Sky and Ground 47 Price of Ambition

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

NC-17
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Soundwave/Megatron, Starscream
noncon, sadism, guro, oh yeah, tentacles

“I see no harm in waiting,” Megatron said, smoothly. A veiled hint at Soundwave.  Do not question my judgment.  There was, he knew, no harm in waiting. Let the Seekers try their hardest.  Let them feel every agonizing grating moment slip through their arrogant talons. Let each klik as it passes speak to them of Megatron’s power, his control, his ultimate inevitable authority.  Let Thundercracker have ample, ample time to contemplate his sins, his presumption, his punishment.  Let Starscream feel the humiliation and the loss.  The Air Commander would never dare stand up to him again. 

“I do not like it,” Soundwave murmured. Wise enough to not disagree openly.  “They plot. They have been plotting against me all this time.” 

Megatron shrugged. “Let them waste their time and energy trying to escape from a room that has no doors, Soundwave.  Watch them struggle. Insects. Dying frantic insects and nothing more.” One move. That’s all it had taken. And the command Trine was in his grasp.  He inhaled, as though this victory had a scent he could capture.  He could still see Starscream’s startled face, could still feel the last raw drag of his spike’s nodes over the lip plates. 

Soundwave edged closer.  “Yes, my lord,” he said, quietly.  He sensed opportunity.  Megatron had elevated him above Starscream during his absence. That was not accidental. Megatron had chosen HIM over Starscream. Elevating his Third above his Second. He needed this. This was his opportunity and he would not squander it by meekness.  “I cede to your wisdom.”

Megatron stiffened, slightly, searching for some trace of sarcasm, so long had he been accustomed to Starscream’s perpetual sheathed barbs.  “Do you.”

“Yes, my lord.” 

Megatron’s optics glittered.  Starscream, entirely cowed, would be an advantage. But it would leave something…lacking.  He began to wonder what else Soundwave might cede to.  He turned, his optics meeting Soundwave’s.  He could command, he could order, he knew.  But he wanted this to be different.  To draw Soundwave out.  The satellite was a closed system, unreadable. Wrapped up tightly. Megatron longed to unwrap it, pull it open, see what lay inside that made it work. 

“You could be very useful to me,” Megatron said.  A hint, given with a sidelong, coy glance.  He saw a gratifying flutter in Soundwave’s panels. Yes. Interest. 

“In ways you could not imagine,” Soundwave murmured. He risked a return slide of the optics at Megatron, dropping the gaze with alarm as Megatron caught the glance and cast an appraising look up and down Soundwave’s form, as if seeing him for the first time. 

“Indeed,” Megatron said, dryly. 

Soundwave shifted forward.  This was his chance. This was his leverage. If he could get into Megatron, completely supplant Starscream, this would be his power.  This would be his control. “I can,” he said, sidling closer, extruding four of his silvery tentacles from under his armor, “give you whatever, and whomever you desire.” 

Megatron tilted his head, considering, his optics hard on Soundwave. “Why not yourself?”  Testing, pushing. 

“Why have me when you can have…any mech you want.  Starscream? Brought to heel?  Optimus himself?” Soundwave purred, stepping forward, letting two of his tentacles drift, as if weightless, in the distance between them.  Megatron watched them, intrigued, fascinated.  Emboldened, Soundwave let one trace an impossibly light line down Megatron’s thigh, settling itself along a seam in the armor.  He looked to Megatron. No signal to stop.  He let the tentacle shift, unlocking the nanites from their tight bonds, letting them seep like quicksilver through the seam, into the circuitry underneath. 

Megatron twitched at the intrusion, his mouth plates jumpy, unsteady.  Soundwave activated the probes quickly, latching into Megatron’s sensornet.  He amped up his calibration slowly—no time to signal too high, and risk pain.  Soundwave felt the startled response at the pleasurable tingle, at how he extended it, in a rush, from the thigh through the entire net.  Yes, he gloated. I am that good. 

“More?” he asked.  Reminding Megatron that Megatron was in control.  Or…at least granting him the courtesy of illusion.

“Intriguing,” Megatron said. “Yes.”

Soundwave struggled to keep the exultation from his face. “I shall have to approach more closely.”

Megatron gestured expansively, granting permission.  Soundwave attached more tentacles, letting them skirt around the armor, caress the solid, overlocked plates before they delved beneath the surfaces. 

Megatron sighed as the extra probes fired their controls.  Soundwave ran through a quick sequence of sensations from his memory cortex, a library of touches from caresses to scratches, a variety of sensations from tingling to outright borderline overload.  Megatron growled as Soundwave backed off the last. 

“Mere sensation,” Soundwave said, apologetically, secretly reveling that he was playing Megatron like an instrument. A finely calibrated, exquisite instrument. “Sensation is merely brutish mechanics without,” and here he risked a probe of the cortex, “the mind.” 

Soundwave opened into the cortex, feeling, sensing, searching out.  He sent a query, short, simple, direct: ‘Starscream’.  Hits flooded back to him. Of course.  Some were memory cached—realities. Old experiences.  Too risky.  Some were…imagination, entirely.  He riffled, quickly. Something dark.  He ran a subsearch, a filter.  Yes. 

**

Megatron hissed as Starscream appeared before him, raging, defiant. 

“You do not talk to me like this, Starscream,” Megatron sneered.  He shoved up from his command chair into a smooth, vicious strike that caught the surprised Seeker—too startled to even block—across the face.  He could feel the back of his hand land solidly against the faceplates, hear the ring of metal against metal and Starscream’s pathetic mewl as he slued to the floor. Megatron tripped the jet as he stumbled, exulting as he landed hard on the floor, his talons gouging the deckplates.  Megatron loomed over him, smelling the heated oil, feeling the hot bursts of the jet’s ex-vents.  He felt a rush of desire through his systems, a raging torrent of signals.  If Starsceam ever knew the power of his arousal….

He would not know. He could not know. Megatron seized one of the folded wings, hauling upward.  Raw lust burned through Megatron’s system at the howl of pain. 

Yes, Megatron thought. This is how I want you.  He twisted the wing panels, feeling them wrench in their mounts, one or two of the hinges popping bolts. Starscream’s howl rose to a keen, fading to a crackle as the vocalizer lost charge.  Long bronze talons came up, clawing desperately at Megatron’s hand.  Megatron snatched the hand bending one of the talons backwards, gloating, grinning, riding a wave of power, lust, control, desire as the joint cracked, fluid bursting over Megatron’s fingers. Starscream collapsed to his knees, panting at the floor. 

“How much of your arrogance will you retain,” Megatron mused, “without your wings.”

“No,” Starscream pleaded, his voice thin, desperate.  Intoxicating to Megatron’s audio.  “Please. Do not. I shall not overreach again.”  The jet groveled lower on his knees before Megatron. 

Good, Megatron thought. Heady, rich, surrendering. But still, not quite good enough. Not low enough.  Not sincere enough. Not in enough pain. 

He tore at the wing, bracing one hand against the jet’s shoulder while the other fired its entire array of actuators, his systems rerouting power to the arms, tearing the folded wing from the jet’s back.  Starscream bucked in unimaginable agony, fluids gushing from tears in the metal, circuitry sparking.  Megatron could feel an echo of the pain he was inflicting, a mirror image, as intense a pleasure as the pain he was wreaking.  Oh, glorious.  And Starscream was groveling beneath him, abasing himself, embracing Megatron’s ankle, his sobbing breath hot in Megatron’s cabling. 

“Is that enough,” Megatron goaded. “Have you learned your place?  Or shall I take your engines as well?”  His hand curled around the engine intake, prying up the metal, his fingers slick with the jet’s energon, the acrid stench of spark-crisped lubricant in his olfactory sensors.  “What would you be without your engines, Starscream?” he purred. 

“No!” the jet sobbed, “Please!”  He shivered.  Megatron shivered as well, feeling the lust pour through him, effervescent and dark.

“What would you be?”

“Nothing!” The bronze jet abased himself, his chassis bowed to the floor. “I am nothing!” 

Yes! Megatron roared inwardly, savoring his triumph, as if letting any of it escape to the surface would ruin it, dilute it.  He wanted this all to himself: the smell of the burnt fluids and the torsion-stressed metal;  the sounds of rending echoing in his audio as he tore up the engine, the high wail of Starscream in pain, losing his engine, losing what it meant to be a Seeker; the delectable spectacle of the bronze form trembling in agony; the feel of his fear-heated plates giving, buckling under Megatron’s hand….

**

The overload tore through him, neatly, cleanly, like laserfire.  He felt both of his systems trip, but…none of the uncomfortable, unseemly physical side effects—no flood of transfluid, no gush of cleansing lubricant.  Just pure signal, clear of noise.  Raw intensity that burned to his core. 

He shook himself, coming back to where he was, when he was, Soundwave’s face impassive over him, the tentacles retracting slowly, almost regretfully. 

Soundwave repressed a shiver.  To consolidate his power on the brutal fantasies of his master, to feed them, actuate them, make them realer than reality.  This was the price of his new rank. Could he pay it?  Before he withdrew his last tentacle, he let it send one small, whispered query through the cortex. ‘Soundwave’, with the same subtag.  It pulled up three hits.  He quivered where he stood, forcing himself to be still, to turn the horrified shudder into a demure riffle of the solar panels.  He did not think he could bear it.  No. Never.  He purged the files, erasing them and even the memory of them with surgical precision. He could not live those out. Not even in fantasy. Not at any price.  Not now that he’d had a taste of Megatron’s lusts. Even at this distance, an arm’s reach away. 

 

Comments

[katsuko]

Oh my... Megatron has some pretty twisted and "shady" fantasies, doesn't he. And poor Soundwave, realizing that he has a starring role in at least a few of them....

Although I somehow doubt that he will ever do anything against Megatron unless it benefited him somehow.

Still, utterly yummy chapter in a dark-side kinda way ♥

[http://users.livejournal.com/__wilderness__/]

I... actually feel sorry for Soundwave there...

[mpinsky.livejournal.com]

While disturbing, this is an excellent example of mindfuckery and I, personally, think this is one of your better pieces stylistically. There is a creepy and dark flow to this one, exuding hints of subtle powerplay without being overly blatant.

One typo (though it may not be if it's meant as a statement, of course):

"Megatron stiffened, slightly, searching for some trace of sarcasm, so long had he been accustomed to Starscream’s perpetual sheathed barbs. 'Do you.'"

Is there meant to be a question mark after that phrase or is Megatron making a rhetorical statement (I think either could work, here, though)?

Again, awesome job!

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Not a typo. Megatron doesn't stoop to ask questions. ^__~

Glad you liked!

[sasuke-emosauce.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Excellently dark. Perhaps now that he's had a taste of Soundwave's...talents, no one else will suffice.

[library-drone01.livejournal.com]

ooooh. Creepy and dark but in a REALLY good kind of way.

[flamekaat.livejournal.com]

Yay Even soundwave says 'bugger this guys out of my league with his nutso-ness!' I am glad I like Wave he is one of my favorite non-seeker cons

[fallentaiyoko.livejournal.com]

I'm sad to hear that this fic is almost finished, but I'm glad I found it here on LJ so I could get a major fix of 'Warp/Barricade. I'd been reading it on FF.net/AFF.

And maybe Thundercracker'll get over his prejudice against grounders after all this?

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

*TWITCH*

Megatron is a creepy-arse fragger.

[vesryn.livejournal.com]

"Yes, he gloated. I am that good." Soundwave is... oddly cute in this chapter. I rather like how unnerved Soundwave was, and that he deleted the ones starring himself. Even he has a limit.