Title: Jumpstart
Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers.
Warnings: Slash, robot sex, oral (kinda), sex toys (sorta), oblique references to rape/abuse
Author's Note: Another fic written for the TF Kink Meme. This one's just a PwP one-shot. Written while listening to Placebo's Meds album. "Infra-Red" is practically Wildrider's theme song.

Drag Strip revved his engine, ignoring the warnings that flashed in his HUD as he pushed harder to close the gap between himself and his gestaltmate. He had to win, slaggit! He hadn't suggested a race just to limp home in second place!

Wildrider cackled gleefully and continued to tear down the deserted desert highway at manic velocity, not slowing for a nanoklik. Like the other members of his gestalt, he delighted in showing up the victory-obsessed Tyrell P-34.

Drag Strip's determination won him a few more precious inches as the pair raced along, kicking up a massive plume of dust behind them that marked their passage for several miles and all but obscured the winding road. The warnings of impending overheat flashed with increased urgency, but the Stunticon pressed on regardless. Winning was all that mattered.

Tires screaming on pavement, the two mounted a steep curve, racing their shadows along the canyon wall. Wildrider's crazed laughter echoed back at him through the stone chasm, taunting and triumphant.

Drag Strip snarled and cursed, driving his pistons harder, dragging forth every last ounce of horsepower his overtaxed engine could muster. He would not lose!

Still cackling wildly, the dark Ferrari did the same, widening the gap between them once more. Skidding and fishtailing, Wildrider whipped around the next blind curve with a decisive lead, leaving his gestaltmate choking on a bitter blend of dust and exhaust.

An astrosecond later, the screech of brakes and heavy, thunderous crash of metal impacting against metal interrupted Drag Strip's frustrated cursing.

Startled by the sound, he slammed on his brakes, and when that ill-considered action rendered him partially airborne, he swiftly transformed, twisting like a cat to land on his feet in a ready crouch, the parched ground shuddering beneath him.

Three humans stared up at him in mute, wide-eyed terror from behind the wreckage of two mangled Earth vehicles parked head-to-head on the soft shoulder of the narrow road.

Crimson optics flicked from the quaking humans to the vehicles, which a quick scan confirmed to be nonsentient, non-Autobot mechanisms, and then on to his gestaltmate, the clear cause of the damage, who was presently transforming back into root mode, shaking his helm and staggering slightly as he regained his feet.

Drag Strip didn't bother to ask if Wildrider was all right. He knew his gestaltmate was undamaged. The force fields saw to that. The punch-drunk reaction was a result of surprise, not injury. As Wildrider straightened, their optics met.

As one, their gaze shifted back to the humans.

Showing a greater degree of intelligence than most of their species, the flesh creatures immediately abandoned their battered vehicles and fled, screaming in terror.

The two Decepticons observed the humans' flight with a disinterested air.

"I would have beaten you, you know," Drag Strip opined.

Wildrider smirked. "Yeah, right."

Wildrider turned back to survey the damage he'd caused. He noted with satisfaction that both cars were practically totaled, and had been shoved back several feet by the force of the collision. It hadn't even been intentional this time.

Drag Strip noticed the shift in his gestaltmate's attention and followed his gaze. Eyeing the twisted wreckage curiously, he inquired, "What do suppose those squishies were up to?"

"Who cares? They were in my way; they got slagged. End of story."

Drag Strip frowned, noticing the odd positioning of the vehicles. Humans typically arranged their automotive drones end-to-end, but these two were different. Prior to the impact, they would have been parked almost grille to grille. Their hoods were raised, and a length of thick cable ran between them. "Strange. They're connected."

Wildrider perked up at that. He moved closer, glancing back and forth between the two cars...and snickered. "Looks to me like they were –"

"Don't be stupid, Earth vehicles don't interface."

"How do you know?"

"They don't have brains, for one thing."

Wildrider chuckled, "That's hardly a requirement."

Drag Strip made a derisive noise. "Even if they did, I doubt they'd do it with the humans watching."

"Why not? I would."

Drag Strip twitched as his core temperature suddenly spiked. Slowly turning his helm to address the other, he purred, "Would you, now?"

Registering the hint of intrigue in his tone, Wildrider revved his engine suggestively. "Wouldn't you?"

"Hmmm. Pity they've run off."

Wildrider edged up behind him, close enough that they were almost touching. "Strictly speaking, we don't actually need the humans..."

Drag Strip turned to face him, their force fields scraping against one another. "True."

Wildrider laughed, shoving his chestplate into Drag Strip's aggressively and grabbing hold of his helm crests. "Lemme in."

Drag Strip eyed him with a mixture of amusement and disdain. "Such a way with words you have."

"C'mon, Drag Strip!"

Drag Strip pulled away, twisting free of Wildrider's grip and turning to inspect the wreckage again. "Not yet. First I want to know what those humans were doing."

Snarling impatiently, Wildrider stalked over to the nearer vehicle, a black SUV, and traced the cable back to its engine. "It's connected here, and here."

Drag Strip peered into the automobile's innards, taking note of the locations his gestaltmate had indicated, then moved over to the opposite vehicle, a blue sedan, and hummed speculatively. "The connections are different on this one."

Turning back to face his partner, he jolted at the sight that met his optics. "What are you doing?!"

"Finding out what they were doing," Wildrider replied, snapping the second connection into place within his open chestplate.

"Are you insane?"

Wildrider just looked at him.

"...right. Of course you are."

"You're the one who wanted to know. Hook up already!"

Muttering to himself, Drag Strip grudgingly complied. "Okay. Now what?"

Wildrider tilted his helm thoughtfully. "Huh. Nothing's happening."

"That doesn't make any sense. It must do something."

As far as Wildrider was concerned, solving the mystery of the humans' activites ranked fairly low on his list of priorities. He pressed in close again, intent on taking advantage of his partner's open chestplate.

Drag Strip stopped him with a hand. "Not so fast. If they don't do anything, why would the humans bother to connect them?

"Who the frag cares?" He shoved at Drag Strip again, more insistently. "Bring 'em down, I wanna 'face."

"Not yet," Drag Strip spat exasperatedly. "Primus, just wait an astroklik."

"Slag that," Wildrider growled, seizing Drag Strip by his shoulder-tires and shoving him up against the side of the SUV. "Slag waiting; I wanna do it now."

Being the stronger of the two, Wildrider easily held Drag Strip pinned between the disabled vehicle and his own frame. Their force fields juddered as they grated against one another, the strange cable trapped shivering between them.

Cycling his vents in a sigh of resignation, Drag Strip relented. "Oh, fine. You first."

Wildrider smirked in triumph, initiating the command code to deactivate his force field.

Drag Strip permitted his gestaltmate the minor prize of his concession. He'd gotten Wildrider to lower his field first, and that was the true victory. He was the one in control here; Wildrider was the weaker one. Even now, he could feel Wildrider's exposed energy field battering ineffectually against his shielding, vainly seeking his spark. He took a moment to savor the sensation of power and control before finally transmitting the command to lower his own forcefields.

Wildrider cackled gleefully as he felt the barrier between them drop, his engine revving in anticipation. "Yeah, now that's more like it!"

Drag Strip abruptly stiffened with a startled squeak as an unexpected surge of sheer electric ecstasy went coursing through his circuitry. Occurring in conjunction with the first aggressive salvo of Wildrider's energy field, the sensation was shockingly intense.

Wildrider hadn't been expecting that much of a reaction. "Drag Strip?"

"...do that again."

"Do what again? I've barely done anything yet."

Drag Strip responded by revving his own engine demonstratively, in lieu of an explanation.

Nothing happened.

"Do what, Drag Strip?"

He frowned thoughtfully, his attention shifting to the strange cable running between them, inspecting the connection. Seized by sudden inspiration, he adjusted the differing clamp in Wildrider's chassis so that it matched his own, and revved his engine again.

The results this time were much more satisfying.

Panting through his intakes, Wildrider straightened from where he'd collapsed against his gestaltmate in response to the sudden burst of overwhelming pleasure. "I knew they were interfacing," he gasped.

Drag Strip grinned. "Indeed. This should prove interesting."

Immediately grasping the possibilities, Wildrider revved his engine again while simultaneously sending a second, stronger pulse through his energy field. No longer blocked out by the force field, his fingers dug into his partner's sensitive wheel wells, adding another sensation to the already-potent mix.

Drag Strip's response was immensely gratifying. The racer jerked forcefully in reaction, his helm striking the side of the battered SUV with a resounding clang. "Unh! Primus."

After taking a moment to recover, he returned the favor...with interest.

Wildrider staggered back with a gasp, stumbling and falling flat on his aft, intakes heaving as he trembled with the aftershocks of the sensual assault. The cable swung gently between them in response to the sudden movement, but the connections held.

The sight of his gestaltmate sprawled at his feet and reeling from such a minor effort on his part triggered an explosion of searing lust deep in Drag Strip's spark. His core temperature spiked again, setting off another round of overheat warnings flashing in his HUD. Drag Strip ignored them. "Hmmm. I think I like this new toy."

It didn't take long for Wildrider to recover; within a few astroseconds he had Drag Strip writhing and groaning under a fresh barrage of spark energy, augmented by another burst of hot electric bliss from the cable linked to his revving engine.

Drag Strip responded in kind, sending pulse after pulse of spark energy slamming into his partner until the canyon echoed with Wildrider's cries, cries that rose steadily in pitch and urgency until they quivered on the razor's edge between pleasure and pain.

And then it was too much, too much for both of them and they had to stop, a dozen different warnings spamming their HUDs, their vents cycling hard in a futile effort to cool their overheating systems.

Wildrider struggled to his feet, grabbing Drag Strip's legs for support as he hauled himself up from the ground. The pair leaned heavily against the crippled SUV, shoulder to shoulder, gasping through their intakes, their legs trembling with the effort of keeping them upright.

"I never – felt anything – like that – without overloading," Wildrider panted.

"It's because – it's not – a true – connection. No link – to our sparks." Drag Strip replied with similar difficulty.

"So we have – to uplink – to overload?"

"Mm," Drag Strip affirmed, too spent to force any more words from his vocalizer.

They remained that way for almost a breem, unmoving, until both were recovered enough to regain minimal functioning once more.

Straightening from his slumped posture and pushing off of the SUV, Drag Strip took a step forward and glanced up at the sky. The hot desert sun that had been blazing down on them had shifted westward, and the high canyon walls were casting long shadows over their position, offering a welcome respite from the oppressive heat and glare. Behind him, he heard Wildrider struggling to stand.

He reached for the one of the clamps connecting the human's cable to his engine, intending to detach it, but before he could complete the action, Wildrider caught his hand. "Wait. Don't."

He turned to face his gestaltmate, frowning in puzzlement. "Why not? Not that it hasn't been pleasant, but I prefer to overload. Wouldn't you rather uplink instead?"

Wildrider grinned lasciviously, purple optics darkening to violet. "Who said anything about instead?"

Drag Strip's optics flickered in surprise, the implications trickling through his processor. A wicked grin slowly curved his lip components. "I like the way you think, Wildrider."

The words had barely cleared his vocalizer before Wildrider was on him again, one hand groping for the panel that concealed Drag Strip's intimate interface circuitry. Wildrider's plug was already in the other, drawn so swiftly from its housing that it seemed to Drag Strip as if it had appeared there by magic. "Wait," he said, twisting to elude his determined gestaltmate's attempt to plug in to him.

"What is it with you and waiting?!" Wildrider griped, not pausing in his efforts to expose his partner's access port. "You said you wanted to overload –"

"And I do," Drag Strip interrupted, still dodging his gestaltmate's continued advances. "But I want to enjoy it, too! Do you always have to be in such a rush? We have plenty of time..."

Wildrider made a derisive noise, "Autobot slag. You want me to bring you flowers and energon goodies too?"

"Oh for –" Drag Strip gazed heavenward, exasperated, and shoved Wildrider off. "Don't be such an idiot. I didn't mean that." He sighed gustily through his vents, concluding in a bitter undertone, "I'm just sick of always skipping straight to the finish line. I get enough of that with Motormaster."

Wildrider stared at him in open-mouthed shock. Among the Stunticons, what Drag Strip had just said was tantamount to blasphemy.

They had all learned very early on that you never, ever spoke ill of Motormaster, nor questioned or defied him in any way. Their education on that subject had been one forged of pain and degradation, its lessons regularly reinforced by the ruthless gestalt core.

None of them dared protest anymore. As bad as the treatment was, the punishment for dissent was worse. In time they'd all become inured to the routine. You offlined your audials when the screams began, and thanked Primus it wasn't your turn. When it was your turn, you submitted without a fight – unless Motormaster wanted one – and saw to your own repairs when he was done. That was The Way Things Were. Those were the rules.

But out here in the desert, isolated and effectively shielded from Motormaster's ire, Drag Strip had broken the rules and shattered the tacit taboo.

Wildrider wasn't sure what to do. The suggestion was intriguing, even tempting, but at the same time absolutely terrifying. If Motormaster were to find out...

Drag Strip recognized the haunted look in his gestaltmate's optics, the telltale flicker of fear and uncertainty normally hidden behind a façade of bravado – he'd seen it countless times, in Breakdown and Dead End, in his own reflection. Seeing it now made his spark twist in painful recognition.

This time it was Drag Strip that advanced, moved closer and pressed his chassis against his partner. "He doesn't have to know," he murmured into Wildrider's audial. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Or us."

Wildrider's optics shifted rapidly, furtively, looking everywhere but at the mech pressed oh-so-enticingly against him. His whispered reply was so soft Drag Strip had to dial up his audials to hear it. "Y-yeah, okay."

Drag Strip's spark surged with triumph followed by a steady thrum of growing arousal. Finally. He'd wanted this for so long, craved it so desperately; now at last it was so close he could almost taste it.

Like the others, he'd been forced to adapt, training his circuits to heat up within astroseconds with minimal stimulation to his frame, to reach overload just as quickly, even to enjoy a certain degree of pain. But somewhere deep in his core he'd always known it wasn't right, that it didn't – shouldn't – have to be that way.

It wasn't all that sappy Autobot slag about love and romance he longed for. As far as Drag Strip was concerned, they could keep that scrap. It was respect he wanted; to be treated like an entity rather than an object, to be pleasured rather than simply used, to overload without feeling like he'd been cheated in some nebulous, indefinable way.

He was sure Wildrider felt the same. The others, too. He recognized the coping mechanisms they all employed, the same ones he himself used – trying to fill the void by dominating others as they themselves were dominated, burying their pain behind a shield of savage indifference, venting their rage and frustration through wanton acts of destruction.

Hiding their fear.

He wanted – no, he needed this. This moment of freedom, found in a slow, intimate seduction. It was a petty rebellion, to be sure, but the thought of escaping Motormaster's influence, however briefly, even in such a small, insignificant way, thrilled and elated him. The feeling only intensified his desire, lent heat to his tone as he slipped his arms around his partner's waist components and whispered in his audial.

"I'll touch you anywhere you want, Wildrider. Tell me what you like."

He could feel his gestaltmate quivering against him, though whether it was from fear or anticipation, he couldn't say. Most likely it was a little of both. His own spark was fluttering with an uneasy blend of eagerness and apprehension, but the combination only served to heighten his arousal.

He gently pressed his lip components against the back of Wildrider's neck, then leaned up to flick his glossa over the nearer of his gestaltmate's helm crests. The action elicited a faint whimper, and suddenly Wildrider was tugging at his hands, drawing one up to press against his still-open interface panel, dragging the other downward to the gap in his armor plating that lay at the juncture between hip and thigh.

"Here?" Drag Strip inquired softly, dipping a finger into the seam and stroking lightly along the edge. The tentative touch coaxed forth a quiet moan, and Wildrider arched back against him, his engine giving a short, hesitant rev.

Drag Strip gasped at the brief bolt of pleasure that shot through him via the cable still connecting them and pulled the other mech tighter into his embrace, one hand sliding across Wildrider's rapidly heating chestplate to trail his fingers along the panel's edge, while the other urged his gestaltmate's thighs further apart, widening the gap so that he could delve in deeper, plunging his fingers into the tangle of wires and cables concealed within.

Wildrider jerked and cried out, then gave the most deliciously needful moan ever to reach Drag Strip's audials. Overheat warnings flashed in his HUD at the sound as his core temperature skyrocketed. In that moment he almost forgot his own resolve to take things slow, very nearly succumbed to the urge to pin Wildrider down, plug in, and pour every erg of energy he possessed into him. It took every ounce of his will, but after a brief struggle he managed to rein himself in with a groan.

Sighing through his intakes, he continued his careful exploration of his partner's frame, finding and stimulating each hot spot with deliberate precision. One finger found Wildrider's interface port and circled the rim, then slipped inside to tease the sensors lining its interior. Wildrider moaned, squirming against him, hands clutching at the hand at his port, hips grinding hungrily against the one at his hip.

Without ceasing the efforts of his hands, Drag Strip brought his energy field into play, extending it by only the smallest amount, just enough to flicker and tease against his gestaltmate's, and let it wash over Wildrider's chassis in slow, pulsing waves.

Wildrider practically sobbed in response, arching and straining against him. "Drag Strip – please – I can't–"

"I know," Drag Strip purred soothingly into his audial. "But I'm not ready yet. You'll have to touch me first."

Drag Strip released him slowly, lingeringly, making even that motion a caress as he withdrew, stepping back and around the shivering mech. As Wildrider turned to face him, he retreated, backing up to lean against the crumpled remains of the blue sedan. He regarded his gestaltmate with a steady, even gaze as Wildrider advanced, optics glowing a lambent violet.

"Wheels," he murmured as Wildrider closed the distance and reached for him, the linking cable swaying lightly between them.

Wildrider complied with the not-quite-request, hands closing over his upper set of shoulder-tires, thumbs dipping in and stroking the sensitive wheel-wells. Drag Strip groaned, his helm falling back, and Wildrider was quick to latch on to his exposed throat, sucking and biting with ardent fervor.

Once more Drag Strip dug his fingers into the seam at Wildrider's hip, eliciting another needy moan that stirred his spark and made his armor steam with the rising heat from his smoldering frame. Wildrider lapped greedily at the beads of condensation that formed where hot metal met chill evening desert air, his touch confident and assured as he continued to stroke Drag Strip's wheels.

Drag Strip's appreciative groan became a startled cry of pleasure when Wildrider revved his engine hard, causing his gestalmate to jerk and clutch at him for support. One leg rose to wrap itself around the hip opposite the one he was still gripping; the other slithered up Wildrider's backstruts to latch onto the base of his neck, tugging urgently downward.

Wildrider needed no further persuasion. Sensing Drag Strip's desire, he promptly acceded to his partner's silent demand, lowering his helm to trace the seams of the interface panel nestled in Drag Strip's chestplate with his glossa.

Drag Strip arched into him, keening encouragement, his hips grinding feverishly against Wildrider's, his fingers twisting deeper into the gap in his partner's armor, tugging feverishly at wires and cables. Wildrider moaned against his chestplate in response, and Drag Strip groaned in return as the vibrations made his spark flutter and throb with need.

Almost as one, their energy fields flared, lashing out to embrace one another, twining and intermingling. Faint echoes of their gasps and moans and the soft scrape of metal against metal shivered back and forth between the bleached canyon walls that bled red in the waning light of the slowly sinking sun.

Wildrider revved his engine again, firmly squeezing Drag Strip's shoulder-tires and manipulating his energy field to send a swift barrage of steady pulses directly to his partner's spark. Once more Drag Strip twitched and cried out, jolting the vehicle behind him. The clank of his armor as he jerked and the loud bang of the sedan's hood falling closed nearly drowned out the soft click of his intimate access panel sliding open.

But that faint sound was louder than thunder to Wildrider's enraptured audials. He wasted no time delving into the newly exposed port with his nimble glossa, drawing forth a louder moan and a tightening grip on the back of his helm as Drag Strip arched against his mouth, striving to increase the sensation.

Pressing harder against his gestaltmate, Wildrider's questing glossa thrust and probed, seeking out sensor nodes. His lip components curved in a satisfied smirk at the way Drag Strip whined and squirmed beneath him, vents cycling at a frenetic pace.

Another rev of Wildrider's engine combined with another fusillade of spark energy left Drag Strip limp and quivering in his embrace, half-draped across the battered and dented hood of the ruined sedan, panting and reeling in a pleasure-soaked daze, his optics dim and flickering.

"Now?" Wildrider panted, raising his helm.

"Primus, yes." Drag Strip breathed, surrendering his iron grip on Wildrider's helm and groping clumsily for his plug.

Wildrider did the same, and within astroseconds the uplink was established, jacks snapping home into tingling, eager ports. Neither mech could say who initiated the energy exchange; they were too caught up in the sudden tsunami of pleasure flooding their sensory nets and setting their circuits aflame.

All of their surroundings fell away, all doubt and fear and misery brushed aside until all that remained was the two of them, hands stimulating hotspots, fields intertwined, sparks pulsing in unison as blazing waves of energy rocketed back and forth across the intimate connection.

Wildrider revved his engine hard, burying his tachometer needle in the red. Drag Strip howled in response, his backstruts bowing so sharply that his helm struck and shattered the cracked windshield of the totaled sedan. His engine roared in return and Wildrider shrieked, pierced by pleasure so intense it bordered on pain, hot and sharp like an energon blade.

Overload took them almost by surprise, swift and sudden and virtually simultaneous. Electricity crackled in rippling blue-white arcs across their heated frames, the excess energy ricocheting back and forth across the uplink in a recurring feedback loop. Strident warnings light up their HUDs even as their sparks quivered and resonated with sweet, euphoric bliss.

The secondary connection enhanced and concentrated the first, distilling and intensifying the ecstasy of the uplink into something so massive and overwhelming that their beleaguered CPUs were unable to process it. With a final shudder, they offlined amid the wreckage, just one more mass of twisted, smoking metal lying abandoned alongside the lonely desert highway.

~Epilogue~

*–spond! Where the frag are you?!*

Drag Strip groaned as he onlined, CPU muzzy and sluggish. Where was he? What had happened? There was a faint burning sensation in his chest, and something heavy was lying on top of him. He was sprawled across the uneven surface of something hard, cold and metallic. It was dark as the Pit, and someone was shouting at him.

The weight on top of him shifted and cursed. Then there was a pause.

"Drag Strip?"

He took a moment to consider, and decided that was his designation. "Yeah?"

"What happened?"

He had to ponder that a while, too. In fact it wasn't until he realized he and the other mech were connected that all the pieces fell into place. His memory core came fully online, inundating his processor with an onslaught of sensory records that were nearly as compelling as the original experience.

"Overload," he murmured. "One slagging Pit of an overload."

*Drag Strip! Wildrider! Respond! You two better be scrap, because if you aren't, you will be when I'm through with you-!*

Their optics met as the unmistakable voice of their gestalt leader continued to bellow threats over their internal comlinks. The look they shared was weighted with grim knowledge. Emotions flickered fitfully over the uplink: fear, dread, misery, resignation…

"We'd better answer him," Drag Strip said.

"Yeah," Wildrider agreed, levering off of him and helping him to his feet.

"What do we tell him?"

Wildrider considered a moment. "Autobots?"

Drag Strip nodded and proceeded to report in, spinning a tale about an Autobot ambush that knocked their comms offline. No, they weren't badly damaged. No, they could make it back to base on their own. Yes, they were on their way there now.

Wildrider listened to his gestaltmate's vocalizer as he lied to Motormaster, noting with approval that it didn't falter or hesitate. Glancing down, he realized they were still uplinked, and proceeded to separate the connections, tucking Drag Strip's cord away gently so as not to distract him from his fabricated report. He closed their panels as quietly as he could, not wanting to chance the sound carrying over the comm.

He was in the process of unclamping the human's cable from their engines when Drag Strip finally signed off. "What do you want to do with these?" he asked, indicating the object in his hand.

Drag Strip eyed the cable thoughtfully.

Within a klik the pair was back on the road, streaking back toward the base at top speed. Neither was particularly eager to arrive at their destination, but knew that further tardiness would cost them dearly. Neither spoke, but the silence between them carried volumes.

The stolen jumper cables were coiled neatly in Wildrider's trunk.