Title: Why Stay?
Universe: 2007movie-verse, post-movie.
Rating: R for intimacy between mechanical beings. Beware angst and spoilers.
Pairing: Jazz/Optimus.
Author's Notes: The mecha in my head-space are all G1, so when the MechaErotica challenge for February said, "Anything you want, just NOT GEE WUN," I was not very ambitious. I told Rusty she was evil, with capital letters, spelled out. I found myself looking dolefully at the residents of my head-space, who have all seen the movie and read the prequel as many times as I have by virtue of direct connection to their goddess. Jazz and Prime exchanged a look, maybe radio contact was made, I don't know, but Jazz started to get up to come talk to me. Prime set one of his big blue hands on Jazz's shoulder and said, "I'll take care of it, you enjoy some down time." So, because Ironhide told Jazz in the book, Ghosts of Yesterday, "If you get your Spark extinguished, I'll have to hear about it from Prime for the next couple of millennia," we have this. And I can claim another challenge victory. Paragraphs in italics describe past events, memories interspersed with the present. 3500 words.
After listening to each of the assembled Autobots answer her curious questions about worlds they had visited in their search for the Allspark, she asked a simple question in all innocence: "Why stay? Why do you stay on Earth when you know all of those beautiful places?"
Optimus had not been able to answer Mikaela. Neither Ratchet nor Ironhide would field a theory on that with him present. He made a sweeping statement about humans being worthwhile and Bumblebee developing an attachment to her and Sam, said, "Here, we have made more friends than any of us have known since the War."
Mikaela had looked thoughtful and shrugged one delicate shoulder. Optimus thought she was going to push for a better answer, one with the ring of truth, but Sam saved him, calling her name from Bumblebee's driver's seat as they pulled up. She smiled at the boy and bid Optimus and the others good-bye, joining them for a joy-ride.
'Joy-ride' described what they had done together on the last planet before they encountered humans for the first time and heard of Earth. It was a planet that Optimus specifically did not mention to Mikaela.
Optimus rolled unhurriedly over the alien terrain. A lithe form passed quickly across his path. He heard a happy exclamation in its wake: Jazz was enjoying the time to explore, to open the throttle and run free outside the confines of the ship. They had not detected a Decepticon signal in a century of travel. Gravity at one-third Cybertron's made them feel light on their suspensions and the methane-rich atmosphere of the little world energized them. Without indigenous intelligence, they could roll in their preferred forms. The rare indulgence of leisure, a few days to rest, was necessary. Optimus changed course to follow his first lieutenant.
Her question repeated in his processor. He settled into position across the street from the warehouse they used as their home base on Earth: he had the watch this night. With only three of them to share it - Bumblebee stayed with Sam as requested - he would spend all night there and most of the day to follow, taking Ratchet's watch. He wanted their medical officer to have absolutely as much time as possible to focus on rebuilding Jazz.
Jazz waited for him, at the edge of an alkaline sea. The distant white star radiated hotly on their plating, but they were already acclimated, adjustments made as soon as they transitioned from their protoforms. Evening was approaching; the atmosphere glowed in the haze of distance, rich green and yellow. "Isn't it promising, Optimus," Jazz asked, "that every world has beauty?"
Optimus rolled to a halt beside him. "Yes, it is." He could not help himself, he sighed, not recalling where he picked up the gesture, "But none of them are home."
Optimus was restless, he could not stay parked. He knew it wasted energy to drive around the block in which the warehouse sat, but he had to move. Why stay? she had asked. "Why stay, indeed?" he asked himself, startling a homeless man who was shuffling along the sidewalk beside him. "Pardon me," he said to the poor human, hoping he would not have to shoo him away from their warehouse later. The traffic light changed and he rolled on, turning the corner to pass the rear of their new home. We are not so different, he thought, we were searching for a safe place to live for millennia but did not realize it. He accessed the internet via the Wifi connection of the little all-night diner across the street, finding that the town's homeless shelter was only a few blocks away. He found the thought both disturbing and comforting: homelessness was so common for humans that there were shelters set up for them. Disturbing that it meant being displaced, seeking refuge, being unable to carve a place for oneself in the universe was common; comforting because it meant that other humans cared at least somewhat for those unfortunate sparks.
"No," Jazz agreed solemnly, as he transformed, "none of them are Cybertron." He stepped closer to his leader, his mentor, his friend. He touched the roofline of Optimus's favorite vehicular form, the one suited for the undeveloped parts of Cybertron, when there were still undeveloped regions left to traverse. "But almost any of them could be home if we chose to have it so." He activated the magnets in his hands, modulating the field in a way he knew Optimus found calming.
His internal chronometer flashed a warning, as he had set it to do when he sat too long. He terminated his connection and rolled out, finishing his circuit of the block. He noticed the lone human, trying to settle down for the night in the shadow at the front of the building, in the disused doorway the office staff had surely used when the warehouse was still just a warehouse. He hated to disturb the already unfortunate man. As first lieutenant and generally social bot, this would have been a job for Jazz, were he here and available.
He knew what Jazz was thinking, what he wanted, what he hoped: they had been interfacing for at least a stellar cycle, no secrets withheld. Optimus stayed in his vehicle mode, enjoying Jazz's attention, toying with the idea of giving in to him this time. They both knew Jazz would get his way eventually - in their private moments, he generally did - it was just a matter of time. The others were nowhere near them, Bumblebee surely off exploring the roughest and most volatile ground he could find, Ratchet and Ironhide aboard the Ark doing whatever those two did that always resulted in both of them needing their plating reconditioned. Ratchet said they quarreled, Ironhide said they sparred, and Jazz said they were not as discreet as they wanted to think they were.
He trained sensors on the man on the stoop, thinking that if he just wanted to rest in a safe place this warm California night, Optimus saw no harm in that and would let him. He'll never be safer than right where he is, he thought, prepared now to sit still until just before dawn, when he would have to make the man move on before Ratchet came out to relieve him. Not that he had anywhere else to go..."You and me both, friend." Knowing that really was not true. Mikaela's question nagged him.
Jazz continued to stimulate his field with magnetic fluctuations. He worked his way over Optimus's exposed plating and the bigger bot relaxed, sinking on his suspension, letting Jazz reach as much of him as possible. Softly, Jazz began to sing, a song from home, of peace and stability and love.
Optimus noted a bass join Jazz's baritone beautifully, wondered at the notes mingling, surging and fading, joining and diverging, dancing through the scales of the melody and counter. He realized it was his own. Slowly, he transformed, keeping with the song as Jazz led it, now slower, now faster, flowing as the ammonia lapped at the carbon sand. Bipedal, he gently reached for Jazz, lifting him to perch on his right forearm, holding him so they were optic-to-optic.
The human on the stoop shifted, internals protesting something: Optimus had heard the term 'stomach growling' but knew from anatomy that stomachs could not growl, they had no mechanism for such a vocalization.
Jazz's vocalizations were always memorable in any language: speaking, singing, or sultry. They came to the end of the song and Optimus took his most stable position, opening a channel to Jazz. Jazz stilled, focus narrowed to what they could share on that data stream. Ghosts in each other's processors, they took a less physical approach to intimacy, never scratching and denting each other as Ratchet and Ironhide were wont, but stimulating each other nonetheless. Optimus warmed Jazz's plating further, passing a subtle current over him. Jazz made appreciative sounds, letting his field flare rhythmically out and through Optimus, reaching every molecule of his frame in a pattern, periodic but never repetitious, varying intensity and flavor - now UV then X-ray then microwave then visible - registering the effect on his lover. The tone of his vocalizer changed as his own systems responded to what Optimus did and they established a pattern known to them, but different this time: Optimus allowed his spark core to begin to open, slowly responding to the desire he had been reading in Jazz's processors but had not acknowledged before. He was weary of being wise and holding back; to have been rash would have been to rush in the first time the notion occurred to his lover, occurred to them. He rationalized that it would be better to lose a bonded love than never act on such an emotion. He reasoned that after all they had been through, and all they had lost, either of them could survive the other's termination and carry on with at least the understanding that they had loved freely when they had the opportunity. Jazz sent his voice deeper, a pleased purr, stronger than any of their engines, richer than the songs of the stars.
The man bestirred himself. He unfolded from the doorframe and slowly, stiffly, walked back out from the warehouse, never passing directly under one of the normal human security lights they left on at night. He leaned heavily on the gatepost at the end of their driveway, then shuffled on, back the way he had come, along the sidewalk beside the route Optimus had taken when he made his restless lap around the block. Unmoving, Optimus extended his sensors to follow the human. It was midnight, shift-change at the diner. The man met another human leaving the diner through the back door. Optimus made out their brief conversation, filtering it from among the night-sounds: the cook was a kind-hearted sort and gave the homeless man food. "Half a Reuben sandwich tonight," he said, "and a taco salad that was made by mistake instead of a chef. The chips might be soggy by now, sorry." The hungry man said he did not care about soggy tortilla chips - 'tore-till-a' he said - but thanked the cook sincerely and bid him good-night before walking away, farther from their base, assumedly going wherever he normally spent the night. Optimus expected he would see the man again, especially if he paid attention at the midnight shift change when this particular cook got off work.
Jazz was always kind, even when he teased. With an amused air, he began to open his own spark core, a long 'yes' echoing from him through their processors. Abruptly, he closed it again, letting a negative, a 'no' wash over Optimus with a distancing intent that lasted only long enough to be noted, followed immediately by a coy 'maybe' and a richer audio stimulus, a tingling magnetic shift. Without words, he returned to 'yes', affirmation, acceptance, expectation and welcome. He reached out with his hands, setting them on Optimus's chest, on either side of his now exposed spark. The white light reflected off of his visor and helm, gilding him further in Optimus's optics, washing him white with the green-gold glow of the methane-tinted sunset haloing him behind. Jazz's voice pulsed, following the rhythm of the waves of the ammonia ocean and the pattern of Optimus's surging systems. His name on the data stream from Jazz was the last encouragement he needed: he moved his arm minutely and brought Jazz closer, bowing his head to make that additional physical connection of their plating, their helms touching simulating hard-line communication as their sparks reached out for each other, completing the necessary contact, fulfilling the unassuming desire he had read in Jazz for so long, but ignored for so many interfaces.
Alone again on the street, perceiving the temperature drop in the atmosphere and on his own plating as the cold-sink of deep space became a factor in the clearest, darkest part of the night, Mikaela's question danced through his CPU: "Why stay?"
He could almost in good conscience say to her, "Because this was the last planet Jazz loved." He would never bring himself to say, "Because this was the last place Jazz loved me." He could not tell her, "This was the last place Jazz was happy, the last place I felt him, the last place we touched, the last time my spark was whole." He could not vocalize anything like that. He still felt Jazz's presence. His spark remembered the one with which it was bonded, insisted that spark still burned, still flickered when he thought of it, still responded to his love. "Because Jazz is still here," he could not say, nor "He must be here, somehow, because I am still here." He could say none of these things to a human who could not understand. How could I answer Mikaela, he thought, when I cannot even answer Ratchet? Our language has the proper vocabulary where the one I must use with Mikaela does not. Sadness engulfed him.
Bodies still as statues, souls dancing with joy, they stayed like that over the course of the planet's entire nighttime. Their sparks were well and truly bound together, singing between them when their internal low-power alarms could no longer be ignored. They reluctantly parted, closing their chambers and letting their armor return to its nominal position. Optimus sat on the sand, carefully out of reach of the waves of the clouded ocean. "There will be life here," he said drowsily, watching as Jazz positioned himself more comfortably across his legs.
Jazz smiled, and rested his closed pincers gently on Optimus's thighs. "Aye," he responded, "there already is," he gestured with his head toward a particularly dense region in the liquid that seemed to retain its boundaries against the mixing action of the waves. "Replicator molecules are already grouping together. It's only a matter of time before they get organized."
"Mmmmh," Optimus replied, starting to cycle his systems off. "It is hard to imagine what organized life is like, after all this chaos, searching and fighting."
Jazz leaned into him, and tapped lightly on his chest over his spark chamber. "Nothing to imagine, now. Remember how it felt to bond. That was us, organizing ourselves as we should be."
"As we should be," Optimus echoed, feeling his small partner, now his bond-mate, begin to cycle into recharge, "yes. As we should be."
He sat through the morning hours into dawn, trying not to feel the loss. The moment Megatron tore Jazz in half, Optimus felt it as if it were he himself sundered, but had no time to grieve, not even time to lash out: Sam needed him, the Allspark needed him. As he fought Megatron, he resolved that one of them would not survive the day. "One shall stand, one shall fall," he said, not really caring in that moment which one remained. He felt he had already fallen, perhaps that was why he could not defeat Megatron. Thankfully, Sam was able to see where he could not, extinguishing not his life with the Allspark, but Megatron's.
When it was all over and he accepted Jazz's physical remains from Ironhide, he still could not grieve. The humans were watching, waiting to observe the 'friendly' alien leader in action. He put on his best face, strong for his Autobots, strong for the humans, dignified and calm as was required at the beginning of diplomatic relations. He knew that his deportment in those difficult moments would set the tone for the rest of his race's - at least his faction's - interactions with their new friends.
In these quiet nights, hours that were only a fraction of a proper Cybertronian work period seemed long to one burdened with uncertainty and grief, loneliness and isolation. He sometimes imagined he felt Jazz's spark, just a hint of contact at the barest edge of his ability to detect the fluctuations of his own spark-energy. This night, still only a few weeks since everyone was repaired and they established a sort of routine in their new home, it was stronger. For just a moment, he turned his attention inward. In his Peterbilt form, opening his spark chamber shed light only on internal structure, but still exposed it to the air and the feeling of Jazz's field near him, of their sparks mingling again as they had so often since that first time beside the ammonia sea.
He knew it was only imagination, cold comfort, but he indulged the fantasy. He had been missing his bond-mate terribly, wondering if his Autobots might not be better off under Ironhide's leadership. I may not be stable any more, he thought, I knew better than to have done it, with so many lost and the chance of any of us dying higher with each altercation. He powered off all but his core processors, letting his systems rest and allowing himself to imagine that Jazz was with him.
An automotive horn honked, sounding like it was directly in front of his grill. He extended sensory perception, noting that it was late in the morning. Chagrined and less energetic than he should have been for as much time as he had lost, he closed his spark chamber and greeted Bumblebee over their radio. Bumblebee answered him happily - not accusingly as he deserved - and darted out around him, the wrong way on the street, and into the warehouse parking lot. The yellow Camaro waited, revving his engine rather than speaking over the radio: Optimus guessed that he was wanted inside. He backed up past the entrance since there was no traffic on the street to be disturbed by their activity and pulled in behind Bumblebee. He followed Bumblebee inside where they transformed as soon as the door was lowered back into place. "Good morning, Bumblebee," he started to say, when Ironhide interrupted.
"Ratchet has something you should see, Prime," Ironhide said, indicating with a shift of his head Ratchet's work area.
It was the area where Ratchet had been reassembling Jazz. Optimus both wanted to see Jazz intact and did not: would seeing him as he was supposed to look give him closure or give him nightmares? He did not know. He only knew he wanted to see Jazz restored the same as he wanted to remain on Earth, perhaps unreasonably, but with no more logical alternative readily apparent.
Ratchet was there, leaning over the... Optimus could not say 'corpse' or 'body' even in his own processor ... leaning over Jazz. He was whole, perfect. Ratchet had turned his plating pure white, the Cybertronian color of mourning and of memory. Tabula Rasa. Silently, Optimus walked to stand over the work table on which Jazz lay. Ratchet stepped aside, respectful of his friend and commander's grief. "The shard," he said slowly, "was not enough. I'm sorry, I'll," he paused, "leave you two alone." He walked away, joining Ironhide and Bumblebee in the main room.
He stood, gyro stabilization an autonomic function. "Oh, Jazz," he said, as he had when Ironhide handed the pieces to him on that fateful day, the day that saw the Allspark found and destroyed, Megatron defeated, Jazz... "You had to join battle against the biggest, the worst..." He bowed his head and off-lined his optics and most of his sensors, grief turning inward now that he had final confirmation: repaired, Jazz's shell remained that, an empty exostructure. As he had the previous night, he imagined he felt Jazz's field near him, urging him to open his core and let his spark be touched, even if only by the atmosphere of Earth.
The feeling grew stronger, the familiar sense of the energy that was Jazz overwhelming him. Knowing it was only whimsy, a wish from the depth of his soul that could not be fulfilled, lost in sadness he did not even know how to express, he gave in to it, opening his spark chamber.
It felt like the last time they let their sparks merge, no different from the first time. Sensuous and chaste, glorious, celebratory, sharing ...life.
Servos whined softly, a fan whirred, pumps cycled, a processor sent signals with detectable field fluctuations. An unexpected but familiar, indescribably welcome voice spoke his name, "Optimus."
He was not alone. Jazz was sitting up slowly, his plating open and spark radiating to and receiving tendrils of light from Optimus's. No words needed, their bond sufficed as the conduit of expression.
"This is why I stayed," he would tell Mikaela when they reintroduced Jazz to the world. Could he explain that he had carried Jazz's life-force? Would they even understand the technical details of it, themselves? There was no way to know. For the time being, however, the universe contained only the two of them, points of light in the darkness, motes of fire, lives that could not be separated by death.