Slow Burn

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Sky and Screamer. Again. I cringed inwardly, clamping down as hard as I could on that connection born of an accident that melded part of Skyfire’s spark into me. I was supposed to be a guinea pig of sorts, carried back to Cybertron for experimentation. It was crucial that I remain alive, but the anesthesia Skyfire had used to knocked me out didn’t sit well and I began seizing violently. He managed to wake me up, and when I realized I was strapped into the cockpit of an SU-37 and being impossibly hurled through space at something far beyond lightspeed, I panicked. It’s my own fault in a way. I was banging on everything trying to escape and completely disabled Skyfire’s navigation systems. He dropped out of subspace to reset everything, but not before inadvertently passing through some sort of living planet anomaly. All of our molecules where pulled apart in the process, scrambled, and reassembled in random orders. Being such a massive robot, he easily flushed the organic material out of his system without a second thought. I, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Cybertronian metals remade most of my body. My entire right half and parts of my left half, including my abdominal cavity and all organs within, were reconstructed with material taken from Sky’s body. My human heart was even replaced by a small piece of his spark. He became the lifeline that kept me alive and the soft voiced guide that desparately tried to keep me out of trouble. That connection allowed a free flow of thoughts, emotions, and—right now I was resenting it—sensations. Screamer. I shuddered. I hated him at least as much as he did me. He resented the connection, viciously jealous of it.

Find someone, Skyfire sent through the connection. If I could slap him at that very moment, I would have. I could feel his laughter reverberate through my lifeline before he turned his attentions back to his lusty activities. A giddy rush of delicious tingles and tortured pleasures seeped across, awakening echoing desires in me and highlighting my own deeply aching loneliness. I'm the only human on Cybertron. I shuddered again. It was like being forced to watch the most repulsive porn you could imagine. Made me want to swear off sex altogether.

I was currently standing at the inner edge of a sparse ring of Decepticons lining the sparring mat down in the Pit—the bottom most level of the base. It was a rec room of sorts, bar on one side and various forms of entertainment strewn throughout. A few Femmebots had managed to weasel their way down here and were plying their trade as best they could. I really didn’t envy them their plight, Decepticons are brutal—sometimes deadly—lovers. Find someone, indeed. Sky was out of his mind! Watching Soundwave’s tapes yell boasts at each other as they spun and kicked, I idly waited my turn. Hopefully I would be rendered unconscious, but at the very least the concentration required would keep my mind off the unnervingly seductive tendrils of the tryst I could still feel despite my best efforts.

Come on, Sky! I whined. He pushed strong resentment at me. Focusing hard on the brothers in the sparring ring, I huffed my breath out. As soon as one of them yielded I would have the chance to jump in. Otherwise I would end up going toe to toe with one of the Seekers standing across the mat from me. I would certainly end up unconscious if I went that route, I thought smirking. Going up against one of the tapes wasn’t any more appealing, not that they were much better than me, they were just obnoxious cheats.

Rumble was having a hell of a time at the moment. Laserbeak had earlier severed a hydraulic line in his left arm, so his punches were too soft and one earthquake piston was inoperable. Frenzy was handing the poor mech his ass. I grinned at the sight, it was amusing to see the loud mouthed, silvery gray Decepticon getting pummeled. That was always on my list of favorite things. The problem here was Frenzy. If he won the match, I’d be up against him. We bore similar weaponry, EMP cannon and Electroshock gun. He’d had all his long-lived life to work on his skill, and I had only recently come into possession of these tools. He was faster and more knowledgeable in that area, my only advantage being that I was not Cybertronian. My tendency toward human creativity sometimes caught him off guard. Otherwise, he usually pounded me to a pulp. I shrugged. Well that was what I’d come here for anyway!

Rumbled tried a punch combo that failed due to the severed line that softened his left hook, and Frenzy caught his shoulder as he came around, flipping him onto his back and pouncing, EMP cannon charged. Rumble’s optics went dark. The Seekers cheered and booed depending on the sway of their bets. Soundwave stared on impassive and unreadable as always. My turn. Standing roughly six and a half feet tall, dark purple, and otherwise identical to his twin brother, Frenzy gazed around the ring for his next victim as I straightened my metal spine and strolled forward. Sensing my approach, he dropped slightly into a defensive stance peering back over his shoulder at me. He hissed disappointment and stood up shaking his head.

“No!” he seethed. “I’m not farkin’ scrappin’ with Half Aft. Give me a mech worth my time!”

I hated that nickname. It was a reference to the blend of organic and metal materials that made up this body I loathed so much. The name really got under my skin—which is why it stuck. “No such animal,” I shot back, “The Autobots decommissioned that decrepit old thing eons ago.”

He stiffened. The implication that he couldn’t beat a dying Autobot struck a nerve. The tapes were sensitive about their size, always taking on things too big for them—not that I was much different in that respect. His narrowed optics met mine, “Bring it.”

I grinned back at him, watching to see which move he would try first. He usually opened with a lightening quick strike from one side or the other, I just had to wait for the telltale twitch in that direction. There it was, the barest of leftward leaning a split second before he launched his attack. I spun my shoulder into his arm broadside, deflecting it as I kicked my leg up to catch him in the side of the head. He stumbled, but did not fall. Taking advantage of the moment it took him to regather himself, I back flipped up behind him, wrapping my knees around his neck and locking my ankles together. It was a tremendous strain on my torso hydraulics, he was significantly heavier, but I managed to flip him onto the floor, sprawled out and stunned. Shaking it off, he leapt to his feet with a vengeance. My heart sank, that was the end of my bag of tricks, and judging by his tight mouthed frown and the downward tilt of his head—I was about to feel the wrath. I backed up a step, nervously.

One corner of Frenzy’s mouth curled up in a wicked smirk. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re retreating, Half Aft.”

I could feel my skin crawl with fury at the spiteful name. “Decepticons don’t retreat!” I spat.

“Well,” He sneered, “That just proves you’re not a Decepticon.”

He was trying to goad me into rushing him in a blind rage. Problem was, Sky and Screamer were still at it. The tantalizing heat pervading my own body from that connection quelled my anger and injected a spontaneous flirtatiousness into my response. I grinned at him, “What’s wrong Frenzy? Are you pouting because I put you on your ass?”

“Aft,” he corrected, his tone dripping with smugness. “You’ll never be a real Con, but you can at least try to sound like one.”

“Ass,” I countered, “I’m not a mech, Short Circuit.”

He laughed loudly, “No one’s gonna dispute that!” Quirking his head to one side, he went on, “You damn sure ain’t a femme, either! What are you exactly?”

“Too much for the likes of you to handle!” I immediately dropped my head, my eyes squeezed shut, cursing under my breath. Frenzy froze, mouth agape. Intrigued chuckles and ooo’s wafted over from the Seekers. It must have been the torrid emotions pouring through the connection with Sky. Those weren’t fighting words, that was a sultry flirt. I shook my head, hoping to change the tone back to a straight fight. But as I watched Frenzy’s optics narrow, the mischievous glint was crystal clear in broadcasting his attention shift. His optics roved over my body, not with approval, but with a definite curiosity. I sighed, Thanks a lot, Sky.

The dark purple tape straightened into a more casual pose, head cocked to one side, red optics squinting at me, “Do you even know what to do with… whatever it is you’ve got?”

I blinked at him, this is how we’re gonna play the game now? Alright, why not, I thought. Like all Decepticons, Frenzy had a strong disdain for all things “fleshy,” so this wasn’t likely to lead anywhere. I could certainly stand to release some tension through a little harmless, sexually charged, verbal bantering. I grinned maliciously back at him, throwing a strong dose of suggestiveness into my voice, “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

The Seekers hushed again, all attention on the fight now. Frenzy flashed a wide grin, striding cockily toward me. I rushed him in haste, pulling my EMP cannon from subspace and jamming it under his chest armor. He held his arms out to the side glaring heatedly at me, “No weapons!”

“No rules,” I hissed back.

The nanosecond it took to speak was all he needed, I never saw the fist coming. He clocked me on the metal side of my face, spinning me around and throwing me to my hands and knees in front of him. Keeping his voice low so that only I could hear him he said, “I like it rough.” My mouth filled with blood, which I spat at his smirking face.

In a blur of dark purple metal, I was flipped onto my back with Frenzy straddling my waist, right arm pulled back, poised to throw the fight ending punch, left hand holding my shoulder to the ground. I subspaced my cannon and threw up my arms to shield my face. Nothing happened. Puzzled, I shifted my arms to peer through them at Frenzy’s still form, mischief glinting in his optics and one side of his mouth quirked upward. I quickly overcame my confusion—I could figure this out later—and kicked upward with my all metal right leg, catching him in the back of the head.

He lurched forward, chuckling. “I thought there was still some fight left in you,” he purred. Twisting underneath him, I attempted to wiggle out of his hold, but only succeeded in turning myself onto my stomach, still trapped beneath the purple mech. He grabbed a handful of my hair and slammed my head into the floor. I felt the remaining cartilage in my mostly metal nose crunch, blood spurting forth in front of me. I gasped and peered back over my shoulder at him. He was laughing. I took advantage of his distraction, and twisted back around, throwing an upper cut in the process, knocking his head backward. Grabbing his thigh, I flung him off of me. He rolled into a crouch as I scrambled to get my feet under myself again, wiping at my nose with one hand. He was chuckling again. I cocked my head, what on earth was going on here? You’d think he was getting off on this fight now. My gut suddenly washed with cold energon, eyes widened, on the heels of that thought. I swallowed against the giddy realization of his reciprocated injection of a sexual charge into this sparring match. It didn’t help that Sky’s connection was still flooding me with neural circuit sizzling touches and tantalizing pulses of electricity.

Mistaking the stunned look on my face for distraction, Frenzy faked left and attacked right, but I was on to him. I slid out of the way leaving my foot in his path. He stumbled forward as I spun around throwing my comparatively scant weight into his back to send him sprawling on his belly. I pulled my Electroshock gun and shoved it between his shoulders. Being that we were both carrying high voltage weapons, we were both equipped with heavily protective shielding on every circuit and pathway. Each of us could withstand a larger jolt than mechs more than twice our respective mass. I pulled the trigger, knowing there would be no significant damage, but it would definitely end the fight. He growled lowly, his body twitching and convulsing. I stood and paced off the mat, victorious. Skyfire, now basking in the afterglow of his romp with Starscream, beamed congratulations at me through the connection. I ignored him. I was still agitated over that mess.

I was also distracted enough that I didn’t hear it coming. Frenzy planted a fist square in the middle of my back sending me head over heals, landing spread eagle on my back, sliding feet first under a nearby table. He leered over me, grabbing my victory, “I said, ‘No weapons!’”

I gasped trying to catch my breath, staring wide eyed upside down at him. The entire Pit had gone silent. Decepticons love brawls and fights that get out of hand. This sparring match had just went severely awry. I lay there wondering if playing dead would be an advantage or an encouragement for more punishment. Sky? A little help here?

He sent annoyance back and a definitive feeling of do not disturb.

Shit.

Frenzy stood over me, smirking, hand out, palm up, fingers flexing in a get-up motion.

“Yield!” I shouted.

He frowned at me. “Disappointing.” He turned and headed back to the sparring mat. He took only a few steps and then paused, twisting at the waist to peer sidelong back at me, his head tilted down, narrowed optics teasing over my body as I sat up. I stared at him, stunned at this uncharacteristic behavior. The tapes and I didn’t get along on the best of days, but here he was, flirting. I peeled myself off the floor and headed back to my recharge bed, hoping against hope, that, by now, Starscream was gone from the quarters I shared with Skyfire.

Pouring over the console and re-running Skyfire’s simulations one more time, I never noticed the tapes until they were right up on me. Frenzy grabbed at my wrists making me hit the keyboard wrong and erase an hour’s worth of results. I gasped at the error, sending a scathing glare sidelong at the errant mech. Rumble stood next to him, both grinning like fools. I took a small step away, peering at them with one eyebrow raised, my mouth drawn in a caustic frown. “Whaaat are you doing?”

Frenzy stepped closer to me, “What does it look like we’re doing?”

“I’m not sure,” I shook my head. “You both look like idiots to me.” Rumble moved around behind me and I quickly whirled around putting the console at my back and taking up a defensive posture, knees slightly bent, fists half raised. My gaze flicked from Frenzy to Rumble and back. They were giggling. “Have you both cracked your CPUs?” I barked.

“We just thought we’d take you up on your offer from last night,” Frenzy said.

My mouth dropped open. “Wait-What? My what?”

Waving a hand from himself to Rumble and back, Frenzy said, “We came to collect on your offer. You’re the closest thing to a femme on this Primus forsaken base and we thought, why not have a little fun?”

I held up a finger to him, swinging it to Rumble with my wide-eyed, disbelieving gaze. “Uh, no. No, this is not happening!”

Rumble’s face fell. Frenzy glared at me with an aggressive heat. I shoved Rumble backwards and jabbed my finger in Frenzy’s chest armor, “I was flirting with you last night, what makes you think I want anything to do with him, anyway?”

He shrugged, still glaring, “We always share.”

“Oh, fuck that!” I shot Rumble a withering look, “Hells no!”

Frenzy’s hand shot out grabbing my throat so that his steely fingers wrapped around the fleshy left side of my neck. I twisted in his grip trying to get the metal half under his hand. He seethed, “Talk like a Decepticon, Half Aft. You are disgrace to us all when you use human slang.” I slowly brought my hands up to pull at his fingers, wincing as he tightened his grip. My eyes were wide, mouth opened to gulp at the air as he constricted my throat. One side of his mouth quirked up under his narrowed eyes. “Beat it Rumble,” he breathed.

“But—“ the brother tape began to protest.

Frenzy snapped his angry gaze to the gray tape beside him “Beat it, Rumble!” He growled. Pulling me very close so that our bodies were nearly touching, he leaned down into my face and whispered, “Come by my quarters after your shift.” He shoved me back roughly, releasing his grip. I stumbled a step, rubbing at my neck and coughing. He didn’t wait for a response, just strode off.

What the hell was that? I wondered. Did I just get propositioned? By Frenzy, of all mechs? Confused, I turned back to the terminal and began rerunning all the data that Frenzy had erased. All the while, I couldn’t shake the burgeoning curiosity. I had been well equipped and experienced as a human in my sexual escapades. But the last several months spent in this new half Cybertronian body, I hadn’t even dared to hope for any kind of a personal life, despite Skyfire’s frequent suggestions that I give it a try. I had a basic understanding of how it all worked, Sky’s first few romps with his favorite plaything had been wide open in our connection, driving me half mad with the sensory flood. I had been aware of exactly what they were doing as they did it. Feeling a sexual encounter through someone else’s perspective was rather jarring, however, and it was very likely that I would experience everything differently. Especially since I was only partly robotic. And female. A thought suddenly struck me, painting a wide smirk on my face as I worked through the data on the screen in front of me. It would serve Sky right if I did it. I could leave the connection wide open for him too!

Don’t you dare, he shot at me. I laughed inwardly. Yep, serve him right, for sure.