"… could hammer a sheet over there, to cover up that hole…"

Skywarp sputtered online as his audios picked up distant voices. Groggily, he performed a rudimentary scan on his internal systems and, satisfied that there were no more major anomalies, activated his optics. Immediately he wished he hadn't.

He was completely disarmed and kneeling on the cold floor of the pitch-black café. Switching to night vision, he saw the whole place was still in chaos, although someone had boarded up all the windows and the doors, clearing a wide circle of debris around him. His legs were forced apart by the same stasis ropes that pulled his arms by the wrists painfully high above his head. He tried tugging his hands free when a bored voice spoke behind him.

"Don't bother; it's too secure," it said. Skywarp craned his neck, and was shocked to see that he was back-to-back with Thundercracker, who was in the same restrained position. Their legs, wrists, and wings had been tightly lashed together, grating the smooth metal planes against each other uncomfortably. "Even if you do break loose, you'll just blow this place sky high. The bombs over there," Thundercracker nodded to the pile of leftover explosives to his left, "apparently go off when the ropes slacken."

Skywarp glanced up at the bare ceiling, where the ropes looped firmly around an exposed beam before connecting to a series of fuses. He slumped defeatedly in his bonds. "Fantastic," he said in a hollow voice. "Absolutely fantastic. And I haven't even had any proper lunch yet."

Thundercracker fondly remembered his own cesium salami sandwich, which he had left untouched after Sunstorm brought them that blasted note earlier.

He sighed. They had no other choice but to wait this one out.

.. .. .. ..

A few nano-kliks of silence later they heard footsteps crunching towards them, coming from a cautious Sideswipe who, upon noticing both their red optics glowing, nonchalantly turned around again. "Hey, Sunny," he called, "they're back online."

Harsh light suddenly clapped to life over the Seekers' heads, barely giving their optics time to adjust to the brightness. From a dark corner of the café, Sunstreaker emerged, clutching a dented sheet of metal. "Ladies!" he exclaimed with painfully false cheer. "So glad you could join us this evening."

"Can it, Sunstreaker," Thundercracker replied testily. "You know we're no more female than you are."

Sunstreaker stopped, then shrugged and went back to nailing shut a windowpane, which let in the violet light of the still-active energon barrier on the sidewalk.

Skywarp looked at his surroundings again, then checked his chronometer. "How long have we been out?" he asked over Sunstreaker's loud banging.

Sideswipe grabbed a upturned chair and straddled it the wrong way around to face them. He rested his chin heavily on the back of the seat. "Over nine joors," he said idly. "You jets sure took your time recharging."

Sunstreaker hammered in one last nail and, seemingly pleased with his handiwork, went to lean beside his twin's chair at the edge of the pool of light. "They were teleporting all over the place," he said, crossing his arms and surveying the two ensnared mechs impassively. "It's a wonder they even lasted that long."

"Good thing we disabled that pesky little module." Skywarp flinched.

"Those stasis ropes were a good idea, too, can't imagine what would happen if they had a chance to transfo—"

"Cut the slag already," Skywarp interrupted, thoroughly incensed. "You left our mouths unbound for a reason, let's get on with it."

Sunstreaker shifted his weight to his other foot. "We're not going to force it out of you if you don't want to say anything," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

"What now, you're bargaining?" Thundercracker let out a mirthless laugh. "That's a little below your standards."

Sideswipe widened his optics in mild curiosity, but betrayed no other expression. "What standards?"

"Normally," Skywarp elaborated airily, "you'd thrash your hostages so hard until they're too damaged to lift even a servo in retaliation. Then, you pry your answers from their cold, fading sparks." His tone was challenging them. "Am I right?"

Sideswipe stood up from his chair at the same time Sunstreaker straightened himself, faceplates suddenly splitting into identical manic grins. Their engines revved into a crescendo as they walked into the spotlight, to the Seekers' rising apprehension.

Sunstreaker stopped in front of Thundercracker, crossed his arms and tutted mock-seriously. "Do you really want us to do that?"

Sideswipe crouched before Skywarp, his grin almost predatory. "Because you see," he leaned closer to the other mech's audio receptor, "we had a much better idea in mind," he said, voice dropping to a caressing whisper. Before Skywarp could react, Sideswipe crouched back on his rear bearings and motioned to Sunstreaker, who produced a small remote control from inside his arm. With unnecessary flourish, he flicked a button.

Instantly, strategic plates of armor slid off the fliers' streamlined frames and clattered on the floor amidst tattered bits of silver lace, revealing their most intimate substructures. Tightly wound cords, thrumming with energy, intertwined with translucent tubes through which various fluids coursed underneath their exoskeleton. Light-emitting diodes twinkled colorfully amid switches and dials inside their bare cockpits. Bolts and screws glinted in their long cylindrical engines, the expensive lubricant catching in the light. Coupled with their gratuitously strung-up positions, it was without a doubt a sublimely erotic vision.

"Oh dear Primus," Thundercracker groaned despite the embarrassed rush of heat from his ventilators, "I am so not sparkbonding with some ground-kissing Autobot."

"Whoever said anything about bonding?" Sunstreaker asked in an innocent tone that clashed with his devious smile. He knelt as he reached around Thundercracker's thorax better to hold the back of his cantilevers, and reeled him in for a kiss that sent sparks coasting excitedly along the blue Seeker's exposed wiring.

"Think of this," Sideswipe said, sliding his digits slowly along Skywarp's spine, "as pure, mindless interfacing," he found the air brake and pumped it, "with no wires attached."

Skywarp couldn't help smiling; the slagging Lamborghini was damned good at this. "Pity," he breathed heatedly, "I was looking forward to a night of meaningful love-making."

Sideswipe chuckled as pulled back slightly, locking gazes with Skywarp. "I wouldn't want you to get too comfortable," he said as he dug his hand into a knot of cables in Skywarp's inner thigh, causing him to gasp; "we're supposed to be torturing you, after all."

Albeit reluctantly, Thundercracker broke away from the kiss. His optics had dimmed from the explosive sensations Sunstreaker was causing somewhere at the back of his neck. "Ah," he managed to say, "going for the slow, sweet torment angle, are we?"

"In a manner of speaking," Sunstreaker replied absentmindedly, intent on what he was doing. "See, I could do this," he surged forward and flicked his glossa on a wire beneath his exploring fingers, and was almost unbalanced by a sudden frisson from the other mech, "and keep going," another lick sent Thundercracker shivering again, "cycle," lick, shiver, "after agonizing cycle…"

Thundercracker fought to regain control on his motor circuits. "Wonderful technique," he admitted shakily, "but it's going to take a lot more than to get an actual reaction out of— AAGH!"

Thundercracker suddenly pitched forward against Sunstreaker, who laughed as he steadied the hyperventilating mech. "You were saying something about a reaction?" he asked, his blue optics sparkling wickedly as he continued exploring Thundercracker's circuitry.

Thundercracker looked at him archly, then lowered the timbre of his voice almost to a purr. "Untie my hands now," he whispered into Sunstreaker's audio receptor, "and I can rock your mechanisms with an overload more intense than anything you've ever experienced."

"Mmm…" Sunstreaker said appreciatively, pulling back to grin with atrocious superiority at Thundercracker, his hands never leaving the wires. "Tempting, but no. I like being in control."

Thundercracker glared back as best as he could through his maddening arousal. "Frag you."

Behind him, Skywarp was already mewling fitfully under Sideswipe's languorous ministrations. Sideswipe began to slow down, causing Skywarp to whine softly in protest. He had to think of something to distract the violet Seeker from overloading too soon.

"So, uh," he said, finding thinking to be an increasingly difficult task, "tell me about Megatron."

Skywarp stared at him in disbelief for a moment. "I already told you, I ain't telling you jack slag about where he is."

"No, no." Sideswipe rested his hands on the violet Seeker's hips, barely touching the naked cables. "I meant… what kind of mech he is, what his personal preferences are, and, well… things like that," he finished lamely. Sunstreaker threw his twin a withering look, but Sideswipe thought it lacked the necessary potency with Thundercracker panting frantically in his arms.

Skywarp thought for a moment, and decided to go along with it. He could fill out a megamile-long datapad with a list of things he could say about his commander; but still, he had to be careful. "Well…" he began, trying to sort out his lust-hazed thoughts and arrange them in a fairly intelligible order. "Megatron's a crazy bad-aft son of a slag heap, who enjoys abusing all his minions and expending them like empty cartridge shells." He tried to shrug. "Not the kind of mech I'd want for my boss, but there you are."

"In particular," Thundercracker chimed in over Sunstreaker's bobbing head, "he takes perverse joy in using us as bait to lure his opponents to their doom, like in this…" he flicked an ineffective wrist at the ruins around them, "… this place—" and was cut off mid-sentence by Sunstreaker's knee digging in between his legs.

Sunstreaker snickered, catching his twin's optics. "Yeah," he said a little breathlessly, "Sides and I can relate—our boss once set us up as bait for Sharkticon guards—"

"—only for a certain someone to take all the glory for that mission's success," Sideswipe finished darkly, although his tone was somewhat diminished by his fascination with the way Skywarp would twitch when he sent little sparks of static dancing along a side cable. He had to keep Skywarp talking, though; if either of the Seekers reached overload too soon, the twins would have nothing left to bargain with. Then Skywarp bucked hard against him, and the static electricity jumped back for one sweet tortuous moment through a rip in his shirt, crackling across his hood and making him lose his train of thought.

Sideswipe suppressed a moan as he tried to speak again. "Is it true that you're two of the top-ranking jet judo masters in all of Cybertron?" he asked, inadvertently putting a husky tone to his voice.

"We were the top-ranking jet judo masters in this entire galactic sector," Skywarp corrected. "Once." He peeked up at the red Lamborghini coyly. "How did you know that? Most practitioners of that art don't even know who ranks in the higher echelons."

"Me and Sunny dabble in just about every possible discipline we can," Sideswipe flippantly replied. "But between you and me," he said as he ran his knuckles lightly across the navigation controls inside Skywarp's cockpit, eliciting another desperate gasp from the restrained mech, "I prefer crystalocution so much better."

"Megatron also loves sending us on suicide missions," Thundercracker continued, undeterred by Sunstreaker's thigh rubbing against his sensitive pelvic wiring. "Once, he had us stalk all five Aerialbots on the wing in broad daylight. And we don't exactly camouflage well against fluffy white clouds."

"Then there was that time a deca-cycle ago," Skywarp enthused candidly while Sideswipe was practically elbow-deep in his cockpit, "when he sent us to steal the AllSpa—"

He stopped.

There was an awkward silence, during which nobody moved, vocalized, or felt anything.

The twins slowly withdrew their hands, exchanging a look of surprise. Skywarp cringed. Thundercracker cleared his vocal processor.

"Skywarp…" he hissed.

"… yes?" Skywarp said in a small voice.

"When we get out of here," Thundercracker continued, shaking with barely controlled rage, "remind me to tear off your wings…"

"… and?"

"… and shove them up your tailpipe. Painfully."

"… yes, Thundercracker." Skywarp hung his head, utterly chagrined.

"Hey, hey," Sideswipe said, gently lifting up Skywarp's chin. "Skywarp, listen to me. It's obvious that you didn't want to do this. You were forced to do it; it's not your fault—"

"Don't listen to him, Skywarp," Thundercracker cut in, his voice taut. Skywarp tried to look at Thundercracker around his arm.

"Wait, Sideswipe's just—"

Thundercracker was straining at his bonds now. "Primus damn it, he's manipulating you!"

Sunstreaker grabbed the sides of Thundercracker's helmet, forcing the other mech to stop thrashing. "Thundercracker, look at me, nobody's manipulating anybody around here—"

Thundercracker scoffed, optics blazing. "'Nobody's manipulating anybody'? Give me a break, Sunstreaker, I may be a chambermaid but I'm not stupid—"

Skywarp could feel the restraints about to give out. Sunstreaker continued in what he hoped was a soothing voice, "Look, we're just talking—"

"If we were just talking," Thundercracker said harshly, baring his teeth, "you wouldn't have tied us up and kept us from overloading on purpose!"

Sunstreaker was so surprised he actually laughed. "Well, I happen to like taking it slow—"

"Okay, that's it!" Thundercracker lunged forward so hard he finally broke through the stasis ropes holding him back, and landed squarely on top of Sunstreaker. "You wanted a good time, I'll give you a slagging good time," he growled, hands poised to tear the yellow Lamborghini's life-cords out of his throat.

A loud beep in the far corner interrupted them. They all turned to stare in horror at the now ticking explosives,

Sideswipe sighed. "I did tell you that was a bad idea, didn't I?" He stood up and loosened Skywarp's wrists. Skywarp muttered a word of thanks, not meeting Sideswipe's optics, and started reattaching the sheets of metal that had fallen off him earlier.

Thundercracker whirled his head around to stare at Sideswipe. He was working his mouth, but his vocalizer had short-circuited in shock.

Sunstreaker regained his senses and eased himself from underneath a still-stunned Thundercracker. He stood up, and heaved the other mech up on his feet. "Incidentally," he tried to say calmly, "how much time do we have left?"

Skywarp snapped the canopy of his cockpit in place, and helped Thundercracker put himself back together, first untangling the wires that had stuck in his wingmate's throat. Sideswipe glanced at the dial attached to the bombs. "Two breems and counting," he replied, vainly trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

As soon as Thundercracker was fully clad, he looked at the twins and asked, "Is there any way we can disable that?"

Sunstreaker shook his head. "Too risky. Only the entire Iacon Bomb Squad can defuse whatever Sides did with that thing."

"I do regret my genius sometimes," Sideswipe said sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.

Thundercracker frowned, all business again. "We need to find a way out of here," he said, trying to ignore the ominous ticking behind him.

Skywarp dashed to a boarded window on the opposite wall and tore off a sheet of metal. "How are we going to do that?" he asked, his silhouette thrown into sharp relief against the violet light. "The energon barrier outside's still active."

"Can you teleport out of here?"

Skywarp just stared pointedly at the twins, who at least had the tact to look appropriately remorseful.

"Tch." Thundercracker looked up, deep in thought. "We'll have to fly out through the ceiling," he said at length. "Luckily, there's only one story to worry about. Skywarp, transform."

They quickly morphed into their jet alt-modes and began warming up their engines. "Are you two coming or not?" Thundercracker called out crossly over his wing.

The two Lamborghinis looked up from where they had been listlessly poking the debris.

"You're taking us with you?" Sunstreaker asked incredulously.

"Why?" Sideswipe added.

Thundercracker was silent.

"… You didn't kill us when you had the chance," Skywarp said hesitantly. "We're just returning the favor."

The twins stood and gaped in abject shock. "What in the name of the Pit are you two bolt buckets waiting for?!" Thundercracker hollered anxiously.

They each clambered over a jet, hastily hooking their feet on the tailfins and clutching the wings. The timer on the explosives indicated less than twenty kliks left before detonation.

"Hold on tight!" Skywarp shouted over the deafening roar of their turbines. In an astrosecond after lift-off they crashed violently through what was left of the roof, soaring almost vertically into the glittering night sky of Iacon.

When they had cleared at least three hundred mechanometers of altitude, Thundercracker yelled over the madly howling air, "Brace yourselves, we're about to ride out the sonic boom any klik now!"

An unseen wave of force suddenly ballooned out from below, propelling them upward with a burst of speed even faster than mechanically possible. For one sickening moment Sunstreaker saw the world ripple tremulously before he heard the actual sound of the explosives going off on the ground far beneath them. He glanced to his right, and would have laughed at his brother desperately clinging onto Skywarp's fuselage with all four limbs if he wasn't feeling too nauseous himself. He shut off his optics before he saw the fabric of space-time take any more damage.

Eventually they slowed their ascent, and flew at a less steep angle. The twins visibly relaxed their grip upon feeling the decrease in G-forces.

"Where do we drop you off?" Thundercracker asked, then wondered if his question was in bad taste considering the situation.

Sideswipe made the delightful mistake of looking down to determine their location. "If we're flying north above Wingnut Avenue, we should take a left on Motorcade Parkway andohPrimusmyhead—" He clamped one shaking hand over his mouth before something other than words came out of it. Skywarp considered doing an aileron roll for kicks, but decided his paint job was already garish enough without Sideswipe's sick all over it.

Sunstreaker didn't even bother switching his optics back on. "Just take us to the tallest building in the city center."

"Is that where your headquarters are?" Skywarp asked, suddenly curious.

Sideswipe smiled wryly. "Of course not, but it's the closest we can get to solid ground from this height."

Thundercracker waved his wings in an airplane shrug. "Suit yourselves." He relaxed to cruising speed, and Skywarp followed suit.

They flew in companiable silence for a few more breems, during which time Sideswipe let his arms dangle exhaustedly from Skywarp's sides, and Sunstreaker began tracing languid circles on Thundercracker's wing.

"In another time, in another life," Skywarp recited in a quiet voice suddenly, jolting the others out of their reverie as they closed in on the building, "you and I might have been friends, allies, even lovers; but here I am…"

"…and there you are, on two sides of the same river," Sunstreaker joined in, to everyone's surprise, "and nothing in the universe could persuade me to cross it, not even you." There was a faint trace of bitterness in his voice.

The silence that followed grew heavy with unspoken emotion as the two jets circled before landing on the rooftop. The Lamborghinis gingerly climbed off, a little unsteady on their feet. The two Seekers remained in their alt-mode, not trusting their faceplates to remain completely emotionless.

"I guess this is goodbye," Skywarp said. He still felt like pummeling the two cars into spare parts for messing with his teleportation, but he couldn't explain why he didn't want to leave them just yet.

"Yeah," Sunstreaker said. "Thanks for the ride. It was great knowing you two."

"See you in the next life," Sideswipe said, wearing a rather melancholic smile.

Thundercracker laughed quietly. "Somehow, I get the feeling we won't have that long to wait," he said as he and Skywarp turned to face the edge of the roof and blasted off into the open air, leaving the twins behind them on the rooftop without another word.

"What was that quote all about, anyway?" Thundercracker asked his wingmate with spiking interest, when the city had receded into small twinkling lights far below.

"Oh, that." Skywarp chuckled. "I basically told them where Megatron was."

Thundercracker almost spun out of control. "You what?!"

Skywarp fell back slightly and nudged Thundercracker's rudder in place with his nose. "That was a line from a well-known poem in Kaon. I was surprised Sunstreaker caught on so quickly."

"Kaon…" Thundercracker thought for a bit. "Wait, didn't we leave Kaon mega-cycles ago?

If Skywarp had been in anthro mode, he would have been smirking magnificently. "Exactly."

Thundercracker suddenly burst into mad giggles. "Skywarp, that was brilliant!"

"Yes, well." Skywarp tried to sound modest. "It should keep their transistors busy for a while."

Their raucous laughter mingled with the rushing wind as they headed back to their base.

.. .. .. ..

Sunstreaker idly swilled his third cube of high grade as he lounged back on his chair, looking inappropriately disgruntled despite the wild beach party going on around him. He watched the happily dancing couple in the middle of the packed dance floor with a resigned sort of disappointment.

"So Prime gets the girl, the crowd of adoring fans, a reluctant commendation from P yet again, while all we get for our troubles are our meager salaries," he said morosely, picking at a loose thread his fiery red floral-patterned board shorts. "Remind me again why we waste our time with this agency in the first place."

Beside him, Sideswipe shrugged. "Dunno." He downed his own cube in one go and slammed it hard on the bar, splashing some liquid on his bright yellow board shorts, which had the same optic-bending design as his brother's. "Cheap thrills? Free maintenance? Besides, it was your fault for misinterpreting your 'clue.'"

Sunstreaker scoffed, and turned his back on the night's festivities. "But what is the point to all this?" he moaned, staring intently into the contents of his half-full cube and lolling slightly to one side. "Where is our life's purpose? Why bother denting our hoods and scraping our doors only for a swanky new garage and a few cubes of high grade?"

Behind them, the fabulously expensive hired band, headed by the humongously popular Blaster, smoothly entered into the next song. "When electrum rhythms start to play, dance with me, make me sway…"

"Don't get all existential on me again," Sideswipe said, punching his twin's head and missing spectacularly. "You were this bad when Jazz brought Bee back," here he choked slightly, "and after that night with the Seekers."

Sunstreaker finished off his remaining high grade, tossed the empty cube haphazardly over his shoulder, and buried his head in his arms on the bar counter. "Seekers," he muttered darkly. "Don't talk to me about Seekers." Somebody shouted at them for nicking his rear spoilers with the cube, but neither Lamborghini cared enough to respond.

"Oh yes, I will," Sideswipe said firmly. He knocked back another cube, and poked an unsteady finger at the yellow heap of metal beside him. "If it weren't for them, I would never have found out that my narcissistic brother actually read stuff other than labels of car wax."

Sunstreaker listened drowsily to Blaster's low crooning voice sing a few more lines, "Like a pylon bending in the breeze, bend with me, sway with ease… When we dance you have a way with me, stay with me, sway with me…" before he realized something gravely amiss in what Sideswipe just said. He raised his head and peered at his brother wanly.

"Seriously, Sides, you didn't recognize that poem?" He tried to lean forward, but almost lost his balance and sat back instead. "It's only the most famous poem by—"

"No, Sunny," Sideswipe interrupted with the supreme patience of an overcharged mech still faking functionality, "I neither know nor care about who wrote that— hey, look!" he exclaimed with sudden fervor as he glanced over his shoulder, almost falling off his seat in excitement. "Decepticon Triplechangers!"

"Oh no, Sideswipe," Sunstreaker said warningly, seizing his twin's face and staring him down with drunken doggedness, "you are not careening your way out of this." He shook a finger at Sideswipe's unfocused optics. "We are going to have a proper talk right now about your appalling lack of culture—"

Sideswipe snatched Sunstreaker's hand before it could multiply any further. "Sunny, just shut your valves for one fragging astrosecond and look over there." He pointed his swaying finger toward the general direction of the crowded entrance, past where Blaster was working himself up marvelously into the next verse, "Other dancers may be on the floor, but my optics will see only yoouuuu… Only you have that cyclic techniiiique… when we sway I go weeeeaak!" with his backup cassettes harmonizing in time.

"Hey, yeah," Sunstreaker said after taking a moment to resolve his uncooperative vision, "it's Blitzwing and Astrotrain and— Primus damn it, Sides!" he yelled as pulled his brother's offending finger down and spun him around. "Don't point at random mechs in the crowd, you uneducated coupe!" he hissed as they hunched their shoulders together over the bar.

Sideswipe patted Sunstreaker's back amiably. "Cool your cylinders, Sunny, it's not like they saw me." He tried to glare intimidatingly at the newcomers over his shoulder, but ended up looking like he just swallowed stale motor oil. "Besides, they're the ones gatecrashing our party."

A thought slowly crossed Sunstreaker's energon-soaked processor, and he raised up a finger importantly. "I was thinking," he announced, then paused. They both stared at his finger blearily for a few moments, wondering what it meant. Behind the bar, Powerglide rolled his optics and shook his head hopelessly at them while he polished the counter top.

"I was thinking," he began again, when he collected enough of his thoughts to go on, "if those 'Cons are here, either they're escorting Megatron…"

"… which would be a definite though not permanent impossibility," Sideswipe interjected enthusiastically.

"… or," Sunstreaker continued, surprisingly lucid in his eagerness, "they're here on their own…"

"… with their own security detail of lower ranking mechs…" Sideswipe said, catching on at last.

They clutched each other's arm as they triumphantly concluded together, "Which means…!"

"Hello, shark bait," said two cool voices in unison behind them.

.. .. .. ..

The last bit is an epilogue of sorts, which I set to occur after the major events of You Only Offline Twice (snerk), which has sadly not been finished by its author (who is not me, btw) just yet. The rest of the story occurs before YOOT, though. I apologize for the tiny spoilers, but pin the blame on real life for delaying this wonderful fanverse.

Also, that song is obviously not mine. I just refitted it with more Cybertronian-friendly idioms.