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19/6/07 - 1296 words on "Odd Roses"


20/6/07 - Pride's Prison, pt 2

         Headshrinker came back online tucked against Megatron's left-hand side, the captive warlord's left arm around his shoulders. His own left arm lay across Megatron's abdomen, his right was folded up underneath him. Lifting his head slightly from where it rested against Megatron's shoulder, he could see the warlord's optics. The right one was almost black, save for the faintest of red glimmers; sharp angles of observation, monitoring sweep-lines. The left optic was dim, the centre sliced with a red ring about which triangles moved. Headshrinker tried to read the symbols of the warlord's optic display, but the text was back-to-front, microscopic and in Decepticon. Headshrinker settled back against the warlord's shoulder and lay still, soaking up the satisfaction of his position, the feeling of accomplishment, the achievement of finally ... was Megatron the seventh or eighth?
         "Satisfied?" the warlord asked, optics brightening into flat panes of red.
         "Counting," Headshrinker said, slow and drowsy.
         "Counting?" Megatron said sharply, turning his head to look at the psychiatrist.
         Headshrinker sighed, slid his left hand across Megatron's abdomen until he found the warlord's right hand, and rested his fingers there. "You must be the eighth ... no, ninth person I've fallen for like this."
         "You make a habit of sleeping with prisoners?" Megatron asked.
         "I see you more as a patient than a prisoner," Headshrinker replied, gently running his fingertips up and down Megatron's fingers.
         "No," Megatron said, pulling his hand away.
         Headshrinker raised his head and looked at Megatron, head tilted in askance. "And if I'm not sufficiently persuaded?"
         Megatron propped himself up on his right arm. "The art of blackmail is to take as much as your target can give before the risk of discovery outweighs the price you demand." He stroke Headshrinker's face with the back of his fingers. "You are reaching that limit."
         Headshrinker rolled over on his back and folded his sensitive hands behind his head. "I suppose observing that you didn't seem to mind yesterday evening wouldn't help?"
         "Yesterday evening, I was impressed," Megatron said over his shoulder as he got up from the bed.
         "Impressed?" Headshrinker asked, looking up at the ceiling with the optic on his forehead and slyly watching Megatron from beneath his clear visor with his other optics.
         "You are a feeble specimen of engineering," Megatron said, voice harshening as he lost the softening slowness of repose. "I could crumple you into a ball no bigger than my fist and throw you ten miles without effort. You are unarmed, barely two-thirds of my size and a fraction of my weight, and you'd barely survive being thrown through a window, let alone a wall." The warlord faced Headshrinker again as he leant against the wall, smirking, head tilted to one side in an attitude of consideration. He was the only person Headshrinker had ever met who could fold his arms without looking defensive. "Yet you managed to gather enough evidence to prove - even to a lunatic like Sphaleros - that I am working to subvert his plans, to turn his army into Decepticons and to destroy him. Then you have the nerve to threaten me with this information, the only thing preventing me from snapping you in half the admittedly high probability that your absence would be blamed on me ... and then you ask a payment for your silence. I have never found so much courage and cunning in so meager a frame. That impressed me."
         "I thought at first that I'd turn it all over to Sphaleros Prime," Headshrinker said, not wanting to answer Megatron's point. "Persuade him to take you off his advisory staff and lock you back up again."
         "That would hardly be good for your professional reputation," Megatron said, still smirking, still looking at Headshrinker as if he was a particularly fascinating new weapon.
         "My professional reputation will be ruined by your plans, one way or the other," Headshrinker said, sitting up and letting his legs dangle over the edge of the bed. The room had been built to Megatron's scale; his small feet didn't reach the floor.
         "Yet you chose to manipulate me to your own ends rather than secure your future," Megatron said in asking tones.
         "I said you were the ninth," Headshrinker said sadly, looking at his knees. "I've always fallen for the big, strong, military types. I even had a terrible passion for Sphaleros, until you invaded our planet. Every single of them was ... well, like you and Sphaleros. Big. Sharp-edged. Full of controlled energy." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Every single one of them was unrequited. I don't think Sphaleros even knew I was pining over him. I always seem to fall for the ones who'll do me the most harm."
         Megatron laughed.
         Headshrinker shivered. That laugh was harsh as a diamond-toothed abrader on thin metal, and even after knowing Megatron for four years it still frightened him that he liked the sound. "I've always thought you were very handsome. You are very handsome. I let myself be attracted to you because, well, where was the harm in appreciating good design? I've fallen for three missile trucks, two mobile anti-aircraft platforms, a tank, an armoured personnel transport and Sphaleros. A cannon didn't seem out of place."
         "Odd preferences for a pacifist." Megatron was still smiling; it made Headshrinker shiver. "So, why did you decide to blackmail me rather than turn me in?" His optics narrowed, glinting like sunset off knives. "Or do you plan to betray me and turn me in anyway?"
         "I hadn't thought of that," Headshrinker said honestly, looking at Megatron sideways, just using two of his optics. It was hard to look the warlord full in the face. The seeking gaze made him feel every bit as small and as weak as they both knew he was. "Perhaps it's just that Sphaleros is going to go to war with Cybertron one way or the other, and your plans might actually save some lives, at least on our side."
         "You seem unconvinced by your own logic," Megatron said.
         Headshrinker sighed, pulling his legs up and wrapped an arm around one of his knees. "You're right." His lower optics narrowed, the upper one dimmed gently. "I manipulated you because I wanted you. I wanted you more than I care about the people of this world or of Cybertron, more I care about being an Autobot or a pacifist. I wanted you more than anything, and I got you."
         Megatron uttered a short, loud laugh. "You've got the makings of a Decepticon in you."
         "What?" Headshrinker's head snapped up in surprise, and he stared into the full force of Megatron's cruel smile.
         "Playing power-games with someone who could crush the life out of you one-handed?" Megatron said, nodding as Headshrinker felt the point sink home. "Betraying your leader for your own ends? Selling out your entire world for desire? No matter what you've been telling yourself, there's a spark of Decepticon kind in your laser core." His voice lowered into a smooth rumble, a tone like oil on stiff gears, like polish on raw armour. "It's that part of you you've tried to analyze out of existence- the part of you that burns with rage when your wants are denied, the part of you that hates, the part of you that needs. It's the part of you that lusts for power."
         Headshrinker opened his mouth to deny it, to break the assertion into pieces and follow it to the blueprints of its thought, and remembered the evening before. He remembered laying out his captured information before Megatron, how he'd driven home point after point, how he'd arrayed his examples, how he'd talked the captive warlord into a corner of logic and threatened to take the whole thing to Sphaleros Prime.
         And what is the price of your silence?Megatron had asked, towering over him, all threat and strength.
         Persuade me, he'd said, his hands already resting on the warlord's chest, half-lost in red optics and the sheen of silver steel.
         Megatron's mouth had fitted against his as if moulded to, Headshrinker's joints had collapsed, and a terrible feeling had kindled inside him - amongst the pride and triumph, the taste of warlord and treason, he had felt the raw exultation of power.
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