Title: If You Promise Not To Tell.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Fluffage.
Pairings: Hound x Mirage, Sunstreaker x Bluestreak, Optimus Prime x Starscream (We know the deal with these two), Prowl x Jazz.
Characters: Hound, Mirage, Sunstreaker, Bluestreak, Starscream, Optimus, Prowl and Jazz. Mention of Sideswipe, Grimlock, Sludge, Wheeljack, Dead End, Megatron, Sunstorm and Sentinel Prime.
Summary: AU - Partly using Dreamwave's comics as basis. A re imagination of Cybertron's society where the line dividing slaves from nobles is so thin.
Notes: Getting Mirage outta his funk, with some Sunny/Blue quality time, we make some more progress in the Prime/Screamer front, and lookit that, long distance love~
Mirage smiled to himself, fixing the trays containing energon goodies for what Hound thought was the twentieth time in the last half a joor, though the former slave made no comment about it. While Mirage was rather obsessive with these kind of details, and could be very amusing to watch, Hound knew this little meeting was important for his mate, and he wanted nothing more than to see Mirage happy.
It was the first time since their engagement that Mirage had guests, and the Valkyre noble was very excited about it. He needed this, he needed to spend some time with friends, go out and do something to keep himself occupied. Although the noble mech insisted he had no interest in attending the turbo fox hunts organized by the elite if Hound was not invited, the mech wanted to get back in touch with other nobles who were supportive of his and Hound's union or simply didn't care about the matter enough to be unpleasant towards Hound.
"Do you think it's enough?" Mirage asked absently, looking around the table to judge whether or not the amount of refreshments was adequate for his little get together.
"That depends, are we waiting for eight guests or twenty?" Hound chuckled when Mirage gave him a heated look. "Just kidding. And I do believe these will suffice."
"Fine." Mirage let out a long sigh and moved to stand by his mate, looking out through the large windows of the room.
"You look so cute when you're nervous," Hound teased, resting his hands around Mirage's waist, tracing idle patterns over the material of his sash. Mirage lifted an optic ridge, giving his mate his best 'you didn't just call me cute' look, but after a moment he found himself smiling and chuckled at his mate's comment. "You're impossible," Mirage wrapped his arms around Hound's neck, pulling him into a soft albeit playful kiss.
Hound kissed back, allowing a hand to trail up over Mirage's back to hold him close. "Mmm, do you think the guests will take much longer to get here?" He asked with a playful glint in his optics. "Because I wouldn't want you to get bored waiting."
Mirage laughed in that unrestrained, purely joyous way that made Hound's spark beat faster with happiness. He loved his mate and especially loved it when Mirage laughed like this because it meant his lover was truly happy. "Much as I'd love to share some quality time with my mate, I'm afraid our guests will be here pretty soon."
Hound was about to object to that when the chime announced the arrival of their guests. Mirage straightened himself a little but made no movement to pull away from Hound. The former slave released his mate but kept an arm around Mirage's waist, his hand resting on his mate's hip as he led him to the doors to receive their guests.
The doors opened to reveal several nobles and ascended nobles, family friends or business partners. "Welcome, please help yourselves." Mirage gestured towards the table, introducing Hound to those nobles that hadn't yet treated with him directly.
Hound led his mate to the table, seating next to him once the Valkyre noble took his seat. "Thank you for coming."
"Thank you for inviting us." Bluestreak smiled, truly happy to see Mirage again and see he was doing much better. The small gathering of 'bots began to chat among themselves, sharing tales about something or the other, or talking about the latest hot topic in Cybertron. Sunstreaker and Dead End exchanged some words relevant to the latest exhibition to take place in Iacon's gallery.
Bluestreak was happily chatting with Wheeljack, trying to pry stories about his uncles Ironhide and Ratchet from their days at the Academy. Mirage talked with Skywarp who was merely sharing his latest antics with Dirge and Ramjet. Grimlock and his younger brother, Sludge, were having a fine time of their own talking with Hound.
The time went by amidst energon goodies and energon cubes, Sunstreaker indulged the guests with a couple of songs, promising a proper performance the next time when he could drag his twin along. Sunstreaker knew Sideswipe was intentionally making himself somewhat scarce whenever he spent time with Bluestreak, wanting to make sure the Defensor noble would enjoy Sunstreaker's undivided attention. Sunstreaker made a mental note to retribute his brother at a later time.
When Sunstreaker sung a love song that could be easily danced to, Bluestreak dragged Hound and Mirage away from the table, pushing them together to sway to the melody, prompting good natured laughter from the other guests and their hosts. A couple of joors later, Bluestreak and Sunstreaker walked down the streets in a companionable silence until Bluestreak began to hum casually the melody Sunstreaker sung at the gathering.
Sunstreaker looked down at his lover, smiling a little at the content expression in the other mech's face plates. The Lambor noble wrapped his arms around Bluestreak's shoulders, pressing his head gently against the side of Bluestreak's helm. "Do you want to know a secret?"
Bluestreak smiled and tilted his head to look back at his lover, nodding. Sunstreaker pressed his face a little closer against the gray mech's audio, "I'm in love with you," he said softly before he pressed a kiss to Bluestreak's audio. The Defensor noble laughed softly, reaching a hand to curl his fingers around Sunstreaker's neck, turning a little more in Sunstreaker's embrace to pull his head down for a kiss. "And I'm in love with you, Sunstreaker."
The golden noble chuckled and stole another kiss from his lover before he pulled away to continue their walk together. "So, has your brother called your family yet?" Sunstreaker asked absently.
"He called when he arrived, he said he would call again by the end of the deca-cycle," Bluestreak replied. Sunstreaker nodded a little, wondering how Jazz was doing. He hadn't seen the other performer in the past couple of orns, and was worried about him.
"Jazz is fine, by the way," Bluestreak said, startling the performer.
"What?"
"You're worried about Jazz." The gray mech tilted his head to look at the Lambor noble, a little knowing smile spread across his lips. "He is doing fine. He's been tending to Prowl's tree and going about some project of his. At least it's what he said."
"Oh." Sunstreaker scratched one of his helm's fins, a bit taken aback by Bluestreak's apparent sudden ability to read his thoughts.
"He misses Prowl very much."
Sunstreaker frowned at the little hint of sadness in Bluestreak's voice. He knew Bluestreak didn't want Prowl to accept Megatron's invitation and the golden performer could easily admit he was upset with Prowl for the decision he took. "And you miss him, too."
"A little," Bluestreak admitted sadly. "But it's something he had to do. It's not every orn you get an invitation from Megatron himself."
"He didn't have to do that, Blue," Sunstreaker spat angrily. "He could have just said no."
"Would you reject that kind of invitation?"
Sunstreaker looked back at Bluestreak with a stern expression. "If it meant to leave behind my family and the mech I love, I would hands down."
Bluestreak smiled a little and took Sunstreaker's hand, squeezing it gently. "Prowl had to have his reasons, Sunny. Besides I have you here with me, don't I?"
"Yeah," Sunstreaker tried to smile a little, deciding to drop the subject for now. 'You have me, Blue, but who does Jazz have?'
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Starscream kicked his legs to hide his discomfort. He was sitting down on a decorative block in the open grounds of his family's estate, listening, or at least pretending, to what Optimus was saying.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to look at Sunstorm in the optics again." Optimus rubbed the back of his neck casting a side glance at Starscream who seemed to be trying to look everywhere but at him. "I don't even want to begin to think about why or how Megatron knows all these things."
At that, Starscream let out a humorless chuckle. "At least it was Lord Megatron who told you these things. I had to heard them from my father!" Starscream cringed, trying not to conjure any visuals regarding his father's encounters with Sentinel Prime. "And he didn't spare any details either! Primus!"
"I... I am sorry, very, very sorry." Optimus patted the young seeker on his shoulder, being very careful to avoid his wing. "I think I'm starting to like your uncle Octane more."
Starscream snorted with a mixture of sarcasm and real humor. "So do I."
"If Megatron hadn't brought it up, I would have never realized how they were so close at the party was. The touches here and there." Optimus sighed heavily, a bit too dramatically at that, if only to try to lift the seemingly uncomfortable mood Starscream was in.
"Yeah, I wouldn't have paid attention to that kind of details if my father hadn't brought up his liaisons with the Prime." the future High Priest smiled a little at Sentinel Prime's youngest's overly dramatic sigh. "Better to know now than to walk on them while they're going at it?"
"sweet Primus, I don't even want to think about that."
The pair looked at each other for a moment then both burst into fits of laughter, despite Starscream's efforts to quiet down his laughter.
"That party could have gone better." Optimus commented off-handedly. "I mean, it was a good party, but there were certain unpleasant things about it."
Starscream sobered and shifted a little, wondering if the events in the balcony were part of those unpleasant things. "Such as?"
"Oh, Hot Rod being particularly unpleasant and openly hostile towards Springer, or Cliffjumper's stunt to name a few." Optimus didn't look at Starscream as he replied, straightening up a little before he turned to look at the seeker. "I also wanted to apologize for what happened in the balcony."
Starscream fought to keep his shoulders and back straight. "It's... quite all right."
Optimus's blue optics locked on Starscream's face, forcing himself slowly to meet his optics. "I didn't mean to treat you in such a way. I don't want you to think I was playing with you."
"Why did you finish me off? You could have just left." Starscream asked.
"It wouldn't have been nice to leave you like that, it was my fault after all." the youngest child of Sentinel Prime bowed his head genuinely apologetic. "I just want to make clear I don't think of you in any degrading fashion. Quite the contrary, I have a great respect for you."
Starscream opened his mouth to say something but Megatron's voice calling his brother stopped him.
"I better get going, we have duties to attend to. Until next time." Optimus bowed politely and turned around to meet with his brother. Starscream watched the mech walk away with Megatron, feeling relieved the awkwardness left by their latest meeting was gone.
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Jazz hummed softly, putting away the gardening supplies he just finished using while giving a critical at his work on Prowl's tree. The black and white performer ran a hand along one of the polished facets of the largest cluster and nodded a little, satisfied with his work. Jazz turned around and stretched while he made his way to his quarters, heading straight for the energon dispenser to take a small cube, pondering to get in his private wash rack to relieve his sore body. He never really considered the work Prowl put into the care of his tree until he promised to take care of it while Prowl was gone.
A beeping sound coming from the terminal in his dorm caught his attention and the performer rushed to it. He smiled at the message displaying he had an incoming transmission and quickly typed the command to grant the permission to establish the connection.
"Hello, Jazz," Prowl greeted the performer chuckling softly when Jazz stopped bending over the chair and hurried to seat on it instead.
"Hello. I wasn't expectin' ya t'call at this time." The slave performer spared a quick glance at the timer displayed on the edge of the screen.
"I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"
Jazz took in the slight dampness on his master's plating, realizing Prowl probably just came out of the wash racks himself. Jazz shifted, lamenting the timing a little - he wasn't a vain mech but he would have preferred to be a little more presentable. "Nope, I jus' got back like a few klicks ago."
"I see. How is everyone doing?" Prowl asked. Jazz noticed he looked a bit weary, suspecting the noble probably would fall right over his berth when the call ended.
"Everyone's doin' okay. Ya look tired, are they workin' ya too hard over there?" Jazz reached idly for a rag to clean his hands still stained with some of the fluid he used on Prowl's cluster.
"I'm a little worn out but that's to be expected. I'm receiving full training, including hand to hand combat, and my instructor doesn't exactly go easy on us." Prowl chuckled softly.
"Really? Who is the instructor?" Jazz asked with a mixture of interest and a little concern.
"Lord Megatron."
The visored mech gaped, and stared at Prowl's image in the video screen, looking him over for any dents in his plating.
"Don't worry, I'm fine. I'm just a little sore." Prowl reassured. "How are you doing?"
"I'm doing all right." Jazz paused and smiled a little sadly at Prowl, idly reaching to touch the screen with his black fingertips. "I miss you."
Prowl's optics softened and his own white fingers pressed against his side of the screen, right where Jazz's hand was. "I miss you, too."
The performer brushed his fingers a little against the screen, wishing he could feel Prowl. "I'm goin' ta be away in two orns," Jazz spoke softly, updating Prowl about his schedule and the compromises he had to attend to in the following orns so Prowl would know when he was available to receive his transmissions.
"I have to go now, I must be up pretty early." the Defensor noble said softly, and Jazz could tell Prowl was torn between staying up a little longer to talk with him or just downright crawl into his berth for some much needed recharge.
"Recharge well. Love you," Jazz said quietly.
Prowl nodded. "Love you, too. Rest well, Jazz." Prowl ended the transmission and Jazz turned off the screen of his terminal. He made his way to the wash racks to get himself cleaned. Although he missed Prowl, knowing the other loved him made his spark swell with joy. After washing himself and refueling properly, Jazz lay down on his berth, falling into a peaceful recharge.
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Notes x 2: Yep, Sunny was probably singing "Do You Want To Know A Secret".