Yet another chapter with graphic smut. Read on Ao3
archiveofourown dot org/works/637909/chapters/1254007

Starcrossed 12: Sinking In
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Jazz booted slowly, feeling rested and peaceful for the first time in so long. His first thought upon waking was not wondering where Vortex was-although he noted with a bit of a frown that there was pressure against the block again, even though it was nowhere near the levels it had been before-or what horrors he might have to deal with in the coming orn. Right now, the near future seemed to hold nothing but gentle recovery while they rested here. And while he looked forward to interfacing as often as he pleased with Prowl, Jazz found himself most anticipating just being able to talk to him again, for joors at a time.

He trilled softly when the final systems all came online and he found himself in much the same position he remembered falling into recharge in. He was fully enveloped by a protective wing, curled up next to a welcome and warm frame. He snuggled closer, tucking against Prowl and trilling again, wondering if the Praxian might rouse with him. Prowl showed no signs of booting, and Jazz sent a questioning ping. It bounced back immediately with a medical alert attached to it. Prowl desperately needed more recharge right now. A lot more recharge.

Jazz hummed to himself. He was online already, didn't need more recharge at the moment, and there was an entire estate to walk around. He was most excited to explore the servants' halls, something he had sought for unsuccessfully in his creators' estates. Probably for the best, he mused, looking back. He would have caused so much mayhem with those, and possibly gotten himself grounded for the majority of most metacycles, which would have meant seeing less of Prowl.

Then again, Jazz smiled to himself as he looked at the recharging features, maybe that threat would have been deterrent enough.

He roused after several more kliks of enjoying the feeling of being pressed up against Prowl's frame, went into storage to refuel and refill his own cubes, and set off to explore the estate. The better part of two orns was spent walking all of the empty hallways and peering into as many rooms as he could before his systems pinged at him to let him know that recharge would be favorable to the newsparks. He headed back to the room where Prowl was still resting and curled back up with him, hoping that this time, when he booted, Prowl would be online.

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When Prowl finally onlined, Jazz was snuggled against him and deep in peaceful recharge. As much as Prowl didn't want to move, after nearly four orns without twitching a cable, his systems wanted energon more than recharge. Reluctantly he shifted, moving as carefully as his weak systems could manage so not to disturb Jazz. He wouldn't be gone long. There was no reason to rouse the carrier. He just needed to get to the storeroom, drink a cube and get back on the berth. He still needed a lot of recharge. He just needed energy more at the moment.

Walking down to the storeroom, Prowl quickly calculated how much his systems should be able to handle at the moment-somewhere around sixty percent capacity, possibly more if he didn't feel any overcharged affects from that amount-and looked at the shelves for the proper sized cube to reach that level.

He found the correct one and walked back into the entryway and found himself standing in the middle of it as he sipped, careful not to introduce too much energon into his tanks at once. He looked around at the quiet hallways and started imagining the bustle that would be here in just under two metacycles, once the Lords, their creations, and their serving staff arrived for the hunting season. His half-brother would be taking up the seneschal post at that point, and before long, Prowl's processors were whizzing through the ornly duties that would be involved in that, everything from scheduling the equipment to be procured and cleaned to overseeing proper storage of any game that was caught, whether still functional or deactivated.

When he was halfway through the process of preserving the living color of a turbofox for proper display, Prowl stopped and checked his chronometer. He'd been standing there for more than a breem, staring at the wall without even seeing it. The cube was empty in his hand.

He'd meant to return to their berth and curl back up around Jazz again, why was he still standing here?

Processors that had been pushed to their very max and almost beyond for nearly a vorn straight dove hungrily on the question with a frantic need to do something that almost made Prowl gasp. They chewed it up in nanokliks.

Simply, he didn't know how to not be thinking anymore. For more than a vorn he'd been planning, making contacts, arranging meetings, working out plans to the joor, never stopping because of the virus that prevented him from shutting down to recharge and run system maintenance. Not even a nanoklik went by that he wasn't working on something, because if he ever allowed himself to slow down the horror of the situation he found himself in would bury him completely. Even when he was being tortured, something was always running, even if it was just a single line of code, writing a letter one fragment of a glyph at a time.

And now...

Jazz was in recharge, plans were set into motion, back-up plans were prepared and waiting, contingencies for everything had been reviewed and confirmed. There was nothing to do but stand here and look at the wall.

Or recharge. He could recharge again, but he wasn't sure he knew how to initiate it anymore. It was such an alien concept after a vorn, to spend so much time not working, not thinking. He'd only recharged the last four orns because of automated protocols.

So all he really had to do was stand here, staring at a wall.

Prowl shuddered, disturbed by that on a level he couldn't quite place. He had planned this all out, why should it bother him? He looked around again. He could walk anywhere within this estate, look at anything he wanted to, do anything available.

Free.

Jazz had murmured it right before falling into recharge, peaceful and sated, but right now, the glyph was anything but for Prowl. Yes, they were free, and for the first time in his entire existence, he didn't need to be composed or in control or working.

A different line of thought branched off from the first. Yes, they were free, but at what cost?

Prowl could have gotten free and disappeared very early, he had enough friends and the processors for it. And simply put, Jazz didn't.

Prowl had stayed for Jazz, Jazz had killed for Prowl. Over and over, every time he needed something more. Prowl could have been gone, the construct could have become Jazz, and they could have both been content with their existences.

Prowl shuddered again and mentally shook himself. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't Jazz's fault. Ultimately, the lost sparks, adult and sparkling, were on Vortex and the manipulative pain games he took such pleasure in.

But knowing that, as logical and simple as it was, did nothing to stop the increasing tremors in his frame, or stop the way his vents were hitching. He lifted a hand to his spark. He shouldn't be upset. That Pit of existence was over, done, in the past. He had Jazz curled up in his berth, carrying his twins-so why was he on his knees, why couldn't he move, why could he hear himself sobbing and screaming, why did he feel so guilty and wrecked?

What was wrong with him?

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Jazz booted, still feeling wonderfully rested and calm, but he became aware very quickly that something was different. No comforting field was meshed with his own, and there was no warm frame right next to him. His optics flickered on and he reached out, feeling the berth where Prowl had been. It was cold, Prowl hadn't been there for a while.

::Prowl?:: Jazz asked, and waited, but no reply came. ::Prowl!:: he tried again, sitting up.

Confusion flared to panic before Jazz could remind himself that if Prowl's comms were gone, he would receive an undeliverable error, and if Prowl had somehow deactivated... well, he didn't actually know for sure, but he would guess it would be the same thing. So it was okay, he just needed to find him.

Jazz got up and checked the hallway, then headed down for the entryway, thinking maybe Prowl was in the storeroom and had just gotten distracted by something. He turned a corner-

The dark green and silver frame was slumped in the middle of the area, unmoving. "Prowl!" Jazz said, and rushed forward, dropping to his knees, grabbing Prowl's shoulder. The field didn't feel like recharge, it felt flat and unresponsive, what little he could find to teek.

There was still a field, there was still color in the frame. Jazz grabbed his spiraling panic and wrenched, forcing himself to calm down as much as he could. "Prowl?" he asked again.

He shook his love by the shoulder and felt the field flare in confusion, reflexively trying to ID the cause of the movement. It was so smooth, and it suddenly registered where he knew that feeling from.

It was stasis, like when Prowl was bring rebuilt, and he was coming out of it. At least partially.

Jazz stilled and ran his hand up and down Prowl's arm before carefully lifting him and shifting him out of the uncomfortable looking slump. It was strange to have enough strength to move him fairly easily, even though it was still awkward with the wings.

He got Prowl settled on his back and leaned over him, pressing a hand to the side of his face and stroking his thumb over the jaw. "You okay?" he asked, not even sure if Prowl could hear him. "You with me?"

Ice blue optics lit, weakly. Slowly, the controls seeming almost foreign, Prowl managed to turn his helm to face Jazz. His vocalizer took several tries to initialize, and longer to find the commands to make more than random static to come out.

"Jazz?"

"Yeah, it's me," Jazz said, looking his lover up and down. "Are you okay?"

"I..." he paused, then winced as the content of two comm messages were delivered. "I scared you. I'm sorry." He leaned into his mate. "I just went to get some energon so I could recharge again."

"The berth wouldn't have cooled in the time it took you to get energon, and that wasn't recharge," Jazz said, while he pressed his field forward reassuringly in response to the apology. "What happened? Do we need to get to a medic?"

Prowl shook his helm firmly. "I have a pit of a processor ache, but everything's coming up green. I ... believe that is what happens when I stop planning now."

Jazz stared at him. "You crash if you're not planning?" he asked, the worry obvious in his voice.

"That ... if what I can recall of what happened prior to the crash is accurate, yes," Prowl answered weakly and attempted to stand, bracing himself against Jazz as he worked to reacquaint himself with his frame commands. "I need energon, recharge and a solid defrag right now. Otherwise, I appear to be fine."

Jazz moved to help him, fretting, and pressed a cube into his hands as soon as he was upright. "But... before we went into recharge, in the washrack, and the berth," he said quietly. "You weren't planning then?"

"That was an automatic shutdown because my systems required it," Prowl murmured, uneasy about everything that passed through his processors in the kliks before the crash. "No, I wasn't planning, but I wasn't aware either. I don't remember how to shut down on my own."

Jazz stiffened. "Prowl," he said, very softly, touching their helms together, hands on his chest. He didn't know how to respond to that, so he pressed the question he still didn't understand. "What I mean is... you weren't planning while we were interfacing, right? And you didn't crash then, you were fine, you were relaxed."

"I was," Prowl shook his helm slightly. "Even when Vortex had me so torn apart I couldn't move and only knew pain, I was still working. Yes, I was working when we interfaced. In the background, almost beneath notice, but I was working. I'm working now. Picked up the moment I began to boot up."

"So what happened?" Jazz asked, still worried by his lover's decision that he didn't need a medic. "If interface-if that interface-wasn't enough to make you stop working, what happened this time?"

"I ... I allowed my processors to wander as I drank, " Prowl said, recalling, and recited the memory as it came to him. "I was thinking of what these halls would look like when the nobles and their staff arrived. Going over what my half-brother would be doing when he arrived, preparing for the hunting season. I was about halfway through the process of how to preserve the living color of a turbofox for proper display when I noticed that I'd been standing still for more than a breem, empty cube in hand, staring at the wall without even seeing it. I hadn't moved, hadn't registered that I hadn't moved. My frame wasn't even an afterthought. I was lost in something..." he shuddered, his frame curling in on itself slightly as the emotional pain began to rise again.

Jazz gripped his shoulders as the pain spiked and flared against him and pressed his field back, as calm and soothing as he could make it, hiding his bewilderment that standing still could cause that kind of upset. "Hey, shh, I'm here," he murmured, and brought one hand up to stroke Prowl's helm. "It's okay, we're safe, I'm here!"

Pale blue optics had gone nearly white in Prowl's distress as he worked to focus on Jazz. He'd done all this for Jazz, to have Jazz.

Oh Primus, what had he done?

Trembling again, a tiny sound of horror escaped his vocalizer and he felt the shutdown threatening if he didn't control himself. There. That was it. The emotions were the trigger. Out of control emotions. Emotions that became too strong. That was what shut him down.

His vents wide open, gasping for air, Prowl made a few quick edits to his code. All emotional content over the thirty percent of maximum would be shunted to a deletion spool without being processed.

It was ugly. On a level he knew he was mutilating himself. He didn't have much choice now. It was the least of his crimes.

While Jazz shook him and tried to get his attention, Prowl focused outward again. "I'm sorry. I worked out what caused the crash. Excessive emotional output."

Jazz was giving him an alarmed look, having felt the rapid upset-distress-horror-fear starting to spiral out of control before plummeting, and not in a natural, controlled way, but in a short, artificial cut.

"Excessive emotional output?" Jazz repeated. His optics widened. "Prowl, what did you just do?"

"I inserted a protocol that shunts all emotional levels over 30% to a deletion spool so I am not overwhelmed again," Prowl said gently. "This is better than crashing every time I process difficult things."

Jazz wrapped his arms around Prowl and pulled him flush, holding tightly. "Are you okay now?"

"I ... will be," he murmured, warmth returning to his field as he slid his arms around Jazz and held him. He tucked his helm against Jazz's neck and relaxed there. "I did not mean to frighten you with any of this. The reality of what we did, and what I could have done differently, finally hit me."

Jazz sighed, shivered, and tried not to think about everything he'd done. "We're here, that's what matters," he said. "Come back to the berth with me."

"Yes, it is all that matters. We are together and we will remain that way," Prowl said firmly and lifted his helm to kiss Jazz softly. "Yes, I want to be in the berth with you. Always with you."

Jazz shivered again for entirely different reasons as they made their way back to their berth, sinking down with his lover and curling up in the warm, welcome caress of his field.

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Jazz began to boot to the very pleasant sensations of gentle hands stroking his plating and the warmth of Prowl's field meshed with his, several orns after he'd found Prowl collapsed in the entryway and one recharge cycle later.

He hummed contentedly and arched into the touch, curling closer to Prowl as the sequence finished. "Could get used to this too," he murmured, basking in the simple joy of onlining next to Prowl.

"I would enjoy that very much," Prowl purred as his hands slid along his lover's flanks, taking his time to rouse Jazz's interest despite the intensity of his own.

Blue optics finally flickered on and Jazz's hum turned decidedly more mischievous when he caught the flickers of arousal in his lover's field. He reached out to mirror Prowl's touch on his frame. "You're all right?" he asked, needing that answer before anything else.

"Yes," Prowl assured him with a kiss. "The defrag cycle was very helpful. There's still a lot to go, but the rest can be handled in regular recharge cycles."

"Oh good," Jazz said, and slid his hands up to cup Prowl's face and pulled him into another kiss. He grinned into it and hooked a leg around Prowl's waist, tugging. "And I can spend plenty of time wearing you out enough to recharge," he added in a purr that earned him a shiver of desire and another kiss as strong hands caressed his back. With little warning Prowl shifted to his back, already long familiar with how to maneuver with wings from when he had doorwings.

Yet another chapter with graphic smut. Read on Ao3
archiveofourown dot org/works/637909/chapters/1254007