[IDW] A Perfect Storm 07/16
May. 20th, 2019 06:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: A Perfect Storm
Universe: TF G1/IDW
Characters: Blurr, Jazz, Bluestreak, Ricochet, Prowl, Rodimus, Drift, Ratchet
Pairings: Blurr/Jazz, Blurr/Ricochet, Blurr/Ricochet/Jazz, Ricochet/Jazz, Bluestreak/Jazz, Drift/Ratchet,
Rating: M
Enticements: Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Twincest, Mechpreg, Canon Typical Violence
Description: Blurr happens to enjoy life on post-war Cybertron, but when a serial murderer starts targeting former Wreckers, Blurr ends up saddled with a bodyguard who rubs him in all the wrong ways. Or right ways, if you were to ask Ricochet. Let the battle begin.
Commission for MamaBlurr.
Chapter Seven
Bluestreak was handing over the reins to a very disappointed Riptide when Jazz came into New Maccadam's, a smile on his face, a spring in his step, and both of them very, very false. Bluestreak's radar pinged.
Ricochet was in prison, and Prowl refused to release him. Prowl had told Bluestreak as much, and asked him to look out for Jazz, just in case he decided to do something stupid.
Personally, Bluestreak thought Jazz was entitled to something stupid. Ricochet's arrest was absurd, and Prowl knew it, too. Political pressure was a crushing weight.
Bluestreak moved to intercept before Riptide could ask what Jazz wanted as Jazz slinked up to the counter, hopping into an open stool.
"Hey Blue!" he said cheerfully, though the harmonics in his tone did not match the aura he was trying to project. "Can I get a Toxic Turnover?"
Prowl was playing a very, very dangerous game, and Bluestreak vowed to give his mentor a piece of his mind, the next time they spoke.
"It's a bit early for something that heavy, isn't it?" Bluestreak asked.
Jazz drummed his palms on the counter. "It's past suncycle. I at least waited until after dark."
"I meant, you usually start with lighter fare." Bluestreak started to mix a drink, not the Toxic Turnover like Jazz asked, but something with a lot less kick. "What's the occasion?"
The visor finally focused on him. "Prowl," Jazz declared in a low, heavy tone, "is an aft."
Bluestreak nodded slowly, added a spritz of carbonizer, then slid the Merry Madness across to Jazz. "There are a lot of mechs who'd agree with you. I mean, he has his moments where he shows his softer side, but he's a hard mech to get along with. He's kind of had to be."
"I ain't disparaging him," Jazz said, waving him off while snagging the drink with his other hand. "Just making a statement of the kind of day I've had."
"Fair enough." Bluestreak folded his arms and leaned forward, against the counter. "How's Ricochet?"
"Dunno. They won't let me talk to him." Jazz peered at his drink, his visor streaking with confusion. "This ain't a Toxic Turnover."
“No, it’s not.” Bluestreak tilted his head, his spark giving the usual heavy throb of want and affection it always did whenever he was close to Jazz. “You don’t need something like that right now.”
Jazz picked up the cube, swirling the liquid around. “Funny how you’re so sure of what I need.” He tilted the cube up and drained it in several long, quick gulps. He slammed the empty down on the counter. “Another.”
Bluestreak thinned his lips. Jazz glared at him, insisting with his gaze, and with the heavy pressure of his field. Bluestreak could resist it, far more than Jazz knew, but that wasn’t the point.
“You asked me something once,” Bluestreak started as he bent down beneath the counter, grabbing what he’d need to make another drink. “You wanted to know why I turned you down. I gave you an answer, but now, I still don’t think you understand it.”
“Blue, come on. I can’t have this kind of conversation right now.” Jazz scrubbed his forehead and drummed his free hand on top of the counter. “I need to get drunk, or I need to get fragged. I need something.”
“Neither of those things are what you need.” Bluestreak handed him another Merry Madness, though it was weaker than the one before. “Neither of them are a solution or are helpful. They aren’t going to get Ricochet out of jail. And they might help you forget things, but not for long, and the consequences after are only going to make things worse.”
Jazz frowned at him. He toyed with the cube, fiddling with his fingers. “It keeps sounding like you’re trying to tell me somethin’, but you won’t come out and say it.”
“Because I can’t. If I do, you’ll take it, and then I won’t know if you’re genuine or not.” Bluestreak swiped the Merry Madness from Jazz’s hand and tipped it back himself, draining it in a few quick gulps before setting it down on the counter with a definitive tap. “Come on. I’m going to take you home.”
Jazz leaned back, arms crossed under his bumper. “I’m not anywhere near tipsy.”
“I’m not leaving you here to get that way.” Bluestreak took the empties and put them in the crate for later cleaning. He signaled to Riptide he was finally leaving and emerged from behind the bar.
“I don’t need you lookin’ after me.”
“Someone needs to.” Bluestreak stood nearby, hands on his hips, and gave Jazz a practiced, firm look. One he’d used on several lovers in the past, all who’d had … unique needs, not unlike Jazz’s. “You’re reminding me of Sunstreaker right now, you know. And that’s not a compliment.”
“It could be.” Jazz slid off the stool with a tap-tap of one foot and then the other. Deliberate noise, it had to be, because Bluestreak knew he moved silently usually. "He's a handsome mech."
"And a bit of an aft when he's sulking and Sideswipe's not around."
"I am not sulking."
Bluestreak managed a smile at the teasing lilt in Jazz's tone. "Then what you do you call it?"
"Moping with style." Jazz struck a pose before offering an arm out to Bluestreak. "If you're not going to let me drink or hunt, then you're obligated to see me home."
Bluestreak threaded his arm through Jazz's elbow and tugged him toward the door. "That was my intention, Jazz."
"I could really use a frag right now."
"That's not what I meant." Despite himself, Bluestreak chuckled. There hadn't been anything serious in the suggestion. Jazz was very good at hiding his pain behind playfulness.
Unfortunately for him, Bluestreak had always been good at ferreting out secrets. The Enforcer Academy might have rejected him, but Prowl had use for an insightful detective during the course of the war. Unlike what people thought, torture didn’t always net secrets. Ferreting some of them out needed a lighter touch.
Jazz shrugged. "Thought it was worth a shot."
They plunged into a tepid evening, the streets half as busy during daycycle, but still dotted with the occasional mech. No one paid them any attention. Most Cybertronians tended to mind their own business nowadays.
It was refreshing.
"There are many things I'm willing to do for you," Bluestreak said, keeping his tone light, his gaze distant. "I want to help you as much as I can. But what you're asking for is something I can't give you. It's not what I want, and if we don't want the same things, then it's best we stay friends."
Jazz sighed and put distance between them, unhooking Bluestreak from his arm. "I'd rather you didn't help, if that's what it means. It feels like a game I'm tired of playin'. It was fun at first, but now I'm just disappointed all the time, and that's enough of that, I think."
"It's not a game."
"Then what is it?" Jazz threw his hands in the air and circled around in front of Bluestreak, skidding to a halt, his field an oppressive presence as it swarmed Bluestreak. "You're obviously not interested. You've turned me down every time. But then ya keep makin' these vague statements that imply ya might be."
Bluestreak cycled a slow, steady ventilation. Jazz glared at him, his visor bright, his engine revving, betraying the turbulence of his emotions. Now was not the time for this conversation. Jazz was upset already about Ricochet and Blurr and the whole situation.
But letting it fester wasn't helping either.
"What do you want from me?" Bluestreak asked.
"That's obvious, isn't it?" Jazz snapped.
Bluestreak shook his head slowly. "I know what I want from you." He took a step closer, crowding into Jazz's space, but Jazz held his ground, tilting his head up slightly to keep Bluestreak's gaze. "I know I want to claim you. I know I want to break you. I want to turn you inside out, and bend you until you're mine."
Jazz's visor flared. A visible shiver ran over his armor. "That's--"
Bluestreak cupped his cheek, carefully gentle, sweeping a thumb over it. "I want to recharge with you, and comfort you, and watch stupid movies with you and eat things that are bad for us and go driving off into the sunset, and slow dance to sappy love songs from Earth."
A low growl started in Jazz's engine. His lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came out.
Bluestreak brought up his other hand, until he had Jazz's face cradled. "What I want from you is nothing that can be satisfied in a single night. I intend to keep you."
He set his mouth over Jazz's, making the kiss soft and sweet at first, before he eased his glossa into Jazz's mouth and deepened the kiss. Lips and denta and glosa, pressure and the swamping weight of his field, all of it surrounding Jazz. A distant moan was muffled by Bluestreak's lips, and Jazz wobbled, only for his hands to grab onto Bluestreak, steadying himself. He kissed Jazz until he memorized the taste of him, as if this would be the last kiss, and only then did he pull back.
Jazz cycled a ventilation, his glossa sweeping over his lips. "Anyone ever tell you that you can be pretty intense?"
"It's been a complaint or two." Bluestreak brushed his thumbs over Jazz's cheeks before letting him go.
Jazz pressed his lips together and rubbed his forehead. "It's not that I don't want the same things, it's just, I can't have them, you know? I never can."
"Why?"
"Because of my brother." Jazz grimaced, and it wasn't aimed at Bluestreak, but rather, something of his history, Bluestreak wagered. "He's mine, and I'm his, and that's the way it is. That's how it's always gonna be. I can never be anyone's. Not one-hundred percent."
"I'm going to tell you a secret." Bluestreak stepped into Jazz's space again, stroking the withdrawn edges of Jazz's field with warm pulses of his own. Jazz tilted up to look at him again. "I already knew that. Sunstreaker is one of my best friends. I know how it can be with twins. I knew what it meant when I fell for you. And Jazz? I don't care."
Jazz took another step back, and his field burst in a startled display of emotion before he could rein it in. "You don't mean that. Everyone says it, but they don't mean it." He shook his head, like he'd been tossed for a loop. "Sooner or later, the jealousy is gonna set in, and I'm goin' to be back where I was, crawlin' to Rico, because no one gets it."
"And that's the choice you have to make -- whether you believe me and whether you want to try. But that's my line." Bluestreak drew a pretend line through the air. "I either want it all or nothing. I'm not going to jump in your berth once and consider it enough."
"Primus." Jazz dragged a hand down his face, and he looked a little shaky, with streaks of light passing across his visor. "Blue, I can't even process that right now."
"I know." Bluestreak offered a soft stroke of his field over Jazz's. "I'm not asking you to. Now's not the time. I"m just letting you know, whatever happens, I'm still your friend. I'm here for you, and I'll help you if you need it."
Jazz rubbed around his mouth, nodding slowly. "And I 'preciate that." He rolled his shoulders and squared them, offering Bluestreak a hint of a genuine smile. "Thanks, Blue. I gotta lot to think about now."
"I'm still going to walk you home." Bluestreak moved close enough to bump shoulders, though carefully. "These are dangerous streets. There are murderers out there."
Jazz chuckled quietly. "Yeah. And I'm one of them." He nudged Bluestreak with an elbow. "Alright. Let's go."
~
Prisons were nothing unfamiliar to Ricochet. He'd paid his time and his dues. Even in Autobot prisons. They didn't scare him or make him uneasy.
It used to be the only way to get a good day's recharge in relative safety. And he used the term loosely.
Sometimes, the jails were more dangerous than the streets.
He lounged on the narrow berth in his cell and stared at the ceiling, arms crossed behind his head. They'd assigned him a public defender, some scow named Intermed, and he'd spent all of two minutes interviewing Ricochet before leaving the room.
Ricochet had the distinct sensation they weren't all that interested in trying him fairly. Or trying him at all.
This stank of Prowl.
Once a bureaucrat always a bureaucrat, just now with a different flavor. Ricochet knew of Prowl by reputation alone. Jazz told him a lot of stories, and Decepticon intel had always painted Prowl as a high-value target, if not one impossible to get to. Mech was too well protected. Killing him would have ended the war a lot sooner.
Instead, he’d lived long enough to become everyone’s irritation in a post-war Cybertron.
Jazz hadn't been to see him. Ricochet figured that wouldn't happen. Prowl knew better than to trust Jazz in these circumstances. He always had been smart.
Too smart.
Ricochet loathed smart mechs.
Denying him access wouldn't stop Jazz. It would delay him. All Ricochet had to do was wait.
Jazz would come for him.
Jazz always came for him.
~
It was the dull and repeated buzz of his comm system that jarred Blurr out of recharge. He rose slowly, fatigue dragging on his limbs, and it took far too long for him to realize what that annoying sound was.
Blurr groaned.
He rolled over and answered the ping without bothering to check the ident code. “What?”
“I’m finally back in town and that’s the greeting I get? Are you still in the berth?” Drift’s voice poured into his comm, sounding far too cheerful for Blurr’s comfort.
Blurr made himself sit up, though his processor swam, and he felt like he’d been hit by a Combiner. He couldn’t fathom why. He’d only had midgrade last night, and less than his usual intake. He’d seemed to lose the taste for it in the past couple of days.
“When did you get back?” Blurr asked as he stumbled off the berth, in the vague direction of the door. His senses were slow to come online, and he rebooted them on instinct. That was the second time this week. He couldn’t ever remember being so sluggish.
“Just now. You gonna come open the door or what?”
“What? You’re outside?” Blurr staggered out of the berthroom, his ability to focus out of reach. It felt like he was moving through molasses.
His front door buzzed.
Blurr rubbed his forehead and stumbled over to the panel, keying it open, though he missed on the first try. Damn Ricochet. He’d forgotten they’d changed the code.
Finally, he got the door open, and a beaming, grinning Drift waited for him on the other side, Ratchet standing just behind him, radiating equal levels of delight, though with far less visible exuberance than Drift. Seemed like the honeymoon had done the doc some good. Washed off those decades of rust at least.
“Ugh,” Blurr groaned, and stepped aside so they could enter. “Newlyweds. And you had to bring that nauseating affection here, didn’t you?”
“Are you jealous?” Drift asked as he came inside.
“Hardly.” Blurr snorted and trudged back to his couch, falling onto it with an exhausted vent. Primus, his head was spinning. What the frag was wrong with him? He’d never felt like this before. The closest he could liken it was too a particularly long and dangerous race.
“You look like slag,” Ratchet said as he tromped in behind his conjunx, his presence filling up the space like only a mech older than Primus could. “Stay up too late in your usual shenanigans?”
Blurr scrubbed his face. “Not this time. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He pinched his nose. “You two picked a Pit of a time to come back to Cybertron.”
“Yeah. We heard. S’why we came here.” Drift plopped down on the chair across from Blurr. “Shacking up with an ex-Con? Really?”
“He came highly recommended.” Blurr dropped his hand and tried to focus on one of his closest friends and former teammate, his processor spinning again. His tanks clenched, demanding energon. “By Jazz.”
“They’re brothers, right?” Drift said.
“Twins,” Ratchet corrected, and he narrowed his optics at Blurr. He tilted his head and within seconds, the wash of a medical scan hit Blurr’s field, making him groan. It felt like sandpaper rasping against his sensory net.
Ratchet’s optics widened, and his vents stuttered. “You berth-hopping little slagger,” he said as he shook his head. “You were fragging him, weren’t you?”
Blurr glared. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Drift frowned, his gaze darting from Ratchet to Blurr and back again. “Yeah, Ratch. What’s it matter?”
Ratchet sighed and scrubbed his forehead. “You’re sparked.”
“What?”
Blurr didn’t know which of them squeaked louder -- him or Drift. But Blurr sat up with a start, only to sway when his system rejected the too-quick motion. Primus, he needed some energon. It felt like he’d been running on empty for hours.
“It’s why you look like slag,” Ratchet said, and he started to pace, back and forth, back and forth, the sight of it ramping up Blurr’s dizziness. “You probably feel exhausted. A bit queasy. Processing slow?”
Check. Check. And check.
“How am I sparked?” Blurr demanded. His thoughts raced a mile a minute, and everything kept slamming into a brick wall of confusion. It didn’t make sense.
“The usual way, I imagine,” Drift drawled. He smirked, but there were stars in his optics, too. Maybe a bit of hunger. He’d gotten the husband and the honeymoon, maybe he wanted the next stage, too.
Blurr redirected his glare at Drift, though anger seethed inside of him, building into a rightful froth for Ricochet. “That’s not what I meant,” he snapped. He slapped his chestplate pointedly. “I have a shunt and a guard.”
“Nothing’s one-hundred percent effective.” Ratchet kept pacing, until Drift gave him a look, and he settled on the other open chair. “And you probably burn through both faster than most. When was the last time you had them checked?”
That was a good question. He had no idea. No one ever told him that the recommended standard replacement period probably didn’t apply when it came to Blurr. This was news to him.
“My last maintenance?” Blurr hazarded, trying to think of when that was. A couple years ago at least. It was peacetime! He didn’t need to see a medic even half as much as he used to, now that he wasn’t getting shot at or blown up or attacked on the daily.
Ratchet sighed, and Blurr could hear the chastisement lurking in the sound.
Blurr held up a hand. “Don’t start. Lesson learned.” He dropped his hand to his abdomen, as if he could feel the spark growing in his gestational tank. “I’m really sparked?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Ricochet’s,” Blurr said, dull. Though he supposed depending on the conception date, it could be Jazz’s. Or Tracks’. But Ricochet was more likely. He’d been Blurr’s steadiest partner for the past two weeks, give or take a few days.
Drift coughed into his palm. “Are congratulations in order?”
“I don’t even know.” Blurr scrubbed his face, his processor aching. “I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t intend it. I don’t even…” He trailed off. This was too much to absorb at once.
A cube of energon appeared in front of him. Blurr looked up as Ratchet nudged it closer. Where had he gotten it from? Please Primus don’t let it be medgrade.
“Drink,” Ratchet said. “You’re ill because you’re underpowered. You’re going to need to consume a lot if you intend to go through with this.”
Blurr accepted the cube. “I have options,” he realized aloud. He sipped at the cube, thankful it wasn’t regular old standard grade, the clenching of his tank easing with every swallow. He cupped his belly again, thinking of the sparkling inside him.
He’d never thought about sparklings. They were always a distant thing that maybe he’d have when he finally found someone he wanted to settle with. He had decades, centuries even, to worry about settling. During the war, he didn’t think beyond the next battle.
He had an option to think past that now. He had a sparkling, and Ricochet did, too.
Oh, Primus. Ricochet. How was he going to react?
Blurr groaned and tipped his head back against the couch, shuttering his optics. This was a fragging clusterfrag of epic proportions. He was sparked. The potential sire was in prison for suspected murder. And if he wasn’t the perpetrator, there was still a murderer out there who had Blurr’s name on a lengthy list.
Frag, frag, frag.
“I’ll send you some information,” Ratchet said as he sat back down, though within reach of Drift, one hand cupping the back of Drift’s neck. “Whatever you decide, you can come to me.”
“And me,” Drift said.
Blurr nodded slowly and sipped more at the cube. “Thanks.” His mind swirled with complications, but one thing stood out louder than the rest.
He pressed his lips together, pretended to contemplate behind the shelter of his cube, and sent Jazz a silent text message.
‘I’m in,’ he said. ‘I’ll help.’
***
Universe: TF G1/IDW
Characters: Blurr, Jazz, Bluestreak, Ricochet, Prowl, Rodimus, Drift, Ratchet
Pairings: Blurr/Jazz, Blurr/Ricochet, Blurr/Ricochet/Jazz, Ricochet/Jazz, Bluestreak/Jazz, Drift/Ratchet,
Rating: M
Enticements: Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Twincest, Mechpreg, Canon Typical Violence
Description: Blurr happens to enjoy life on post-war Cybertron, but when a serial murderer starts targeting former Wreckers, Blurr ends up saddled with a bodyguard who rubs him in all the wrong ways. Or right ways, if you were to ask Ricochet. Let the battle begin.
Commission for MamaBlurr.
Bluestreak was handing over the reins to a very disappointed Riptide when Jazz came into New Maccadam's, a smile on his face, a spring in his step, and both of them very, very false. Bluestreak's radar pinged.
Ricochet was in prison, and Prowl refused to release him. Prowl had told Bluestreak as much, and asked him to look out for Jazz, just in case he decided to do something stupid.
Personally, Bluestreak thought Jazz was entitled to something stupid. Ricochet's arrest was absurd, and Prowl knew it, too. Political pressure was a crushing weight.
Bluestreak moved to intercept before Riptide could ask what Jazz wanted as Jazz slinked up to the counter, hopping into an open stool.
"Hey Blue!" he said cheerfully, though the harmonics in his tone did not match the aura he was trying to project. "Can I get a Toxic Turnover?"
Prowl was playing a very, very dangerous game, and Bluestreak vowed to give his mentor a piece of his mind, the next time they spoke.
"It's a bit early for something that heavy, isn't it?" Bluestreak asked.
Jazz drummed his palms on the counter. "It's past suncycle. I at least waited until after dark."
"I meant, you usually start with lighter fare." Bluestreak started to mix a drink, not the Toxic Turnover like Jazz asked, but something with a lot less kick. "What's the occasion?"
The visor finally focused on him. "Prowl," Jazz declared in a low, heavy tone, "is an aft."
Bluestreak nodded slowly, added a spritz of carbonizer, then slid the Merry Madness across to Jazz. "There are a lot of mechs who'd agree with you. I mean, he has his moments where he shows his softer side, but he's a hard mech to get along with. He's kind of had to be."
"I ain't disparaging him," Jazz said, waving him off while snagging the drink with his other hand. "Just making a statement of the kind of day I've had."
"Fair enough." Bluestreak folded his arms and leaned forward, against the counter. "How's Ricochet?"
"Dunno. They won't let me talk to him." Jazz peered at his drink, his visor streaking with confusion. "This ain't a Toxic Turnover."
“No, it’s not.” Bluestreak tilted his head, his spark giving the usual heavy throb of want and affection it always did whenever he was close to Jazz. “You don’t need something like that right now.”
Jazz picked up the cube, swirling the liquid around. “Funny how you’re so sure of what I need.” He tilted the cube up and drained it in several long, quick gulps. He slammed the empty down on the counter. “Another.”
Bluestreak thinned his lips. Jazz glared at him, insisting with his gaze, and with the heavy pressure of his field. Bluestreak could resist it, far more than Jazz knew, but that wasn’t the point.
“You asked me something once,” Bluestreak started as he bent down beneath the counter, grabbing what he’d need to make another drink. “You wanted to know why I turned you down. I gave you an answer, but now, I still don’t think you understand it.”
“Blue, come on. I can’t have this kind of conversation right now.” Jazz scrubbed his forehead and drummed his free hand on top of the counter. “I need to get drunk, or I need to get fragged. I need something.”
“Neither of those things are what you need.” Bluestreak handed him another Merry Madness, though it was weaker than the one before. “Neither of them are a solution or are helpful. They aren’t going to get Ricochet out of jail. And they might help you forget things, but not for long, and the consequences after are only going to make things worse.”
Jazz frowned at him. He toyed with the cube, fiddling with his fingers. “It keeps sounding like you’re trying to tell me somethin’, but you won’t come out and say it.”
“Because I can’t. If I do, you’ll take it, and then I won’t know if you’re genuine or not.” Bluestreak swiped the Merry Madness from Jazz’s hand and tipped it back himself, draining it in a few quick gulps before setting it down on the counter with a definitive tap. “Come on. I’m going to take you home.”
Jazz leaned back, arms crossed under his bumper. “I’m not anywhere near tipsy.”
“I’m not leaving you here to get that way.” Bluestreak took the empties and put them in the crate for later cleaning. He signaled to Riptide he was finally leaving and emerged from behind the bar.
“I don’t need you lookin’ after me.”
“Someone needs to.” Bluestreak stood nearby, hands on his hips, and gave Jazz a practiced, firm look. One he’d used on several lovers in the past, all who’d had … unique needs, not unlike Jazz’s. “You’re reminding me of Sunstreaker right now, you know. And that’s not a compliment.”
“It could be.” Jazz slid off the stool with a tap-tap of one foot and then the other. Deliberate noise, it had to be, because Bluestreak knew he moved silently usually. "He's a handsome mech."
"And a bit of an aft when he's sulking and Sideswipe's not around."
"I am not sulking."
Bluestreak managed a smile at the teasing lilt in Jazz's tone. "Then what you do you call it?"
"Moping with style." Jazz struck a pose before offering an arm out to Bluestreak. "If you're not going to let me drink or hunt, then you're obligated to see me home."
Bluestreak threaded his arm through Jazz's elbow and tugged him toward the door. "That was my intention, Jazz."
"I could really use a frag right now."
"That's not what I meant." Despite himself, Bluestreak chuckled. There hadn't been anything serious in the suggestion. Jazz was very good at hiding his pain behind playfulness.
Unfortunately for him, Bluestreak had always been good at ferreting out secrets. The Enforcer Academy might have rejected him, but Prowl had use for an insightful detective during the course of the war. Unlike what people thought, torture didn’t always net secrets. Ferreting some of them out needed a lighter touch.
Jazz shrugged. "Thought it was worth a shot."
They plunged into a tepid evening, the streets half as busy during daycycle, but still dotted with the occasional mech. No one paid them any attention. Most Cybertronians tended to mind their own business nowadays.
It was refreshing.
"There are many things I'm willing to do for you," Bluestreak said, keeping his tone light, his gaze distant. "I want to help you as much as I can. But what you're asking for is something I can't give you. It's not what I want, and if we don't want the same things, then it's best we stay friends."
Jazz sighed and put distance between them, unhooking Bluestreak from his arm. "I'd rather you didn't help, if that's what it means. It feels like a game I'm tired of playin'. It was fun at first, but now I'm just disappointed all the time, and that's enough of that, I think."
"It's not a game."
"Then what is it?" Jazz threw his hands in the air and circled around in front of Bluestreak, skidding to a halt, his field an oppressive presence as it swarmed Bluestreak. "You're obviously not interested. You've turned me down every time. But then ya keep makin' these vague statements that imply ya might be."
Bluestreak cycled a slow, steady ventilation. Jazz glared at him, his visor bright, his engine revving, betraying the turbulence of his emotions. Now was not the time for this conversation. Jazz was upset already about Ricochet and Blurr and the whole situation.
But letting it fester wasn't helping either.
"What do you want from me?" Bluestreak asked.
"That's obvious, isn't it?" Jazz snapped.
Bluestreak shook his head slowly. "I know what I want from you." He took a step closer, crowding into Jazz's space, but Jazz held his ground, tilting his head up slightly to keep Bluestreak's gaze. "I know I want to claim you. I know I want to break you. I want to turn you inside out, and bend you until you're mine."
Jazz's visor flared. A visible shiver ran over his armor. "That's--"
Bluestreak cupped his cheek, carefully gentle, sweeping a thumb over it. "I want to recharge with you, and comfort you, and watch stupid movies with you and eat things that are bad for us and go driving off into the sunset, and slow dance to sappy love songs from Earth."
A low growl started in Jazz's engine. His lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came out.
Bluestreak brought up his other hand, until he had Jazz's face cradled. "What I want from you is nothing that can be satisfied in a single night. I intend to keep you."
He set his mouth over Jazz's, making the kiss soft and sweet at first, before he eased his glossa into Jazz's mouth and deepened the kiss. Lips and denta and glosa, pressure and the swamping weight of his field, all of it surrounding Jazz. A distant moan was muffled by Bluestreak's lips, and Jazz wobbled, only for his hands to grab onto Bluestreak, steadying himself. He kissed Jazz until he memorized the taste of him, as if this would be the last kiss, and only then did he pull back.
Jazz cycled a ventilation, his glossa sweeping over his lips. "Anyone ever tell you that you can be pretty intense?"
"It's been a complaint or two." Bluestreak brushed his thumbs over Jazz's cheeks before letting him go.
Jazz pressed his lips together and rubbed his forehead. "It's not that I don't want the same things, it's just, I can't have them, you know? I never can."
"Why?"
"Because of my brother." Jazz grimaced, and it wasn't aimed at Bluestreak, but rather, something of his history, Bluestreak wagered. "He's mine, and I'm his, and that's the way it is. That's how it's always gonna be. I can never be anyone's. Not one-hundred percent."
"I'm going to tell you a secret." Bluestreak stepped into Jazz's space again, stroking the withdrawn edges of Jazz's field with warm pulses of his own. Jazz tilted up to look at him again. "I already knew that. Sunstreaker is one of my best friends. I know how it can be with twins. I knew what it meant when I fell for you. And Jazz? I don't care."
Jazz took another step back, and his field burst in a startled display of emotion before he could rein it in. "You don't mean that. Everyone says it, but they don't mean it." He shook his head, like he'd been tossed for a loop. "Sooner or later, the jealousy is gonna set in, and I'm goin' to be back where I was, crawlin' to Rico, because no one gets it."
"And that's the choice you have to make -- whether you believe me and whether you want to try. But that's my line." Bluestreak drew a pretend line through the air. "I either want it all or nothing. I'm not going to jump in your berth once and consider it enough."
"Primus." Jazz dragged a hand down his face, and he looked a little shaky, with streaks of light passing across his visor. "Blue, I can't even process that right now."
"I know." Bluestreak offered a soft stroke of his field over Jazz's. "I'm not asking you to. Now's not the time. I"m just letting you know, whatever happens, I'm still your friend. I'm here for you, and I'll help you if you need it."
Jazz rubbed around his mouth, nodding slowly. "And I 'preciate that." He rolled his shoulders and squared them, offering Bluestreak a hint of a genuine smile. "Thanks, Blue. I gotta lot to think about now."
"I'm still going to walk you home." Bluestreak moved close enough to bump shoulders, though carefully. "These are dangerous streets. There are murderers out there."
Jazz chuckled quietly. "Yeah. And I'm one of them." He nudged Bluestreak with an elbow. "Alright. Let's go."
Prisons were nothing unfamiliar to Ricochet. He'd paid his time and his dues. Even in Autobot prisons. They didn't scare him or make him uneasy.
It used to be the only way to get a good day's recharge in relative safety. And he used the term loosely.
Sometimes, the jails were more dangerous than the streets.
He lounged on the narrow berth in his cell and stared at the ceiling, arms crossed behind his head. They'd assigned him a public defender, some scow named Intermed, and he'd spent all of two minutes interviewing Ricochet before leaving the room.
Ricochet had the distinct sensation they weren't all that interested in trying him fairly. Or trying him at all.
This stank of Prowl.
Once a bureaucrat always a bureaucrat, just now with a different flavor. Ricochet knew of Prowl by reputation alone. Jazz told him a lot of stories, and Decepticon intel had always painted Prowl as a high-value target, if not one impossible to get to. Mech was too well protected. Killing him would have ended the war a lot sooner.
Instead, he’d lived long enough to become everyone’s irritation in a post-war Cybertron.
Jazz hadn't been to see him. Ricochet figured that wouldn't happen. Prowl knew better than to trust Jazz in these circumstances. He always had been smart.
Too smart.
Ricochet loathed smart mechs.
Denying him access wouldn't stop Jazz. It would delay him. All Ricochet had to do was wait.
Jazz would come for him.
Jazz always came for him.
It was the dull and repeated buzz of his comm system that jarred Blurr out of recharge. He rose slowly, fatigue dragging on his limbs, and it took far too long for him to realize what that annoying sound was.
Blurr groaned.
He rolled over and answered the ping without bothering to check the ident code. “What?”
“I’m finally back in town and that’s the greeting I get? Are you still in the berth?” Drift’s voice poured into his comm, sounding far too cheerful for Blurr’s comfort.
Blurr made himself sit up, though his processor swam, and he felt like he’d been hit by a Combiner. He couldn’t fathom why. He’d only had midgrade last night, and less than his usual intake. He’d seemed to lose the taste for it in the past couple of days.
“When did you get back?” Blurr asked as he stumbled off the berth, in the vague direction of the door. His senses were slow to come online, and he rebooted them on instinct. That was the second time this week. He couldn’t ever remember being so sluggish.
“Just now. You gonna come open the door or what?”
“What? You’re outside?” Blurr staggered out of the berthroom, his ability to focus out of reach. It felt like he was moving through molasses.
His front door buzzed.
Blurr rubbed his forehead and stumbled over to the panel, keying it open, though he missed on the first try. Damn Ricochet. He’d forgotten they’d changed the code.
Finally, he got the door open, and a beaming, grinning Drift waited for him on the other side, Ratchet standing just behind him, radiating equal levels of delight, though with far less visible exuberance than Drift. Seemed like the honeymoon had done the doc some good. Washed off those decades of rust at least.
“Ugh,” Blurr groaned, and stepped aside so they could enter. “Newlyweds. And you had to bring that nauseating affection here, didn’t you?”
“Are you jealous?” Drift asked as he came inside.
“Hardly.” Blurr snorted and trudged back to his couch, falling onto it with an exhausted vent. Primus, his head was spinning. What the frag was wrong with him? He’d never felt like this before. The closest he could liken it was too a particularly long and dangerous race.
“You look like slag,” Ratchet said as he tromped in behind his conjunx, his presence filling up the space like only a mech older than Primus could. “Stay up too late in your usual shenanigans?”
Blurr scrubbed his face. “Not this time. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He pinched his nose. “You two picked a Pit of a time to come back to Cybertron.”
“Yeah. We heard. S’why we came here.” Drift plopped down on the chair across from Blurr. “Shacking up with an ex-Con? Really?”
“He came highly recommended.” Blurr dropped his hand and tried to focus on one of his closest friends and former teammate, his processor spinning again. His tanks clenched, demanding energon. “By Jazz.”
“They’re brothers, right?” Drift said.
“Twins,” Ratchet corrected, and he narrowed his optics at Blurr. He tilted his head and within seconds, the wash of a medical scan hit Blurr’s field, making him groan. It felt like sandpaper rasping against his sensory net.
Ratchet’s optics widened, and his vents stuttered. “You berth-hopping little slagger,” he said as he shook his head. “You were fragging him, weren’t you?”
Blurr glared. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Drift frowned, his gaze darting from Ratchet to Blurr and back again. “Yeah, Ratch. What’s it matter?”
Ratchet sighed and scrubbed his forehead. “You’re sparked.”
“What?”
Blurr didn’t know which of them squeaked louder -- him or Drift. But Blurr sat up with a start, only to sway when his system rejected the too-quick motion. Primus, he needed some energon. It felt like he’d been running on empty for hours.
“It’s why you look like slag,” Ratchet said, and he started to pace, back and forth, back and forth, the sight of it ramping up Blurr’s dizziness. “You probably feel exhausted. A bit queasy. Processing slow?”
Check. Check. And check.
“How am I sparked?” Blurr demanded. His thoughts raced a mile a minute, and everything kept slamming into a brick wall of confusion. It didn’t make sense.
“The usual way, I imagine,” Drift drawled. He smirked, but there were stars in his optics, too. Maybe a bit of hunger. He’d gotten the husband and the honeymoon, maybe he wanted the next stage, too.
Blurr redirected his glare at Drift, though anger seethed inside of him, building into a rightful froth for Ricochet. “That’s not what I meant,” he snapped. He slapped his chestplate pointedly. “I have a shunt and a guard.”
“Nothing’s one-hundred percent effective.” Ratchet kept pacing, until Drift gave him a look, and he settled on the other open chair. “And you probably burn through both faster than most. When was the last time you had them checked?”
That was a good question. He had no idea. No one ever told him that the recommended standard replacement period probably didn’t apply when it came to Blurr. This was news to him.
“My last maintenance?” Blurr hazarded, trying to think of when that was. A couple years ago at least. It was peacetime! He didn’t need to see a medic even half as much as he used to, now that he wasn’t getting shot at or blown up or attacked on the daily.
Ratchet sighed, and Blurr could hear the chastisement lurking in the sound.
Blurr held up a hand. “Don’t start. Lesson learned.” He dropped his hand to his abdomen, as if he could feel the spark growing in his gestational tank. “I’m really sparked?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Ricochet’s,” Blurr said, dull. Though he supposed depending on the conception date, it could be Jazz’s. Or Tracks’. But Ricochet was more likely. He’d been Blurr’s steadiest partner for the past two weeks, give or take a few days.
Drift coughed into his palm. “Are congratulations in order?”
“I don’t even know.” Blurr scrubbed his face, his processor aching. “I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t intend it. I don’t even…” He trailed off. This was too much to absorb at once.
A cube of energon appeared in front of him. Blurr looked up as Ratchet nudged it closer. Where had he gotten it from? Please Primus don’t let it be medgrade.
“Drink,” Ratchet said. “You’re ill because you’re underpowered. You’re going to need to consume a lot if you intend to go through with this.”
Blurr accepted the cube. “I have options,” he realized aloud. He sipped at the cube, thankful it wasn’t regular old standard grade, the clenching of his tank easing with every swallow. He cupped his belly again, thinking of the sparkling inside him.
He’d never thought about sparklings. They were always a distant thing that maybe he’d have when he finally found someone he wanted to settle with. He had decades, centuries even, to worry about settling. During the war, he didn’t think beyond the next battle.
He had an option to think past that now. He had a sparkling, and Ricochet did, too.
Oh, Primus. Ricochet. How was he going to react?
Blurr groaned and tipped his head back against the couch, shuttering his optics. This was a fragging clusterfrag of epic proportions. He was sparked. The potential sire was in prison for suspected murder. And if he wasn’t the perpetrator, there was still a murderer out there who had Blurr’s name on a lengthy list.
Frag, frag, frag.
“I’ll send you some information,” Ratchet said as he sat back down, though within reach of Drift, one hand cupping the back of Drift’s neck. “Whatever you decide, you can come to me.”
“And me,” Drift said.
Blurr nodded slowly and sipped more at the cube. “Thanks.” His mind swirled with complications, but one thing stood out louder than the rest.
He pressed his lips together, pretended to contemplate behind the shelter of his cube, and sent Jazz a silent text message.
‘I’m in,’ he said. ‘I’ll help.’
