Title: Shards I
Author: AotA
Rating: T
Warnings: angst, attempted suicide
Characters: Jazz, Optimus, Ratchet
Setting: very AU tf-bayverse
Summary: Allegiances fluctuated at the beginning of the war, some voluntarily… some not so much.
Notes: This is not beta-read so go ahead and point out something that I need to correct.

Jazz howled in agony that had no readily visible source, "Prowl!" The silver saboteur stopped and keened in despair, ignoring the battle raging around him. His deadly clawed hands rose to his chest as plates opened, exposing his spark. He reached within his chest and, like he had done to so many Autobots on the battlefield and in their berths at night, wrapped his claws about his unarmored spark and laser core.

He paused and offlined his optics, allowing himself a moment to remember. With one last whisper of Prowl's name, he ripped his spark, laser core and all, from his chest cavity.

Or at least he tried to. He found a large hand clamped around his wrist instead. Jazz onlined his optics in utter outrage. He glared at the hand and followed the arm it was attached to up and up and up until he met Autobot blue optics. "You dare!" Jazz snarled, twisting and writhing against the inexorable hold but was unable to move himself that last little bit to jostle his spark free.

Jazz thrashed wildly but ineffectively as his vocalizer angrily hissed and spat. There was nothing he could do. Despite his fans working in overdrive, they couldn't manage to siphon off enough heat to prevent his autonomic systems from kicking him directly into stasis.

Sad blue optics stared down at the red visored Decepticon who had tried to rip out his own spark out of his chest, "Not to worry, small one. Your Prowl isn't dead." Optimus looked a ways away where Ratchet was working on a black and white mech with a Praxian frame. "If we had thought that there was even a chance of a bond… we would have done this very differently."

Optimus gently picked up the small, deadly mech, and carefully removed his hands from their dangerous position. He coaxed chest plated back into place and cradled the silver mech in his arms. Ratchet? Prowl has a bonded. And I just barely managed to keep him from offlining himself. Can you manually disable Prowl's comm. and remove the disruptor? I don't want to lose Prowl because of a misunderstanding after we only just got him back.

Optimus winced at the burst of expletives that came from his CMO but echoed to sentiment himself. Using disruptors on bonded mechs tended to have… tragic results. He looked down at the mech that he held. Whoever he was, Optimus counted himself lucky that he had noticed the mech suddenly freeze even as the Decepticon retreat was called. If he hadn't… It didn't bear thinking about.