Call it a medical emergency, call it a religious sacrifice, call it a glitch in the Matrix. Take two virgins and call in the morning.

Title: Like A Virgin (Technically)

Warning: Virgin sacrifices! A Prime out of control! Officers having no idea what to do but they are so going to do it when they figure it out! Wheeljack! He's a warning, right?

Rating: R

Continuity: G1

Characters: Autobots, Vortex, Breakdown, Optimus Prime

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): There was a kinkmeme request ( . ?thread=15053717#t15053717), and there had been talk. It had to be written.

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Pt. 1

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LD Bibliotecaria_D

"This is not something I ever thought I would call a meeting over. Did you ever think you would be called to a meeting over this?" Prowl asked Ironhide. Without waiting for an answer, he went back to muttering, "I should not be holding an official meeting on such an absurdity. Nowhere in the regulations is this a requirement of duty. I would remember that paragraph."

The other officers just looked at him. No, this wasn't in anyone's job description, although Ratchet had volunteered to pull rank as CMO since Prowl had given him such a look of appalled helplessness after being briefed. The strategist regularly called meetings to handle humankind's various bits of ridiculousness, but introduce one iota of ancient religious practice from their own homeworld and he lost his ability to navigate internal politics. It was certainly his duty to call meetings, but topic decided attendance. This particular topic had him stymied. Religion was harder to organize than war, and people got so offended if he screwed up somehow once it was brought into otherwise mundane matters. He floundered in deep water trying to ascertain who had priority, who got called in, and who was excluded.

Erring on the side of caution, he'd gone ahead and called everyone. Well, not everyone everyone, but if they had an officer commission, an interest, or had been outside his office once he decided, they were thrown into the briefing room willy-nilly and told to sit down, this was important.

Intense discomfort brought out Sunstreaker's surliest expressions, and he perched on a chair at the end of the table like the assembled officers were about to pass judgment on him. He still held Sideswipe's broken jetpack in his lap. Beside him, Mirage had his energon ration in hand still, but the noblemech could make being snagged by Prowl for a disorganized mess of a meeting look like it had been the sole purpose of his day. He relaxed in his chair as if he'd bid the officers assemble today to join him for light refreshments.

Meanwhile, Prowl sat on the other end of the table and muttered. One hand hid his optics. His other held onto the meeting agenda for dear life. He hadn't let go of it since sitting down. His knuckles creaked. Like Blaster, he couldn't seem to meet anyone else's optics. Blaster was examining the table. Prowl kept his hand in the way.

The meeting officially started without any pretense of formality. "Talk," he said from behind his hand. "Tell them what you told me. I will not repeat it." His voice fell to an unnerved mutter, too low for anyone but Ironhide to hear. "I am not paid enough to repeat it."

Ratchet blinked at him for a few seconds. "That's my cue, I guess." He stood up and hesitated, holding a brief internal debate over whether to make his briefing as painless or as informative as possible. None of it was classified, but a lot of mechs didn't like to think about what the meeting had been called to address. The personal details of their religious leader were exactly that: personal. Respecting another person's privacy was courteous, after all.

He decided to strike a balance. There was no reason to spare anyone valuable, painful knowledge. Like he was getting paid extra for this? Bah. They could all know too much. He knew what he knew because responsibility for the Prime's health fell on the Chief Medical Officer. The Prime's health included his mental health. The Prime's spark and mind were heavily influenced by the Matrix. Caring for the Prime, by default, meant that Ratchet knew a Pit of a lot about the religious side of things if only because the Matrix tied into Optimus' systems so deeply.

The Matrix wasn't just the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. It was the Creation Matrix. Almost by default, the Autobots military functioned as a theocracy. While the ranks would probably follow Optimus even if he wasn't the chosen Prime, being an ethical, inspirational, charismatic leader was only part of what put him at the head of the army. There were a lot of skeptical, apathetic Autobots in the ranks, but not one single atheist. Nobody but the Dinobots refuted the Prime's Primus-ordained right to lead, and the Dinobots were abominations of the natural order of Cybertron life, anyway. Nobody cared about their heathen ideas of merit-based appointment to office. 'Earning' rank, pfft, what an idea. What were they, Decepticons?

Military leadership was a new duty, however. The Prime's main duties, first and foremost, would always be religious. Prowl had evaded in-depth knowledge of the Prime's periodic religious requirements by respecting that anything the Medical Division stamped 'personal health care' on need not be investigated. Ratchet would tell him to take over duties, Optimus Prime would disappear for a little while into medical care, and Prowl would carry on in blissful ignorance until isolation ended. The Prime would re-emerge to resume his place. Afterward, everything would continue on as normal.

See, that? Very organized, and not a hint of religion. Prowl could deal with that. Seclusion with a timetable was easy to accommodate. He even knew the circumstances that preceded Optimus Prime's short periods of non-injury-related medical isolation. Every once and a while, the Autobots' esteemed leader would sink into an odd depression, turning short-tempered, irritable, and prone to physical violence against even his fellow Autobots. Prowl thought it to be chained recklessness, perhaps repressed guilt or anger from the war, but sending the Prime out into battle led to greater risk without seeming to calm him any. That's why the Medical Division handled it.

The Autobots had just let the Prime's bad mood run its course, back before the Medical Division took over. There had been assaults, early on in the war. Prowl hadn't been at sufficient rank at the time to have witnessed what had happened, but Ratchet had. He'd seen Optimus Prime blindly turn on his closest comrades, raging and tearing them open as if searching for something. Afterward, the guilt for harm done devastated the Prime.

Hurting Decepticons did nothing during those periods. It was always his friends Optimus struck out at.

Ratchet told the table full of uneasy Autobots about that, but he didn't tell them about the prayer, the experiments, or the grief counseling that had eventually led to discovering the problem's source. The Matrix was at fault for Optimus' mood swings. Attacking Autobots was also its fault. Something about the intersection of physical activity and the intimacy of a friendly relationship triggered a release in the Matrix, reaffirming some sort of connection between it, its chosen carrier, and Primus. That was the best explanation Ratchet and the collection of professionals involved in looking for answers could provide.

Ratchet also didn't tell the Autobots here today about the horrible invasions of privacy involved in finding a more viable solution. Nobody wanted to link their god and violence. Ripping into a friend seemed like the antithesis of what kind of physical activity should trip the Matrix's strange trigger. The working theory, back then, had been that the Matrix and Primus desired their Prime to be wholly loved, surrounded and immersed in every aspect of the people. If Optimus Prime upped his love life whenever the Matrix started winding him up, the increased physical activity and emotional closeness should theoretically trigger the needed release.

Optimus liked that theory a lot. Many of the Autobots liked that theory a lot. Optimus had been a dock worker, once upon a time in a former life before the Primacy, and carnal relations down in the loading areas were as easy to arrange as yelling a lewd comment at the right moment across a crowd. He was more than happy to bring that aspect of his life back. The working class in the rank and file of the faction adopted his merry, free-love ways quite happily.

It'd worked, sort of. The obvious solution for physical activity and intimacy had soothed the Prime and resulted in far less guilt, but it had been a stopgap measure. The irritability and searching behavior subsided. It didn't stop. It flared up repeatedly and unpredictably, causing surges of violence that frequent interfacing didn't help. Something had been missing.

A chance, passing encounter had tossed the solution wholesale into Ratchet's lap. Optimus had been rolling through the berths of whoever was willing, joyful as such a tactile hedonist could be, and at some point the restless energy just…stopped. He still interfaced half the army for fun, but the never-ending searching, questing behavior had disappeared overnight, replaced by his normal peaceful grace.

The Medical Division had dragged in his last fortnight's worth of lovers, conducted an embarrassingly thorough investigation into them, and as a result, they'd produced a second, derivative theory. Testing the theory had required yet more planning and more embarrassment on everyone's part. Optimus Prime, strangely enough, had been ruefully resigned to the whole ordeal.

"It's my duty as Prime. I trust Primus not to lead me astray. Besides, it's better than losing control and punching someone in the face," he'd told Ratchet. "This at least makes sense. Interfacing has always been one of Primus' most treasured blessings upon us, and touching another's spark is often the closest we come to touching His face."

Ratchet, who had more experience dealing with the medical side of carefree love than any six medics ever should, tended to think of fragging as one of the more profane activities available and the furthest thing possible from a religious experience. He'd kind of felt like he was missing something.

He'd wisely kept his mouth shut about it and just nodded. He'd done his best to shove every Autobot through mandatory Sexual Transmitted Virus testing and treatment upon enlistment, too.

He tried not to let his view on the matter color his explanation now, but natural sarcasm plus color-coded charts and an annotated 'Guide to the Monastic Life for Laymechs' probably didn't disguise his practical take on a very religious matter. He simply didn't have the patience for preaching. Laid out simply, the Prime had started to get testy lately. Ratchet knew the signs. A more mystically-inclined mech would frame events in flowery terms with sacred meditations, bonds of gods and mortals, and reestablishing the balance of the Matrix and Prime, but they didn't have a mystically-inclined mech. They had Ratchet, and Ratchet informed them of what was going on in very blunt language that might have traumatized poor Mirage for life.

The nobility of Iacon had been into secretive religious rites and obscure holy days. Ratchet tore the veil of blissful ignorance off Mirage's optics, ran it through a shredder, and stapled a vivid illustration of reality in its place. The noblemech's kicked cyberpuppy look was on par with Blaster's 'Things I Didn't Want To Know' stare at the table and Prowl's 'Why Is This My Life' refusal to look at anyone. Since they were trapped on Earth without the option of letting the Medical Division discreetly take care of the matter, Ratchet ignored their trauma.

This was what was happening: the Matrix was a connection between god and mortal, but being stuck in a mortal's body caused it to fall out of sync with Primus. It didn't like this. It sought a reset.

This was what had to be done: they had to sacrifice a virgin to the Matrix.

"A virgin," Prowl said faintly. "I am not qualified for this position." No one was clear if he was referring to his current rank or lack of virginity. They were a little afraid he'd resign on the spot if they asked him to clarify.

Jazz gingerly patted him on a door. "That's, uh. That's something. Why a virgin?"

Ratchet shrugged at Perceptor. Perceptor shuffled through the charts until he found the one on spark resonance. "As we can deduce from the atrium venereal particles in this model, intercourse mingles not only energy but substance. It is possible to destroy or create certain type of matter but not energy, and the equal trade of energy creates the pleasurable sensation of interfacing while the trading of mass fuels the cycle pushing our bodies to overload as it changes form. The overload is indeed nothing but foreign particles burning in the spark, creating excess energy that must be expunged."

Prowl actually lowered his hand from his optics, cautiously emerging from hiding. He was comforted by solid science talk, even if it was about the science of interfacing. Science! Science was good! Religion, no, religious stuff he didn't know where to start. Theology wasn't a science; it was interpretation. He fastened onto Perceptor's words like they would save him from Ratchet's briefing. "A virgin emits more energy?"

"More particles?" Ironhide guessed at the same time.

"I could build a machine for that," Wheeljack said.

There was a moment of silence.

"Please do not."

"Aw, c'mon, Prowl."

"Don't even think about it."

"But Ratchet…"

Perceptor shook his head. "The amount of energy and mass is irrelevant. Rather, the importance lies in the unmingled nature of an untouched spark. The atrium venereal particles don't all burn upon contact with another spark; a significant number of particles displace particles of matching mass and pulse rate. Being identical, they have no impact upon the new spark unless diseased, but they are not adapting particulates. They retain their source, registering on scans for millennia and detectable as a foreign energy sign in the spark if burnt. A virgin is, in the strictest sense of atrium venereal particles, entirely original."

That took a minute to process. The more excited Perceptor became the faster he talked, and he had a handful of charts he used to illustrate his lecture. They were somewhat distracting. They could pass for pornography in some circles.

"Wait, so are we looking for somebody who's never fragged, or just never done the deed spark-to-spark?" Sunstreaker asked. He hunched over the jetpack in his lap when the table turned as if suddenly remembering he was there. "What? I'm just asking if Prime needs a sealed chamber to bust open or - "

"Don't make me think of the Prime 'busting' anyone open, please," Mirage murmured from beside him. His optics tinged green around the edges. "That's profane." Optimus berth-hopping through the Ark in close-quarters to him apparently hadn't been enough to disabuse him of the notion of the Prime being a dignified vessel untainted by outside influence. The nobles had had an elaborate social system and religious structure that had put value on someone's interfacing worth by their social rank. Celibacy and denial of bodily pleasures had been preferable over interfacing below one's station.

Optimus Prime, ex-dock worker and indulger in all pleasures of the metal and frame, hadn't fit their image of a Prime. Mirage had shed many of the beliefs of his caste throughout the war, but Ratchet's briefing was still a rude shock to someone who'd cultured a polite blindness to reality.

In full lecture mode, Perceptor didn't notice Mirage's distress. "Ah, forgive me. I should have clarified the definition of virginity used in this context. For our purposes, a virgin is not defined by prior interfacing. We're looking for someone whose spark is pure of particle and energy."

Prowl nodded, optics on his tablet as he pulled up a blank document and started planning a crew announcement. This he could do! One short request over the P.A. system, and they'd have this taken care of.

"Of course, a dictionary-definition virgin is virtually impossible to find, as in-depth medical examinations violate the isolation from outside influence. Opening the spark chamber at all introduces foreign matter to the spark. The induction examination upon joining the Autobots guarantees not one of us meets that definition."

Prowl's fingers paused.

"What we are searching for is the religious definition of purity, as is determined by the lack of foreign atrium venereal particles deposited by sexual exchange." Prowl's hand slowly left the tablet in order to hide his optics again as Perceptor gestured to a chart, happily lecturing away, totally oblivious to Prowl's crushed hopes. "Interface and medical history are largely irrelevant. Our virgin can have indulged in any form of interfacing or spark contact but a spark-merge."

"Literally any," Ratchet added. "Our last virgin was Smokescreen, and a full spark-merge is the only thing he hadn't done." It'd taken days of screening candidates to find one who even remembered his sexual history well enough to eliminate spark merging from the list of possible interfacing options. The problem with a lifespan of millions of years was that individual sexual acts tended to blur into a vague recollection of a frag.

Perceptor nodded. "The religious aspect is what carries meaning. Although ethics forbid us from extensive testing on our subject - I refer to Optimus Prime, obviously - it has been determined that the limitation on foreign atrium venereal particles is entirely based on method of acquisition. They cannot have been traded via a sexual interface. Foreign atrium venereal particles traded during a spark-to-spark jumpstart have been proven not to count."

"Why's it even matter?" Ironhide demanded. "Why's Prime gotta have somebody whose spark ain't been played with? How's that religious? Thought it was a Prime thing to 'face around." Mirage flinched.

Ratchet scowled for a second, then huffed. "I could give you the science theory, but it's a load of scrap. Ah-ah!" He held up a finger to forestall Perceptor. "Scrap. You don't know and you're making up reasons: it's scrap. Religious theory," Prowl's engine whined complaint, "is that it's trying to reset and remember its divine origins. The only atrium venereal particles we're forged carrying are our own. We merge with other people and pick up energy and matter from their sparks as we go. Virgins are untouched by all but Primus, so!" He clapped his hands decisively. "Closest the Matrix can get to merging with Primus."

Ironhide started to answer, hesitated, and settled back in his chair without saying anything. His frown covered unease. He wasn't a religious mech, but scoffing in the face of their god wasn't something he could do, either. Prowl seemed to regret life itself. Blaster had switched to staring at the ceiling. Jazz was slowly writing a list of what at first looked like obscenities but was actually the interface history of as many Autobots as he could remember. Wheeljack was reading it with interest. Mirage glared at Perceptor and those evil educational charts. Sunstreaker didn't seem to know what to do with the information he'd been told, and Red Alert hadn't looked up from his work once during the whole meeting. If it didn't have anything to do with Security, he really didn't care.

Ratchet glanced around the table. "That's what we need. Now we get to the fun part."

Prowl twitched, face apprehensive as he turned it toward the medic.

"I know for a fact that there isn't an Autobot on Earth who meets the criteria."

Jazz stopped writing and blinked. "How d'you know that?"

Ratchet smiled grimly. "But I also know for a fact that the virgin doesn't have to be an Autobot."

This caused Red Alert to repeat Jazz's question at a much higher volume and with considerably more sputtering. Strangely enough, he had an abrupt interest in the meeting. Things were suddenly all about Security, to his mind.

"In fact, the Matrix might prefer a Decepticon. For religious reasons, you understand." The sly smile Ratchet wore said it might be for other, more physical reasons as well. Unified people of Cybertron and everything as well, but unifying Autobot and Decepticon on the one-on-one level.

Red Alert went silent as the medic sent him a file, and soon after he looked no less alarmed but far more intrigued by how this conclusion had come about.

Prowl put his face in his hands and muttered about not wanting to know these things. Why was there a meeting about these things. He'd never thought he'd have to call a meeting about these things.

Beside him, Jazz let him mutter on and merely raised his voice to be heard above the whining. "We gotta recruit a 'Con? How's that work?"

Blaster reluctantly raised his hand. "That'd be me." His head stayed tipped back as he gave the ceiling his attention, but he knew when everyone had turned to look at him. "Decepticreeps know Primus. Megs wants the Matrix, the Primacy - all that and a bag of chips. So it's not like he don't respect what it stands for and does, you follow? He's just, uh, the opposite of holy, but guess that's not gonna stop him. He don't trample his mechs' right to worship, just messes up their access routes."

"The Algorithm Chapel bombing," Red Alert said, thoughtful. "There were still Decepticons inside. He didn't put a ban on attending services, but he didn't hesitate to take out the block."

"Yeah, that. The idea's that if we frame recruiting a virgin as a religious necessity, he won't stand in the way." Prowl's engine made a sad little gurgling noise of dismay. Blaster coughed into his hand. "Just, uh, means I gotta hold interviews asking stuff I really, really don't want to talk about, mechs." The sexual exploits of the other faction. Just what he wanted to get into a conversation with Decepticons over.

Red Alert grimaced and closed the file Ratchet had sent him. "And apparently I'll be doing security screening on any Decepticon who applies."

"The only question is how we're going to spring this on the 'Cons without giving Megatron time to set up sabotage." Ratchet folded his arms. "Few times we managed this, it was done as a sort of private pilgrimage thing, and so far as anyone can tell, the Decepticons involved never talked about it to their higher-ups. Or their higher-ups never asked."

What sounded like, "I would never want to ask," came from behind Prowl's hand.

Silence filled the room as everyone sat and thought over the problem.

Wheeljack looked around the table. "I say we open a booth."

"What?"

"Yeah, a booth! We could stage something to catch their attention and bring 'em out, then put a big colorful fair booth out to the side once we lured them to the right place, and anybody could step up."

"What?"

"It'd work! It'd be tricky enough that they wouldn't see it coming in time to plot around it, and buckethead won't attack a religious event if he doesn't understand what it's about, so we could get somebody to corner him to explain what the Matrix requires - he'll be interested in that, he's always interested in that kind of stuff, Prowl should do the explaining to make it an official inter-faction meeting - "

"What?"

" - and that'll give Blaster at least some time to interview some of the 'Cons. See what I mean? It'd work!"

"…someone please tell me they have a better idea."

"No one has better ideas than me."

"Everyone has better ideas than you."

"Name one!"

"Uh."

"That's what I thought." Wheeljack harrumphed, but there was an audible smirk in his voice. He knew when he'd lit on the solution. Now he could sit back and wait for the arguing to circle back around to his idea. They'd come around to agreeing, in the end. The other Autobots were only fighting the inevitable.

He was right.