Rung helps Ambulon discover a thing; Blast Off discovers the similarity between Quintessons and dolphins; Brainstorm discovers hope; Jazz discovers Prowl.

Title: Candy From Strangers, Pt. 8

Warning: Consent issues, kinks, slavery, and dolphins. Also spoiler alert for MTMTE #16.

Rating: PG-13, probably.

Continuity: IDW & G1

Characters: Ambulon, Rung, Blast Off, Brainstorm, Chromedome, Prowl, Jazz

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): A couple reactions, two requests, and a thought.

Note: the Cassetticons/D.J.D. ficlet once in this chapter has been moved to 'Gone Fishing.'

[ * * * * *]

center[* * * * *]

Rung/Ambulon - "old equipment"

[* * * * *]/center

There was a thing

Ambulon didn't know how else to describe it. It wasn't so much a happening as a series of reactions to unknown circumstances. The stimulus wasn't always the same. The reaction sometimes differed. His facial plating could feel tight one time, and his knees shake slightly the next. His hands were rock-steady but his fuel pump raced, or his fingers might tingle with numb prickles while the rest of his systems flushed hot.

Even how he felt about the sensations changed. Sometimes he got irritated and refused to even think about it. It was hardly appropriate, after all. Other times, the faint whisps of memory swept him off into daydreams that had him smiling faintly. He stared out windows seeing nothing, mind peacefully blank, and scowled down into his ration as a thousand thoughts bombarded him at once.

Contextually, he'd given up trying to pin down when it happened. He could be in the medibay recalibrating Ratchet's - once Pharma's - complex hand joints and suddenly remember a lighter-than-air slide over plating that shouldn't have felt anything but instead felt it all. First Aid could pass him in the storage closet, EM field neutral, and it'd remind him that the little gossiper would dearly love to know who was retouching his paint these days. He'd seen how the former nurse eyed him. Sunstreaker sat down in the bar, and Ambulon had to leave before his flustered reaction to the artist gave him away.

Sunstreaker didn't even paint. Why the frag did he connect paintbrushes and Sunstreaker in his mind?

This thing had him twisted up inside. It had his processors linking unassociated details at the most embarrassing times. Ultra Magnus caught him dreamily smiling at nothing and requested he submit to a drug test. That was humiliating enough, but the executive officer's stiff apology for accusing him of doping was tendered in front of a small audience of patients in the medibay. And First Aid, of course, because the universe apparently couldn't drag Swerve in on short notice to serve as a ship-wide broadcasting system that day. So now most of the ship knew that he'd been drifting around looking like a lovesick fool.

The details, typical of First Aid's style of rumor mongering, had gone missing somewhere between medibay and bar. He'd been on break, for Primus' sake, not caught dawdling on duty! Even if the whole blasted ship felt a need to stick their faces in his business, they should at least get the facts about his attention to duty right. He was getting a reputation he hadn't even earned!

Although there were times that Ambulon was sure he'd come to earn every bit of it. The way this thing recurred, eventually it was going to get him in trouble. Maybe? He wasn't sure, but he had a creeping certainty that it would. If there was no way to predict it, no way to tell how it'd affect him, then he couldn't act to counter it. He could only react.

Just the other day, he'd been on his knees prying some sort of ammo casing out from under the berth where Whirl had kicked it, and he'd had to get up to take a short walk. Ratchet had given him a knowing look. Ambulon had zipped on by him, circuitry-emittence clamped as close as possible, but his EM field had probably still stood out like a red light to the senior medic's sensitive equipment.

First Aid invited him to join him for more post-shift drinks now than in all the years they'd been stuck in the same fragging building complex back on Delphi. Ambulon refused every time, but he'd seen the gossipy medic hanging around outside his quarters a few times. Worse, he was fairly sure the horrid busybody had recruited other Autobots to tail him through the ship as well. It's gotten to the point that Ambulon was inventing new way to walk back to his quarters every day, just to spite the ex-nurse.

That was likely making the situation worse. First Aid liked mysteries.

How had Ambulon gone from being known as a straight-laced ward manager with a strut up his aft to - this?

Wait, that wasn't a fair question. He knew how. It was the fault of the thing. The thing had happened. The thing kept happening. It kept being a thing. It was a thing of many things, all of which defied clinical description.

In the part of him that tried to remain detached through the multitude of thing-related things, Ambulon gave it a name: tremor architecture. There was a thing, and Rung had planned it to the last detail. It was drawn out over the ward manager's armor, traced over sensitive edges, and mapped through the vulnerable metal of his protoform. The blueprint was imprinted in his mind and wavered across his EM field. His sensor network lit it in rippling waves.

The thing inside him, it was a structure. A carefully built tower constructed from the bare strutwork of need, cemented in place by a hot slurry of desire that lapped up the sides and solidified a bit more every time Rung built on what had come before. Curiosity supported it on the outside, and panels of freely-given consent illustrating every want inside.

Rung had designed and constructed this thing, and he smiled when the ward manager gave it a fancy name.

"Aren't you a psychotherapist?" Ambulon asked, optics troubled. "Isn't there a term for it?"

The smaller Autobot smoothed a hand over the ward manager's furrowed brows and nodded. He only smiled when Ambulon looking up at him gave him an inquiring look. That sweet smile shook Ambulon down to his tanks, but the structure stood. It vibrated and trembled, but Rung had built it flexible and strong. It was built to last no matter what was thrown at it.

But Rung never threw anything. When Ambulon went to him - or more rarely, when the slender orange mech knocked politely on his door - Rung always, always asked permission. He never entered Ambulon's closely-held personal space, either physically and mentally, unless he was made welcome. When he was sure his presence was anticipated instead of invasive, he would ease inside the strange, wonderful thing he'd mapped out through careful observation and cooperation. He checked the door lock, touched the walls, and climbed slowly up the many steps that'd led to whatever stage they were currently working on.

Sometimes, he climbed slowly, revisiting previous floors. No room could be fully explored, after all, so long as he brought some new decoration or rearranged some furniture.

"Again?" he murmured against Ambulon's lips, and the ward managerwhimpered assent as the warmth bloomed under the paintbrush. This was the first floor, the level where the two of them could stand as equals through the sanding, painting, and drying. More often than not, however, Rung pulled out a chair or guided him down to the floor, and the gliding, slick moisture of fresh paint sent Ambulon's body arching after the brush.

The tiny moving pinprick of pressure and long drying time of painting by hand required patience and a sturdy foundation. Not every painting session involved anything intimate, but when it did, the pleasure came in syrupy blooms across the surface of Ambulon's plating. It bubbled up and lingered, hot and warm at once. There was something comforting in a quiet, repetitive way in returning to the painting.

Rung didn't always venture to the next level, nor did the ward manager always invite anything further. It happened when it happened.

"Harder," Ambulon gasped on another day, bent forward over a desk with gentle fingers working into his ports. Too gentle, achingly gentle, and Rung refused his demands while the pleasure swelled in gradual, building ripples that were the best torment a mech could writhe and beg under. The ward manager whined, trapped under the nearly nonexistent weight of a model ship balanced between his shoulders, but that was more than enough to keep him down when Rung had placed it there.

The psychotherapist spoke over his gasped demands, adding a new twist to what they'd already tried before. "You're quite a sight like this, you know," that professional, soft voice told him. "Your back has a bare quality to it rarely found in our race. The lack of doors or windows is novel. It suits you well." That was unexpected to hear. The Decepticons tapped for the gestalt programs had sacrificed their former frames and selves to the combiners they'd become. Ambulon's frame was efficient and sturdy, but to hear Rung describe it this way washed heat through the ward manager's chest. "It sets you apart for what you were, but you blend into the medical division quite well as what you are. It's almost a mark of your dedication, I think."

"I can see where you need to be repainted again. Have I told you how I enjoy that? Working with my hands is satisfying. I can see the progress made in a physical way I don't often get the opportunity to watch. I like to file away the old paint and dust it from your plating, but I like to see your natural colors as well. It's like glimpsing a secret beauty shared between friends." The words spilled over the prone mech in a cascade of surprising praise that Ambulon squirmed under. He wasn't used to someone appreciating him like this. "Capturing every fleck of the old paint, wiping it away, and then covering the base coat with your preferred coloration appeals to me. Polishing you to a glistening shine is my pleasure, every time."

The model between his shoulders got a pat, which required removing three of Rung's fingers from what they'd been previously involved in. Ambulon jolted and moaned loudly, embarrassment consumed by the rough scrape of fingertips leaving him. The moan became a shuddering cry as they slipped back into his ports in deliberate, quick thrusts.

The psychotherapist's voice lowered to a throaty tone. "Yes, that's very nice. Even if I didn't find your frametype handsome, I'd find that almost beautiful. You're so responsive that there's a kind of artistry to making you react. How does it feel?"

It was a kind question. Rung's kindness extended to wishing for feedback on how he could change the internal architecture to make it different, better, and more polished. Consideration for his fellow Cybertronians taken to a more caring, intimate, lover-to-lover level.

Ambulon bit his lip and totally failed to shut off his vocalizer in time to stop the wanton groan of pleasure. "Harder!"

The demand was more like a plea this time. Rung pet the back of his thigh and denied him anyway: "No."

It wasn't his place to demand, not here or now. That was the agreement, and it made the thing inside Ambulon's chest squeeze tighter and tighter. Pleasure clawed at the base of his gut like a living creature trying to dig free. The charge flickered and rose in short bursts interspersed by long periods where the ward manager simply breathed. Breathed in the control of someone else, and breathed out his acceptance.

When the tight knot finally slipped free in a sharp snap of released charge, it shook him, seized him, and rolled waves of hard overload over his helplessly quivering body.

Afterward, Ambulon sat on the floor with the side of his helm pillowed against Rung's thigh, and a thin hand stroked him back into reality. "Feeling better?"

"Mmm."

The smile was heard, not seen. "I thought so."

"...should go."

"You don't have to." Rung ran his fingers over the drowsy mech's crest and chuckled when Ambulon mumbled an indistinct protest. The ward manager promptly turned his head to burrow into the smaller Autobot's lap. "I'm in no hurry."

"Hmmm." Inevitably, guilt for occupying the psychotherapist's time would drive the ward manager from the velvet-plush afterglow. For now, he rested with his optics offline and a small hand grounding him.

Rung hummed an old tune idly. The ship model they'd been using earlier was inspected closely for scrapes. There were none, of course. Ambulon was as respectful of the much-beloved models as Rung was of his body. Besides, when the old orange mech used an object to hold him down, the command was the part holding him down. Anything else used was just a prop. The symbolism did something to Ambulon's systems, that was all.

Anything more serious than a prop didn't fire the ex-Decepticon's systems the same way. Not the same way, and not at all in a good way.

They'd discovered that the hard way.

There were doors in the building Rung had built with locked doors. The psychotherapist trailed his fingers across them when he climbed past, acknowledging their presence, but he never tried the handles again. He'd been the one to help Ambulon close them tight shut and clearly label them with warnings for whomever might explore this strange structure after he left.

There were doors propped wide open whose thresholds he avoided stepping over.

"I'd like to," Ambulon said bluntly. He sat beside Rung at the bar. Nobody so much as looked at them twice. Ambulon strictly monitored his own body language to broadcast nothing but neutrality. Perhaps a faint friendly cast to his expression, if observers squinted. Whatever this thing was between him and the psychotherapist, Ambulon wouldn't let it ruin Rung's reputation the way it had his own.

Although the older mech hardly seemed concerned. He didn't even glance around to check if anyone was listening. No one was close enough, but Ambulon had been nervously checking the whole time since they'd sat down.

"I know you would," the psychotherapist said. He sipped from his drink and smiled at his companion. "I glad that you're comfortable enough to have said something, but as I told you before, it's not something I want to do."

Ambulon contained a wince. Yes, Rung had told him that. It'd been accompanied by a firm hand on his wrist preventing him from going any further, and a short lecture on asking permission. He'd been mortified. "I, ah. May I ask why, at least?"

"Is this an attempt to pressure me into complying with what you want instead of what I've stated is what I want?" Rung's voice stayed descriptively neutral.

Why, hello front door. Look how easily Rung could walk out of it.

Whatever this thing was, it was rooted firmly in Ambulon's mind. The psychotheraptist had sculpted it out of the ward manager's wants and desires, tailored it to Ambulon's needs, and built it to withstand even the shaking of the front door slamming behind him. Whether or not Rung visited it ever again, this thing was here to stay.

Funny, but up until the psychotherapist laid the foundations, Ambulon hadn't known there was anything inside him to build with.

He looked down at the drink his hands were clutching on the table in front of him. He didn't know precisely what this thing was. He could give it a fancy name and try to label all the parts, but that didn't make him any more knowledgeable about what it was. He had the feeling he was exploring it as much as Rung was, despite being part and parcel of the structure.

It was ruining his professional reputation.

It had destroyed his peace of mind.

It felt really, really good.

"I want to know why you won't let me return the, erm, favor, as it were," he said, careful as a blind mech walking an unknown corridor. "It feels strange to have trusted you with my body when you won't let me do more than kiss you back."

Rung stayed silent for a long minute. His lips turned down at the corners. Ambulon stole glances at him, trying to interpret what the small frown meant, but it seemed to be just the expression of someone thinking hard.

"What do you know about watches?" the orange mech said at last.

Well, that was an odd question to pull out of nowhere. "I'm not very good at keeping them," Ambulon replied, trying for a joke. "Pharma once rewarded me one for exemplary service, and I lost it in the snow outside the clinic somehow."

Rung's impressive optical ridges climbed high. "I...see. Are you aware of how the configuration of older models of interface hardware resembles clockwork?"

Again, the strange question caught him off-guard. "Ah - no, I'm sorry. It wasn't referred to in any of my - " The gears clicked behind his optics, which went wide. "- oh Primus. Well. Oh. I'm going to have to do some research."

Old, practically ancient orange hands patted the ward manager's forearm. Sometimes, Ambulon managed to somehow forget just how old Rung really was. Then again, there were times he literally could not remember the other mech's name. Age was not nearly as frustrating as fumbling the name of the mech who could make him muffle a full-throated scream by holding up a single, hushing finger at the moment of climax.

Fortunately, Run never seemed to hold anyone's failings against them. "It's not a commonly documented piece of equipment. I doubt even Ratchet has much you could read up on." Since Ambulon had just raised his arm in order to slap both hands over his face in sudden realization, Rung's black fingers slid down to his elbow naturally. The tweak of the joint at the end was not natural, however, and the ward manager jumped in his seat at the pinch. It shot a pang of pleasure up his arm, spiced with the naughty fact that Rung had just done that in public. At the bar! They weren't even sitting at the relative privacy of a table!

Frag, but Ambulon's reputation was going straight to the smelter. He could hear his fans click on even over the ambient chatter of the bar. Somewhere in Ambulon's interior architecture, a door labeled 'Exhibitionism' abruptly appeared and cracked open just slightly. The smallest push would swing it wide open, he could tell.

He smacked his hands flat on the bar and swallowed a sound trying to bubble up his throat. "I'll, uh. Look into the matter. If, well. If you're not interested in letting me learn hands-on..?"

That sounded hopeful even to his own audios. Disappointed optics met his optics, however, and Rung sighed. The shorter Autobot looked away, drawing his hand back. Ambulon almost reached toward him, almost wanted to return the touch with a similar gesture, but a glance around the bar spotted First Aid staring in his direction idly. Right. Any sort of public display of affection, however muted, was right out.

He reset his vocalizer uncomfortably and straightened in his seat. "No?"

"I enjoy what we do together," Rung said as he finished his drink and stood up in one graceful move. "It is not that I do not trust you, Ambulon. It is a personal comfort level that you're pushing me on, and while I believe you will find the answer to your question in your research, I do ask that you respect my boundaries whatever you find. Questions are welcome, but not when my answers are not listened to."

"Of...of course." Chastised, the taller mech ducked his head. He felt like a medtech who'd just failed the hygiene standards for a laboratory.

"Good night, Ambulon. I'll speak with you later."

"Yes. I mean, I - yes. Good night."

The ward manager watched him walk away unhurriedly through the bar, and he felt strange. He should have known better than to press the slender orange mech like that. Run stopped to speak with Whirl and Skids, and the thing of many layers in Ambulon's chest constricted. It swayed and trembled in time to the pulse of his troubled spark, but it stayed standing. The hands that'd guided its construction were those of a master, after all.

Later, First Aid asked him about the odd, conflicted smile he'd been wearing. Ambulon had no answer.

Only that there was a thing, and he had it bad.

center[* * * * *]

"slave coding"

[* * * * *]/center

It was officially the worst day of Blast Off's life.

Frag the spark box or the Detention Centre. Who cared about Starscream and the forced gestalt spark merge? Megatron who and the loyalty programming what?

No, this was the worst day by far. Yesterday had been a close second, but today? Today took the oil.

There was a high-pitched squeal. Blast Off winced and ducked his head, knowing he wasn't being chastised for his thoughts but unable to stop the automated program backlash. "I apologize, Master." There was another squeal and a splash. Programming kicked the shuttle in the back of the cortex, and he flinched toward the sand of the beach in a groveling bow that did his abraded forearms no good. In his own mind, he deserved the gritty pain. "Please, Lord and Master, forgive your humble servant."

Slave drones had no opinions; there was only black and white , and he had to stay in the white. That meant his mechanical mind powered through every thought he held and disregarded them in a relentless search for orders, approval, and obedience to those two essentials to his new life. He knew the chirping clicks from the water weren't expressing disapproval his thoughts. He couldn't exactly understand what they were expressing, but disapproval wasn't likely. It didn't matter, however. The code rooted under his conscious mind sucked awareness of his own thoughts down to pass judgment on them. Since he was aware that what he was thinking would be disapproved of by an owner, the coding kicked in to punish him.

It was awful. He could feel it happen. He could think about how he hated it. But then he promptly fell over himself in fear of the punishment he'd inflict on himself for that hatred. The only way to appease the coding was to cower in apology.

He knew programming imperatives. The loyalty software Shockwave and Starscream had forced onto all the Combaticons was a constant, lurking watchdog program on the combiner team's thoughts and behavior. It made them do certain things, mostly just involving instant, unquestioning obedience to Lord Megatron's will. That was annoying, but all in all, it wasn't a bad deal. Rejoining the Decepticons was at least sensible.

So bowing before the Supreme Commander? Not pleasant at times, but soldiers in the Decepticon ranks were generally expected to at least salute. Obedience and respect being enforced by loyalty programming instead of training wasn't that bad. The compulsion to obey could be forgotten in the habit of a soldier trained to follow orders.

This was not that kind of programming imperative. Lord Megatron didn't want drones for soldiers, after all.

The splashing became demanding. Blast Off was moving before he entirely knew why, the coding knocking his conscious mind off its feet and substituting a drone's automated obedience. Still on his knees, the massive shuttleformer shuffled half into the water without regard for how the stirred water immediately filled his knee joints with silt. It wasn't like he wasn't already covered in salt crusts and sand from his initial plunge into the shallows. Repeated immersion wasn't doing him any good, but it wasn't hurting him further.

He didn't want to do this, but he did. The coding made him anxious to obey.

Glum but knowing he couldn't fight, he lowered his hands into the water. "Is this more pleasing, Master?" Slippery organic flesh began wriggling around and through his fingers as the happy pod of dolphins used his hands as a playground. Since language was a, ahem, bit of a barrier in this situation, Blast Off's strict subconscious judge interpreted that as an affirmative. Tense shoulders relaxed fractionally, and the slave coding eased off its control.

Blast Off seethed and didn't even try to move. He'd used up the last of his willpower fighting the coding yesterday, and now he was just sickly resigned to being an obstacle course. He couldn't even manage to be revolted by the rubbery touch of the creatures bumping into his hands. There was a slick flood of pleasure coursing down his back for making his Master happy, instead.

His optics stayed locked on the speckled form of his owner, Lord, and center of every blasted bit of the accursed slave code. His Master was pale gray with darker markings across his head and a lighter underbelly. There was a scar across the animal's snout. There was a notch in his dorsal fin. Blast Off had nearly glitched when he'd lost track of the single dolphin in the pod's antics two days earlier, and he'd made himself memorize every individual characteristic of this particular dolphin the moment his fuel pump had stopped pounding. Well, and the moment he'd been able to raise his forehelm out of the shallow water where the coding had slammed him down to beg forgiveness for whatever disobedience had led his Lord and Master to abandon him.

The dolphins were whistling and clicking, still excited and playful. Blast Off checked the time and swallowed uneasily. After three days of this humiliating routine, he knew that once the sun ceased to shine warmly at the right angle to entertain the pod chasing glitters off his plating in the water, they would go off to chase schools of fish for sustenance. Which would be fine - Fantastic! Wonderful! Time to himself to get out of the water and let his self-repair stop repairing salt water damage and start repairing his thrusters! - except for the abandonment issue.

There was also a slight problem that was becoming rapidly more urgent. "Master," he started without much hope, "please, may I refuel?" He knew the animal didn't understand him, but the coding pressed on him until he surrendered and hopelessly said the words he would to any other owner. It would not allow him to think of his Lord and Master as anything but as equally intelligent to himself, if not smarter. "Master, I beg you to allow me this today. My fuel levels are very low."

The dolphins squealed. Their frolicking began to head into deeper water, and Blast Off lurched in purely system-level panic, fuel pump rate beginning to pick up. "Master, please! What have I done?"

He knew what he'd done. Cosmos had gotten a lucky hit, the fragger, and Blast Off had taken a header from the upper atmosphere straight into the shallows of this tropical sea. While it was a minor miracle he'd regained enough lift not to plow at full speed into the water, every strut in his body ached from the rattling smash when he'd crashed. The impact had stripped his nosecone down to the circuitry and left his belly tender with cracked plating. Transforming had been agonizing. Limping to land had been worse yet. The worst part had been the nauseating realization that escaping the water hadn't stopped the nightmare.

The crash had activating a latent code every Cybertronian possessed. Usually, it wasn't a code that anyone worried about, because the slimy multi-tentacled bastards that'd once enslaved Cybertron hadn't been seen since before the Golden Age. The Quintessons were Cybertron's monsters under the berth, but the slavers were still a legitimate threat considering the fact that Autobot and Decepticon alike had the coding to override independent thought at the command of one of them.

Or at the command of a similar enough sentient creature. Not a new thing to be worried about by any means, but no matter how soft the Autobots appeared, not even Optimus Prime would have befriended the humans if they'd fit any of the similarity criteria.

Slagging Pit, what Blast Off wouldn't give to have been enslaved by a human. A human could speak. They had moral complexes and ethics, and Blast Off could have stomped his pride down enough to be a meek, defenseless slave long enough to play off of that. The Autobots would have put a stop to anything well before he'd have had to fear being turned over to a government somewhere to disappear.

However, his owner, Lord, and Master was no human. Blast Off wasn't that lucky. No, he'd run nosecone-first into the unwelcome discovery that the Autobots and Decepticons had relied too heavily on humankind's self-centered assumptions about this world. The humans believed that they were the only sentient species on the planet. They believed wrongly.

He'd come online half-buried in the soft sand at the bottom of this shallow sea, poked awake by a marine mammal who apparently registered barely high enough on the galactic market's scale of sentience to cause his now-active coding to run a comparison scan. And the gear-licking smear of organic filth fit the criteria.

Ah, no. No, no, Blast Off hadn't just -

He surged to his feet, almost falling forward in his haste, and lifted one hand after the pod splashing away. "Master, I'm sorry! I apologize humbly for my disloyal thoughts; please, I meant no disrespect!" Pain slashed across his mind and whipped across his wings in blaring feedback and self-activation from his sensor network. "Master, have mercy!"

He kept his voice down as much as he could despite the agony. The sliver of his mind that remained rational knew that loud noises would scare the animals away. His knees gave way, dumping gracelessly back down into the water. Blast Off offlined his optics - the afternoon sunlight was suddenly far too bright to tolerate - and suffered in shaking silence. He knew when this punishment ended, it would only mean that the next was about to begin.

The dolphins were going further out to sea. It happened every day. The beasts had to eat. They probably only returned to this beach because this was where Blast Off, stunned and reeling, had dragged his sorry wrecked aft. They were curious animals. He encouraged that curiosity, however much he hated himself for it. They loved to play and investigate, and the slave coding compelled Blast Off to fulfill his new owner's desire for entertainment.

When the need to eat drew the dolphin away, the mech's Master gave no indication that he wished Blast Off to follow him. There was no dismissal, so the coding interpreted that as abandonment. There was no rationalizing with the fragging code. Every slagging day it punished him for being abandoned.

Abandonment was the fault of the slave. Never was the owner to blame. Blast Off couldn't even think that.

"Master, please..."

His vocalizer strangled closed on his plea as a second rippling shrill of pain flowed over his sensor network. His tanks were running on empty, and he was about to be punished. This was the worst day of Blast Off's whole life.

There was a splash near one hand dropped limply into the water. The shuttleformer reset his optics and focused his pain-blurred vision. "…M…Master?"

Oh, thank Primus! The pain cleared in rush of urgent need to serve. His speckled master had returned to dive in among his fingers. Blast Off dared open his hand, and the dolphin slid up onto his palm in a slosh of water and clicks. He ran a knuckle up his owner's belly, and he got a pleased squeal in return.

Pleasure flushed down his backstruts, and the shuttle couldn't contain the whimper of a needy, powerless mech crawling for his owner's attention. "Master, please, I need fuel. Please, Master. Let me fuel, Master."

He'd tried following his owner out to sea the first day when the coding compelled him, but that attempt had quickly failed when his injured body began throwing warnings at him. He'd been forced to turn back to shore, begging forgiveness the whole way. The pod had swum around him curiously but soon left him behind. After that, the slave coding interpreted the lack of summons as meaning that his owner and Lord didn't wish accompaniment.

Hence, abandonment and punishment. Also starvation, because slaves weren't allowed to even fragging intake fuel without permission.

A fish suddenly darted out from under the shadows cast by Blast Off's frame, and the dolphin took off. Shoulders slumped, Blast Off kept his hand where it'd been abandoned like a toy on the playground. Exactly like that, in fact. If his master considered him a toy, then a toy he was.

His tanks were pinging him incessantly. The slave coding sternly berated him via a flicker of pain through his head for desperately wishing he could do anything without his owner's approval.

As fast as the animal zipped away, he returned. There was a firm nudge to Blast Off's palm. The shuttleformer bent closer to the water, optics zooming in on - a fish? His Lord and Master was trying to give him the fish?

Fish. Sustenance, for this particular species of mammal. Of course an animal couldn't fuel from energon, so yes! Yes, it was a gift! An indication that his owner wished him to fuel, right? "Thank you, Master," Blast Off blurted, delicately pinching the gift between two fingers and laying it on his comparatively massive hand. The tiny silver thing flopped in an extremely unappealing way. The slave coding told him it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever been given and he should express his appreciation. "I'm grateful, Master."

When the dolphin squeal-clicked and swam off toward the distant dorsal fins of his pod, however, the slave coding still chose to interpret that as abandonment. Blast Off's free hand went to his head as he dragged himself, shaking and wretchedly miserable, back up onto the beach. His other hand cradled the fish close. He kept it there even as he opened his cargo bay and dug his emergency rations out.

The energon would feed his self-repair systems and eventually get his communications array back online. It wouldn't do anything about his owner. He had no idea how the other Combaticons would react to his slave coding being activated and imprinting, much less what the rest of the Decepticons would do. Not that he wanted anything to be done about his Lord and Master! No, not Blast Off! Blast Off was his Master's loyal servant!

The shuttle buried his face in his free hand and groaned quietly as he punished himself yet again.

This was officially the worst day of his life. Unfortunately, tomorrow wasn't looking any better.

center[* * * * *]

Brainstorm - "no legacy"

[* * * * *]/center

He wonders, even as he speaks, if this time will be the time Chromedome remembers. He doubts it, but he's already seen Rewind's message. It's…a good attempt.

Yes, of course he'd played it first. Why wouldn't he have? Sentimentality aside, privacy is a luxury that can't be afforded except as window dressing. Besides, it wouldn't be a grand, touching gesture if all Rewind's data slug contains is an emergency purge of classified data to prevent even the remotest chance of Overlord obtaining it. Brainstorm watched the message and passes the data slug on now because this is the third time he's given Chromedome this speech.

Brainstorm hands the data slug over because however much he doubted Rewind would be the special exception to the rule, he still wishes it'll work.

Chromedome should remember. It's not healthy to forget love, no matter how it ends. It's not healthy that the mnemosurgeon keeps doing this. It's never been healthy, but Brainstorm has never been enough to convince the mech of that.

It stings his ego that he's not persuasive enough. If Rewind's little message succeeds where he's repeatedly failed, the scientist already knows he's going to resent the dead flashdrive for that. But he'll keep his vocalizer mute on it. As much as he hates putting himself second for anyone, even he knows that a conjunx endure comes before a friend.

Chromedome is his friend. Brainstorm wants the best for him even if he can't be the one to bring it about.

And he'll resent Rewind a bit, but he'll be grateful, too. Brainstorm is a genius. He's left a trail of amazing inventions and brilliant discoveries wherever he's been. Okay, maybe not on the same level as Perceptor, but - no, wait, derailing that train of thought. The point is that Brainstorm will leave a legacy behind when he finally goes.

His hand tightens on the briefcase as the door closes behind him. Oh, yes. He'll leave a legacy, but he's always known that he, himself, will be forgotten.

Unless Rewind changes Chromedome's mind.

center[* * * * *]

Prowl/Jazz - "discipline" & "you've got to learn a lesson"

[* * * * *]/center

He'd known the new tactician was into discipline. How could he not know? He was the fragging Head of Special Operations. He jiggled a wire in his web, and little gearspiders spies whispered sweet information about everything in his audios. His web went everywhere, even inside his own faction, and yes, Jazz knew the tactician was into discipline. The mech's unit had been so strictly managed it'd gotten stellar efficiency ratings across the board. That included as much ammunition usage as kill ratios.

Prowl made credit-pinching business owners look lax. He micromanaged his unit until Jazz wouldn't be surprised if the mech knew more about them than even Jazz's own spies did. Well, call that guess a solid 'maybe.' Jazz's itsy bitsy gearspiders found a lot of spouts to crawl up, and they were exceedingly clever about not getting flushed out, but Prowl kept a clean house. The webs kept getting dusted away.

Regardless, the tactician made the cut to get promoted to the Prime's officer cadre. Jazz interviewed him beforehand, of course, both officially and unofficially. Nobody made it up through the ranks without getting vetted, after all, and no way in the Pit was the Head of SpecOps letting anybody mediocre or potentially traitorous into Optimus Prime's close confidences.

Jazz walked away from the interview - and other, 'coincidental' meetings - thinking that the mech had a cold personality and a cool head under pressure. Not a bad thing when paired with him, really. Jazz could make coolant envious when he had to, but he'd cultured a volatile public personae on purpose, and he wasn't about to let this mech close enough to see past the jovial Jazzmeister. They probably wouldn't manage much of a close working relationship, but Jazz tended to keep away from those on principle anyway. The reason there was an opening in the cadre for a tactician wasn't because of natural causes, and Jazz preferred to minimize future emotional aches. This was war, not social hour. Prowl seemed like a tactician who could get the job done and likely hit any curve balls Megatron threw at him. As long as the mech could work with Jazz's peculiar style when taking care of business, this was going to be a good fill all around.

He even seemed to appreciate when Jazz laid that out for him. "I find no reason we cannot work together in a manner befitting our primary functions." The saboteur wondered a bit cynically if the mech even knew what Jazz's primary function was. The way Prowl was looking at him made it doubtful he didn't, and that made Jazz want to go double-check every firewall Special Operations had running. "Our separate priorities are both beneficial to the Autobots. Combining operations, I predict a 25% increase in Decepticons wishing for our demises, individually or jointly."

That flash of dry humor only showed through rarely, Jazz already knew. That taste of it plus the narrow, dangerous smile Prowl allowed himself made Jazz want to get to know this mech better. Anyone who could make him question the security of his division's personnel files with a handful of words and amused optics was worth cultivating as a contact, if nothing else.

Yeah, Prowl was a good addition to the Prime's officer cadre.

More than a good addition, the tactician proved to be one of the best choices the Autobots could have made. His ability to be suppress personal emotion balanced wonderfully against Wheeljack's enthusiasm, Ironhide's gung-ho anger, Ratchet's weary sarcasm, and Prime's ability to care too fragging much. SpecOp's seemingly chaotic web acquired a center, somebody to feed all the information to while Jazz was freed to scurry the wires tangled in forgotten corners. The dangerous black-and-white Autobot Third whispered with gearspiders and returned to weave support around Prowl's own plots and plans.

Well before the tactician got promoted to Second-in-Command, the Decepticons did indeed wish him dead. Him, and his smiling, visored shadow.

Unfortunately, Jazz was having trouble keeping his distance. "I like you," he said to the mech as they bent over the display table. "It's gettin' to where I wanna keep you alive."

Prowl looked at him, and the saboteur knew he understood. This was war, and some people in war had to be expendable. Especially the officers, who had to be exceptional mechs slotted into positions like replaceable parts. Officers had to see the mechs in the ranks as faceless numbers, yet balance that against how they were also people. It was the fight to keep that balance, expendable versus irreplaceable, and Jazz was losing his balance. Jazz, of all mechs, had to know everyone but the Prime could be sacrificed if the payoff was rich enough.

"Are you compromised?" Prowl asked, optics calculating, and Jazz smirked faintly.

"Don't get your aft caught, and we won't have to find out," he said back, and behind the cold blue optics, a mind like a mathematician's smoothly ticked through all the permutations of that. A mathematician of war, a mech standing between sociologist, historian, and machine. It was a difficult place to stand, but no more so than the spot Jazz occupied.

When every aspect of the saboteur's revelation had been accounted for, the tactician bent his head in a nod. "Likewise."

Jazz looked back at him, and behind his own impenetrable blue gaze, the part of him allotted to personal thought wondered if Prowl could see the calculations running. In all likelihood? Yes. Mech could see through a steel door if there was something Jazz wanted to hide behind it. It was a skill the saboteur unabashedly envied and admired, although it bothered him that he was so transparent. Only to this mech, only to Prowl, but yet Jazz couldn't see a single fragging clue in the tactician for however hard he tried.

It was the same puzzle the mech had handed him since their first meeting, so he let it go. They returned to their work and didn't speak of it again.

If they drifted a little closer, neither commented. If Jazz's web wove around Prowl a little tighter, the tactician said nothing. If Prowl stood a little more between others and his shadow, Jazz never mentioned it. The gearspiders whispered. The numbers ever changed. The war went on, and the Autobots couldn't afford the weakness of their Second and Third depending on each other more than necessary.

"How do you do it?" Jazz asked after a harrying rescue mission, leaning his hip against the berth as if his fuel pump hadn't spent the last three orns hammering wild concern through his body.

The damaged tactician looked up at him as he waited his turn under Ratchet's hands. Those cold blue optics saw everything. "How do you?"

Their words had no special emphasis. They sounded like they were mildly inquiring after each other's technique for testing energon for contaminates. Like every one of their exchanges, it was in plain sight and nobody looked twice, because there was nothing there to stare at. The Head of Special Operations still had his web, the Head of Tactical his numbers, and together or separate, those stayed the same.

"I asked first."

That got a faint quirk of Prowl's mouth. The mech was tired and injured. It'd been a long three orns. "You've got to learn a lesson." He looked at the other Autobots in the medibay, ever running his calculations on probabilities and the future. "What is two subtracted from three?"

It was a question with an obvious answer. Jazz gave it due thought even as he flippantly answered, "You rattled your battle-tac? It's one."

"Three subtracted from two?"

"Negative one." The mech's tactical net might actually be down. Jazz didn't think so, but he also didn't get what this lesson was supposed to teach.

Prowl saw his wary regard, and the tiny smile disappeared. "Yes. However, the absolute value remains the same. Take two from three, and one is left standing. Take three from two, and one remains. Those numbers do not change. That is the lesson. We are all numbers, Jazz. In war, we cannot be anything but. As long as one is left to balance the equation, two or three can be taken away. That is how I do it."

The blue visor looked into blue optics, and the optics saw the shock the casual look contained. Disciplined as always, Prowl's body language communicated nothing, and his face was a mask. Jazz's fuel pump stuttered at what he hadn't seen hiding behind that disciplined front.

Because in absolute values, yes, one always remained. But Prowl wouldn't have phrased his lesson that way if he didn't mean to communicate just how much Two valued Three, outside absolutes. If Jazz didn't return from a mission, the Autobots wouldn't just lose him. The absolute value would be there. Prowl would not die, but yet he would not survive.

It was quite possibly the most romantic thing Jazz had ever heard from a simple math lesson.

[ * * * * *]

A/N: So people on this site are aware, I do take fanfiction commissions. See my Tumblr page under Bibliotecaria-D for details.