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Jazz and Prowl fought a lot more than Rhythm and Redline ever had. And that included Rhythm’s glitch-rages which, according to Redline, didn’t count.
Why is that? the thought drifted lazily through the shared parts of their processor. Prowl’s curiosity bubbled through the tangled heap of sun-warmed metal that was currently Prowl-and-Jazz.
Jazz’s old pain bubbled up in response. Redline’s death was a wound that still ached millions of years after the fact. Prowl soothed it as he always had, and shared it, for all that he’d only met the mech once.
Redline didn’ allow it, Jazz finally answered. He never trusted himself to hold back the killing blow.
The memories of Redline-the-Gladiator that flitted through them predated Prowl’s creation. The dull, primer-grey mech — Rhythm who would later become Jazz — hit the energon-soaked gravel, and the crowd roared in anticipation of a kill. His opponent closed slowly, theatrically, and it cost him. Redline, who’d been thrown aside earlier in the fight, leaped over his smaller partner, claws sinking into the tank’s already serious wounds. Rhythm recovered, stubbornly remaining in his more easily damaged mech-form. They hadn’t yet learned how to rewrite the corrupted portions of the code that made Rhythm lose control of himself when he transformed, and a two-v-one battle would be a bad place to berserk. Together they’d harried the were-tank, and it was Redline who dealt the killing blow. Beautiful and deadly. And when he turned his optics to the grey were-car who remained, the crowd roared again in encouragement. Sometimes, both cars riding high on victory and without a proper track structure to enforce a hierarchy, the cars would turn on each other and the crowd would get an additional show.
But Redline had only ever given one command: “Don’t fight me.”
So Rhythm flattened his armor and exposed his wires, and it was a very different sort of show the crowd got when Redline pounced.
Vicious Defender indeed, Prowl’s mind-voice was wry over the whirring of their cooling fans, the fading crackle of electricity from their shared overload, the sharp, and rhythmic ping! ping! ping! of their armor as it cooled back down to the desert’s ambient temperature. You certainly don’t do anything by halves.
Neither do you.
Prowl’s agreement twined around that statement, turning the two thoughts into one, neither do you — I agree. It was one of the reasons they did so well together. They balanced each other.
So why do you? Prowl asked as they basked in each other, personalities as intertwined as their networking cords.
There was no words in the answering question-curiosity that flowed back through them.
Why do you fight with me? Prowl clarified. Prowl tolerated no dissent or rebellion in his track, not even from Jazz. That had never stopped Jazz from pushing him to defend his position as track leader, or stopped Prowl from forgiving him once he surrendered. A challenge was not rebellion and love got Jazz a lot of leeway.
Fighting, or racing, Jazz always pushed Prowl to the very limits of his combat abilities and there were some fights that — reviewing them later — he thought he perhaps shouldn’t have won, except Jazz had surrendered.
Jazz’s agreement chased that thought through them both. They were evenly matched. Jazz could kill him, but had never intended to win.
Why? Prowl repeated.
Y’ never told me not t’ fight y’.
I have, he insisted. He had. He’d slammed Jazz into the ground and growled for him to “Slagging stop fighting me you glitch,” and depending on where they were in the fight, how slagged they were, how close the claw wounds had come to vital energon lines or even tearing into each others’ sparks, Jazz would either laugh and twist away, circling to attack from a new angle, or he would surrender, engine whining for forgiveness and hitting that exact pitch that always stayed Prowl’s claws from a killing blow. Even though the logic simulator always calculated a ninety-nine percent chance that Jazz would challenge him again, he also calculated that Jazz’s surrender was always genuine and there would be no benefit to the track or himself from following through. But the logic processor was… wary, though true emotion was beyond him while he operated under that programming. His surrender was genuine, but for how long? Love gave him a lot of leeway, but logic dictated that one day one of those challenges would be genuine and love would not be enough to make the surrender real.
Not like Redline did, Jazz said. If I’d ever fought him outside a glitch-rage an’ he’d’a either killed or abandoned me.
The new wave of rage-pain — I’m alone — Redline’s gone! — was not fresh, was tempered by a million years’ distance, but still strong enough to swamp them both. It made it perfectly clear which he’d have preferred in that case.
I won’t ever abandon you, Prowl promised. An easy promise. It had been Jazz who’d left, abandoned Prowl and the track in Iacon to revenge Redline’s death, all those millions of years ago. But Prowl had only been an acquaintance then. Perhaps a new friend. Attractive. Strong. Desired. But nothing compared to vorns as Redline’s shadow.
No. Prowl would never abandon him.
I know. Y’ put me in my place instead.
Another tumble of memories, all the times either Redline or Prowl had put Jazz in his place chased away the grief. With a growl Prowl pinned his lover, who flailed and fought but went limp when the larger mech shifted so his foot pressed down on the armor over his hip, slightly curled around the edge of the armor and ready to rip it away. Not a traditional expression of were-car dominance, but losing that joint would be a death sentence in either a Kaon arena battle or the War they’d both survived.
The silver mech arched, pressing up against that pinning foot until the armor dented a little. Electricity crackled along both their networking cords and through both their power grids.
Jazz was still under him when overload faded once again. Affectionately Prowl groomed Earth’s ever-present dust from ozone flavored plating, and the silver heap of satiated metal let out an exhausted chuckle.
I love you, Prowl thought, But if you wanted your own track, I wouldn’t stop you. There’s enough of us here now, and you and I could still meet at the temple. Or we could share territory.
Before the war, were-car territories had been inviolate. No trespassing in another track’s territory and no leaving your own except to find a new track. War and resettlement on Earth had revealed flexibility in the territorial programming and forced them to abandon the old ways. Neutral ground was a new thing, as was tracks who could share their territories by maintaining a hierarchy among the track Firsts. It was an offer that spoke directly to the virus’ dominance instincts. Any were-car would be tempted. With his cunning and speed, Jazz could rule a track, easily.
But, I ain’t never wanted t’ be anything but Second to a strong First, Jazz said.
And it was true. Redline, Prowl, Optimus, then Prowl again… as much as he’d pushed and fought, nipped and criticized, teased and goaded and raced, at the end of each Challenge, formal or informal, Jazz submitted.
Prowl didn’t understand, even when connected as intimately as they were now. But then how could he? For Prowl, control of his nature had come in dominance. In becoming First of the Iacon Track, Prowl had mastered his new destiny as a were-car.
Jazz… Glitch. Berserker. Flow of Battle had had enough spark-deep combat proficiency to have survived the gladiator pits where most of his kind had not, but he’d never been in control.
Not until the moons’ hold had released him one morning and he’d looked up at the red form of his new cellmate who’d somehow, miraculously survived the night. He’d defeated Rhythm, fought the berserker to a standstill… For Jazz, control had been earned in submission.
You’ve never shared that memory, Prowl’s thought flowed through them, rising and falling like an ocean wave, there and gone without any demand for that to change.
Private.
I know, and I respect that. But I don’t like that I don’t — can’t — understand this about you. They fit together perfectly. Even Prowl’s dominance and Jazz’s submission was a place that fit together to create near-perfect trust. But that dissonance was a sharp edge that didn’t fit anywhere. Jazz understood Prowl’s obsessive dominance. It may have been honed to a razor’s edge by rebuilding a track from a betrayal that had started a war, but it was born of the virus’ influence on their systems. Jazz, however, was what he was despite that common denominator. And without that understanding, the logic processor would always calculate there was a chance, however small, that Jazz would turn on him. It wasn’t… a lack of trust, but a limit to trust. One day the challenge would be real. Nothing was unconditional.
Jazz withdrew from their shared mental space. He didn’t disconnect, but he pulled up a code-wall — not even a firewall, just a barrier that kept their thoughts from leaking into each others’. Respecting this desire for distance, Prowl just continued grooming the dust off his mate and Second. The silver mech squirmed, licking along the larger mech’s collar strut, seeking to appease the dominant were-car by returning the wipe-down. The black and white were-car just growled his engine, a deep and low warning to behave, and held him down. There’s nothing you need to apologize for, the thought was broadcast hard enough to bridge the mental distance between them.
His only answer was the forgive-me engine whine as the silver frame went limp.
Prowl could sense that Jazz was thinking. If he’d wanted to he could breach those walls and lay him bare for his perusal. Jazz could put up a fight there — of the two, Jazz was the better hacker — but he’d be starting with all of his defenses down. He didn’t. He just hummed his engine in contentment while he licked his way over the silver mech’s plating, stopping to gently bite a cable or tube occasionally — dominance and foreplay in a single gesture — before moving on, and let the other mech think.
The sun was setting when Jazz opened up those walls again, mentally peeking out to assess his First’s mood. Finding Prowl still in as good a mood as when he’d retreated he opened up fully. Y’ mind if I show y’ a bit about about living wit’ th’ glitch first?
I love everything you are, Jazz. Even this. Even the glitch. Nothing you show me will change that.
It was like a flower bloomed, but instead of something beautiful, the memory was… drab. Prowl had expected something horrifying. A world seen through uncontrollable rage, but instead the Rhythm of this memory, Flow of Battle, was….apathetic. Depressed even. he curled up on his nest of metal-mesh scraps and stared at the rust-stained wall of the cell. Of the cage.
And… stared.
There was nothing to do. Nothing to see, and Rhythm didn’t even know that there was anything for him to do or see so he curled up there, most of the time not even bothering to move to alleviate strain on his frame. There were footsteps and growls and the occasional sound of a fight in cells down the hall, but they were no more than background noise. They’d always been there, and Flow of Battle had long ago judged them irrelevant and uninteresting. Prowl checked the times stamps, expecting to see the seconds tick by at a snail’s pace, but instead saw that Jazz was speeding through the memories. Vorns of this, only occasionally broken by a keeper coming to lead the unpainted mech to the pit to fight.
Rhythm followed the keeper and his drone-assistants tamely. The hallway was as much a part of his world as the rusting cell, and he had no more interest in it than he had in the walls. Even the roar of the crowd and the sight of his opponent failed to catch any interest.
The other car charged, and instinctively Rhythm changed to his more armored car-form to weather the attack… then nothing.
Prowl-Rhythm woke back up in the cell, lethargic with the after effects of repeatedly being tasered and shot full of strong sedatives. He stretched and examined a network of new weld-marks. Pain caught his interest, but it was fleeting and he settled back down into his pile of rags to recharge.
Then… a new mech was shoved into the cage with him. This had happened before, Prowl realized, but other than the scattering of metallic shards that occasionally appeared and disappeared from the cage even he, observing, hadn’t noticed them. Dull red, he wasn’t much to look at and this memory was only so distinct, so clearly distinguished from the mire of apathetic ones before it because it had been preserved in retrospect. It hadn’t been important at the time, but became important because of what happened next: Night fell, they transformed…
And Redline survived.
Not only that, but Redline continued to survive.
And for the first time Flow of Battle had a reason to live.
Flow-of-Battle — Jazz — was a person because another mech, another were-car, had proven stronger than he was.
Jazz had withdrawn again, not building the wall between them, but not willing to experience Prowl’s rage and disgust as he viewed the memories. He was surprised when Prowl’s mental presence practically pounced his, meshing them together and engulfing him with pride and love and mine!
I understand, the thought flowed through them. And when next time you misbehave, I will make you lick my pedes.
Laughter bubbled in one of their sparks and skittered across their thoughts.
.
.
.
End