Work Text:
Trouble.
You could spot it from a mile away.
Moreover, you could spot a newcomer from three; especially when said newcomer stood two to five feet taller than the majority of your average patrons.
Whoever he was, he didn't belong in Helix, let alone in one of Helix's most prestigious 'private clubs'. An opinion drawn clear across his very own face, which further pinched when he realized a quarter of the club's occupants had turned to observe him. His companion, a semi-regular customer that you readily identified as Starscream, visibly posturing under the second-hand attention the bulkier of the two drew their way. A small posse of fliers, Starscream's self-appointed 'bodyguards', trailing close behind the pair.
You watched from the dressing room window, one way, as they crowded into an unoccupied tip-rail booth. One of your co-workers on the table-tending rotation hurriedly strutting over with a sealed bottle of sparkling neon liquid, a tray of empty glasses in his opposing hand. Pouring the lot their free round before plopping down beside Starscream, fake smile and wandering hand working to earn the personal tips that the club's outrageous entry fee didn't come close to covering. The newcomer shifting in what seemed to be discomfort as Starscream engaged your coworker in 'light conversation'. Irritation quick to arise in his eyes, clearly impatient with Starscream for some reason or another you weren’t privy to. The robust, heavy-built mech turning to the jet with a sharpened leer, lips forming words you were deaf to. Starscream looking back at him with smooth disregard, downplaying whatever had been said to him before a sly slant ebbed the corners of his mouth. The next words he spoke made the large gray mech's jaw tighten, distrust and uncertainty evident in the way he leaned away and further back into his seat. Though whatever was suggested Starscream didn't wait for a response to, returning your co-worker's attention once more and requesting something that the server cheerily nodded along to, getting up to refill the table's mostly emptied glasses before walking away with the bottle and tray in hand.
"Has to be in construction, right?" a familiar voice broke you from your spell of observant concertation.
"No, no, defiantly miner class. He's got black chunks of grime smudged all in-between his seams, I can see it from here!" You hadn’t realized it up until now, but two of your other co-workers had come up on your left to gawk just as you were at the outlier.
"Actually, I can't put my digit on it exactly, but I think I've seen him from somewhere.." Your silver-blue co-worker hummed "Something to do with those.. Uhm, what were they called? The uh, riot group from Kaon?"
"The one with the angry little purple badges?" Your redder, slimmer coworker asked.
"Yes! I think."
"Decepticons?" You interjected.
"Decepticons! Yeah."
"I wonder what a decepticon's doing all the way up here in Helix with Starscream of all mechs."
"I don't know but, Primus be, I want to run my hands all along that big broad chassis of his!" Silver-Blue chuckled.
You tuned out of the conversation from there on, optics wandering back to the tip-rail booth only to find tall, dark, and politically radical missing. Just then the dressing room door jerked open, and a high-pitched voice sung your stage name "Your wanted in Room 12 for a bed dance, plus extras." you realized it was the same co-worker who'd just come from the scene you'd been watching over, his paint a gaudy orange.
"I don't do extras anymore."
"Well, you're gonna' have to, Screecher out there asked for you specifically, said he'd tag on a real fat tip if you got his buddy to loosen up." Orange trotted up to the station of vanities clustered at the back of the room, checking his reflection.
The last bit of his sentence made you pause "His-?"
"His buddy?" Red inquired, unintentionally cutting you off.
"Yeah, real big and mean looking. Got a bad attitude too."
Silver-Blue gasped aloud behind you "The gray one?"
"Yup" Orange clicked, popping the p, barely looking up from the mirror.
"Luuuckyyy!" Silver-Blue whined.
"Besides," Orange turned towards you fully, his edge of tonal indifference melting away, a hint of guilt wrinkling his stylized faceplate "Overheard the boss and one of his contacts chattering a while back, and among other things he babbled off about you turning down one of the major whales that pass through from time to time, said if you did it again he'd kick ya' out… and you know just as well as the rest of us what happens to unprotected gutter-mechs on these streets."
The room fell into silence, a shared discomfort eating away at the four of you. With fidgeting digits, you nodded slow, shifting from foot to foot "Yeah, okay.." you turned, side-glancing yourself in one of the vanity mirrors, and trudging towards the room's only exit. Hesitating for a moment more before making your way out and into the central club area. A buzzing electric beat bouncing through your brain, dimmed, red lightening cascading down unto the swaths of bodies packed into chairs and booths. Loud voices, some cheering for the mechas on stage, sliding and gyrating on poles; others trying to converse over the noise, mixed to an unintelligible degree.
You skirted between the bar and lounging area, not trying to draw attention in your quest for the back hall entrance. A trying feat when one was waxed to a gleaming polish and drenched from heel to head-fin in body glitter.
Still, you heard your stage name being called from somewhere in the expansive room, making the mistake of looking up only for you to be called from another direction, and then another. Hiding your grimace behind a teasing grin as the upper crust of society made derogatory, salacious remarks about your frame in attempts to coax you over. Avoiding eye-contact and throwing a playful wave in no particular direction, strutting faster towards black automatic doors. Taking brief reprieve in the empty hall as the doors slid shut behind you, opulent walls gleaming black and gold, the same crimson mood-lightening accenting the musky atmosphere. Doors lining the curved structure of the passageway; large numbers engraving each in descending order. A swell of dread boiling in your tanks the further you walked, door by passing door. You could dance with ease, from lap to bed to couch to pole, but extras were another story; where you were once comfortable selling your body and even tried having fun with it; you'd had that enthusiasm taken advantage of and abused beyond moral means the last time you partook in the transaction.
You'd almost been killed.
Lucky to have been entertaining the same volatile client with a co-worker who quickly intervened. Though the blood loss had put you out of commission for some time, during which you naively promised yourself you’d never let another lay their grimy, entitled, servos so roughly upon you again.
Yet,
Here you stand, in front of Room 12. Acutely aware that within lay a large, irritable rioter from the roughest city on Cybertron whom you could only assume expected the most out of the beyond pricey experience his associate had paid for. Internally weighing your very, very limited options: get fired, become jobless and enviably homeless, starve on the street, possibly get brutalized by other vagrants, defiantly get brutalized by enforcers, and potentially get wrongly imprisoned, or enter this room right now and pray to Primus the mech inside just wants a blowjob.
…
Confusion was the first emotion to overcome your dread, stepping in and not spotting a soul on the bed straight before you but rather having to survey the area, finding your client sat on the opposite end of the room, taking up the whole of one of two loveseats. His legs crossed and his eyes glued to a data-pad. Ruby-red optics only flicked up to meet yours once you'd spoken up. "Sorry I took so long," you made a sweeping motion towards the bed, pushing down a panging beat of nervousness when you took in just how towering he could be up close even when seated "we… can begin whenever you're ready." You attempted to sound polite and chipper, professional, unenticing. You didn’t have to give him a life-changing experience; you just had to placate him enough he didn't bother Starscream any further, or whatever was going on there.
His eyes slanted in suspicion, dragging up the length of your stiff frame.
"Are you new?"
The laugh that ripped from your vocalizer was almost genuine, shifting into a pose, leaning palm-to-hip in mock confidence "I've been working here since it opened." you cocked your helm to the side, an inviting smile at play "What gave you that idea?"
"Your nervous."
Your lip twitched, a crack in your façade "Well of course I am," you laughed that bubbly, ditzy little laugh you'd echoed just about a thousand times to sway patrons, to convince them you were listening, to trick them into thinking they were saying the most interesting thing in the world "I mean, look at you! So big and broad! Its honestly a little scary!" You teased what was technically a partial truth in a weightless tone, making lax gestures towards him, yet frozen where you stood.
He set his data-pad to the side, rising to his full height, and taking a menacing step towards you, to which you unconsciously took a step back.
"A little?" His words came out scathing, optics piercing into your plating as if to cut through you entirely with his gaze alone.
The cybercat was out of the bag, but you didn't back down, not terrified of him personally, but of what he could do if he so chose. He could tell you were intimidated, sure, that was blatantly obvious, but so long as he thought it was his appearance alone that frightened you, that was all he could use against you. "Woah big guy, calm down!" you put your arms in the air as if to surrender, tone still bouncy and amiable, "I'm just here to do my job and have a little fun." Smile significantly shrunk but still present. It seemed like you'd said or done something wrong because his stare hardened, fists clenched as he began to approach, promptly triggering your fight or flight protocol. However, you resisted the urge to backpedal, seeing how much that action served to antagonize him prior, pulling the reigns of your wildly skyrocketing terror in and simply staring back up at him when he sneered down at you. The both of you locked into a staring match, yourself struggling not to buckle under the pressure and attempt an escape from this situation.
His expression slowly eased, and he pulled away from your personal space to your rigid relief.
"What do you know of the revolution?" he asked, coming off as neutral.
Your face fell completely, confusion resurfacing. "What..? What about it?"
"Tell me first," he asserted "what. Do. You. Know?"
What you knew was that you had to choose your next words carefully.
"I.. Know that it originates in Kaon, that there's unrest in the populace over the caste system and the blatant hierarchal disparity between classes."
"And where do you stand on the matter?"
"I'm not exactly working a conventional job, am I?" You laughed dryly "At least, you don't get assigned to this kind of establishment. It's… a choice.. More or less."
He hummed, drinking in your indirect answer.
"You’re unyielding and not a terrible actor, better at it than your orange friend, at least. We need more bots like you; that can blend into the average crowd yet stand out in an appeasing aspect." his gaze raked you, who was unsure whether to feel flattered or unsafe under the intensity of his hefty glance "Who's willing to resort to unconventional means when cornered and left with nowhere else to go; willing to make questionable choices in the name of survival." His touch found your jaw as he twisted the words you'd given him, spinning them like knives at the tips of his claws, tilting your chin upwards and threatening to let them sink in.
"Join us."
Join who? You didn't have to ask; you knew who, and it was evident by his cocksure that he knew you were aware of 'us'.
"That sounds, dangerous."
"Dangerous?" He chortled, his grip on your jawline tightening "I've read your file. I know." his free hand came up, the edged tips of his digits ghosting across your neck, your attention briefly darting to the data-pad he'd discarded on the loveseat in horrified realization "How long do you think it'll be? Before it happens again? Before another high-status sadist flies in and tears out your throat, intent on defiling your dying body?" tremors rocked your struts at the mention of your most painful memory, your arms springing up to press on his chassis and attempt to push him away to no avail "Do you think you'll be able to stop him this time? Or are you really relying on your co-workers to save you twice? Because right now, your alone in a room with me and I don't see anyone stepping in to intervene." To press his point, he wrapped his scrapping hand around your throat entirely.
"Stop." you croaked.
"They don't care about you. The moment you threw away what was assigned to you, a rebellious, traitorous act of agency in their eyes, they deemed you worthless to society. A criminal in waiting. But you already knew that." he snarled "They proved their point the first time, didn't they?" A streak of wetness coated your cheek, racing down the length of your face "There's no justice for us in this system." He released you, finally, and you looked to the floor, trembling, not wanting to look into the righteous hellfire blazing deep within his optics any longer. Alarmed by how quickly things had escalated.
"Join us." his palm came down on your shoulder and you nearly jerked backwards.
"Because at the very least, among us, among those who know what it's like to be taken advantage of, justice will be served. In the most severe sense as deserved."
His touch withdrew, and you heard him turn, crossing the room, a door sliding open.
"Before it's too late."
With the click of the same door sliding shut, you were alone, the lingering force of his touch haunting you, his words even more so.
Plagued.
Because he was right.
You lifted your head, honing-in on the data-pad, marching on stilted stabilizers towards it. Plucking it from the cushion it rested on and hosting it in your hands, an incident report greeting you. You knew the details; you didn't bother reading the description of events section; you just wanted to know what your case was filed under, since they never got back to you about it.
Status:
"Irrelevant." You choked out, snapping the device in half and throwing the remnants to the ground where the glass shattered further. Rage and sorrow swelling into a tight burning knot within your chest all at once. Spinning on your heel, and in a moment of either weakness or strength, depending on how you looked back upon it, carrying yourself down the same path Megatron had left for you to follow in his wake.
…
..