[Fic] Seven Days -- Part 4/7: (Thursday) Horizontal Jazz
Title: Seven Days -- Part 4/7: (Thursday) Horizontal Jazz
Author: Lyricality (lyricality)
Rating: M/NC-17 for graphic sparksex
Pairings: Eventual Bee/everyone. In this part, Jazz/Bee with some Sam/Bee.
Disclaimer: The G1 repaint Starscream movie toy belongs to me. The rest of Transformers does not. All characters are of legal age.
Note/Summary: So late. Too long. Someday, I swear I will get a chapter out on the right day. Again, blame nemi_chan and her marvelous prompt o' doom, in which Bumblebee is the resident pleasurebot of the Autobots. The title is still meant to be as porntastically cheesy as possible, and this part gets its designation by way of lola_hard. ♥ Cookies for the Special Hell?
Part 1/7: (Monday) Prime Time can be found here.
Part 2/7: (Tuesday) Iron Ride can be found here.
Part 3/7: (Wednesday) Doctor Love can be found here.
Bee realized the true extent of his troubles when Sam refused a ride to school the next morning.
“Walking,” Sam snapped when Bee drew up alongside him and swung open the door. He persisted even when Bee gave him a very gentle bump in the side and made a softly inviting beep of the horn. “Walking,” he repeated, giving Bee a shove. “Get off the sidewalk, Bee. I am totally walking until you tell me the truth.”
Despite skipping a recharge cycle and worrying over the matter all night, Bee still couldn’t give him an answer, and Sam finally turned away again in hurt disgust.
Hurt in return--whether he had a right to the feeling or not--Bee retreated to headquarters, where he found Ratchet in the medical bay, as expected. His teacher gave him a narrowly discerning glance over his latest project, which looked like part of Jazz’s detached shield. Deciding not to bother with false appearances, Bee answered him with a silently miserable gaze of his own.
Ratchet sighed. “I suppose lecturing you will do no good whatsoever.”
Bee shook his head, wordless. If he only knew how to follow Ratchet’s advice, he would gladly endure a sermon on the subject. Instead, he hopped up to sit on the edge of the examination table, reaching out to graze his fingers along Ratchet’s arm, speaking only when the medic looked at him again. “I’m sorry.” A pause, and he glanced down at the floor. “About yesterday.” He lowered his voice even more. “About--”
Fingers against his chin stopped him. Ratchet wore an expression of mixed affection and exasperation. “Your intentions are good. Your choice of action is not.”
That stung, but Bee could hardly refute him, and simply nodded with obvious reluctance.
Ratchet seemed prepared to let the matter go, and he let Bee go as well, returning both his hands to whatever delicate bit of reconstruction had been absorbing his attention before Bee’s arrival. Nevertheless, the silence had an awkward weight, and Bee searched for something more to say. He’d never possessed Ratchet’s easy way with conversation; some things never improved even with practice.
“Bumblebee,” said a joyously familiar voice, drawing out the last syllable into a sensual purr.
Whirling, Bee chirped at the not-unexpected but still devastating vision of Jazz, leaning against the doorway between the medical bay and its single recovery room, his armor restored to its blinding Solstice sheen. He had his visor up, and now the gleam of his optics reflected the blue of that customary accessory. The precise mix of materials available here on Earth could not duplicate the visor’s original darker shade, but the difference wasn’t jarring. It suited.
No doubt Jazz sensed Bee’s delight. He quirked a smile and held out an arm. “C’mere.”
Ratchet spun around and pointed one finger back at the recovery room. “Recovery berth. Now. Did I give you permission for general locomotion? I did not.”
“I requested my own second opinion, s’all.” Jazz caught Bee with one hand, his grip still weaker than Bee would have liked. But he still felt the same, new shapes but the same sensations, still Jazz when Bee wrapped both arms around his waist and curled in against him.
With a threatening step forward, Ratchet smiled, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant. “I believe I said now.”
“No bitchin’, Ratchet,” said Jazz with a smirk. “You already got your turn.”
“Shut up,” the medical officer instructed. “I have ground rules. Damage each other and I will deactivate you both. Overstrain yourself, Jazz, and I swear by all the gears of Primus that I will personally dismantle you. The first hint, the slightest buzz of an irregular reading, and I will--"
“Come check up on us yourself?” Jazz finished for him with a grin, then neatly ducked the first projectile Ratchet could lay his hands on, which turned out to be a much-abused Phillips screwdriver.
Eager to avert catastrophe, Bee insinuated himself behind Jazz, giving the first lieutenant a persuasive tug backward toward the berth. “Jazz. It’s been a long time...” He could be manipulative too, when he chose, but Jazz had little in the way of resistance just now, and followed him step by step back into the recovery room, his hands pressing in against Bee’s thighs. He bypassed the armor, touching gears and wiring directly.
“Too long, little Bee.”
Ratchet’s threat followed them in before the door slid shut. “I have all my secondary sensors trained on you, Jazz.”
“Ain’t that a lovely thought,” Jazz muttered, but cheered up immeasurably once Bee stretched out against the recovery berth and pulled him down as well. Jazz arranged them face to face on their sides, hands clasped between them.
Bee shook his head. “You can’t fault him for worrying.” Disentangling one hand, he lifted his fingers to trace the angles of Jazz’s face, something stuttering for a moment in his intake valves. “He blamed himself.”
“Shouldn’t do that,” Jazz said, the edges of his mouth catching against Bee’s fingertips. “It’s ’cause a’ him I’m here at all.”
Shaking his head again, Bee felt his fingers trembling, a vibration in his mechanics that had nothing to do with passion, but simply with pain. “I missed you.” He caught his hand around the back of Jazz’s head to bring him closer, nestling into the space below his chin despite Bee’s somewhat larger size. “I missed you, Jazz.” He couldn’t say it enough, not nearly as much as he meant it.
Jazz softened, and not just physically. No matter how open he seemed on the surface, he built walls within that rivaled titanium for strength, in accord with his characteristic pursuit of controlling all input and output of information. His hands slipped inward from Bee’s outer thighs, caressing with flicks of his fingertips that sent tingling currents through both armor and interior.
“Let’s hear ya, Bee,” he whispered against Bee’s neck. “Been too long since I’ve heard ya.”
Bee moaned. Not the silent arch of approval to which he had once been limited, not even the senseless chirps and whines he’d managed without his vocal components, but the full groan of a designation. “Jazz.”
A shiver ran through Jazz’s frame, his hands tightening with suddenly magnetic force, and Bee gave him a shout in reaction, both his hands wrapping around Jazz’s wrists. “Sorry,” Jazz gasped, his grip easing, magnetism fading into a pleasant thrum instead of a wrenching pulse through Bee’s metallic systems. “Didn’t mean ta...come on so strong.” Jazz usually had excellent control, and his failure to regain all of it since his reactivation plainly frustrated him.
“Shh.” Bee pulled him back into the moment, pressing them chest to chest, rolling onto his back and pulling Jazz over him. “It’s okay. Touch me.”
Just a moment passed before Jazz had gathered his confidence again. This time his hands slipped over Bee’s exoskeletal armor with a different sort of power in their circuits, something Bee recognized.
Humans often performed their courtship rituals with music as a backdrop, as Bee had discovered during his study of the internet, as he had experienced during his observation of Sam with Mikaela. He had learned to make his selections with particular care, to avoid Sam’s protesting smacks against his hood while in his alternate form. To a great extent, Bee understood Sam’s musical idiosyncrasies. These beings applied so many emotional levels to music, far beyond the mere conveniences of communication for which Bee still used it. He suspected that Jazz would have a clearer understanding of the subtleties.
After all, Jazz had taken his obsession with music to its natural extreme. He used it to make love.
In its raw form, music meant energy. When rendered powerfully enough, sound created not just waves, but physical repercussions, shattering glass as well as the fragile machinery of the human ear, shaking the earth and sky in the breaking of its barriers. Gentle notes could soothe children, could calm the human heartbeat. In one sense, gentle rainfall had every bit the same power as a sonic boom.
Jazz seemed intent on proving the hypothesis. Bee recognized the song Jazz had chosen, but appreciated it less for the words and more for the slowly pulsing beat of the bass line, transmitted in soft and regular bursts through the metal of those quicksilver fingers. Hands splaying, smoothing, Jazz made gradual strokes over his chest, downward to his waist and along both thighs, and Bee cried out at the movement of that music against his wiring.
He hadn’t so much skill of his own, but he could still return touch with touch. Easing his fingers under the plates of Jazz’s back, he sought the connectors that lined the neural cables, teasing with a slow and symmetrical caress that had Jazz arching, muttering curses.
A full minute passed before Jazz could summon up the forbearance to exact his revenge--hands flat against Bee’s chest, a change in musical frequency that sent stunning reverberations past his armoring to echo in his spark. Bee dissolved into a whimpering wreck. Without quite managing a coherent command, he opened all the armoring over his chest, defenses down and spark bared. His hands trembled against Jazz’s armor in return, urgent pressure in his fingertips.
“Touch me, Jazz.”
“Bumblebee...” Jazz lifted one hand to cradle Bee’s head, his optics so brightly alight. Bee remembered them deactivated, dark for too long, and the memory made him cling, fingers parting Jazz’s outer armor before the lieutenant stopped him with a hand around his wrists. “I can manage that.” Shifting, he arranged them on their sides again, facing each other, their legs naturally entwining as they sought closer contact. His chest plating slid open, exposing his restored spark.
Bee reached out, but Jazz pushed forward, bypassing Bee’s hand to bring their chests together in a slow slide toward full alignment. In this position, the act seemed less like simply interfacing, with its frequent undertones of dominance or submission, and more like an unexpectedly deep embrace.
“This is what I been wantin’,” Jazz said, his voice like the purr of his engine. Tendrils of electricity snaked between their sparks.
Connection flared through Bee’s systems in a warm and crackling wave, Jazz’s thoughts firing along his own and setting his neural processors quivering, so much focused presence that he’d feared lost forever, and Bee let the combination of stimulation and sensation overwhelm him. His need bordered on panic, his hold on Jazz’s spark too weak, and he let out a silent sob.
“Hey,” Jazz whispered, foregoing their deeper connection in favor of speaking aloud. Bee relished pure mental connection, but Jazz always preferred real talk--he trusted words more than emotion. “Hey, now.” Arms tightened around him, and Jazz was smaller than he was but could hold him just as well. Between the two of them, energy sparked and soothed, and Jazz tangled his presence around Bee’s, his embrace emotional and physical, sensuality displaced in favor of tenderness.
Bee shuddered, cursing himself. So stupid--to be trained to offer comfort, and to need it instead.
“Stop that.” Jazz shuddered in return, his hands tensing against Bee’s back. Then he shared an emotion that wasn’t quite fear and certainly wasn’t despair, but carried overtones of desperation so keen that Bee couldn’t help it, he offered up all of himself without a moment’s hesitation or regret. With an audible groan, Jazz shifted just his upper body, pushing their sparks together, gliding them against each other under a deliciously painful pressure. “That’s it,” he urged, when Bee yelped and squirmed to increase the friction. “Like that--more a’ that.” The grating edge to his voice made Bee ache. “There’s no part a’ you I don’t want, Bumblebee...”
Bee offered him fervent agreement and incredible elation. He welcomed as much of Jazz as Jazz could give, entirely passionate about pleasure, wanting to give as much as he received.
Maybe more.
Jazz returned with music, grasping hold of something he could focus and control, variable frequencies amplifying and vibrating against metal components. And it was good, so good, and Primus but how he had missed Jazz, because they were so good together like this, already back in rhythm with each other. They both loved to touch; they both loved to play. Together, combined fully, they made a joy so keen that it might be a form of energy all its own, bright enough to power new stars, familiar enough to soothe lingering despair.
Bee shouted with the pure intensity of it. His spark thrummed to the rhythm of Jazz’s music, waves of sound and sensation running through every circuit. He heard Jazz cry out in response, a single shaken note in harmony.
Crescendo.
They shared a scorching burst of sonic energy, emotion releasing between them in minor keys of gratitude, relief, satisfaction and euphoria.
So good.
Bee returned only gradually to full awareness, and with Ratchet in mind, he turned an immediate system scan on Jazz, relieved when it turned up nothing abnormal except slightly overheated central circuit boards. No damage. Everything would be all right, Jazz was theirs again, and the dizzying reality of it increased the sense of weightlessness Bee always experienced after a surge.
Nobody better’n you, Bee. Jazz’s consciousness rubbed against his with a touch of mental laughter, weak but warm. He stretched against Bee, but made no move to end their connection, and Bee had no intention of rushing their separation.
He sent back a wordless burst of agreement that earned him another laugh.
But somethin’s got you needin’ a little understanding. Somewhat recovered, Jazz slid sure hands along Bee’s sides, his music dimmed now to background noise, a pleasant vibration. There’s all sorts a’ feelings tangled up in you. His fingers traced careful paths as he lightly rocked against Bee, keeping their sparks aligned. Things I never felt before. You’d better come clean with it.
Reluctant, Bee wavered, unsure of placing burdens on someone so recently--and not yet fully--recovered. He could share his thoughts far more easily in this way than with words, and he imagined that Jazz was one step ahead of him, keeping to the silent communication of their connection for that very reason.
I shouldn’t.
C’mon, Bee. Who else ya gonna tell?
He played his trump card, that feeling of longtime understanding and affection injected subtly into Bee’s unsteady thoughts. Jazz had known him since their days in the Academy together--almost since his sparking, in fact, and he had no defense for that sort of intimacy at all, as the lieutenant well knew. One crack split through his minimalist defenses, then another, confusion and something too much like shame poisoning the connection between their sparks. Jazz reached out again with concern, with camaraderie, and Bee made a softly anguished sound and gave up the battle.
Everything rushed out at once, Sam and his hands and his weight and his warmth, lies by omission and fear of rejection, so much caring and need because of duty and more, doubt and misunderstanding and a cultural rift too vast to bridge.
True to his background in communications, Jazz listened without comment, waiting until Bee had surrendered all his thoughts and feelings before settling mentally back to examine the rush of information. He analyzed all of it for a minute or more, finally rendering his opinion with a touch of easy sympathy. That ain’t no simple thing. Knew these organics had courage. Didn’t know they could care like us, ’til I heard more a’ their music.
His hands smoothed along the wings on Bee’s back, his touch as calming as his thoughts.
Never thought about lovin’ one a’ them, really.
Bee made a little sound of unhappiness, hearing Jazz use the word he’d been too shy to say. Sam is special, he insisted.
Yeah, I get that. Jazz stroked him into silence again, sensations and spark combining together into a soothing refuge, and Bee curled into him with wordless gratitude. But Bee, he’s as special as you say, he’s gonna understand what you are. Why it’s important. Even if Earth ain’t got nothing quite like it. He chuckled aloud, and the mental feeling of it reminded Bee of soap bubbles on a warm breeze. B’sides, humans like new things.
New things that fit their established ideas, Bee sighed, but he felt a little better, the complications of loving Sam weighing a bit less heavily once shared.
Hands moving along Bee’s sides in another comforting caress, Jazz quirked him a smile. Either way, you’re past time ta give ’im the truth. As if Bee didn’t know that already, with the evidence of their argument still fresh in his thoughts.
I know.
Then Jazz went suddenly tense through all his joints, even his spark skipping in its rhythm with refocused attention. With his visor still retracted, his optics dimmed and flickered, a sure sign of some signal received. Bee supposed he should have known that Jazz would never cease monitoring communications, no matter what his primary activity might be.
Concern replaced amusement when Jazz went lax again with a shudder, astonishment at the forefront in his expression. A moment later, he called out over an open frequency, his voice fluctuating with a strange and moving excitement.
-PRIME!-
*****
He’d missed bringing Sam home from school, but he doubted his boy would have accepted a ride in any case. Instead of trying any subtler technique at all in the limited amount of time Optimus had given him, Bee sat outside the Witwicky house and blasted the horn until he heard Sam’s mother shouting above it.
“For Christ’s sake, Sam, will you see what he wants?”
Several seconds later, Sam appeared with a thunderous wrath in his eyes. Bee immediately stopped the noise, endured a minute or so of being told to shut up despite that, and waited for any further ranting to cease before he opened the driver’s side door.
“Sam,” he said, low and urgent, and Sam’s glare transformed into worry at the tone. “Please. Optimus sent me for you.”
Sam didn’t waste a moment more, but disappeared inside again just long enough to collect his jacket and his wallet. “Going out!” he shouted for his parents’ benefit when he left the house again, ignoring the path and abusing the grass to settle in the driver’s seat as quickly as possible. Bee tried to suppress a burst of joy, knowing that Sam still trusted him enough to ignore their argument in the face of an apparent crisis.
“Home before midnight!” Ron Witwicky called after them, and Bee flicked his lights and honked twice to indicate his compliance.
“Eighteen years old, Dad,” Sam muttered under his breath as they pulled out onto the road, but he had his hands on the steering wheel again, letting it turn beneath his fingers while Bee drove. “Okay. Decepticon attack? Headquarters explode? Annabelle threw up in Ironhide again? What’s the emergency?”
“Jazz has received a signal.”
Sam gripped the wheel, excitement sparking in his eyes. “No way. No way!” Then he abruptly paled. “Um. You mean an Autobot signal, right?”
“We think so.”
Letting out his breath, Sam tried to relax back against the seat. “Do you know who it might be?”
Bee swerved, passing three cars and turning onto the highway heading out of Tranquility. “Not yet. Optimus thinks the protoform’s distance transmitter is damaged. It’s mostly repeating our message back to us, but it has ranking security codes. If it’s a trap, it’s an awfully good one.”
“But you think it’s a friend.”
Bee chirped in affirmation. “But if it isn’t, we want to make sure you’re safe. Optimus wants you there to hear Jazz’s briefing.”
“It’s great that he’s okay,” Sam offered, shifting in a way that suggested nervousness. He hadn’t had the chance to truly know Jazz, and Bee imagined he had every right toward a little shy uncertainty. “You guys could use more friends.”
Bee debated on keeping silent, but decided on reassurance. “He’ll like you, Sam.” The boy rewarded him with a glimpse of a smile before sobering again.
But not as much as I do.
Sam went quiet for a minute, his fingers tapping against the edge of the wheel. “I’m still pissed at you,” he said at length.
“You have a right.”
“No shit,” Sam muttered. “You lie to me--not saying anything is the same as lying, Bee--you’re never around anymore when I expect you to be, you’re keeping secrets that I obviously have some right to know, or you wouldn’t be acting anywhere near this guilty, and you won’t tell me any of it when I ask you straight out.” He’d counted out every strike on his fingers, and now he frowned at the dashboard in a way that made Bee want to gather him up in both hands and beg for forgiveness. “Did I miss anything?”
More than he knew. “No. Sam... I’ve done all of that. I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling more than a little broken by admitting it.
Silence settled between them again, thick and unpleasant, and then Sam sighed and leaned forward, resting his chin against the center of the wheel. “And then you make it worse,” he said, “by making it so hard to stay mad at you. Jesus, Bee.” His hands ran along the dashboard, over the dials, his touch imploring, and Bee couldn’t suppress a true shiver. “Don’t wanna fight with you, Bee. Can’t you just tell me the truth?”
Another silence, and Bee wished he’d learned more eloquence from Ratchet. “I want to.”
“It’s got to do with what you are,” Sam said, pensive. “What you do. Doesn’t it?”
Bee whispered it. “Yes. It’s... Sam, I’m a scout. That’s why I came to Earth before the others. But that isn’t all I do. There’s something else, and it’s...it’s just as important.” Sometimes more important, though he might never have said such a thing before the destruction of the Allspark.
Sam gave out a little nervous laugh, and Bee heard him swallow before he said, “You’re kind of scaring me, Bee. You aren’t like...an assassin or something, right? Or like the chief inquisitor or something awful like that?”
“Oh, Sam, nothing like that. It’s not bad, or...or wrong.” He hated the edge of pleading already creeping into his voice, begging Sam to understand what he hadn’t even explained. “But there’s no word for it on Earth.”
Sitting back, Sam framed the Autobot symbol on the steering wheel with both hands. “No word for it. What does that mean?”
“You don’t have anything like it on Earth,” Bee clarified miserably.
“Then...there’s gotta be a word for it in your language, right? What is it?”
Bee chuckled despite himself. “I’m sorry, Sam. You couldn’t pronounce it.” He considered this method of thought for a moment or two more, nevertheless. “But roughly translated, it would mean something like...” He searched for the best literal match in English, ignoring the emotional connotations of his duties. “Conduit.”
Plainly, that didn’t help at all. Sam only appeared more confused.
“The term is archaic,” Bee tried, a little too desperate. “It isn’t literal, just traditional. It has to do with energy--spark energy--and the conducting of it. I’m sorry. It loses a lot in the translation, but that was the closest match suggested by 247 web-based dictionaries.”
“Okay, okay.” Sam held up a hand, and Bee shut himself up. “It’s complicated. I can dig that.” Looking out the windshield, he sighed. “And I’ll bet you aren’t gonna have time to explain all of it to me just now.” Bee meant to protest, but the faint lights of the Autobot base shone in the near distance. He revved his engine in frustration mixed with guilty relief. “It’s okay,” Sam said. “I mean, you’re talking, so that’s good. I can wait.” He frowned again, though the warmth stayed in his eyes. “You don’t have some weird-ass secret thing to do tomorrow, right?”
“No,” Bee was glad enough to reply. They had passed the checkpoint, and he turned along the dirt tire trail, heading toward the cliffs in the distance and the innocuous set of military buildings below them. “Tomorrow I’m yours.”
“Just the way I like it.” Sam kept his tone intentionally light, or so Bee imagined.
Maybe they could stay just as close as this, even after he confessed...everything. Sam cared for him, after all, because Sam had a tremendous capacity for caring. His empathy rivaled only his courage, and if anyone else might consider Bee somewhat biased in that opinion, he didn’t much care. Sam termed him his best friend, and maybe that connection would be enough to let the boy forgive what he might not be prepared to understand about Cybertronian culture.
They pulled past a barrier of razor wire and subtler defenses to approach the base entrance. Bee rolled to a stop and opened the door, giving Sam time enough to get out before he transformed.
Maybe the hand of a friend wouldn’t linger so long against his hood, or leave it with a little caress.
And maybe those were dangerous, dangerous realizations.
*****
Author: Lyricality (lyricality)
Rating: M/NC-17 for graphic sparksex
Pairings: Eventual Bee/everyone. In this part, Jazz/Bee with some Sam/Bee.
Disclaimer: The G1 repaint Starscream movie toy belongs to me. The rest of Transformers does not. All characters are of legal age.
Note/Summary: So late. Too long. Someday, I swear I will get a chapter out on the right day. Again, blame nemi_chan and her marvelous prompt o' doom, in which Bumblebee is the resident pleasurebot of the Autobots. The title is still meant to be as porntastically cheesy as possible, and this part gets its designation by way of lola_hard. ♥ Cookies for the Special Hell?
Part 1/7: (Monday) Prime Time can be found here.
Part 2/7: (Tuesday) Iron Ride can be found here.
Part 3/7: (Wednesday) Doctor Love can be found here.
Bee realized the true extent of his troubles when Sam refused a ride to school the next morning.
“Walking,” Sam snapped when Bee drew up alongside him and swung open the door. He persisted even when Bee gave him a very gentle bump in the side and made a softly inviting beep of the horn. “Walking,” he repeated, giving Bee a shove. “Get off the sidewalk, Bee. I am totally walking until you tell me the truth.”
Despite skipping a recharge cycle and worrying over the matter all night, Bee still couldn’t give him an answer, and Sam finally turned away again in hurt disgust.
Hurt in return--whether he had a right to the feeling or not--Bee retreated to headquarters, where he found Ratchet in the medical bay, as expected. His teacher gave him a narrowly discerning glance over his latest project, which looked like part of Jazz’s detached shield. Deciding not to bother with false appearances, Bee answered him with a silently miserable gaze of his own.
Ratchet sighed. “I suppose lecturing you will do no good whatsoever.”
Bee shook his head, wordless. If he only knew how to follow Ratchet’s advice, he would gladly endure a sermon on the subject. Instead, he hopped up to sit on the edge of the examination table, reaching out to graze his fingers along Ratchet’s arm, speaking only when the medic looked at him again. “I’m sorry.” A pause, and he glanced down at the floor. “About yesterday.” He lowered his voice even more. “About--”
Fingers against his chin stopped him. Ratchet wore an expression of mixed affection and exasperation. “Your intentions are good. Your choice of action is not.”
That stung, but Bee could hardly refute him, and simply nodded with obvious reluctance.
Ratchet seemed prepared to let the matter go, and he let Bee go as well, returning both his hands to whatever delicate bit of reconstruction had been absorbing his attention before Bee’s arrival. Nevertheless, the silence had an awkward weight, and Bee searched for something more to say. He’d never possessed Ratchet’s easy way with conversation; some things never improved even with practice.
“Bumblebee,” said a joyously familiar voice, drawing out the last syllable into a sensual purr.
Whirling, Bee chirped at the not-unexpected but still devastating vision of Jazz, leaning against the doorway between the medical bay and its single recovery room, his armor restored to its blinding Solstice sheen. He had his visor up, and now the gleam of his optics reflected the blue of that customary accessory. The precise mix of materials available here on Earth could not duplicate the visor’s original darker shade, but the difference wasn’t jarring. It suited.
No doubt Jazz sensed Bee’s delight. He quirked a smile and held out an arm. “C’mere.”
Ratchet spun around and pointed one finger back at the recovery room. “Recovery berth. Now. Did I give you permission for general locomotion? I did not.”
“I requested my own second opinion, s’all.” Jazz caught Bee with one hand, his grip still weaker than Bee would have liked. But he still felt the same, new shapes but the same sensations, still Jazz when Bee wrapped both arms around his waist and curled in against him.
With a threatening step forward, Ratchet smiled, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant. “I believe I said now.”
“No bitchin’, Ratchet,” said Jazz with a smirk. “You already got your turn.”
“Shut up,” the medical officer instructed. “I have ground rules. Damage each other and I will deactivate you both. Overstrain yourself, Jazz, and I swear by all the gears of Primus that I will personally dismantle you. The first hint, the slightest buzz of an irregular reading, and I will--"
“Come check up on us yourself?” Jazz finished for him with a grin, then neatly ducked the first projectile Ratchet could lay his hands on, which turned out to be a much-abused Phillips screwdriver.
Eager to avert catastrophe, Bee insinuated himself behind Jazz, giving the first lieutenant a persuasive tug backward toward the berth. “Jazz. It’s been a long time...” He could be manipulative too, when he chose, but Jazz had little in the way of resistance just now, and followed him step by step back into the recovery room, his hands pressing in against Bee’s thighs. He bypassed the armor, touching gears and wiring directly.
“Too long, little Bee.”
Ratchet’s threat followed them in before the door slid shut. “I have all my secondary sensors trained on you, Jazz.”
“Ain’t that a lovely thought,” Jazz muttered, but cheered up immeasurably once Bee stretched out against the recovery berth and pulled him down as well. Jazz arranged them face to face on their sides, hands clasped between them.
Bee shook his head. “You can’t fault him for worrying.” Disentangling one hand, he lifted his fingers to trace the angles of Jazz’s face, something stuttering for a moment in his intake valves. “He blamed himself.”
“Shouldn’t do that,” Jazz said, the edges of his mouth catching against Bee’s fingertips. “It’s ’cause a’ him I’m here at all.”
Shaking his head again, Bee felt his fingers trembling, a vibration in his mechanics that had nothing to do with passion, but simply with pain. “I missed you.” He caught his hand around the back of Jazz’s head to bring him closer, nestling into the space below his chin despite Bee’s somewhat larger size. “I missed you, Jazz.” He couldn’t say it enough, not nearly as much as he meant it.
Jazz softened, and not just physically. No matter how open he seemed on the surface, he built walls within that rivaled titanium for strength, in accord with his characteristic pursuit of controlling all input and output of information. His hands slipped inward from Bee’s outer thighs, caressing with flicks of his fingertips that sent tingling currents through both armor and interior.
“Let’s hear ya, Bee,” he whispered against Bee’s neck. “Been too long since I’ve heard ya.”
Bee moaned. Not the silent arch of approval to which he had once been limited, not even the senseless chirps and whines he’d managed without his vocal components, but the full groan of a designation. “Jazz.”
A shiver ran through Jazz’s frame, his hands tightening with suddenly magnetic force, and Bee gave him a shout in reaction, both his hands wrapping around Jazz’s wrists. “Sorry,” Jazz gasped, his grip easing, magnetism fading into a pleasant thrum instead of a wrenching pulse through Bee’s metallic systems. “Didn’t mean ta...come on so strong.” Jazz usually had excellent control, and his failure to regain all of it since his reactivation plainly frustrated him.
“Shh.” Bee pulled him back into the moment, pressing them chest to chest, rolling onto his back and pulling Jazz over him. “It’s okay. Touch me.”
Just a moment passed before Jazz had gathered his confidence again. This time his hands slipped over Bee’s exoskeletal armor with a different sort of power in their circuits, something Bee recognized.
Humans often performed their courtship rituals with music as a backdrop, as Bee had discovered during his study of the internet, as he had experienced during his observation of Sam with Mikaela. He had learned to make his selections with particular care, to avoid Sam’s protesting smacks against his hood while in his alternate form. To a great extent, Bee understood Sam’s musical idiosyncrasies. These beings applied so many emotional levels to music, far beyond the mere conveniences of communication for which Bee still used it. He suspected that Jazz would have a clearer understanding of the subtleties.
After all, Jazz had taken his obsession with music to its natural extreme. He used it to make love.
In its raw form, music meant energy. When rendered powerfully enough, sound created not just waves, but physical repercussions, shattering glass as well as the fragile machinery of the human ear, shaking the earth and sky in the breaking of its barriers. Gentle notes could soothe children, could calm the human heartbeat. In one sense, gentle rainfall had every bit the same power as a sonic boom.
Jazz seemed intent on proving the hypothesis. Bee recognized the song Jazz had chosen, but appreciated it less for the words and more for the slowly pulsing beat of the bass line, transmitted in soft and regular bursts through the metal of those quicksilver fingers. Hands splaying, smoothing, Jazz made gradual strokes over his chest, downward to his waist and along both thighs, and Bee cried out at the movement of that music against his wiring.
He hadn’t so much skill of his own, but he could still return touch with touch. Easing his fingers under the plates of Jazz’s back, he sought the connectors that lined the neural cables, teasing with a slow and symmetrical caress that had Jazz arching, muttering curses.
A full minute passed before Jazz could summon up the forbearance to exact his revenge--hands flat against Bee’s chest, a change in musical frequency that sent stunning reverberations past his armoring to echo in his spark. Bee dissolved into a whimpering wreck. Without quite managing a coherent command, he opened all the armoring over his chest, defenses down and spark bared. His hands trembled against Jazz’s armor in return, urgent pressure in his fingertips.
“Touch me, Jazz.”
“Bumblebee...” Jazz lifted one hand to cradle Bee’s head, his optics so brightly alight. Bee remembered them deactivated, dark for too long, and the memory made him cling, fingers parting Jazz’s outer armor before the lieutenant stopped him with a hand around his wrists. “I can manage that.” Shifting, he arranged them on their sides again, facing each other, their legs naturally entwining as they sought closer contact. His chest plating slid open, exposing his restored spark.
Bee reached out, but Jazz pushed forward, bypassing Bee’s hand to bring their chests together in a slow slide toward full alignment. In this position, the act seemed less like simply interfacing, with its frequent undertones of dominance or submission, and more like an unexpectedly deep embrace.
“This is what I been wantin’,” Jazz said, his voice like the purr of his engine. Tendrils of electricity snaked between their sparks.
Connection flared through Bee’s systems in a warm and crackling wave, Jazz’s thoughts firing along his own and setting his neural processors quivering, so much focused presence that he’d feared lost forever, and Bee let the combination of stimulation and sensation overwhelm him. His need bordered on panic, his hold on Jazz’s spark too weak, and he let out a silent sob.
“Hey,” Jazz whispered, foregoing their deeper connection in favor of speaking aloud. Bee relished pure mental connection, but Jazz always preferred real talk--he trusted words more than emotion. “Hey, now.” Arms tightened around him, and Jazz was smaller than he was but could hold him just as well. Between the two of them, energy sparked and soothed, and Jazz tangled his presence around Bee’s, his embrace emotional and physical, sensuality displaced in favor of tenderness.
Bee shuddered, cursing himself. So stupid--to be trained to offer comfort, and to need it instead.
“Stop that.” Jazz shuddered in return, his hands tensing against Bee’s back. Then he shared an emotion that wasn’t quite fear and certainly wasn’t despair, but carried overtones of desperation so keen that Bee couldn’t help it, he offered up all of himself without a moment’s hesitation or regret. With an audible groan, Jazz shifted just his upper body, pushing their sparks together, gliding them against each other under a deliciously painful pressure. “That’s it,” he urged, when Bee yelped and squirmed to increase the friction. “Like that--more a’ that.” The grating edge to his voice made Bee ache. “There’s no part a’ you I don’t want, Bumblebee...”
Bee offered him fervent agreement and incredible elation. He welcomed as much of Jazz as Jazz could give, entirely passionate about pleasure, wanting to give as much as he received.
Maybe more.
Jazz returned with music, grasping hold of something he could focus and control, variable frequencies amplifying and vibrating against metal components. And it was good, so good, and Primus but how he had missed Jazz, because they were so good together like this, already back in rhythm with each other. They both loved to touch; they both loved to play. Together, combined fully, they made a joy so keen that it might be a form of energy all its own, bright enough to power new stars, familiar enough to soothe lingering despair.
Bee shouted with the pure intensity of it. His spark thrummed to the rhythm of Jazz’s music, waves of sound and sensation running through every circuit. He heard Jazz cry out in response, a single shaken note in harmony.
Crescendo.
They shared a scorching burst of sonic energy, emotion releasing between them in minor keys of gratitude, relief, satisfaction and euphoria.
So good.
Bee returned only gradually to full awareness, and with Ratchet in mind, he turned an immediate system scan on Jazz, relieved when it turned up nothing abnormal except slightly overheated central circuit boards. No damage. Everything would be all right, Jazz was theirs again, and the dizzying reality of it increased the sense of weightlessness Bee always experienced after a surge.
Nobody better’n you, Bee. Jazz’s consciousness rubbed against his with a touch of mental laughter, weak but warm. He stretched against Bee, but made no move to end their connection, and Bee had no intention of rushing their separation.
He sent back a wordless burst of agreement that earned him another laugh.
But somethin’s got you needin’ a little understanding. Somewhat recovered, Jazz slid sure hands along Bee’s sides, his music dimmed now to background noise, a pleasant vibration. There’s all sorts a’ feelings tangled up in you. His fingers traced careful paths as he lightly rocked against Bee, keeping their sparks aligned. Things I never felt before. You’d better come clean with it.
Reluctant, Bee wavered, unsure of placing burdens on someone so recently--and not yet fully--recovered. He could share his thoughts far more easily in this way than with words, and he imagined that Jazz was one step ahead of him, keeping to the silent communication of their connection for that very reason.
I shouldn’t.
C’mon, Bee. Who else ya gonna tell?
He played his trump card, that feeling of longtime understanding and affection injected subtly into Bee’s unsteady thoughts. Jazz had known him since their days in the Academy together--almost since his sparking, in fact, and he had no defense for that sort of intimacy at all, as the lieutenant well knew. One crack split through his minimalist defenses, then another, confusion and something too much like shame poisoning the connection between their sparks. Jazz reached out again with concern, with camaraderie, and Bee made a softly anguished sound and gave up the battle.
Everything rushed out at once, Sam and his hands and his weight and his warmth, lies by omission and fear of rejection, so much caring and need because of duty and more, doubt and misunderstanding and a cultural rift too vast to bridge.
True to his background in communications, Jazz listened without comment, waiting until Bee had surrendered all his thoughts and feelings before settling mentally back to examine the rush of information. He analyzed all of it for a minute or more, finally rendering his opinion with a touch of easy sympathy. That ain’t no simple thing. Knew these organics had courage. Didn’t know they could care like us, ’til I heard more a’ their music.
His hands smoothed along the wings on Bee’s back, his touch as calming as his thoughts.
Never thought about lovin’ one a’ them, really.
Bee made a little sound of unhappiness, hearing Jazz use the word he’d been too shy to say. Sam is special, he insisted.
Yeah, I get that. Jazz stroked him into silence again, sensations and spark combining together into a soothing refuge, and Bee curled into him with wordless gratitude. But Bee, he’s as special as you say, he’s gonna understand what you are. Why it’s important. Even if Earth ain’t got nothing quite like it. He chuckled aloud, and the mental feeling of it reminded Bee of soap bubbles on a warm breeze. B’sides, humans like new things.
New things that fit their established ideas, Bee sighed, but he felt a little better, the complications of loving Sam weighing a bit less heavily once shared.
Hands moving along Bee’s sides in another comforting caress, Jazz quirked him a smile. Either way, you’re past time ta give ’im the truth. As if Bee didn’t know that already, with the evidence of their argument still fresh in his thoughts.
I know.
Then Jazz went suddenly tense through all his joints, even his spark skipping in its rhythm with refocused attention. With his visor still retracted, his optics dimmed and flickered, a sure sign of some signal received. Bee supposed he should have known that Jazz would never cease monitoring communications, no matter what his primary activity might be.
Concern replaced amusement when Jazz went lax again with a shudder, astonishment at the forefront in his expression. A moment later, he called out over an open frequency, his voice fluctuating with a strange and moving excitement.
-PRIME!-
*****
He’d missed bringing Sam home from school, but he doubted his boy would have accepted a ride in any case. Instead of trying any subtler technique at all in the limited amount of time Optimus had given him, Bee sat outside the Witwicky house and blasted the horn until he heard Sam’s mother shouting above it.
“For Christ’s sake, Sam, will you see what he wants?”
Several seconds later, Sam appeared with a thunderous wrath in his eyes. Bee immediately stopped the noise, endured a minute or so of being told to shut up despite that, and waited for any further ranting to cease before he opened the driver’s side door.
“Sam,” he said, low and urgent, and Sam’s glare transformed into worry at the tone. “Please. Optimus sent me for you.”
Sam didn’t waste a moment more, but disappeared inside again just long enough to collect his jacket and his wallet. “Going out!” he shouted for his parents’ benefit when he left the house again, ignoring the path and abusing the grass to settle in the driver’s seat as quickly as possible. Bee tried to suppress a burst of joy, knowing that Sam still trusted him enough to ignore their argument in the face of an apparent crisis.
“Home before midnight!” Ron Witwicky called after them, and Bee flicked his lights and honked twice to indicate his compliance.
“Eighteen years old, Dad,” Sam muttered under his breath as they pulled out onto the road, but he had his hands on the steering wheel again, letting it turn beneath his fingers while Bee drove. “Okay. Decepticon attack? Headquarters explode? Annabelle threw up in Ironhide again? What’s the emergency?”
“Jazz has received a signal.”
Sam gripped the wheel, excitement sparking in his eyes. “No way. No way!” Then he abruptly paled. “Um. You mean an Autobot signal, right?”
“We think so.”
Letting out his breath, Sam tried to relax back against the seat. “Do you know who it might be?”
Bee swerved, passing three cars and turning onto the highway heading out of Tranquility. “Not yet. Optimus thinks the protoform’s distance transmitter is damaged. It’s mostly repeating our message back to us, but it has ranking security codes. If it’s a trap, it’s an awfully good one.”
“But you think it’s a friend.”
Bee chirped in affirmation. “But if it isn’t, we want to make sure you’re safe. Optimus wants you there to hear Jazz’s briefing.”
“It’s great that he’s okay,” Sam offered, shifting in a way that suggested nervousness. He hadn’t had the chance to truly know Jazz, and Bee imagined he had every right toward a little shy uncertainty. “You guys could use more friends.”
Bee debated on keeping silent, but decided on reassurance. “He’ll like you, Sam.” The boy rewarded him with a glimpse of a smile before sobering again.
But not as much as I do.
Sam went quiet for a minute, his fingers tapping against the edge of the wheel. “I’m still pissed at you,” he said at length.
“You have a right.”
“No shit,” Sam muttered. “You lie to me--not saying anything is the same as lying, Bee--you’re never around anymore when I expect you to be, you’re keeping secrets that I obviously have some right to know, or you wouldn’t be acting anywhere near this guilty, and you won’t tell me any of it when I ask you straight out.” He’d counted out every strike on his fingers, and now he frowned at the dashboard in a way that made Bee want to gather him up in both hands and beg for forgiveness. “Did I miss anything?”
More than he knew. “No. Sam... I’ve done all of that. I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling more than a little broken by admitting it.
Silence settled between them again, thick and unpleasant, and then Sam sighed and leaned forward, resting his chin against the center of the wheel. “And then you make it worse,” he said, “by making it so hard to stay mad at you. Jesus, Bee.” His hands ran along the dashboard, over the dials, his touch imploring, and Bee couldn’t suppress a true shiver. “Don’t wanna fight with you, Bee. Can’t you just tell me the truth?”
Another silence, and Bee wished he’d learned more eloquence from Ratchet. “I want to.”
“It’s got to do with what you are,” Sam said, pensive. “What you do. Doesn’t it?”
Bee whispered it. “Yes. It’s... Sam, I’m a scout. That’s why I came to Earth before the others. But that isn’t all I do. There’s something else, and it’s...it’s just as important.” Sometimes more important, though he might never have said such a thing before the destruction of the Allspark.
Sam gave out a little nervous laugh, and Bee heard him swallow before he said, “You’re kind of scaring me, Bee. You aren’t like...an assassin or something, right? Or like the chief inquisitor or something awful like that?”
“Oh, Sam, nothing like that. It’s not bad, or...or wrong.” He hated the edge of pleading already creeping into his voice, begging Sam to understand what he hadn’t even explained. “But there’s no word for it on Earth.”
Sitting back, Sam framed the Autobot symbol on the steering wheel with both hands. “No word for it. What does that mean?”
“You don’t have anything like it on Earth,” Bee clarified miserably.
“Then...there’s gotta be a word for it in your language, right? What is it?”
Bee chuckled despite himself. “I’m sorry, Sam. You couldn’t pronounce it.” He considered this method of thought for a moment or two more, nevertheless. “But roughly translated, it would mean something like...” He searched for the best literal match in English, ignoring the emotional connotations of his duties. “Conduit.”
Plainly, that didn’t help at all. Sam only appeared more confused.
“The term is archaic,” Bee tried, a little too desperate. “It isn’t literal, just traditional. It has to do with energy--spark energy--and the conducting of it. I’m sorry. It loses a lot in the translation, but that was the closest match suggested by 247 web-based dictionaries.”
“Okay, okay.” Sam held up a hand, and Bee shut himself up. “It’s complicated. I can dig that.” Looking out the windshield, he sighed. “And I’ll bet you aren’t gonna have time to explain all of it to me just now.” Bee meant to protest, but the faint lights of the Autobot base shone in the near distance. He revved his engine in frustration mixed with guilty relief. “It’s okay,” Sam said. “I mean, you’re talking, so that’s good. I can wait.” He frowned again, though the warmth stayed in his eyes. “You don’t have some weird-ass secret thing to do tomorrow, right?”
“No,” Bee was glad enough to reply. They had passed the checkpoint, and he turned along the dirt tire trail, heading toward the cliffs in the distance and the innocuous set of military buildings below them. “Tomorrow I’m yours.”
“Just the way I like it.” Sam kept his tone intentionally light, or so Bee imagined.
Maybe they could stay just as close as this, even after he confessed...everything. Sam cared for him, after all, because Sam had a tremendous capacity for caring. His empathy rivaled only his courage, and if anyone else might consider Bee somewhat biased in that opinion, he didn’t much care. Sam termed him his best friend, and maybe that connection would be enough to let the boy forgive what he might not be prepared to understand about Cybertronian culture.
They pulled past a barrier of razor wire and subtler defenses to approach the base entrance. Bee rolled to a stop and opened the door, giving Sam time enough to get out before he transformed.
Maybe the hand of a friend wouldn’t linger so long against his hood, or leave it with a little caress.
And maybe those were dangerous, dangerous realizations.
*****