Fic - Recall, Chapter 6
Title: Recall, Chapter 6
Continuity: G1, Dysfunction AU
Rating: NC-17
Content advice: abduction, non-con, manipulation of various kinds including sexual, graphic violence, dark themes, virus/drugs
Beta: naboru_narluin
Disclaimer: Just playing in the sandbox, characters not mine.
Characters: Vortex, First Aid, Swindle, Brawl, Dead End.
Summary: Things go from bad to worse, as Swindle attempts to exact a little profitable revenge.
Prologue and Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5
Days passed, a week, more. First Aid watched his chronometer with mounting dread. Each joor took him further from his team, each cycle made it seem not just possible, but increasingly inevitable, that he would never see them again.
Couldn’t they guess where he was?
First Aid sat on the edge of the bunk, his face in his hands. When the door opened, he didn't bother to look up, what was the point?
This, it turned out, was a mistake.
"Make a noise," Swindle said. "Any noise at all, and I’ll put a neat little hole right the way through your central processor."
First Aid parted his fingers to see Swindle's pistol a mechanometer from his visor. The Combaticon was whole again, but dented, his repairs far from pristine. He grinned nastily. "Dead End, Brawl, get over here!"
"Wow," Brawl said, looming over the bunk. "It don’t look like he's been touched."
"Shut up and hold him down."
First Aid swung out, catching Brawl in the face. The tank roared. "Stupid Autobot," he spat, and pinned First Aid to the berth.
Dead End leaned against the wall by the door. "This is utterly inane,” he sighed. “Not to mention vulgar."
"For Pit's sake," Swindle swore. "We talked about this! Vortex won't know what hit him, it'll be hilarious and we'll make a fortune out of the security footage. Now give him the stimulant."
First Aid struggled, writhing and kicking, but Dead End simply leant over Brawl, out of reach, and pushed a data card into the input port next to his unusable communications hardware.
"There, done," Dead End said. "For what it's worth."
Brawl gave First Aid a very long and very dirty look before letting him go. "Hey Swin," Brawl said. "What I don't get is why Tex hasn't just fragged him. I mean look at him."
Dead End huffed. "It's never really about interfacing," he said. "Don’t you know anything?"
Swindle gave First Aid the once over and nodded as though he approved of what he saw. "I don’t get it either," he said, apparently ignoring Dead End. "Tex always was a bit odd."
"Pot, kettle," Dead End muttered. "Brawl, as much as I can see of your face indicates an imbecilic incomprehension of current events. Do I need to spell this out to you?"
"Wha'?" Brawl said. "Spell what out?"
Swindle grinned unpleasantly, and the three headed towards the door.
The last thing First Aid heard before the virus kicked in was Dead End's smooth voice. "Which is more powerful," he asked. "Force or persuasion?"
* * *
Dead End’s question echoed through First Aid’s mind.
First Aid thought he knew the answer, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. Knowing seemed important. The door clicked shut, closing him in with the unread datapads and the chain, the blank TV and the omnipresent odour of cleanser, of metal polish, of new paint.
Vortex had spent hours on him, cleaning and buffing until even the scorch marks from that day - so long ago, in another world almost, where a shot from Onslaught had broken Defensor into his constituent parts, and he had fallen into the cellar - had been erased.
If only First Aid hadn’t stopped to repair that cellar door. If only he’d taken Hot Spot’s offer of a hand up.
If only Vortex had been rougher with the cleansing.
The copter had taken his time, lingering over every plane and curve, toying with each sensor. Enjoying himself. Enjoying him. And all the time Vortex’s field had lapped against his own, an unending deluge of peace-calm-safety-belonging, while the stimulation of his sensor nodes went on and on, until First Aid had cried out his climax into the surface of the berth.
He shuddered at the memory, a tingle of current rippling through his sensor net. No, he wasn’t meant to react this way. It was wrong; what was he doing?
He backed up against the wall, such a familiar position, pressing himself to the cold metal. He needed cold, a heat sink, but his fans hadn’t kicked in. The virus. It must be. Was that what Dead End had been on about? But no, he’d been talking about Vortex, and the virus was Swindle’s doing. Swindle, who Vortex had beaten into stasis lock simply for one moment of forgetfulness. Simply for letting First Aid contact his gestalt.
First Aid tried to marshal his thoughts, but they were all over the place. The virus coursed through his circuits, slamming him with charge, bringing every touch - wholesome and unwholesome - to the forefront of his mind.
Blades on the floor of med bay, enthusiastic and excitable, their first time alone; Hot Spot’s hands on his shoulders, a gentle kiss on the crest of his helm; Streetwise, grimy and battle-torn, charged with the fierce joy of victory, beautifully heroic. The five of them, gestalt whole and uncompromised, a glittering sphere of love and joy and glorious, glowing pleasure.
Groove on the hot desert sand, hands on his waist, so gentle.
And other hands, equally gentle, but hiding a fierce aggression, possessive and unstoppable. Vortex leaning over him, kisses that were so close to biting, the scrape of talons, the rush of air from his rotors as they fanned. Each overload, raw and uncompromising, and utterly thoroughly unwanted, but the virus didn’t care.
I’m ill, First Aid thought. I’ve been infected with foreign code. I need to stop thinking, I need to put myself in stasis lock, let it run its course, I need to… A vision of Blades on the roof, glowing like energon in the rising sun, transforming slow and languorous, then pulling First Aid urgently into the stairwell, away from the cameras. Blades slamming the door, holding him tightly in the dark as his interface panel snapped open and their cables clicked home in glorious synchronicity.
Scrap scrap scrap. Couldn’t think about that. Shouldn’t think about Blades, about any of them, not here. Not now. First Aid stood, pressing as much of himself as possible against the cool wall. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to catalogue his symptoms, but each thought tripped him up, each attempt brought him to Blades or Groove or Vortex.
He shuffled along the wall, searching for a cooler spot. How long had Vortex been gone? He checked his chronometer, but couldn’t focus on the readout. He slammed his hands against the wall; it didn’t matter, he couldn’t remember when Vortex had left. He hoped Vortex had gone to service Starscream, or whatever the slag he’d been doing all that time when he first left him alone. If he was gone long enough, the virus might just wear itself out before he got back.
Leaving First Aid with his other problems. But at least he wouldn’t have this one.
What had Swindle done?
First Aid crouched, head in his hands, then he was up again, pacing the length of the chain, each step a cautionary jolt. He snatched at the links, and steadied himself. He could pull it so hard that the jolt would knock him offline. He puffed air through his vents, like a human taking a breath before the plunge.
His arms failed him. He couldn’t do it.
A thought arose, half-formed, about the nature of fear, but was quickly submersed under a torrent of memories. Phantom touches rippled through his sensor net. He folded his arms over his abdomen, a whimper caught in his vocaliser.
He wanted Blades so much. Wanted him fast and quiet against the med bay door. Wanted to stroke his rotors afterwards, to lay him down on the repair berth and fall across his canopy. A keening wine broke the silence, followed by the whirr of fans. Oh Sigma, why couldn’t he be with Blades?
The door lock pinged green. First Aid found a new section of wall to stand against, as though the slightest drop in temperature would do something for his splintered processor, his trilling sensors.
Vortex had been fighting. Training, fucking, interrogating; it was all the same. His paintwork was scratched, dark spatters of oil on his canopy glass.
“You seem… agitated,” Vortex commented. He glanced around, suddenly wary. “What happened?”
“Don’t wan’ talk about it.” First Aid stuttered over the words. The thought came to him, slinking and poisonous, that he could use Vortex. That he could pound the copter into the berth and frag him senseless.
A trickle of charge seared through his interface hardware. “Guh!” he doubled over, knees clanging on the floor.
“Who was in here?” Vortex demanded. First Aid shook his head, optics down. Blue light reflected on his knees, little circles with their own tiny coronas. He choked a laugh.
Vortex typed something in the panel by the door. “You can tell me,” he said, softly.
“Swindle,” First Aid whispered, and suddenly he wanted to see Swindle curled in agony on the floor again while Vortex kicked the living slag out of him. “It was Swindle.” He had done this, it was all his fault. Stupid blasted Combaticon with his nasty wheedling voice and his filthy avarice. Disgusting. But Swindle had said something. Something… important. First Aid couldn’t remember. Vortex knelt in front of him, rotors fanned out over his back. Like Blades, First Aid thought, and had to hold his wrist to stop himself reaching out.
“I don’t…” he began, but lost the thought halfway through. He gasped as Vortex took hold of his arm, the simple touch crackling across his armour.
Vortex pulled out the data card. “I see,” he said.
First Aid nodded. That was all right then, wasn’t it? The data card was out now. The virus would just go away. But he could feel it inside him, amplifying his responses, sybaritic and relentless.
“Look at me,” Vortex demanded. Subtle pressure of two fingers beneath his chin, tilting his head up. Vortex’s expression was unreadable, unless that was concern? First Aid heard the click of the datacard hitting the floor, the soft sound of his own hydraulics as he unbent a little, easing back against the wall. Strange how the light of his optics still reflected blue in the bloody gleam of Vortex’s visor. There was no mingling of colour, it was pure and clean, like Blades looking back at him. Although it wasn’t Blades, it was his own reflection, and he shouldn’t be here. Not this close. His energy field crackled, his armour buzzed.
A pulse of safe-protection-comfort from Vortex, transmitted through his EM field. Lies, manipulative and cunning, all wrapped up in the memory of forced overload. Another zip of charge through his interface hardware.
“Shouldn’t,” First Aid said, a tremor coursing from his heels to the crest of his helm. Oh, Blades, please forgive me.
It would be easy to brace himself against the wall, to use it as leverage to knock Vortex onto his back. To connect their components and be done with it. But instead he found himself leaning forward, edging up just far enough to press their lips together. He unfocussed his optics, his field of vision dwindling until all he could see was the reflection of his own blue glow in the copter’s visor.
Vortex’s surprise felt like triumph. All thought of Blades or Groove or Streetwise dissolved like sugar in water, until there was nothing left but the taste of high grade, and the subtle ridges of glossa and denta as Vortex responded with enthusiasm. There was a trailing pressure of fingers along First Aid’s arms, then a palm cupped his jaw, another reached up to the row of atmospheric sensors along a wheel rim. Small rotors spun, and a breeze grazed the nodes.
He moaned against Vortex’s mouth as an overload blazed through his circuits. His hands closed around the copter’s rotor assembly and Vortex shuddered. But the charge didn’t dissipate, it remained, an urgent pulse teasing and tearing at him, bruising his sensor net.
He wished Swindle was dead. He wished he were dead. He could see tomorrow, visions of cold confusion and steely regret, self-hatred and the bitter knowledge that he had gone against his core principles, had been too weak to resist.
He wished he wasn’t there, drowning in the molten heat of his enemy’s touch. Frag. He wished Vortex would just take him offline and then he wouldn’t have to worry about the future.
He gasped, intakes heaving; he didn’t mean it, it was just the virus. Vortex lifted him, hands on his aft and thigh, pressing him against the wall. Instinctively, he wrapped his legs around Vortex’s hips, a rotor juddering against the glass of his foot. His back grated against metal, his interface hardware alive with a frustrated, needy vibration.
“Vortex, report to the bridge.” Soundwave’s voice, over-loud and echoing through the PA. “Immediately.”
“Frag,” Vortex moaned, intakes heaving. First Aid whimpered as the copter bit his lower lip.
“Repeat,” Soundwave said. “Vortex, report to the bridge. Suggestion: disengage from test subject.”
“Gotta go,” Vortex said. He disentangled himself, and First Aid felt a slight jolt as his aft connected with… something. “Fragfragfrag. Back soon.” First Aid peered at the door, half expecting to see Soundwave standing there. Instead, he caught the tail end of Vortex’s rotors as it closed.
How had he got on the berth? Oh yeah, Vortex had put him there. He cringed, armour crawling, and dug his heels into the covering. Slag, he needed to interface. He tried to distract himself, clutching at shards of memory, brittle splinters of thought.
Did he have to stay where he was? He wasn’t sure. He remembered a threat, something about optics, but that felt like a long time ago. There had been someone else, another voice. Watching them? His interface cable sparked, discharging on the inside of its cover. He winced, cupping the panel with his hands.
His optics glitched, scattering warnings across his field of vision, fragmented and unreadable. He bent over, hugging his feet. His cables creaked, uncomfortably tense, as a trickle of pleasure-pain-panic invaded his circuits, and began to cycle around his systems.
What in Cybertron’s name had he been doing? A wash of shame flooded his processor, brief, intense. But the backlash was worse, a heady glow of arousal spreading out from his interface hardware, alien and unwanted, but unstoppable.
The virus.
He clung to the thought, laying his head on his knees. He cycled air through his vents, each intake rasping past sensors already over-stimulated, each motionless second only enabling the accumulation of charge.
He had to get rid of it. If only Blades was here. No! He clasped his helm, tried to squeeze out the wish. Blades should never be here; he should be with Blades. Back at HQ, lying tangled in the soft breeze from the open window. He shuddered, picturing Blades’ muted optics, his sated smile; recalled running a finger the length of one perfect, warm rotor.
He grunted as his sensor net flared, denta gritted and screeching. This was all Vortex’s fault. Vortex and Swindle and their abhorrent, broken gestalt. First Aid rallied the hatred, the loathing, tried to convince himself that the charge was really just the unfamiliar lust for battle, that it was something pure and good, something he could use.
And it hurt, oh Sigma it hurt. His fingers twitched, and his optics roved, from the berth to the TV to the door to his own white feet, scuffed with lines of grey. A ghost of a thought hovered beneath the virus haze: he should do something about the charge. He shook it off, shuffling to the edge of the berth, as though sitting with his head between his knees, panting through his vents, would do anything for the pressure, the tension, the tingling, smothering need.
Pinned against the wall by Vortex, he’d been so close to releasing the catch on his panel. He stood, shaking and over-warm, the chain rattling at his heel.
Keep hold of the hate, he thought, keep hold of the revulsion. If the virus wins, the psycho copter wins. Don't let that happen.
* * *
Chapter 7
Continuity: G1, Dysfunction AU
Rating: NC-17
Content advice: abduction, non-con, manipulation of various kinds including sexual, graphic violence, dark themes, virus/drugs
Beta: naboru_narluin
Disclaimer: Just playing in the sandbox, characters not mine.
Characters: Vortex, First Aid, Swindle, Brawl, Dead End.
Summary: Things go from bad to worse, as Swindle attempts to exact a little profitable revenge.
Prologue and Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5
Days passed, a week, more. First Aid watched his chronometer with mounting dread. Each joor took him further from his team, each cycle made it seem not just possible, but increasingly inevitable, that he would never see them again.
Couldn’t they guess where he was?
First Aid sat on the edge of the bunk, his face in his hands. When the door opened, he didn't bother to look up, what was the point?
This, it turned out, was a mistake.
"Make a noise," Swindle said. "Any noise at all, and I’ll put a neat little hole right the way through your central processor."
First Aid parted his fingers to see Swindle's pistol a mechanometer from his visor. The Combaticon was whole again, but dented, his repairs far from pristine. He grinned nastily. "Dead End, Brawl, get over here!"
"Wow," Brawl said, looming over the bunk. "It don’t look like he's been touched."
"Shut up and hold him down."
First Aid swung out, catching Brawl in the face. The tank roared. "Stupid Autobot," he spat, and pinned First Aid to the berth.
Dead End leaned against the wall by the door. "This is utterly inane,” he sighed. “Not to mention vulgar."
"For Pit's sake," Swindle swore. "We talked about this! Vortex won't know what hit him, it'll be hilarious and we'll make a fortune out of the security footage. Now give him the stimulant."
First Aid struggled, writhing and kicking, but Dead End simply leant over Brawl, out of reach, and pushed a data card into the input port next to his unusable communications hardware.
"There, done," Dead End said. "For what it's worth."
Brawl gave First Aid a very long and very dirty look before letting him go. "Hey Swin," Brawl said. "What I don't get is why Tex hasn't just fragged him. I mean look at him."
Dead End huffed. "It's never really about interfacing," he said. "Don’t you know anything?"
Swindle gave First Aid the once over and nodded as though he approved of what he saw. "I don’t get it either," he said, apparently ignoring Dead End. "Tex always was a bit odd."
"Pot, kettle," Dead End muttered. "Brawl, as much as I can see of your face indicates an imbecilic incomprehension of current events. Do I need to spell this out to you?"
"Wha'?" Brawl said. "Spell what out?"
Swindle grinned unpleasantly, and the three headed towards the door.
The last thing First Aid heard before the virus kicked in was Dead End's smooth voice. "Which is more powerful," he asked. "Force or persuasion?"
* * *
Dead End’s question echoed through First Aid’s mind.
First Aid thought he knew the answer, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. Knowing seemed important. The door clicked shut, closing him in with the unread datapads and the chain, the blank TV and the omnipresent odour of cleanser, of metal polish, of new paint.
Vortex had spent hours on him, cleaning and buffing until even the scorch marks from that day - so long ago, in another world almost, where a shot from Onslaught had broken Defensor into his constituent parts, and he had fallen into the cellar - had been erased.
If only First Aid hadn’t stopped to repair that cellar door. If only he’d taken Hot Spot’s offer of a hand up.
If only Vortex had been rougher with the cleansing.
The copter had taken his time, lingering over every plane and curve, toying with each sensor. Enjoying himself. Enjoying him. And all the time Vortex’s field had lapped against his own, an unending deluge of peace-calm-safety-belonging, while the stimulation of his sensor nodes went on and on, until First Aid had cried out his climax into the surface of the berth.
He shuddered at the memory, a tingle of current rippling through his sensor net. No, he wasn’t meant to react this way. It was wrong; what was he doing?
He backed up against the wall, such a familiar position, pressing himself to the cold metal. He needed cold, a heat sink, but his fans hadn’t kicked in. The virus. It must be. Was that what Dead End had been on about? But no, he’d been talking about Vortex, and the virus was Swindle’s doing. Swindle, who Vortex had beaten into stasis lock simply for one moment of forgetfulness. Simply for letting First Aid contact his gestalt.
First Aid tried to marshal his thoughts, but they were all over the place. The virus coursed through his circuits, slamming him with charge, bringing every touch - wholesome and unwholesome - to the forefront of his mind.
Blades on the floor of med bay, enthusiastic and excitable, their first time alone; Hot Spot’s hands on his shoulders, a gentle kiss on the crest of his helm; Streetwise, grimy and battle-torn, charged with the fierce joy of victory, beautifully heroic. The five of them, gestalt whole and uncompromised, a glittering sphere of love and joy and glorious, glowing pleasure.
Groove on the hot desert sand, hands on his waist, so gentle.
And other hands, equally gentle, but hiding a fierce aggression, possessive and unstoppable. Vortex leaning over him, kisses that were so close to biting, the scrape of talons, the rush of air from his rotors as they fanned. Each overload, raw and uncompromising, and utterly thoroughly unwanted, but the virus didn’t care.
I’m ill, First Aid thought. I’ve been infected with foreign code. I need to stop thinking, I need to put myself in stasis lock, let it run its course, I need to… A vision of Blades on the roof, glowing like energon in the rising sun, transforming slow and languorous, then pulling First Aid urgently into the stairwell, away from the cameras. Blades slamming the door, holding him tightly in the dark as his interface panel snapped open and their cables clicked home in glorious synchronicity.
Scrap scrap scrap. Couldn’t think about that. Shouldn’t think about Blades, about any of them, not here. Not now. First Aid stood, pressing as much of himself as possible against the cool wall. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to catalogue his symptoms, but each thought tripped him up, each attempt brought him to Blades or Groove or Vortex.
He shuffled along the wall, searching for a cooler spot. How long had Vortex been gone? He checked his chronometer, but couldn’t focus on the readout. He slammed his hands against the wall; it didn’t matter, he couldn’t remember when Vortex had left. He hoped Vortex had gone to service Starscream, or whatever the slag he’d been doing all that time when he first left him alone. If he was gone long enough, the virus might just wear itself out before he got back.
Leaving First Aid with his other problems. But at least he wouldn’t have this one.
What had Swindle done?
First Aid crouched, head in his hands, then he was up again, pacing the length of the chain, each step a cautionary jolt. He snatched at the links, and steadied himself. He could pull it so hard that the jolt would knock him offline. He puffed air through his vents, like a human taking a breath before the plunge.
His arms failed him. He couldn’t do it.
A thought arose, half-formed, about the nature of fear, but was quickly submersed under a torrent of memories. Phantom touches rippled through his sensor net. He folded his arms over his abdomen, a whimper caught in his vocaliser.
He wanted Blades so much. Wanted him fast and quiet against the med bay door. Wanted to stroke his rotors afterwards, to lay him down on the repair berth and fall across his canopy. A keening wine broke the silence, followed by the whirr of fans. Oh Sigma, why couldn’t he be with Blades?
The door lock pinged green. First Aid found a new section of wall to stand against, as though the slightest drop in temperature would do something for his splintered processor, his trilling sensors.
Vortex had been fighting. Training, fucking, interrogating; it was all the same. His paintwork was scratched, dark spatters of oil on his canopy glass.
“You seem… agitated,” Vortex commented. He glanced around, suddenly wary. “What happened?”
“Don’t wan’ talk about it.” First Aid stuttered over the words. The thought came to him, slinking and poisonous, that he could use Vortex. That he could pound the copter into the berth and frag him senseless.
A trickle of charge seared through his interface hardware. “Guh!” he doubled over, knees clanging on the floor.
“Who was in here?” Vortex demanded. First Aid shook his head, optics down. Blue light reflected on his knees, little circles with their own tiny coronas. He choked a laugh.
Vortex typed something in the panel by the door. “You can tell me,” he said, softly.
“Swindle,” First Aid whispered, and suddenly he wanted to see Swindle curled in agony on the floor again while Vortex kicked the living slag out of him. “It was Swindle.” He had done this, it was all his fault. Stupid blasted Combaticon with his nasty wheedling voice and his filthy avarice. Disgusting. But Swindle had said something. Something… important. First Aid couldn’t remember. Vortex knelt in front of him, rotors fanned out over his back. Like Blades, First Aid thought, and had to hold his wrist to stop himself reaching out.
“I don’t…” he began, but lost the thought halfway through. He gasped as Vortex took hold of his arm, the simple touch crackling across his armour.
Vortex pulled out the data card. “I see,” he said.
First Aid nodded. That was all right then, wasn’t it? The data card was out now. The virus would just go away. But he could feel it inside him, amplifying his responses, sybaritic and relentless.
“Look at me,” Vortex demanded. Subtle pressure of two fingers beneath his chin, tilting his head up. Vortex’s expression was unreadable, unless that was concern? First Aid heard the click of the datacard hitting the floor, the soft sound of his own hydraulics as he unbent a little, easing back against the wall. Strange how the light of his optics still reflected blue in the bloody gleam of Vortex’s visor. There was no mingling of colour, it was pure and clean, like Blades looking back at him. Although it wasn’t Blades, it was his own reflection, and he shouldn’t be here. Not this close. His energy field crackled, his armour buzzed.
A pulse of safe-protection-comfort from Vortex, transmitted through his EM field. Lies, manipulative and cunning, all wrapped up in the memory of forced overload. Another zip of charge through his interface hardware.
“Shouldn’t,” First Aid said, a tremor coursing from his heels to the crest of his helm. Oh, Blades, please forgive me.
It would be easy to brace himself against the wall, to use it as leverage to knock Vortex onto his back. To connect their components and be done with it. But instead he found himself leaning forward, edging up just far enough to press their lips together. He unfocussed his optics, his field of vision dwindling until all he could see was the reflection of his own blue glow in the copter’s visor.
Vortex’s surprise felt like triumph. All thought of Blades or Groove or Streetwise dissolved like sugar in water, until there was nothing left but the taste of high grade, and the subtle ridges of glossa and denta as Vortex responded with enthusiasm. There was a trailing pressure of fingers along First Aid’s arms, then a palm cupped his jaw, another reached up to the row of atmospheric sensors along a wheel rim. Small rotors spun, and a breeze grazed the nodes.
He moaned against Vortex’s mouth as an overload blazed through his circuits. His hands closed around the copter’s rotor assembly and Vortex shuddered. But the charge didn’t dissipate, it remained, an urgent pulse teasing and tearing at him, bruising his sensor net.
He wished Swindle was dead. He wished he were dead. He could see tomorrow, visions of cold confusion and steely regret, self-hatred and the bitter knowledge that he had gone against his core principles, had been too weak to resist.
He wished he wasn’t there, drowning in the molten heat of his enemy’s touch. Frag. He wished Vortex would just take him offline and then he wouldn’t have to worry about the future.
He gasped, intakes heaving; he didn’t mean it, it was just the virus. Vortex lifted him, hands on his aft and thigh, pressing him against the wall. Instinctively, he wrapped his legs around Vortex’s hips, a rotor juddering against the glass of his foot. His back grated against metal, his interface hardware alive with a frustrated, needy vibration.
“Vortex, report to the bridge.” Soundwave’s voice, over-loud and echoing through the PA. “Immediately.”
“Frag,” Vortex moaned, intakes heaving. First Aid whimpered as the copter bit his lower lip.
“Repeat,” Soundwave said. “Vortex, report to the bridge. Suggestion: disengage from test subject.”
“Gotta go,” Vortex said. He disentangled himself, and First Aid felt a slight jolt as his aft connected with… something. “Fragfragfrag. Back soon.” First Aid peered at the door, half expecting to see Soundwave standing there. Instead, he caught the tail end of Vortex’s rotors as it closed.
How had he got on the berth? Oh yeah, Vortex had put him there. He cringed, armour crawling, and dug his heels into the covering. Slag, he needed to interface. He tried to distract himself, clutching at shards of memory, brittle splinters of thought.
Did he have to stay where he was? He wasn’t sure. He remembered a threat, something about optics, but that felt like a long time ago. There had been someone else, another voice. Watching them? His interface cable sparked, discharging on the inside of its cover. He winced, cupping the panel with his hands.
His optics glitched, scattering warnings across his field of vision, fragmented and unreadable. He bent over, hugging his feet. His cables creaked, uncomfortably tense, as a trickle of pleasure-pain-panic invaded his circuits, and began to cycle around his systems.
What in Cybertron’s name had he been doing? A wash of shame flooded his processor, brief, intense. But the backlash was worse, a heady glow of arousal spreading out from his interface hardware, alien and unwanted, but unstoppable.
The virus.
He clung to the thought, laying his head on his knees. He cycled air through his vents, each intake rasping past sensors already over-stimulated, each motionless second only enabling the accumulation of charge.
He had to get rid of it. If only Blades was here. No! He clasped his helm, tried to squeeze out the wish. Blades should never be here; he should be with Blades. Back at HQ, lying tangled in the soft breeze from the open window. He shuddered, picturing Blades’ muted optics, his sated smile; recalled running a finger the length of one perfect, warm rotor.
He grunted as his sensor net flared, denta gritted and screeching. This was all Vortex’s fault. Vortex and Swindle and their abhorrent, broken gestalt. First Aid rallied the hatred, the loathing, tried to convince himself that the charge was really just the unfamiliar lust for battle, that it was something pure and good, something he could use.
And it hurt, oh Sigma it hurt. His fingers twitched, and his optics roved, from the berth to the TV to the door to his own white feet, scuffed with lines of grey. A ghost of a thought hovered beneath the virus haze: he should do something about the charge. He shook it off, shuffling to the edge of the berth, as though sitting with his head between his knees, panting through his vents, would do anything for the pressure, the tension, the tingling, smothering need.
Pinned against the wall by Vortex, he’d been so close to releasing the catch on his panel. He stood, shaking and over-warm, the chain rattling at his heel.
Keep hold of the hate, he thought, keep hold of the revulsion. If the virus wins, the psycho copter wins. Don't let that happen.
* * *
Chapter 7