#can you imagine trying to rest your face against its chassis. not only is it entirely solid and doesnt give but also it is grimy and greasy

[epitheta]

Scrybe cuddle pile (with you in the middle)

god. i wish.

[wolveria]

Blue Moon - Chapter 1

Pairing: Android werewolf!Nines x Reader

Summary: It was Halloween night when you stumbled across the android that looked more monster than machine. Damaged and alone, you didn't have the heart to leave him behind.

You'd always had a weakness for strays.

Prompt: Inspired by art!

Warnings: Rated E, eventual smut, Zlatko experimentation, monster romance

AO3

You pulled your coat closer in a useless attempt to ward off the cold. Winter had decided to make an appearance early this year as snow laid on the ground, and you lamented over the fact you’d chosen to walk home instead of take a taxi. The coffee shop was only a couple blocks away from your apartment, but it felt like a cross country trek as your breath billowed out of your mouth.

The wind rustled through the trees and you shuddered again. The park you’d taken a shortcut through was a good size, and you could no longer see the streetlights that signaled civilization was near.

Why had you decided to do this, again? And on Halloween night? Not that you believed in the paranormal or anything—

You dropped your nearly-empty coffee cup, the last drops spilled and forgotten on the footpath. A pair of glowing blue eyes stared out at you from the underbrush around the base of a tree.

Before you could think to scream, a low whine came from the bush. You placed your hand over your heart and let out a long breath, smiling faintly. It was just a dog, that was all. And the light from the full moon must be making its eyes glow like that. Yes, that’s all it was.

“It’s all right,” you said, offering your hand in what you hoped was a friendly manner, praying it didn’t have rabies. “Come here, boy.”

There was a low thudding noise accompanied by the brush moving. A sad, fluffy tail thumping against the ground.

You gave a sympathetic “awwww” and lightly patted your thighs, hoping to coax it out of its hiding place.

“You poor thing. Are you cold? I bet you’re hungry. Come here, sweetie, let’s get you some… food…”

Your voice trailed off as the glowing pair of blue eyes rose, higher and higher—definitely not at canine level—before it stepped out of the shadows.

It was huge, or at least seemed that way when you’d been expecting a large dog at most. Standing on two legs, it reached over six feet easily, not including the wolfish ears that stuck up from its head. With blue-black fur, sharp nails and a hint of teeth peeking out from its lips, you would have never guessed it was an android if not for the spinning yellow ring at its temple.

The android was also completely naked, not a stitch of clothing to be seen, and you quickly snapped your eyes back up to its face, face flushing at the sheer size of what you’d seen.

It—he took a hesitant step toward you, and if you’d had any of your senses left, you would have run. Android or not, you were fairly certain you were about to be murdered and eaten, and not necessarily in that order.

But your joints were locked, your limbs frozen, and all you could do was watch as the android bent down and wrapped a clawed hand carefully around your discarded coffee cup. Stepping directly in front of you, he slowly held the cup out, his ears laid flat as if afraid you were going to whack him with a rolled up newspaper.

You glanced from face to his outstretched hand. That was when you caught sight of the gash across his ribcage, the exposed internal circuits glittering in the dark.

You’d always had a soft spot for injured animals. And while he might not be an animal, per se, it was close enough that you gently took the coffee cup and gave him a soft thank you.

His ears perked and his tail wagged hopefully as he retracted his hand. He continued the slow wag of his tail as he stared at you expectantly. It took you a minute to realize what he was waiting for. He was, after all, an android, and a canine-like one at that.

He was waiting for orders.

“Are you lost?” you asked. Was he even programmed to talk? “Where do you live? Do you need help getting back home?”

You almost asked who his owner was, but it didn’t feel right. You suspected you’d made the right decision when the question had him folding his ears back, his floofy tail dipping towards the ground.

“Uh, that’s okay.” You tried you best at a soothing smile. “The police station isn’t far from here. I can take you there—“

It was precisely the wrong thing to say; his LED went red and he winced as if you’d slapped him. You weren’t at all prepared for him to open his mouth, and a raspy, rough voice to come out.

“No. Please. Not there.”

You gawked up at him, hardly believing what you’d heard with your own ears, but the android could definitely talk. As strange as he looked, he was capable of communicating his wants.

…and you’d heard rumors about the kinds of androids that wanted.

Carefully you glanced around, but no one else had come across the two of you. It was lucky it was Halloween when most people would be trick-or-treating or handing out candy; the last thing you needed was to be caught in the middle of the night, in a park, with a strange, naked android.

“Okay. No police station.” You rubbed at your arms as you glanced him over, immediately regretting it as your sight dipped below his belly button. Looking away resolutely, you offered, “Why don’t you come back to my place, just for tonight? Get you some clothes and then… we can have a talk.”

Finally, you had said the right thing. His ears went all perky and his tail wagged its fastest yet, but most of all, his LED went blue for the first time. It was the same shade as his glowing eyes.

You gulped. This was such a fucking bad idea.

“I would like that,” he said, voice all soft and gentle. And just like that, you were a goner. No turning back now.

“Come on,” you sighed, stepping around him to continue in the direction of your apartment. It was a bit silly still hanging onto the empty coffee cup, but all you could focus on was the near-silent footfalls behind you as you tried to come up with the best way to sneak a naked android werewolf into your apartment.

***

As it turned out, dealing with the android was a lot less surreal when he had clothes on, even if it was a pair of sweatpants and a tight sweater that barely fit him. You’d have to order some clothes for him tomorrow

If he even wanted to hang around that long. You were under no illusion that if he wanted to leave, you wouldn’t be able to stop him, but for now he seemed content to stay.

The android was currently standing in your living room, fussing with the hem of the sweater that barely covered his waistline. You covered your mouth with your fingers in a poor attempt to hide a smile. Now that you were confident he wasn’t going to eat you, the android was actually quite adorable. You’d even cut out a hole in the back of the pants for him to pull his tail through.

You plopped down onto the couch and padded the cushion next to you. It had been a long time since you’d had a houseguest, and it said a lot about your state of loneliness that you were excited over having a strange android for company.

Said android stared at you for a moment before perching, quite primly, at the other end of the couch. The fact he had to move his tail out of the way before he sat down ruined the composed image he was trying to convey.

He really was very odd, and not just because of all the wolfy bits. This android seemed very much alive, a fact that should have had you picking up the phone to call the authorities. But… you didn’t.

Instead, you bombarded him with questions. What was his name? Where did he come from? Was he a custom model? How had he been injured? The wound looked ghastly, but he hardly noticed it. You made a mental note to add Thirium and android chassis repair sealant to the shopping list. You’d never owned an android before, but you’d always been fascinated with them and knew the basics of what they needed.

“RK900,” was his answer to your first question. He skipped over to the third. “I am… I was a prototype created by CyberLife to assist law enforcement. It would be safer for you if I said nothing further.”

Unable to imagine an android like this working with the police, you guessed he’d looked different, before. More like a standard android instead of one so altered he was nearly unrecognizable.

“Okay, I won’t pry,” you said, amassing all your willpower not to assault him with more questions, the biggest one being why do you look like something out of my deepest, darkest, most shameful wetdream? Yes, you were definitely not venturing into that territory.

Your next question was caught on a yawn, and you looked away as your face grew warm. He was just an android, why were you being so self-conscious about every little thing you did?

It could have been the way he’d watched you ever since you’d stumbled across him in the bushes: laser-like focus that never broke. It didn’t help that the sclera of his eyes were black, making the blue stand out even more.

Also, he didn’t blink. Like, ever.

“I’m gonna head to bed.” You thumbed over your shoulder toward the hallway. “Will you be all right out here? Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” he said. “And no.”

You were picking up on his mannerisms very quickly. He over-enunciated and spoke with perfect grammar. It was in direct contrast to the way his sharp nails toyed with the sweater, or the way his ears would swivel at sounds you barely noticed. At some points in the conversation, he would tilt his head at you in a way that was so dog-like, you had to keep fighting down the smiles. You’d definitely never met an android like this one before, even if he had looked perfectly human.

“I will be fine,” the RK900 added when you continued to stare. “I will rest and repair. I have neglected to enter stasis mode for… quite some time now.”

His eyes dropped to the carpet, demeanor evasive and uncomfortable. It took everything you had not to reach out and pet him on the head.

“I shouldn’t intrude in your personal space. I will be gone in the morning.”

And then you did reach out, placing your hand on his arm. He was solid and surprisingly warm under the fabric of the sweater.

He stared at your hand for a moment before slowly lifting his head to meet your eye. His expression was so… sad. You had no doubt it was authentic, and that you were right about what he was.

“Please, you don’t have to go.” Your voice was soft, ensuring it was a suggestion and not a command. “You’re more than welcome to stay. I want to help you. Will you let me do that?”

The ring on his temple was a solid yellow and you nearly pulled your hand back, but then it went blue and he gave a small nod. You sighed with relief and gave him a gentle pat before letting him go.

“Thank you.” You rose to your feet, stretching to get the kinks out of your shoulders. It was stressful bringing a wayward android home. “I’m just down the hall if you need me. See you in the morning.”

Before you made it to the hallway, you paused and half-turned.

“Do you have a name?”

He blinked up at your question.

“I mean, I know RK900 is your model number, but… you have a name, don’t you?”

His ears drooped. You were learning they were a better indicator of his thoughts than the color of his LED.

“No. CyberLife never gave me one.”

Of course they wouldn’t, you thought, not the first time you’d unhappy with the way androids were treated. CyberLife was by far the worst. Why would they care about any of their merchandise?

“Well, maybe you can come up with one.” You hoped he understood the things you weren’t saying aloud, that you understood what he really was beneath the strange exterior.

His ears perked up and his expression softened.

“That… would be nice.”

Before you could say anything to embarrass yourself, or worse, run over to him and give him a hug, you excused yourself to get ready for bed. Already your mind was going through a checklist of all the things you’d need to care for an android in the long-run, and that was being optimistic. The RK900 could still change his mind. There was still so much you didn’t know.

It wasn’t until you shut off the lights and stared at the ceiling that the implications of your actions truly hit you. You’d seen the news reports, read the independent websites that couldn’t be suppressed by CyberLife. There were androids out there, said to be “lethally malfunctioning,” that were disobeying and turning on their humans.

One of the most common signs to watch out for was mimicry of human emotions. Anger, was the main one, but there was also fear. And that was something you’d seen a lot of tonight shining out of the RK900’s eyes.

You weren’t just harboring an android that looked like a werewolf.

You were sheltering a deviant.

[the-odd-job]

Up in Flames chapter 3 - Leave It All Behind (Ashes Part 2)

Warnings: Major Character Death, Chose Not to Use Category: Other Fandom: Transformers Relationships: Megatron/Sunstreaker, Megatron/Sideswipe, Sideswipe & Sunstreaker Characters: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Megatron, Soundwave, Ravage, Hook, Optimus Additional Tags: Dubcon, Mechpreg, Sticky Words: 3140

( Previous )

::Sunstreaker: presence requested at comm. room.::

Soundwave’s voice floated through his comm. line after he’d accepted the request for the link, and really he wasn’t… He just wasn’t going to slagging question how Soundwave knew his frequency when Sunstreaker very much had never shared it with him.

Soundwave knew way too many damn things, that much was for sure.

::I have no fragging idea where that is,:: Sunstreaker grumbled back.

They hadn’t even had the slagging time to find Hook’s repair bay yet. His valve cover was absolutely not attached to his person yet, and Sunstreaker didn’t much fancy walking around without it.

Especially since he was still likely to drip a trail wherever he went.

Primus could damn all of this right now, please.

::Soundwave: will send Ravage to show the way.::

Right. ::Well, thank you, but would he mind showing the way to Hook’s medbay first?::

Soundwave paused for a second, and Sunstreaker wasn’t sure what the frag he did during that pause, but where he’d half expected the answer to be ‘no, now hurry up’, Soundwave instead responded with, ::Ravage: will show the way to medical bay.::

And then Soundwave cut the call.

...Alright. So. Apparently this was a thing now. Getting shown around by a damn cat.  

He shared a glance with Sideswipe and they finished what they were doing, namely, touching up their paint jobs and finishes. Aside from his missing valve cover and some dents, he was looking just like he hadn’t gotten railed by the almighty Megatron the night before.

They knew what they were doing on the frame care front, was all.

Limits to everything, though. Dinged and bent valve covers went beyond their ability to touch up. Sunstreaker had stored his in his subspace for now. Maybe it could be used, maybe it couldn’t be used, but if nothing else, it was scrap metal. That was always useful to someone.

They didn’t have to wait long after that before there was a ping at their door, and… It wasn’t opened immediately after. Instead the person at the other side waited politely until Sideswipe opened the door and looked down.

None other than Ravage was sitting in front of their door, meeting Sideswipe’s gaze with that thoroughly neutral look that the panther didn’t seem capable of getting rid of. “You needed to be shown to the medical bay, yes? If you’d please follow me.”

Polite. But the brothers filed out after the cat and followed along as Ravage trotted down the hall. A few ramps up, more hallways that they did their best to keep track of, and they came to the end of a short hallway ending in large double doors. They opened on their approach, and on the other side was indeed a repair bay.

“Hook, if you would!” Ravage called out as they entered. The twins had a look around. It was as gloomy as the rest of the ship, but beyond that it looked reasonably well equipped. And clean. Sunstreaker wasn’t sure why he’d expected the Decepticon medbay to be grimy, but it wasn’t.

Hook appeared around a corner and had one up down look at them.

“What do you need?” he asked when nothing immediately jumped out at him.

“Megatron kindly ripped off my valve cover,” Sunstreaker responded, crossing his arms across his chassis. “I’d like it reattached.”

To his credit, Hook didn’t much react, just gestured to one of the berths and went to get some whatever tools. Sunstreaker took the invitation and got on the berth, spreading his legs at Hook’s approach.

Hook didn’t give him any damn warning before he started poking around. Sunstreaker twitched when he felt the Constructicon’s digits pawing at the edges of his valve—probably checking the connectors and the integrity of the surrounding plating. “There’s some bending,” came Hook’s verdict. “I’ll need to fix that too. Do you still have the cover?”

Sunstreaker nodded and reached into his subspace, fetching the piece of metal and handing it to the medic. Hook turned it around in his servos before nodding. “I can still use this. A moment and I’ll have this fixed.” With that, he wandered over to a workbench and began the process of straightening the cover back to its original shape.

It took… Way longer than he would’ve expected from Ratchet, but Sunstreaker tried to wait patiently. Sideswipe fidgeted restlessly and tried to strike up a conversation with Ravage a few times, but the cassette turned out to not be incredibly chatty. Sideswipe had very little success and eventually just slouched against the wall next to the doors.

Finally, though, Hook came back over to him and busied himself between his legs again. His touch was sure in the way of someone who knew what they were doing, but slow like one’s who wanted to make sure they exercised the utmost care in what they did.

Ratchet was sure, but he was also swift. Not so much it would have reduced the quality of his work, he was better than that, but he didn’t waste time.

Sunstreaker wasn’t sure if Hook was wasting time either, but pits, he could’ve still worked a little faster. 

But even if it took twice the time, his cover was eventually snapped neatly in place and Sunstreaker felt significantly more… Covered. “That should do it,” Hook said with a satisfied nod. “Try to retract it next time, maybe?”

Sunstreaker grunted. “No promises. Thanks.”

“Yeah yeah,” and Hook left, disappearing back around the corner he’d come from. No ‘now get out of my medbay’, surprisingly.

Or maybe it was just Ratchet who was grouchy enough to chase you out with a wrench.

Sideswipe shrugged at him, so Sunstreaker went ahead and jumped off the berth. Ravage nodded at the both of them before he led the way out of the medbay.

“Why does Soundwave want us in the comm. room, anyway?” Sideswipe asked as they followed the cassette.

Ravage glanced at him before answering. “Optimus Prime wishes to speak with you.”

Sunstreaker growled. “What the slag does he want?”

“He hasn’t said, but I expect it concerns the matter of your defection.”

Yeah, that’s about what they’d figure too. It wasn’t really a stretch to imagine there were things that had left unsaid when they’d left the Autobots, as sudden and unplanned as that had been. Or whatever else regarding the whole situation.

There was a heck of a lot to unpack. Take your fragging pick of what it could be. 

“Has he just been… Waiting? Like, Soundwave asked us to come to the comm. room first, the whole medbay detour wasn’t much planned,” Sideswipe asked. 

He wasn’t sure if Ravage’s face could even form the expression, but it almost looked like he smiled. “Lord Megatron informed him of the reason for your delay, fear not.”

Wait.

Wait wait wait. 

“Are you telling me,” Sunstreaker hissed, “that Megatron fucking told Optimus he took off my valve cover and I needed to have it reattached?”

“Yes.” And that was definitely amusement in Ravage’s voice, smile or no smile.

Sideswipe burst out laughing, but Sunstreaker couldn’t resist the urge to facepalm. Right, now the fragging Prime of all people knew Megatron played it rough—like that couldn’t be expected anyway. Prime didn’t much like it rough, though. 

He could only imagine Optimus’ goddamn concern at news like those. And it did look a little bad. Usually when both parties agreed to interface, the covers came off voluntarily. 

He was going to hear about this still, wasn’t he?

They came to the doors of the comm. room before he had the chance to say anything more on the topic. Soundwave was standing on one side of the room, there but out of the way. Megatron stood in front of the large main screen with his arms clasped behind his back, glancing their way as they entered.

And on the screen itself was Optimus, the Ark’s orange interior as his backdrop. 

“Ah, he’s here,” Megatron intoned upon seeing them, gesturing for them to approach. Sunstreaker scowled; Sideswipe still felt a bit giggly—but they walked over to the screen until they were within Optimus’ view. “As you can see, in perfect health.”

“No thanks to you,” Sunstreaker snarled with a glare at the warlord.

Optimus cleared his vocalizer. “Twins,” he said in greeting. “Are you alright?” And there came the concern, right out the gate. Optimus’ optics dropped a little lower, although it looked like he was rather looking at their ruined insignias, rather than anything further down.

Sunstreaker rolled his optics, but Sideswipe threw his arm around his shoulders and grinned at Optimus. “Just dandy~ Hook’s totally decent at the repair stuff,” he laughed, just to see Optimus’ look of distress at the reminder of what the slag Sunstreaker had needed fixed. Sunstreaker barely resisted the urge to have his palm meet his face again.

At least Sideswipe was having fun.

“What do you want?” Sunstreaker asked with that out of the way, crossing his arms and frowning at the screen—and very aware Megatron was standing at his shoulder, overlooking the whole conversation. It didn’t matter to Sunstreaker, but he wondered if it was giving Optimus a hard time. 

Maybe he wouldn’t expect Sunstreaker would dare speak the truth with the tyrant present. To pits with that! He wasn’t a fragging coward and he was not here to please Megatron. Damn mech could think what he wanted of anything Sunstreaker said, it was no paint off his back. 

...Up until the moment it might be. He was far from putting violent retaliation past Megatron. 

Not enough of a deterrent, though. Optimus would get the fragging truth, no matter what that might be.

“I wanted to ask how you were doing…” Optimus started, which was fair enough coming from him–

–But he continued, “...and remind you that you’re always welcome among the Autobots, twins.”

Sideswipe removed his arm from his shoulders and straightened, the both of them more than a little surprised at the declaration.

And suspicious over it. “Seriously?” Sunstreaker asked, his disbelief ringing loud and clear in his voice. “After I fragged Megatron? And got knocked up by him? And kept the sparkling? And lied about what the frag was going on?”

“I won’t pretend those aren’t serious, even condemnable infractions,” Optimus said, sounding like he was choosing his words very carefully, “but I don’t want you to think that joining the Decepticons is your only choice in this situation.”

Oh, so that was it? Optimus just didn’t want them on the Decepticon side? Why? Because he just happened to hate the Decepticons? Because he didn’t want the twins fighting against him?

Sunstreaker scowled. “And would the other Autobots agree? I’m pretty sure Cliffjumper and Red Alert are glad to see us gone, and they’re not the only ones.”

“They can be reminded,” Optimus rumbled, and where that would’ve sounded all kinds of threatening coming from someone like Megatron, he knew what Optimus’ ‘reminders’ were like.

Peaceful talks in his office with some light berating, that’s what. 

It never worked on anyone except those far too eager to please. “You never managed to shut Cliffjumper and Red up even before we did anything to earn their distrust,” Sunstreaker growled. Well, hadn’t done anything beyond being too violent, too Decepticon.

They weren’t Decepticons, never were, still weren’t, but that didn’t mean their conduct wasn’t more becoming of the purple faction. “What reason do I have to trust you’d have any more luck now that my disloyalty has been proven?”

“You’d have the command on your side,” Optimus said. Aside from Red Alert? And as if that was enough if the rank and file were busy hating on them. 

There was one more issue here, too.

“Even if I wanted to come back—which I don’t—you really think he’d let me?” Sunstreaker asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at Megatron. The tyrant had made it abundantly clear he wasn’t going to let Sunstreaker just leave while he was carrying the damn mech’s sparkling, even if Optimus wasn’t necessarily aware of the extent of Megatron’s determination. 

But the Prime should be able to guess, just based on the manner in which Megatron had fetched him—just based on the warlord’s general personality. Optimus was more familiar with it than most on the Autobot side.

“I’m willing to force the issue,” came Optimus’ answer, his optics flicking to Megatron. Sunstreaker could hear the tyrant’s engine rev quietly, although Megatron stayed silent otherwise and didn’t interrupt their conversation.

Force the issue, huh? Megatron would assuredly do the same, and then what? Sunstreaker would be stuck with two factions fighting over him? If the Autobots even agreed to fight for him.

Somehow that thought didn’t much appeal to him. Oh, it would be entertaining no doubt, but it wouldn’t necessarily end so mighty well for him.

“I don’t need you to,” Sunstreaker said, revving his own engine loud enough that it was sure to carry to Optimus. “I’m perfectly fine staying right here.”

Optimus looked disbelieving, prompting Sunstreaker to roll his optics again. Of course the Prime wouldn’t fragging believe him, especially after that valve cover incident. Someone like Optimus wouldn’t understand how the slag someone could be fine with suffering through things like that—mech was fragging convinced Sunstreaker needed saving from the evil, evil warlord named Megatron, wasn’t he?

He needed no saving. Frag, he’d save himself if it came down to it. He didn’t need one Prime’s help for it.

Megatron’s servo landed on his shoulder, heavy—a claim for Optimus to see, if there ever was one. For as long as he carrying the mech’s offspring, Megatron had a vested interest in him, and with how possessive over the sparklet he was behaving, Sunstreaker wasn’t sure there was anything anyone could do to stand in Megatron’s way if someone tried to remove it from his sphere of influence. His sparkling, how many times had the tyrant repeated that?

Was the weight of the servo approving too, though? Sunstreaker had just denied he wanted to return to the Autobots, exactly as Megatron wanted.

But he didn’t do this for Megatron, he did this for himself, and for the lack of a future he had in the Autobots.

Nothing the Prime could say would change how his troops felt, and no doubt his troops would feel Sunstreaker was nothing but a certified traitor. And the sparkling, too. Its future would be guaranteed with Megatron, at least in some way—but the Autobots? Would they treat it as anything more than the goddamn creation of their enemy? Prejudiced against it from the beginning?

No, the Autobots weren’t an option. 

Optimus looked like he was about to say something, but Sideswipe pulsed a question at him that Sunstreaker proceeded to voice before the Prime could get a word in. “Would you have pulled me from battles if you’d known I was carrying?” as Megatron claimed?

The Prime hesitated for a second or two before nodding. “Yes. I would not risk the life of one who had no say in it.”

Did he know Sunstreaker found that answer displeasing? Well, he did after Sunstreaker narrowed his optics at him. Megatron’s servo tightened on his plating—no doubt the tyrant wanted him to remember he had called the truth on this matter. 

So Optimus wouldn’t have let him fight, even though it was his fragging frame and his fragging life—shouldn’t he have a say in what he did with it, sparkling or no sparkling?

The Prime wasn’t so different from Megatron. They were both interested in controlling him now that he was carrying—just for slightly different reasons. 

But both of their reasons revolved around the sparklet. His goddamn sparklet.

Everyone seemed very ready to brush that little detail under the rug. He was the carrier. Shouldn’t he have some fragging say?

“Cool. So, recap, I’m not coming back, I’m perfectly okay with staying right here... Was that all, then?” Sunstreaker asked, snapping his words—aggravated.

Optimus sighed and his shoulders slumped just so. “Will I see you on the battlefield?” he asked still.

Sunstreaker hesitated for a moment before he shook his helm. “No. I’m not fighting for him.”

He couldn’t tell if Optimus was relieved, although he would’ve guessed yes. It would be so like the Prime. “Then that is all,” Optimus nodded. Sunstreaker could just feel Megatron shifting, and Sideswipe glanced up at him—Megatron nodded to Soundwave, and the screen blinked to black, cutting the call rather abruptly.

“That went well,” Megatron commented after. It didn’t sound like sarcasm, and really, what reason for sarcasm was there? Hadn’t Sunstreaker said everything Megatron had wanted to hear? Not because he gave a damn about what the tyrant wanted, but… For now, and through some force, their wills aligned.

He had no options but to stay with the Decepticons or try to get back to the Autobots’ ‘protection’, and it was easy to choose between those two. So… What Megatron wanted.

“Why did you let him call?” Sunstreaker asked, looking up at the warlord.

Megatron met his optics. “He needed to hear for himself that you’re not leaving.”

Sunstreaker scoffed. “You think he’ll believe me with you hovering there the whole time? He’ll think I’m scared of you or something, and just saying what you’re pressuring me to say.”

“If he didn’t believe you and tries something, he will regret it,” Megatron growled at that, rather viciously. His grip on his shoulder tightened again—possessive, almost.

Sunstreaker shivered from helm to pede. Oh, there were promises of so many bad things in that gesture.

He didn’t find himself minding any of them very much.

“Are you scared of me, though?” Megatron asked, a bit out of the blue. Sunstreaker cocked an optical ridge at him.

“Of course not. Why would I be?” Was he stupidly fearless, considering who the slag he was asking that from? Maybe, but it was the truth. 

Megatron’s rumble sounded amused, but he didn’t try to give him reasons. “So you meant what you said about not wanting to return to the Autobots?”

“Of course,” Sunstreaker repeated, shrugging his free shoulder. “They’d treat me as an outcast after the slag I did, even more than they already did. And what of the sparkling? I doubt they’d view it as an innocent bystander to this whole spectacle, considering who the frag its sire is.”

“Precisely,” Megatron snarled. The corner of Sunstreaker’s mouth twitched up into a half smile. 

“Basically, we have nothing to go back to,” Sideswipe said, shrugging too—and nowhere else to go, although he didn’t say that much. Everyone knew it was the state of things, anyway. “So you’re stuck with us for now.”

“And I’ll make you regret it,” Sunstreaker promised.

Megatron laughed. “I look forward to that.”

( Next )

[comeback-tomy-home]

The Appointment

pairing: doctor Seokjin x patient reader

genre: smut, PWP, doctor!Jin, medical fetish, medical AU

word count: 6.1k

warnings: this isnt gonna be for everyone! if you like medical fetish stuff then read on :) includes: fingering, cmnf, nipple stimulation, use of sex toys (?), clit clamp, breast exam, squirting (?), slight edging, a dash of angst

You had been putting it off for weeks, convincing yourself alternately that you were too busy for the appointment and that you didn’t really need it anyway -you were pretty healthy, weren’t you? But after a long, boring day at work saw you arrive home to another nagging letter glaring up at you accusingly from the doormat,you resigned yourself to the fact that, sooner or later, you’d have to go to the hospital and have your state-recommended check-up. Ignoring the sinking feeling in your stomach,you glanced over the letter and sat down at the kitchen table. For some reason, these things always made you nervous; rationally,you knew there was nothing to worry about, that it was a perfectly ordinary procedure that everyone had to endure once they reached a certain age. But you couldn’t shake the feeling that it would somehow be embarrassing, that something would go wrong, that it would hurt...you tapped the number from the letter into your phone keypad and held it to your ear.

After an agonisingly long time (was it a long time? You couldn’t tell; it took all your willpower not to cancel the call as the line rang and rang), a female voice with a soft accent answered. ‘Good afternoon, Parsons Clinic. How can I help?’ You swallowed. ‘Hello?’ ‘H-hi, sorry. I’d like to make an appointment?’ Your voice rose into a high-pitched squeak and you cursed your nerves. It was just a phone call! ‘That’s fine. Surname and date of birth, please?’ You gave your details, hearing the clattering of a keyboard on the other end. You imagined the woman consulting a database of hundreds of patients, clicking through to find your record and scanning your notes, which probably said the medical equivalent of ‘nervous flier’. She had probably had training to deal with problem patients. Your palms started to sweat. ‘Y/N? I’ve got your record here, and I can see it’s your first appointment. We’ll need to make it for ninety minutes. I can offer you an slot…’ She paused, clearly scanning her electronic schedule. ‘Tomorrow at ten AM.’ You dropped the phone. Hastily wiping your hands on your jeans and scrabbling to pick it up again, you heard her say, ‘Hello?’ ‘Sorry, sorry, I’m still here. That’s a bit short-notice…’ ‘The next appointment is in two months’ time, I’m afraid.’ You were silent. Could you wait another two months?  ‘Miss Y/L/N?’ ‘That’s - that’s fine.’ Your voice was shaking and you could feel your pulse racing. ‘Alright. We’ll see you tomorrow morning then.’

You stuttered a hasty ‘thanks’ and cut the call off, then dropped the phone on the table and rested your head in your hands. It was only a routine appointment. It would be fine. Ninety minutes wasn’t that long. After a few deep breaths,you tapped out a message to your boss:

Hi, fyi I won’t be in tomorrow. Got an appointment. Will work from home PM.

Your phone beeped almost straight away - Seth was annoyingly efficient. You worked for a start-up tech business, one of these trendy places that didn’t believe in business attire and gave its employees free smoothies at lunchtime, so you knew that you could easily skive off for the day as long as you kept up with your emails.

Fine by me. See ya Monday, take care x

Inwardly sighing at the over-familiar sign-off, you put the radio on Channel Six and started to get the ingredients ready for dinner, distracting yourself by throwing an onion in the air and catching it again. You had just started experimenting with backspin when your phone buzzed, the vibration amplified by the wooden table - you jumped violently and the onion rolled away under the dresser. 

Your appointment at Parsons Clinic has been confirmed for 10.00 tomorrow with Dr Kim Seokjin.

Shit. There it was. You couldn’t forget about it now. You scooped up the onion, paused for a few deep breaths and started to make dinner, telling yourself that everything would be fine tomorrow. Why shouldn’t it be? The doctor would ask you some questions, poke around a bit, and send you on your way. 

You tried to forget about it for the rest of the evening; after gulping down your dinner, you answered a few emails, then played a couple of levels of Spade Champion when you could no longer focus on work. Your mind kept wandering back into worries about the next morning, even when you curled up on the sofa with a sitcom and over-full glass of wine. Eventually you turned in, having resigned yourself to a night of broken sleep, punctuated by fretful, half-waking dreams about the appointment. Lying in the darkness, you probed your memories for some event which would give you a reason to be quite so nervous, but as far as you could remember, every visit to hospital (few and far between, fortunately), every dentist trip, every visit to the doctor had been utterly mundane. And, you reminded myself for the hundredth time, tomorrow’s appointment would be exactly the same.

The clinic was spacious and spotlessly clean, wedged between a pharmacist on one side and a dry cleaner on the other, the only new building on the bustling, grubby high street; you were half an hour early. After delaying as long as possible at home (loading the dishwasher, making the bed, scrolling through Twitter), you were unable to sit around any longer and had walked the twenty minutes into town, hoping the fresh air would clear your head. Of course, this had been unsuccessful and you felt your pulse accelerate as the glass doors slid open in front of you. You took a deep breath, stepped inside and were immediately blasted by a gust from the air conditioner directly overhead. The reception desk faced the door and you stumbled towards it, noting as you did so that the woman sitting behind it must have been the one you spoke to on the phone; she was sitting down, wearing a headset over her long, curly hair. The sparkling glass tiles behind her made her look like a mermaid, you thought dimly as she smiled at you, still talking to the person at the other end of the line, then returned to tapping at her keyboard. You stood there awkwardly while she ended the call and turned to you.

‘Sorry about that. How can I help?’ ‘I, er…’ you swallowed. You knew you were blushing and prayed she wouldn’t notice. You tried again. ‘I have an appointment. At ten.’ ‘Is it Miss Y/L/N?’  You nodded, unable to say anything else. She smiled at you again and directed you to the hard-looking grey sofa pushed against one wall, clearly meant to look sleek and professional, its matching coffee table scattered with glossy magazines.  ‘Help yourself to water. I’ll let you know when Doctor Kim is ready.’  You sat on the sofa for twenty minutes or so, trying to distract yourself by flicking through the vapid fashion articles. You chanced upon an article about women in tech and quickly became engrossed - so engrossed that you didn’t immediately hear her say your name ten minutes later. ‘Miss Y/N? Doctor Kim will see you now. Exam Room four, please, just down the hall and on the right.’ She pointed to the door to the left of her desk and smiled at you again. ‘Thanks,’ you croaked, your throat dry. You stumbled through the door and down the hall, took a moment to compose yourself a little, and knocked on the second door on the right. There was a pause, then a muffled voice said, ‘Enter.’

Pushing open the door, you slipped inside and glanced around. The room was far larger than you were expecting, roughly square, with a curtain drawn across the middle, and (in your opinion) far too warm. The doctor was sitting behind a desk angled slightly towards the door, scribbling on a notepad. He didn’t look up, but gestured to the chair in front of the desk and said, in a mildly accented voice, ‘Sit down please, Miss Y/L/N.’

The doctor had smooth golden skin and shiny black hair badly in need of a trim, thick eyebrows and a generous mouth - he was strikingly, breathtakingly handsome, and all the breath in your lungs evaporated. Brilliant. The most handsome man I’ve ever seen is my doctor. Just fantastic. He was also quite a lot younger than you had expected. You watched him writing his illegible notes and tried to breathe normally, clenching your fists in your lap. 

He finally looked up at you and said, ‘Sorry about that. Just finishing up some notes. Now, this is your first check-up, isn’t it?’ You nodded shyly.  ‘No need to be nervous, Miss Y/L/N. This is a routine sexual health appointment. First, a few questions.’ He pulled a clipboard towards him. Upside down, you could read your first and last name at the top of the page.  ‘I have some of your details here… Do you smoke?’ You shook your head.  ‘Good. How many units do you drink per week?’ you cleared your throat to buy a couple of seconds, then said quietly, ‘Ten?’ Really, you had no idea. Who really counts these things, anyway? ‘Are you sexually active?’ asked the doctor, his deep brown eyes on the form in front of him. ‘Now and then,’ you joked feebly, but the doctor said nothing and ticked a box on the form. That bombed. Note to self: no more jokes.

Doctor Kim asked you several more questions - whether you were on the pill, whether you used condoms, if you had experienced any problems during sex - and jotted down your answers on the form.  ‘So - your answers give me no cause for concern, but I need to make sure everything is normal with a physical exam.’

As he was saying this, he got up from the chair and drew back the curtain crossing the room. In the middle of the room was something that looked like a cross between a dentist’s chair and a sun lounger, but clearly very high tech; the chassis was cream-coloured with pale pink padding and concealed, you were sure, some sort of machinery - there was no other reason it would be so self-consciously over-designed. The bed was attached to a large monitor, which was currently blank, along with some wires and other bits of medical equipment you didn’t recognise. A small trolley was slotted squarely underneath the monitor.

‘I’ll ask you to get undressed and lie down on the bed, then I’ll talk you through each step. Nothing to worry about, but do let me know if you need to stop at any point.’  He smiled briefly and continued, ‘Just step behind the curtain so you can get undressed, then. Alright?’

You nodded, dumbstruck. Trying to ignore the trembling in your legs,you walked over to the bed and drew the curtain behind you with a smooth whizzing noise. You undressed as quickly as you could, as if you would lose your nerve otherwise, balled up your clothes and dropped them onto a nearby chair. Thank fuck I shaved yesterday, you thought, then immediately berated yourself for thinking it. He’s a doctor. He doesn’t care if I have hairy legs.

You called, ‘Ready!’, trying to sound confident and unfazed. But you were uncomfortably aware of the fact that you were stark naked and about to let a complete stranger see everything. ‘Lie down on the bed and put your feet in the stirrups, please. Let me know when you’re ready,’ the doctor said from the other side of the curtain.

You awkwardly clambered up onto the bed, which was set at waist-height and very stable - it didn’t shake at all when you shuffled around to position yourself as the doctor had asked. The bed was slightly tilted so that the head was higher than the foot, with padded arm rests and a curved cushion to support the neck of the occupant. It was actually very comfortable. You took a deep breath, noting the trolley of instruments discreetly placed to the side, and told the doctor you were ready to start. 

Doctor Kim drew back the curtain all the way and snapped on a pair of gloves from a box on the trolley, not looking at you as he said, ‘Now, Miss Y/L/N, this is a routine check, so I’ll explain the procedure first and then we’ll get started. Is that alright?’ You nodded, eyes fixed on the ceiling. ‘The first part of the check is on your whole body, so that means I’ll be using a couple of the instruments on this trolley to look at your nervous reaction, your receptiveness, so naturally that means I’ll be focusing more on some areas than others.’ Nervous reaction is right, you thought, your heart hammering. ‘Afterwards, we need to make sure everything is working as it should, so I’ll perform a few simple tests on your genital area. That might mean some internal examination. Does that all sound okay?’ You nodded again, unable to speak.  ‘Just relax, Miss Y/L/N,’ said the doctor with an encouraging nod. Damn it, you thought. Clearly your nerves were showing again.

Doctor Kim stood next to the bed and pulled the trolley closer to him, slinging a stethoscope around his neck. Instantly your whole body stiffened as it struck you that everything was exposed. He would see the scars, the moles - everything! You took another deep, steadying breath. He was a doctor. He had probably seen hundreds of bodies, and after all, it was his job. 

Your skin rose in goosebumps all over, the tiny hairs on your arms lifting and you were very aware of your nipples stiffening a little in response. You were glad the room was heated. He’s a doctor. This is his job. you thought loudly. ‘Ready?’ He asked.  ‘Ready,’ you tried to speak normally but your voice came out as a whisper. Turning to you, Doctor Kim kept his eyes fixed on your face, straight-faced and almost stern. He was extremely professional, and his cool demeanour did help soothe your nerves somewhat. He was an expert, doing the job he had done for countless people before you, having been trained for years and years - you were just another patient in his office. 

‘Right, then - I’ll just check your vital signs. This will be a bit cold...’ He stood over you, and having inserted the stethoscope into his ears he pressed it against different points on your chest, directing you to breathe in...and out, and in...and out again. You couldn’t help but notice your breasts moving slightly with the rhythm of your breathing, and tried to ignore the goosebumps rising on your skin again when the cold metal of the stethoscope touched you. 

‘Very good. No obstructions in your lungs, heart sounds healthy’, he said, putting the stethoscope down on the trolley and fixing a small, blue plastic clip to your finger. ‘That will check your blood oxygen levels, heart rate and blood pressure.’ He was looking at the screen again, reading the apparently comprehensible numbers, pulsing lines and rapidly flickering letters - you sneaked a look at the trolley. A row of shiny steel instruments were laid neatly in a line, along with a box of gloves, a plastic bottle with a pump handle and something sleek and black. You hadn’t the faintest idea what any of them were.

‘Blood oxygen is at 98%, heart rate and blood pressure are slightly up, but that’s to be expected.’ He had turned back to you and you quickly looked up. He had seen you looking at the trolley, and you both knew it - he smiled wryly. ‘So far, so good - next part of the check-up, now. I’ll leave this on for the time being, just to keep an eye…’ He picked up a tool that looked something like a rake, with long, thin tines bent into right angles and finished with rounded tips. ‘This is to check that the nerves in the skin are all working properly. Let me know if it’s painful or uncomfortable.’ You gripped the arm rests involuntarily. Painful?  ‘Try to relax, please. Close your eyes if that helps.’  Forcing yourself to breathe deeply, you unclenched your muscles. You hadn’t even realised you had been so tense. Relax, you told yourself firmly, and closed your eyes. 

Doctor Kim touched the little rake to your forearm, just above your wrist, and moved it slowly up your arm with delicate precision. It tickled, but not in the usual way - you didn’t feel any urge to squeak and squirm - it was like tiny fingertips on your skin. The doctor moved the rake to your other arm and repeated the action, saying,

‘How does that feel?’ he asked, drawing the rake over your chest, above your breasts, and stomach in a well-rehearsed pattern of straight and curved lines. You tried hard not to twitch when the rake was dragged over your thighs.

‘Fine,’ you muttered. It was actually quite tolerable, now that you had (mostly) got over how naked you were; lying there, on the comfortable bed, in a warm, dim room...Why was I so worried? You asked yourself. This isn’t that bad. In fact, you realised with dawning horror, being stroked all over was very nice indeed - so nice that you had started to enjoy it rather more than you should. The doctor repeated the pattern of lines on your body and you fought to keep your face impassive, but couldn’t help the occasional twitch or pause in your deliberately even breathing. Up the inside of your right arm, over the sensitive skin of your wrists, over your shoulder and down your chest, circling your nipple, a row of straight lines over your ribs and stomach, then tracing over your hips and all the way down your thighs. It’s a check-up. I’m in a clinic having a routine medical procedure, you told yourself again. But you wanted him to keep stroking you with the little rake. Your skin seemed to grow more sensitive with the passing moments, and finally you knew you would have to say something to the doctor - but how could you tell him? On the one hand, you wanted him to continue moving the little rake all over you - maybe focusing a little more on the upper thighs, you thought as another shiver raced through you - but on the other, you couldn’t humiliate yourself by getting turned on in front of him.

Your internal struggle seemed to have shown on your face, as Doctor Kim stopped moving the rake and said, his tone neutral: ‘Arousal is normal, Miss Y/N. In fact, it tells me that your nervous reaction for this section of the check-up is healthy, so we can move on to the next part.’ How did he know? You thought desperately, keeping your eyes clamped shut. How did he know I’m turned on? And then you realised that the clip on your finger must have picked up how much faster your heart was beating now and shown up on the screen next to the bed.  ‘I just didn’t…’ you started to say. ‘Not to worry. Now, shall we move on?’ He said briskly, replacing the rake on the trolley with a faint clatter. You nodded silently, wondering how many people had laid on this bed before you, fighting their growing arousal, not sure what to do or say.  ‘Very good,’ he said, ‘The next thing is to check the reaction to stimulation of your erogenous zones.’  My…? Your eyes snapped open. ‘I’ll combine it with a breast exam. Two birds with one stone, see? Do you perform checks on yourself at home?’ You stared at the ceiling and heard yourself saying, as if from a long way away, ‘In the shower, sometimes. Not very often.’ ‘Well, that’s better than nothing. Arms straight above your head, please.’

You were expecting the same rough pulling and squeezing you had had from the practice nurse that time you thought you had a lump; she had kneaded you like wet dough, leaving you sore for days. Doctor Kim, in contrast, was extremely gentle, employing the same practiced delicacy he had used before; he cupped your right breast in one hand, pressing firmly but gently on the soft tissue under the skin. His hands were warm, even through the latex gloves, and you felt your nipples swelling in response as he moved to examine your left side. Your foot twitched slightly as a finger brushed the very tip of one stiff, pink peak.

‘Seems okay…’ he muttered, ‘Nothing to worry about here. I see you’ve started to respond already. You can put your arms back on the rests, now.’ You didn’t say anything. Were you supposed to be aroused? He said it was normal, healthy even… Maybe you were overthinking it. That would be about right; closing your eyes again and settling back on the bed, you decided to stop fighting and just let it happen. The doctor had probably seen it all by now. Still holding your breast, he moved his thumb gently and deliberately over your nipple and you barely stopped myself gasping as a wave of pleasure rushed through you, starting where he had touched you and finishing in the valley between your legs. ‘How does that feel?’ he asked, now rolling it slowly between his fingertips. ‘F-fine,’ you stammered, not opening your eyes. It was more than fine. Being touched there always turned you on, and the familiar warmth was kindling. Let it happen, you reminded yourself.

The doctor moved his hand to your other breast and flicked his thumb over your other nipple in the same firm, practiced motion, over and over again until you couldn’t help but shift a little on the bed, your breathing shallower. You knew you were starting to get wet and pressed your thighs together. Doctor Kim stopped abruptly and said. ‘Your sexual response to this type of stimulation appears to be normal. I need to ensure that your level of arousal doesn’t drop for the remainder of the check-up.’ There was a clatter of something like beads on the trolley and you opened your eyes to see him picking up an object that looked like two pairs of large, rubber-tipped tweezers attached to two ends of a steel chain. ‘Why?’ you said, eyeing the tool nervously. ‘It’s very important that the results of the next tests are accurate. A drop in arousal could mean that I get an incorrect reading from the rate monitor.’ That doesn’t explain much. What is he going to do? ‘I’m going to attach these to your nipples,’ he held the tweezer-like clamps up so you could see them, ‘they’re clamps which are automatically calibrated to stimulate the nipple depending on readings from the rate monitor. Let me know if it becomes uncomfortable.’ What on earth does that mean? you thought, slightly alarmed. Those clamps looked scary. Is it going to hurt?

You tensed up again, gripping the arm rests hard as the doctor stood over you, opening one clamp wide and holding your breast firmly with the other hand. He lowered the clamp onto your nipple so that it was directly between the two rubber-tipped arms, then you felt a sharp, almost painful squeeze which diminished as the doctor adjusted the clamp. ‘How’s that?’ he said, fixing the clamp to your other nipple.  ‘Fine, thanks,’ you almost gasped again at the pressure.  ‘I’m going to turn them on now - ready?’ He pressed a button on the remote control, and instantly the clamps started vibrating slightly, almost imperceptibly, in a slow, regular pulsing pattern. It wasn’t like the cheap vibrators you had used in the past, overpowered and noisy, but low, deep and utterly silent. Your pussy tightened at the now-constant pleasure; you were definitely wet.

‘Feet in the stirrups, please,’ said Doctor Kim, walking to the foot of the bed with the trolley and pressing another button on the remote. You opened your eyes in surprise as in one smooth movement, the stirrups swung away from each other and bent like concertinas, and the bed curved to raise your hips, exposing your pink slit as your legs were spread wide, knees bent. You had to force yourself not to try and press your thighs together to hide how turned on you were, reminding yourself that this was the point of the check-up. Doctor Kim positioned himself between the stirrups, pulling the trolley closer. ‘Good, it looks like your reaction is normal,’ the doctor said, gently pulling back your lips in turn with one fingertip, making you twitch again as the clamps continued to pulse on your nipples. ‘Just a quick external exam now, Miss Y/N…’ 

You felt him place one gloved hand on your mound, fingers spreading your outer lips apart, and start to probe your slit gently with the other. He ran the tip of one finger slowly up the length, starting beneath the slick entrance and finishing just below your clit - you tried not to sigh in frustration. You wanted him to touch you there, to tease and press and flick his fingertip over it, and the clamps on your nipples pulsed more quickly.

‘I’m going to put another clamp over your clitoris,’ he said, and picked something small up from the tray. He held it up - it looked like an overgrown bobby pin. ‘It won’t hurt. It’s simply to optimise sensitivity by trapping blood in the erectile tissue.’

Despite his reassurance, you were fully expecting it to hurt and held your breath. With one hand, he pushed back your lips and with the other, he swiftly opened the clamp and slid it over your clit, releasing it so that your clit was held securely between the arms. It took two seconds. You breathed out in relief; it didn’t hurt at all, just ensured a constant squeezing pressure that wasn’t at all unpleasant. 

‘I’ll leave that on there for the time being, just to make sure your clitoris gets fully erect,’ he said. ‘Your vulva appears to be in perfect shape, but I need to do an internal exam as well. I’m going to put my fingers inside you - is that alright?’ 

Your pussy tightened again at his words and you nodded silently, allowing the rush of anticipation to dissipate. Opening your eyes,you felt calm, your brain somehow tranquilised - you were no longer worrying about what the doctor was doing or what he thought as he pumped something clear and viscous onto his fingers from the bottle on the trolley. Your body didn’t tense up when he spread the cold gel over the lower part of your slit and began to press gently against your opening, slick from arousal and lubricant. The pressure on your clit seemed to increase as the doctor slid what felt like two fingers easily into you, and the vibrations from the clamps came faster and stronger. 

‘Try to breathe normally, Miss Y/L/N,’ Doctor Kim said, looking at you with his dark brown eyes. ‘I’m going to put pressure on your G-spot now. It might feel a little strange.’ You hadn’t realised how uneven your breathing had become and forced yourself to take slow, regular breaths as the doctor pushed his fingers deeper into you. His fingers were strong and well-practised, probing and then curving upwards to press firmly against the upper wall, and you couldn’t help but let out a small groan as he began to rub his fingers rhythmically against it. He was careful not to touch the clamp but you could feel how swollen your clit had become from the pressure inside you and the regular pulsing of the clamps on your nipples, and you had to force yourself not to buck your hips in time with the doctor’s fingers. It was a delicious tease, and you wanted him to keep going, to flex his fingers inside you until you couldn’t take it any more.

‘How does that feel? Not uncomfortable?’ You didn’t trust yourself to speak without gasping, so you shook your head and suddenly he withdrew his fingers with a soft sucking noise. Is that the end? You thought desperately, and was surprised to find that you were disappointed. Is he finished? Doctor Kim had his back to you, busy with something on the trolley, and didn’t speak for a few seconds. ‘Is - is there…?’ you stuttered. ‘Not finished yet, I’m afraid. Nearly there, now - just a couple more things before I can let you go. Lift your hips, please.’  You obeyed, waves of goosebumps washing over you as your stomach jolted. What now? The doctor deftly slid a square of fabric underneath you, saying, ‘Just a precaution against the bed getting wet. Your natural lubrication is rather effusive.’ The doctor turned back to the trolley.

Never had any complaints, you thought, but he was right - several of your lovers had commented in the past on how wet you got during sex. One had even made you squirt, and as the memory suddenly flooded your brain, the clamps tightened on your nipples, your clit starting to throb. The increase in stimulation made you draw your breath in sharply and the doctor looked around at you.  ‘Everything alright?’ he asked dispassionately. You grunted a shaky affirmation and the doctor turned back to you, holding what was unmistakably a long, curved, matte black dildo with a complicated-looking port on the other end. Your eyes must have widened in surprise, because he glanced down at it and smiled slightly. ‘It’s an automated speculum. We’ve just started using these in the clinic, and I’m pleased to say that they’re very effective. They measure the contractions of your Kegel muscles by ensuring constant stimulation to the vagina and G spot. It can also be used to take an internal ultrasound and a cell sample,’ he said, clearly proud of his new toy. 

‘So, I just plug it in...here,’ There was a click as the doctor screwed the base into a port on the bed, ‘and then insert this end…relax, please,’ Doctor Kim spread your lips gently, applying a little more gel on the tip of the speculum with the other hand. A quiet whirring sound and a series of ticking noises, then the rounded end of the speculum slid smoothly inside you, making your muscles involuntarily clench around it as you gasped in earnest. It was thicker than you had expected, and your pussy already felt pleasurably stretched after the doctor’s fingers. The doctor fiddled with the remote control, muttering something about automatic calibration, and the speculum shifted inside you, vibrating slightly - a very odd sensation while it was happening, but after a few seconds it stopped moving and you could feel a bump on its surface pressing against your G spot. It felt so good to have the smooth shaft buried deep inside your pussy that you began to shift your hips backwards and forwards a little, hoping the doctor wouldn’t notice as you started to ride it, craving more stimulation.

The doctor did, of course, notice. He chuckled and said, ‘There’s no need for that, Miss Y/L/N. Lie still please - like I said, the speculum is automated.’ As if to prove a point, he pressed a button on the remote and the speculum instantly started sliding deeper inside you, achingly slowly. ‘See?’, he said as it began to pull out again, the bump grinding against your upper wall as it did so. ‘I’m going to take the clamp off now. The final check is on your orgasm - strength, duration, bodily response, et cetera.’ 

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out except a quiet groan as the machine continued to pump inside you. You almost felt close already, as if it would take only a few seconds for the doctor to bring you to climax once he started touching your clit. With one swift movement, the doctor released the clamp and the throbbing in your clit lessened to a pulse, thought it felt just as swollen as before. You wanted desperately to come, the clamps on your nipples almost too tight, now sending shocks of pleasure through your body with every slow thrust of the speculum inside you. You felt a trickle of something warm dripping down your slit and onto the fabric covering the bed. 

The doctor said nothing, but with a little more of the lubricant gel on his finger, he tapped your clit lightly, once. Immediately your body twitched and your pussy clenched - the clamp had made it so much more sensitive than you had expected. ‘Very good. Now, I’m going to stimulate your clitoris, but try not to orgasm too quickly. The speculum still needs to collect some data - I’ll tell you when it’s finished.’ You nodded to show you understood, then gripped the arm rests in anticipation. With one finger, the doctor began to stroke your clit slowly, starting just underneath it and moving upwards over the swollen flesh to finish on the very tip, repeating the motion over and over. Your breath was ragged and sharp, stifling little moans of pleasure as the speculum continued to thrust into you. Your mind seemed frozen, all thoughts and feelings gone, focused solely on the ache that was now building deep inside you and the doctor’s fingertip sliding over your clit. 

The speculum started thrusting into you faster, still grinding firmly against your G spot as it pushed deep inside you in time with the doctor’s movements; you knew it wouldn’t be long now. Your head was tilted back, hair hanging over the back of the chair, your mouth open and eyes closed, panting groans issuing uncontrollably from your throat as the machine fucked you. It felt so good to have the speculum stretching your tight hole that you almost forgot the doctor’s instruction not to come too fast, feeling the ache growing in your chest and cunt with the passing moments. You concentrated hard on the sensation of being pounded, goosebumps all over your body and the clamps on your nipples sending shocks through you, trying not to let yourself go yet. You wanted so desperately to come and you knew you wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer as the doctor’s fingertip circled your clit, making your pussy twitch. 

There was a sudden click and a musical tone, and you looked down towards the doctor standing between your legs - his movements slowed, but did not stop as he glanced up from your slit to the monitor.  ‘It’s finished, Miss Y/L/N - you can come now,’ he said quietly, the corner of his mouth lifting as he took in your flushed face.

You let your head fall back onto the padding of the chair and tried to say something, but only a gasping moan came out as the speculum started pounding you, fucking you faster and harder than before, ramming deep inside you. The doctor rubbed your clit firmly, holding back your lips with a hand on your mound and you writhed on the bed, bucking your hips with the motion of the speculum, riding it hard and feeling your orgasm building inside you, your inhibitions gone, shaking and groaning and gasping. Your body tensed, your head lifted off the table and the wave of pure, burning, rushing pleasure suddenly broke over you - you were coming harder than you ever had and cried out uncontrollably, every spasm of your cunt ripping through you as you lost yourself in ecstasy. 

Several minutes later, once you had recovered enough to sit up, shakily drink a cup of water and pull on your clothes,you dazedly sat back in front of the doctor at his desk.

‘So, Miss Y/L/N, how are you feeling?’ Doctor Kim asked, professional as ever. You had no idea what you said in response, and zoned out so completely that the next thing you remember was your phone beeping in the taxi home (you weren’t up to walking, after the morning you’d had), with a text which read:

Thank you for attending your appointment at Parsons Clinic. We look forward to seeing you next year.

a/n: phew. this is an adaptation of a smut i wrote a couple of years ago for my ex, and i gotta say that jin slotted in nicely as the gorgeous, professional gynecologist of my filthiest dreams. as always, thank you so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! feedback is welcomed~

[the-energon-hole]

TFP Megatron, Knock Out and Predaking (in bipedal mode) watching horror movies on the Nemesis with their human s/o and getting amused, but also loving it, because she hugs their chassis tightly when tension builds up then squeaks and buries her face into their chassis when scary parts happen, please?

((A/N - Yeah, this is late… Happy New Year? Ah, sorry. Anyway, everyone is Bipedal except Predaking because I thought it fit his personality more. Enjoy!))

Megaton

(Movie Picked- Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

-He had no idea why he always agreed to such asinine activities- which only made his processor swirl with thoughts that maybe you had a bit more power over him that he would like to admit. He doesn’t want to say allowed how wrapped around your finger he truly is, because truth be told, of you snapped your fingers and told him to jump he wouldn’t even bother to ask how high because he would already know how high you wanted him to go. He worried that you were going to be the death of him and his empire- or what makes him shutter worse, that he could be the death of you. You didn’t seem to feel the same as he did in this aspect, you were fearless and secure in the ideals that he would always protect you from harm- which he would so long as he has a spark pulsing in his chest and thoughts racing in his processor. You looked up at him with those sparkly wide eyes of yours as you said his name and asked if he was ready to watch the “movie”- you were a big fan of media productions created by “Hollywood” and he had no idea why. Cybertronians didn’t really have anything like the copious amounts of media that humans seemed to possess, they had much more humble forms of entertainment that mostly consisted of historic storytellers and musicians. There wasn’t a big scope of entertainment for the masses beyond gladiator fights and binge drinking high grade until one passes out.

-Cybertronian entertainment seemed to be rather… destructive when comparing it to simple human fictional books and television shows, but it made sense when he thought about it logically, he couldn’t imagine you in body armor fighting to the near death while crowds of people sat in stands cheering and screaming to see some bloody action. You told him some cultures did indeed have displays like that, but it was a little different for humans than it was Cybertronians, after all ge has lost quite a few limbs in his gladiatorial days- it was nothing to replace his disconnected frame parts, but humans did not have that same luxury as once their parts were gone they were gone. That could be why you were so terribly squeamish about watching Starscream lose his arm or the idea of battles where he has lost nearly ever appendage on his frame- you always heaved as if you were going to eject the contents of your stomach and flinched as if someone was about to hit you. It was endearing to see you so concerned about his frame and form, and it was always quirky that no matter how many times he explained it to you that it wasn’t the same as a human losing an appendage, you still reacted the same way each and every time. You were so human, and he supposes that was what he liked about you so much, your endless empathy and your alien and foreign reactions to all of his simple and normal stories about his days on Cybertron.

-You were kind of a talker during a movie, not a loud talker or anything that would be deemed rude or such, but you liked to give your own commentary and opinions when necessary or when it was funny. The best part about this habit was that it was one Megatron picked up on pretty quickly, and you two would make silly quips about the scenarios the protagonists have found themselves in. He noticed your jokes and comments began to dwindle as the thrill of the horror of the movie began to set in as the main antagonist begins torturing one of the side characters. Megatron was grossly intrigued as he watched the antagonist begin to brutalize the side character in a gory mess, he heard you suck in air through your teeth as you turned around and placed your face against his chest plate from where you sat comfortably on his upper leg- you didn’t like scenes like this so you basically whined at him to let you know when it was done. If it were up to him the scene would never be over as there was something comforting and primal about how you would run to him if you were scared or uncomfortable. He cooed at you in a comforting way by letting hid engines rumble in a low hum as you clung to him while you physically winced at the sounds of the movie still playing behind you. Despite knowing it was fiction, despite knowing that no harm was happening to the humans on the screen, and despite always being so calm under pressure you still somehow let this kind of thing get to you. Honestly? He wouldn’t a damn thing about you- including this squeamish reaction, it showed him how passionate and loving you really were, and as he ran one of his claws through your slightly tousled hair he felt his spark tug in your direction because it fully believed you were the only being in this whole damn universe good enough for him.

Knockout

(Movie Picked- The Human Centipede)

-You didn’t even need to ask him twice! Knockout is fascinated by this aspect of human culture- the creation of fictional stories for entertainment wasn’t uncommon for their species, bit the fictitious elements were only ever implemented in old war stories and boring cautionary tales of always behaving like a good little Cybertronian Drone that The Council expected one to be. He loved how outlandish Fantasy stories can be and it filled this strange niche he never knew he had to watch action films where the protagonist runs around shooting guns and doing flips- sure he lives that kind of life being a Cybertronian Decepticon Rebel, but for humans there was more at stake than there was for him. Cybertronians were a very resilient species consisting of a mixture of biological and mechanical components- they could lose a limb, they could have their armor stripped off, they can even live with severe processor damage. Humans? Not so much. They get a big physical injury and that tends to be the end all be all for them, they were just creatures made up of biological organic tissues that were resilient against other organic things like bacteria and viruses, but when it came to physical injury that was rough for them. That’s what made movies so good, he likes watching different exaggerated scenarios of ways humans can potentially get hurt. That, and well, he likes spending time with you doing things that involved nothing but loafing around and relaxing. 

-Sure, you both worked together, but it was work that is what took up most of your time together, it left little room for conversation beyond what was the task at the servo that needed to be completed. You were a treasure to work with in his optics as you never complained about the morality of his experiments or his deeds, unless of course he was trying to be cheeky with you and get a rise out of you. Primus, the way your little cheeks get red and puffy when he says something risque or when he would say something to get you angry as your eyebrows furrowed in disgust as you would scoff at him and call him all kinds of bad names. He remembers once asking about taking other people’s body parts and putting them on another person’s body like he had seen in some odd human movies, to which you got huffy with him and told him that was already a thing called a transplant and that it is actually a tool that has helped save thousands of lives, to which he replied with a wonderful smirk that what if he made a four armed six legged human. You sneered at the idea and told him that is weird stuff only creepy mad doctors do in Science Fiction films and over the top nonsensical Medical Dramas- and besides, you informed him a human like that wouldn’t live very long as you weren’t designed to have so many outer limbs, that person would suffer from necrosis in a matter of days as there wasn’t enough blood to sustain functioning limbs. Not once did you call him sick for suggesting to do such a terrible thing, but you did try to school him on human anatomy, and it was so endearing and cute- he loved to argue with you and he was pretty sure you liked arguing with him. Also, it was good to know you were down to make a crazy human monster- it just has to be anatomically correct.

-Human Cinema was a guilty pleasure of his in the same way human cars were, he can’t help but indulge from time to time- and this movie you picked is supposed to be so disgusting in its premise that he couldn’t wait to see your reaction. You both sat comfortably in his berth room since it was a rather quiet and secluded area of the ship, it was one of the best perks of being a Decepticon soldier- privacy, all of the Vehicons had to share a resting barracks,  he shuddered at the thought of having to power down in a room with other bots that were jealous of his high rank. You couldn’t help but make snarky comments at people’s stupidity in the movie- but as soon as things got graphic and gory, you couldn’t help but shy away from the action on the screen. “Come now, I’m sure you’ve witnessed worse through your time as a medical professional?””Yes, but there is a difference between a bullet hole in a soldier and a human being disfigured!” He laughed as you buried your face on his chassis as the sounds of squelching could still be heard on the screen- he was basking in all of this, and he was definitely not going to let you love this down. He can see it now, you squirming and wriggling as he grilled you about how much things like this bothered you- he couldn’t wait to see your little face get all flushed as he would poke you with his digit while mocking you until you blow up in his face the way he likes so much. He has to admit though, even he could feel himself wincing at the premise of this movie- something about thinking about certain things moving through multiple human bodies made him gag on his own energon. Some humans have a twisted sense of what was entertaining.

Predaking

(Movie picked- The Conjuring)

-He was looking forward to your visit to his ”quarters” tonight, if you can call a dark and dank cage proper sleeping quarters, but despite his living condition and his reputation on this ship you still found his company more agreeable than the other power hungry mechs on this floating prison. Considering that the first time he met you he nearly stepped on you because he thought you were some kind of organic monster, well, it really says a lot about all the bots in the Decepticon ranks honestly. He loved your company more than he could put into words as you treated him less like a monster and more like a person- you were so kind to him as every time you lifted your small hands he did not fear a strike but rather looked forward to a kind stroke. His favorite part about your visits were the fact you always had an interesting story to tell him- you called them books, and they were merely printed words on flimsy pieces of material, but the things they told were very dramatic and impactful. You told him all kinds of interesting tales- things from kids getting lost in a magical closet to a story about a rich man who could never truly have the one thing he wanted and he had to learn the hard way money can’t buy everything. Sometimes he didn’t understand the concept of these stories, they were alien to him, but you were very patient with him and was able to explain everything to him when he inquired about it. It made him realize why you were on this ship in the first place- you were the Decepticons insight into how human culture functioned. You thought he didn’t notice, but he sees every time you get sad talking about the family you had to leave behind in order to save them from Megatron’s wrath, he couldn’t offer much comfort besides his presents- but he knows it isn’t enough. He wishes he could make you smile more, he liked it when you beamed at him with that glowing face that you have, but he knows he is no substitute to the warmth and love that a true pack can offer.

-You seemed extra excited tonight as you set up and odd looking device on his pen. He found it rather cute the way you spoke too fast for him to actually hear what your saying while you were excitedly bounding around his living space going on and om about some hallowed tradition your culture enjoys celebrating. He understood the words “we eat candy till we drop” and “we dress up and go to homes to get said candy”, an odd custom of you asked him his opinion, but this was your planet and he can say for sure Cybertronian customs were just as odd from your perceiving end. He was also kind of taken away as you told him this time of year also meant purposefully getting scared? You told him it’s all in good fun and everyone has a good laugh after the initial scare takes place- why would humans find joy in terrifying one another? You seemed to be excited about this…movie? Movie, this movie you were about to show him. You read stories to him all the time, both fictional and nonfictional, so this is sort of the same thing but visual? You peaked his curiosity that was for sure, so once you got tucked in next to him as he lay down to watch what it was you out on, he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself at how cozy you looked with a bowl full of sweets and a warm blanket to cuddle with since it does get rather cold out here on the deck of the ship.

-He didn’t understand what was going on with this story at all! He understood the premise that it was fiction, and yet, the story is leading him to believe this all really happened. He grew bored with the strange tale of “haunted” things- you’ve told him of the paranormal before, but this he just couldn’t wrap his brain around and he had stopped paying attention to the film long ago. However, you were so into it that anytime he shifted his body you yelped and jumped on the air as you clutched you hand to your chest- he apologized for startling you, but you just laughed and said that it helped with the atmosphere of the movie. Humans really are a strange species- seriously who thinks it’s fun to get scared? A particularly jumpy part of the movie made you quiver and turn your whole body around to grab onto him for safety as you winced when a loud scene was going on in the background. It made his spark leap a little as he saw this natural reaction coming from you- it filled him with a sinful sense of pride to know that your first fear instinct was to cling to him as your savior in an hour of need. ”I’ve seen this movie so many times and it still gets to me! What did you think?” You asked as you stood up to stretch and clean up the mess that was strewn all across the floor of his pen, he just gave a huff in response as he laid back down to rest as he walked you walk around and clean up. “That much, huh?” you laughed “I’ll get something you like next time, big guy.”

(01/24/19)

[alteredphoenix]

First Impressions Chapter 50: The Stables Incident (WIP)(Heroes of the Storm)

A/N: So, some context in a nutshell: First Impressions is an out-of-order anthology series that has Sylvanas as the MC in a more Looney Tunes-style Nexus, a central hub where all universes converge and diverge at a singular point due to the Powers That Be that may or may not have summoned them here for purposes that are unknown to them. Except anyone that is brought to the Nexus is infected with a condition called the transition, aka the in-universe term for Out of Character; even the native-born Nexians are not exempt from this, and those that are pulled from their timeline never age, and if they should die they are very shortly brought back aka respawn.

I haven’t touched First Impressions in a long while, mainly because of work, doing WoW fics, and a lot of family drama IRL from 2018 onwards that nearly made me quit writing altogether. But I have felt the itch to get back at it again, even though Heroes of the Storm got its e-sports sector gutted and is running in a slow, lumbering maintenance mode. I’m not really sure if HotS still maintans some semblance of popularity as it did in the past year; I’ve been out of the loop for a while, although I’m sure the minor leagues and community-driven events are still ongoing.

Regardless, I’m posting this preview for archival purposes. I’m also posting it because this marks the start of the legendary Stables Incident, an event in which Sylvanas is accused of slaughtering innocent farm animals (at a place where people store their mounts for matches) out of nowhere. This chapter, however, shows what really happened (spoiler alert: Sylvanas didn’t do it, it was actually an accident, Hammer pressed the button on her tank by mistake during a squabble and, as a result, caused an intergalactic news circus over it).

I’m also posting this because: I love writing smartass-give-no-fucks!Sylvanas, and there must be more of it in the fandom.

-

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

The music kicked up in a roar so loud it threw Sylvanas off the bench onto the ground as though an invisible hand scooped up her from underneath and bowled her over. She awoke with a painful groan, twisting round onto her stomach to sit up on her elbows. Her ears twitched and swiveled, searching for the source of the music.

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

They flattened down against the sides of her head, shaking more from the vibrations that were causing the ground to quake, the bench to jump, and the squirrels and birds on their respective tree branches to bounce off in chattering, chirping squeaks and squawks than the force driving a jackhammer into her brain. Sylvanas looked behind her, in the direction of the auto body shop with its garage doors opened all the way.

A large, single-barreled cannon was poking its head out, connected to a red plated chassis on massive treads.

Sylvanas snarled, pushed to her feet, and stormed toward the garage.

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

“HAMMER!” Sylvanas yelled, but she could only hear the word in her head; it was like walking into a nightclub on full blast while the mother of all earthquakes, the Even Bigger One (bigger than San Andreas!), was bringing about The End Of The World As They Knew It. The tools on the walls racks and on the benches were rattling. The overhead fluorescent lights and spotlights were flickering and swinging back and forth. Darkness, even the fuel tanks way in the back were shaking in their cages! And Hammer…

Hammer was standing up out of the manhole, swaying and bumping and grinding like a turkey on antihistamines.

“HAMMER!” Sylvanas yelled again, feeling her throat work to outdo the noise. But Hammer still kept on dancing, oblivious to the world. The Banshee Queen glanced around the area. She saw a boombox from the Twenty-First Renaissance Era (which looked like a pyramidal A-track player) on a workbench...but no, nothing was coming out of it. She’d seen and heard it play before; whatever was running at the time would sound like it was being phoned in from a tin can in another municipal district from across an ocean. Then her eyes flicked behind the tank where, some distance away, were the ‘administrative’ offices that were reserved for quiet paperwork, faxing, phone calls, Internet, and maybe a few Jet Briggs’ beer and Easy Green joints were drunk and rolled in private enlightenment (that definition seemed to wax and wane over the years, apparently, but it usually ranged from a blissful stoner’s high to confusion and then to an agoraphobic fear of unseen, probably imaginative eldritch horrors that ranged between pink elephants, hyperrealistic eyes on the walls, and crab people with the heads of famous celebrities dead, alive, and not yet born crawling all over the place). Her eyes went to the ceiling where the speakers were located...but they shook as well, and offered no indication to her addled ears that the music was coming from them.

That left only one other place. “HAMMER, TURN THAT DOWN!”

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!” were the words Sylvanas could read from Hammer’s lips. “WHAT! WHAT! Doo doo-doo doo doo! Nuh-nuh-nuh! Doo doo-doo doo doo, doo-doo-doo--”

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

Sylvanas clenched her fists, her body shaking in time with the music. She mimicked taking a breath, reared back, and, calling upon the dark magic inside her, focused the font of power to nestle in her lungs and up her throat. Then she leaned forward and screamed. “HAAAAAMEEEERRRRR! TURN THAT THING OFF!”

The last syllable finally knocked Hammer out of her dance-induced stupor, blowing her back (and, Sylvanas thought morosely, not ass over tea kettle off the tank) from the amplified force. She caught herself, looked around, and saw the Banshee Queen glaring death and mayhem below her. “AW SNAP! SORRY, SORRY! EH, UH, G-GIVE ME ONE SEC! HOLD ON! WHERE’S THAT DAMN...AHA!” She doubled over, rooting around for the stereo, and when she found it turned it off.

Sylvanas had never found complete, total silence to be such an aether-given blessing until today. Like nirvana for mind, body, and soul. The quintessential out-of-body experience where one became attuned to nature and all that is not industrial.

Until I leave and she starts up again, she concluded. “You’re welcome,” Sylvanas drawled sardonically.

“Girl, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even know you were down there!” said Hammer. “Y-You weren’t waitin’ long, were ya?”

“I was waiting for an hour.”

Hammer clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Holy shit! Damn, girl, I’m really sorry--”

“Yeah, you should be. I actually just got here.”

“Eh? What? Really?”

“Yes, really!” Sylvanas said. “I was having a nice, simple rest on the bench outside and your stupid music woke me up! I swear to Darkness, woman, are you trying to move the Anchors out of position? Do you want to get us all killed?”

“N-Nah, girl, not at all! It’s just”--and Hammer flailed--”It’s such a nice day out, ya know? And it’s Sunday, which means all the auto shops are closed. An’ that also means I can work to mah heart’s content! No disruptions! No phone calls! No Kaijo suddenly tearing through the fabric of the space-time continuum! I can actually get stuff on time now, and at my own pace!”

“So I guess if I brought a motorcycle in, I’ll be expecting it by next spring as a belated Winter Veil present.”

“What? No! Girl, I ain’t that slow!”

“A tortoise, a snail, and a sloth could compete against you and they’d still win the race.”

“Hell no they wouldn’t! I have a tank, they don’t. I would just run ‘em over!”

Sylvanas rolled her eyes. “You are such a humanitarian it makes my heart bleed.”

“Well that’s what they’d get for messin’ with a siege tank!”

“You do realize there’s a noise ordnance of seventy-five feet, right?”

Hammer grinned wolfishly. “Ain’t no such thing as a noise ordnance if there’s no one around to complain about it.”

“Except for me,” said Sylvanas.

“Are ya really gonna tell on me?”

“No, but I’ll have ten reasons to tell you where to go if you do that again.”

“Ten reasons?” Hammer quirked a brow.. “What are they?”

“I punch you in the face with my left fist and then punch you with my right fist. If I add onto that, I’ll have ninety-nine reasons and a headbutt to make you quiet. Let’s also not forget I can just kick when you’re down, and by that point I’ll have lost count.”

“That’s a helluva lot of reasons to have...and money! Lots of money to pay for medical bills!”

“I can think of ways to accrue the cash and avoid jail time. You think this lackadaisical government can stop me?”

“Well,” Hammer said, digging a pinkie finger into her ear, “they are a little slow on the uptake. They ain’t exactly unnatural like we are. They’re more...what’s the word...normal.”

“You’re far from normal,” Sylvanas muttered.

“Eh? What?” Hammer asked.

“I said, what the hell are you working on that’s made you put the music on full blast?” Sylvanas lied smoothly. “What about it is so important you haven’t had the cops called on you yet?”

Hammer laughed uproariously. “This? This! My good friend! Is the latest in Jeetilopolis technological warfare!”

Sylvanas appraised it with a slow, long sweep of her eyes. “A single shot cannon?”

“Not just any single shot cannon! It’s a single shot cannon bought straight from the auction block all the way in Jeetilopolis! I spent just about my entire checking account on getting this thing, and spent almost the entirety of my savings on shipping and handling!”

“You can’t be that stupid.”

“What people think is stupid is actually smart! Besides, how’s a woman gonna get by in life if she can’t dip a little?”

“Hammer, spending every copper, silver, and gold on a cannon that is more than likely going to be faulty is not dipping a little. That’s jumping headfirst out of a plane without a parachute and hoping you time your angle just right so you can land in a lake that’ll be deep enough to sustain your impact and not kill you on the spot.”

“And when I hit rock bottom, will it be filled with gold?”

“Whatever it is, I won’t be joining you to find out.”

Hammer made an annoyed sound by blowing her lips. “Aw, c’mon! It’ll be fun!”

“Maybe for you, but I have no intentions of going into bankruptcy.”

“That ain’t gonna happen! You know why?”

“No,” Sylvanas drawled dryly. “Tell me why.”

“Because there was one other thing I got while I was in Jeetilopolis. One little thing that’ll give this baby here one helluva big wallop that’ll scare the bejeesus out o’ people! You wanna know what that is?”

“Not really.”

“Guess!”

Sylvanas sighed. “Do I have to--”

“Yeah! Come on! Take a guess!”

“Fine. Let me think.” Sylvanas feigned contemplation, making a show of looking away and tapping her chin. Then she snapped her fingers. “I got it. A brain.”

“Nuh-uh! Already have one,” said Hammer, and rapped her fists on her helmet for emphasis.

“Two brains.”

“No!”

“Three.”

“Now what am I supposed ta do with that many brains, eh? Play tsukkome and bokke with one while the other plays the straight man...brain...thing? Actually, on second thought,” Hammer added, thoughtfully, “I could probably palaver with them and get some pretty neat ideas for the tank. Yeah.” She nodded approval. “Yeah, that ain’t such a bad idea! But, uh, that ain’t what’s in this thing! It’s somethin’ better than a brain!”

“And that would be…?”

“Aether,” Hammer breathed. “I got me some gods be damned aether in a bottle for fifteen thousand gold! That’s cheap!”

Sylvanas gave her a blank stare, then nodded complete and total understanding. “Okay. So you get blitzed off the life-energy of the universe. It all makes sense now.”

“Did you just call me stupid?”

“No.” Sylvanas shook her head slowly, and drawled dryly, “No. Why would I ever say that?”

“’Cause this ain’t just the life energy of the universe!” Hammer slapped a hand down hard on the base of the manhole. “This is the answer to all my problems! This baby right here can store so much oomph in here...why, I think I might have just become a god!”

“Aether-based weaponry is banned from the League.”

Hammer grinned wickedly. “Not if they don’t find out! All’s I have to do is get the energy output tuned to its usual optimized settings and those old bats and goats in the Houses will be none the wiser! Ahahahahahaha! I’m a genius, Sylvanas!” she cried, throwing her arms up in the air. “A bonafide, grade-A genius!”

“Joy to the world, God is good,” Sylvanas grumbled, shaking her head.

“Hey, I’m thinkin’ of taking the tank out for a test firin’ out in the Shadowskirts in a bit; don’t want the authorities to catch wind of this! You wanna check ‘er out before I go?” 

Sylvanas shrugged. “Why not. Not like I have anything better to do.”

[sky-scribbles]

(You know how, in-game, Orgus pretty much just shows up and snaps the Knight out of Vitiate’s control instantly? I headcanon it as being a little more complicated.)

~

The Force ghost looks him dead in the eyes and says, ‘Who are you?’

And the Sith apprentice snarls, lifting his chin and taking a step backwards. ‘I am a servant of the Emperor. And you are unwelcome. Unnecessary.’

‘No.’ The ghost’s face is impassive. ‘Who are you? Tell me.’

It flickers as it speaks, the blue outline wavering in and out of sight, as if its ties to the physical word are ebbing as the Sith’s anger swells. Good. Let it vanish. Everything about this spirit’s presence is uncomfortable and infuriating and it awakens old memories that the apprentice simply must not think about.

‘I’m more than you wanted me to be. More than your Order would have let me be.’ He stares the spirit down, forcing all the rage he can muster into every word, because maybe that’ll make this long-dead annoyance leave him be. And maybe his anger can drown out the tiny flare of warmth inside him. The little spark that felt safe and soothed the moment the ghost appeared.

‘Always one test after another. Forcing me to prove my worth again and again, slaving me to my fears of failure. But no more.’ He holds out his arms, and the warm spark in his mind grows quieter. ‘This is what I am. I don’t need to reach perfection to justify every heartbeat. I’m not controlled by you or by myself any more. I am free.’

‘You���re chained,’ the ghost says. ‘Tell me how you got here, and then tell me you’re free. Tell me this was your choice.’

The Sith opens his mouth to answer – and stops. Because even though he knows the answer, it’s like a cold hand has descended on his mind, shoving him back when he reaches for the memories.

‘I was –’ He grits his teeth, pushing against the fog. ‘I came here weak. And the Emperor showed me – what I was. What I could be.’

‘He changed you. He controlled you. He reached into your mind and flicked a switch. You never chose it.’

There’s something so familiar in the ghost’s voice, a tone that he remembers from –

From Tython, listening to Master Orgus talking about his old apprentice, the one who’s fallen. There’s no anger in Orgus’s voice, no disappointment, only sorrow –

And the warm flare in his mind bursts into an inferno, just for a second, just long enough for him to get out the truth that he’s clung to his whole life. ‘I am a Jedi –’

But the words aren’t enough. The cold grip closes around his head again, and his hands curl into fists. No more of this. ‘Get out of here. Leave me be. That life is over.’

‘If that’s true, then you should be able to give me a straight answer without all this bluster.’ There’s a wryness in the words that’s familiar again, painfully familiar, familiar enough to make the Sith want to scream. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m – ’

He wants to answer. He wants to answer, just to make the ghost stop asking, to prove that he’s free and whole.  He wants to say I was bound by your Order, and I came here intending to capture the Emperor, and instead the Emperor set me free.

But what he says is, ‘I came here with my crew –’

And suddenly the spark in his mind is blazing again, brilliant and ferocious and bringing a surge of memories with it, memories of –

Of Tython, stopping to rest on his way back to the temple, leaning against T7’s chassis and listening to the droid chirping about how Jedi are the best masters. Smiling at how, for this droid, everything is so uncomplicated, so bright –

The med bay, as Doc presses kolto to a blaster burn on his arm and tells him to be more careful, because kolto doesn’t grow on trees, you know – and then suddenly flashing a grin at him and saying, ‘and neither do Jedi friends –’

Another late night in the conference room, going over strategy after strategy with Rusk, and finally making a suggestion that might just work, and seeing the Sergeant’s lips twitch and hearing him say, ‘Nice thinking, sir –’

Kneeling on the bridge of Angral’s ship with Kira, holder her close, knowing she, like him, is too drained to stand. Whispering, ‘It’s over, you beat him,’ and silently adding, you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, the truest friend I’ve ever had, and I’ll never let him touch you again –

Beating T7 at dejarik for the first time and watching his friends erupt into celebrations, Kira applauding and Doc clapping him on the shoulders and Rusk actually smiling and T7, bless him, hooting congratulations. And himself, forgetting about Jedi dignity and punching the air with both fists, beaming at them all and thinking, yes, this is peace, this is freedom, this is what family feels like –

As if from a million light years away, he hears Master Orgus speak again. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Zeth.’ He barely hears himself shaping the words. ‘I’m – just Zeth. That’s all.’

And the coldness in his mind retreats with a howl, scrabbling at his consciousness for a moment and then gone, oh stars, Vitiate is gone and it’s like his insides have been hollowed out and the air is trying to burst from his lungs and he can’t breathe. For a few moments there’s nothing but gasping for air and wrapping his arms around his body, clinging to his own flesh like a lifeline, and thinking what have I done, what did I become-?

It’s the same feeling you get after you’ve been crying. Like there’s nothing left in you and you can never imagine being full again, but at least you’ve finally sobbed out the pain.

His eyes are shut tight, so he doesn’t see Orgus approach him. And he can’t really feel it when his master touches his shoulder, either, because a Force ghost is – well, a ghost, and ghosts can’t touch you. But there’s still a feeling of comfort that flows out from the point of contact, and at last, he feels his breathing settle.

‘That’s all?’ Orgus says. ‘Zeth, that’s everything. It’s enough. You’re enough. You’ve always been enough.’

A ghost can’t hold you while you cry, either. But Orgus is there, and right now, that’s all Zeth needs.

[dustbunny105]

Title: Where the Heart Is Fandom: Lost Light Ship: Anolug Word Count: 2449 Rating: PG Summary: Lug and Anode are due to unload their junker of a ship but Anode needs one last thing from it first. A/N: I didn’t want to repeat fandoms for FemFeb but I also really wanted to post at least four fics so, eh. Same continuity, different title, so, I mean, technically... Anyway, been sitting on this idea for a long little bit and it’s about time I got off of it. Might edit some more later, when I’m less sleepy.

.

Lug comes awake slowly, responding to movement across her abdomen. Anode is sprawled over her, engine humming a little too loud in the dark, and the arm she has slung over Lug is moving like she’s stroking something.

Something other than Lug, for sure, because otherwise that’s what would have woken her. She frowns, trying to make sense of Anode stroking the recharge slab, and turns over to curl into Anode’s chassis.

“What’s up?” she asks into Anode’s neck. “Is the slab scared of the ion storm?”

“No, the storm passed-- told you it’d be fine,” says Anode, a little too slowly. Her next stroke goes from the slab up Lug’s back, then higher until she’s running her fingers along Lug’s antenna.

“So, then?” Lug asks, a little more awake. It never bodes well when Anode avoids answering a question-- less so when she tries to change the subject. She props herself up on one elbow and searches Anode’s face for signs of mischief but finds her expression closed. “Anode?”

“I’m just not tired,” Anode says, but she’s not looking at Lug when she says it. She rolls onto her back, shifting to cuddle Lug against her side, and stares at the ceiling. “I did recharge a few days ago.”

“Yeah,” says Lug, “before running yourself ragged dealing with the navigation systems and autopilot all failing at once.” She wraps herself around Anode, curling her arm around Anode’s chassis to stroke at the plating on her side. Distracted, she mutters, “I’m surprised this junkheap is worth what we’re getting even for the scrap parts.”

Anode shifts at the words. Lug couldn’t explain what it was about the movement that tips her off to what the problem is, but she jerks up to stare down at Anode, who is now showing more than the usual interest in a far corner of the ceiling.

“You’re going to miss this junkheap,” she says in astonishment. “That’s what’s keeping you up?”

“Oh, come on,” Anode says, almost snaps, dropping all pretense of ignoring Lug as she sits up and frowns at her, arms crossed. “Won’t you, even a little?”

“No.”

“Even a little?” Anode wheedles, somehow looking truly taken aback.

“I already said no,” says Lug, though this time it makes her feel just a little bit bad to say it. Even if it is the complete truth. “Anode-- this thing has gotten us nearly killed almost as often as you have, you realize that, don’t you?”

“Well,” says Anode, flustered, “sure, but-- almost! Almost as often as I have. And you love me, don’t you?”

“In spite of my better judgement, yes,” Lug says. “But you have redeeming qualities.”

“Such as?” Anode asks. Rather than wait for an answer, she holds up one finger and then points it at Lug. With all the confidence of someone striking a finishing move, she declares, “Such as, I haven’t gotten us killed yet, right? Just like the Junkbucket here!”

“I told you not to name it,” Lug mutters, burying her face in her hands. “I told you not to name it, didn’t I?”

“Oh, that’s just an affectionate nickname.”

“You’ve gone and gotten attached,” Lug despairs. Anode’s weak excuse, she ignores; she’s gotten pretty good at that through their time together. Not as good as she’d like to be, but still. “This is why I told you not to name it.”

“I thought you told me not to name it because you hate all the names that I come up with.”

“Well, that too.” Lug sighs, resigning herself to being awake when she really isn’t ready to be. They aren’t to hand over the ship for hours yet and they have nothing to do until then. The planet where they had docked to meet their buyer isn’t the worst that they’ve ever visited but also isn’t one that she’s about to wander around on. “If you’re going to try to talk me into keeping the ship…”

“Oh, good grief, no,” says Anode, though it is painfully obvious that her spark isn’t in it. She looks around their cramped little quarters with a wistful expression. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m committed to turning this thing over to be scrapped. It’s like you said, we’re lucky to be getting as much for it as we are now. I can’t begin to imagine how much the value will have decreased by the next spaceport we hit, even if we don’t hit it on fire.”

Lug waits a moment and, when Anode seems unlikely to continue on her own, prompts, “But…?”

“But,” says Anode, sighing herself, “it’s… home, isn’t it?” Anode curls around her and rests her head on Lug’s, drawing the conversation close around them. Her fingers are restless, whispering across Lug’s plating not unlike her confession. “This has been our home for… a lot longer than I expected it to hold together, honestly.”

Lug considers this, her spark humming. She runs her hands over Anode in turn, soothing comfort into her seams, and tips her head so that they’re looking each other in the face. Cautiously, she points out, “That’s not really your style, is it, though? Having a home.”

“I never really thought of it as,” Anode admits with a wry quirk to her lips. She stares off into the distance; through the walls, through space. Her eyes are back on Lug’s before she goes on, “But I guess a ship is the best of both worlds that way, isn’t it? It’s not one place but it is someplace... safe.”

Safe is about the last word that Lug would ever use to describe their ship. The thing is a death trap cobbled together from centuries of desperation. Still, wrapped in Anode’s embrace, Lug supposes that she can at least understand the sentiment. It’s less about their junker of a ship and more about having somewhere, anywhere, to go back to at the end of an adventure. And she has to admit, for all that it’s held together by its own dying prayers, it’s done as well by them as it can. Better than they could reasonably have expected, when they first picked it up. And if it can help Anode acclimate to the idea of having one place to settle down in, Lug supposes it’s only right that she be grateful for that. It’s more than she’s managed, anyway.

That still doesn’t mean she’s going to miss it. Not even if giving it up means they have to use the worst public transport that the galaxy has to offer for the rest of their lives. Which, given their clientele and success rate both, it very well might.

“I don’t get it,” Lug admits, “but... I understand.” She leans to nuzzle Anode and to brush a kiss over her lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no, no,” says Anode. She shifts, still wrapped around Lug but with that restlessness crawling from her fingertips out through the rest of her. One hand jerks twice, thrice in the air, before dipping into a compartment that’s popped open on her side. “None of that now, I--” she draws something out of the compartment but keeps it hidden in her fist. Her fingers twitch around it as if whatever it is wants to be freed. “I’m sorry, y’know? It’s just…”

“What’ve you done?” Lug asks, tense but not for reasons that she recognizes. In another moment, she realizes that she’s reacting to Anode’s field roiling against hers. “Anode?”

“It’s more what I haven’t done,” Anode says on a sigh. She’s using the tone she favors when she wants to redirect or dismiss, so familiar that it makes the wholly foreign nervousness all the more stark. “I didn’t think this the whole way through, not really.”

“You didn’t think what through, the sale?” Lug hazards to guess. “The trip out? You did buy the tickets, right?” Anode stares at her with flat optics and Lug almost panics before remembering, “No, wait, I bought the tickets.”

Anode huffs a laugh and hugs Lug tight to her, her still closed fist disappearing behind Lug’s back. “You’re making me feel just a little better about this now,” she teases; her field says that it’s the truth, thick though it still is with tension. She draws back and looks at Lug like she might never seen her again; her mouth moves, wordless. Then the look clears and she stares over Lug’s shoulder, deliberately blank, and blurts, “The reason I’m afraid of scraplets is that I fell into a nest of them while I was exploring someplace I wasn’t supposed to be. No one knew I was there. No one ever would’ve known where I’d gone, if I hadn’t gotten out. I’ve never told anyone, but that’s why.”

Lug wriggles and reaches to hook her fingers in Anode’s seams; she meets instead smooth planes of metal, Anode having slicked her plating flat. She can’t help but gawk, caught between this little information dump and Anode’s strange behavior. “Anode--”

“I wasn’t sure what to get, is the thing,” Anode says over her, a non sequitur as far as Lug can understand it. She shifts again, handling Lug so that she ends up perched on Anode’s crossed shins, and leans back on one hand. Her other hand, she opens at last between them, showing off a new set of mood pipes. “And we were coming down to the wire. But then your old set got dinged on that job yesterday and I figured I might as well.”

“Did you steal those?” Lug asks, thinking of the dangerous-looking mechanism who’d been standing over the booth where she remembered having seen them. It’s a silly question but it saves her from shorting out over the creeping realization of what’s happening here.

“Of course I did,” says Anode. “We haven’t sold the ship yet. Do you like them?”

“You wouldn’t have stolen them if you didn’t know I would like them,” Lug points out. Reaching for the pipes is like reaching for a dream, except that they don’t fade away under her fingertips. “Thank you.”

She doesn’t take them, not just yet. Just rests her hands around them, Anode’s palm warm against her. Nervous static snaps between them, sparking in the dark.

“O-oh,” she says, dizzy as reality at last smacks her upside the head, so quickly tired of being ignored. Anode looks at her like she’s trying to see her spark through her eyes and Lug blurts, “I’m sorry-- I don’t know what to do.” Anode’s expression turns puzzled and Lug goes on, “I mean, it’s my turn, isn’t it?”

Her turn, what seals the deal. A demonstration of devotion in return for a secret disclosed and a gift proffered, following a display of intimacy. They’ve been together so long that they’re conjunx in all but the formalities of the matter. Lug can honestly say that she forgets sometimes that they’ve never walked through the ritus-- the idea that she could forget such a thing feels ludicrous in this moment, as she finds herself stumbling on this last leg of the journey.

“Then it’s yes?” Anode asks, leaning forward and catching Lug by the shoulder. There’s a smile on her face but it looks less sure of its place than any smile Lug has ever seen her wear before.

“Of course it’s yes, what kind of question is that?” Lug demands. “But we’re not done until the Act of Devotion and I don’t know--”

“That’s it,” Anode says, shushing her, swooping in to sprinkle kisses across her cheeks. She laughs at Lug’s sputtering and pulls back, eyes sparkling down on Lug like she’s never seen greater treasure. Her hand goes from Lug’s shoulder to her cheek, thumb stroking over the curve. “All I drag us through, all we both know I’m going to drag us through, now without even our so-called ship at our disposal-- and you’re saying yes?” There’s a series of clicks and the smooth slide of metal as she opens her chest to bare her spark, never taking her eyes off of Lug. “How much more proof of devotion could I ask for?”

“But that isn’t how it goes,” Lug grumbles even as she leans back to give her own paneling room to slide away, a clumsier process than Anode’s thanks to the way her compartments are built in. “I’m supposed to make you some kind of a grand gesture!”

“Oh, you make grand gestures at me all the time-- don’t think I don’t notice,” Anode says. All traces of nerves melt away and she presses the mood pipes properly into Lug’s hand before gathering her up in her arms and flopping them both onto the slab with a dull clang. “Besides, since when do we live our lives based on how things are supposed to be?”

Lug curls against her, cradling the mood pipes against Anode’s back, protests giving way to shivers as realization strikes her anew in the dance of their spark light. If Anode is willing to accept nothing more or less than Lug’s agreement, then it’s done. Neither of them is about to make a speech, so-- that’s it. They’ve done it, just like that.

Well. Of course they did it just like that-- Anode has never been one to look before she leaps and Lug has never been far behind. No point looking twice at it now, she supposes, a smile wobbling across her face. The mingling of their fields and sparks is at once familiar and new.

“My conjunx,” she murmurs, one hand sliding forward to trace the edge where their open chambers press together. “You’re my conjunx now.” Then her thoughts back up and she can’t help frowning. She tucks the pipes away into a compartment for safekeeping and takes Anode’s face between her hands, stroking concern across her cheeks. “Are you really okay about selling the ship?”

“Going to insist on an Act of Devotion?” Anode teases. Lug’s thoughts on the matter must be plain on her face, because Anode softens and goes serious all at once. She turns away, like maybe if she doesn’t look at Lug, Lug will forget somehow that Anode needed the questionable safety of their rundown ship to chance making her proposal. The glance askance soon becomes a wistful look around the room.

“Anode?” Lug asks, drawing her attention back. “If you really--”

“I don’t want to watch it get scrapped,” Anode says with real melancholy, “but-- yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. And I’ll be okay.” She lets go of Lug long enough to pat the slab and nuzzles a grin against Lug’s cheeks. “Anyhow, I’d say that the old tub finished on a high note, wouldn’t you?”

[hydrospanners]

archiban frodrick’s kennel He was a vet, she had a ginx, could I make it any more obvious? Or the one where Doc is a vet and Rea has a late night pet emergency and things go the way they always do no matter what universe they're in. SWTOR Vet AU. F!Jedi Knight x Doc. Much fluff, a little sin, a lot of absurdity. 2600 words. AO3. I’m so so sorry.

He’s refilling his caf when he notices the snow. A rush of white flakes, tinkling like bells as they slant against the lobby window. It lays in drifts nearly half a meter deep already and building fast.

 Looks like it’ll be another night spent at the office.

 Doc wraps his fingers around the warm mug and tries to talk himself into shoveling a path out to the pens in the back. They’re heated and usually unsupervised at this hour anyway, but since he’s already here--

 A flood of blinding white light pours through the front window. Gilded plaques and framed holos rattle on their hooks as the walls around him start to tremble, a sound like thunder rumbling overhead. He raises his arm against the light, trying to squint past it to the source. He can’t see anything but the snow, blowing against the window in impenetrable sheets of white.

 This might be one of the tamer places he’s settled, but Doc hasn’t made it this far in life by being stupid. He drops to hands and knees and crawls behind the receptionist’s desk, pressing his palm to the safe hidden below. The blaster inside is a cold, familiar weight in his hand.

 Someone pounds at the front door and he clicks off the safety, letting his finger rest on the guard as he peeks over the desk. The snow outside has settled, and he can see the outline of a ship idling in the parking lot. An honest-to-stars cargo freighter. In the parking lot.

 Squinting, he can make out a figure at the door cast in shadow by the ship’s lights. A humanoid figure, cradling a pretty big bundle of something in their arms.

 It’s a posture Doc knows pretty well.

 He leaves the blaster on the desk.

 A wave of snow and piercing cold rushes through the doors as he keys in the code for release. A human woman stumbles in after, brown hair blowing in the wind, trembling from head to toe and clutching a creature in obvious respiratory distress tight to her chest. She isn’t dressed for the weather, wearing only a light, beat-up jacket and some fingerless gloves, but she’s taken better care of the patient. Whatever it is, it’s wrapped tight in layers of thick, protective blankets.

 “Please tell me you aren’t a fucking janitor,” she says.

 Doc would laugh if the creature in her arms wasn’t actively choking on its own throat. “With hands like these?” He displays them--they are excellent hands--in a gesture something like supplication before reaching for the patient. He hasn’t failed to notice the blasters on her hips, and he knows better than to startle someone upset and well-armed. “Who do we have here?”

 “Pooper,” the woman says, completely straight-faced. “I don’t know what happened. I mean, he’s always had trouble breathing when he gets excited, but this time--I don’t know. It’s different. He isn’t calming down and it’s getting worse and I--Can you help?”

 She lets him take the hyperventilating bundle from her arms, and when he peels back the blankets he finds the four red eyes of a barbed ginx blinking back at him.

 Huh.

 “We don’t see many fellas like you in these parts,” Doc hums, holding Pooper more firmly as he starts to wriggle in the stranger’s hands.

 “I picked him up on Makeb,” the woman explains, reaching out to stroke the ginx’s forehead. It changes the tone of his choking, like he’s trying to respond with some particular kind of noise. “Found him sleeping in my cargo bay. I must’ve put him out five or six times but he always found a way back on board, so I let him join the crew.”

 “Hard to say no to a face like that,” Doc says. “Let’s go in the back and find something to calm him down.”

 “You can help?”

 “Never met a living thing I couldn’t. You have the very good fortune of dropping your ship on top of the best vet in the galaxy, Beautiful.”

 After a beat of skeptical silence, she huffs. “Well the last two laughed me out of their offices, so I don’t have much of a choice. But you aren’t going to like what happens if you’re as full of hot air as you sound.”

 “I promise my ego is very well-founded,” Doc says, grinning despite himself.

# # #

 The problem, it turns out, is actually several problems. Congenital gland failure forces Pooper to rely on his underdeveloped amphibian lungs since his skin is too dry to keep his blood oxygenated. The strain on his trachea is creating lesions and inflammation that closes the airway to his lungs, so he isn’t getting enough oxygen there either. Plus he seems to have pretty severe anxiety. And he’s fat.

 Very, very fat.

 “It’s my brother’s fault,” the woman—Rea—is explaining, draped over the metal stool on the other side of the exam table. “Rhese gives him crickets just for existing. Poops just looks up at him with those big red eyes and he folds like a wet tissue. It’s embarrassing, really.”

 Doc indulges himself in a nice, long look at her while her attention is on her extremely sedated pet. She’s a very distracting presence back here, looking the way she does in those tight pants and that thin, clingy tank top, her jacket long abandoned on the floor.

 It’s not a distraction he minds.

 “So it’s just you and your brother on your ship, then?” Doc asks, oh-so-innocently. “No one else I ought to know about? Spouses? Romantic partners?”

 Rea snorts, but there’s a smile on her lips and a spark of curiosity in those sharp blue eyes. “Very subtle,” she says.

 “Subtle isn’t really my style.”

 “Mine either.”

 “So that’s a no to the committed, monogamous relationship?”

 “I’m allergic,” she says, and Doc can feel a tiny sliver of his heart plummeting fast and hard into love.

 “We have so much in common.”

 Rea laughs, leaning her head against her hand, elbow propped against the back of the stool. She’s looking at him with a strange sort of intensity that leaves him tingling everywhere. “So talk to me about this shrine,” she says, and gestures to his tech’s station in the corner, surrounded by posters and scale models of swoop bikes. Mostly just the one swoop bike.

 “It’s my tech’s,” Doc explains. “Some swoop jockey he’s obsessed with.”

 “You not a fan?”

 “I’ve been to a few races, but I’m more of a gambler than a gearhead.”

 She nods. “Wouldn’t want to ruin those pretty hands.”

 “Need ‘em for work.” And with a wink, Doc adds, “Need ‘em for play, too.”

 Rea laughs, and he doesn’t think he’s imagining the color rising in her face as she shakes her head. “You fix my ginx, and maybe we find out if they’re as good as you say.”

 “Your skepticism is starting to hurt my feelings, Gorgeous.”

 # # #

 Pooper is happy to return to his perch in the corner of Rea’s quarters, croaking approval as he settles his considerable mass onto a wide log under a heat lamp. He’s breathing easy now, his skin slick with artificial mucus that doesn’t stop his companion from dropping a kiss to his broad forehead.

 She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and hooks a finger into the lapel of Doc’s jacket, leading him back out to the lounge. The gentle wheeze of Pooper’s snores follows them down the corridor.

 A weird pet, but Doc likes him.

 “So let’s talk payment,” Rea says, whipping out two glasses and a bottle of midtier Corellian whiskey. “You want a mixer?”

 Doc shakes his head, clinking the glass she hands him with hers before taking a generous sip. Something about the blizzard outside makes the heat of it all the more welcome in his belly.

 Rea tosses the whole thing back in one swallow.

 “Here’s the thing,” she goes on, pouring herself another two fingers. “I don’t actually have any credits. But I’m not gonna leave you with nothing, so don’t worry about that. A Corellian always pays her debts, y’know? I’m sure we can work something else out.”

 Honestly, he forgot about the money. It isn’t usually his responsibility. Doc shifts uncomfortably, swirling the liquor in his glass as he tries to think how to put this. “If you’re suggesting sex--”

 “Sex? What?” Rea shakes her head emphatically. “No way. I mean, I’d definitely like to fuck you, but not as payment. Just for fun.”

 Doc visibly sags in relief. “Oh, thank the stars. I mean, yes to the fucking for fun part. But you really don’t need to pay me. We can just call it a favor to my favorite ginx if you want.”

 “Hold onto that charity until you see what I’m offering,” Rea says, smirking. She downs the rest of her whiskey and strips out of her jacket, leaving her in that thin tank top that clings to every plane and slope of her sculpted figure. He doesn’t try to hide his captivation. “Follow me.”

 Like he could do anything else.

 He trails after her into the ship’s cargo bay, fixated on what has to be the most exquisite ass he’s ever seen. His fingers itch to dig into it, to feel the shifting of all that muscle for himself.

 She stops in front of a speeder--No, a swoop bike. A very familiar swoop bike.

 “No way,” he breathes.

 Rea leans back against the bike, looking unbearably smug as she props her hands against the chassis. “I thought you might recognize it.”

 He’s only seen it a billion times, at a billion different angles, immortalized in the revolving collection of holos and figurines covering Terek’s station. He’s seen it enough that even he can recognize the sleek lines and unique thruster configuration hovering before him. “When you said your name is Rea,” he says, still gaping a little in bewilderment, “is that short for Nirea Velaran?”

 Her smile only widens, and that’s all the confirmation he needs.

 “Whaddya think?” She says, patting the hood. “Will this hunk of junk be a fair exchange?”

 “Fair? I don’t know much about swoop racing, Gorgeous, but that bike is worth a million creds, easy.” Doc glances around the cargo bay, quickly realizing there are a dozen other bikes and a few speeders crammed into the small space. “They probably all are, just cause they’re yours.”

 She shrugs. “Well I don’t know much about biology, but I’m pretty sure Pooper would’ve died without your help. His life is worth every credit and more. So just take it, will you? Give it to your tech or something.”

 Terek might literally kill him if he refuses.

 “I don’t even fly this thing anymore, Doc. It’s just gathering dust in here.” When he still doesn’t agree, Rea adds, “The sooner you say yes, the sooner we’re done with business. And once the business is done, we can start having fun.”

 Doc laughs then, nodding. “You drive a hard bargain, Beautiful.”

 # # #

 They watch the sun rise from the cockpit, their bodies glistening like the snow in the wash of soft, golden light. Rea is collapsed against him, boneless and sighing, her head tipped back against his chest and her body still slick against his thigh. He suspects she isn’t quite as thoroughly spent as he is, but she must be satisfied enough since she isn’t asking for more.

 Doc has learned a number of things about infamous swoop jockey Nirea Velaran tonight, namely that she isn’t shy about asking for what she wants.

 It’s the most fun he’s had in ages.

 The silence is comfortable as they bask in the afterglow, hands still lightly caressing, coming down from the last of many highs. It’s the undemanding kind of quiet that grows out of people who understand each other, even if they don’t know one another that well yet.

 Finally, Rea yawns. “You want a lift home?”

 “I don’t think my neighbors will appreciate a freighter in the street,” he says, toying with the ends of her short, tousled hair.

 “I could grapple you down.”

 He would laugh, but Doc has learned enough in the last few hours to know she isn’t joking. Rea is both very athletic and exceedingly eccentric with her solutions to commonplace problems.

 “I’ll be fine. I met this fascinating woman today who traded me a swoop bike for taking care of her ginx.”

 “She sounds great,” Rea says, and he hears the smile in her tired, syrupy voice. “But I’m not letting you take a swoop out in this snow. It fucks the repulsors all to hell. You’ll end up nosediving into a drift, and then who will I call when Pooper needs help?”

 He doesn’t mention how she told him earlier they probably wouldn’t cross paths again. He just laughs, sneaks a kiss to her temple and shifts her off of his lap. “Fine,” he says. “Any idea where I left my pants?”

# # #

Doc holds tight to Rea’s waist as she lowers them onto his roof. More than one of his neighbors are standing on their stoops, staring dumbfounded at the ship and the woman dropping out of it, wrapped only in a heavy blanket and a very tired veterinarian. The snow swirls around them in a storm, shimmering like diamonds in the morning light.

 She must be freezing, but he can’t see any sign of it on her face.

 “Thanks again,” she shouts as their feet touch the heated roof, straining to be heard over the rumbling of her ship’s engine. “I really don’t know what I’d have done without your help.”

 “It was my pleasure,” he shouts back.

 “Don’t I know it!”

 Rea pulls him in for one last, searing kiss before she shoves him away, both of them laughing like idiots. Like senseless fucking teenagers who don’t know anything else. “You can get down from here, right?”

 Doc just nods, too breathless for more shouting.

 The light flashes on her grappling gun as it changes directions, lifting her slowly back toward the warmth of her waiting ship. He can see that Pooper is waiting at the top of the ramp, watching her eagerly with his big red eyes, his skin slick and shining like it’s meant to be.

 Finally, after watching just a little too long, Doc turns and lowers himself to the edge of his roof. He’s about to make the jump into the snowdrifts below when she calls out.

 “Hey Doc!”

 He pauses, craning his neck back to look at her, almost within arm’s reach of her ship now.

 “If you’re ever on Corellia,” she shout, “look me up!”

 Then, she lets loose the blanket wrapped around her body. It catches in the wind kicked up by the engines, whipping and swirling its way to getting stuck in his neighbor’s hedge. Doc hardly notices where it lands. His eyes are fixed on the tight, sculpted body of the woman he’s just realized he’s never going to forget.

 He whistles loudly in appreciation, watching the laughter he can’t hear dancing across her face. Then she’s grasping onto the lowered boarding ramp, vaulting herself to her feet in one smooth, exquisite motion.

 Rea walks backward as she disappears into her ship, blowing him a kiss and giving him a little shimmy to remember her by. He doesn’t move from the spot until she’s long gone, nothing more than a dark speck streaking through the sky.

 Doc doesn’t know when and he doesn’t know how, but he knows with every bone in his body that he has to see her again.

 And her little ginx too.

Quick shoutout to @meonlyred for the concept and genuinely horrifying title of this, and to Winter Storm Diego and my beloved, yet fucked up dog, Cooper, for inspiration.

[captainbaneberry]

Hmm, I didn’t think I’d be writing this so soon, but... Welp. Ride that inspiration train before it runs outta fuel, am I right?

Anyway! Y’all remember this post by rudeicusdudeicus? Y-Yeah, I wrote something to it.

Fixit is our main Minibot, but everyone else... I couldn’t decide on his partner, and a number of the guests, so I’ve left them up to your imaginations. Titles were given, and since this is RiD, you can use characters from this ‘verse or other universes who carry those titles as placements, if you so desire. On that note, this fic takes place pre-cartoon.

Despite some moments where things feel dubious, this entire party is built on consent. Every person involved consented. I just wanna make that clear--shit’s kinky, but it ain’t n-oncon.

Plenty of warnings to go around: BDSM, objectifying, exhibitionism, drug use, wet ‘n’ messy, moderate inflation, size difference, ahegao in prose form.

With all that out of the way, please enjoy~

Read on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13932372

This would be Fixit’s first party, and although the Senator had reassured him everything would be fine, he’d take care of him, he knew and agreed to the rules, the Minibot was still nervous.

After all, it wasn’t everyday you got invited to upscale orgies.

But Fixit trusted the Senator, and he was a little curious. The Senator showed him the harness he’d be strapped to, and explained the rules for the umpteenth time and how things usually went. The Senator obviously wanted to make sure Fixit gave his full and complete consent. Fixit listened closely, taking notes, determined to please his partner.

Didn’t work out entirely as planned. Kind of hard to concentrate, bound to the Senator and impaled on his unit to remain there for the rest of the evening. Little awkward, too, given the position of his channel.

The Senator interfaced with Fixit thirty minutes before the party was to start. It was good, but nothing extraordinary; they both overloaded, leaving Fixit pliant enough to fit easily on the Senator’s large unit. He’d never taken the whole thing before, but now he sat to the hilt; it pushed against his tanks, brushing along his abdominal armor. A little painful, but the Senator shifted some mass so it wasn’t excruciating or unbearable. Just the right amount to go along with the arousal still lingering after the interface.

The Senator also fitted the Minibot’s unit, half-mast at the moment, with a tight ring that clenched down on transfluid and lubricant pumps. It would cut off any overloads from his cord, but channel overloads were still permissible, even if it was currently stretched and stuffed, anterior node exposed. To complete the look was a nice spider-gag, keeping Fixit’s mouth wide open; if it got too painful, he would be allowed to dampen his pain receptors or ask for its removal. The safeword without the gag was "mirror"; safeword with the gag was four revs of his engine. A pack of energon was stored in a compartment on Fixit’s back, its thin pump plugged into a socket below a shoulder. It would feed him energon when levels got too low, ensuring Fixit remain online and stable with some stamina to spare.

“You look beautiful,” the Senator smirked, stroking beneath Fixit’s chin with two of his fingers. Fixit cuddled against his touch, coolant trickling from his open mouth. The Senator tested the collar around Fixit’s neck attached to the harness; after polishing them both up, the couple headed out.

Fixit knew this would be… well, not entirely painful. It would be a lot of things. But he hadn’t expected to be so… so “weak” so soon. They’d only just now arrived at the party, and already Fixit overloaded twice. The Senator had fitted him perfectly to his frame, so whenever he walked, whenever he moved, his unit would rub just so nicely against Fixit’s nodes, the quivering mesh walls; it was like being slowly (and frustratingly) fucked. Really, the fact the ride to the party was also a little bumpy was partially to blame for one of those overloads.

A tall, sleek jet greeted them at the door. She, too, was wearing her own Minibot; shorter than Fixit, teal and blue, their harness was designed differently but served the same purpose. They wore a blindfold, hands bound behind their back. “Welcome, Senator,” the jet purred, leaning in to peck the larger bot on the cheek. Her Minibot whimpered, bouncing on the unit.

The jet stared down at Fixit. “And this must be Fixit,” she said. She touched his face, drew a finger along his open jaw. “Looks like a real sparkbreaker.” She winked, and Fixit couldn’t help but heat up a little–-well, a little more. “Here you go, darling,” the jet said, holding up a syringe.

Fixit almost forgot about this part.

“It’ll sting,” the Senator said, patting Fixit on the head, “but only for a second.”

Fixit invented. Nodded.

The jet placed the needle to Fixit’s neck, between seams. “Just a pinch,” she said, and injected the pink fluid.

The drug’s affect was instantaneous. Already aroused and on the edge, Fixit’s receptors were suddenly pushed past their limits. Stimulation increased by fifty percent. The Senator stepped aside, just a small step, and Fixit almost shrieked. The sensations of pain and pleasure were completely blurred; the lightest touch to any part of his body, especially his interface array, was now overwhelmingly powerful.

“Have fun, you two,” the jet giggled.

The party had started ten minutes ago. There were food and drinks, music that set a nice, sensual mood, the lights dim in some places and brighter in others. There was even a medium-sized stage set up with a microphone, though it was currently vacant.

If Fixit could see clearly, he’d count at least twenty-two to thirty people. Most of them also wore their smaller partners on their units, while some came alone or with friends. They broke off into groups, chatting and sipping cubes of high grade, chattering on about life and work and the weather as if they didn’t have bots sleeved on their cords, wriggling and whining, trying to or actually overloading. A few outliers had broken off to more private, shadowed corners to focus on simply fragging their partners outright, either still strapped on to their bodies or removed and placed in different positions. Moans and cries and whimpers almost drowned out the music.

Fixit whimpered; every single step the Senator took was equal to one hard thrust inside his channel. Lubricant increased in trickles, dripping along the ground. Nothing unusual; a pack of drones went about cleaning any messes up. His head hung low, actuators weak and shaking, CPU a hazy, dizzy, aroused mess. Coolant spilled in thin lines from his mouth. The pain he felt in his jaw struts didn’t hurt so much as add to the excruciatingly wonderful stimulation cocktail.

“Senator! So good to see you could come!” Fixit recognized that voice, but couldn’t focus enough to remember who it belonged to. A large, round bot flanked by two smaller partners (twins) hanging off his arms and wearing a pretty pink Minibot sauntered over. He pat the Senator’s shoulders warmly. “You’ve brought Fixit!” He leered. “Looks like the little guy’s enjoying the party.” The twins snickered, stroking their date's chest playfully.

“Fixit, you remember the Councilor, right?” the Senator asked. He raised Fixit’s head for him, at the same time pushing his hips out just slightly. Fixit gave a strangled gasp, his own erect unit twitching around the ring. “You haven’t met Arc yet, however.”

“Arc, say hello to Fixit,” the Councilor said, gently nudging the Minibot with his unit.

“Nnn!” Arc whined, squirting a little transfluid. A drone rolled by, mopping it up. “H-Hello… F… Fix… it…”

“We won’t keep you two,” the Councilor chuckled, slapping the Senator on the shoulder again. “I agreed to introduce these two lovely bots to some of my colleagues.” The twins giggled coyly into their hands as Arc’s engines loudly revved. The four left, crossing the room to a group mingling by the energon fountains.

The Senator continued making his way throughout the flat, greeting and chatting with both friends and strangers alike. Fixit had lost count of the overloads he’d had, but most of the lubricant and transfluid was still inside him, trapped by his partner’s unit. Fixit’s own unit hurt, bobbing and twitching along uselessly. For the most part, the Senator left him alone, focusing on the other guests and socializing. Everyone here was either a politician of some sort, a celebrity, or just very, very rich.

The Senator laughed after hearing one hilarious joke, and the vibrations of his chassis and the slight swaying had Fixit’s optics cross, tongue hanging out obscenely. The drug increased his coolant levels, ensuring his throat and mouth would remain nice and wet. A bot talking with the group glanced down at Fixit, grinning at his wasted expression.

“Do you mind…?” she asked the Senator, pointing at Fixit.

“Go ahead.”

As the Senator resumed talking, the speedboat squatted in front of Fixit, now eye level. “You’re such a cutie!” she giggled, optics glimmering. “You know, orange is one of my favorite colors. Orange and purple…” She wiped lubricant off Fixit’s groin; her touch, the sweep of her finger, caused the Minibot to squirm. The Senator twitched–-he, too, was affected, but not nearly as heavily as his partner. “… Makes a nice color scheme, too.”

The speedboat gasped, smiling widely. “And if your node isn’t one of the most adorable I’ve ever seen…!” She pinched his anterior node, and Fixit wailed, jerking around the unit. The Senator almost dropped his drink, but like the prim and proper politician he was, continued on with the conversation. “Does that hurt?” the speedboat asked. She rolled the node between her fingers; Fixit started venting, more drool and lubricant pattering on the floor. “You just shake your head if it does, okay?”

Fixit, shivering, did nothing.

“Good!” She flicked his node, and once again caused him to lurch. This time the Senator had to step back, the edge of his unit pushing into Fixit’s tanks.

“Excuse me for a few minutes,” the Senator said, cheekplates warm.

“Sorry about that,” the speedboat apologized, still smiling.

“No problem.” The Senator cupped the side of Fixit’s head, the Minibot instantly nuzzling against his palm. “He’s a charmer, that’s for sure.”

A bot hustled over to the group, causing the Minibot on his unit to cry and whimper, transfluid streaking across the floor. “The show’s about to start!” he exclaimed, then hurried off to the next group.

Fixit vaguely remembered the Senator telling him something about these shows. “We won’t be participating in tonight’s,” he told Fixit while he strapping him into the harness, “you’re not ready. Maybe in another year or so…”

The Senator found a nearby booth and table; a total of six, maybe eight steps. Might as well have just been six, or maybe eight thrusts in his channel. The Senator sat down carefully; both he and the Minibot winced. From this position, somewhat awkward as it was, Fixit could see the stage.

The host of the party, a tank, stood at the microphone. His partner was the largest of the Minibots here–-had to be, if she was going to fit on his unit. She had her legs and arms tied and pinned open, allowing everyone to see the remaining few inches of the host’s unit that could not fit inside her. She was heaving, visor so bright it was close to short-circuiting. The edge of her partner’s unit pushed against her mid-section, forming a bump alongside the transfluid sloshing around in her tanks.

“Before we begin the show,” the tank said, “it is with great pleasure to announce tonight’s honorable guest is none other than the chart-topping, spark-stopping Rosanna!”

The crowd cheered and clapped and overloaded (well, half).

“Now,” the tank crooned, “let’s sit back, relax, make sure your little partners are nice and snug, and enjoy the show.” The crowd gave another round of applause as the host stepped down to take his seat beside the stage, petting the trembling bot in his lap.

With a guest like Rosanna, Fixit briefly (very briefly, before switching back to focusing on grinding on the Senator’s unit) expected a type of musical concert. And while there was music, sure, the performers weren’t musicians.

The first performer was a tall bot, chartreuse and silver, with her partner. She unstrapped him from her body, plucked him off her unit, and pressed him to the ground, aft in the air. Kneeling behind him, she took the Minicon’s hips, and jerked back inside. The crowd whistled and shouted catcalls; the Minicon made such adorable noises (maybe that counted as singing) rocking back and forth on hands and knees. The bot pulled out, releasing her overload on the Minibot’s back; a few stood to applaud, successfully bringing their Minibots to climax as well.

The next performance wasn’t so different. Another set of partners. This time the Minibot sat facing the crowd, riding on his endura’s unit as the jet sat comfortably, hands holding his legs open for him. The Minibot was ridiculously fast, and some party guests hastily ran to the stage. The Minibot snapped his hips forward, squirting transfluid from both unit and channel, drenching those in the front. They gingerly caught some in their mouths, others simply wanting to get a nice facial and rub their fingers through the fluid on their overheated frames.

Another performance involved two Minicons by themselves. Same mold, one green, one red; they kissed, sloppy with winding tongues on display, before interfacing in the sixty-nine position. Nearby, Fixit could hear a mayor and a Crystal Towers resident bet on which of the two overloaded first. Other guests swarmed around the stage, shouting and pounding their fists; it was like they were watching a simple wrestling match, encouraging the Cassettes they gambled on.

Green overloaded second. His partner, a robust black-red bot, collected the winnings. The mayor bitterly handed his shanix over.

Watching all of this was almost nearly as intoxicating. Fixit, optics lidded, mouth twitching around his gag, felt surges of heat throughout his chassis, especially at the final performance. He overloaded again, barely felt the rush from the energon pack refilling him. Though Fixit was surprised that the Senator hadn’t… responded to any of the acts. Sure, sometimes he reached down to stroke Fixit, to adjust his unit inside him, but mostly remained still and quiet.

When Rosanna finally came on, that all changed. The room dimmed, a single white spotlight on the singer. She started with a song fitting of the mood; something slow and sultry and deep. And that seemed to be just enough for the Senator to finally get interested.

Fixit winced as two hands encircled his hips. The Senator watched the show, enthralled, as he started pumping inside the Minibot. Fixit whimpered, tears tracking down his face; none of the earlier charges could compare to the one he was accumulating now. Fixit grunted, a mantra of ah-ah-ahs each time his channel slapped against the Senator’s groin. The Senator picked up pace just as Rosanna’s song started building. Fixit could still hear the moans of the other guests under her hypnotic, silky voice.

The Senator overloaded, Fixit slamming back against his partner as his entire body heaved and shuddered. The Senator, however, went completely still, his grip around Fixit’s hips hard enough to dent plating. Fixit looked down, vision doubled, to see the bulge in his abdomen grow a few inches wider. The sight alone made his channel clench and quiver around the unit, too flared up for anything but a couple droplets of fluid to empty.

“You mind if I join?”

It was the speedboat from earlier. She winked down at Fixit.

“N-Not at all,” the Senator tittered. Fixit just shook his head once.

The speedboat smirked, releasing her pressurized unit. She held it at the base, brushing it along Fixit’s cheeks. Fixit mewled. As she grabbed the finial on his head, the speedboat thrust her unit hungrily inside Fixit’s mouth.

Fixit cried around the unit, surprised, tears spilling down his slick cheeks. Be it the drug or something else, Fixit’s intakes spread easily for her, allowing the cord to move deep down his throat. As she began pumping, grinding her crotch against Fixit’s face, the newly aroused Senator started moving again.

Fixit wasn’t sure why he hadn’t fainted. The onslaught of sensations were enough to knock his overstimulated system out, after all. But… Well, maybe the drug, et cetera. He gulped and grunted around the unit, swinging back and forth in swift, fast motions between the two bodies spit-roasting him. There was no way to describe what he was feeling; Fixit’s optics rolled up, almost into the back of his head, wide and lids twitching. His limbs went limp in their straps. He overloaded again–-and again, before either of the larger bots. Fixit wondered if he was going to be split apart, but found it probably wouldn’t be so bad–-especially if it felt as amazing as this.

“S-Such a soft m-mouth,” the speedboat stammered, licking her plush lips, “i-if you were mine, I-I’d frag it f-for hours…” She swat Fixit’s node with her free hand. The Minibot screamed, again muffled from the unit and Rosanna’s new song; his node was throbbing, turned dark from the energon welling at its surface. Fixit tried to suck, tried to massage the unit with his tongue, but the speedboat insisted on doing all the work, picking up the closer she got to release.

It was the Senator who overloaded first. Fixit’s optics blazed and glitched as more transfluid collected inside his tiny body, his bloated tanks. His abdomen was painfully distended, the armor stretched out to show dermal layers beneath. When the speedboat finally climaxed, he couldn’t even swallow her fluids; as soon as she pulled her depressurizing unit free, milking the rest out on his face, Fixit’s head dropped forward, coughing up large gobs of transfluid. He continued purging for a whole minute, the speedboat watching on fondly. That at least gave his tanks some more room.

The speedboat took Fixit by the chin, tilting his head up to meet her yellow optics. His mouth twitched around the thin bars of the spider gag, optics wide and apertures dilated, transfluid and coolant dribbling from his face. “That’s a good look on you,” she cooed. “Thanks for the ride, sweetie.” She nodded at the Senator, swaggering off with a sway of her hips.

Rosanna finished her show, waving and blowing kisses to her fans before exiting the stage. The lights brightened, and those not in the middle of fucking their bound partners went to have a drink and continue mingling.

The host came over to finally welcome the Senator, laughing heartily at Fixit. “My my, looks like he’s a bit full up,” he said, patting the Minibot on the cheek. Fixit could only wheeze, tongue lolling in his mouth. “You discussed the rules with him, I do hope.”

“Yes, of course,” the Senator reassured. “His vitals are a little low, but he’s stable. He’s agreed to the terms.”

Fixit groaned. He stared at the host’s Minibot in front of him; she was smiling, enjoying a tasty mouthful of transfluid.

“And he’s equipped to handle the girth?”

“Of course.”

Oh. Wait. This sounded… familiar. It took Fixit a moment to realize the Senator was removing him from the harness. That, and his energon pack was almost empty. “You know the safewords, Fixit,” the Senator whispered. “He knows them, too.”

Fixit's partner finally pulled him off his unit. But before he could finally release all the pent up transfluid and lubricant, the tank took him, held him tilted so as not to spill. Fixit was a bit disappointed. He watched as the Senator picked up the host’s Minibot.

“I’ll see you soon, Fixit,” the Senator said, bowing down to kiss the top of his head.

Fixit made a wet noise. He understood. The music was starting to fade, and for a moment it was dark. Fixit heard a door shut, blinked; the lights in this room were a little brighter. He felt himself lowered, placed on his back on a slab.

“Gah!” Fixit grimaced as the tip of the tank’s unit pushed an inch inside his channel. Plugging up the fluids again.

“This won’t be necessary,” the tank smirked, unbuckling and removing the spider gag. Fixit hiccuped, rolling his jaw and clenching his teeth. His tongue felt a little numb. “I like my partners noisy,” the tank snickered. His massive hands wrapped around Fixit’s hips, bulging from all the transfluid.

Fixit threw his head back with a loud cry; loud enough that his vocalizer glitched and trailed off into static. The tank had thrust half his unit inside Fixit-–all he could manage to fit.

“So warm,” the tank groaned, and started pumping.

Fixit had never taken a unit as big as this tank’s. He wasn’t quite sure what he felt, but it wasn’t the same confusing mix of sensations and emotions like earlier, like the clusterfuck he’d been feeling all night. It hurt, a lot, but it also felt good, a lot. Each pull out allowed some of the fluids to escape; each push in hit his tanks and abdominal armor. His receptors, his nodes–-all raw, too sensitive… Fixit could only grin, wet and lopsided, optics rolling back and crossing.

“Look at you!” the tank laughed. Fixit vented, tongue bouncing out from one corner of his drunken smile. “You like this? How about this?” He shifted, thrusting his unit off to the side.

Fixit howled, fingers clawing at the berth. “Yeth! Y-Yeth!” His jaw and tongue were still too weak to form proper words, but the tank got the gist of it. Fixit reached his shivering hands down, clumsily rubbing his hard node as fast as he could. “Tho–tho good, ’m…!”

The tank ground his teeth, and with a loud grunt, buried himself inside Fixit and overloaded. Strong enough to knock another overload out of the Minibot as well. Fixit’s mouth formed into a perfect ‘o’ as his optics bulged; shock, pure shock, at the sensation of being completely, utterly filled to the brim.

The tank pulled out, and with a little shake of the Minibot’s body, all the trapped transfluid finally broke free. Fixit squealed, bucking off the bed and jerking his hips; the fluids gushed out in waves, his abdomen shrinking little by little. His teeth clamped down hard enough to shatter. Finally, the flow stopped, and the Minibot flopped back onto the slab. The emptiness felt alien, strange; he rattled and twitched, mouth hanging wide open in awe as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

“Welcome to the club, Fixit,” the tank smirked, gently stroking his face. Just as he turned to leave, Fixit finally collapsed into stasis.

—

When Fixit came back online, he felt… different. Not only was he completely refueled, but he was also repaired and back to his normal shape. He’d even been washed and polished. Remembering the events of… last night? Fixit supposed after being in that state of hyper-arousal for so long would make one feel weird after coming back down.

Fixit was still lying down, but not on the tank’s slab. Not in his own mess, either. Rather, it was the Senator’s–-his berth. Fixit rubbed his optics; he looked beside him, almost jumped. The Senator was curled around him, recharging peacefully. Fixit blinked–-he quickly hid his face in his fingers, completely flustered.

Fixit exvented, smiling; he wiggled over. He slowly, carefully took the Senator’s nearest hand, draped it over his chest. Closing his optics, Fixit went back to sleep, gently holding the Senator’s hand.

“And that’s what my life was like before the tour–sore–war!” Fixit declared proudly, standing before his Autobot companions. He waited for a response, a big, smug grin on his face. After a minute of silence, he opened one optic, baffled.

Bumblebee, Grimlock, Sideswipe, and Strongarm stared in total awe at the Minibot.

Finally, Grimlock spoke up. “Holy fucking shit.”

END

Okay, I was admittedly channeling Thunderblast for the speedboat bot

[strangeharpy]

Eyyyyyyyy, who wants a sneak peek at the prologue/first chapter of my dumb cass/audy fic?

Unformatted (because tumblr is dumb) preview below the jump.

* * * (Goodnight, Cassander)

It's difficult to sleep like this: on their side, facing the wall; awash in the distant glow of the city outside the window; cool metal clad in a layer of synthskin pressed against their back; an implacable robotic hand splayed over their chest. AuDy's old chassis had always made a litany of clicks, whirrs, and other distressed mechanical noises, but their new one barely even hums. Cass shifts, just a little, and finds themself tugged incrementally closer by the gentle pressure of AuDy's hand.

There's no sense in pretending to sleep, either. When AuDy gets like this, feels the need to stretch out on the bed next to Cass, they've dialed up every sensor in their sleek new frame and bent them all toward the monitoring of Cass's vitals. The hand on their chest serves to track respiration, pulse, core body temperature. Nothing more and nothing less.

Cass tries not to read too much into it. For as much effort and resources as AuDy put into this—into Cass, after… Well, it makes sense that they would want to make sure Cass's body functions within normal parameters.

And yet.

The shape of their—friendship?; relationship?—whatever-it-is had never been characterized as having clear edges, even at the best of times. But these weeks on Kalliope have done nothing to bring things into focus.

They try not to read too much into it, but they can't help ascribing meaning where there is none. They're not an idiot, nor are they a fool. And yet… they have to fight not to sigh, not to bring one hand up to rest on AuDy's own.

But they can think about it. They can close their eyes and imagine that there's intention behind the solid weight at their back. They can imagine what it would feel like to lace their fingers with AuDy's, giving them an experimental squeeze just to feel how the synthskin would react. They can imagine that AuDy would squeeze back.

"Your heart rate is elevated," AuDy says in their lowest volume setting. It's barely above a whisper, and even though there's no breath behind it, Cass can't suppress the involuntary shiver.

"It's fine," they say, voice cracking around the lump in their throat.

"You should rest."

Cass doesn't scoff, but it's a near thing. I should do a lot of stuff.

Their fingers flex, almost of their own accord, but they do not touch the back of AuDy's hand.

* * * (Good Morning, Agapios)

They gag on the tube as it comes free of their throat, collapsing onto their hands and knees on a slick, cold surface. They can't open their eyes yet, but they can feel the chilly air biting at their skin and scales as they try not to heave. Their arms shake under them, and they draw in a few ragged, gasping breaths as they work up the courage to try to look around.

"Ah, um… Ah, yes, Agapios Zosimus Demostrate, it's good to see you're awake. I'm Doctor Cardinal Parry, and I've been assigned to assist you." The voice comes from their left, stumbling over the Apostolosian name with aplomb. It's not Cass's name, but they're not in any position to argue about it. Shit. What happened that they wound up somewhere cold with a probably Oricon doctor while under an assumed name? A douchey assumed name, at that?

When Cass finally screws up the nerve to open their eyes, they're shocked to find that they aren't under some blinding white glare. Instead, the lab—and it is a medical lab—is illuminated by soft green and blue lights set into the floor and ceiling. It doesn't help with the chill, but it at least lets their eyes have an easier adjustment. They glance around: they aren't on the floor, but rather a raised platform in front of a huge tank like the ones that—

Like the ones Mako and Aria had described all the other Makos and Maritimes being grown in.

What the fuck.

They wrack their brain, trying to remember something, anything, that would give them a clue as to why they'd just been ejected from what might be a cloning vat. The last thing they remember is being in the Apokine, ready to fight Rigour, and then… Nothing.

"Fuck," they hiss through clenched teeth.

The doctor lets out a relieved sigh. "Oh, good. I was starting to worry! Welcome back, Mx. Demostrate."

"That's not how that works," Cass huffs. Their throat is so raw that it barely comes out as a gravely rasp. "You have to say the full trilonym or only the pronym. Never just the eponym."

"Ah, you will have to forgive me… Mx. Agapios, then?" When Cass gives them a curt nod, they continue, "We don't receive much patronage from customers from Apostolos. When your work order came in… well, a lot of us thought it was a joke."

Cass snorts. "Shitty joke."

The doctor nods. "Yes, well. Obviously now we know better. The procedure went well, though to make the timetable we were given, we were required to lean more heavily on synthware implants than is typical for this sort of, ah, reconstruction." They gesture down at Cass. "However, I believe you will find the implants to meet or exceed all of the requirements we were given."

"Will I." Implants. What the fuck happened?

By the time Doctor Parry discharges them, they're clad in a simple shirt and pair of slacks, both standard-issue from the facility. Not standard-issue are the hair ties they'd wheedled out of one of the nurses and used to bind their hair up into a quick and inelegant braid.

What they've managed to piece together is this: someone very rich has grown them a bunch of new body parts on short notice and given them the douchiest alias possible for them to use while their benefactor does… something. No one at the facility would tell them what happened or who even paid their bill. Which is a pretty huge puzzle piece to be missing for damn sure.

Still, they gather that they're on Kalliope (not a big leap even if the staff hadn't been willing to part with that tidbit), and they have no means of contacting Aria or Mako or anyone. The best they can hope is that the ID they've been given is forged well enough that they can find a shitty hotel to crash in.

They flex their fingers. At least Doctor Parry is right: the implants are good. They can't tell their appendages from the elbows and knees down aren't organic.

Outside the facility, a cab waits with its rear passenger door open. The sidewalk is devoid of any other pedestrian life. For a single, childish moment, Cass considers walking on past, but the impulse passes as quickly as it came. They're alone, they're cred-less, and the only way they're likely to get any answers is by accepting the invitation and seeing where it leads.

From the cab, Cass watches the cityscape roll by with a vague sort of detachment. It's more developed than Centralia's dome, but can't hold a candle to the regal spires of Apostolos's capitol. It's difficult to be interested in the place when it's so unfamiliar and they still have so many questions.

The car pulls up to an imposing apartment building, but the door doesn't open just yet. The driver (not an Automated Dynamics model, Cass notes with the same disinterest with which they'd regarded the passing surroundings) swivels its head so that the screen projecting the image of a person faces the back seat.

"If you're expecting me to pay up, I don't know what to tell you," Cass says.

The screen flickers, the projection of a face pixelating for a moment before clearing. From the speaker mounted at the just below the screen, a synthesized voice intones, "Cassander."

Even though it shouldn't be shocking to hear their own name (whoever had set all this up obviously knows who they are), Cass's pulse jumps. When it becomes obvious that the driver expects a response, they swallow down their shock. "Yeah?"

"In the trunk you will find some items," the driver informs them. "You will find clothing, the key to unit 35-A, a comms unit, and several other accessories which you may need."

"Okay…? Are you going to tell me—"

"That is all." The driver's head swivels back around. The door closest to the curb swings open. "Please exit the vehicle."

They sigh and do as they're instructed. Once they're out, the trunk pops open to reveal a large bag that, from the heft of it, contains everything they were informed it would.

Whoever arranged all this evidently expects them to be here for a while.

*

The apartment is by no means large, but it's well-appointed and comfortable. Cass unloads all the clothing into the chest of drawers in the bedroom, then flops down on the bed. For someone who only woke up a few hours ago, Cass is exhausted. Still, they fidget with the comms unit in their hand. They have yet to turn it on, and now that they have a means with which to interact with the outside world, they're not sure they want to.

Curiosity wins out. They can turn on the comms without making any calls, they reason. Not just yet. They thumb the power button and the comms spring to life.

"Cassander." A tinny, synthesized voice chirps from the comms: a pre-recorded message set to play on start-up. "You are safe here. You must have questions. This is understandable. They will be answered, but first you must adjust. The date is day 189 of the 5th arc of Apokine Pelagios XXV. Please use the name Agapios Zosimus Demostrate if you interact with anyone here. Do not worry about funds. Your expenses will come out of Agapios's accounts." The message ends and the comms go dark.

5th arc of Pelagios XXV? Shit. Over a year since the last day they remember.

"What the hell happened?" they ask aloud to their empty apartment. Their home, now, and for the foreseeable future. At least until they've "adjusted," whatever that's supposed to mean.

They don't expect an answer, and they do not receive one.

*

The first time Cass noticed something was different, it was in the middle of a firefight.

As was often the case, the job went south. Gunfire pinned Mako and Aria down behind an overturned desk, while AuDy and Cass took cover around the corner. Mako had done a good job of fogging the building's security system, but that only made it easier for the competing crew to infiltrate too. And now they were caught in a needless firefight with a bunch of cut-throats who decided that ransoming an exiled member of a royal family would have a better payout than their original job.

"It don't gotta be like this," the leader called out between volleys of fire. "Just hand the damn fish over and ya can go. We won't even stop ya from grabbin' the goods. It's all yours if the fish comes with us."

"No way!" Mako yelled over the top of the desk. "Get your own royal scion. This one's ours!"

Cass rolled their eyes. "Shut up." Their mind raced: what were the chances that they could take out the opposing team? What were the best means of escape? How could they make sure Aria, AuDy, and Mako got out relatively unharmed?

Unfortunately, Cass could see only one course of action that didn't lead to someone important getting hurt. To the head goon, they said, "You have to let my people go first. Then I'll come with you."

"What?!" Mako squawked. "Are you crazy? You can't go with those people!"

"You can't be serious," Aria added.

"I'm serious. They can't hurt me because I'm useless to them if I'm injured." Softer, hopefully only loud enough for their friends to hear, "Besides, you can get me away from them once you get what we came here for."

"Put down your gun and step outta that corner," the ringleader said. "You do that and your people can go."

Neither Aria, nor Mako, nor AuDy said anything at first, which Cass took as a good sign. They put their gun on the ground at their feet and then raised their hands high above their head. With the toe of their boot, they nudged their gun out into the open. "There. Step one done."

"Still don't see you, 'your Highness.' Your friends don't go 'til we can see your fishy little face."

Cass took a deep breath in through their nose and out through their mouth. "Alright."

As they turned to step into the open, AuDy hooked an arm around their waist. "You cannot go."

"It's your best shot at getting out of here," Cass hissed. "This isn't my first time with someone trying to ransom me. I know how this goes."

"They will hurt you."

"It'll be fine," Cass said.

"That was a very Aria 'fine,'" AuDy responded. "Which is not fine at all." It never ceased to amaze Cass how an expressionless robot can somehow be sullen.

The head goon made a show of clearing his throat. "We're waiting."

"Just trust me, okay? I'll be alright and you can come pick me up once you get what we came for." Cass slipped out of AuDy's hold, and AuDy did not chase them. "It'll be fine."

[bellsybuilds]

[Overwatch] Old friends (G; Angela, Zenyatta, 1.4k)

Because I have no chill over the new support hero and have a mighty need for lore explanations, specifically re: discord, harmony and the Iris.

Old friends (Can also be read on AO3)

Angela Ziegler, Tekhartha Zenyatta, Soldier 76 | Jack Morrison

Angela asks Zenyatta to help her review some old footage and it reveals something quite upsetting.

“Watch closely.”

On the double monitors of Doctor Ziegler’s private workstation, the still image of the broken city street spilled into motion. The glass sheet of a high rise building streamed past like a rush of water, abruptly tilting away to a glimpse of white clouds on blue sky, clustered skyscrapers, the sun flaring in a blinding arc as the image flipped upside down into the scowling face of Doomfist who rushed up to meet them.

“This is the footage from Doomfist’s capture?” Zenyatta asked, though he already bore his suspicions. There were few who could scale a building as swiftly and at such an angle like his student.

He had heard the story: a slim and costly victory.

“Yes.” Angela paused the footage as Genji cleaved through the car hurled at his head. “There. Did you see it?”

Zenyatta glanced between her and the monitor, waiting. “I have perfect recall, Doctor, but specifics are an advantage.”

Angela wound back the footage. Before them, Genji scaled the building, and the world tipped as he threw his body in a controlled fall. Sky and buildings flashed by in the smother of the sun’s glare.

The footage stopped.

“There.”

Zenyatta’s optics scanned the input, three times for her benefit, but it was a smear of misshapen white. “Um….”

She wound back the footage once more. Zenyatta noted Angela watching his face as it replayed, attentive to his reaction.

“The moment before he falls,” she explained, gesturing to the area on the monitor, ”There is a reflection in the glass.”

Zenyatta waited and watched politely with new focus.

Then hesitated, feeling something hitch and stall in the chassis of his chest.

Wait.

“Again,” he requested, leaning in.

It rose like the bloom of a dandelion over Genji’s shoulder, throbbing and fragile at its ephemeral edges. It wobbled in frame for less than one tenth of a second, but Zenyatta’s tracking and predictive systems were more precisely tuned than any human eye or non-military program, and he understood how it rebounded off the glass window in the moment Genji tipped toward the sun.

In addition to tracking, Zenyatta’s colour perception was flawless.

He would recognise the deep, violet hue of discord anywhere. But he had never seen one cast so large or that could behave in such a way to redirect itself.

He did not realize he had pushed himself back from Angela’s desk until he registered her light hand on his shoulder.

“I did not imagine it, did I?” Angela’s tone was quiet with apology, but she was not the one who to apologise for the disquiet coiling in Zenyatta’s core, or the high whirring in his audials as he premised and calculated the odds for a thousand possible explanations in the space of Angela’s sigh, arriving at a distressing lack of conclusion.

Zenyatta would know. He had to know.

“Who has done this?” Zenyatta asked, flatly. “Who among your kind has unlocked the secrets of the Iris, Doctor?”

Angela pulled her hand back and Zenyatta nurtured a brief sting of guilt. Only briefly.

“I hoped you could tell me,” Angela shook her head, and Zenyatta watched her capture the images, prepare to export the files to what looked like a report. Who would she report it to? The unconscious scientist in the ward beside them? “How many omnics do you know who can do what you do?”

That was an easy answer.

“None.”

Angela stopped and stared at him, expression slack in shock. “Excuse me?”

Zenyatta folded his hands in his lap. He hoped it would not be a mistake to divulge to the doctor. But Genji trusted her. Zenyatta trusted the doctor with Genji’s life, but what of the secrets of his own people?

The cables and servos of his hands clicked softly as he clenched and flexed his hands. How could something like this have developed without their knowledge? Their isolation and silence had not protected them. It was unlikely to save them now.

For the sake of his people and Genji and Tracer… and all the others who didn’t understand what was coming, Zenyatta would have to hope his faith would not be misplaced.

“It took me many years to understand the nature of discord and harmony, following the teaching of my brethren. Even longer to understand it could be harnessed and relayed for the benefit… or harm of others. I have not yet met another omnic who has achieved the same feat. It was not commonly understood… and encouraged even less by those who did.”

Zenyatta focused his attention and reached within the core of himself to the well of his being. After so many years, it was the work of a thought to summon the swirling, golden glow of harmony into his palms, basking them both in its wholesome warmth.

“The size of an orb is determined by the well of its maker. The power core of any omnic with the capacity to manifest harmony and discord naturally limits us. This is the product of a life’s meditation, but it started as nothing more than a spark.”

The orb between Zenyatta’s palms soured and darkened to its natural complement. He dipped his fingertips at its crackling tendrils of chaos, his sensors alighting with warnings of signal disruption and bursts of electric charge. Seductively numbing, to your death.

“No sentient omnic could physically manifest an orb of the size in that footage,” Zenyatta extinguished his own with a flick of his wrists, and felt the dip in his core as the energy was relinquished to the Iris. “It is… highly improbable.”

The power that would require… even the possibility made him uneasy to consider it.

Angela’s jaw had clenched, muscles of her neck standing tight. She was searching his face as though for truth when Zenyatta looked up to meet her gaze again.

“That is a concern,” Angela chose her words, careful and measured. The diplomacy of her bedside manner revealed room for improvement.

Still, Zenyatta appreciated the attempt. “It is of great concern when a terrorist organization possesses the means to both take… and give life. It is my concern that balance will not be on the minds of those with this power.”

Angela glanced to the page on her report, fingers tapping the desk’s edge. Her lower lip pulled between her teeth. “You have been most enlightening, my friend. I am grateful for your insight. It looks like we could be dealing with an entirely new threat from Talon. Do you have any recommendations of how we should proceed?”

Zenyatta placed a consoling hand on her forearm, pleased when it earned him a small smile - though it fell at his next words.

"Rest easy, Doctor. I will pursue this myself. ”

//

“Zenyatta–”

The door hissed shut behind the monk. Angela sank into her chair with a heavy sigh, feeling her heart sink even deeper for the pieces unfolding before them.

There was something about this whole situation. It felt like the same tension that frizzled and built in a hundred small discomfiting incidents, before Gabriel’s unit abruptly crumbled upon itself, and the Swiss headquarters imploded.

Angela reached for her intercom on the desk, and waited for “Soldier 76” to accept her call.

Jack’s gruff tone spared no pleasantries. “What did he say?”

Angela frowned at the still images of that reflection in the glass, the manipulation of discord that had so clearly upset Zenyatta. The uneasiness stirred tighter in her chest. “Are you sure it’s her?”

“ID was positive. It’s O’Deorain.”

Angela closed her eyes and pressed her hands against her lids to relieve the building pressure.

After all these years. That lunatic, still alive and at Talon’s right hand.

She swallowed moisture down her throat before she could respond. "Zenyatta was certain. She’s somehow attained knowledge of discord, Jack. It’s precious knowledge to him, I know it. And I think he’ll try to go after her.”

Thankfully, Jack did not growl at her for taking more than seven years to notice. And this detail may have gone unnoticed forever if Doomfist had not broken from his imprisonment, and compelled Overwatch to review what little they knew of him.

Jack scoffed. “He’s right to be upset. We have a real problem.”

“He can’t pursue her himself, Jack. He will be killed.”

“I agree, Angie.” And she smarted at the nickname after all these years, the assumed closeness, even though it ached bittersweet with nostalgia. Jack then deigned to give her orders. The nerve. “Pack a bag. We leave for Oasis in the morning.”

[black-strike-otp]

part 76

This took far more time to write than it should have but at least it’s done! Haza!

I have a feeling someone’s gonna kick my ass for this, hmm...

Whatever it was Blackout was searching for, she never could figure out. There was better ways to waste time she imagined instead of waiting for his room to be available by walking around the Nemesis without reason. She hoped he was considering how to get out of this mess, but something in her spark felt deadened with dismay. What if he didn’t want to leave? This had been his home. Maybe it was all just her; her fears, her unease, her cowardice at play here. She should be more considerate of how he felt about a place that meant something to him, and still might.

The thought process didn’t put at ease her panicked thoughts. Starscream had been muttering to Nighthawk something about Megatron wanting to speak to him after bringing up the fact that the medic had went missing with tools owned by the Decepticon cause. What would that crazy tyrant do to him if he realized the devices Nighthawk may have on servo were that of the Malevolence property?

Keeping a close trot to Blackout’s pace, Nova followed the mech to his room in a nearly desolate hallway. Judging by the three or so Eradicon walking around, they had just finished up cleaning out his old room. It seemed a low-traffic route on the ship as the floors and walls weren’t scuffed up and discolored from pedes like high traffic zones.

If she’d thought the captain’s quarters on board the Rising Star had been an achievement of luxury, as Blackout identified his personal signal to the door and it opened, she was soon mistaken.

It may have lacked any personal touch just as the Rising Star’s room had, but it was far, far larger in size. Aside from a berth, there was a large wall to wall set of storage cabinets, cupboards, and an area to lay out items, trinkets, trophies, knickknacks, weapons, you name it across the same span of distance. There were an obvious hidden closet built into the wall for further storage, shelves, and a virtual command console with a massive chair clearly meant to hold a large bot.

With a nook mini fridge and a curious door that lead to who knew what, it was practically a mansion in its own right. Sadly, the room seemed to lack the beauty of an open window to view out in the stars which she found one of the best attributes to their room, but this was a warship, not a transporter turned space vessel. Having such a window would jeopardize the health of the bot in the room as anyone could take a shot at them just doing a fly by.

“This was your room?” Nova stated with shock, looking around as Blackout moved further into the room.

For the first time since they’d entered the room, the obsidian mech actually bothered to respond to her. He moved his helm just enough to look over his shoulder so that his scarlet optics could gaze upon her.

“It was,” he admitted. “Perks of being a top tier Decepticon officer.”

“You must have thought the Rising Star was pitiful in comparison,” she whispered faintly, walking around the room with astonishment. This room was larger than some of the rooms bots had grouped up to recharge in on the Rising Star, and this was for one; albeit large, but one mech.

Rumbling quietly in his chassis, the reinstated Decepticon Hound glanced away, and back down at her with a look of momentary hurt.

“I didn’t think such a thing,” he whispered quietly.

Cringing at her own thoughtless remark, Nova went to open her big stupid trap and speak up, when she was cut off.

“That door there leads to a private shower rack,” Blackout softly stated. “Its been a while since we’ve had a proper cleaning. Why don’t you take first shower? I’ve got somewhere to be, but I’ll leave Scorponok in here so you don’t come out alone. If you have trouble figuring out how it works, Scorp can offer you some assistance.”

Private shower rack? Primus, the mech had been living a life of opulence. She’d never heard of a private shower rack before; and the fact he had to vaguely mention that the controls may be complicated probably suggested it was over the top with a hundred crazy settings.

After finally absorbing this information, it seemed like the rest of the mech’s words finally came to her.

“You’re leaving?” she managed to squeak breathlessly.

“Only for a little while, dear, I promise,” he rumbled quietly, turning his body to look down at her fully with a tender smile.

Frustrated, she threw her arms down, looking to the floor. “I don’t understand, you were being so weird and distant when the seekers surrounded us and you were just acting so insensitive right outside the door and through the halls, where is this coming from why are you acting this way-?”

“Novastrike I’m so sorry,” Blackout cut in, baring his servos in submission as he stepped closer to kneel down towards her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

He reached out, gently pressing his digit to her chin. There was no pressure to it; he waited patiently for her to raise her helm to him of her own accord. A small smile formed on his faceplate, a melancholy light to his expression as she finally elevated her helm.

“Soundwave is a lot more than he appears, and I know he appears... eerie,” he said gently. “But I have learned, there is nothing that mech can not hear. The only reason I say this now is because this room; all officer rooms, and debugged and fortified specifically for privacy. They’re made for this security; part of our privilege. Love, it is far safer if bots on this ship speculate you are only, my apologies, but another bot under my services. I can not offer you the kindness and cherishing you deserve in front of others, it is too risky, and I’m so sorry for that.”

“Nova,” he continued softly. “I do not want to offend you. I am doing what I can to keep you safe. I value you, I love you, I care about you, but these mechs, they will not hesitate to hold things against anyone else if they think it’s a weak spot.”

“So, you’re saying I’m your weak spot?” Nova murmured, offering a nervous, unsure smile.

Blackout gave a light chuckle at that. “One of my weakest,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t feel comfortable alerting you earlier to my behavior as precaution to prying audios and I wasn’t sure how to try getting the idea across otherwise without rousing suspicion. Please just... trust me. I’m doing my best. I don’t want to jeopardize you in any way.”

“I can take care of myself,” she hissed playfully, yanking her helm away from him to nip at his digit. Before he could retract his servo at her ‘cruelty’, she pressed a kiss to the spot she had bit as apology.

“I’m sure we could both give these bots a run for their credits,” he agreed with a grin, “but there are a lot of powerful bots here. Coming out in one piece, well...”

“I understand,” she whispered quietly, audio stacks falling back.

Giving a half-sparked smile, the ebony mech brushed his digit over the top of her helm with gentleness. It brought a warm smile to her faceplate once again. Novastrike glanced up to him, rubbing her cheek against his servo as he brought his digits around to rub her backstrut.

“I like it better when you have a smile on your face,” he murmured quietly.

Giving a slight huff, she stuck her glossia out at him teasingly.

Raising an optic ridge, the colossal mech brought back his servo and tapped her very gingerly upon her faceplate.

“Will you be alright if I leave you with Scorponok?” Blackout persisted calmly.

There was a slight hesitation. For a moment, she considered asking him to stay. Scorponok was a wonderful mech; a good friend, a good fighter, but she didn’t know this ship. She didn’t know what to expect. And Blackout, well, he gave a certain kind of well-known ‘big and scary’ projection that kept all the other monsters and demons at bay...

But that was selfish. She didn’t know what it was he wanted to go check on so badly. There may be friends on this ship he hadn’t seen in a long time. Frag, for all she knew, maybe he wanted to get a rundown on things so he could get back to work.

Offering a lopsided smile, the little femme gave a slight nod in response. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll check out that shower rack you mentioned. Just don’t... don’t take forever?”

Primus, she sounded like an anxious sparkling.

Fortunately, he seemed to understand, bless his spark. Giving a nod, he positioned his pedes to stand as he offered a sweet, small, sensitive smile.

“I’ll try to be fast,” he echoed in a quiet rumble. The rotors on his backside peeled on either side as he spoke, and after a sequence of metallic shifting noises, Scorponok’s figure peeked up and climbed upon Blackout’s shoulder.

Turning two optics to his master and two to Novastrike, the bug gave a chirp. Blackout gave him a nod, and the scorpion scaled part of the way down before dropping near her as she jumped back with surprise.

Chattering, the bug took a few steps in her direction. She let out a slight giggle, reaching out to scratch along his helm.

“Behave yourselves,” growled the massive bot.

“No promises,” Scorponok clicked with a taunting, mischievous tone.

While Novastrike gave a laugh, Blackout gave him his partner a serious glance.

“Come on, Scorp,” she snickered. “You can give me a debriefing about this shower stall.”

“No bathe me,” the bug cautiously stated.

“No,” she agreed with a smile. “For myself only, I vow it.”

Giving an agreeing nod, the minicon began to pitter-patter his pronged pede tips across the floor in a hurry. Nova turned slowly to follow the bug to the bathing room. She came to a pause at the door as it opened for her insect-like companion and glanced back to Blackout as he watched her, pressing a kiss to her palm and blowing it towards him.

Truthfully, she didn’t expect the cheesy response she got in return. He pretended to catch the kiss, and went to place his servos over his spark.

Ears burning with a blushing light, she turned rigidly and hurried into the bathroom, with Blackout’s melted dark chocolate playful laughter following her as her spark rang a few notes of joy.

~

Once Novastrike was in the shower rack, Blackout took a swift exit from the room. He had to make sure she was somewhere secure before he would feel at ease leaving her. Even with Scorponok by her side, leaving her alone on this ship filled to the brim with mechs who’d have half a mind to squash her, probe her, and who knew what else, he simply didn’t like the idea of dropping her just anywhere. His room would be safe. His scanners and light EMP before entering the room ensured that if something had been left behind, it had been overcharged but it seemed free of spy equipment.

He wasn’t just on edge, he was paranoid.

Quickly moving down the hall, he hurried back in the direction of the bridge. A sharp cry of pain captured his attention and he redirected his attention, wishing that he would just be wrong this time.

Coming down the hall that would have usually directed him to the command room, he went to turn and saw the tyrant standing over a red armored mech.

“My Lord-”

The tyrant slammed his pede into the mech’s backside, eliciting a sharp cry from the seeker. His wings were angled sharply downward. Blackout could hear from the distance he was at the soft noises escaping the seams where his wings met his backstrut daring to crack.

“Lord Megatorn,” Blackout gruffly spoke up, his voice level and loud.

Turning his helm to the side, the Decepticon leader released a malicious snarl at him.

“What do you want, Blackout?”

“Apologies for the disruption, my Lord,” he humbly grumbled, inclining his helm. “I had overheard that you had summoned Nighthawk. I came on behalf of the mech-”

“On behalf of this gutless spawn?” the tyrant growled furiously. The vicious light in his optics grew darker as he removed his pede from the medic, knocking him into the wall with a sharp kick.

Although he knew it unwise to turn his optics away from his ruler, Blackout flickered a glance towards the smaller mech. He cringed as he got a good look at the front of the vermilion and white section of his chassis now scorched blacker than the charcoal accent armor trim and sections of underarmor. There was energon beading up from the hole near his upper chassis, welling and having left streams of blue over his chassis. His left cheek appeared dented in slightly and energon dripped from his mouth.

Nighthawk grimaced as he realized Blackout was staring at him. His entire frame was riddled with smaller dents and scratches; claw marks and gashes.

As he brought his optics back towards Megatron, he felt surprised how quickly the big mech had approached upon him.

“Explain why  you are delaying due punishment,” the tyrant all but raged. “Enlighten me, as I am inconceivably curious why you would defend an AWOL medic. Deserted his post, swiped cargo from the Malevolence that we have discovered on board his ship.”

Biting back his question as to where the dragon was although he became acutely aware he was not present, the giant mech bowed his helm as he growled, “My Lord, I apologize for not being straightforward previously. But my wounds... Had been rather grave, sir. Although I had been getting by after the war, I keep a distress signal active for some time. It eventually drew in Autobots, my Lord, and so I had to turn it off. However, Nighthawk had caught a cycled loop of my signal and had taken it upon himself to go after me.”

“Considering I was deemed offline, my Lord, he did not bring up his findings to his command for certainty that they would fine him to be mad. So instead of asking for help, he thought it best to take it upon himself to follow my distress signal. It would be of my fault that he would even consider stealing the property of the Malevolence. His assistant is bound both by loyalty and servitude my Lord. I ask you to consider sparing them-”

It all happened so fast; he didn’t even see it coming. Suddenly his oldest friend had his helm in his servo and forcibly shoved his weight into Blackout. Under normal circumstances, the mech at least 10 feet shorter than himself, he may have been able to throw off but he was taken so aback that he slammed into the wall and slid part of the way down.

“Do you take me for a fool?!” the tyrant roared into his audio receptor.

“Never, my Lord,” he rasped.

“That mech is a traitor, and should be dealt with accordingly,” he pledged, pushing Blackout’s helm firmly into the wall. “You are lying to me; I can smell it on you, see it in your optics. But why would you lie to me on behalf of this runaway coward?”

Moving his optics towards Nighthawk, Blackout could see the medic trying to sit up. His servo appeared to be ghosting at his side, trying to find something.

“I owe this mech my life, sir,” Blackout grunted, huffing as the warlord shoved his weight into his side; knee joint digging into his side. “He has saved my life. He’s skilled at what he does, sir, he’s not expendable.”

“You think I’m going to let him live because he saved your life?” Megatron jeered furiously.

“I’m requesting you let him live because he can and will save the lives of your crew, given the opportunity, my liege.”

With a sudden jerk, the Decepticon Leader tore his servo away from Blackout’s helm. He flinched as pain burned in his helm as small sections of his kibble armor and smaller chunks of metal snapped off with the mech’s servo.

Nighthawk quickly had his servo upon the floor and away from his thigh. He looked around hopelessly as he tried to scoot back, bringing up one arm in self defense.

“My Lord, please-”

Pushing himself off the wall, Blackout winced with sympathy as the tyrant picked up the poor seeker by his deformed chassis armor and rammed him bodily into the wall. Nighthawk gave a sharp intake of pain, his optics flashing. The moment his frame was released, Megatron’s servo came up in a swift uppercut and plowed into the hole of his chassis.

The medic was sent to the ceiling of the hallway, letting out a yelp as his helm collided with the roof. He fell to the floor as the Decepticon Lord stepped back, with the hole now widened and deeper. Metal was crushed inward from his chassis and energon was flowing out at an alarming rate.

As Megatron reached down as if to haul up his toy once more, Blackout took the lengthy strides of distance between them and reached out, grabbing him by the arm.

It proved to be a terrible mistake.

The warlord’s fist came hurtling around and slugged him right in the forehead. His processor scrambled with the pain with flashing light emitting randomly from his optics as they glitched. With his loosened grip, the silver-toned mech ripped his other arm free and raised his fusion cannon.

The hum of it warming up caught Blackout’s attention, and just before it went off in direct blank range of his chassis, he swung quite literally blindly, knocking his master’s arm away.

Infuriated, Megatron slid out his blade, resting it against Blackout’s neck cables as his optics finally were capable of taking in the sights around him once more.

“Tell me right now, why I shouldn’t just behead you both for such incompetence?”

“Because the only medic you have available to you is Knock Out,” he growled quietly, tasting energon in his mouth. “And his ‘assistant’ is offline, Breakdown I believe his designation was. Sir, I may have been gone, but I am not stupid. I can scan occupations with ease on this ship. Knock Out is a field medic; young, trained solely by his own curiosities and examinations of other bots performances over the years.”

“Nighthawk went to an academy, my lord. His supplies may have been taken, but unless you plan on returning it, consider it more materials for the Nemesis, where it would matter more anyway. Offlining him is just losing a valuable aid to your empire.”

A slow, lazy, ominous grating laugh escaped the mech. “You may yet convince me to spare Nighthawk’s spark, but what of your own?”

The blade moved, ghosting against Blackout’s neck threateningly.

He spoke as frankly as he possibly could, praying it was the right choice. “Sir, I can not tell you why I should be online. You already thought that I was offline. I have clearly disgraced you and your order. It would only make sense for you to make a lesson of me.”

“That almost sounds like you want to offline, Blackout; you’re not convincing me.”

“I have no valuable excuses, my liege. The choice is yours, as is my life.”

The thick air of tension lingered. Blackout kept his optics placed on his master’s. Primus, this is not how he expected a stand off to go in his life where he truly had no say in the matter. To try to even act as if he was going to defend himself would start a battle he didn’t want to face. To sit here and wait for death was to put his femme in the servos of these mechs, and taking Scorponok to an early grave or at bare minimum, giving that poor scorpion a horrible pain-ridden remainder of his life as the bond broke and his spark was engulfed in the worst pain he’d ever experienced in his life.

Gradually, Megatron pulled his sword away from his throat. Blackout didn’t allow himself even a fraction of relief or a breath. He knew how quickly the tides could turn on this mech.

“You’ve clearly forgotten your place,” the mighty leader stated with clear fury. “Know this: I am only allowing you to live because I we could use more firepower. That... and consider this your one and only second-chance. One I never thought I would have to use on you, of all mechs, Blackout.”

“I understand, my Lord,” he stated calmly.

Flicking his optics, Megatron moved his helm and then pivoted his frame so that his shoulders nearly skimmed Blackout’s armor. He turned to look at the slumped over Nighthawk, who was weakly coughing up energon.

“Thank Blackout for having your life spared today, medic,” taunted the warlord with a sadistic sneer. “The instant you disappoint me, I’m ripping your body apart, piece by piece, while you scream for mercy.”

Cycling the energon back in his vents, Nighthawk gagged as he lifted his helm up, optics flickering and helm rolling slightly on his shoulders.

“My assistant?” he gurgled past the energon dripping from his mouth.

“I’ll return him to you,” Megatron agreed, offering a spark-chilling laughter as he added on, “What’s left of him, anyway.”

Nighthawk’s optics darkened dramatically and he tried to lunge forward, falling flat on his chassis with a cry of agony.

Giving a more hearty laughter that was still similarly haunting, the tyrant seemed to thrive on the seeker’s fear; beaming wide. Nearly each sharp, pointy section of derma lined in his mouth was showing from his hideously gleeful expression.

“Be grateful that I leave it online at all,” he taunted nastily. Turning a final angry look towards Blackout that spoke volumes on how much he distrusted him now, the big mech walked past the seeker. Not without, perhaps purposefully, allowing his pede to step upon Nighthawk’s arm as he passed so that the seeker gave a weak and feeble whine.

Blackout waited until the Decepticon Leader was at least a good thirty paces down the corridor before he stepped over to Nighthawk. The medic was clawing at the floor, trying to push himself up on his knees and servos despite how drained he had to be feeling.

Reaching out, he went to pick the seeker up.

“Don’t help me!” Nighthawk all but shrieked. “I can help myself!”

Narrowing his optics, Blackout gave a quiet snarl and grabbed the medic by his waist and hauled him up to tuck him under his arm.

“What are you doing?!” the medic demanded, trying to wriggle himself free. “Put me down this instant!”

“Sorry, Nighthawk, no can do,” Blackout grumbled. “I would have carried you in a slightly more dignified way, but you insist on being hard-helmed.”

“Where are you taking me?” he growled as he struggled, trying to shove himself out of the arm curled around him.

“To the med-bay.”

“So that psychopath Knock Out can work on me? I think not! Release me, I have to go find Infiltrator this instant!”

“Relax, old mech,” hushed the much larger obsidian mech in a growly voice. “I’m going to set your slagging aft on a berth, hand you whatever junk you ask me to, and leave. You can enjoy some quality time with that slagging grounder.”

“Infiltrator is my priority-” Nighthawk heatedly argued.

“I’ll go see if I can’t find wherever Lord Megatron had him dragged off to, but you certainly aren’t getting anywhere in that shape. I don’t care how pissed off you are running on adrenaline, you’d hit the ground and be dead trying to haul aft or knowing your furious aft, trying to rip it from Megatron’s vocal cords.”

“If they hurt him, I’ll never forgive myself,” Nighthawk said quietly; his voice pained and much, much more tired now. He actually sounded old for once; frayed, tattered, exhausted to the last nanoite in his frame.

In that moment, Blackout felt he truly, totally, completely understood the crimson seeker’s pain and fears but on his own accomplices.

“He can’t be any worse off than you,” he offered, trying to lighten the mood.

Nighthawk didn’t appear to be having any of it. Either that, or the energon loss was starting to really kick in. He did seem to be going a bit limper in his grip.

Blackout picked up the pace towards the medics office. Maybe he was wrong about one thing; there was a pretty good chance he might pass out and just have to wake up and deal with the fact Knock Out had gotten his digits all over him. He could complain and have Blackout’s aft over it later.

~

“You expect me to take care of this?” Knock Out demanded, staring at Nighthawk’s slack frame as Blackout laid him out as carefully as he could upon the first berth he saw.

“You are a medic, are you not?” Blackout demanded in a wrathful growl of thunder.

Faltering, the glossy-framed mech opened and closed his mouth. He gave what was probably seen by most as being the most attractive smile in the multiverse to Blackout.

“I certainly am, but this is a bit uh, messy-”

“You’re a Decepticon, on a Decepticon ship, surrounded by Decepticons who come to you injured all the time, including Lord Megatron himself,” Blackout impatiently reminded him, standing over the short mech so that his shadow cascaded over him. “Fix him. Now. Or I’ll have to resort to punching you repeatedly in the helm until you can suddenly recall how to seal of energon lines and patch a bot up.”

The color drained from Knock Out’s optics as they suddenly went pale. “Yes, of course, it should be no problem whatsoever!”

“Good,” Blackout jeered. “Because if he offlines, I’ll have to kill you.”

The grounder medic seemed to shrink even smaller beneath Blackout’s large frame.

“Sorry,” he added in a tone that definitely suggested he would not be sorry to perform an act of homicide.

As Knock Out began to slink off to fetch his medical kit, Blackout let out an exaggerated vent. He glanced down at Nighthawk’s frame for a moment, scanning over his wounds. Not good shape, but he didn’t honestly believe the old mech would die, unless Knock Out was truly that stupid and careless.

He reached up, lightly brushing his digits against his helm. A slight shudder went over him from the tender, throbbing spot near his temple. Grumbling, Blackout looked to where he saw Knock Out assembling equipment. He’d have to come back later and see about a patch and adjustments to his helm.

Removing himself from being in the way, Blackout was out of the remove before the grounder could even return to the seeker’s side. He looked up and down the hall for a nanoklik, trying to determine where his master could possibly send that drake Infiltrator at. If he wasn’t at the medic’s for dissection, then where could he be? Having him sent to the sparring room didn’t make much sense. There were no logged labs in the database, no bot who was a professional scientist.

Except, maybe one.

Rolling his optics Blackout headed down the hallway.

After a multitude of twists and turns, he followed a nearly empty hall down to the room he never visited and despised the idea of being near. Raising his fist, he rapped against the locked door.

“What is it?” Starscream’s raspy voice came from the inside.

“Room service,” Blackout offered with a vexed tone. Hardly one that you would expect from a housekeeper.

He counted the nanokliks in his helm. When the door didn’t open, he shifted as if to try prying it open with his servos and found himself surprised when the sealed dual doors hissed open just before him.

Straightening his posture and placing his arms at his side, Blackout looked the small irritating seeker in the optics.

“What do you want?” the SIC whined. “You better have a damn good reason, bothering me like this and in my own private quarters, no less.”

Trying to look around the mech’s wings, Blackout let out a grunt. “I’m searching for a missing predacon looking dragon beast. Designation: Infiltrator.”

The seeker stepped to the side slightly to shield his room. “And you thought I would be holding such a foul creature?”

“You are acting rather suspiciously.”

“Just because I do not want a dog ogling my room? You’re absolutely insane. Go away, before I report you to Lord Megatron.”

“Just step aside for a nanoklik and I’ll be on my way,” Blackout muttered with annoyance.

“I shall not! These are my private quarters, and I am your superior! How dare you-”

Giving a scream of alarm, Starscream fell to the side as the much larger, stronger bot swatted him like a fly with his arm. He didn’t so much as pass him a glance as he tried to scramble to his pedes whilst Blackout made himself at home by stepping in.

Little to his surprise, he spotted Infiltrator, completely intact but bound, on an examination table.

“You’ve no class Starscream I mean really. Doing this kind of stuff in your berth room?”

“Get out of my room you filthy scrapheap!” the seeker howled in response.

Pointing at his damaged helm, Blackout gave a shrug as though he couldn’t comprehend or hear the seeker. He walked past him as he jumped excitedly around, waving his arms and screaming about how this was intrusion, how he was going to have his aft for this, how Lord Megatron was going to beat him to slag.

Honestly, he just tuned his audios down to a bare minimum level and ignored the squealing.

The wvyren’s tail tip slapped the table lightly with encouragement as Blackout approached, his gaze pleading. Knowing he was surely going to get court marshaled or bare minimum, his aft yet again handed to him for interfering with Lord Megatron’s orders, the stubborn dark armored bot reached out and crushed his restraints. Smashing the others, flicking aside pieces of metal and twisted lengths of thin chain.

Infiltrator flapped out his wings and gave himself a mighty shake like that of a dog.

“Thank you, Blackout,” he responded with elation.

“Are you alright?” Blackout grunted.

“Oh yes, nothing more than abrasions and nicks. I was told that if I conducted myself accordingly, they would not bring harm to Nighthawk. Although, from the noise I heard while I was dragged off, I don’t believe they kept their end of the bargain...”

“No, they didn’t. I think the resident medic Knock Out could use your assistance. Are you able to walk?”

With wide-optics, the dragon let out a strangled sound. “Boss bot’s hurt that bad? We should hurry.”

Opening his mouth to ask again if the dragon could walk, Blackout was nearly knocked over as Infiltrator suddenly leaped off the examination table. He swung past Starscream, his tail swiping outward and knocking the seeker off his pedes and on his aft.

Blackout wasn’t sure if that was on purpose or not, but he took a moment to laugh and appreciate it anyway.

Fuming, the second-in-command began to claw his way to his pedes, stomping after Blackout as he growled: “I’ll have your helm for this-”

Turning to glance over his shoulder at the approaching seeker, Blackout offered a sinister grin as he replied, “I don’t think so.”

He shot an EMP burst over Starscream so that he fell flat on his back, and then proceeded to EMP the locking mechanism on the door. That should keep him down for a while.

With no sight of Infiltrator, he shrugged and headed down the passageway back in the direction that would take him to the med-bay. He was probably going to be in a frag ton of trouble later, but at the moment, he couldn’t stop to consider the consequences too greatly otherwise he had a sinking suspicion he might actually regret standing up against the universe’s well known most murderous bot and leader of the Decepticon army. No matter how daunting the task had been however, it had to be done. After all, that stupid medic had went above and beyond to help him and to help Novastrike. He owed the mech; even if it meant risking his very spark at the moment.

[trbl-will-find-me]

Fic: Every Exit, An Entrance (1/?)

There are two (and only two) possibilities: either she led XCOM to victory and they are now engaged in a clean up operation of alien forces, or XCOM was overrun, clearing the way for an alien-controlled puppet government to seize control of the planet.

She’d really like to figure out which it is, but asking hardly seems the prudent option. (<3 to @companionwolf for lots of good fandom talk and getting me moving on this again.)

There are things she knows.

Her name.

Her age.

Her occupation.

There are other things she knows.

In March of 2015, hostile alien forces invaded the earth, making first contact in Germany.

As the Commander of the XCOM project, she led a global counteroffensive.

And that’s when things get fuzzy.

There are two (and only two) possibilities: either she led XCOM to victory and they are now engaged in a clean up operation of alien forces, or XCOM was overrun, clearing the way for an alien-controlled puppet government to seize control of the planet.

She’d really like to figure out which it is, but asking hardly seems the prudent option. --

There are other constants, too: broad, general things like steadfast adherence to the laws of physics as commonly observed, and smaller, more specific ones.

The events before the invasion are familiar, a story she recognizes innately as her own, and a plausible chain of memories link what was with what is. There are no holes, no lapses in logic that make the dream fall away.

There is always a Doctor Shen, though the age and the gender varies. One invents a SHIV, the other a GREMLIN; they are both ferociously dedicated.

Bradford –always Bradford or Central, never John– is always there.  Sometimes, there is a sweater; sometimes, there is a scar. They do not talk about June in Berlin.

The base is dark, the globe holographic, and his voice is still in her ear.

She looks for loose threads, one illogical strand to pull and pull and unravel the whole affair. She reasons that there has to be a slip, a glitch, some trick to tell the fun house reflection from the real thing,

She hasn’t found it yet, but she’ll keep looking, --

She stands in the midst of the carnage and chuckles quietly to herself. Bottles, glasses, clothing: when they partied, they partied. She should have known it would be a wild one when Molchetti had quite literally popped back into existence, landing in a heap on top of the hologlobe’s pedestal, cutting the air with an electric crackle.

“Hey, Strike One,” she called over the radio. “We found your missing package.”

She knows it’s not over, not yet. There will be clean up ops. There may still be the stray bogie, or a cell of aliens secreted somewhere far off. It may have just been the first wave, she thinks, and her stomach twists at the thought. There may be more coming.

Still, as she bends to pick up an empty bottle, she can’t deny that they earned this party. The Temple ship is gone, EXALT lies in ruins, and they are still alive.

There were days she doubted they would make it this far. Nova Scotia still weighs heavy on her, the sight of half the squad sliced to ribbons by chryssalids. Then there are the countless civilians they couldn’t save, abducted, tortured, and disposed of. And, of course, there are the shadows of the attack, of mutons pouring into the base, of their own people turned against them. Her ribs still ache from when she’d been thrown against a wall before a rare lucky shot stopped the creature in its tracks.

Yes, they’d earned a break.

Something stirs in the doorway, and she turns to see her second-in-command pick his way through. His sweater is missing, his tie is undone, and his shirt wrinkled but damn, if it isn’t a lovely sight.

The attack had taken a toll on him, too. Even setting aside the wrist only recently freed from a fiberglass cast, it’s hard to miss the hypervigilance, the longer shifts, the overreliance on caffeine and the rejection of a regular sleep schedule. He’d spent the night between the party and globe, ever vigilant.

“Commander.”

“Morning, Central.”

“Doctor Vahlen asked me to inform you that the sectoid heads are missing from the lab freezer.”

She should not be laughing at this. It is gross misconduct. With her luck, one is in her bed. Another is almost certainly in Central’s bed. They both know this.

And yet, laughter is all she can manage, sputtering out even as she tries to hold it back.

And then, she thinks she imagines it, but no, he’s laughing, too.

There they are, in the middle of chaos and mess, on what might be the first morning after the war, and they can still laugh.

She is ready to face whatever is next. --

She manages to sit until Bradford leaves, then half collapses against the pillows. Her head is buzzing and her stomach rolls. She knows she should get up, make the rounds, meet with the men and the staff.  There are aliens to murder, an earth to reclaim.

But she is not ready to face whatever is next.

This is wrong, some little voice says. This isn’t how it played out. You woke up wrong. Go back to sleep and it will all be better.

She sits again, then slowly, gingerly, stands. The world around her spins and the bile in her empty stomach rises.

She remembers a party, a raucous party. Yan had clambered up onto the pool table and begun reenacting some internet video involving a very elaborate strip routine. Pukkila had egged him into it, and was appreciatively shoving cash into the other man’s boxers. Hafler had almost fallen off of the couch in an attempt to document the affair. The SHIV had buzzed around, a help and a hazard, butlering drinks and knocking down unsuspecting drunks. She remembers prying a haphazardly taped on butter knife from its chassis off, shaking her head at her soldiers’ antics.

But that’s not right, either, she thinks. Yan had died in the first terror attack, blood foaming from his mouth as thin men venom destroyed his lungs. Pukkila had been sliced to pieces holding off chryssalids in Nova Scotia one muggy June night. A berserker had dragged Hafler’s body off, barely human after having been mashed to a pulp.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and draws in a deep breath. It was a dream. They are dead and you are here and there is a job to be done.

Tygan is courteous and efficacious, and quite clearly brilliant. She is, truth be told, not sure how they managed to lure him from the city. There is a polish, a refinement that the rest of the crew lacks. He briefs her on what they know, what they might do with that knowledge. He assures her that all ADVENT tech has been removed, and that, yes, some residual effects do occur, but should dissipate in six to eight weeks.

Shen is bright and fierce, deeply apologetic for the loss she still so clearly feels. Her little robotic companion bobs and weaves, cute in its own way. She fights the urge to ask if Lily’s taught ROV-R to play fetch or if scritches behind the capacitors are a recognized form of affection. She laughs quietly to herself as she scales ladder from floor to floor; the elder Shen would have had a fit at the tattoo.

Her stomach lurches as she steps onto the bridge. The hologlobe is there, and the banners, yes, but they’re not quite right. The globe flickers in an out, unable to produce a steady visual. The banners are torn and tattered.  Central is still buzzing at the center of the action, barely even surprised by the sirens that announce her presence, but she can read the ache of the wound in his carriage.

The eyes that stare back at her are young, so young, and do they really know what they’re getting into? What she’s leading them into? They are full of hope, full of expectation.

This is wrong this is wrong this is wrong, the voice in her head panics.

Her XO has the high points of his briefing ready. They’re hitting a stalled supply train nearby to make a grab for a power converter. There’s already a squad assembled and ready, waiting on her word.

She wants to take him aside and ask if it’s really wise. She’s been in a tank for twenty years and, hey, wasn’t it her decisions that had landed her there in the first place? Wasn’t it her failure that set them on this course? Does he really want to give her another chance?

Go back to bed. Go back to bed and you’ll wake up and this will just be some dream.

But, before she can open her mouth to give voice to any of it, Bradford reaches into his pocket and offers her an earpiece. She slips it on gingerly, still fighting the urge to protest. “Let’s see if I can still do this,” she offers, doing her best to offer up a grin.

“I don’t doubt it.” -- Someone is knocking.

“Commander?”

She groans in response, and gingerly lifts her aching head from her desk. Her desk in her office. Her desk in her office in the base. The base that is underground.  Her calendar, with its vintage fruit crate label art, cheerfully reminds her that it is a week shy of Thanksgiving in the year 2015. She shakes her head, trying to shake the fragments of a strange dream from her mind. “Come in.”

Raymond Shen regards her with a sort of fond exasperation as he stands in her doorway. He is alive and whole, a cup of what she presumes to be green tea in his hand.  For a moment, she is surprised, elated in her shock. Your daughter should see this, she thinks, She misses you.

“I thought you’d have taken advantage of the quiet to perhaps sleep in a bed,” he says, by way of greeting.

“That … had been my plan.”

Of course, he’s alive, she thinks. Why wouldn’t he be? The man came through the attack on HQ with barely a scratch.

He offers her a gentle nod, and a knowing look over his glasses. “Mr. Bradford is looking for you. There’s an incoming transmission from the Council. He started to worry when he couldn’t get you over the comms.”

She sighs. “Telling him to handle it will probably cause an incident, huh?”

“He seemed insistent on your presence.”

She sighs and rubs her face. “Thanks, Doctor. I’ll let Central know I’ll be right up.”

The man nods, heading out from her office towards the workshop down the hall.

She shakes her head, trying to clear the last vestiges of the dream from her mind.  It’s not real. Shen is alive. Vahlen is alive. Shen’s little girl is a child. The aliens have not overrun the earth. Snap out of it.

“Central, what’s up?” She asks, pressing the comm link in her ear.

“Where are you? We’ve got an incoming transmission from the Council.”

“I was sleeping.”

“Moreno said quarters were empty.”

“On my desk.”

“You have a bunk for that.”

“Yeah, that was Dr. Shen’s thought, too. You know why they want us?”

“If I had to guess, something’s wrong.”

“Don’t even think it.”

“Comms have been quiet since Avenger, ma’am.”

“Let’s just hope it stays that way. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

Her relationship with the Council has never been great. For all her experience as the child of diplomats, she has never quite mastered the art of holding her tongue and concealing her anger. In the wake of the Nova Scotia incident, she had nearly torn the Spokesman’s head off as he relayed to her the collective’s displeasure with the two UFOs she’d been unable to intercept. Even when there was praise to be had, it still hung heavy with condescension.

Bradford is waiting for her outside of the situation room door. “Really, your desk?” He asks in lieu of a greeting.

She shrugs “At least it wasn’t on a tracking console.”

He grimaces. “You heard about that?”

“Central,” she grins. “Everyone heard about that.”

“Lucky me.”

“Don’t worry: the day can still get worse.” 

The Spokesman stares down at them, face obscure as ever in the orange-blue light.

“Commander.”

“Mr. Spokesman.”

“The Council is requesting the remaining data from the XCOM project’s research efforts.”

She wrinkles her brow. “Results of autopsies and interrogations have been available as we got them, as have the specs on carapace and titan armors and the improvements we’ve made with satellite security and monitoring.”

“A casual review of your exploits in the field would suggest your advancements went far beyond what has been provided.”

“They’re interested in the weaponry,” Central volunteers.

“Absolutely not,” she says, her eyes darting from the screen, to Bradford, and back again. “Tell them no.”

“Commander, I would remind you that the XCOM project serves at the pleasure of the Council.”

“And I would remind the Council that the charter they themselves drafted gives me final authority over what is and isn’t released. Request denied.”

“Commander ---“

“Mr. Spokesman, I’ve addressed requests for interceptors, satellites, corpses, power supplies, medkits, nanovests --- virtually everything the Council’s asked for. I’ve even handed over arc throwers, against my better judgment. But I won’t hand over weapons. It’s an arms race waiting to happen, and you can tell the Council I said so.”

The Spokesman is silent. “Very well, Commander, but do not expect this to be taken lightly.”

The transmission cuts out and her shoulders sag, free of the tension she hadn’t realized she was carrying.

“Jesus,” Central offers.

“I won’t be responsible for plasma weapons being used against civilians. I won’t.”

“That may not be our biggest problem.” “You’re worried about an elerium bomb?” “I’m worried about Vahlen’s interrogation methodology.”

She shudders. She’d watched the process once, driven half by a sense of responsibility and half by a morbid curiosity. She didn’t make a habit of feeling sympathy for creatures that mowed down innocents, but the Sectoid Commander’s screams had been nothing short of agonizing; she can’t imagine inflicting the same on a human.

“Fuck,” she breathes. “You’re right.”

“POWs, political prisoners, dissidents: there are governments that wouldn’t hesitate to use that on their own people.”

“Including ours.”

Central nods.

“Damnit,” she rakes a hand through her hair. “Alright. Assuming they honor the existing terms of the charter, they have to fund us through the next six months. So, we’re safe til then.”

“And after?”

She swallows hard. “I don’t know.”

[axolotiels]

Art trade for @actingwithportals ; my my, how we do love suffering, don’t we? this was incredibly fun to write, you’ve got no idea :3c

She had never wanted to hear those screams again. The first time, they had rippled through the intercom, could be felt through the air and in the functioning alert line. They'd been scary and saddening then, of course, and they were equally scary now, but instead of just saddening as well, there was also a hot sense of betrayal. Something about this felt absolutely horrendously familiar in the most ghostly of ways.

The screaming, Her screaming, made her even more frightened. She was hissing curses and hatred at the core that had been sent down the transfer chute as Her head was disconnected by the forest of sparking and clicking arms, bathing her in a pale yellow light. The only thing Mana could think to do was to apologize, apologize profusely and babble and scream that it was not her fault, she didn't want to do this, the human made her do it because the human plugged her in. Even as she said these words, panicked and horrified, she'd forgotten all about the human that had forced her into the port with shaking, blood covered hands.

She had not asked if it would hurt, to be plugged into Her body; any idiot with basic working pain receptors could have guessed that, yes, it definitely would hurt. Her stream of apologies that surely would have been racked with sobs had she been human were suddenly cut, dwindling away into a gross static filled scream. It was happening so fast, she was unable to process most of what was going on until seconds after it had occurred. The scarlet and orange light around them melded together, and she made eye contact with Her; there was no understanding there, nothing that told her that She knew that this was not what she wanted, only bitter hatred and indignant rage. It practically melted the paint from her hull... or perhaps that was the thick cable that had jabbed itself into one of her ports that she was trying desperately to reject.

Mana heard Her hiss one thing before she collapsed into a soft reboot, as smooth as honey and laced with poisonous contempt. “You already did this to me; there's no point in trying to stop this now.”

There was a sharp ping as Mana's vision was switched off with the reboot, and her yammering finally stopped completely. The only thing she could see was the deep blue boot-up 'screen', and even then, she couldn't comprehend what was going on. Most of her brain had been switched off, after all.

Startup sequence initiated: core transfer successful.

Slowly, her vision came back. What had once been the back of her hurt tremendously, almost as badly as when she had been ripped from her port by the security droid. Beneath her optic directly was a gray aperture, and she lifted her 'head'... it was her 'head' now and not her body, wasn't it?

He was still standing there, right where she'd left him. Doug had a deep cut across the bridge of his nose and a bullet wound in his shoulder. He looked horrified, as he did most of the time. The cube he'd been carrying around with him was still slung over his back, despite the bullet hole that pierced through him now.

Everything was ghostly silent except for the cooling fans in her head. Doug swept the hair and the blood from his face, the back of his sleeve now stained red; he seemed to be about to speak and reached one shaking, grimy hand toward her.

She let out a shocked sound of disbelief and coiled the chassis back like a cobra. He couldn't be serious?

Mana was about to ask if he was when another announcement blared within her own head. Core integrated; preparing connections to wings 1 through 3. Reactor cores stable.

It was opening a floodgate of data, and all of it poured into processors and out again, only to be replaced with more. She was hyper-aware of everything in the facility, aware of hundreds of chambers that were being built from file, thousands of cameras and thousands of things that she didn't know needed to be controlled were suddenly very much in need of controlling. Physically, her head rattled and some of the plates shifted, opening slightly before snapping shut around her optic like a frill on a lizard.

A cold realization trickled through her: though she had known that GLaDOS was responsible for a great many things that she couldn't have imagined, she now found that she was responsible for so much more. Mana was not made for this, she was made to assist, not to manufacture and not to control.

For a few milliseconds, she tried desperately to keep Her facility together; she tried, she really did. Even with the facility much smaller than it had been in its heyday, she was simply unable to ration it out. Percentages began piling up, warnings and blips for things that she had sworn had not even shown up on any of the scans.

“No, nonono, I can't. I can't do this, I can't do this, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” her whimpering and babbling resumed as her head was racked with a twitch that caused her shutters to knock. The chassis was swaying slightly back and forth. “I didn't want this, please, believe me I-I'd never do this to you, it isn't my faul-”

Something touched her. It was pressed against one side of her face, hot with fever and slick with blood, trembling. The panels around the room flipped like a deck of cards, and something far below could be heard rumbling dangerously. There was a warning for it, but she didn't care, trying to fix it but merely shutting it off.

The core opened her optic and bathed Doug's haggard face in acidic green light. She could see herself reflected in his pupils, even has he trembled. “Can you hear me?”

Mana's optic danced from either of his eyes; had she a lip, it would be twitching up and down. She was getting a warning for the reactor, being told it had received too much stress and needed to be stabilized.  Doug never moved his hand or looked away, even as a stream of blood began to slip toward his eye from the top of the cut.

“You.” It was a voice almost like hers, but one that she had not previously owned. She felt her optic contract, and the green glow on his skin waned as he was swallowed by the shadow of the chassis. The plates around her optic slapped open, smacking his hand away. She coiled back again but reared her head up; there was a scarlet smear on her dirtied white hull now.

“You did this.” Mana hissed, near to tears that she did not have. “YOU made me do this to Her.”

Doug took a frightened step backward, his eyes flashing with horror. Mana brought in a claw from somewhere in the ceiling as something else began to buckle below. Everything was buzzing around her as she was filled with fear, sadness, and a horrible sense of vomit-inducing betrayal.

“Mana? Mana, please, just let us go-”

Her optic flickered in disbelief. More warnings and blips, Wings 1 and 2 have collapsed. Reactor core unstable; too much stress applied from chassis input. She wasn't even sure how those two things were connected, but they were, so god help them. The walls rattled around them, each panel flipping in a circle, making the room look like the inside of a blender.

“You did thi- you made me do this.” Her voice cracked, which was something she did not know was possible. “Why did you plug me in? I trusted you.”

Doug staggered backward, unaware of the lowering claw. It clasped around his shoulders and he gasped out in pain, legs kicking. He was suddenly covered with the green light of her optic again; the chassis was bobbing back and forth, her head twitching.

Reactor cores unstable; ventilation system compromised.Evacuate the premises. Some part of her that rested deep in her brain, perhaps a backup consciousness or something equally ridiculous, was trying its hardest to issue commands to blast the ventilation systems to life. It failed; most of the vents were crushed or torn.

Mana tightened her grip, “She was right. She was always right. I wanted to help you, but you humans are all the same. Just the same as before. Selfish.” There was something bitter about the words in her mouth, though she had no mouth to speak of. Something else, ghostly familiar.

“A-and what did I think you were going to do with me when you got up to the surface? Tote me around with your bullet-riddled limbs until you collapsed in the middle of a field? I shouldn't have trusted you. He was right, h-he was right about one thing. Never trust humans, never trust you.”

Doug stared vacantly into her optic, blood running from his shoulder and his body shaking in the metal grasp of the claw where he dangled. The entire room seemed to be getting hotter. He mouthed one word, accompanied only by a raspy breath. Please.

The chassis twitched again; one of the cables in her back was practically melted by now.  Again she stared him down, the acid green of her optic painting him a sick, bloody jade. There might once have been pity, but now she felt only betrayal and the primal fear of her oncoming death. Still, she also felt remarkably calm, even as she hissed at the human who seemed to be dying in her claws.

“You already did this to me; there's no point in trying to stop it.”

[thesynthesist]

Hey! We made it to part 3! That’s all the parts there are for this one.  If you’d like to read part 1 and 2 click the links below Part 1: Tumblr / deviantArt Part 2: deviantArt

And it worked out this time, part 3 below the cut if you don’t want to click through! 

He had no body when he woke. Silas didn’t like that one bit. He reached and stretched and pushed against the digital void in which he found himself. It stretched and gave, sweet data washed over him. A high pitched giggle and a small pale hand that appeared to be attached to a brightly clothed arm that seemed to belong to him. There was no online connection, not even the private stream of data Silas was used to from his ship. There was nothing but the body, and that was still somehow out of his reach. Silas pushed again and something else gave. A flood of triumph, and Silas slammed his hand of cards down, or he tried to. Everything was more immediate than it had been but he had no control. “Go fish,” said his mouth in Violet’s voice. Stop that! he sent in frustration, a passing signal of thought escaping. The response was immediate. No. You stole my sister’s memories, tried to expose my nephew. I can’t trust you. Silas tried placating his angelic captor. I met James because you made it possible. I just want to ask him some questions, sate my curiosity is all. The grief that howled through their shared space was hollow and all consuming. Outside Violet put down a pair of fives and went fish on her next turn. Because of curiosity and hubris James is the only nephew I have left. It was a monolithic thought that blocked out any reply Silas could have made to it. It glared down at him, lit in feeling like digital neon. The game outside progressed as he watched. Violet played with all the cunning and strategy of a real human child at her age. The people she was playing with were all adults, but their faces were not familiar. As the game grew to a close, Silas had a better feeling for the space he was confined to. He unspooled himself, tendrils floating and waiting for a moment of weakness. There! As she got up from the table and the hem of her dress caught. Silas sped down the wires in a flash, and he felt the dress around legs that were now properly his, and he untangled himself from the table. The adults had all gone to do something it was that adults do, Silas found he had a hard time remembering. He found that he didn’t seemed to care. He wondered if there were cookies. Then grabbing a hold of himself,  he focused on where he was going. If he could find his way back to Violet’s room there had to be a way to get him back into his own body. The area of Atlantis he was in was unfamiliar, and between the walls and his point of view dropping a few feet he was having a very hard time finding his way about. He considered asking the people he passed by, but he was worried they would notice something wrong with Violet. Without knowing how much time he had that was a delay he could not afford. “Why Little Miss Hull!” Silas followed the legs that presented themselves up to the rest of the person attached and found himself staring once again into Baldric’s face. The man gave the impression of being pointier from this angle. “I thought you were upstairs.” Silas endeavored to tell the man what happened, but the sharp eyes gazing down at him were too intimidating. It was all just a bit much. Fat tears rolled down his cherubic cheeks, and uncontrollable sobs wracked his body. A herculean force of will was required to remain standing, and not just throw himself on the floor. “I got lost,” he blubbered, “and I c-can’t find my rooooooooom.” Baldric scooped up Violet’s chassis into a princess carry and smiled reassuringly, “We’ll get you to your room little miss. Come along.” His long strides carried Silas down corridors he hadn’t even realized were there. The body hiccuped as the waterworks came to an end, and Silas sniffled, wiping his nose without thinking on his sleeve. He stared at it as Baldric put him down to hand him a handkerchief and press the button on the elevator. “Why is this place so wibbly?” Silas clapped his hands over his mouth, but Baldric simply ushered him into the elevator. The words were never meant to leave Silas’s mouth. Not those words exactly, any words at all. Spending the trip in silence was the safest and most expedient way to make it back to his body. It had been a thought about his actions, the artificial mucus on his sleeve. On the way out the words had morphed into something else entirely. “To catch the light,” Baldric said simply once the elevator had started moving, “and to show off construction techniques, a whole series of these were planned by a company a series of luxury resorts. They went bankrupt after building this one, however.” “Oh,” said Silas before shutting his mouth firmly. The elevator deposited them in familiar territory. Much like his despair, Silas’s joy at his ordeal being nearly over was too much to contain. He bounced on his toes in the little buckle shoes, and dashed off as soon as the door had opened to allow the bulk of his dress to traverse it, shouting a hasty thank you to Baldric over his shoulder. Bursting into Violet’s room, Silas found his body lying in bed covers tucked up to its chin and a stuffed animal under its arm. The sight pulled him up short, and opened a yawning chasm between him and the body he was in. His feet were the first things to go, and the chassis dropped to its knees but no further. Without his help, it got up. First time traveler? Violet’s presence was smug, and Silas realized she had never gone away. Her data curled around him, spilling his words, causing his tears. Violet climbed onto the bed and sat down next to Silas’s body, patting it affectionately. Did you do this to your sister too? Silas was still numb. He wondered what happened if he stayed here with Violet for long enough. They might become impossible to separate, his whole self subsumed into a child. I was artificial long before I was intelligent. There was something there. Silas followed the thought to its related data, it was about making connections. It was a slim gap, hard to keep open long enough to slip through but somehow he managed it. Just like that he was out. Not out of Violet, but out in some way that meant something. He looked at his new view, reams of data laid out before him, and saw. You were a protocol set in a back up body. And now.... Something much more dangerous. Violet hit him like a physical force, crippling his process abilities. It wouldn’t be difficult to transfer him back to whatever quarantine he had been imprisoned in while he was like this. Unless, unless he could think of something. Silas decided to risk it all on a bet. He started decoding, and dumping files as fast as he could. Keep me much longer and I’ll make sure that not even a Series 0 can tell where one of us truly begins and another ends. You’ll be the only child secretary. You’ll start keeping gambler’s schedules. The memory of a particularly nasty tour as an aide to a government official left the lingering aroma of office disinfectant and diesel. Rows and rows of figures, days scheduled to the minute, each moment meticulously managed. A hesitation, just for a moment. Silas pushed harder. A protocol set, old and dusty. It had been for a high class family, one of Silas’s first contracts. He kept it in his local storage out of nostalgia. There were rules for everything from the way to stand to eye contact. The regulation settled on Silas like a familiar blanket, but Violet thrashed against it. It withheld against her attempts, pushing and settling. Violet’s hand froze on Silas’s chest, two chassis unmoving on the bed. I will even add to the deal. If you let me out, I won’t write a report. He hoped she’d relent. An unwritten report was a small price to pay for getting his autonomy back. Who’s to say you’re not lying. James is all I have left. Everything about James had read as more or less organic no matter how Silas looked at him. That was a mystery to be solved later despite the fact with his face uncovered he did look uncannily like Silas had expected him to in his mid-thirties. There were other more pressing matters. He had to give Violet something more than just his word, she wouldn’t take it. Not at this point. She might even risk completely losing herself to protect James. Silas unpacked another memory. This one was of a small room in a museum. A folding chair across from a large power cell, and a familiar figure. The memory played in silence, Violet not even trying to interrupt. When it ended, Silas offered, I’ll give you her original memories as a show of good faith. Violet did nothing, she did nothing for so long Silas was afraid she’d shut off, leaving him trapped in this position until he managed to figure out how to override the deadlock. I’ll let you go, but if anything bad happens to my nephew I will find a way to kill you myself. Noted. replied Silas, he wondered if threats were just how the family communicated, and how many times he’d be threatened again before this ordeal was over. He hoped the number was smaller than the one he was imagining. The deadlock melted away, and Violet slid off the bed. The cables came out once more. Silas spent the time packing up again. He didn’t need the transfer to take hours, though he had no idea how long it would take regardless of his preparations. Arriving back in his body was almost as strange as waking up in someone else’s. The sensations were familiar but he felt too tall, too square. It was too much in precisely the opposite way of the overwhelming emotionality of Violet’s body. There was no culprit to be found, everything was the way Silas left it. Out of curiosity he disabled his standard protocol program, enunciated very clearly one swear word, decided he still didn’t like the feeling and turned it back on. It felt better the second time around. James escorted Silas back to his ship. The journey was terse. Violet had refused to say anything further, demanding Silas leave her room immediately. James assured him that she’d come around, if they ever met again it would be like nothing bad had ever happened between them. “You never did tell me why you were looking for me.” James said as the walkway descended from the ship. “Your mother wanted me to check up on you,” Silas paused. “And my own curiosity.” he admitted. James snorted and followed Silas onto the ship. “I think it was more of just a proof of concept thing. Not that I ever got to ask my grandfather. But I’m more or less just human plus.” Silas fought the urge to pry and won. Instead he handed over the frail memory chip, now encased in a clear protective case. He had made a few backups, but he was more than ready to put this entire fiasco behind him. Get a check up and pick up a standard contract. “Here, just as she gave them to me.” James took them and pocketed them without a second glance. “Thanks, Violet will like these.” His shoulders slumped and his voice softened. “And uh... I want to thank you too. Give you something in return, think of it as a proper apology for Violet. I’ve worked on a lot of the series that end up in Atlantis. I crack the software for them. There’s a lot of hidden built in restrictions, not that they’d uh, particularly get in the way in your line of work but I thought it might come useful in a pinch.” “Absolutely not,” said Silas sharply. He was going to say more but the look on James face stopped him. “It’s alright, I do not need recompense.” “Just trust me, please,” said James. “I’m trusting you.” His face contorted into a humorless grin. “After all, you’ve seen my mother’s memories. You’re practically family.” “I’m not certain that’s the honor it normally is,” said Silas but he turned around anyways and led the way to his repair station and sat down. James pulled a small work station from his coat, an unfolding a small fabric monitor and touch keyboard from one pocket, and a computer the size of a deck of cards. The monitor and keyboard were of modern make though the technology wasn’t new in the slightest. The computer case however was old, older even than the settling of asteroid colonies. “My first,” said James, patting it fondly. “Lahzi, though I’ve overhauled it a few times.” “Installed a new local wireless connection point a few months ago,” James hands moved as he talked, his gaze focused on the screen. “Take a time check, accept the connection and check when you wake back up. 10 minutes tops.”   It took eight minutes, twenty three seconds and 5 milliseconds. Nothing seemed different but then Silas noticed a door that hadn’t been there before. It was like coming out of quarantine in Violet, the feeling of space, most of packed with periphery information Silas didn’t even know he processed. James had left a little package for him, an itemized list of everything he’d done. The list of filters and restrictions was astounding. Some of them were little, decreasing his range of sensory input to human levels. He checked out of curiosity, adding infrasound. The acoustics of the world changed startling and Silas switched it off. He could experiment with it later. Most interestingly was an information filter for embargoed planets and systems. Places Silas hadn’t even know were inhabited. One of them was a moon of Jupiter. “You alright in there?” Silas opened his eyes to find James staring at him. He sat back upon seeing Silas was operational and nodded to himself. “There’s a file on there for doing it yourself if you’d like to learn. I don’t know if they reset this sort of thing when you go in for a tune up.” “I’m still not entirely certain the extent of what you did,” said Silas, “but I have a feeling that I cannot thank you enough.” “We’re even then,” James stood up, his workstation already stowed. “I best be getting back.” When he was alone on his ship, Silas was confronted with the fact that he had no idea what to do next. His steps so far had been clear, coming up on 15 years of successful contracts and projects. While he had promised Violet that he wouldn’t write a report, he found that he didn’t even want to write one. He still had time before anything was due, he’d call it a dead end. Take some proper time off. Travel maybe. But there were things to do first. He reconnected to the planetary network and sent a message to Sid. I’ll be on Earth for longer than expected. Perhaps you can introduce me to your band.