handle interaction with you. Now." Other than stumbling over words and hiding behind formalities, that was.

He felt a fool.

The psychotherapist watched him for a moment longer, making sure he was finished. "I am not actively searching for a relationship," he said when the medic glaring a hole in the wall kept his mouth shut, "but I am not adverse to the idea of acting on our physical attraction to each other. Would you consider sitting down and discussing a solution to our mutual attraction?"

Yellow optics popped wide. Shocked, Ambulon whipped his head around to stare and got a full dose of the sweetest smile he'd ever seen.

Rung puts aside the sander and the dust cloths. Wearing that same expression of pure concentration, he picks up the smallest paintbrush. Not an airbrush, but a real, honest-to-Primus paintbrush. Ambulon has never been painted by one of those until now. The bristles cause a hint of friction as they stroke paint onto his plating, and every brushstroke rouses his systems in a way he couldn't have expected. He doesn't care to fight the feeling. The brushstrokes, like the small civilian hands, are doing things to his body that he couldn't have predicted when this started.

And that is just fine.

Drugged by pleasure and attention, Ambulon isn't aware of how relaxed he's become until his personal painter pauses in uncapping the white paint. The can is set aside, and Rung shifts beside him until an amused, pleased EM field caresses his chest as the orange mech leans over him. The ward manager's slack mouth is slowly captured. Rung's lips unhurriedly meld to his as if gathering the larger mech's overload-melted thoughts back into together enough to realize there is a kiss going on and participation is indeed encouraged. Under-metal circuitry sparks energy off each other until a connection establishes through the inside of their lower lips, and charge snaps between their mouths. Ambulon shudders on the berth when Rung murmurs words lost into the cycling electricity.

A tongue ventures into the circuit, breaking it before it can build into another of those delicious localized overloads. Ambulon offlines his optics and doesn't mind a bit, because Rung has gently taken to nibbling on his upper lip in a way that leaves Ambulon helplessly mouthing at the therapist's lips. A thumb comes down on the center of his own lower lip, and the cloud of heated interest that'd been soaking into Ambulon sternly backs up the implied order: stay still and let Rung enjoy him. The ward manager moans around the thumb at the order. He tries not to whimper as well when his obedience earns immediate reward. That tongue begins exploring the inside of his upper lip. Since it's absorbed the backlash of electricity, it's highly charged and doing things to his temperature gauge via languid back-and-forth licks over the chemical receptors tucked where lip met dental moulds. Those sensors inform him that Rung tastes like midgrade and foreign metal. It's such a normal flavor that he shudders again.

The kiss breaks as leisurely as it began. Ambulon's lips stay in the shape of it for a moment longer, half-hoping for more and half-stunned by what they've already gotten. Hazy yellow optics blink up at Rung, who smiles that sweet smile again and dips down to let him feel it. It tastes as lovely as it looks, for all that Rung is neither pretty nor beautiful.

The white paint is uncapped, and Rung concentrates on filling in the prepped area on Ambulon's forearm. The mech he pampers tries to stay still, but the obsessively-careful painting is taxing whatever scraps of self-control survived the first three overloads. The fingers and wrists set on Ambulon's arm to steady the brush are not helping.

"Please don't move," Rung says, knowing that, and his face is neutral when the reclining Autobot's fidgeting gets correspondingly worse. There is a glimmer of good humor in his optics, however. "Ambulon. The patches will smudge. We will be here for hours if I have to repaint you."

Ambulon wriggles, stares at the ceiling trying to count bolts, gives up, and wriggles some more. Sounds good to him.

"I am not sure how to do this," the ward manager said, sounding like intimacy was an unfamiliar medical procedure.

"Would you prefer that I take charge?" Rung asked him.

Ambulon hesitated. It wasn't that he thought the psychotherapist would hurt him, certainly not after the long discussion they'd just had about what they both wanted from this, but…trust was a difficult thing for him at the best of times. "What do you mean by that?"

"That depends on what you want to try," the orange mech said, spreading his hands to offer Ambulon the choice. "It can be as simple as giving us some verbal directions, or explicitly ordering you in how or what to do next."

That got a startled look from the ward manager sitting, back rigid, in one of the chairs in front of Rung's desk. Rung himself was sitting in the other seat as an equal, of course, and Ambulon frankly couldn't picture the slender mech taking a dominant role. That just - blew his mind a little.

On the other hand, this was a paintjob. Not outright molestation or interfacing; just a paintjob and tactile stimulation if they were both comfortable with how things progressed. The worst that could happen was him telling Rung he didn't want to continue. He was confident the psychotherapist would respect his boundaries.

If he was going to indulge his curiosity in one way today, why not another?

"…if that's something you want to do with me?" he agreed without agreeing, but he instantly corrected himself when Rung gave him that patient look that would lead right back to the discussion of explicit consent. "I'm willing to try taking orders, for a while at least."

"I'll make sure to ask if you'd like to change it up, then." The orange mech held out a hand, smile charmingly lopsided. "Don't be afraid or ashamed to state your mind, Ambulon. I'm far too old to not find pleasure in trying what my partners want to do next," he said as Ambulon looked at the hand, at a loss for a moment before catching on and giving the smaller 'bot his hand in return. "Thank you."

The thin voice sharpened, not gaining volume but taking on a severe tone. "Now, stand up and let me take a look at you. I think my work is cut out for me, judging by the state of what I can see." The buzz of a closely-clamped EM field against Ambulon's hand spanked the ward manager with the same strictness in Rung's voice.

Ambulon was out of his seat and standing at attention before he even realized what he'd done, but his hand was still being held in the smaller mech's. Rung sat back, crossing his legs and looking up at him. Taken aback, Ambulon stared down at him. An orange thumb ran over white knuckles, half assessment and half reassurance, and the lopsided smile was accented by how Rung's head tilted to one side. It was so unthreatening even the ward manager's self-consciousness couldn't translate to defensiveness when the seated Autobot looked him over in a study of every chipped spot visible.

"Is this okay?" Rung asked solicitously, thumb still rubbing white knuckles.

It got him a blink, and a nod.

"Good. Then this is what I'd like to do. I want you to think about this and tell me what you think of each phase. First," he held up a finger on the hand not holding Ambulon's hand, "I want you to lay on the couch so I can work on your front. Second, if you're comfortable with how that feels, I want to introduce a few physical restraints - verbal only," he clarified. "If you are enjoying taking orders, I'd like to change how you are positioned and have you hold the position. Third, and I'd like to say again that this is a tentative plan only as I want you to feel free to stop or change this at any point. But third, to paint your back, I want you to bend over a chair so I can easily reach the areas I'll need to sand down."

By this time, the ward manager's fans had overridden the manual lock and started whirring away.

Rung smiled that crooked smile up at him. "What do you think?"

Ambulon scooped his mind out of his interface systems, where it was wandering around wondering just when all these kinks had sprouted. "I…think that is a working plan. I'll be, um, sure to give you my input on each phase," he said, and if his voice wasn't entirely level, Rung was kind enough not to say anything.

The psychotherapist ran his thumb over white knuckles one more time, then let them go. "In that case, let's begin. Lay down on the couch, Ambulon."

Common hands and a mundane chore make for an achingly erotic experience under the right circumstances.

Rung moves on to the next chipped spot. His hands cause Ambulon to suffer in the best way.

"Is this alright?"

"Yes. I - "

The psychotherapist stops his work and gives his shivering partner a questioning look for the aborted sentence. A brief flare of his EM field over the medic makes him put down the sander and wait for the larger Autobot to speak. "What would you like?"

Yellow optics avoid looking directly at him. Ambulon can't stay still. The build-up of charge has snapped minor overloads through him, but the overall increase in energy is like the gradual but unstoppable influx of the tide. It rolls through him, head to feet and back again, but he keeps his legs spread and arms above his head as ordered. It makes him feel strangely vulnerable. It makes him feel a little weird, but mostly just…wanting. His spark pulses in his chest, pulled up to the surface underneath every spot Rung has touched in an oversensitive, wonderful endurance test. He wants so much.

That's the problem, isn't it? How much, exactly, is he allowed to want before it's too much?

"Can you." His hips jitter on the couch, and his shoulders shift. His optics flick to Rung and away again. Requesting anything is a weakness, or it was among Decepticons, anyway. Requesting something in this situation is strange. But he really wants it. "Can you…kiss me. Again."

Maybe it's not polite to neglect tacking on a 'please,' but he feels odd enough already. He doesn't want it to seem like he's pleading, even if asking for more feels like he's being greedy.

Rung just laughs, low and warm, and lavishes Ambulon with attention.

[* * * * *]

Tarn & Pharma - "Robots in Ugly Sweaters December"

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Vos' sadism had its strokes of genius at times.

Tarn leaned back in his chair and watched the security monitor contentedly. Usually he preferred a more hands-on approach to dealing with Autobots, but ah. Not this one. This one, he intended to keep around for a while. It'd necessitated a change in tactics, more than Pharma likely suspected but less than would have been actually inconvenient. Helex had put a berth and a table in the brig cell, giving it some of the comfort of a room instead of the bare walls of a waiting chamber. Kaon had reined in the Pet so the thing at least didn't weasel through the bars and chew on the jet in his sleep. Tesarus remembered to go down and dole out a ration of energon, even.

The crew of the Peaceful Tyranny had toned down their behavior in general, really. They were being positively friendly by their terms, mostly because Pharma reacted so strangely to his captors being polite in the face of his acid hatred. They didn't let on that they didn't tend to torture to those not on the List. Murder, yes, but Autobots and other annoyances were killed far more quickly. They didn't tell Pharma that, however. Their guest was defensive, resentful, and scared out of his mind all at the same time because he feared they were keeping him for nefarious purposes.

Well, they were, but probably not the ones he was afraid of. No, the Decepticon Justice Division just let their guest think Tarn was protecting him from them. Tarn had his own purposes, and keeping the Autobot seeing him as both tormentor and savior served his purposes just fine. The others mostly left the trapped jet alone. The confinement and isolation would eventually wear Pharma down. The medic had already begun reading out of sheer boredom, and Tarn had stocked the table with a selection of Lord Megatron's most inspirational works. The more Pharma read, the more frequently the D.J.D.'s leader visited the jet to discuss the underlying fundamentals of the Cause.

Tarn played a long game, but it wasn't like his guest was going anywhere. Escape was not an option. Tarn had made sure of it.

He didn't mind sharing his toys, however, and Vos did like to play games, even games that couldn't leave marks. Pharma had complained that the brig was too cold, and Vos had responded with a stroke of brilliance the other Decepticons onboard had to admire. Good hosts would want their guest to feel comfortably warm, after all.

Hence, the most hideously-colored, oddly organic temperature regulator Tarn had ever seen. He found the thing to be bizarrely fascinating on Pharma, like watching a beautiful work of art be defiled. There was something terribly wonderful in seeing a graceful, appearance-conscious professional like his pet jet be reduced to a horror before his optics. The garish thing covered Pharma from shoulders to hips, including some truly ugly winglet covers with…bobbles of some kind hanging off the tips. The Pet was crouched outside the cell, fixated on every twitch of those bobbles.

Of which there were plenty, as Pharma hadn't stopped fussing since Tesarus and Helex had forcibly stuffed him into the giant Autobot cozy. The medic had eventually calmed down from verbally frothing at the mouth, but he kept fretting at the sleeves. They extended well past his truncated wrists, and without hands, he had no way to push them up his arms. Tarn wondered how long it'd take before he stooped to using his teeth. It was the only way Pharma would manage to get the gathered ends up over his stumps.

In the meantime, the surgeon kept flicking his be-stockinged wings and glaring dourly at the rather morbid t-cog pattern on the thing cover him. He couldn't manage to tear it off - Vos had rather cleverly sewn him into it - and the floppy sleeves prevented him from using the datapads on the table. Tarn had keyed them to respond to the clumsy, broad touch of the Autobot's amputated wrists instead of fingertips or a stylus, but the screens didn't register pressure through the organic stuff the cozy was made of. Pharma had pawed at the datapads for a long while before finally giving up on that.

So not only was the jet humiliated and frustrated (and toasty warm!), but he'd soon be bored out of his helm. Excellent.

Tarn would go down and offer to read to him in a few joors time. By then, Pharma would be half-mad with boredom and willing to tolerate any company, even his.

The tank turned away from the security monitor, chuckling low to himself.

By the time he meandered down to the brig, a cube of energon and a datapad of Lord Megatron's most profound poems in hand, his lovely little jet had been driven quite crazy. It was the only conclusion Tarn could draw from watching the Autobot tease the Pet with one wing-stocking bobble through the cell bars. Flick-flick-flick went the wing and attached bobble, with Pharma watching intently as the undead technimal rolled on the floor right outside the call. The Pet whined, paws swiping at the taunting ball of fluff held just out of its reach.

"You do manage to keep yourself amused down here," Tarn commented mildly, mentally congratulating Vos on a masterful move. Pharma had been wary of the Pet since he'd woken up with it drooling on him the first orn onboard the ship. This was an improvement over half-scared loathing. The Decepticon looked forward to the orn Pharma's attitude toward him also changed.

The Autobot looked up at him and smiled, and Tarn blinked in surprise. Had that time already come? What a pleasant surprise!

Pharma stood, squaring his wool-covered shoulders, and the Pet rolled upright to sit and stare at the bobble held through the bars above its head. "Yes, I do," the jet agreed, still smiling.

It took Kaon half a breem to pry the Pet off Tarn's head, Vos half an joor to repair the scratches to his mask, and Tesarus half an orn to stop laughing and rewinding the security footage to watch Pharma punt the technimal straight into Tarn's face. Helex reported that the Autobot didn't even struggle when he went down to slap a pair of hobbles on those deceptively long but very slender red feet. He just smiled and thanked the D.J.D.'s walking smelter for the gift, yes, he was nicely warm now.

Tarn glared at the security monitor. Smug gloating was radiating off the medic. He could tell.

Vos offered to find a matching hat and leg warmers.

[* * * * *]

PICTURE AVAILABLE ON Ao3: "Robots in Ugly Sweaters December" by Shibara

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