Title: Overcee

Warning: Gore? Nonsexual BDSM of not exactly healthy nature, but it's definitely consensual.

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW

Characters: Overlord, Arcee

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

Motivation (Prompt): Inkfamy commissioned me to write nonsexual, consensual, everyday BDSM with Arcee topping, in a "what if" scenario wherein Overlord discovered Arcee during her Jhiaxus-killing phase.

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Part Two

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She doesn't rest. Arcee is always in motion, a restless presence filling the cavern with quick, sharp motions and watching optics. Sometimes she slows, but she never stops. Sheer unbridled emotion wells out of her in a fountain of energy. Hook a power cord up to her, and her hate could power the nearest city.

Her constant motion holds them captive, their optics locked on her while she walks a perimeter around them. The slightest hint of interest has Overlord tensed to eager to please, and Jhiaxus is paralyzed by terror and cut cables wherever she left him, watching her pace as his shattered body slowly repairs. They both await her pleasure.

Stillness is an oddity for Overlord. Arcee has Jhiaxus to fill her days, something to occupy her time, but Overlord has gone from devastating battlegrounds to suddenly doing nothing. Although the needy, greedy pet dwelling inside him wants nothing more than to watch for a hint of attention, the rest of Overlord is used to activity. He admires her work, but this self-imposed idleness closes in around him. He wants to leave, to relieve the tedium of waiting, but a strange anxiety keeps him here. He can't look away for even an instant, or he might miss something important.

A baring of her teeth; a curl of her fingers; a weighted look turned in his direction. These things, from her, punch through his armor and crumple him to his knees, shivering as the afterimages of intense sensation dance along his nervous system. Pain and pleasure stutter gasps from him long after she dismisses him from her thoughts.

Those brief instances when he crosses her mind take a split second. He doesn't dare blink, for fear of missing them, so...he watches. He waits. The moment she bores of torturing Jhiaxus, she seeks different entertainment, and Overlord leaps to attention like a cyberhound wriggling at the feet of its owner.

It's an apt comparison. He's her pet in all but name, and that only because she's never demanded he surrender his name to her. Calling his name is unnecessary. She doesn't need it to put him on his knees. The part of him wagging its tail in delight at her torment of Jhiaxus breathlessly waits on the sidelines, so eager to be summoned he preemptively scurries to her feet at any pause.

That same part of him aches, tensed to the point of snapping whenever she speaks to him. It will burst if his name ever passes her lips.

Overlord knows her name. Jhiaxus screams it while begging for the ceaseless pain to end. Curses rain down on her in equal measure to pleas, shrieking tithe to their lovely lady of agony. She seems to relish how he takes her name in vain: a goddess savoring revenge upon a blasphemer. Her smile draws energon, drowning the vowels of her name into inarticulate gurgling.

Overlord has said it in the past, but his throat refuses to let it go these days. It tightens up, and he presses his lips together, averting his optics from the penetrating gaze threatening to open his mouth, steal the words from his vox box, and leave him a silent worshiper at her altar. Her name isn't enough, and it singes the back of his tongue where he holds it, unable find the right pedestal to balance it on.

Inexperience buries the aching, tense pet inside him, and he fumbles for a word to embody her that doesn't foul his mouth. A word to embellish her name on his lips, worthy of her. A word to fit the definition of this brilliant, broken murderer standing on his neck, using him for no purpose but amusement. It is his pleasure to serve her whim, and it frustrates Overlord that he can't place a title on her position. There has to be a word to illustrate her place over him.

He's referred to Megatron as 'Lord'. All Hail Megatron, Lord of the Decepticons. Overlord has mocked it so many times the sarcasm is ingrained into his mind, and habitual disrespect for authority leaves its bitter taste in his mouth. Lordship over him is a concrete position, but Arcee isn't a military leader or the gladiator who forced defeat down his throat. Overlord left the Decepticons because he isn't a tool. Megatron wanted a weapon deployed only on command.

Arcee can't be his Lord. She hasn't ever fought Overlord, much less defeated him. She wouldn't deign to turn her single-minded focus aside enough to attempt it, and they both know she wouldn't win if she tried. He thinks she knows, anyway. The unknown outcome of that fight shivers excitement through his spark whenever she turns an energon-stained look on him, optics not entirely lucid, but it probably won't ever come to a fight. It takes two to fight, after all, and she's attacked him many times. He has prostrated himself to her abuse every time. Fighting back doesn't occur to him under the slice of silver blades and that madness-laced look. He revels in the cuts and punches inflicted on him. It isn't the excitement of a fight that surges to meet her fist as it descends.

She's the victor by default. He hands her the crown. His fuel pump races every time she bothers taking him as the prize. Megatron forged Overlord into a weapon, programmed an Archille's virus into his mind and implanted him with a killswitch, but Arcee barely acknowledges anything outside Jhiaxus. A single glance conquers Overlord more thoroughly than his repeated defeat at Megatron's hands.

Gaining her attention is a thrilling accomplishment, and to be used by her is a privilege. Overlord bows to Arcee as her toy, kneeling of his own will and a weakness totally of his own making. She doesn't need to use him for his violence and makes no attempt to contain him. He can leave anytime. He doesn't, but the option is there, and the freedom waiting at his back acts like a physical pressure urging him to cling to her orders. He spent millions of years resenting orders from Megatron. Now he hungers for every word spoken to him.

Everything inside him has twisted into a contradiction, and Overlord wryly wonders if this is what wild creatures feel when they're first domesticated. It is a poisoned love that brings him to heel. He doesn't have a clue how he should feel about that.

He has nothing but time to think about it.

It takes more effort than he likes to leave. Even once he's made the decision to remove himself from the cavern, he places his decision at her feet for approval. "I'm leaving," he says, abrupt to cover how it feels like an excuse, loud to bring her optics back from their manic focus on Jhiaxus.

She barely glances his way. "Then leave."

He pours confidence into his voice as if he can make her see him for once, like he's not making excuses in an attempt to gain her blessing on his departure. "A Decepticon wrote to me, asking for intervention. I'm inclined to do so." It's not a lie, although he phrases it to sound important. Gorelock's letter has been sitting in his inbox for months, and he doesn't know or care if the imprisoned mech is still alive. Overlord doesn't even know his own rank remains among the Decepticons. It doesn't matter. Either Gorelock can be freed from Styx on his authority, or Overlord can raze the prison to the ground. Either way, it's an excuse to - get away. Do something. Put his head back on straight.

But Arcee gives him a disinterested look as if wondering why he's annoying her with these details. "So?" She shakes her head and walks away, back to Jhiaxus. Jhiaxus, once again, holds her attention.

Overlord's lost her.

The heat in Overlord's gut screws into a cold clinch. In his memory files, old thoughts stir. Megatron, defeating him. Megatron, obsessing over Optimus Prime. Megatron, with Starscream at one shoulder and Soundwave behind the other, optics fixed on victory without anything to spare for one fan-turned-gladiator he defeated over and over until Overlord was tossed aside to be turned into a weapon. There's no passion there. It's one-sided interest. Megatron looked at Overlord in cool calculation, figuring out how to lock him down, restrain him, and turn him on the Autobots for use in the wider war. Their matches were impersonal, dismissive, continually triumphant without anything to ever finish it to Overlord's satisfaction, until the itch became a burn became an obsession, and yet Megatron felt nothing in return.

His time in this cavern has brought home a humbling lesson: Megatron doesn't care. One weapon out of an entire arsenal isn't enough to make the Lord of the Decepticons drop everything to chase him down.

Here in the cavern, it didn't matter. Overlord found someone to break him by making him want to be broken, but now she's turned away. The heat that soothed his obsession with Megatron suddenly cools. Not just cools, but chills into an empty hollow inside his spark, a void ready to fill with spited rage.

He takes one step forward, full lips twisting.

Arcee dips her fingers into Jhiaxus' open body, scooping her hand through the collected fluids, and her optics raise to meet his. Overlord stops dead. His optics reflect the liquid gleam carried toward him, and the choking, seething emotion compacting his spark tenses into something just as binding, held twice as fast.

"Down," she orders, pointing with her free hand. It doesn't occur to her what he thought when she turned away, or that he might have left, or even that he might not obey her command. The possibilities don't matter in her skewed version of the world, this slice of reality in the cavern.

He drops to his knees immediately.

Cooling energon smears on him. Fingers trail over his neck, poking between the cables and fondling the tubes. They each receive a mark, a wide slash of fuel across his throat like Arcee cuts him with her very touch, and he won't mind if she does. He bends his head forward to open the back of his neck to her claim, and she takes it. When she runs out of Jhiaxus' energon, she bends to dig her teeth into the first tube that comes to hand. It's a major fuel line. Energon gushes out, pouring down his chest, and she coats her fingers in it to keep painting.

Light-headed as he bleeds, Overlord groans. His head rolls back, and his mouth opens, vox box clicking uselessly as words spin through his mind. There has to be a word for her, a correct title, something to tell her what she is to him.

Her hand closes, strangling his main air ventilation shaft to hold his voice in her palm. Overlord writhes, silenced.

He is hers. This is what it feels like to be a possession. This is what Megatron couldn't grasp, and what Overlord surrenders to her. If he pulls, she will let go, but he'll never pull if he can follow her . She has her personal war to attend to, but the collar around his neck is a symbol. A slick, fragile symbol that gives him a tangible mark of ownership.

The collar painted around his neck sinks into him further than the mere energon does. The energon dries to crusted, dull pink, her color now tagging him as hers as well. In his mind, it glistens fresh. She owns him. She owns him. It's acknowledgment he's craved since the day he onlined, given to him at long last, and adoration blooms in the hollow spot in his spark, melting him to the core.

Jhiaxus whimpers as she strolls back to him. Overlord stays on his knees for a while longer, head rolled back and dimmed optics steady on the torture as it resumes. Abandonment is a word he refuses to recognize applied to Megatron. It's no longer even a risk, here and now.

When he leaves, it feels like tearing himself apart. Despite that, a relaxed pleasure fills him. Casually terrorizing the populace of Gorlam Prime - why the frag do they insist on calling their planet-sized science experiment Cybertron? Cybertron is Cybertron, and this place isn't it - keeps him amused between the cavern and the spaceport. The travel agent on duty at the desk is more than happy to book him on the next outbound flight, just to get him off-planet. Overlord is in such a good mood he doesn't even destroy the place as he leaves.

The mood lasts all the way to Styx. "On whose authority? Mine," he purrs, looming over the warden. "And if you have a problem with that, I suggest you take it up with Lord Megatron. Or perhaps I could show you my, hmm, credentials." He examines one of his gunhatches pointedly.

The warden gulps audibly. "Th-that's not necessary! I mean, of course I'm not arguing with you, Overlord, sir. I'd like to help you, really, I would, but the K-Class reformatting production line is already operational, and all prisoners have been stripped in preparation for reformatting!" Hands upturned in a helpless gesture, he stares at the crusted gore slashed across Overlord's throat. The Warrior Elite is massive, huge planes of otherwise polished armor standing head and shoulders taller than him, and the mess of dried fluids stands out in stark contrast. "I-I'm sorry, sir, but the prisoner Gorelock has been processed. There's nothing I can do about - "

Whatever else he says dies in a crunch. A voiceless, dying scream bubbles from his throat for a moment longer.

The warden's body falls to the floor, and Overlord calmly nudges it aside with his foot. The next fool in the chain of command is nailed with a slightly less patient look than the one Overlord originally started out using. His good mood is dented, if only a bit. "Now, let's try again, shall we? I'm here to free a former commander who happened to help me. His name is Gorelock - "

"Yessir," the warden's second-in-command babbles, saluting three times in a row. "Gorelock! Prisoner! You want him loose, gotcha! I'll see to it personally!" Saluting again, he turns on his heel to sprint from the office, half the staff in the building hurrying to follow on the double as orders are transmitted.

Well, then. Much better service. Overlord settles in the warden's chair. Propping his feet up on the dead mech's body, he leans back and taps his fingertips on the flaking reminder of pride, belonging, and his -

"Blast," he mutters, squinting one optic. The word continues to evade him. Lord? No. Lady? Ehhh, too similar. Goddess? Too pompous. He likes the idea of spending his days prostrate at her feet, worshiping her metal with his mouth, but it's not the right word. Ruler? Leader? She doesn't technically command him, so it sounds strange to his audios.

At some point, the staffers scramble back into the office with prisoners. Lots and lots of prisoners. Overlord blinks out of his thoughts into an office stuffed full of altmode-stripped mechs in stasis cuffs. They stare at him in dull terror. The only difference between their fear and their captors' right now is the layers of resignation to the inevitable. Styx has given them abuse and starvation already. Overlord's presence is just one more form of execution.

Annoyed, he shoos them out of the room into an assembly area where they fit better. Without armor or distinctive color schemes, the crowd blends into one general sameness, and Overlord frowns as he studies them. It's not as though he ever saw Gorelock out of armor. "You couldn't just bring him to me?" he complains to the nervous new warden.

"We, uh, no?" The mech cringes, expecting death. "They're the first K-Class unit. Our technicians expect most of them to explode during the process, since we're still getting the kinks out, so we didn't really keep track of which one's which. Er. Sorry?"

The prisoners turn their hopeless stares on the warden.

Overlord doesn't care if the whole prison goes up in flames, but he intends to do what he came here for. "Gorelock! Miserable scrapheaps, move," he mutters, shoving aside the cringing prisoners in his way. "Which one of you is Gorelock? You wrote for my help, I'm here, now get out here!"

The prisoners blink up at him. He's here to help someone?

Five hands shoot up.

"I'm Gorelock!"

"No, I'm Gorelock!"

"Me! Overlord, sir, it's me!"

Overlord rubs his optics with thumb and forefinger. Right. He probably had that coming. "Free them all," he says softly behind his hand, and the entire area goes silent. Prisoners clamoring for his attention suddenly don't even dare breathe.

"What?" the new warden asks. It's almost on reflex. "But - you can't do that!"

Goodbye, new warden. Hello, third-in-command. Don't mind the mangled corpse that was a person a moment ago.

Nobody dares breathe, this time.

"Free them all!" the newly promoted warden squeaks, shaking visibly. "Yessir! Okay! If you'll j-just step this way, you can sign a few things and they'll be released, no problem!"

By the time Overlord leaves Styx, his hand hurts from signing release orders. He's executed four more staffers that got on his nerves. He's also been profusely thanked by more people than ever before in his long and checkered career of indiscriminate massacres. It's a little weird.

To be honest, he doesn't know whether or not Gorelock has been freed. The right name was in among the files he signed, and that's good enough for him. Even while stuck behind a desk signing a stack of release orders, his mind went on to the next step, and it has everything to do with the fading pink stain around his neck. It's wearing off his neck cables the longer he's away. He has to return to Gorlam Prime before it's gone.

A message from Decepticon High Command pings into his inbox as he departs Styx, and Overlord ignores it. It could be a reprimand demoting him. It could be a promotion. It could be a message directly from Megatron. Whatever it is doesn't matter. He boards the first freighter headed the right direction, recharging among bales of prefabricated building girders, and he doesn't dream of defeating Megatron. He dreams of vicious pink, pain, and a smile like a bared blade, and the message in his inbox remains unopened.

Shopping in the spaceport delays him for a short while. Legitimately buying things doesn't usually occur to him, but he's looking for specific items, things he might want to return for later. The method to his madness is that he's not shopping for what catches his optic. He's looking for what she might like.

What he might like as well. "Can I help you?" the sales drone asks brightly, zooming over to where Overlord lingers. "The choke collars are best for the working breeds, and we stock utilitarian brands, but if you like the decorative harnesses, we do supply them in a range of colors and sizes. The matching leashes are one aisle over!" It beams at him in preprogrammed cheer. "Do you raise turbohounds? This store offers a loyalty card for frequent buyers."

Embarrassment isn't an emotion Overlord is familiar with. Despite that, he avoids looking directly at the drone as he signs up for the card, and he contemplates burning the store to the ground rather than facing the drone over a tangle of leashes, collars, and harnesses he tosses on the counter to purchase. The larger sizes, he hopes, can be cobbled together to fit him. He doesn't tell the drone that.

He does ask if the store does special orders.

The other stops on his list lead to some fun items Arcee might enjoy using on Jhiaxus, along with a handful of treats he hasn't seen on Cybertron since the middle of the war. Gorlam Prime isn't Cybertron, but the population is mechanical enough to like many of the same things. Energon can be rendered into a multitude of flavors and textures, and he buys samples to bring back to his…mistress.

It's a foreign word in his mouth. No connotations are attached. It's a unique word, fitting his definition of her, and the tensed pet inside him tries it on like a harness.

It fits.

Pleased, he strides into the carnage of the cavern, and it's as though he never left. Jhiaxus' head turns toward him, empty optic sockets blind but audios intact enough to hear his footsteps, and Overlord smiles as rasped pleas come from the mangled mech.

"Please…stop her…save me…please…anything…"

Arcee looks up from peeling the plating off Jhiaxus' hand to squint at the bulky Decepticon across the cave. "You're back."

She - she actually stopped torturing Jhiaxus to acknowledge him! Overlord stumbles in surprise, optics wide. For a moment, his mouth works in speechless shock. He has no words. She noticed his return!

Long waves of anticipation winch his cables to a shaking tension, and his spark burns in his chest. She's looking at him. At him, not the pathetic wreck she hates, but at him!

Overlord doesn't remember rushing to her side, but suddenly he's there, splashing to his knees in the puddle of spilt fluids. "Mistress," he says, throwing the word out and aching for her approval.

Faint puzzlement crosses her optics, soon dismissed in favor of the whimpering mech under her. "He thought you were going to save him."

"Never." It's never even occurred to him. "He's yours. Like I am," he adds, daring to lean forward into her peripheral vision, crossing a line into interference. Not demanding her attention, but hoping for it as fervently as Jhiaxus begs for help.

And Arcee's head turns fractionally, the puzzlement returning. What is he doing?

Into that split second of interest, Overlord thrusts his offering. "Perhaps a short break will give him hope. I personally find crushing hope to hurt more than physically tearing someone apart. Why don't you let him get his hopes up by leaving him alone for a while? Imagine his reaction when you resume destroying him." Irritation turns into consideration, the madness in her optics tempered by thought. He slows, his voice falling to his most persuasive tone. "Join me for light refreshments. I brought you a selection of the locals' finest to enjoy."

"Hmm."

Overlord risks laying a hand very lightly on her leg, bending down so he looks up at his fuel-spattered mistress with all the earnest appeal of the prisoners he freed. "Please."

She graces him with a quick look that turns into a second glance. A wave of charge ripples over his armor when a small, pink-drenched hand takes him by the chin, tipping his head out of the way. Watching her out of the corner of his optics, he shudders at the expression on her face as she studies his neck.

He doesn't know what that expression means. His internal systems want to melt the longer it stays on her face. He tries to burn it into his memory files.

He's not sure what combination of pretty words and gruesome promises eventually coaxes her to kick Jhiaxus aside, but his tanks are screwed into clenched balls of tension in his gut by the time she huffs and stabs her victim through both shoulders with her swords. Miffed, she stomps away from the shrieking mech now pinned to the floor. Overlord's hands feel like they're shaking as he follows. When he holds out the first of the treats, however, his hands are steady.

She snatches it from him and downs it. Her free hand is in a tight fist at her side, and he watches it, sitting back on his heels with the next energon sample held in his lap. The fingers work restlessly. His fans hitch as he pictures them wrapped around slick internal parts, making him scream for her.

"Let me," he says softly, pushing off his heels to kneel up, almost optic to optic with her even on his knees. A sharp look cuts toward him, but it only wakes a shiver of pleasant heat under his armor. Bringing the tiny cube of flavored fuel up, he holds his vents shut as he presses it to her lips.

Optics narrow, she scowls.

His knees scrape on the ground, shuffling closer, and he ducks down nuzzle his face against her shoulder. "Let me," he repeats, desire rough and unformed in his throat. The faded collar around his neck is liquid fire around his neck. His spark pulses wildly in his chest, and his fingers press the cube, asking for this indulgence. This vast favor. Let him do this. Grant him the immense pleasure of pampering her.

Overlord's armor rattles violently as her lips part. Face hidden against her armor, he gently pushes the cube into her mouth, fingers just barely brushing over her lips behind it. An exasperated puff of air heats them as Arcee shifts her weight to her other leg, fist opening to prop on her hip. Fingers drum. Overlord doesn't look at them, but he turns his head, nudging into her throat to feel her impatiently chew and swallow.

Once her mouth is clear, she snaps, "Well?"

He jolts, blissful obedience mingling with dismay as he fumbles for the next treat. "Ah - " He has to draw back enough to see the box, and the treat's lifted for her approval.

She glares at him. "Give me that."

"Ah, I." He blinks.

His spark throbs on the edge of pain, and it's the best thing he's ever felt. The unopened message in his inbox is forgotten. Megatron no longer matters. This is why he came back to a cavern on a backwater planet. Fighting a war he doesn't care about isn't nearly as important as waiting here for the slightest chance to serve, to dote on her, and he won't leave again.

"…yes, mistress."

Chin up, she opens her mouth, and he worshipfully feeds her.

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