More spur of the moment ficcings!
Seriously, you wouldn't believe that I am working on Star Crossed. *sheepish grin* Cause I did say that I would start posting every two weeks... But if I have fic, I'll post it.
Title Of the Highest Order (tentative, opinions?)
Characters, Pairings Jazz/OC femme, Red Alert, Prowl, brief Ratchet
Series NTTverse
Warning It's not a happy-feel good fic. Gore of the mechanical variety.
Summary Jazz used to consider her a friend.
Author's Notes Um... *squee* Background on Jazz for Nowhere to Turn? Also, this is an attempt to convey emotions, comments on how it's handled are welcome.
Jazz used to consider her a friend.
Used to consider her a comrade-in-arms.
Her lithe frame held a power that matched the mightiest of tanks. The splendor of her shots sent a thrill through his circuits with each blast. She seemed so fine: her voice as beautiful as her personality, so real and yet just beyond his touch. He’d long admired her from a distance, certain that even he couldn’t charm his way into those arms.
He fingered the secondary trigger at the small of her back, cradling her to his chest, heedless of the coolant spattered across her hourglass torso. Except that it was her coolant that covered his hands, and her coolant brightly pulsing from the slit in her neck.
She stared at him, optics wide in shock, hands clenching weakly at the air. Coolant spurted from where the two halves of the barrels of her altmode used to be, ripped off in a rage that had left the metal torn, and the wires shredded. It coated his hands, pooling about his feet.
He’d loved her from that distance, savoring every glance she graced him, wallowing in every greeting she gave.
Prowl had thought it the most hilarious thing, even if he never said so, even if he never even laughed. Jazz knew him better than that. He could see the laughter in the commander’s eyes, and the rumbled chuckles within the turns of his engine.
“She is no different than any other bot who caught your eye. Why so shy this time?” Prowl had asked, laughter shaking his vocalizer.
Jazz had no answer for him at the time.
He clutched her frame, unwilling to believe that she was dying in has arms. Unwilling to believe what had happened. Yet there was no denying the truth. Even when he looked away from her, trying to find somewhere that didn’t remind him of the femme in his arms, the truth was smeared in bright blue streaks across the walls.
A shudder shook his frame, and tears rolled down his cheeks. Dental plates clenched back a glitching sob as he bowed over her.
Prowl, manipulative glitch that he was, assigned her to accompany him on a mission. Jazz wasn’t exactly sure how he’d explained the need to the head of Special Ops, but it had done what Prowl had intended.
They’d found one another in the terror of those that expected to die. In desperate hands and hot mouths that needed to find a moment of peace in the confines of an enemy stronghold.
It hadn’t been enough.
Trembling fingers stroked the edges of an open access panel, the cable within sparking from having been torn from its moorings.
Her mouth gaped with words that couldn’t be pushed past her vocalizer. Those wires had also been neatly cut. He gently wiped out the energon that dribbled from the pool in her mouth, not wanting it to ignite along her severed power line. Not wanting it to mar her beautiful face.
Jazz used to consider her a lover.
He didn’t look up when another mech pounded into the bare room.
“Freeze, put your hands in-“
Silence, surprised and sudden. The blaster aimed toward the two bots on the floor wavered.
Jazz finally looked up when the last bit of light died within her eyes. His jaw still clenched, moist tears still wetting his cheek.
“Jazz?” A communication accompanied that single query, a call for backup. “Do you-? I detected…” The mech couldn’t seem to get the words out. Finally the red and white mech straightened, composing himself. “I’m going to have to arrest you for the…” Keen optics took in the fluids smeared across the walls. “-the torture and murder of a fellow Autobot.” Blue optics sought out an open panel on the wall, the cord still attached to it. Then they glanced at the access panel, shorting and sparking. “Pending further investigation.”
He wiped her name from his memory banks and he shuttered his optics, leaning his head back against the grief that seized his spark. “It ain’t murder, if it’s killin’ an-“ he choked on the word, his fuel tanks churning with the unfinished sentence. He resolutely pushed on. “-if it’s an enemy.”
Another glance from the broken cord to the sparking panel. “That will have to await Ratchet’s evaluation.”
More feet pounded down the hall, only to grind to a halt just behind the new security officer.
“What the slag happened here? Let me through!” Another red and white mech, so much larger than the others, forced his way to the forefront, only to stop in front of Jazz. Ratchet took the femme from Jazz’s arms, and Jazz did not fight it. He’d already lost her when he’d first come into the room.
Another, black accents on a white background, followed at a more sedate pace. Jazz found himself looking into that mech’s cool and serene optics. One might think that a femme hadn’t been lying in a pool of her own coolant, in the arms of her lover, at the way Prowl reacted.
Red Alert glanced at Prowl, before moving forward to clamp a hand on Jazz’s shoulder.
“She lied t’ m-“ Jazz halted himself again. “She lied t’ us.She lied t’ everyone.” His brow ridge furrowed against his wishes as he let Red Alert pull him to his feet and away from the green femme. “She lied to me,” he tried again, hating the way it sounded.
Prowl didn’t say anything, only laid a hand on the other mech’s shoulder, his sorrow spoken in volumes on his face. Words he couldn’t say trapped within his expression. Not yet at least. Not until they knew the truth.
“Jazz,” Prowl finally said, his words slow and carefully considered. “we’ll let you know the results when Ratchet has them.”
“I don’ care!” Jazz spat back. He knew the truth already. He’d never meant to stumble upon that file, never meant to find that hack. The same one that had alarmed the security officer. “I just want to be alone, right now. Brig’s as good a place as any.”
The commander stepped back. “I understand. We’ll give you some time first. Let us know?” He nodded at Red Alert, turning to kneel next to Ratchet.
Red Alert looked the saboteur over, hand still on his shoulder. “If you come quietly, I won’t cuff you.”
“I don’ care.” What had he to care for anymore? Broken, his steps echoing in his audio receptors, he followed Red Alert’s guiding hand through the crowd at the entrance.
He’d never felt so betrayed.