![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Warning level... mm, some cursing, implications of m/m sex. So don't read if that offends you. Elsewise, enjoy!
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 3: Come Undone
by K. Stonham
prereleased 18th August 2007
"So." Isaac Hyde took the seat opposite Jazz in the cantina.
"So," the laid-back Project member agreed.
"What'd Prime do to you?"
"Put a reprimand in m' file." Jazz languidly grinned. "An' for beatin' ya into scrap, 'M not allowed to spar with ya for two weeks."
"That's all?"
"Ayup."
Isaac muttered a curse. "Who am I supposed to fight with, then?" he demanded. "The brats? Prime? Ratchet?"
"I'd say Ratchet's a good choice," Jazz opined. "Nearly floored ya when he was tryin' t' beat certain things int' ya head."
"That was then. This is now."
Jazz snickered. "Still an effective demonstration."
"You wouldn't be laughing if he'd done it to you." The memory came back of the medic, who he'd thought even-tempered, grabbing Isaac by the neck and directing a hard knee right into his groin to prove a point.
Ratchet had made his point, all right; it hadn't even hurt. It had taken several seconds of gasping against the sensation he'd expected to be there before Isaac had realized that sensation wasn't there at all. "I rebuilt you with everything 'human' intact because you'd never quit bitching if I hadn't," the medic had said caustically. "The point is, your body's not human anymore so of course it won't feel the same, you pea-brained moron!"
It had been a revelation of sorts. The limits of their rebuilt bodies weren't anything like the limits of their old ones....
Of course, on later thought, Isaac had come to the panicked question of whether the opposite was true, and there was no pleasure to mirror the no pain. Luckily Ratchet had been able to relieve his worry on that score too.
"So," Isaac said, changing the subject slightly. "About this... 'friend' of yours."
"Touch him," Jazz said flatly, "or his sister, an' you'll never see me comin'."
Isaac nodded, smiling with dark pleasure. "Good," he said, having expected nothing less from Jazz. "Now, about the mission...."
*
Sam stumbled blearily into the kitchen and slumped into his chair at the table. He stared at its hardwood surface for a few minutes before managing to blink his way into consciousness enough to raise his head and look at his father, who was calmly drinking his orange juice and observing his progeny in return. "The cereal's on the counter," Ronald "Sparkplug" Witwicky informed his son.
"The cereal's always on the counter," Sam managed to shoot weakly back. He was too brain-fried to come up with any better lines. Maybe breakfast would fix that. Feeling like a zombie, he shuffled over to the counter. Brains. Cereal. Bowl. Spoon. Sugar. Lots of sugar. Milk, maybe that was a good idea.
"You know, maybe we should get you an old-fashioned alarm," his father commented as Sam made attempts at assembling his meal. "Something that isn't electronic."
"Mmm." Sam concentrated on the sugar. Three spoonfuls? Maybe four, he needed the sugar boost.
"Something you can't turn off, reprogram, or fry with your mind," his father continued pointedly.
"Just because you wear an antique that you have to wind--" Sam retorted, shambling back to the table.
"I'm not the one who's having problems getting up in the morning," his father replied.
"Was up late digging out real schematics," Sam replied. Spoon, mouth. "Need to figure out where Cybercon's storing its data."
"Keep in mind that most of you is still biological," Sparkplug said. He finished his juice and stood, carrying his dishes to the sink. "And being a teenager, you're mandated ten hours of sleep a day, minimum."
"Twelve would be better," Sam muttered. "Feel free to suggest it to Optimus."
"Don't tempt me." The only sound for a minute was the rush of water and Sam's single-minded efforts to convey his food to his insides. "Is he really being that bad?"
Sam sighed. "No. Just... I don't want to let him down. I don't want to make him think adding me to the team was a bad idea."
"I know what you mean." His father returned to the table and sat back down. "That man makes you want to follow him."
Sam nodded, mouth full.
"Here." His father slid a full glass of juice across the table to him. "You're still growing."
*
Brian sat against the wall, arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees, and watched the shimmer of the water.
Always in motion. Shaped to its container. Two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen held together by covalent bonds. A line from a book he'd once read echoed distantly through his mind: even though they knew what water was made of, no one understood why it was wet. Di-hydrogen monoxide, one of the most dangerous substances on Earth. It locked up brakes, caused hydroplaning, caused two cars to crash into one another on a road at night--
A bundle of cloth hit him in the head. He blinked and looked up.
"Put 'em on," Spike told him, nodding at the blue fabric. "I'm tired of watching you sit there miserable."
Blue swim trunks.
"We should be about the same size," Spike told him, wearing nothing more than a pair of red trunks himself.
"I can't swim," Brian messaged him on a private channel. "Metal, remember?"
"No," Spike retorted, "you can't float. That doesn't mean you can't swim."
Brian blinked.
"Or are you afraid you might rust?" Spike taunted softly.
Brian's eyes narrowed slightly. He was not afraid of water. Or Spike. Or anything. Snatching up the trunks, he stormed away to the locker room to change.
*
Bumblebee wasn't too hard to figure out, Sam thought, drifting aimlessly in the water as he waited. At least not on this. He always came in and brooded staring at the water. It was part of why Sam had started frequenting the pool. From the file he'd managed to sneak out from under some pretty good firewalls, Sam had a pretty good idea why. Collegiate-level swimmer turned metal... yeah, that was about like taking away his own skateboarding. Probably worse, in fact, given that 'boarding was a passion, not a life ticket, for him.
He looked up as Bumblebee stalked back into the pool area, watched the drain of both anger and momentum as the cyborg teenager got closer and closer to the water. The fact that Bumblebee was almost completely burnished golden metal didn't bother him; his dad had helped Ratchet design some of the systems that were in both his head and Bumblebee's body. He'd been on the outside verges of the Project, watching the designs and CG models and simulations on his father's computers, parts and models constructed on the workbench out in the garage, for as long as he could remember. It was almost in his blood. The decision to volunteer, to become part of it himself, had been easy.
"Coming in?" he asked as Bumblebee stood frozen at the edge. Blue eyes flickered over to glare at him and he practically felt the angry buzzing hum of Bumblebee's emotions over the still-open comm line 'Bee had used earlier. "The water's fine," he said levelly.
The golden boy flinched a little and Sam practically smiled to see his words hit their target so perfectly, implication understood: the water was fine, but Bumblebee wasn't.
Bumblebee straightened up and took a deliberate first step into the pool, liquid H2O swallowing his ankle as he stepped in. His grip on the rail, though, was fast and white-knuckled. He slowly made his way down the five steps until he stood fully in the water. It hit him at mid-chest; he was just a hair shorter than Sam, though more powerfully built. "Welcome to the water," Sam baited him softly, triumphantly.
Bumblebee's eyes widened as he realized just what Sam had been doing. Indignant mechanical sounds issued from his broken throat; quiet static hissed across the comm line. He looked angry, no, furious. Sam stood his ground, smiling.
He half-expected the wave of water even as Bumblebee unleashed it on him and laughed, trying not to swallow any of the pool water, as he batted it back at the other teenager.
"You... you...!" Bumblebee sent indignantly as he chased Sam across the pool, the two of the hitting and slapping wild waves and arcs of water at one another all the while.
"You had get over it sooner or later," Sam replied the same way. "Come on, you've been brooding at this pool for months now!"
"You wouldn't understand," Bumblebee sniped angrily.
"You're right, I wouldn't," Sam replied, ducking underwater and making for the relative safety of the deep end. He surfaced there, shaking the water out of his face and eyes, and hovered, treading water, looking at Bumblebee across the distance between them. "And you wouldn't understand what it's like to not even fuckin' know," he snarled back. "So don't get all holier-than-thou at me just because life hurts. Get over yourself, 'Bee!"
Bumblebee glared at him for a long time, then eventually turned and pushed off from the base of the pool, gliding toward the wall. Sam cautiously followed him with a quiet breast stroke.
"Hate you," Bumblebee sent. "You're worse than Jazz."
"Should I feel complimented?" Sam asked, and caught a hand on the wall by Bumblebee. They were both quiet for a minute, then he asked, "You ever tried skateboarding?"
Bumblebee looked at him. "No."
"Want to?" Sam asked. "I've got a couple spare boards."
"Sure. I guess," Bumblebee replied. He waved a hand through the water, watching the liquid flow over its surface. He seemed to come to some kind of decision because he ducked underwater and pushed off from the wall with his feet, using its inertia to propel himself to the other side. Sam watched the smooth motion of the golden-and-blue form under the water. "Spike?"
"Yeah?"
Bumblebee surfaced at the far end of the pool and turned to look at him. "Thank you."
*
The phone on his desk rang. Michael picked it up with his left hand, black ink pen in his right continuing to fill in the address box on the form. "Detective Michael Powell," he introduced himself automatically into the receiver.
"Busy day?" a familiar voice asked at the other end of the line.
His pen stopped and he half-turned to look at the phone. "Jazz?" he asked redundantly. "I'm at work," he felt the need to point out.
"So'm I," Jazz replied. "Jus' wanted t' ask when ya got off a' work."
"Seven," Michael replied. "Why?"
"Let's jus' say as a' tomorrow I'm outta town on a business trip," Jazz answered. "So I was intendin' t' ask if you'd like t' go out t' dinner with me. I... just wanted t' talk. If that's all right."
"Perfectly fine," Michael reassured him. "Anywhere in particular?"
"Was thinkin' I'd ask ya," Jazz replied. "What're ya in th' mood for?"
Michael thought for a second. "Italian? There's Stefano's on Main and Broadway...." Which had high-walled booths good for private conversations.
"Perfect. I'll make reservations for seven-thirty?" Jazz asked.
"Sure. I'll meet you there."
Without a farewell the line went dead, but that was Jazz's way... a superstition he'd picked up, he'd mentioned once, from old squadron mates. If you didn't say goodbye, it meant you were coming back to continue the conversation.
*
"Can't believe you're not even grounding him, Prime," Isaac growled as the brief call from the communications center ended. It wasn't like he was monitoring Jazz's outbound communications. Really. Except that he was.
"He explained his reasons to my satisfaction," Optimus replied. "Jazz has never done anything to endanger the Project or any of its staff or members. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt based on his past actions and record."
"Still...." Isaac ducked and rolled as Optimus' wooden practice sword came a little closer to his head than he would have liked. He grunted, blocking with his own boken the overhead strike that followed. He used his strength and leverage to spring forward, rocking his CO slightly off balance and backward, scoring a glancing hit on Optimus' open flank. But he was stopped cold as the other man's boken lightly touched the back of his neck. If it had been a real fight and a real sword, it would have been a beheading stroke. Isaac chuckled and yielded. "Nice," he commented. But then Optimus had been practicing this style for longer than he had. After all the initial dust had settled about the Project it had been an unexpected pleasure to find that he had kenjutsu in common with his new commanding officer.
"Not bad yourself," Optimus replied, going to the bench and grabbing up the two bottles of water that sat there. He tossed one at Isaac, who caught it single-handedly, and twisted the cap off the other, taking a long swallow. "Jazz's tactics seem to be rubbing off on you," he observed.
"If he's not grounded," Isaac grumbled, "then why did you bother restricting him from fighting with me?"
"How are the bruises?" Prime asked mildly in reply. Isaac glowered at him. "Jazz is dangerous, even to us, when he loses his temper. I want him reminded of that and more mindful of the ramifications of his outside connections."
Isaac smirked. "So diplomatic," he quipped, and downed half of his own water. "Another match, Optimus?"
"Sure," Optimus replied, setting down his bottle. A smile hovered around his mouth, indicating he intended to win this bout as well.
Not if Isaac had anything to say about it.
*
"You're sure that this would work?" Mikaela asked dubiously.
"No," Sparkplug said, grinning at her and Ratchet, "but can we try it anyway?"
"Well, it can't decrease the armor's strength," Ratchet said. "We might as well give it a go."
"Actually, increasing sensory input from the armor might help with defensive capabilities," Chip mused, adjusting his glasses. "If we could make the signal strength muted compared to normal tactile input, and possibly variable depending on damage incurred...." His fingers flew over keys.
"Sensory deprivation areas where the armor's melted or been blasted?" Mikaela asked, examining the schematic of the proposed external armor sensory net.
"I find a touch of pain tends to drive the lesson home better," Ratchet replied.
"Yeah, but we're not talking the operating table here, we're talking real fire-fight situations," Mikaela shot back. "The last thing we need is for anyone to get distracted by pain."
"If it doesn't hurt, how will they know it's been damaged?" Ratchet retorted.
"It's all a moot point if we can't make the sensor array work to begin with," Sparkplug said. "It's a long way between the drawing board and a working prototype, let alone field implementation."
"We could always ask Jack," Chip said, with a sly sideways glance at Ratchet.
"Hell no," the medic immediately vetoed. "Weapons, yes. Anything that is supposed to explode. But do you really want him tinkering with armor?"
"Percy, then," Mikaela piped up, exchanging a grin with Chip.
"Research-oriented," Ratchet dismissed. "He might be able to figure it out, reverse-engineer it from a working model, maybe, but to construct the thing?" His snort of disbelief would have done a horse proud.
"Darn, then we'll just have to put it together ourselves," Sparkplug said innocently.
"You are railroading me and don't think I don't know it," Ratchet warned his team. He leaned forward and studied the schematics again. "Maybe if we used the nanomachines to fashion conductors smaller than a micron..." he muttered, and rolled his eyes at their grinning expressions. "Grow up, the lot of you! We have work to do."
"Yes, boss," the three of them chorused in practiced tones. He rolled his eyes again and contemplated just how they might go about this innovation. If Sparkplug's newest idea worked, it could indeed give the Project's agents an edge in battle.
*
Michael sat in the booth and waited for Jazz to appear, ordering only two glasses of water for them. It wasn't long until the familiar form, dressed in simple but stylish loose monochrome clothing, appeared, spoke a word to the hostess, and was guided to the table. Michael greeted him with a simple raised hand and half-wave. Jazz nodded at him in return and slid into the other side of the booth with a murmured thanks and dazzling grin at the hostess.
When had it become automatic, Michael wondered, to check Jazz's emotional state in public by the tension in his hands and shoulders instead of by the inconstant truth of his smiles? "Anything wrong?" he asked quietly.
"Nah." Jazz's tone was casual, but the slope of his shoulders... he was hunched slightly forward, Michael found. Defensive. "Jus' wanted t' see ya 'fore I left."
"Simple trip?" he asked, opening his menu, watching Jazz over its top.
"Should be. It's prelim only... just'a day or two an' I'll be back. Dealin's are scheduled for next week. The calamari here any good?"
"I haven't had it, but I'd assume so." There was public-Jazz and there was private-Jazz. One was hidden within the other like the heart of a flower concealed inside its petals. One was marked by his visor, grin, and easy humor. The other was blind, a little quieter, and, Michael was inclined to think, subtly happier. He suspected that he might be the only one who ever got to see private-Jazz. He hadn't expected that strange dichotomy when he'd begun this relationship. Given what his department's psychologist had to say about himself, though, Michael was not inclined to throw stones. "Having bad feelings about the trip?" he inquired.
Jazz tilted his head to one side consideringly. "Not really," he replied eventually. "Jus'... dunno." He shrugged. "Feelin' a little off-balance, maybe, an' it makes me feelin' better, bein' around ya." He smiled crookedly. "Ever been told ya have a calmin' presence?"
"Frequently." It was one of the reasons he worked as many homicide cases as he did. "Do you want to go back to my place after dinner? I think there's a game on." That was a lie, and Jazz knew he would rather curl up with a good book or a game of go or chess rather than watch a game, but it was a pretext that offered space, quiet, and room for Jazz to drop his masks, no strings attached.
"That'd be cool." And Jazz relaxed just slightly, shoulders dropping down and back.
When had it become so important to turn around and see Jazz leaning slightly against a doorway, smiling an honest smile, sightlessly but unerringly tracking Michael across a room? Jazz was color, excitement, spice in an otherwise bland life. He'd liked Jazz, wanted that humor and panache in his existence any way it could be, even just as a friend. He'd never expected anything more. Never expected a gentle blind touch to threaten to break down walls he'd spent a lifetime constructing and defending. Never expected to be deafened by the roar of the wave bearing down on him. Never expected to care this much.
Michael smiled quietly at the waitress, not letting his thoughts, or how much they scared him, show on his face, and ordered calzone. Jazz, wearing his own mask, opted for the calamari.
*
"This," Spike said, "is a skateboard. Four wheels and a polyurethane board. Finest mode of transportation known to anyone under the age of sixteen, favored choice of recreational vehicle for the truly cool over sixteen."
Brian resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I know what it is," he replied. "Why don't you convince me it's worth learning to use?"
Spike grinned. "Just watch and learn, my heathen friend." Expertly he pushed off from the pavement edge into the half pipe, gaining momentum, body low and balanced. He was one with the wheels and polyurethane board, calm and in the mastery of his element as he crested the far side and flipped, spinning, to grab air beneath his wheels. Without even needing to touch the pavement's edge to direct his fall, he landed neatly back in the pipe, his direction reversed.
He made it look easy. Beautiful. Pure.
The clean movement and its effortless repetitions surprised Brian. In this realm completely divorced from the one of technology and warfare, missions in the dark and the lack of human touch, Spike was quick, calm, and focused. The mindset that made him a formidable hacker, Brian began to realize, wasn't something that had been caused by the cybernetic implants. It was something that was inherent to Spike. And, as Spike crested again the cement ridge near Brian, he saw something in Spike that made him feel very much the younger of the two of them, though he was nearly two years older than the other teen. There was a clear, fierce, focused joy on Spike's face that forced out all anger, all worry, all pain. There was simply no room left for them in Spike's heart at that moment.
It was in that moment that Brian began to fall a little in love.
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 3: Come Undone
by K. Stonham
prereleased 18th August 2007
"So." Isaac Hyde took the seat opposite Jazz in the cantina.
"So," the laid-back Project member agreed.
"What'd Prime do to you?"
"Put a reprimand in m' file." Jazz languidly grinned. "An' for beatin' ya into scrap, 'M not allowed to spar with ya for two weeks."
"That's all?"
"Ayup."
Isaac muttered a curse. "Who am I supposed to fight with, then?" he demanded. "The brats? Prime? Ratchet?"
"I'd say Ratchet's a good choice," Jazz opined. "Nearly floored ya when he was tryin' t' beat certain things int' ya head."
"That was then. This is now."
Jazz snickered. "Still an effective demonstration."
"You wouldn't be laughing if he'd done it to you." The memory came back of the medic, who he'd thought even-tempered, grabbing Isaac by the neck and directing a hard knee right into his groin to prove a point.
Ratchet had made his point, all right; it hadn't even hurt. It had taken several seconds of gasping against the sensation he'd expected to be there before Isaac had realized that sensation wasn't there at all. "I rebuilt you with everything 'human' intact because you'd never quit bitching if I hadn't," the medic had said caustically. "The point is, your body's not human anymore so of course it won't feel the same, you pea-brained moron!"
It had been a revelation of sorts. The limits of their rebuilt bodies weren't anything like the limits of their old ones....
Of course, on later thought, Isaac had come to the panicked question of whether the opposite was true, and there was no pleasure to mirror the no pain. Luckily Ratchet had been able to relieve his worry on that score too.
"So," Isaac said, changing the subject slightly. "About this... 'friend' of yours."
"Touch him," Jazz said flatly, "or his sister, an' you'll never see me comin'."
Isaac nodded, smiling with dark pleasure. "Good," he said, having expected nothing less from Jazz. "Now, about the mission...."
Sam stumbled blearily into the kitchen and slumped into his chair at the table. He stared at its hardwood surface for a few minutes before managing to blink his way into consciousness enough to raise his head and look at his father, who was calmly drinking his orange juice and observing his progeny in return. "The cereal's on the counter," Ronald "Sparkplug" Witwicky informed his son.
"The cereal's always on the counter," Sam managed to shoot weakly back. He was too brain-fried to come up with any better lines. Maybe breakfast would fix that. Feeling like a zombie, he shuffled over to the counter. Brains. Cereal. Bowl. Spoon. Sugar. Lots of sugar. Milk, maybe that was a good idea.
"You know, maybe we should get you an old-fashioned alarm," his father commented as Sam made attempts at assembling his meal. "Something that isn't electronic."
"Mmm." Sam concentrated on the sugar. Three spoonfuls? Maybe four, he needed the sugar boost.
"Something you can't turn off, reprogram, or fry with your mind," his father continued pointedly.
"Just because you wear an antique that you have to wind--" Sam retorted, shambling back to the table.
"I'm not the one who's having problems getting up in the morning," his father replied.
"Was up late digging out real schematics," Sam replied. Spoon, mouth. "Need to figure out where Cybercon's storing its data."
"Keep in mind that most of you is still biological," Sparkplug said. He finished his juice and stood, carrying his dishes to the sink. "And being a teenager, you're mandated ten hours of sleep a day, minimum."
"Twelve would be better," Sam muttered. "Feel free to suggest it to Optimus."
"Don't tempt me." The only sound for a minute was the rush of water and Sam's single-minded efforts to convey his food to his insides. "Is he really being that bad?"
Sam sighed. "No. Just... I don't want to let him down. I don't want to make him think adding me to the team was a bad idea."
"I know what you mean." His father returned to the table and sat back down. "That man makes you want to follow him."
Sam nodded, mouth full.
"Here." His father slid a full glass of juice across the table to him. "You're still growing."
Brian sat against the wall, arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees, and watched the shimmer of the water.
Always in motion. Shaped to its container. Two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen held together by covalent bonds. A line from a book he'd once read echoed distantly through his mind: even though they knew what water was made of, no one understood why it was wet. Di-hydrogen monoxide, one of the most dangerous substances on Earth. It locked up brakes, caused hydroplaning, caused two cars to crash into one another on a road at night--
A bundle of cloth hit him in the head. He blinked and looked up.
"Put 'em on," Spike told him, nodding at the blue fabric. "I'm tired of watching you sit there miserable."
Blue swim trunks.
"We should be about the same size," Spike told him, wearing nothing more than a pair of red trunks himself.
"I can't swim," Brian messaged him on a private channel. "Metal, remember?"
"No," Spike retorted, "you can't float. That doesn't mean you can't swim."
Brian blinked.
"Or are you afraid you might rust?" Spike taunted softly.
Brian's eyes narrowed slightly. He was not afraid of water. Or Spike. Or anything. Snatching up the trunks, he stormed away to the locker room to change.
Bumblebee wasn't too hard to figure out, Sam thought, drifting aimlessly in the water as he waited. At least not on this. He always came in and brooded staring at the water. It was part of why Sam had started frequenting the pool. From the file he'd managed to sneak out from under some pretty good firewalls, Sam had a pretty good idea why. Collegiate-level swimmer turned metal... yeah, that was about like taking away his own skateboarding. Probably worse, in fact, given that 'boarding was a passion, not a life ticket, for him.
He looked up as Bumblebee stalked back into the pool area, watched the drain of both anger and momentum as the cyborg teenager got closer and closer to the water. The fact that Bumblebee was almost completely burnished golden metal didn't bother him; his dad had helped Ratchet design some of the systems that were in both his head and Bumblebee's body. He'd been on the outside verges of the Project, watching the designs and CG models and simulations on his father's computers, parts and models constructed on the workbench out in the garage, for as long as he could remember. It was almost in his blood. The decision to volunteer, to become part of it himself, had been easy.
"Coming in?" he asked as Bumblebee stood frozen at the edge. Blue eyes flickered over to glare at him and he practically felt the angry buzzing hum of Bumblebee's emotions over the still-open comm line 'Bee had used earlier. "The water's fine," he said levelly.
The golden boy flinched a little and Sam practically smiled to see his words hit their target so perfectly, implication understood: the water was fine, but Bumblebee wasn't.
Bumblebee straightened up and took a deliberate first step into the pool, liquid H2O swallowing his ankle as he stepped in. His grip on the rail, though, was fast and white-knuckled. He slowly made his way down the five steps until he stood fully in the water. It hit him at mid-chest; he was just a hair shorter than Sam, though more powerfully built. "Welcome to the water," Sam baited him softly, triumphantly.
Bumblebee's eyes widened as he realized just what Sam had been doing. Indignant mechanical sounds issued from his broken throat; quiet static hissed across the comm line. He looked angry, no, furious. Sam stood his ground, smiling.
He half-expected the wave of water even as Bumblebee unleashed it on him and laughed, trying not to swallow any of the pool water, as he batted it back at the other teenager.
"You... you...!" Bumblebee sent indignantly as he chased Sam across the pool, the two of the hitting and slapping wild waves and arcs of water at one another all the while.
"You had get over it sooner or later," Sam replied the same way. "Come on, you've been brooding at this pool for months now!"
"You wouldn't understand," Bumblebee sniped angrily.
"You're right, I wouldn't," Sam replied, ducking underwater and making for the relative safety of the deep end. He surfaced there, shaking the water out of his face and eyes, and hovered, treading water, looking at Bumblebee across the distance between them. "And you wouldn't understand what it's like to not even fuckin' know," he snarled back. "So don't get all holier-than-thou at me just because life hurts. Get over yourself, 'Bee!"
Bumblebee glared at him for a long time, then eventually turned and pushed off from the base of the pool, gliding toward the wall. Sam cautiously followed him with a quiet breast stroke.
"Hate you," Bumblebee sent. "You're worse than Jazz."
"Should I feel complimented?" Sam asked, and caught a hand on the wall by Bumblebee. They were both quiet for a minute, then he asked, "You ever tried skateboarding?"
Bumblebee looked at him. "No."
"Want to?" Sam asked. "I've got a couple spare boards."
"Sure. I guess," Bumblebee replied. He waved a hand through the water, watching the liquid flow over its surface. He seemed to come to some kind of decision because he ducked underwater and pushed off from the wall with his feet, using its inertia to propel himself to the other side. Sam watched the smooth motion of the golden-and-blue form under the water. "Spike?"
"Yeah?"
Bumblebee surfaced at the far end of the pool and turned to look at him. "Thank you."
The phone on his desk rang. Michael picked it up with his left hand, black ink pen in his right continuing to fill in the address box on the form. "Detective Michael Powell," he introduced himself automatically into the receiver.
"Busy day?" a familiar voice asked at the other end of the line.
His pen stopped and he half-turned to look at the phone. "Jazz?" he asked redundantly. "I'm at work," he felt the need to point out.
"So'm I," Jazz replied. "Jus' wanted t' ask when ya got off a' work."
"Seven," Michael replied. "Why?"
"Let's jus' say as a' tomorrow I'm outta town on a business trip," Jazz answered. "So I was intendin' t' ask if you'd like t' go out t' dinner with me. I... just wanted t' talk. If that's all right."
"Perfectly fine," Michael reassured him. "Anywhere in particular?"
"Was thinkin' I'd ask ya," Jazz replied. "What're ya in th' mood for?"
Michael thought for a second. "Italian? There's Stefano's on Main and Broadway...." Which had high-walled booths good for private conversations.
"Perfect. I'll make reservations for seven-thirty?" Jazz asked.
"Sure. I'll meet you there."
Without a farewell the line went dead, but that was Jazz's way... a superstition he'd picked up, he'd mentioned once, from old squadron mates. If you didn't say goodbye, it meant you were coming back to continue the conversation.
"Can't believe you're not even grounding him, Prime," Isaac growled as the brief call from the communications center ended. It wasn't like he was monitoring Jazz's outbound communications. Really. Except that he was.
"He explained his reasons to my satisfaction," Optimus replied. "Jazz has never done anything to endanger the Project or any of its staff or members. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt based on his past actions and record."
"Still...." Isaac ducked and rolled as Optimus' wooden practice sword came a little closer to his head than he would have liked. He grunted, blocking with his own boken the overhead strike that followed. He used his strength and leverage to spring forward, rocking his CO slightly off balance and backward, scoring a glancing hit on Optimus' open flank. But he was stopped cold as the other man's boken lightly touched the back of his neck. If it had been a real fight and a real sword, it would have been a beheading stroke. Isaac chuckled and yielded. "Nice," he commented. But then Optimus had been practicing this style for longer than he had. After all the initial dust had settled about the Project it had been an unexpected pleasure to find that he had kenjutsu in common with his new commanding officer.
"Not bad yourself," Optimus replied, going to the bench and grabbing up the two bottles of water that sat there. He tossed one at Isaac, who caught it single-handedly, and twisted the cap off the other, taking a long swallow. "Jazz's tactics seem to be rubbing off on you," he observed.
"If he's not grounded," Isaac grumbled, "then why did you bother restricting him from fighting with me?"
"How are the bruises?" Prime asked mildly in reply. Isaac glowered at him. "Jazz is dangerous, even to us, when he loses his temper. I want him reminded of that and more mindful of the ramifications of his outside connections."
Isaac smirked. "So diplomatic," he quipped, and downed half of his own water. "Another match, Optimus?"
"Sure," Optimus replied, setting down his bottle. A smile hovered around his mouth, indicating he intended to win this bout as well.
Not if Isaac had anything to say about it.
"You're sure that this would work?" Mikaela asked dubiously.
"No," Sparkplug said, grinning at her and Ratchet, "but can we try it anyway?"
"Well, it can't decrease the armor's strength," Ratchet said. "We might as well give it a go."
"Actually, increasing sensory input from the armor might help with defensive capabilities," Chip mused, adjusting his glasses. "If we could make the signal strength muted compared to normal tactile input, and possibly variable depending on damage incurred...." His fingers flew over keys.
"Sensory deprivation areas where the armor's melted or been blasted?" Mikaela asked, examining the schematic of the proposed external armor sensory net.
"I find a touch of pain tends to drive the lesson home better," Ratchet replied.
"Yeah, but we're not talking the operating table here, we're talking real fire-fight situations," Mikaela shot back. "The last thing we need is for anyone to get distracted by pain."
"If it doesn't hurt, how will they know it's been damaged?" Ratchet retorted.
"It's all a moot point if we can't make the sensor array work to begin with," Sparkplug said. "It's a long way between the drawing board and a working prototype, let alone field implementation."
"We could always ask Jack," Chip said, with a sly sideways glance at Ratchet.
"Hell no," the medic immediately vetoed. "Weapons, yes. Anything that is supposed to explode. But do you really want him tinkering with armor?"
"Percy, then," Mikaela piped up, exchanging a grin with Chip.
"Research-oriented," Ratchet dismissed. "He might be able to figure it out, reverse-engineer it from a working model, maybe, but to construct the thing?" His snort of disbelief would have done a horse proud.
"Darn, then we'll just have to put it together ourselves," Sparkplug said innocently.
"You are railroading me and don't think I don't know it," Ratchet warned his team. He leaned forward and studied the schematics again. "Maybe if we used the nanomachines to fashion conductors smaller than a micron..." he muttered, and rolled his eyes at their grinning expressions. "Grow up, the lot of you! We have work to do."
"Yes, boss," the three of them chorused in practiced tones. He rolled his eyes again and contemplated just how they might go about this innovation. If Sparkplug's newest idea worked, it could indeed give the Project's agents an edge in battle.
Michael sat in the booth and waited for Jazz to appear, ordering only two glasses of water for them. It wasn't long until the familiar form, dressed in simple but stylish loose monochrome clothing, appeared, spoke a word to the hostess, and was guided to the table. Michael greeted him with a simple raised hand and half-wave. Jazz nodded at him in return and slid into the other side of the booth with a murmured thanks and dazzling grin at the hostess.
When had it become automatic, Michael wondered, to check Jazz's emotional state in public by the tension in his hands and shoulders instead of by the inconstant truth of his smiles? "Anything wrong?" he asked quietly.
"Nah." Jazz's tone was casual, but the slope of his shoulders... he was hunched slightly forward, Michael found. Defensive. "Jus' wanted t' see ya 'fore I left."
"Simple trip?" he asked, opening his menu, watching Jazz over its top.
"Should be. It's prelim only... just'a day or two an' I'll be back. Dealin's are scheduled for next week. The calamari here any good?"
"I haven't had it, but I'd assume so." There was public-Jazz and there was private-Jazz. One was hidden within the other like the heart of a flower concealed inside its petals. One was marked by his visor, grin, and easy humor. The other was blind, a little quieter, and, Michael was inclined to think, subtly happier. He suspected that he might be the only one who ever got to see private-Jazz. He hadn't expected that strange dichotomy when he'd begun this relationship. Given what his department's psychologist had to say about himself, though, Michael was not inclined to throw stones. "Having bad feelings about the trip?" he inquired.
Jazz tilted his head to one side consideringly. "Not really," he replied eventually. "Jus'... dunno." He shrugged. "Feelin' a little off-balance, maybe, an' it makes me feelin' better, bein' around ya." He smiled crookedly. "Ever been told ya have a calmin' presence?"
"Frequently." It was one of the reasons he worked as many homicide cases as he did. "Do you want to go back to my place after dinner? I think there's a game on." That was a lie, and Jazz knew he would rather curl up with a good book or a game of go or chess rather than watch a game, but it was a pretext that offered space, quiet, and room for Jazz to drop his masks, no strings attached.
"That'd be cool." And Jazz relaxed just slightly, shoulders dropping down and back.
When had it become so important to turn around and see Jazz leaning slightly against a doorway, smiling an honest smile, sightlessly but unerringly tracking Michael across a room? Jazz was color, excitement, spice in an otherwise bland life. He'd liked Jazz, wanted that humor and panache in his existence any way it could be, even just as a friend. He'd never expected anything more. Never expected a gentle blind touch to threaten to break down walls he'd spent a lifetime constructing and defending. Never expected to be deafened by the roar of the wave bearing down on him. Never expected to care this much.
Michael smiled quietly at the waitress, not letting his thoughts, or how much they scared him, show on his face, and ordered calzone. Jazz, wearing his own mask, opted for the calamari.
"This," Spike said, "is a skateboard. Four wheels and a polyurethane board. Finest mode of transportation known to anyone under the age of sixteen, favored choice of recreational vehicle for the truly cool over sixteen."
Brian resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I know what it is," he replied. "Why don't you convince me it's worth learning to use?"
Spike grinned. "Just watch and learn, my heathen friend." Expertly he pushed off from the pavement edge into the half pipe, gaining momentum, body low and balanced. He was one with the wheels and polyurethane board, calm and in the mastery of his element as he crested the far side and flipped, spinning, to grab air beneath his wheels. Without even needing to touch the pavement's edge to direct his fall, he landed neatly back in the pipe, his direction reversed.
He made it look easy. Beautiful. Pure.
The clean movement and its effortless repetitions surprised Brian. In this realm completely divorced from the one of technology and warfare, missions in the dark and the lack of human touch, Spike was quick, calm, and focused. The mindset that made him a formidable hacker, Brian began to realize, wasn't something that had been caused by the cybernetic implants. It was something that was inherent to Spike. And, as Spike crested again the cement ridge near Brian, he saw something in Spike that made him feel very much the younger of the two of them, though he was nearly two years older than the other teen. There was a clear, fierce, focused joy on Spike's face that forced out all anger, all worry, all pain. There was simply no room left for them in Spike's heart at that moment.
It was in that moment that Brian began to fall a little in love.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-18 10:12 pm (UTC)You always pick the perfect places to leave off and the best lines to do so with. Much love, as is usual.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-18 10:33 pm (UTC)And I have the next part ready to go up tomorrow. ^_^
(It still always feels weird, getting fanfic commentary from people whose stories I myself stalk.... ^^;; )
no subject
Date: 2007-08-18 11:40 pm (UTC)(Awww... do you mean to say you stalk my stories?)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 12:06 am (UTC)And, yes, I do.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 12:11 am (UTC)And yeah, I've done that before. You get all this stuff written and then you realize "hoshit, this has to come later!" It's annoying D:
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 07:39 pm (UTC)My only remark would be that I would like to know more of the place they are in, what it looks like etc...
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 08:58 am (UTC)