"I'm not going to punish you with them, Bluestreak," Prowl said.
Bluestreak raised his chin defiantly and stood firm alongside the twins. "I was as much a part of it as them, Prowl," he replied, trying not to let his voice quiver. He risked a quick glance at Sideswipe to see if his solidarity was approved and was hurt to see both twins looking at him in a rather worried way.
"Bluestreak, I think that - since you were coerced into participating - you had a lesser part in this and deserve a correspondingly lesser punishment," Prowl insisted. "Now, Wheeljack blew up something very messy in his lab yesterday, so ..."
"I'm with them!" Bluestreak interrupted, knowing he was in for it just for that. "I wasn't coerced! Whatever happens to them happens to me!"
Prowl gave him a curious stare and then turned that look on the Lamborghinis, an almost does he know what you know? look. They both returned his gaze with can't break me down copper-class stares of blank defiance. Prowl shrugged his doors a fraction and went to the lockers behind the security desk to retrieve something Bluestreak couldn't see.
"Did you tell him?" Sideswipe whispered to his brother as soon as Prowl turned his back.
"No, did you?" Sunstreaker replied, a look of worry fleeting across his face.
"Tell me what?" Bluestreak whispered, almost a squeak.
"Oh Primus," Sunstreaker groaned to the floor.
"You think he'll be all right?" Sideswipe glanced at Bluestreak, optics doubting and concerned. Bluestreak felt hurt.
"I don't even know if I'll be all right after this," Sunstreaker whispered, and that mollified Bluestreak less than it added to his worry.
"Fine, we'll just bang him until he forgets everything," Sideswipe said in the sullen tone that meant he was blaming his brother for everything. His words made Bluestreak squeak again.
"But we did that last night!"
"Yeah, so?"
"I haven't finished retouching my paint-job yet."
"Like it's not gonna get messed up," Sideswipe hissed but if they said anything more Bluestreak didn't hear it since Prowl chose that moment to open the door to the secure detention chamber. Which was, Bluestreak decided after getting a look at it, designed to keep Devastator locked down if ever such a thing was necessary. His optics went wide and he stared at the shackle-bar that ran at elbow-height along the left and right walls, at the heavy-duty cleats welded to the floor, at the suspension chains that dangled from the ceiling and at the upright shackle-bar in the centre.
Prowl looked at him dubiously, still holding the door open. Bluestreak shuffled up next to the Lamborghinis who were doing the best arrogant-rule-breaker-at-parade-rest stances he had ever seen. Prowl shrugged. "Very well, Bluestreak, if you really want to be dragged down to their level ... you can stay."
Bluestreak, having stopped staring at the shackles and the clamps and the total lack of just about anything not designed for restraining people, looked back at Prowl. Were they perhaps to clean the room using only their glossas? Were they to sit in this empty room for hours and hours? Were they to be locked in until they're ready to apologize? No, wait, Prowl made Sunstreaker stand in a mud puddle for that one.
Then he noticed what Prowl was holding: an odd sort of baton, long and black with a set of three rings around it, just above the handle. Prowl shut the door and turned one of the dials on the baton just a bit. The baton went crackle and Bluestreak thought that maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
Prowl pointed the baton at Bluestreak. "You. Up against the wall." He waved Bluestreak towards the far end of the room.
Bewildered, Bluestreak started to back away and then stopped. He looked to the Lamborghinis for guidance. Was this the right time to be defiant? Or should he do what he was told? Sideswipe gave an ever so close to imperceptible nod. Bluestreak backed away until his doors touched the wall.
Still fixing him with a did you glue Prime to the ceiling?-class glare, Prowl stalked over and - not roughly, not gently, just coldly - pushed Bluestreak back against the wall. The shackle-bar bumped him in the back. Bluestreak was distracted just enough to be caught unawares when Prowl grabbed his left arm and pushed it into a shackle clank, and suddenly Bluestreak was trapped. Bluestreak stared at Prowl in utter bewilderment, only making a soft eep noise when Prowl pushed his right arm into a shackle.
"Just stay there and keep quiet," Prowl murmured - not in his did you put that foam-bomb in Grapple's berth? voice but in his just stay in this foxhole until your hands stop shaking voice. That put Bluestreak a bit more at ease, enough so that, when Prowl turned around and saw Sideswipe astride the central shackle-stand and Sunstreaker leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, studying the polish on his feet ... well, he couldn't help but laugh a little.
Sideswipe grinned his most disarming gosh who me I never stole Tracks' hubcaps honest smile and said, "Hey officer, I wanna play horsie."
Even though Prowl had his back to Bluestreak, he could see the other Datsun's doors go rigid with ... something, something that locked his joints and stiffened his back to gun-barrel straightness, something that made his whole body tighten until his upholstery creaked, the leather shining with strain. He strode across to Sideswipe, who, as the Datsun approached, slowly lost his smirk. Sunstreaker looked up from his polish examination.
Prowl stood next to Sideswipe, a head shorter than him when he was standing and two now the Lamborghini was perched on the shackle-bar like a kid on a rocking horse. "Sideswipe," Prowl said, a strange new undertone in his voice. "Do you know why you're in here?"
"To play horsie?" Sideswipe asked with a never more innocent smile.
"You and your partners in crime are here because you told Red Alert that I - and Optimus Prime - didn't believe his, and I quote, 'silly little story' about being damaged when he cooperated with Starscream. Indeed, you told him that we were intent on dissecting him to check for Decepticon bugs, and that I was sending the Dinobots to carry him off to Ratchet for brain surgery!" He looked up at Sideswipe with an expression so hard it could have etched diamond. "I found this out not because Red Alert dropped by to laugh about it, not because he reported you to me for taunting him about a traumatic event during which he suffered brain damage, but because Inferno found Red Alert hiding in his quarters, incapacitated with terror and begging Inferno to get him out of the base before Ratchet sawed his head open." He shook his head then fixed Sideswipe with a look so hard Bluestreak was almost surprised Sideswipe's face didn't crack. "You deliberately and callously preyed upon Red Alert's highly strung temperament for a pointless joke, one with no purpose beyond tricking him to reliving the emotional pain of recent events and leaving him terrified of his friends. Was that funny, Sideswipe?"
"Well, we got a laugh out of it at the time..." Sideswipe said, voice slowing to an uneasy uncertainness.
Bluestreak felt an awful sick feeling in his tanks. He hadn't thought Red Alert would take it that badly. He shuffled back against the wall, wondering how he'd face Red next time they met.
Prowl raised that weird baton until the tip was just under Sideswipe's chin. Oddly, the Lamborghini didn't smile. He didn't laugh. He watched it as if it were deadly poisonous. Also oddly, as Prowl raised it, Sideswipe's lips part in a soft breath of a sigh. Bluestreak wouldn't have noticed if he didn't spend so much time watching Sideswipe's face. Sideswipe lent back, away from the baton. Transfixed as his first Lamborghini was, Prowl turned to glare at Sunstreaker, who, like Sideswipe, was staring hypnotised at the baton.
"Well, Sunstreaker?" Prowl asked. "Any excuses?"
"That whiner accused me of being a Decepticon informant 'cause I smacked Cliffjumper," the golden Lamborghini drawled, not breaking his stare on the baton. "Slag him."
Prowl moved - not quickly, but smoothly - and his arm swung across, three pairs of optics watching, there was a crack! and a white flash and Sunstreaker's legs folded up underneath him. Sunstreaker toppled over forwards, forehead hitting the floor clang and he gasped. Bluestreak just stared.
Sideswipe made a noise like he might move or possibly fall over. Prowl quickly turned back, raising the shockstick. Sideswipe froze, just kept on staring at the shockstick. Slowly the tip of his glossa crept out and shivered along his upper lip.
"Get down," Prowl ordered, in a voice he must keep in a box for occasions like this one because Bluestreak had never heard him speak like that before, like someone resigned and made him Prime of the everything. Gaze still riveted to the point of the baton Sideswipe dismounted like an athlete and stood to loose order in front of the Datsun.
"Stand to attention," Prowl ordered softly. Sideswipe was immediately rigidly upright, shoulders set so straight you could set a spirit level by them. "Stay," Prowl said, the command so cold it was a wonder the air didn't turn to frost around it. Sideswipe remained stone still except for that gaze that never left the shockstick. Prowl turned to Sunstreaker, who was just picking himself off the floor. Prowl didn't even speak. He just pointed the shockstick at Sunstreaker, then at the spot next to Sideswipe.
Sunstreaker's lip curled in a snarl. Prowl swung the shockstick back to point it at the golden warrior. The snarl subsided. Half crawling, half standing, Sunstreaker scuttled crabwise over to Sideswipe. Prowl had the baton almost at his chin so that when Sunstreaker stood it was almost as if Prowl was lifting him up on the end of the stick. Sunstreaker's mouth worked silently, lips parting gently the way they did, in Bluestreak's remembrance, just before he kissed someone.
That made Bluestreak feel distinctly ... odd.
Prowl looked the Lamborghinis over, tracing a line in the air above each limb with the tip of the baton as they stood to best parade sudden-unit-inspection-by-Ultra-Magnus attention in front of him, just watching the shockstick. Prowl walked around behind them. Bluestreak could only watch, bemused and uncomfortable. Prowl glanced at him and could see his confusion.
"This, Bluestreak, is what we used to call 'training to the rod', before the War," Prowl said conversationally. "We used it to encourage prisoners to behave. It was done rather differently back then but the discipline is still the same. What you do, Bluestreak, is you take a roughhouse brute like your partners here and you teach him that when he obeys he does not get the stick and when he misbehaves he gets the stick."
Bluestreak boggled. Since when did Prowl use ancient prison disciplines on Autobots? And why were the twins standing that bit more tensely than he could expect?
"Allow me to demonstrate," Prowl continued and Bluestreak could now discern a new element in his tone, a growing ... relish? Prowl raised the shockstick over Sideswipe's shoulder, bringing it close to his cheek, not quite touching the dermaplating. With silent obedience, Sideswipe turned his head. Prowl transferred the stick-point to the other cheek, turning Sideswipe's head the other way.
"You see, Bluestreak," Prowl continued, somewhat distracted as he directed the Lamborghinis - turning their heads, tilting them forward, pulling them back with just the presence of the rod, " ... they will do whatever I want." There was sufficient satisfaction in Prowl's tone that Bluestreak began to get an inkling of what was about to happen.
Prowl ran the edge of the baton along Sunstreaker's shoulder and try as he might the Lamborghini couldn't stop himself from slowly parting his lips, the way he did when Bluestreak waxed his chest-plate. The moment the baton touched his shoulder his arm snapped forward, perfectly straight. Sunstreaker's mouth opened and closed silently, softly, lips gleaming.
"The major change I've made to this discipline procedure is to modify the shockstick," Prowl continued. He brought Sunstreaker's arm down, made him lift a foot and stand on one leg and then left him there. "The old versions had one range - painful to agonizing. This improved version has three settings.
"The first one -" he jabbed Sideswipe in the back, making him yelp, "- is pain.
"The second -" he tapped Sideswipe's left knee and the Lamborghini's leg folded up under him, bringing him crashed to his knees on the floor, "- is disablement.
"The third ..." Sideswipe whimpered, turning his head fractionally towards the baton, optics wide as hubcaps. Prowl swung the baton in front of his optics before scraping the tip along the side of Sideswipe's helm, "... is pleasure."
Sideswipe moaned, shuddering, tilting his head back, the arc of his throat gleaming. For the first time his optics closed. Bluestreak could see his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"Leave him alone," Sunstreaker grumbled, still standing on one leg.
Bluestreak never knew Prowl had such fast reflexes. The baton caught Sunstreaker on the hip and he went sprawling. For a moment Bluestreak thought Prowl had hurt Sunstreaker pretty badly, the way he'd fallen in such a limp heap, and then he heard Sunstreaker's almost whining keen of pleasure. Sunstreaker squirmed on the floor, not even trying to rise, just twitching from side to side, fingers seeking purchase on the smooth plating. Bluestreak heard Sideswipe gasping and caught the sudden twitch as he forgot to stay still and edged towards Prowl.
Prowl turned back to the red Lamborghini, holding the baton tip close to his face. "The trick of training to rod, Bluestreak, is to apply the correct setting to correct behaviour -" he jabbed the baton, stabbing the tip into Sideswipe's throat, and the Lamborghini wailed in pain, "- and the correct setting to the wrong behaviour. I could, as Optimus believes I do, apply only the pain setting during this session." Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both flinched. Bluestreak wondered how high the pain setting went. "However that would only teach them to resent authority and then I would have a cycle of pain and disobedience, which is no logical solution to the problem at hand. I could, as Prime would prefer, allow him to simply lecture you three until your auditory modules fall off your heads. However I have seen no evidence to suggest that that will have any modifying effect on your behaviour."
Prowl leant forwards over Sideswipe until his face was close to the Lamborghini's. "Prime does not like to hurt his own people. Does that tell you something, Sideswipe? Does your miniscule cerebral module have the capacity to contemplate the depth of Prime's despair at your behaviour? Or do you prefer my orders to his?" An odd, unpleasant edge of smile flickered at the corner of Prowl's mouth. Bluestreak saw a shiver run through Sideswipe's shoulders, a twitch in his cheek, Prowl still hovering over him like a Seeker about to stoop.
Bluestreak shuddered, his doors clattering against the wall, and the moment was broken.
Prowl straightened up abruptly. "I find that it is most effective to teach these unruly warriors to obey me without question, to do as I bid them to do, and to associate my orders with pleasure." His voice was sharp, disappointed. Bluestreak wondered what he'd just missed, what had almost happened. "And thus, Bluestreak, we make obedient soldiers out of runamucks."
"Give it a break, copper," Sideswipe breathed. Prowl tapped him smartly on the back of the head and he doubled over grimacing.
"Admittedly the discipline takes time," Prowl said, featherlight, swinging the shockstick gently between his fingers. "Which we have in abundance, unless a Decepticon attack occurs."
"Yeah, that'd make Red Alert happy," Sunstreaker gasped from the floor. "He'd think I arranged it."
Prowl's only response was to bring the baton close to Sunstreaker's head. With sudden, silent obedience Sunstreaker was on his knees. Both of the warriors were kneeling before Prowl, hands at their sides, optics watching the baton.
"Stay," ordered Prowl, the hardness of the order corrupted by a sense of enjoyment in giving it, and walked to the other side of the room.
With his back to them Bluestreak expected to see the Lamborghinis look at one another, whisper, move, pull a face ... anything except this panting, wide-opticed stillness. Prowl picked up something Bluestreak hadn't noticed before from where it dangled on the shackle-bar and turned back to the twins. They were perfectly still, just waiting for ... what?
Prowl walked around them once, watching them as they stared at the baton. He stopped behind them. Silently, he guided Sunstreaker to put his hands behind his back. The golden Lamborghini obeyed. Bluestreak power-cycled his optics in surprise as he saw Prowl lean down and shackle Sunstreaker's wrists together. And the cuffs had to be tight because Sunstreaker made that little whining, keening sound again, the one that made Bluestreak's cables clench.
Prowl gave the shackles a jerk and Sunstreaker gasped as they tightened even further. "Quiet," Prowl commanded, assessed Sunstreaker's frozenness, and moved on to Sideswipe, leaving Sunstreaker mouthing and flexing his hands. Sideswipe was trembling again, moving almost before Prowl commanded him into position - kneeling with his arms behind him, fingers quivering. Prowl went down on one knee behind him, looking over the Lamborghini like an animal-trapper with a prize prey. He ran the tip of one finger down the centre of Sideswipe's back.
Sideswipe let out a high quavering yell and he shook all over. Bluestreak's optics widened massively at the sight of the red Lamborghini trembling like an antenna, at the sight of Prowl's sudden there-then-gone shark-smile.
Sideswipe subsiding back into silent quivering. Prowl clamped the shackles on and Bluestreak saw Sideswipe wince in something that wasn't entirely pain. Prowl didn't rise. Instead he touched the centre of Sideswipe's back, stroking gentle circles on his armour. Sideswipe's shivers turned to outright shaking and he whimpered, the way he whimpered when Sunstreaker wouldn't let him in the berth with them.
Prowl stood and walked another circuit around the trembling, gasping, handcuffed twins. He stopped in front of them and, with a quiet motion of the baton, made them bow their heads. Prowl started to pace back and forward in front of them. Bluestreak could see the Lamborghinis fighting not to look up at the baton, the twitching of their shoulders, the faint winces as the cuffs cut into their wrist-joints.
"Now, Bluestreak, you see how docile these two are under the proper stimulus. Bad behaviour punished, good behaviour rewarded. And I think, just now, you've both been quite ... acceptable."
Sideswipe let out a sudden gasp, neck twitching. Bluestreak recognised anticipation, recognised wanting. Prowl stood over Sideswipe, baton hanging casually from his hand. Slowly he lowered it towards the Lamborghini's back. Slowly, slowly, inch by inch...
"Sideswipe doesn't know when I will touch him," Prowl said conversationally. "He doesn't know if I will touch him. He doesn't know what setting I'm going to use. He can only hope that, through good behaviour, he will gain a reward."
The baton touched Sideswipe's neck and he buckled, mewling in ecstasy. Beside him Sunstreaker whimpered. Bluestreak couldn't help but make a little whine of his own as he watched Sideswipe squirm on his knees, the baton pressing against the back of his neck. Prowl pushed the Lamborghini around, making him swing his head from left to right, bowing until his head touched the floor. Bluestreak gasped when Prowl pushed Sideswipe's head against his knee and squeaked as Sideswipe willingly nuzzled Prowl, mouthing silently.
"What do you say, Sideswipe?" Prowl asked, as the Lamborghini rubbed his face against the inside of his shin.
"Primus ... you, you, you ... slag-sucker, oh ... " Sideswipe moaned incoherently. "Oh copper ... oh! Oh!"
At that Prowl pulled the baton back. Sideswipe collapsed in a heap, groaning, and Bluestreak noticed steam coming from his joints. "Your language needs attention, Sideswipe," Prowl warned but instead turned to Sunstreaker. The golden Lamborghini had remained perfectly still whilst his brother squirmed but he was gasping and Bluestreak could see the sharp-bright glow of his optics even though he was still looking at the floor. "And you, Sunstreaker, what do you say?"
Sunstreaker's jaw tightened, his hands clenched, his shoulders hunched. Beside him Sideswipe moaned softly.
"Say you're sorry, Sunstreaker," Prowl ordered quietly.
"I -" Sunstreaker blurted before catching himself.
Prowl's only movement was to swing the rod, just a little, from side to side.
"I'm ... " Sunstreaker stopped again. Bluestreak stared, entranced.
Prowl didn't so much as move a micron.
"I'm very sorry Prowl very sorry so sorry please sorry please Prowl please ... " Sunstreaker's babble trailed off into a low whimper, shaking his head.
"That's better," Prowl nodded quietly. "Now say it again. Coherently."
Sunstreaker ground his mandenta so hard Bluestreak could hear the metal squeal.
"I'm very sorry Prowl, I wish I hadn't done it," he said loudly and clearly but not without an edge of desperation in his tone.
Prowl gave Sunstreaker an appraising look and then looked back at Sideswipe, still panting on the ground. "Sideswipe," he ordered, "show your brother how it's done."
Sideswipe whimpered. "I - I - " he gasped, and then quite uncontrollably moaned, "Oh copper, hurt me again."
Prowl shook his head disapprovingly but Bluestreak could see the twitch of a smile as he took a step back to Sideswipe and stood there, looming over the supine sports-car who usually stood so much taller than him. Sideswipe continued to whimper.
"Sideswipe, I gave you an order," Prowl said sternly.
Bluestreak could only boggle as Sideswipe did something he never thought he'd see: he hitched on his belly, inching his way towards Prowl until he was close enough to start nuzzling his feet. His whimpers rose into coherent words; "Oh Primus I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'm so bad, so bad ... " He stopped whimpering to nuzzle, and stopped nuzzling to whimper. "I deserve it, hurt me, please ... Prowl ... sir." Prowl's optics flared at that word.
"Better," Prowl conceded as Sideswipe rubbed his face into his feet. Prowl leant down and smartly rapped Sideswipe on the side of his helmet and the Lamborghini squealed, convulsively kicking his feet in the air. The next tap touched the middle of his back and Sideswipe arched so hard his feet almost hit his head. Prowl tapped him smartly in the midriff and Sideswipe folded in half, still whimpering. "Now, Sideswipe, do you have something to say?" Prowl asked casually.
The whimpering subsided a little. Face pressed against the floor, doubled up, Sideswipe said, in a very small voice, "I did a bad thing, sir." Again the bright flash in Prowl's optics, again the hot surge in Bluestreak's fuel-lines. "P-pl-please may I apologize to Red Alert?"
"And?"
"A-aaa-and please may I apologize to Inferno too?"
"And what are you going to tell them?"
"That I-i-i'm very sorry for being hurtful and-and-and that I was bad and stupid and cruel and I-i-i shouldn't have done it."
"And then?"
Sideswipe whimpered again. "I ... I ... "
"What will you do after you've apologized?" Prowl asked, tapping his foot.
"I-I will do anything they want to-to make up for it, sir," Sideswipe stammered.
"And will you do what you're told?"
"Yes sir!" Sideswipe managed in something like a normal tone.
Prowl's face shifted, a shiver of emotion completely reigned in. "Will you, Sideswipe?" he asked, tapping Sideswipe's helmet with his foot.
"Oh yes copper yes yes ... " Sideswipe gasped, nuzzling Prowl's foot.
"That's better," Prowl said and turned towards Sunstreaker.
Sideswipe whined. Sunstreaker risked a glance at him, astonished.
"Why-?" Bluestreak blurted out.
Prowl spared him a glance. "Sunstreaker is recalcitrant. Sideswipe, as you have seen, is willing to apologize. Sunstreaker however cannot apologize because he has his pride stuck in his mouth. He believes that, because he is big and brave and beautiful, that he does not have to conform to the rules, that he does not have to obey. I will make him obey me." The edge on Prowl's voice could have cloven armour. "I will make you, Sunstreaker, long to apologize."
Sunstreaker said nothing, allowing his silence to stand as a sullen insult. He didn't look at his brother.
"Sunstreaker knows that his brother deserves a reward. He knows that Sideswipe is a good sla-ah-Autobot."
Prowl's composure wobbled. For a moment, everything teetered.
"Sunstreaker knows," Prowl continued, smooth as if nothing had happened, "that until he apologizes his brother will not get the reward he deserves. Now, Sunstreaker ... do you love your brother?"
Bluestreak flinched.
Sunstreaker twitched.
Sideswipe began to uncurl, just a little.
Prowl stood quite still, leaning over Sunstreaker with the baton in his hand, waiting.
Bluestreak could count the strokes of his fuel pump in his chest, waiting. He could see Sunstreaker's lower lip quiver, his mouth open slowly, then close again. Sunstreaker's face spasmed, mouth opening and closing, a desperate glint in his optic.
"I-" he gasped.
"You," repeated Prowl.
"I hate being his brother," Sunstreaker said, loud and despairing. "For Primus's sake Prowl, I'm sorry, all right?"
Prowl just looked at him, cold and keen and eager.
"I-I-I ... ah, blast it," Sunstreaker stammered. "Sideswipe, what do I say?"
Prowl's quick strike caught Sunstreaker on the cheek as he turned to his twin and Sunstreaker sprawled, squealing. He kicked, squirmed and whined, and Bluestreak boggled to see flecks of paint peeling off him.
"I could punish you all night," Prowl said coldly, "but that would just make you resent me. I could punish your brother but that would make you hate me. So I can only conclude that, since you are determined to hate me, I will make you hate me for the best possible reason." With that Prowl ran the tip of the baton along Sunstreaker's back, and the Lamborghini screamed ... in ecstasy.
"Unh - ah - ah - blast it, don't, don't!" Sunstreaker wailed. "Nnh - oh - Prowl, no-oo-o-oh!"
"Now, Bluestreak," Prowl said conversationally, "as you can see Sunstreaker is now experiencing quite intense physical pleasure." He turned and looked at Bluestreak suddenly. "And this is only the third level of seventeen," he said, almost surprised. Then he turned back to Sunstreaker. "You see Sunstreaker hates me enough that for him to experience pleasure from my hand is, paradoxically, worse than pain, since pain can only feed his hate yet pleasure only makes him happy. Training him to the rod teaches him that I am a good and wonderful thing and that obeying me will cause pleasure, and this he finds intolerable." Bluestreak had trouble picking out some of Prowl's words over Sunstreaker's wails of joy. Steam rose from the Lamborghini's golden body, beading his hull with droplets of coolant.
Bluestreak felt, quite unexpectedly, a heavy blush - the same blush that had first clued in the Lamborghinis to just how they made him feel - twisting his energy fields.
"Prowl, stop, please," Sunstreaker moaned. "Anything ... anything ... oh ... anything you want, just stop it, anything!" His voice made Bluestreak's doors quiver. He would give anything to hear Sunstreaker talk like that to him.
"Apologize," Prowl said coolly.
"Nngh ... ah, 'm sorry ... I ... ah ... no more, please, I'm gonna ... unh ... I ... "
"Apologize," Prowl ordered. "Or I'll raise the setting."
"No!" Sunstreaker wailed, body grinding against his will under the touch of the rod. "I'll apologize, I will, I'll - unh! - on both knees, anything - Prowl, stop - I - I'm serious, I, aah! I - please, I can't - I can't take - gnhhn - aaah!"
Prowl trailed the rod up Sunstreaker's back, barely letting it touch his steaming metal. Sunstreaker squirmed and squealed. Slowly, with just the most gentle of prods, Prowl turned Sunstreaker over on his back. The Lamborghini lay awkwardly with his hands bound behind him, already trying to pull his head away as Prowl ran the shockstick along the line of his jaw.
Bluestreak, knees quivering at the sound of Sunstreaker's moans, couldn't stop thinking about how it felt to kiss Sunstreaker right there. And, just as he remembered how it felt to kiss Sunstreaker on his perfect mouth, Prowl touched the rod to those master-crafted lips.
Sunstreaker screamed. His entire body seemed to try to clench and stretch at the same time, legs trying to kick and pull up at once. Prowl didn't take the rod away. Sunstreaker tried to turn his head away, trying to get away from the delirious pleasure, but Prowl kept the rod to his mouth too easily. Sunstreaker began to sob - big, hitching, gasping sobs that sent steam billowing out of his head-vents.
"Oh sir, sir, sir," he begged, words part-muffled by the rod on his mouth, "sir please let me, let me, oh ... "
Prowl smiled a very tight, hard smile, his optics blue-bright as gas-flames. Bluestreak felt something twisting in his innards in a funny hurty-good way, the same way it did just before Sideswipe first kissed him.
"I'll say - I'll tell them - I am, I am - I'm -" Sunstreaker continued unbidden. Sideswipe shuddered. Bluestreak could see it: Prowl had won. "I'm so bad, I - I - I kill Decepticons, not Red Alert, oh Primus, I'd never hurt him like that, no, I - I, please, sir, let me say sorry."
Prowl took the stick away. "That's much better." He even leant down and gave the steaming, squirming Lamborghini a gentle pat on the head. Quite abased, Sunstreaker pressed his face into Prowl's hand in thanks for the relief. Prowl left him and went back to Sideswipe.
The red Lamborghini was lying, panting, watching with optics like camera lenses as his brother made glimmering shapes on the floor. Bluestreak knew that watchful silence awkwardly well, had felt that silence on his side when Sunstreaker made Sideswipe sat and watch as the golden twin melted him with kisses.
Prowl stood over his conquered warrior and that little curve of a smile had spread into a hard smirk. He had total control, and he knew it, and Sideswipe knew it, and Prowl reveled in it.
Head still lowered, hands still pulled tightly behind his back, Sideswipe wriggled forward a little bit and started to nuzzle Prowl's foot. Prowl pushed his foot forward a bit and Sideswipe obediently, quietly, unprotestingly licked.
"Good," Prowl smirked, "that's good."
Sideswipe shivered, the way he did when he was waiting for Sunstreaker to touch him.
Prowl turned Sideswipe's head with his foot, coolly evaluating his obedience. The smirk stretched into a smile of the sort Bluestreak had never seen on an Autobot before. The anxious feeling inside made him quiver, doors shivering as he waited to see what was about to happen.
"Squeal for me, Lambitch!" Prowl hissed, optics suddenly flaring in to sky-bright pinholes, and struck down with the rod.
Sideswipe squealed, bucking on the floor, one foot caught on the shackle-bar, the other leg spasming frantically, and all the while between his cries he tried to make words, words like 'yes' and 'please' and 'more' and 'sir', and Prowl's optics blazed.
Behind Prowl, Sunstreaker rolled onto his side and stared at his moaning, writhing twin with lazy-happy-hungry optics, the same gaze Bluestreak had seen looking at him so often. And, quite unexpectedly to Bluestreak, as Sideswipe squirmed and frantically rubbed against Prowl's shin, Sunstreaker crawled on his knees towards his brother. Perhaps he was aiming for Prowl but he fell on his brother, face down on his chest. Bluestreak went weak at the knees at the sight of the two Lamborghinis as they pressed against one another, as Prowl spurred them equally with the rod, as they nuzzled and moaned.
When Sunstreaker, thighs entangled with Sideswipe's, reared up and ran his glossa up the inside of Prowl's thigh and Prowl's optics darkened almost to black, Bluestreak whimpered.
When Prowl allowed Sunstreaker and Sideswipe to lick his hand, Bluestreak bit his lip to stop that whimper becoming a moan.
When Prowl, with gentle taps of the rod that set the two gasping, guided their heads together, Bluestreak's knees began to shake uncontrollably. He couldn't mistake the intent and it made him weak. He ought to be used to seeing it. He ought to, really, but he wasn't. Not when he was snug in their arms, not when he was pressed between them, not when they pinned him to the berth, not before, not afterwards, not during, not ever.
Their lips met, their optics dimmed, their voices melded, their glossa entwined ... and Prowl caught then both on the chin with a tap of the stick that made them shake and, as Bluestreak's legs gave out under him, topple together to the floor.
One soft voice said "Oh Primus," and another said "Yeah," and the two bodies ware still - exhausted, defeated, elatedly still.
Bluestreak hung panting in his shackles, legs shaking, mind reeling.
Prowl walked over the pile of steaming Lamborghinis and approached Bluestreak, that smile still etched into his face. Bluestreak's insides surged, afraid of this new Prowl made of power, afraid of his control, his capricious touch that was pleasure and pain, and afraid of how much he wanted to kneel before him.
"Now," Prowl said, "what does it take to make you apologize?"