Skyfire marries Megatron, the Combaticons regret many things, Cliffjumper fights zombies, Starscream saves Jazz, Swerve makes things interesting, Getaway is confounded by life aboard the Lost Light, and assorted weirdness.
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Title: Candy From Strangers, Pt. 19
Warning: Erogenous zones, demons, dead people, Las Vegas, a strip club, dead people who don't stay dead, angst, slavery, and a fairly specific kink.
Rating: R?
Continuity: IDW & G1, HooKup and Tyrant of the Seraglio snippets.
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): Prompts from Tumblr.
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Skyfire/Megatron - Arranged Marriage AU
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The natives had widely disparate body types based on gender. Megatron's frame, unfortunately for him, matched up with their version of the receptor. A 'female,' although they recognized it more as the carrier of eggs, since another of the four recognized genders of this world cared for the eggs once they were laid.
The Decepticon tyrant's hostile actions endeared him not at all to the natives in the short while he'd been free on the planet before they'd subdued him. It took some quick talking from Skyfire to convince them that Megatron's rampant destruction was an offshoot of a breeding cycle. Returning him to Skyfire - and thus immediately disappearing into a speck in the sky as the shuttle took him and got the frag out of there - would calm the mech down. It was a Cybertronian thing, honest. Really. They could trust him. They just had to hand Megatron over to Skyfire, and the natural course of things would sooth the wild Decepticon.
He felt like a cad for using their cultural stereotypes to deceive what were otherwise polite, civilized beings, but it was a matter of death or lies. Megatron was facing execution. Several important Autobot hostages were relying on the safe return of the Decepticon leader to Soundwave. Hence, Skyfire was going to do whatever it took to get Megatron off this planet alive.
Even agree to a 'wedding' celebration so the native xenobiologists could slake their curiosity over Cybertronian mating habits. He felt slightly less bad about lying to the slaggers after that. He was not an animal to be observed!
So he had no problem with completely fabricating a mating ritual. "Go along with it," he muttered to Megatron as he nuzzled his face between the bound mech's thighs. "Their primary reproductive organs are located approximately here on their own bodies. They'll see what they expect to see if you play along."
"I'll play along with this degrading spectacle long enough to get off this world," Megatron gritted out, hunching forward a bit as a tongue probed between pelvic plating and heavy thigh armor. His fists clenched behind his back in the cuffs. "I promise nothing after that."
"Hmm." Skyfire's neutral hum of non-agreement had an unexpected result. The vibration transmitted directly into the main tensile cable in the vulnerable joint, and Skyfire blinked, surprised by the armor suddenly gapping wider. He hummed again, experimenting, and tongued the wiring. It heated up. It grew alarmingly hot when he licked it out enough to close his lips around it and suck.
Megatron's strangled little noise had nothing to do with playing a part. Apparently the natives weren't the only race that had sensitive parts located in this area of the body.
Skyfire hesitated, wondering if pushing this farce further was ethical.
Thighs clamped around his head. "If you stop, I will destroy this planet once I am free."
Oh. Well, then.
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Demon AU - Combaticons
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The thing about pissing off a sorcerer of sufficient strength: karma always made sure a demon paid his dues. Which was how five of the Character Traits came to be in the basement of a particularly sordid sect of black magic practitioners, demonic manifestations trapped within a cage of magic. The Traits were bound to the physical plane. They were bound to the bodies. And they were enslaved to serve via invisible chains on mind and body.
Magister Megatron left them in the pentagram to brood on their new fate.
Greed and Strategy had met in passing before, usually brushing shoulders in casinos where those Greed sat beside attempted to harness the other demon. Greed had no qualms about seducing those who summoned Strategy first, however, so there was no love lost in that relationship. The two demons sat in their separate points of the summoning glyph and pretended the other didn't exist.
It wasn't surprising. Despite his jovial nature, Greed was always a loner. He was as selfish of himself as anything else in life, and he'd sell anyone and anything for the jingle of a coin.
Now, Strategy and Violence had a long and amicable relationship. Strategy employed Violence to good ends, and Violence tended to do better when Strategy held his strings. Violence didn't always like being controlled, but he did like having someone else be responsible for the bigger picture. Strategy nodded to his fellow demon, who waved in return. They would have no problem working together.
Strategy and Precision had a similar relationship. If anything, Precision preferred working with Strategy to working without him, although he would never say so. Especially not now that they didn't have a choice in the matter. Precision stood staring determinedly at the nearest wall in the basement, refusing to acknowledge any of the others in the pentagram. Just because he had to do this didn't mean he had to do an iota more than required of him.
Sadism had, at one point or another, hovered over all of them. His shadow was cold but his gaze unbearably hot. The only one who could meet it for long was Greed, but they were distant branches of each other's Trait. Where business and pleasure collided, they often met and worked cordially side-by-side. A polite working relationship within the family, as it were; cousins many time removed, if demons had cousins.
They had brothers now, it seemed. Artificially created ones, summoned and bound together under the will of Magister Megatron by the treacherous word-weaving of Starscream's sharp tongue and the beautifully wicked science of glyph-craft as wielded by Shockwave. They really shouldn't have gotten on the Magister's bad side. The Decepticons weren't said to practice black magic because their wands shot pretty sparkles, after all.
Five demons. Five Character Traits. One pentagram.
Strategy sighed and began working out a way to get back into the Magister's good graces. It involved talking to the other demons. What with the way Sadism kept eyeing the others, that was going to be a tough sell.
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Drift - Criminal AU
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Orion Pax excused many things, but he couldn't let this slide. For politeness' sake, he did wait until the addict sullenly left Ratchet's clinic. A few blocks on, he simply stepped from a side-street and clapped cuffs on the mech.
To Deadlock's credit, he didn't struggle. He looked as if he'd been expecting the cops to arrest him. The timing didn't matter; the addict seemed to have accepted that arrest was inevitable. Staying in the Dead End had been a half-sparked attempt to stay out of the way of the law. If a mech wasn't found, he couldn't be caught. Now that he'd been taken out of anonymity as any other homeless addict, arrest wasn't surprising.
The cop accepted his bitter glare and urged him down the street toward the station. "I'll have a word with the judge. With any luck, you'll go into a rehab center instead of the prison system."
Deadlock sneered, but it was a tired expression on a world-weary mech. "Do I look like I have luck?"
Orion Pax patting him gently on the shoulder and didn't think about him again after the judge did indeed send the addict to a good facility. A facility that turned out to be a front for a relinquishment clinic, exposed later on for the corrupt places they were. The judge had been on the Senate's payroll.
Later, much later, Orion Pax was part of the raids that freed the few remaining experimental subjects and illegally imprisoned mechs from what facilities the police could find.
Deadlock couldn't be found, but then again, who bothered searching for an addict who hadn't wanted to be found in the first place?
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Jazz/Starscream - Apocalypse AU
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It was easier to slip through narrow openings without his wings. That's the only thing he could say in favor of what had happened, but the past was over and done with. Starscream pushed the wish for his missing wings from his mind with practiced ease and slid through the crevasse.
"Autobot?" The light in the center of his palm brightened, lighting his way. "I came back."
Jazz was in the far back corner of the cave. The beam of light found him before the faint gleam of a blue visor betrayed his location. Even now, years after defeat and so much death, the saboteur's habits didn't change. Never give away his location to the enemy.
Even if the enemy carried fuel and small unnecessary items that made an unbearable life easier, if not exactly bearable. Jazz uncurled only enough to lunge upward and swipe the cube of energon from Starscream, hand passing through the shadowed mist that had once been an arm. It resisted before the tissue paper consistency and transparent shape gave way with barely a whisper under the Autobot's hand, only to re-form once it'd passed through.
Of all the things Starscream missed about having an actual body, it was the wings that popped into his mind the most often. That didn't mean he didn't miss being alive. He'd just grown used to the constant craving for life he no longer had.
He watched the small, battered mech curl up again, this time sucking voraciously on a corner of the cube. The energon inside was low grade. It wouldn't keep the Autobot powered long, but he'd been somewhat worried he'd been gone too long as it was. Sometimes it was best to return with whatever he'd scavenged than risk staying out too long.
Starscream turned to go back out into a Cybertron that'd killed him and everyone like him. There was more fuel out there, somewhere. He just had to find it. Then he'd bring it back here, as he had been for years now. The light in his palm swept back toward the entrance.
From the darkness behind him, a soft, hoarse voice asked as it always did: "Why?"
Dead and gone, the ghost paused. "I suppose for the same reason the humans put rare animals into zoos. If they're to have a chance at survival, it would be in safe shelter. If they die anyway, well." He shrugged. "At least someone witnessed the last death."
And Jazz still had no answer for that.
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What Happens In Vegas AU - Combaticons
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"Was I this...glittery, before?" Vortex blinked at his own arm.
Sadly, none of the others had to ask, "Before what?"
Before Las Vegas. Oh, Primus. Before Las Vegas! A mystical time period before the flashing glare of neon lights and bright, bright sequins. So many sequins. And the feathers, yes, not to forget the feathers. They were trying to forget, and it wasn't working. Vortex had an entire ostrich farm pasted to his rotors, like some sort of absurd plumage display. He looked like a chorus line dancer who'd escaped to planet Cybertron.
None of them were any better off, however, so they didn't say anything about the massive amount of fluff. "No, you weren't," Onslaught said shortly. "Stop picking at it. We'll get it off with the rest of," he gestured, unable to point to one specific affliction among the many, "this."
Vortex left off blinking at his bedazzled armor to look at his unit leader. He took in the cannon barrels that had obviously been repurposed as stripper poles at some point in their ill-advised field trip to Vegas. See, this was why none of the other Decepticons had bothered trying to absorb any human culture. It resulted in scary amounts of bling stuck to places bling should clearly not be stuck to. Onslaught should not be that shiny.
Something was missing. Onslaught was, uh, scandalously - if scantily - clad in swathes of Mardi Gras beads and sequined fabric, but there was no loud laughter at his predicament. Vortex's narrowed his visor and gave Blast Off's newly redecorated interior a suspicious look. The plush red velvet cushions everywhere concealed a variety of military equipment, and the drapes did a lot to hide everything but the brothel-esque feel of things, but there was nothing but glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars behind them when he checked. Well, there were strings of LED lights, too.
"Wait, did we forget Brawl?"
They had, indeed. It took them another two hours of whining among themselves to finally get up the nerve to go back and get him.
He didn't appreciate the effort it'd taken for them to confront their just-discovered phobias of faux jewelry and slot machines. He even had the audacity to complain. "I was having fun!"
Vortex and Onslaught stared at him. Brawl, war machine and Combaticon, pouted back at them. He didn't seem to care that he was still wearing a toga.
Swindle, of course, was already waiting back at base, because he was a fragger and did this every weekend.
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DJD - Strip Club AU
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The club was rocking. But wasn't it always? The Justice Division had a loyal following any night, and tonight of all nights, when the stars took center stage? Nobody wanted to miss that.
"Welcome to the main event!" Kaon crowed into the microphone as the lights cut. "If I could have your attention - and your libidos, please!" Optic ridges waggled, and muffled snickers swept the room.
Back by the bar, Helex and Tesarus were off bouncer duty in order to lend their extra hands to the harried bartender. Their exterior lights blinked on to illuminate their work in the sudden darkness. Tesarus mixed three pitchers of cocktails in one go as his torso tunnel turned on. Helex was ladling perfectly heated Iaconian engex out of his smelter already. Flirting customers leaned on the bar and tipped extra.
On the other side of the bar, dual spotlights stabbed the main stage. The curtain rippled. "That's right, one and all, it's time for legends to walk." A slender leg peeped out from behind the purple fabric, extending slowly at the knee until the foot ended in a delicate point. Clapping started. "Treads to touch ground." The distinctive sound of a transformation as someone went through his signature quick change, and the room 'ooo'ed in anticipation. "And torture of unimaginable extremes to begin." A large purple hand slid sensuously up that slender leg, palming the thigh and walking the fingers up until they closed around the small foot. "Hold on to your fanbelts and turn up your pain tolerance, folks, because tonight - !"
The curtain whipped aside, spinning Vos out in a dancing whirl of slim limbs and sly looks that ended in a coy kneel on the edge of the stage. The intimidating, luscious bulk of Tarn stood behind him like some sort of contrasting backdrop, folding his arms in slow drama, and Kaon's voice climbed up above the sudden wild cheering.
"Tonight - the. Masks. Come. Off!"
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Cliffjumper - Zombie AU
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The Decepticon base had never been quieter. Cliffjumper could clearly hear water pressure causing metal to creak throughout the base. No sounds of footsteps or working ventilation fans. Those that were able to flee already had. Those who couldn't had eventually caved and begged for help from the Autobots.
Because there was science in the name of war, and then there were abominations caused by war. It was a thin line. Even Shockwave tread it cautiously, and never lightly. Killing a foe was acceptable. Torturing him to death was fine, at least in Decepticon terms. Reanimating the corpse via a biomechanical virus able to infect new hosts on contact? No, that was not a good idea.
Not a good idea at all, and the Quintessons had reintroduced themselves to Cybertron using it. Luckily - or not, depending on if a mech had been friends with him - the Autobots had gotten wind of their ex-slave-masters' return and sent a spy to investigate. He'd found everything he could, but he'd been infected in the process. Knowing that, the Quintessons had allowed him to escape.
The Decepticons, not knowing any better, had spotted the spy's shutter returning to Earth. An opportunity to catch Mirage? Awesome! They'd swooped in to seize the unconscious mech, transport shuttle and all.
Then he'd died.
That had confused the Constructicons mightily, as he'd been perfectly healthy upon capture. Except for the whole unconscious thing, but they'd assumed he'd put himself into statis to avoid interrogation. Vortex had jacked in anyway, prior to death. He'd complained of a headache and uncoupled himself to go recharge for a while. Mirage had died not long after that.
Onslaught had reported soon afterward that Vortex was in statis.
And then Mirage had come back to life.
Everything had gone straight into the smelter. Whatever else Mirage was now, he still had access to his invisibility. A savage, undead, infectious, invisible thing broke out of the repair bay and started attacking anyone unfortunate enough to look vulnerable to a bite, claw, or full-on gnawing.
The Combaticons had promptly made everything worse when Vortex died. Because, well, death. And then not-death. Undeath. A zombie Vortex rose in the midst of the chaos caused by an invisible Autobot spy doing most-Autobotly things in the halls of the Decepticon base. Zombie Vortex was no calmer and far less controlled than his predecessor, Regular Vortex. He was, however, still a Combaticon. To their horror, the other Combaticons discovered they were still gestalt-bound to him.
Cue the Autobots finally catching on to what was going on, because a screaming, panicking Bruticus slowly and painfully becoming one of the undead was a huge neon sign of This Ain't Right. Tearing the gestalt into his component pieces hadn't stopped the conversion. It'd actually seemed to make it more agonizing. Vortex hadn't gone down easily, and the other four Combaticons had been no help whatsoever as they scrambled in blind fear to get away. But they hadn't been able to escape themselves.
Onslaught had asked to be euthanized shortly after Blast Off and Swindle succumbed. Brawl had already been a shrieking zombie thing at that point.
Now, two days later, Cliffjumper eased the repair bay door open. Six shaking Constructicons stared fixedly at the opening as if they could spot Mirage by sheer willpower. "It's clear," he told them.
"You don't know that," Scrapper said faintly. "That's what the others said."
Cliffjumper didn't have to ask who the others were. The only thing that'd kept Kickback and Bombshell from doing more than hissing and eerily screeching at him was the fact that Mirage had apparently torn all their limbs off in a frenzy. Mercy-shooting those two hadn't been pleasant, but Ratchet and Perceptor hadn't found a cure. Even if they did, they couldn't bring back the dead. The Insecticons were already dead, and Cliffjumper had just re-killed their undead corpses.
"Jazz and Bumblebee are on either end of the hall with scanners." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You want out of here, or you want us to leave you? 'Cause this isn't anything more than you deserve, in my opinion."
Scrapper's arm tightened around Scavenger, and Long Haul nervously edged behind Bonecrusher. Hook looked at his leader and reset his vocalizer as he stepped toward the door. "That won't be necessary. If you're certain the hall is clear…did you, ah, check the ceiling?"
The surgeon did a good job hiding most of his fear, but Cliffjumper noticed that his hands were shaking. The short red Autobot frowned and commed the advice to the other Autobots in the base. Ceilings. Yeah, that would be a good thing to check. Mirage wasn't the only corpse still moving, and not all of the undead were accounted for. He was just the one that couldn't be seen.
The Constructicons had good reason to be afraid.
Cliffjumper checked with Jazz and beckoned the Decepticreeps out of their safe haven. "Come on. We've only got a little time before the charges go off." The base was quiet, so quiet, and it creaked as the water pressed in on it. Soon, that water would rush and crush this place for good.
Somewhere far off, someone screamed. It wasn't a sound anything alive made.
He prayed the water crushed everything.
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Tailgate & Cyclonus - "Translate: banana and dragon"
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Not everyone could see it. Tailgate was a banana: pliable but freed from his original grouping, and hiding under a peel. He wasn't quite right: bent but grown that way. And he was new. He was hard where time had softened others, and he had green where he simply hadn't had the time to ripen. Sure, there were hints of a strong yellow showing what he'd be like once he'd matured, but that time was somewhere off in the future. He needed to be coddled a bit until he grew up all the way, but not too much. Keep him in the dark, and he'd stay green until he rotted.
Cyclonus, however…Cyclonus was a dragon: old and craggy. Time had warped a stern expression into a stoic look more scowl than impassive. He'd eat Tailgate right up and spit the shiny new peel back out when he was done. That was what dragons did. That's what everyone saw when the dragon stood over the banana.
Nobody knew that the hints of yellow were gold to the dragon. He saw gold blooming where no one else looked for it, and dragons treasured gold in all its form. Even in bananas.
Tailgate might be a fleeting treasure, but more valuable for how little time Cyclonus had him.
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Rung - "Translate: Brush and lantern"
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The name lied. The Lost Light wasn't.
The Autobots back on Cybertron mocked the Lost Light and its crew of misfits, but the truth was that survivors were never normal. They were always mismatched remnants that stood out somehow. They were the outliers once war had wiped out the statistical norm. Those willing to leave on a quest or adventure had something on top of the weird that already set them apart.
Mock them they did, but the Autobots of Cybertron might have noticed the ship didn't just take away the oddballs. Other things disappeared when the ships did. The medical care wasn't quite the same, the city seemed quieter, the leadership less brashly warm, the rules more coldly enforced, and science no longer pushed limits in blatant competition for attention. The citizens looked around and disliked the city for some reason, all with nobody really noticing what it was they missed. The sources - Ratchet, Swerve, Blaster, Rodimus, all of them - had left and taken their different sparks of life with them, and Cybertron had become less as a result.
The light had dimmed, too. It'd departed like an ascending star, and nobody had noticed. The city streets just mysteriously seemed to have more shadows.
Cybertron had its riches of personality, but Rung was something…different. He burned inside, strong and bright. His body held age in its strangely pristine plating and smoothly-running systems, but the spark inside glowed with an intensity that permeated the whole ship once he came onboard. His body was a lantern. It walked, talked, and safely sheltered that light as it went where the spark needed to go.
The spark-eater had known the truth. It'd smelled the glimmers of light before they could be seen. It'd fed on the tiny glints left behind throughout the ship, devouring fragments of Rung's sparklight where they'd filled metal and air until the ship gleamed like a beacon. It'd known what it'd wanted the moment it got loose.
With kindness and professional care, Rung's words painted the Lost Light from the crew out, and as a result, the survivors came together in a way that Cybertron's last city forgot once he left the planet. The misfits and leftovers became a crew for all their faults, and they functioned despite their flaws. Perhaps more telling, they succeeded because of them. A 'normal' crew, a crew made up of mechs much the same as any other, wouldn't have managed to pry victory out of defeat, or given up instead of fighting. Tyrest hadn't lost because of any sort of standard tactic. He'd lost because of a crew of very strange people had refused to let him win.
The Circle of Light couldn't see what bound the Lost Light together for what seemed to keep them apart, and Rung only sighed when the sword-bearers deserted them en masse. They wanted heroism and perfection in one. Thunderblast was a hero, no doubt, but Rung hadn't gone on that stalwart Autobot's ship. He'd chosen the Lost Light. He'd chosen diversity and chaos. That was where the worst wounds were - and the greatest opportunities to make a difference.
A quest like this needed words, loud voices, arguments, laws, and lawbreakers. It needed brash leadership and stodgy disapproval, as well as mistakes and changes. That might not have been enlightenment in the loftiest sense, but that wasn't what anyone had really gotten onboard for. And, well, some guidance couldn't go wrong in the midst of all of that. The guiding light of a bright spark spun after-echoes in Rung's wake like a time-lapse sequence of a universe made somehow brighter, no matter how everything around the ship darkened.
If anyone had lost their light, it wasn't the ship running away through the galaxy on a stumbling, punch-drunk path toward healing.
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Ambulon - "Translate: Bookshelf"
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He hung from the drone's grasp and thought of walls. Shelves. He thought hard about shelves. Shelves full of datapads, model ships, trivial bookfiles and holographic pictures of mechs long dead. He was a shelf. Put anything on him, and he'd hold it still and safe. A surface meant to display didn't move. It didn't even think. It just existed, and everything interesting was supported by its presence.
A single leg under the combiner's completed shape. A skillset carried by a convenient shape. Medical training and capable hands mounted on a bland background. The paintjob that might have made him stand out as something that didn't match the other fixtures had been painted over, shoddily but persistently. He was a shelf: part of a room but easily replaced.
Pharma had always been hard on the furniture.
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Swerve - "Translate: Disaster"
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Swerve kicked his foot against the counter and glared. The bar looked like Whirl had gone on a bender and let loose in a free-for-all fight against Brainstorm's brawl-deterrent system for the fun of it. Bullet holes riddled the walls. More than usual, that was. Those fragging drones hadn't gone easy on the place. Tables were overturned everywhere. Prowl in a snit couldn't have done better.
A pang of grief went through him for that, because the mental image came directly from Rewind. He missed the little guy, still.
Now in an even worse mood, Swerve started trying to push the counter upright. He couldn't open with the place looking like this, and people were all kinds of mopey right now. They needed a place to gather, and some banter to cheer them up.
Okay, no lie, Swerve needed the company himself, but he didn't have any friends of his own to turn to. The best he could do was get his bar open again so that other people would come in with their friends. At least then he wouldn't be alone.
"I knew you'd be in here."
His head whipped around, visor wide. "Skids! What're you doing here?"
"Some welcome," Skids drawled. Beside him, the new guy who wasn't a new guy - Swerve was sketchy on the details because he'd been kind of rattled in that cell - peered into the disheveled depths of the bar as if searching for meaning in the spilled engex. "Ratchet kicked me out to deal with the real casualties, so I figured I'd come help you clean up. Since, well." He rubbed behind his neck uncomfortably, suddenly looking away from the minibot staring at him from across the utterly destroyed room. "I…kinda caused all this."
Technically that was true, but Skids and blame just didn't connect in Swerve's mind. Chief Jerk Tyrest's nest of crazy conspiracy theories and theology had left him firmly in the camp that believed the mech had brought trouble on everyone regardless of what went where for whom. The Legislators had been following the orders of a nutjob. "Yeah, sure, but there're parts of the ship worse off than here. Mags has a list." Because Swerve's mouth hadn't gotten the memo about accepting help gracefully, apparently. "Not that I don't appreciate the offer or anything," he backpedalled verbally, already knowing he'd screwed up the chance for company and some willingly offered help. "It's just that, uh, I'm not really feeling like joking all that much, hard as it is to believe, and I know that's why people hang out around me, so…"
Skids looked directly at him, optics serious. "Swerve. Do you really think that, still?"
The words died off, and Swerve blinked. "…yeah?" What was that supposed to mean?
Getaway stopped poking through the scrap on the floor to give him an incredulous look. "Mech, he hasn't stopped telling me about how you came for him at the oil reserve since we got back. You saying he dragged me out of the medibay to introduce me to a buddy who isn't even his buddy?"
Swerve's mouth slowly dropped open. He stared at Skids, who fidgeted. A tentative smile crossed the tactician's face, and Swerve's mouth snapped shut in a wide grin.
Getaway glanced between them and shook his head in amazement. "This ship…"
[* * * * *]
Ratchet - "Translate: Desolation"
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There had been something here on Luna 1. Something strange, profound, and so full of hope it'd hurt to see. It'd been wonderful. The dull edges of resignation had crumpled as Ratchet watched it happen, and beauty looked like life and hope from where he'd stood.
It broke Ratchet's spark to stand in that same place and see the empty ground where a hot spot had been.
[* * * * *]
Whirl - "Translate: Carbonatite"
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"This is outside my area of specialty," Swerve warned them as he ran his hands over the outcropping. "I'm a metallurgist, not a geologist."
"It's more than the rest of us have," Skids called back from where he'd taken guard position. "Just tell us what you can."
"In short words!" Whirl clarified, shaking a pincer at him. "I don't know what anything over two syllables means. Three, if it's about weaponry somehow."
"Yeah, I've got your short words for you."
"What was that, short stuff?"
Swerve turned from examining the carbonatite outcropping to give the rotary mech a sweet smile. "I said you're spathic, Whirl." That lone optic conveyed belligerent confusion quite well. "Hey, that's two syllables. And it's because I can see your seats through your canopy," the minibot added when Whirl continued staring at him.
It took two days for Hound to cave and explain to Whirl what the term meant. Swerve hid behind his bar when he heard, "What do you mean he said I have good cleavage?!" bellowed down the hall.
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Getaway - "Translate: Dignity"
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"It's a lost cause, isn't it?" Getaway asked, sudden realization dawning in his optics.
Across the room, Skids looked up from inspecting - but not touching, no no, mustn't touch, somehow everyone on the Lost Light mysteriously all knew not to touch, and how exactly had that happened when even Skids admitted he didn't remember ever being explicitly warned not to do it? - at the crossbow rack. "What's a lost cause? Rodimus' quest? Eh, it's not that bad."
"Your paintjob?" Atomizer asked at the same time. "Don't worry! I like it, it's just difficult to match given what I have on hand."
Getaway looked at Skids, who seemed totally unfazed that Atomizer had nabbed him the moment he'd gotten a habsuite assignment. Getting the place decorated by Atomizer was yet another one of those things everyone on the Lost Light knew about and accepted as normal without any warning to outsiders. Frag, Getaway had managed a moment alone with Fortress Maximus to ask about all the weird stuff he kept running mask-first into, and the new Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord had looked at him like he was the crazy one.
So Getaway just shook his head and gave up dignity altogether. "Nothing. I like the pink. Can we use the pink around the window?"
"Sure."
[* * * * *]
Atomizer - "Translate: Vengeance"
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"I'm going to die."
That was certainly one way to enter a room. Skids grabbed a gun in one hand and, well, he still had a datapad in the other, but in his hands knowledge kind of was a weapon. That counted toward arming himself. "What? What happened?" He darted across the room to brace himself on the wall next to Getaway, who'd flattened himself to the wall beside the door the moment it opened. "Who's going to kill you?"
A weak laugh answered him, and Getaway raised his hand. He was holding an arrow. "I was feeling a little rusty, so I figured I'd see what happened."
Skids looked at the arrow. He looked at his old-sorta-new friend. He had the blankest expression possible. "Tell me he doesn't know yet."
A shrug. "Might have left a note behind."
"Might this note have 'bomp' written on it?"
"It might."
"I see." He really did. Skids blew stale air out, keyed the door opened, grabbed Getaway by the shoulders, and steered him out. "You're going to die. I suggest prolonging the inevitable by hiding in the ventilation ducts for a while."
Getaway stood in the corridor, optics wide. "But - but - "
"Nope. You touched Atomizer's bow." Skids shook his head at the mech's folly. "Good luck."
He went back into his room and didn't bother locking the door. That never stopped anybody onboard this ship.
[* * * * *]
Whirl - "Translate: Anchovies"
[* * * * *]
They were a rarity. They'd long been extinct on Cybertron itself, but exporting them had been a thriving industry before the war. That didn't mean mechs were used to seeing them, however. They were almost alien pets at this point. Nobody even knew where Ambulon had gotten them, since First Aid had silently appeared in the bar after clearing Ambulon's quarters, handed over the tank, and disappeared back into his own room. The bar had stared after the traumatized medic a moment before clustering around the thing.
"I haven't seen these in eons," Rung said softly. He ran a hand over the glass. The tiny swimming technimals inside followed his fingers. Charmed, he smiled and trailed a finger along the side of the tank so they could chase it. "Does anyone else want them, or may I take them?"
"Fishies!" A large pincer came over his shoulder and tapped the glass roughly. The school of juvenile Sharkicons scattered, flicking out of sight behind the tank's underwater structure, and only someone in-tune to Whirl's subtle signs of 'weak' emotions could have heard the disappointed whine of a flight system spooling down a bit. "Aww. I want fishies." So of course the rotary mech quickly covered genuine sadness with overdone drama. "They don't like me!"
"They're startled by loud noises, bright lights, and jostling, if I recall correctly," Rung informed him. "Handle them and their environment gently, and they'll like you just fine so long as you're the one providing their food. They'll grow up into formidable predators given enough time to mature correctly."
Whirl perked up, apparently having taken Rung's delicate hint and looked Sharkicons up. He'd fixate on the violent aspects of the adults, but there was also information on care and feeding in the ship's nonessential information archives. Rung had just opened up those files himself, after all.
By the time Whirl had finished downloading everything, the psychotherapist was already headed for the door, tank barely sloshing with his careful steps. "Hey! Get back here with my fishies - don't shake them!"
Future sessions were done with Whirl crouched before the tank, crooning manic plans of mayhem to the school as they chased the tip of a pincer gently, so gently scraping across the glass.
Rung only smiled.
[* * * * *]
Tyrant of the Seraglio - "consequences"
[* * * * *]
Soundwave didn't hear him coming. He didn't even feel the vibration of the floor this time.
It was the busiest hour of the day, and he kept his visor downcast to avoid…provoking someone. Not that anyone needed an excuse to abuse him, but a slave who submitted was far less likely to catch attention for a 'lesson.' The halls were full of mechs crossing paths and gesticulating in conversation, a bright moving tide of things he couldn't hear and had every reason to fear. Every other step, he had to pause or shorten his stride to avoid quick-moving mechs. It wobbled his balance a lot.
He just kept his head bowed over the tray and walked as fast as he could, concentrating on staying on his feet and staying out of everyone's way.
It required so much concentration that he didn't see Brawl approaching until suddenly there were feet in front of him.
He almost jumped out of his plating when the Combaticon casually reached past him and yanked Breakdown into sight - and away.
[* * * * *]
HooKup - "be happy for once in your miserable life"
[* * * * *]
It was new. It was new, it was laid out on the table, and it looked very expensive.
Hook spotted it when he came in the door, but he made himself turn his gaze away as if it were of little interest. Sure, a shiver of anticipation went up his back. Maybe a thrill of fear met it going down, but he acknowledged neither one. Tonight, he had half the shift to himself. He'd pleased Kup with his behavior lately, and this was his reward. He intended to spend it researching, not getting his plating chipped dull by the scuffing of a long, leisurely beating. Even if the whip looked hand-braided, wires smoothly woven together into a long lash that would sting but not cut, because Kup wielded every weapon like the Master he was.
His Master would take his time and truly let the whipping burn his pride. Hook would likely end up fully prostrate on the floor, or braced against the wall, feet and hands spread far apart. It'd hurt his pride more than his back, especially if the crime being punished was something particularly petty. All it'd take was an excuse, tonight.
The surgeon slipped another furtive look at the whip lying on the table as he took his ration cube over to the console to work. His hands shook a bit, and not from fear. Any excuse…
He had work to do. But that whip really did look expensive.
Hook tried not to think about what he was doing. That worked about as well as not thinking about the whip had.
The last of his energon 'accidentally' spilled across the floor.
"Pet!"
[* * * * *]
Swerve - "watching me"
[* * * * *]
"You want to see?" Swerve smiled and spread his legs, setting his feet and shifting his aft around until he was comfortable. Yeah, he knew this was what his watcher wanted to see. "You want to see how much I can drink, huh? Like this?" He leaned his head back and opened his mouth under the tap, sticking his tongue out to lick the nozzle. "I can swallow pretty fast."
Then he wrapped his lips around it and turned it on.
A strangled noise assured him that the show was appreciated. Swerve smiled around the tap but kept swallowing when his watcher couldn't take it anymore.
He made a half-sparked protesting noise when the mech soundlessly crept between his legs and lay on the floor, audio pressed under his chest. The engex flowed down his throat almost faster than he could swallow. What with the way the mech's head pressed to Swerve, every sploosh of liquid hitting bottom had to be clearly audible. Swerve could feel him shudder a tiny bit every time he swallowed.
A long flowing gurgle as his main tank topped off, air pushing up as engex bubbled to the brim, and Swerve swallowed hurriedly to keep it down. He eased back on the tap just enough to lick his lips and gasp. Every panting breath to cool overworked intakes jostled his full tank, and even though he couldn't see it, he could feel as a hand joined the head pressed to his abdomen.
The fingers kneaded at the metal as if they could feel the tank fuel to bursting underneath. "One more."
Swerve let his head roll back, smiling with his optics off as a coaxing finger pressed against his lower lip.
"One more mouthful, Swerve. Just one more."
Another hand reached over his shoulder to cradle the back of his helm, bringing his head up a bit, just enough for the finger on his lip to guide the nozzle in.
"One more. Please?"
And it turned on. What else could he do but swallow?
[* * * * *]