Love (Not)
Jan. 25th, 2011 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ante_luceTitle: Love (Not)
'Verse: TFA
Characters: Jazz.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: TF cussing. Emo. First person POV.
Let me start by saying that I don't love the mech.
Don't get me wrong. I don't hate him either, but it's difficult to love someone who's more a duty than a friend. Likewise, it's difficult to hate someone when they haven't done anything except love you.
In case you're wondering, no, he doesn't know.
What I do hate is having to fool anyone this way.
Frag. How do I explain this? I do care for him. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't. But not for the reasons the average bot would think up. Maybe the others interpret my looking out for sensei's last student as love, romantic love, and I can't say anything against that, not without breaking cover.
I'd hoped, once, that we could be friends. It didn't work out so well.
He wasn't big on people. And I... well. I'm me. I'll try and make friends with anything that doesn't try to kill me first.
I've made friends with bots that've tried to kill me too. It was a misunderstanding. I threw a punch that missed and we came to an understanding. They're the best bootleg highgrade runners I know.
Back to the subject of my ruminations.
He's had a rough life. I can sympathise.
He's had to do things to survive. My hands aren't clean either. The white on my plating's got black to go along with it.
So I gave up on the whole 'making friends' deal and he wasn't any pricklier than he had to be.
You might bring up the matter of my CO. He takes 'prickly' to a whole new level. That's different. Then again, I'm in contact with him a lot. And usually for a long time. Not much room to avoid a bot on a ship. It made sense to plow my way through that leadplate helm and park myself firmly in Sentinel's good books.
Not for the other one though. Why pursue a futile course? I wasn't going to be hanging around much. I know when I'm not wanted. It didn't make sense to annoy him and frustrate myself for the sake of something that'd probably die the moment I went off-planet again. So I was pleasant in general to him and he was civil to me, but I didn't inflict my presence on him more than I had to.
How did I come to be in this situation then, you ask?
Mech went and offed himself, then came back. He didn't even have the decency to do so on Earth so no one but his team and I would have known.
And now the Council are exceedingly curious as to how he did that, especially since the AllSpark was involved.
I know the mechs on the Council. I know where their curiosity can lead. What they can't get by asking, they will take. If I hadn't stuck to him all those cycles after he came back, the mech might already be on a dissecting table somewhere. And no one deserves that end.
What I fear most isn't getting found out by them. They know what I'm doing. They know that I know they know. And they practically ordered me to continue. See, as long as I'm 'in love' with the mech and he with me, I have a handle on him. I can get him to go along with the tests, with the scanning and poking and prodding, without much fuss.
Don't look like that. I'm doing it for his sake too. Getting stuck with the part of devoted lover makes it easy to run interference with the Council's agenda. Between the two of us we can usually manage to haul aft out of the examination room before the science bots get carried away.
It's not going to work forever though. I'm not that good an actor. It takes a certain kind of processor to lead someone along so long and so deeply, and I don't have the spark for it.
I've tried. AllSpark knows I've tried.
I hold him.
I kiss him.
I say 'I love you' a million times a cycle, hoping for something to click so the words stop tasting like ash in my mouth.
I 'face him into the berth, and let him do the same to me.
I swallow each sly remark I hear (I have good audios, and wiretaps where my audios can't go) about someone finally 'snagging' me. Taming me.
It's a good thing I'm used to smiling in the face of worse.
But I don't know how long I can do this...
I'm not a player. I don't go in for berth-hopping or spark breaking. Frag, last I knew, bots were betting on whether I was even 'equipped'. So I guess it's to be expected that there'd be gossip once I showed up saying I was in love.
It's not that there haven't been offers, but frankly, I'd rather take my chances with the 'Cons than in certain berths. At least with a 'Con you know they see you as prey. I'm a Guard, and in general we don't get very long shelf lives. I've neither the time nor the inclination to be someone's trophy or be jerked around by my chain for someone's entertainment. That's the last kinda bot I wanna take up with.
He's a good mech. His team think the world of him. But everyone's got a past, including him. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say he knows his way around a berth and a bot's frame. And old habits die hard.
And sometimes, when we 'face, I catch him looking at me the same way. Like I'm another bot to be used.
Well... I guess I am, in a way.
He doesn't mean it like that, I know. But each time it happens, that flicker of what looks like amused condescension kills off a little more of my spark.
A look. A smirk. Such a little thing. I shouldn't be letting it get to me when there's worse in store for him if I can't pull this off.
But a death by a thousand papercuts is still death.
I could run. Hurt him like only a lover could, and still leave him with no solution to the Council problem. Save myself at the expense of another. That's about as likely to happen as Megatron recanting and going off to live a quiet life cultivating crystals.
Guess I could have said something earlier. Gotten him alone, explained everything before he got in so deep with me. But we were always watched. I know that there were trackers and bugs on me, and more on him than I could find on my own.
But he's never alone with the Council medics. And Ratchet would take them apart if they tried anything with him there. The bugs can't run forever. They break down. Power cells drain, and a major overload shorts out the things like you wouldn't believe.
The bots up top are getting fractious. They want more information than surface exams will give and I can't hold them off much longer. And I wouldn't put it past them to try and grab hold of some more 'leverage'.
And I know he's picking up on their urgency and my own edginess.
I'll have to tell him something soon. It won't be the whole truth as I have it here, but I have a plan worked out. He can disappear, find a new life and a new everything, his team will be safe and I...
... I guess my shelf life's up.
'Verse: TFA
Characters: Jazz.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: TF cussing. Emo. First person POV.
Let me start by saying that I don't love the mech.
Don't get me wrong. I don't hate him either, but it's difficult to love someone who's more a duty than a friend. Likewise, it's difficult to hate someone when they haven't done anything except love you.
In case you're wondering, no, he doesn't know.
What I do hate is having to fool anyone this way.
Frag. How do I explain this? I do care for him. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't. But not for the reasons the average bot would think up. Maybe the others interpret my looking out for sensei's last student as love, romantic love, and I can't say anything against that, not without breaking cover.
I'd hoped, once, that we could be friends. It didn't work out so well.
He wasn't big on people. And I... well. I'm me. I'll try and make friends with anything that doesn't try to kill me first.
I've made friends with bots that've tried to kill me too. It was a misunderstanding. I threw a punch that missed and we came to an understanding. They're the best bootleg highgrade runners I know.
Back to the subject of my ruminations.
He's had a rough life. I can sympathise.
He's had to do things to survive. My hands aren't clean either. The white on my plating's got black to go along with it.
So I gave up on the whole 'making friends' deal and he wasn't any pricklier than he had to be.
You might bring up the matter of my CO. He takes 'prickly' to a whole new level. That's different. Then again, I'm in contact with him a lot. And usually for a long time. Not much room to avoid a bot on a ship. It made sense to plow my way through that leadplate helm and park myself firmly in Sentinel's good books.
Not for the other one though. Why pursue a futile course? I wasn't going to be hanging around much. I know when I'm not wanted. It didn't make sense to annoy him and frustrate myself for the sake of something that'd probably die the moment I went off-planet again. So I was pleasant in general to him and he was civil to me, but I didn't inflict my presence on him more than I had to.
How did I come to be in this situation then, you ask?
Mech went and offed himself, then came back. He didn't even have the decency to do so on Earth so no one but his team and I would have known.
And now the Council are exceedingly curious as to how he did that, especially since the AllSpark was involved.
I know the mechs on the Council. I know where their curiosity can lead. What they can't get by asking, they will take. If I hadn't stuck to him all those cycles after he came back, the mech might already be on a dissecting table somewhere. And no one deserves that end.
What I fear most isn't getting found out by them. They know what I'm doing. They know that I know they know. And they practically ordered me to continue. See, as long as I'm 'in love' with the mech and he with me, I have a handle on him. I can get him to go along with the tests, with the scanning and poking and prodding, without much fuss.
Don't look like that. I'm doing it for his sake too. Getting stuck with the part of devoted lover makes it easy to run interference with the Council's agenda. Between the two of us we can usually manage to haul aft out of the examination room before the science bots get carried away.
It's not going to work forever though. I'm not that good an actor. It takes a certain kind of processor to lead someone along so long and so deeply, and I don't have the spark for it.
I've tried. AllSpark knows I've tried.
I hold him.
I kiss him.
I say 'I love you' a million times a cycle, hoping for something to click so the words stop tasting like ash in my mouth.
I 'face him into the berth, and let him do the same to me.
I swallow each sly remark I hear (I have good audios, and wiretaps where my audios can't go) about someone finally 'snagging' me. Taming me.
It's a good thing I'm used to smiling in the face of worse.
But I don't know how long I can do this...
I'm not a player. I don't go in for berth-hopping or spark breaking. Frag, last I knew, bots were betting on whether I was even 'equipped'. So I guess it's to be expected that there'd be gossip once I showed up saying I was in love.
It's not that there haven't been offers, but frankly, I'd rather take my chances with the 'Cons than in certain berths. At least with a 'Con you know they see you as prey. I'm a Guard, and in general we don't get very long shelf lives. I've neither the time nor the inclination to be someone's trophy or be jerked around by my chain for someone's entertainment. That's the last kinda bot I wanna take up with.
He's a good mech. His team think the world of him. But everyone's got a past, including him. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say he knows his way around a berth and a bot's frame. And old habits die hard.
And sometimes, when we 'face, I catch him looking at me the same way. Like I'm another bot to be used.
Well... I guess I am, in a way.
He doesn't mean it like that, I know. But each time it happens, that flicker of what looks like amused condescension kills off a little more of my spark.
A look. A smirk. Such a little thing. I shouldn't be letting it get to me when there's worse in store for him if I can't pull this off.
But a death by a thousand papercuts is still death.
I could run. Hurt him like only a lover could, and still leave him with no solution to the Council problem. Save myself at the expense of another. That's about as likely to happen as Megatron recanting and going off to live a quiet life cultivating crystals.
Guess I could have said something earlier. Gotten him alone, explained everything before he got in so deep with me. But we were always watched. I know that there were trackers and bugs on me, and more on him than I could find on my own.
But he's never alone with the Council medics. And Ratchet would take them apart if they tried anything with him there. The bugs can't run forever. They break down. Power cells drain, and a major overload shorts out the things like you wouldn't believe.
The bots up top are getting fractious. They want more information than surface exams will give and I can't hold them off much longer. And I wouldn't put it past them to try and grab hold of some more 'leverage'.
And I know he's picking up on their urgency and my own edginess.
I'll have to tell him something soon. It won't be the whole truth as I have it here, but I have a plan worked out. He can disappear, find a new life and a new everything, his team will be safe and I...
... I guess my shelf life's up.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-25 01:50 pm (UTC)Well done as always =)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-26 01:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-25 07:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-26 01:31 am (UTC)Glad you liked ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-26 02:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-26 02:49 am (UTC)You did a great job with Jazz's character. I really did not like him at the beginning when he was talking about lying to Prowl and working with the council, but as his motivations became clear it added a lot of depth to his character and made him seem very Jazzish. :).
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-26 08:26 am (UTC)I'm glad you think I pulled it off ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-26 04:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-26 08:27 am (UTC)Glad you like ^_^