Author: gatekat and starshield on LJ
Pairing: Prowl/Jazz
Rating: NC-17 mech/mech
Codes: Crossover, Slash
Summary:
Disclaimer: The authors are only playing with their own twisted muses. Transformers belong to Hasbro. Fandom-side, check the inspirations page (gatekat-fics ./290 .html ) We draw from a ton of amazing stories and authors you should read.
Notes: klik = 1 minute; breem = 8.3 minutes; joor = 6.3 hours; orn = day/32 joor; metacycle = 6 (5.9285) years; vorn = 83 years/14 metacycles
~text~ bond/hardline talk
::text:: comm chatter
At All Costs 29: Breaking Down
Sixteen brutally long joors after Jazz had left to answer Black Echo's summons Prowl was still in his workroom trying to get something done with limited success. It was an actual relief when he heard the outer door slid open. No matter who it was, it was a distraction he desperately needed.
Rising to see who it was he paused just long enough to give his sensor panels a shake, the tension in his entire frame carrying even that far. With a final check to make sure what little had accomplished was saved for him to return to later Prowl made his way into the main room.
Jazz was there, physically intact with only a few scrapes here and there, but the minibot all but radiated misery and desperate need. The instant he saw Prowl he darted forward to bury his face against Prowl's midsection and shook. His field roiled outward, desperate for the comforting connection and full of desperate grief.
Prowl pushed him away, but just enough so that he could actually lift the smaller mech up, arms and field wrapping around Jazz as he held him close. Silent comfort as he carried Jazz to the berthroom, love and Prowl's own sense of calm offered freely as he settled them both and waited for Jazz to speak, if he wanted.
"I hate breaking mechs," Jazz trembled, more than willing to be anywhere Prowl took him. As long as the larger mech was close, Jazz didn't care where he was. "Hate it like nothing else. It's everything a pleasurebot isn't."
"And he has asked you to do it again?" Prowl clarified quietly, holding Jazz close with one arm as he freed a hand to run soothing over the silver armor.
Jazz only nodded against his armor and trembled harder. "It's a perversion of what I was sparked to be, what I am," he keened in tormented grief. "If I wasn't so good, he wouldn't order it, but I am." He shook harder, his field drenched in self-hatred.
Prowl wanted to find a way out of this, wanted to save his lover from the clear distress he was in. Wanted find Black Echo and hurt the mech for what he was doing to Jazz. Instead he sent love to try and counter the self-hatred, contenting himself with listening for now.
With a ragged intake Jazz managed to weave 'thanks' into his field.
"Do you know what breaking a mech is like?" Jazz whispered.
Acknowledgment of the thanks, but with a pushing of Prowl's field deeper into the mech in his arms, full of concern that completely centered on Jazz at the moment.
"Not in detail." Prowl admitted. "Not much."
Jazz nodded against his chest and pressed closer. "It means getting into a mech's processor, understanding them, finding out what makes them tick ... and using that to shatter their ability to comprehend reality or make judgments. I have to drive them completely, delusionally insane."
He didn't want to know, but he had to ask, to try and make sense of what Jazz was telling him. "What does that gain then, if they are insane after the work is done?"
"A mech that doesn't have a grip on reality is much easier to wipe and reprogram," Jazz murmured, shuddering. "They don't know what's going on, so they don't resist. There's half a dozen I've helped turn to the Autobots that way."
A hiss of anger from Prowl as understanding set in, and an entirely new level of anger/rage/disgust that he was quick to partition off from Jazz. His lover clearly hated doing this, and there was not a chance Prowl was going to blame him for it.
A moment of selfishness in the midst of all that. "Tell me this wasn't part of the contract you accepted so you could stay."
Jazz shook his head fervently. "No, just like what Black Echo asks for in the berth isn't. It's separate, negotiated with each job. But ... saying no to Black Echo? Not really an option. All I can do is demand a fortune for my services and pray it'll eventually be too much."
Prowl knew in his spark that the chance of that was small. Black Echo was the type of mech who got what he wanted, one way or another. Prowl hated to remember how close he had been to breaking before the Prime had intervened, leaving the Praxian with his most important secrets still intact.
"Black Echo relented, allowed me to come here tonight," Jazz murmured, pressing close. "But once I go back I won't leave that cell until the job is done," he sounded, felt, sick. "When I'm done, Black Echo will probably take me to his berth while the mech is reprogrammed. I'll be turned over to Ratchet when Black Echo goes back to work to finish indoctrinating the new Autobot. Ratchet'll probably call you when I'm repaired enough to come home."
Prowl hummed softly, looking for a way to protect Jazz and burying his own grief that he could not far away from the already suffering mech. "I will come get you." He promised quietly. "As soon as Ratchet allows."
Jazz trilled shakily in thanks, his trembling slowly subsiding as he soaked in Prowl's steady assurance and calmness.
"Knowing I have you to come to when it's over makes it ... easier to get through," Jazz eventually murmured. "Knowing this one wasn't a Con by choice does too, a little bit. But to do this to a mechling," he shuddered. "I'm going to be a mess for a while."
"This is one of the things I had hoped I'd left behind." Prowl murmured, confession that he knew the Decepticons had been doing the same thing, even if he had been more removed from it then. It had bothered him then, and it almost bothered him more now.
He nuzzled at Jazz's helm, affection and comfort the intention. Jazz kept saying tonight, but..."How long can you stay?"
"Another joor and a breem," Jazz answered. "Bumblebee's getting a little recharge. I'm supposed to be."
Prowl held him even closer, determined to do what he could here and now. "Then rest love. I will be here."