Weekly Request Response
Title: Candle
Universe: Bayverse (post 2007 film, prior to ROTF)
Rating: PG/K+
Pairing: Jazz/Bumblebee
Prompt: Candle in the wind
Word Count: 2,237
Notes: Probably not what the requester was picturing but the idea wouldn't leave me alone (and is now developing possible continuations in my mind).
Warnings: A couple of Cybertronian curses, mentioned canon character death... I think that's it. However this is also unbeta'd, sorry for any mistakes I missed when checking over it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers.
Emptiness...
For as far as my senses extended, if I was in fact sensing anything, there was... nothing. Could this really be it? Was this what everything came to in the end? Nothing?
A vague sense of unease began to develop somewhere within me, and that more than anything was a sign that this time, I was truly out of my depth. If there has ever been something I prided myself on, it was that very few things affected me enough to stop me in my tracks, not after I’d spent such a large part of my lifestream learning. I have always been proud of my ability to adapt to just about everything that gets thrown in my direction (often literally when dealing with our resident CMO).
Few things have been able to make me lose my “ever cool” (to use a human term) personality, but one of the only things to ever do so was what ultimately led me to this point.
When I took on Megatron, it hadn’t really registered that it was probably suicide. Oh I knew if he got a grip on me I was a goner... but I’d gone up against mechs his size before and survived. Yet at the same time, I knew this time was different. Megatron wasn't just any mech, but that didn’t matter.
Bee was helpless; he couldn’t get away, not without his legs. He had his mission; to protect the boy, and protect the cube... but... he couldn’t get away. He was a sitting target, so when Brawl appeared I dashed off to stop him, buying Bee some time to work out how to get the cube (and himself) somewhere safe.
Then... Megatron came and my processor was immediately rushing with information. He knew who Bee was, knew he was the Autobot that denied him the cube... more than once. He knew Bee was the guardian of the boy who had the cube and I knew that he'd offline him... and I couldn't let that happen.
As I heard the cry to fall back sound, I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to delay Megatron until Prime arrived. Even if it meant risking my life... I’d do it... for Bee...
Risking my life ended up being exactly what I did. I’d always been a risk taker, but this time the odds beat me and when I suddenly found myself staring the end of my existence in the optics, the only thing that passed through my processor was Bumblebee. It was all I actually had time to register before everything erupted in a shower of sparks and pain before fading into darkness.
Being the even-tempered and relaxed spark that I am, I never really considered what might come after my spark left my physical frame; I just couldn't see the point of worrying about something that couldn't be changed. Oh I knew as well as anyone else that you travelled to the Well of All Sparks and rejoined it, but I didn’t know what exactly the Well was like or whether you actually made a journey or just appeared there, and to my way of thinking it really didn't matter which it was.
At least, that’s how I felt until I suddenly found myself facing... well... nothing.
I'd been here for a while now, or perhaps I’d been here for no time at all, I’m not sure anymore. I was just hanging here, in nothingness, or perhaps I wasn't hanging here. Slowly I began to get the sense that I was floating. I felt… weightless, as though there was nothing of me to form weight and I was certain that despite there being no actual evidence of it, I was moving.
As time passed (or didn’t) I found myself wondering whether everyone experienced this when they offlined. This endless black, nothing to see, nothing to feel… was I going to be forced to deal with this for eternity? Primus I hoped not. I’d never been able to deal well with forced inactivity, it always made me jittery.
Pit... was there no end to this blackness? Where I was I going? Was I even actually moving?
I was quickly growing restless, just as I always did when I couldn't do anything, and I hadn’t even been here that long... or had I? I really couldn’t tell, not with the never ending nothing. There was nothing to draw my attention, just a sense of never ending nothingness. Why was this place so empty? Also, why was I beginning to have the strange feeling that I was moving and yet not actually going anywhere?
For that matter, how could I be so sure I was moving when I couldn’t hear anything, or see anything, or even feel anything? Pit, if this was what my eternity was going to be like, I’d rather have stayed online and spent that same time fighting the Decepticons. Anything was better than nothing. Anything.
Anything? My final thoughts as an officially online mech replayed, or at least I thought they did. I could remember Bumblebee and all the emotions that connected me to him, I was sure I could… yet I still couldn’t see anything. Was this how organics remembered? They didn’t have memory banks, perhaps they felt just like this… like they remembered and yet didn’t...
My unease was slowly developing into something quite like panic. To be unable to remember Bumblebee? That wasn't possible; I had to be able to remember Bumblebee. He was my... my everything. He was my best friend, my companion, my bondmate. What sort of eternity was it if I would be forced to forget the other half of my spark?
Something was aching, but I can’t really pinpoint its location… perhaps it's just me, or perhaps it's my spark. Yes, my spark. My spark is aching, and I am my spark, only a spark… so it's me that's aching. Aching... for Bumblebee... aching because half of me is missing... aching...
My thoughts were growing jumbled; I couldn’t seem to concentrate as I had only moments before. Perhaps it hadn’t been moments though; perhaps I had been here longer than I believed. How did you measure the passing of time in nothing anyway?
Maybe everything I remember is a dream, or a glitch, a nice imagined life of colour and sound and sensation and not being alone. In fact, what was to say I haven't always been here?
‘Jazz... come back... don't leave me... please...’
Bee...
Anguish filled me and I wanted to scream at the pain he must be in. Oh Bee, I want to come back but I don't know how! Primus, let me go to him! Please! For him if not for me... I offlined for him, don’t make him pay for my mistakes. Show me how to get to him, let me help him!
I tried desperately to find anything in the blackness, a sign, something. Only the darkness greeted me until a flicker caught my attention and I focused on it. Is that... light? I can see light! I have to go towards it, I have to, it'll lead me to Bee, but how do I move? I have to reach it before it fades. Please Primus, don't let that light fade.
I don't want to spend forever floating here…
Wait, didn’t floating suggest a gentle, light movement, buoyant and weightless even? I was sure it did. So floating wasn’t what I was doing then, it wasn’t the appropriate word. What was I doing? If I wasn’t floating, what was…?
Oh… falling...
Everything around me erupted in a flash of light and heat, a flaring sound overlaying it. Pain speared through me and I found myself crying out before it faded and I was suddenly wavering on my pedes in an oddly familiar... garden?
I stood still in confusion as my vision was faded in and out, one moment clear then the next dim. I could feel soft trickles of air moving over my external sensors, the sensation coinciding with the slow clearing of my vision.
My spark, or whatever remained of my spark, suddenly clenched in pain and I tensed, my optics shuttering as the ache I’d been ignoring reasserted itself in my processor. I needed to find Bumblebee.
I looked around before moving towards the garage, examining the door as I approached it. I reached out cautiously, not wanting to break the door, only to jerk back with a shout as my servo went straight through the handle.
I stared first at the door then at my servo. Well, that was... unexpected. I wonder if that was a normal occurrence for someone who had been offline but now was... what was I now? I could feel, so that suggested being online, yet I couldn't touch this door which suggested I didn't exist in the same manner it did...
Turning my gaze back to the door I decided that those thoughts could wait, it wasn't as though I could answer them anyway. Instead I approached the door with more caution, hesitantly pressing my clawed servo to it, shaking my helm as it vanished through the solid metal.
I stepped forward, following my servo and arm through the door, optics shuttering as I took in the contents of the garage. I relaxed slightly as I found that Bumblebee was indeed there, curled up on his side in what appeared to be a restless recharge cycle.
I smiled slightly as I approached, feeling better just for seeing him again... he’d always had that effect on me. I examined him closely, glad to see all the damage from the battle was gone and his legs had been replaced. Looking at him now, you'd never know he'd been damaged at all... Ratchet really was a miracle worker at times.
I looked away momentarily, wondering if Ratchet had repaired my shell or if I’d been put to another use. Perhaps my components had been used to repair Bumblebee...
Bumblebee's systems gave a soft whirr, drawing my gaze back to him. I knelt beside him, and this close I could see the strain in his faceplates... he was suffering. I looked down at my servos and then at Bumblebee again, trying to decide what to do now that I was here and yet... apparently incorporeal.
Almost unconsciously I reached my clawed servo out to caress his helm, wanting, needing to feel him, even though I knew I couldn't. I hesitated, my servo hovering just over the bright yellow plating, before the need drove me on. I set myself, lowering my servo the rest of the way, waiting for my servo to go straight through him.
Warmth...
I froze, my spark (or my spark echo) pulsing within me as I absorbed the sensation. I could... feel... him. My faceplate broke into an elated smile as I ran my servo along Bumblebee's helm in a move I had performed too many times to count. By Primus, I could feel him!
He stirred slightly as my claws traced one of his antenna, the appendage flicking in reaction. His optics unshuttered slightly, his systems still mostly powered down. He whined softly and I shifted, lowering to the ground before him in order to lie with him.
"Shh Bee, it's alright." I murmured into his audio receptor, nuzzling against him, my frame warming everywhere it touched his own. His optics gazed into my own for a long moment before he buried his faceplate into my neck plating, his spark pulses echoing into my own and back and slowly the ache began to fade...
"Jazz..." He murmured, a world of emotions in his voice. My grip tightened on him.. his voice... how long had it been since I’d heard it? Primus but it felt good.
"I'm here love... I’m here." He relaxed into my hold with a soft chirring whirr, and I could feel his tension fading away, feel that shared ache easing.
"I lit a candle for you..." He mumbled, a servo rising to gesture vaguely towards the corner. "They said it would guide you." That light I’d seen flashed through my processor and I smiled again as I looked at the tiny light source, flickering warmly in its protective casing.
"It did Bee, thank you." He hummed softly, still mostly in recharge and I wondered if he would remember this when he came out later. My expression set into determination as his spark pulsed against me, with me, the pulses evening out as the ache finally faded leaving only that peace I had long associated with my bondmate.
"I'm not goin' anywhere..." I swore to him as he slid back into recharge fully. "No matter what..."
I still didn't know how this was possible or what was going to happen from here, but one thing was certain, I wasn't going to let anything take me from him. His candle had led me to him, led me out of the emptiness, and I’d be glitched if I’d leave him to fade without me.
He was my bondmate... he needed me as much as I needed him. His spark would fade just like that candle without me here, the candle needed fuel to burn, and Bumblebee needed me... his bondmate. I promised him, and by Primus I was staying with him, even if I had to fight the whole universe to ensure it.
Universe: Bayverse (post 2007 film, prior to ROTF)
Rating: PG/K+
Pairing: Jazz/Bumblebee
Prompt: Candle in the wind
Word Count: 2,237
Notes: Probably not what the requester was picturing but the idea wouldn't leave me alone (and is now developing possible continuations in my mind).
Warnings: A couple of Cybertronian curses, mentioned canon character death... I think that's it. However this is also unbeta'd, sorry for any mistakes I missed when checking over it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers.
Emptiness...
For as far as my senses extended, if I was in fact sensing anything, there was... nothing. Could this really be it? Was this what everything came to in the end? Nothing?
A vague sense of unease began to develop somewhere within me, and that more than anything was a sign that this time, I was truly out of my depth. If there has ever been something I prided myself on, it was that very few things affected me enough to stop me in my tracks, not after I’d spent such a large part of my lifestream learning. I have always been proud of my ability to adapt to just about everything that gets thrown in my direction (often literally when dealing with our resident CMO).
Few things have been able to make me lose my “ever cool” (to use a human term) personality, but one of the only things to ever do so was what ultimately led me to this point.
When I took on Megatron, it hadn’t really registered that it was probably suicide. Oh I knew if he got a grip on me I was a goner... but I’d gone up against mechs his size before and survived. Yet at the same time, I knew this time was different. Megatron wasn't just any mech, but that didn’t matter.
Bee was helpless; he couldn’t get away, not without his legs. He had his mission; to protect the boy, and protect the cube... but... he couldn’t get away. He was a sitting target, so when Brawl appeared I dashed off to stop him, buying Bee some time to work out how to get the cube (and himself) somewhere safe.
Then... Megatron came and my processor was immediately rushing with information. He knew who Bee was, knew he was the Autobot that denied him the cube... more than once. He knew Bee was the guardian of the boy who had the cube and I knew that he'd offline him... and I couldn't let that happen.
As I heard the cry to fall back sound, I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to delay Megatron until Prime arrived. Even if it meant risking my life... I’d do it... for Bee...
Risking my life ended up being exactly what I did. I’d always been a risk taker, but this time the odds beat me and when I suddenly found myself staring the end of my existence in the optics, the only thing that passed through my processor was Bumblebee. It was all I actually had time to register before everything erupted in a shower of sparks and pain before fading into darkness.
Being the even-tempered and relaxed spark that I am, I never really considered what might come after my spark left my physical frame; I just couldn't see the point of worrying about something that couldn't be changed. Oh I knew as well as anyone else that you travelled to the Well of All Sparks and rejoined it, but I didn’t know what exactly the Well was like or whether you actually made a journey or just appeared there, and to my way of thinking it really didn't matter which it was.
At least, that’s how I felt until I suddenly found myself facing... well... nothing.
I'd been here for a while now, or perhaps I’d been here for no time at all, I’m not sure anymore. I was just hanging here, in nothingness, or perhaps I wasn't hanging here. Slowly I began to get the sense that I was floating. I felt… weightless, as though there was nothing of me to form weight and I was certain that despite there being no actual evidence of it, I was moving.
As time passed (or didn’t) I found myself wondering whether everyone experienced this when they offlined. This endless black, nothing to see, nothing to feel… was I going to be forced to deal with this for eternity? Primus I hoped not. I’d never been able to deal well with forced inactivity, it always made me jittery.
Pit... was there no end to this blackness? Where I was I going? Was I even actually moving?
I was quickly growing restless, just as I always did when I couldn't do anything, and I hadn’t even been here that long... or had I? I really couldn’t tell, not with the never ending nothing. There was nothing to draw my attention, just a sense of never ending nothingness. Why was this place so empty? Also, why was I beginning to have the strange feeling that I was moving and yet not actually going anywhere?
For that matter, how could I be so sure I was moving when I couldn’t hear anything, or see anything, or even feel anything? Pit, if this was what my eternity was going to be like, I’d rather have stayed online and spent that same time fighting the Decepticons. Anything was better than nothing. Anything.
Anything? My final thoughts as an officially online mech replayed, or at least I thought they did. I could remember Bumblebee and all the emotions that connected me to him, I was sure I could… yet I still couldn’t see anything. Was this how organics remembered? They didn’t have memory banks, perhaps they felt just like this… like they remembered and yet didn’t...
My unease was slowly developing into something quite like panic. To be unable to remember Bumblebee? That wasn't possible; I had to be able to remember Bumblebee. He was my... my everything. He was my best friend, my companion, my bondmate. What sort of eternity was it if I would be forced to forget the other half of my spark?
Something was aching, but I can’t really pinpoint its location… perhaps it's just me, or perhaps it's my spark. Yes, my spark. My spark is aching, and I am my spark, only a spark… so it's me that's aching. Aching... for Bumblebee... aching because half of me is missing... aching...
My thoughts were growing jumbled; I couldn’t seem to concentrate as I had only moments before. Perhaps it hadn’t been moments though; perhaps I had been here longer than I believed. How did you measure the passing of time in nothing anyway?
Maybe everything I remember is a dream, or a glitch, a nice imagined life of colour and sound and sensation and not being alone. In fact, what was to say I haven't always been here?
‘Jazz... come back... don't leave me... please...’
Bee...
Anguish filled me and I wanted to scream at the pain he must be in. Oh Bee, I want to come back but I don't know how! Primus, let me go to him! Please! For him if not for me... I offlined for him, don’t make him pay for my mistakes. Show me how to get to him, let me help him!
I tried desperately to find anything in the blackness, a sign, something. Only the darkness greeted me until a flicker caught my attention and I focused on it. Is that... light? I can see light! I have to go towards it, I have to, it'll lead me to Bee, but how do I move? I have to reach it before it fades. Please Primus, don't let that light fade.
I don't want to spend forever floating here…
Wait, didn’t floating suggest a gentle, light movement, buoyant and weightless even? I was sure it did. So floating wasn’t what I was doing then, it wasn’t the appropriate word. What was I doing? If I wasn’t floating, what was…?
Oh… falling...
Everything around me erupted in a flash of light and heat, a flaring sound overlaying it. Pain speared through me and I found myself crying out before it faded and I was suddenly wavering on my pedes in an oddly familiar... garden?
I stood still in confusion as my vision was faded in and out, one moment clear then the next dim. I could feel soft trickles of air moving over my external sensors, the sensation coinciding with the slow clearing of my vision.
My spark, or whatever remained of my spark, suddenly clenched in pain and I tensed, my optics shuttering as the ache I’d been ignoring reasserted itself in my processor. I needed to find Bumblebee.
I looked around before moving towards the garage, examining the door as I approached it. I reached out cautiously, not wanting to break the door, only to jerk back with a shout as my servo went straight through the handle.
I stared first at the door then at my servo. Well, that was... unexpected. I wonder if that was a normal occurrence for someone who had been offline but now was... what was I now? I could feel, so that suggested being online, yet I couldn't touch this door which suggested I didn't exist in the same manner it did...
Turning my gaze back to the door I decided that those thoughts could wait, it wasn't as though I could answer them anyway. Instead I approached the door with more caution, hesitantly pressing my clawed servo to it, shaking my helm as it vanished through the solid metal.
I stepped forward, following my servo and arm through the door, optics shuttering as I took in the contents of the garage. I relaxed slightly as I found that Bumblebee was indeed there, curled up on his side in what appeared to be a restless recharge cycle.
I smiled slightly as I approached, feeling better just for seeing him again... he’d always had that effect on me. I examined him closely, glad to see all the damage from the battle was gone and his legs had been replaced. Looking at him now, you'd never know he'd been damaged at all... Ratchet really was a miracle worker at times.
I looked away momentarily, wondering if Ratchet had repaired my shell or if I’d been put to another use. Perhaps my components had been used to repair Bumblebee...
Bumblebee's systems gave a soft whirr, drawing my gaze back to him. I knelt beside him, and this close I could see the strain in his faceplates... he was suffering. I looked down at my servos and then at Bumblebee again, trying to decide what to do now that I was here and yet... apparently incorporeal.
Almost unconsciously I reached my clawed servo out to caress his helm, wanting, needing to feel him, even though I knew I couldn't. I hesitated, my servo hovering just over the bright yellow plating, before the need drove me on. I set myself, lowering my servo the rest of the way, waiting for my servo to go straight through him.
Warmth...
I froze, my spark (or my spark echo) pulsing within me as I absorbed the sensation. I could... feel... him. My faceplate broke into an elated smile as I ran my servo along Bumblebee's helm in a move I had performed too many times to count. By Primus, I could feel him!
He stirred slightly as my claws traced one of his antenna, the appendage flicking in reaction. His optics unshuttered slightly, his systems still mostly powered down. He whined softly and I shifted, lowering to the ground before him in order to lie with him.
"Shh Bee, it's alright." I murmured into his audio receptor, nuzzling against him, my frame warming everywhere it touched his own. His optics gazed into my own for a long moment before he buried his faceplate into my neck plating, his spark pulses echoing into my own and back and slowly the ache began to fade...
"Jazz..." He murmured, a world of emotions in his voice. My grip tightened on him.. his voice... how long had it been since I’d heard it? Primus but it felt good.
"I'm here love... I’m here." He relaxed into my hold with a soft chirring whirr, and I could feel his tension fading away, feel that shared ache easing.
"I lit a candle for you..." He mumbled, a servo rising to gesture vaguely towards the corner. "They said it would guide you." That light I’d seen flashed through my processor and I smiled again as I looked at the tiny light source, flickering warmly in its protective casing.
"It did Bee, thank you." He hummed softly, still mostly in recharge and I wondered if he would remember this when he came out later. My expression set into determination as his spark pulsed against me, with me, the pulses evening out as the ache finally faded leaving only that peace I had long associated with my bondmate.
"I'm not goin' anywhere..." I swore to him as he slid back into recharge fully. "No matter what..."
I still didn't know how this was possible or what was going to happen from here, but one thing was certain, I wasn't going to let anything take me from him. His candle had led me to him, led me out of the emptiness, and I’d be glitched if I’d leave him to fade without me.
He was my bondmate... he needed me as much as I needed him. His spark would fade just like that candle without me here, the candle needed fuel to burn, and Bumblebee needed me... his bondmate. I promised him, and by Primus I was staying with him, even if I had to fight the whole universe to ensure it.