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sakon76Again with the nice timing! ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twins_eternal posted the next several pages of Little Tin Soldiers today, a comic which is sparked from the same prompt of sbx's as this story!
This story happens between chapters seven and eight. It contains cursing and graphic consensual m/m sex (yes, yaoi) between two partners who are of age. If that offends you, if you are underage, or if reading this is illegal where you live, please don't read it. You will not miss anything vital to the plot of the main story by skipping this. Otherwise, please enjoy!
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 7.5: Desert Rose
by K. Stonham
prereleased 5th September 2007
The last line was spoken, the curtain fell; the actors reappeared for their bows, the audience applauded. And at the end of things they stood on their collective feet and left the theatre, participant and spectator alike, the shared illusion of the story no more than a memory, its only power now in the whispering ghost it cast on their psyches.
"Not bad," Jazz admitted, "though I gotta say I still prefer Hamlet, far as depressin' endin's go."
"Heathen," Michael jibed without rancor. "It's a very good play, with a lot of social commentary that remains applicable to the modern day."
"Didn't say it wasn't," Jazz replied. "Jus' a bit restrained for m' taste."
"You've never been that much of one for social restrictions," Michael agreed with a small smile.
"Pot, kettle," shot back Jazz. "You jus' hide it better, Prowl. C'mon, we've got a dinner reservation t' get ta."
*
The chef laughed at his expression as Jaysen bit warily into the spider roll. Chewing and swallowing, Jaysen laughed too. Even Prowl had a hint of a smile hovering around him. As much as the curvature of his lips, with Prowl it was the way his eyes crinkled at their corners, the way he set himself back just a little as if he was amused. "'Kay, not th' strangest thing I've ever eaten," Jaysen confessed, "but gettin' closer. Interestin', though," he told the chef.
"I like this friend," the Japanese man told Prowl. "You should bring him around more often."
"If he's lucky, I might," Prowl replied. He looked sideways at Jaysen. "Should Yoshi-san and I continue expanding your culinary repertoire, or is that enough for the night?"
"Gimme a minute," Jaysen said. "Do I want t' ask what was crunchy in that, or 'm I better off not knowin'?"
"Crab," Prowl and the sushi chef replied as one.
"Shelled?" Jaysen asked, knowing his disbelief was scrolling across his face.
They both nodded, wearing different expressions of mirth.
"Maybe ika next," Prowl told Yoshi-san. "And... tako, I think," he said, a small expression of intense satisfaction crossing his face. Jaysen had spent the last hour coming to associate that expression with Prowl ordering increasingly outlandish food for him to try.
"Good choices," the sushi chef replied.
"Y' know, Prowl, you're really scary when you're tryin' t' be evil," Jaysen commented lightly. "An', if you're tryin' t' scare me offa sushi... it ain't workin'."
"I'm not trying to," Prowl replied as one of the customers at the far end of the sushi bar called out to the chef. Yoshi-san nodded quickly to them and went down to the other end. "How did you know about this place?" he asked quietly.
Jaysen shrugged a little and confessed. "Called Carla. Asked her where she thought ya might like t' be taken for a... evenin' out."
"Is this...." Prowl hesitated. "About what happened the other day?" he asked finally. "Because if it is, I'm fine."
"It's not." Jaysen shook his head, denying the accusation. "Ya said you're fine; I believe ya. I trust ya t' tell me th' truth if you're not, Prowl. I bought th' tickets an' made th' reservation here before ya ever went on that investigation." Prowl nodded. Jaysen waited a minute, then continued, more lowly, "Though... if this was for that, maybe it'd be as much for me. I know that it wasn't ya speakin', but sometimes it helps t' pretend t' be normal, y'know?"
It took a moment, but he saw understanding sink into Prowl. "I didn't consider that," Prowl said quietly.
Jaysen shrugged. "Didn't expect ya ta."
"That's what I have you for?" Prowl jibed.
"Verily." Yoshi-san reappeared and set two more trays down before them. One contained ovals of white rice topped with palest cream flesh, while the other had the same ovals of white rice topped with.... "Tentacles?" Jaysen asked.
"Octopus." Prowl snagged one piece with his chopsticks and bit it neatly in half, his eyes gleaming with laughter.
Jaysen sighed, smiling just a little to see Prowl so amused. "Quod me non interficit, id me firmiorem facit," he said prosaically, and followed suit.
*
The day's heat had been excessive and had lingered on into the evening. It wasn't long before Jazz joined Michael in the shower, two bodies cozy in the small space. Smiling slightlessly, Jazz held out his hand for the soap and Michael handed it over. Jazz's idea of washing the two of them always lay more on the side of play than efficiency, and usually Micheal didn't mind. Tonight was no exception, and he let Jazz wash him all over, only chiding and flicking water at him in protest when Jazz's hands wandered too far off target.
"So... enjoyin' th' night thus far?" Jazz asked as he massaged shampoo through Michael's hair.
"Ibsen and sushi," Michael replied. "Yes. Thank you."
"Night's not over yet," Jazz pointed out.
"Oh?"
Jazz directed the spray nozzle, water sluicing the bubbles out of Michael's hair. Michael ran fingers through it, combing soap free. "Well," Jazz admitted, "I just might see m' way clear t' givin' you a whole-body massage...."
"And...?" Michael inquired, catching the trailing end of the sentence.
"An' then I was thinkin' a' makin' love t' ya all night long," Jazz concluded.
"All night long," Michael felt the need to confirm.
"Yup," Jazz answered easily.
Michael twisted to look at him. "Are you being ambitious, or just...?"
"I'm not teasin' ya," Jazz told him. One hand was splayed on Michael's chest, over his heart. Blind eyes, looking perfectly normal except for the fact their pupils never dilated, met Michael's. "There's somethin' I wanna try with ya, if you'd be okay with it."
"What?"
Jazz's smile was soft, loving. "Ya ever heard a' Tantra, Prowl?" he asked.
Michael blinked. "You want to have Tantric sex," he said unbelievingly.
"Ya don't havta say it like that," Jazz replied, sounding just slightly stung. "Things get ugly when ya label 'em."
"This is because of that chip," Michael said in comprehension.
"Mmm, maybe a little? Dunno," Jazz admitted with a shrug. "Ya don't wanna try?" he asked. "'Sokay, Prowl." And try though he might to see something hurt or disappointed in Jazz's expression, Michael couldn't find anything like that. It was like Jazz really was okay with it if he didn't want to experiment.
"Did I say I was unwilling to try?" Michael asked softly.
Jazz shrugged again. "Ya sounded it."
"Skepticism is healthy," Michael informed him. Nonetheless.... "If you think it might be interesting," he said, "...I'll try it."
*
The catch of Prowl's breath as they moved back into the bedroom was gratifying, and well worth the few minutes Jaysen had spent setting the mood before joining his lover in the shower. He couldn't see it himself at the moment but he knew what Prowl was looking at: dozens of small red candles flickered in their glass holders all around the room, completely negating any need for artificial illumination. He'd been sure to purchase scentless ones, so they wouldn't interfere with other parts of his plan. Concealing them from Prowl and getting them set up and lit before he was suspected of lingering had been the hard part.
"Ya like?" he asked quietly. It wasn't always easy to tell from the outside, but he'd long ago figured out that cool, logical, no-nonsense Michael Powell was a romantic at heart. The tricky part for Jaysen was guessing how far he could go with something before it triggered Prowl's self-defenses and made him retreat an emotional step. He didn't always push those boundaries... but Jaysen couldn't deny that skimmed their verges quite often.
"Yes," Prowl answered simply.
"Good." Jaysen caught hold of Prowl's hand and dragged him to where he knew the bed to be. Prowl's half-resistance was teasing at best. Jaysen ended up backing into a corner of the bed and moved around it to the right side, the side he slept on. "Sit?" he invited, and felt Prowl acquiesce, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. Jaysen grinned and reached out, hand questing for the items he'd left on the bedside table. He found them and skipped nimbly from the tube of lubricant to the small glass decanter to its left. He uncorked it and held it out for Prowl to sniff at. "Is it okay?" he asked, the mingled notes of sandalwood, jasmine, and vanilla already overlaying for him the smells of soap and shampoo and the warm scent of melting wax.
"It's okay," Prowl said after inhaling.
"Good," Jaysen said again, glad the mix he'd made wasn't horribly offensive. Sometimes people got weird about smells. He knelt on the floor in front of Prowl and poured a little of the scented oil into one palm. Setting the decanter down by his side, he warmed the oil between both hands and began his massage, hands grasping a calf and beginning to work the tension away.
*
Metal skin, Michael had found, did not absorb oil the way human skin did. Instead the thinnest tracings of it let his fingers glide across Jazz, a touch like silk or satin. Not that his mechanical muscles had precisely needed massaging, but Jazz had always liked Michael touching him. It was psychologically, if not physically, rewarding for both of them. But now Jazz had claimed his turn again and he had Michael just about melted into the bed. His technique was strong hands and smooth strokes and somehow always knowing exactly where to touch and how much pressure to use.
"Blind man's prerogative," Jazz had told him once. "Try watchin' some Zatoichi sometime."
And when Jazz's caresses slowly turned into to something else, into something sultry and teasing, more sensuous and sexual, it felt completely natural to give in and let Jazz touch him how and where he would. Everything felt good, right. So when Jazz's fingers brushed against his anus, Michael sighed, smiled a little, and shifted back against them.
Jazz took his time, going slowly. It was long minutes before he did anything other than touch. Long minutes until he even uncapped the lubricant tube and began the gradual process of introducing his fingers into Michael. And when he did, his internal caresses were unhurried, coaxing, almost hesitant. One finger, then eventually two. Gentle scissoring, gentle stretching. A third finger and more lubricant and it all felt so good that Michael couldn't help but want more of a connection. To have Jazz in him and wrapped around him, to be able to melt into that strength, to be safe and free in those arms....
Jazz's fingers gently swept up the length of Michael's erect cock. Jazz's breath whispered low in Michael's ear. "More?" Jazz asked.
"More," Michael assented.
The fingers withdrew from him, and then there was the sound of a foil packet being opened, a pleased intake of breath, and slippery flesh on slippery non-flesh. Jazz spooned up behind Michael, insistent cock prodding forward until it pressed against Michael's opening. "Love ya," Jazz breathed into Michael's ear.
Michael smiled. "I know," he replied, and he did. Even if it was so seldom said, he loved Jazz with every last fiber of his being, frightening though that love was. And he knew Jazz loved him back. Letting his breath go, he relaxed back and down, letting Jazz into himself, letting Jazz fill him.
Jazz's breath stuttered. "Prowl," he breathed, his voice full of longing.
Deeper and deeper they sank together, hungry connection of needing hearts being metered out in physical touch. It was absolutely exquisite, and Jazz's few hesitant strokes of Prowl's own cock a seemingly needless coda that soon died away. Their bodies fit together like they had been intended for this one moment only. They moved together; they breathed together.
It was perfection.
*
It was a long while before Prowl, half-conscious and half-lucid, shifted. Jaysen had one hand on his lover's stomach, trapped beneath the proud length of Prowl's cock, while his other arm curled beneath Prowl's head, being used as a pillow, hand coming to a rest over Prowl's heart, feeling the low, steady thudumps of his heartbeat.
That heartbeat was important. The fact that there was no longer a twisted mind-control chip in Prowl's head was equally important. It wasn't all about debts and balances, but the fact that Prowl had been the feather changing the weight on the scales when Jaysen's sanity had been hanging in the offing... well, that thought was never too far from Jaysen's mind. And the only way that kind of debt ever could be repaid was in kind. Prowl had guarded him, kept him sane via simple, honest affection; Jaysen could do no less.
The thought of a relationship hadn't really crossed his mind when they'd become friends four years ago. He'd noticed Prowl was good-looking, of course, but the man had never read as anything other than "straight" to him, so Jaysen had never given it a second thought. He'd wondered about that blind spot in his people-reading skills for a while after he and Prowl had gotten together. Jaysen had finally concluded that maybe the reason he'd been so wrong had been because Prowl hadn't been interested in anyone.
Except him.
That was one of those little things that made Jaysen's breath catch every time he thought about it. He mattered. That much. To Prowl. Prowl who didn't let practically anyone matter to him. As much as the relationship, the sheer shock of being so important to someone was what kept Jaysen balanced and coming back for more. He wasn't used to... mattering like that.
It wasn't precisely a new lease on life Prowl had given him, but a realization that the old one still existed. And that, mechanical freak that he was, he could still have a slice of it. It was just a fraction of what had once been a whole, but still... it was space enough to breathe. It was the most precious thing he'd ever been given.
Acceptance.
Love.
With no strings attached, what's more. There had been no obligation to continue beyond that first night, no expectations. He could have just let Prowl touch him, thaw him, and if he'd been gone in the morning, Prowl would have known why and they would have had their unspoken goodbyes still lingering between them, understood.
But Prowl had been his friend, and Jaysen hadn't wanted to let go. He'd wanted to hold onto that small angle of normality, of humanity, that had somehow turned out unexpectedly large. Prowl had been the secret he'd kept for as long as he could, not wanting anyone to tell him that he couldn't have this, to forbid it, to order him to end things. Never a secret because he was ashamed, only one because he didn't want to lose Prowl, lose his chance to be human again.
And somewhere in those four months before discovery, what had started as friendship had blossomed into so much more.
So when Prowl shifted in his arms, then shifted again in the same way, slowly starting to fuck himself on Jaysen, Jaysen smiled and freed his hand from where it was trapped beneath Prowl's cock, using it to grasp that self-same piece of anatomy and gently stroke it. The texture of the skin, hot and velvety-rough, was familiar, as was its shape and the way it fit into his hand. Prowl's breath quickened just a hair and his movement sped up. "Prowl," Jaysen breathed his name softly into his ear to see if he was awake.
"Mmmm..." came the half-conscious response, so Jaysen guessed not quite. He trailed fingers up one side of Prowl's manhood and down the other, then reached further down and back, gently rolling balls between palm and thumb while fingers tickled further back still. "Jaaaazz," Prowl crooned half-brokenly, starting to come to.
Jaysen chuckled. "Nice dreams?" he inquired. He grasped Prowl around the waist and half-tilted, half-rolled so that they shifted to being upright, himself sitting seiza style as he'd learned from his martial arts masters, Prowl's legs on the outside of his. The weight of Prowl's body was suddenly in sync with gravity; he sank just a little deeper... and moaned, waking a little more fully with a shudder.
His other arm now freed from its pillowy duties, Jaysen found a nipple and tweaked it gently. "Jazz, what are you--" Prowl cut off his own dreamy question with another moan as Jaysen grasped his cock again, the tip of the head surely appearing and disappearing out of his fist as he worked in steady strokes. The moisture leaking at the tip provided just enough lubrication. Prowl began to rise and fall against that touch. "Jazz," he pleaded. "Jazz...." One hand clenched on Jaysen's hip, flesh fingers unable to indent metal skin. The other threaded through Jaysen's hair as Prowl's body moved against his.
"What would ya like?" Jaysen murmured near Prowl's ear. It was one of the things he'd found out early on, that first night, in fact. Prowl was exquisitely sensitive to touch--part of his deprivation, maybe?--and couldn't lie in bed to save his life.
"More," Prowl gasped, demanded, really, fingers tightening momentarily in Jaysen's hair. "Touch me...."
Well, this wasn't quite Tantra any more, but there was no way Jaysen was going to disobey that command. He ran his free hand over Prowl's body, fingertips memorizing anew the living map of skin and scars, muscle and flesh. His touch ran along Prowl's stomach, his chest, out an arm and back, down his side, along the leg to the foot where he engaged in a second or two of reflexology, and then all the way back again. He scraped his teeth lightly on one shoulder, then the other, pressed a cool kiss against Prowl's spine where the vertebrae ridged out under the skin. And then, taking a chance, he gently touched a fingertip to Prowl's newest scar, the red line behind his right ear where he'd had a chip placed into his head... and taken out again.
Prowl jerked violently to the side, away from the touch.
"Sorry, I won't--"
"Do that again," Prowl cut him off, straightening, shaking slightly.
Cautiously Jaysen obeyed.
The sound Prowl emitted was halfway between a moan and a whimper as he arched back against Jaysen.
"Does that... feel good?" Jaysen asked, uncertain.
"Yes," Prowl breathed harshly. "I don't know why--"
Jaysen carefully touched the mark again. Ratchet would rip him a new one if the fragile skin tore or if he got Prowl infected, so he was gentle and slow as he stroked it. "Like all your nerve endings're right here?" he asked quietly as Prowl gasped and shook, moving frantically against him. Part of Jaysen wanted to move frantically back, to let sensation build up and then achieve release with his lover. But more of him wanted to draw things out, to make this last all night for them again. He knew Prowl could come more than once a night; with this shift in plans, he was intending to take advantage of that fact. He squeezed Prowl's cock and pumped it even slower, teasing, forcing his pace deliberately against his lover's. "I want you to feel good, Prowl." He continued his slow caresses.
"Jazz... Jazz--!" All at once Prowl tensed, blunt nails pressing against Jaysen's skull and hip as Prowl shook silently, gasping, in his arms, thick heat splashing on Jaysen's hand and Prowl's stomach. White heat and tension and pleasure all around him-- Jaysen let his fingers remain motionless on the small scar, controlling himself, until Prowl shook his head, whimpering "Stop...." Jaysen quietly took his fingers away.
Prowl was crying, he realized, feeling wetness on his lover's face. "Shh, 'salright," Jaysen soothed, fumbling blind for the face towel he'd left on the bedside table. "'Sokay now. I promise."
Prowl didn't answer, just wiped his face dry and leaned his head back against Jaysen's shoulder, submitting as Jaysen cleaned them both off. Maybe it was just because the scar had been so unexpectedly sensitive, Jaysen thought as he set the cloth back on the table. Or maybe Prowl did have issues left over from Arkeville's chip. Jaysen didn't pry; Prowl would tell him if he wanted to or felt he needed to. "I'm sorry," Prowl said quietly.
"Don't be," Jaysen answered, holding Prowl against himself, rocking slightly. "It's you."
"That makes no sense," Prowl told him.
"Ya expect me t' make sense," Jaysen informed him. "There's th' flaw in your logic right there." Prowl breathed a laugh and shifted a little. They could both feel that Jaysen was still hard inside him.
"Stay with me?" Prowl asked.
"Always," Jaysen told him.
*
He didn't know how long he slept before he drifted awake again, coming to consciousness slowly, aware only of the most delicious ache coming from within as he moved slowly, helplessly, against its source.
"Jazz...." The name was a crooning moan.
"'Wake again?" his lover asked, chuckling lowly. He took a draw of air as Michael moved on him. "Damn that feels nice, Prowl."
"You..." Michael breathed, "are evil...."
Another chuckle. "'M not th' one who started movin' and whimperin' in his sleep."
"I did not," Michael denied, breathing raggedly. It felt like his eyes would cross, were they open, as he tilted his head back against Jazz's shoulder, baring his neck to the saboteur's mouth. It was better this way. The last time.... Michael turned his thoughts away, not wanting to fall down that rabbit hole again. Not tonight.
A kiss brushed across the exposed skin. "Did so," Jazz whispered. His hands caught Michael's as they moved, pinned them to his sides. "No touchin' this time," he said. "I wanna know if ya can come just like this... just from me inside ya." He punctuated his interest with a roll of his hips that made Michael gasp.
"I can," he gasped. "Keep that up and I will."
Jazz stilled. "Serious?" he asked.
"Yes. Jazz!"
"'S there a story here?" Jazz asked conversationally, far too calm for the situation.
Michael attempted to rock back and forth, but Jazz's hands were on his hips and Jazz's grasp was preternaturally strong. "Jazz!" Michael protested again, denied.
"Make ya a deal," Jazz murmured. "Tell me th' story a' how ya found that out, an' I'll make love t' ya so thoroughly you'll see spots."
"That's extortion," retorted Michael.
"Mm-hmm," Jazz agreed happily with a small thrust that nearly made Michael bite his lip clean through. "So d' I get m' story or not?"
"College," Michael gasped. "Senior year. I was tutoring a pair of twin brothers in calculus."
"Twins?" Jazz asked, with impressed laughter in his voice. "Twins're good. What happened?"
"Our last review session before finals... they'd decided they thought I deserved a bonus. Suffice it to say that it involved cotton rope, silk scarves, and all three of us were almost late to our finals the next morning."
"Two at once. You're not near as tame as ya let people think, are ya, Prowl?"
"Maybe not," Michael nebulously agreed. "Now pay up!"
"All right," Jazz agreed, and loosened his grasp, rocking back and then forward into Michael again. "But sometime," he whispered against Michael's ear, "I want details about ya an' these twins... lots an' lots a' details...."
"You'll have to earn them," Michael retorted.
"Believe me," Jazz breathed, "I intend ta." And he didn't release Michael's hands but held them still against his sides and did a few things with his hips that were probably illegal in most states--
Biting his bottom lip as Jazz increased his pace and power, seeming to move against exactly the right place each time, Michael whimpered. Release danced around him like a prize just out of reach. He'd woken up already too close to the edge this time, and Jazz teasing had only made the need worse. "Jazz," he begged, "please. Please...."
"I want t' feel ya come 'round me again," Jazz breathed in his ear, voice sultry. "I want t' feel wrapped up inside a' your pleasure an' know I made it happen. I want ya t' feel so good, Prowl...."
"Oh God," Michael begged, sobbed. "God, Jazz, please--"
"Love ya so much," Jazz murmured. "So much...."
And then the heat wrapped around him, all the knots tying themselves up at once. Micheal didn't know if he screamed or was utterly silent because he hadn't felt anything like this in years... not since college. It was white heat flashing through him, a roaring deafness in his ears that pulsed around him like a palpable, living thing, beating to the rhythm of his heart. The only thing that sliced through it as he fell back into soft cloudy darkness was Jazz's voice, whispering raggedly, "...Prowl... so much...."
*
Jaysen listened to Prowl's heart pound, his gasping for air, felt his lover's body throb around him in the most exquisite rhythm. He pushed away the urge to come himself, mentally tuned down several notches the sensitivity of certain parts of his body, rode instead the ebbing waves of Prowl's pleasure, arms wrapping around that other frame.
It was with a little surprise and no small amount of smug satisfaction that he realized that Prowl had slipped straight from orgasm to unconsciousness.
Gently laying Prowl back down on the bed, he slowly withdrew from Prowl's still-pulsing body, eliciting a subconscious whimper of protest from his lover and a moan of desire from himself as that last ring of muscle didn't seem to want to let the head of his cock free. But eventually he pulled out and sat up, Prowl half rolling onto his back into the space Jaysen had vacated. Reaching for his visor, Jaysen slipped it on, appreciating for the first time the way the moonlight and the guttering candlelight played across Prowl's unclothed body. A string of milky pearls decorated the smooth skin of Prowl's flat stomach. He looked like a sculpture by some Italian Renaissance artist. Only the rise and fall of his chest betrayed the illusion.
Smiling softly, Jaysen reached for the cloth he'd used earlier and folded it to the clean side, wiping away again the evidence that Prowl had enjoyed himself. Prowl murmured and shifted slightly under his touch, but did not wake. "...Make love t' ya all night long," Jaysen whispered the promise, and dropped a kiss on Prowl's forehead.
Then he rose and headed toward the bathroom, where he washed clean the hand towel, wringing out the excess water, then drank half a glass of water himself. He didn't linger, though; Prowl was waiting for him back in the bedroom, and the night was still young. He exchanged his condom for a fresh one, tossing the old and the foil packet alike into the small wastebin and rolling the new one onto himself. Returning to the bedroom, Jaysen found Prowl where he'd left him, draped chiaroscuro across the bed. He stood still and memorized the sight, committing it to his databanks. Even when they were old and dead, Prowl would exist digitally like this, young and sensual and painfully beautiful.
Jaysen slipped back onto the bed and ran a light touch across Prowl's chest. He didn't know how he'd fallen so hard. He didn't know when Prowl had started being the cornerstone of his existence. At some nebulous point, though, Prowl had slipped from being the friend with benefits who kept him sane to his most important person. "I'd give ya anythin'," Jaysen whispered. "Anythin' ya wanted. All you'd havta do's ask me for it...."
He wondered if Prowl felt the same way. If that was what made him feel so terrified of their relationship. He supposed it was scary, handing that kind of power over yourself to another person. Prowl could probably destroy Jaysen if he really had a mind to. And Jaysen could probably return the favor without much difficulty either. But that was what trust was for. And faith. And love. Any relationship was dangerous, though; one like theirs, where they each needed the other so badly, was likely as stable as any.
Smiling at the thought, Jaysen uncapped the lubricant and poured some onto his fingers. Rolling it around, coating them, warming the slick substance, he reached between his sleeping lover's legs and touched Prowl's anus, stroking gently. Prowl made an incoherent muttering in his sleep and pressed downward against the touch. Jaysen breathed a laugh. "Like that, do ya?" he murmured, and pressed a finger inward. Prowl sank down onto it and almost seemed to purr. Jaysen felt a throb of want at how sensual his partner was, how sexual. His cool, distant persona was really nothing more than a shield for all the passion, for everything he kept hidden inside. Jaysen felt honored to be able to witness that side of Prowl, to be one of the very few who even suspected it existed. He pressed a second finger inside of his lover, one as happily accepted as the first, and scissored the two, spreading the lubricant. He watched Prowl's cock twitch and rise again and felt the wicked compulsion to wake his lover again like this.
That would be too easy, though, he decided, and slowly pulled his fingers out. Prowl practically seemed to mewl in disappointment. Grinning, Jaysen took off his visor and poured more lubricant onto his hand, smoothing it over himself, hissing at the sensation and forcing his own desire down once more. Instead he lay down beside Prowl and scooted ever closer until Prowl turned on his side. Then Jaysen positioned himself and pressed slowly forward against that sweet ring of muscle until it gave way and he found himself inside Prowl again, with the dizzying feeling that he should never be anywhere else. Controlling himself--and fighting for that control every centimeter of the way--Jaysen pushed slowly deeper, Prowl helping by pushing back against him, until he was fully buried again.
Body humming with pleasure, Jaysen curled one arm beneath his head for a pillow, draped the other across Prowl's hip, and waited for his lover to wake once more.
*
Waking with a moan, his body shifting relentlessly in search of more touch, more Jazz, Michael reflected, was fast becoming a habit. "Jazz," he breathed, leaning back against the warm body spooned behind him, within him.
"Prowl," Jazz teased in response, matching his tone and nipping at his neck.
"You're incorrigible," Michael told him.
"Mm," Jazz agreed. "An' you're insatiable."
"That's entirely your fault," Michael informed him.
"Ya say that like I'm s'pposed t' act offended an' deny it," replied Jazz, his hands wandering. "D'ya really want me ta?"
"No," Michael breathed, arching into Jazz as one hand brushed a nipple and the other caressed his inner thighs. "God, no...."
"Keep talkin' that way an' I'm gonna start thinkin' I'm takin' advantage of ya," Jazz said. "Nice Catholic altar boy an' all a' that."
"I was never an altar boy," Michael denied. "A choir boy, yes. And, I'm lapsed Catholic," he corrected.
Jazz hummed against the back of his neck, fingers drifting slow and intimate. One tapped against Michael's two medallions--one of Saint Christopher, the other of Saint Michael. "Couldn't tell it by these," he murmured. "'S bein' gay why ya left th' Catholic Church?"
"Not... precisely," Michael answered, shuddering as Jazz's ghost-like touch made chills of pleasure run up his spine. "I've never had a problem with being homosexual. I only had problems with the Church saying it was wrong. There's a... difference," he gasped as a feather-light touch drifted across his perineum, "between faith and religion," he finished.
"So your own personal faith doesn't have any problems with you an' me, then?" Jazz asked. "Or even just me?"
"Only with you being such a tease," Michael retorted. "Touch me already!"
"Make me," Jazz replied.
Like he could ever make Jazz do anything, Michael thought. Jazz was stronger, faster, less easily hurt....
"Jazz," Michael crooned, relaxing back against his lover, clenching himself around Jazz's cock. "You know how good you can make me feel."
"Oh, baby," Jazz moaned helplessly, his fingers tightening against the skin of Michael's stomach. "Said it before, an' I'll say it a thousand more times: you're evil."
"You like it," Michael retorted. "Just like you like knowing that if I really wanted I could have you visorless, tied up, and at my mercy before you even suspected I'd begun plotting."
Jazz paused, and Michael could practically see the image working its way through his brain and CPU alike. Jazz shivered delightfully. "You say th' hottest things," Jazz eventually murmured against Michael's neck, grinding into him. "I'm not gonna be able t' concentrate for th' next week with that in m' mind...."
"Heh." Michael allowed himself the slightest laugh before shifting imperatively against Jazz. "Now stop teasing me before I'm forced to do something about it."
"Yes, oh master," Jazz replied easily. His right hand, just slightly tacky with the lubricant they used, curled firm around Michael's cock, stroking up and down. Michael groaned, throwing his head back against Jazz's shoulder, moving against Jazz's hand. His own hand crept back, threaded through Jazz's thick black hair, and teased at the column of triangular plates that ran up and down Jazz's spine. Jazz gave something between a hiss and a moan and tightened his grasp, teeth biting down on Michael's shoulder. That plating could be unduly sensitive when Michael touched it in just the right way. "Prowl," Jazz growled, his left hand raking blunt nails across a nipple and down Michael's stomach.
"You're an addiction," Michael gasped, pleasure curling low in his body, pooling and tingling everywhere Jazz touched, hot and sticky where their skin clung together. He kept fingering the smooth metal plates, his reward in the almost sub-vocal whines issuing from Jazz's throat, the way Jazz's touch was increasingly frantic. Their bodies moved together, apart, together, apart, like a well-oiled unit. "My addiction. You make me feel--"
"Feel everything," Jazz said, breathing heavily against him. "Prowl, you take me-- you turn me inside out--" his voice broke off. Something hot and wet trickled onto Prowl's shoulder. Tears. "You own me," Jazz said huskily, voice raw with emotion. "I'm yours."
The confession, coupled with Jazz's touch and the sheer want Michael had cumulated, pushed him over the edge. He couldn't even gasp for air as he came in his lover's hand, shot after sticky shot coating his stomach and Jazz's fingers. Jazz whimpered lowly against his back and shook slightly. "Prowl..." he eventually whispered, voice hoarse.
"You're mine," Michael murmured, feeling dazed and a little bit shocky. "Mine, and I'm not letting you go. And... I'm yours," he admitted. "Completely yours."
They were both quiet for a few minutes. Eventually Jazz recovered enough to fumble behind himself for something, then bring a washcloth to lave clean Michael's stomach and his hand. Michael shifted back a touch as he did, and realized something. "You're still hard," he accused less than half-heartedly, drained. His body echoed continued pleasure around that length inside him as Jazz's hand worked across his stomach.
"Jus' barely," admitted Jazz.
"You're cheating," Michael realized.
"Heh." Jazz's laugh was soft. "If ya got it, use it," he teased. "Tell me another story, Prowl?" he asked quietly.
Michael let out a soft breath and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against Jazz's shoulder once more. "Once upon a time, there was a young man who'd always known he was gay," he started. "It never really bothered him, and his parents, while quizzical, accepted it as part of who he was. The church they attended, however, did not."
"So what'd this young man do?" Jazz asked, wiping his hand clean on the cloth.
"He thought about it for a long time, then remembered that the church condemned Galileo for his heliocentric theories for a hundred and thirty-five years, and only apologized for it two hundred and thirty-four years after that."
"Science havin' what t' do with th' story?"
"Man is fallible; God is not," Michael explained softly. "Either God made a mistake making me as I am, or the Catholic Church makes a mistake in condemning it."
"Heh." Jazz breathed a laugh and a kiss against his shoulder. "An' between God an' th' Church, ya figured one was better'n th' other t' put your eggs in their basket?"
"Something like that," said Michael. "This is what I am, and who I am, and these are the challenges He has given to me."
"I love ya," Jazz said quietly, "an' if that's wrong, it's like Tristan said, an' this is worth goin' t' Hell for."
"I'm not Iseult," Michael retorted as Jazz shifted, tossing the washcloth back onto the bedside table he'd picked it up from.
"No," Jazz said quietly, cuddling back up behind Michael again, "you're not." His voice softened, as though he was drifting off. The effect was hypnotic, and catching. Michael caught his own eyes falling closed. "You're Michael, an' you're Prowl, an' you're mine. An' tonight that's all that matters." A gentle kiss against Michael's hair. "Sleep..." Jazz urged
Tired, and knowing that their encounters for the night weren't over just yet, Michael obeyed, letting Jazz's voice follow him down into slumber, tangling pleasantly in his dreams.
*
Drifting pleasantly, his mind's need for rest marginally winning out over his body's desire for release, Jaysen found himself wishing that he could fall asleep like this every night. Oh, not inside Prowl--though that was very, very nice--but just with him. It made him feel safe. Complete.
Prowl wasn't the first man he'd ever slept with, or even the second. But despite his preferences leaning slightly toward the feminine, and the long list of names trailing behind him, Jaysen knew that Prowl was the first person he'd been in love with since blonde, curly-haired Cindy Adams in third grade. And unlike Cindy, Prowl wasn't likely to disappear from his life when his parents moved away over summer vacation.
His best friend. His lover. And while Prowl could theoretically be kicked back out of the Project, civilian consultant role and all that, Jaysen... couldn't. None of the six of them who had undergone alteration ever could. So in some ways his choice of partner didn't really matter. In other ways, though, for the sake of military discipline and not incurring the ire of higher-ups, it was best to be discreet. Prime turned a blind eye to this liaison the same way he'd long turned one to Ratchet and Ironhide's thing with Lennox. He was quietly supportive of all of his people in a "what do you need so long as it doesn't blow all of us sky-high?" way. Even the tech staff. Especially the tech staff; they were probably a good deal more normal and sane than the five of them who went on missions with Optimus. The tech staff, in fact, were probably part of the answer to Jaysen's wondering what kept Prime grounded and sane within the Project.
Smiling wanly, grimly, Jaysen wondered what the hell was going to happen now that his CO's de facto daughter had been located within Cybercon. Because he really doubted that Optimus' wife was that far away, and he had a nebulous sense of things about to go wrong. Jaysen had had that same feeling a few times in the past, usually just before finding out that he was outgunned and outmaneuvered. Cybercon getting their hooks, however briefly, into Prowl hadn't helped his sense of foreboding any.
But that was for tomorrow and planning and places that were outside the haven of here and now and the safety that was Prowl's apartment. Resolutely closing his eyes, Jaysen forced away everything that wasn't resting in his arms; at the moment none of it mattered.
Only this.
Only Prowl.
*
Little sisters who thought they knew everything, Michael had long ago decided, were surely only marginally less annoying than little sisters who actually did know everything. Still, at least one of them had gotten the brains in the family, even if his parents and then later himself had reined Carla in from skipping grades and starting college at fourteen, all in the name of socialization. She might have ended up bored and taking supplemental classes at the J.C., but she'd had a normal development, a normal high school life to help keep her stabilized in whatever heights to which she might soar.
Unfortunately, Carla's frightening intelligence meant her police detective brother couldn't keep a thing from her. Not Jazz's reappearance, and especially not the fact that Michael had finally taken that step forward and now had Jazz as a boyfriend. Though Michael did stubbornly refuse to discuss with her anything to do with Jazz's work and the reasons for his two-year disappearance from their lives.
Michael had always found it hard to care what other people thought or felt. Their concerns were, at best, like puzzle pieces to be fit together to explain their actions, deduce the reasoning for their actions or crimes. They were things which were outside of him and thus unconnected. Even his coworkers' lives were simply sets of motivations, actions and reactions according to a sort of social Newtonian law. Except for Carla, Michael hadn't been close to anyone since his parents died. His had been a clean, precise, cold existence, standing on the outside looking in. He had been aware, once in a while, watching people and life move around him at what seemed like a distance, that he was probably lonely, but for the most part he hadn't let it bother him.
Then he'd met Jazz.
A whirl of color, of noise, of confusion, the Air Force Captain had descended into Michael's monochrome, quiet, ordered life, and nothing had been the same since. Michael had found what he was lacking, what he wanted... and he'd been struck dumb, not knowing how to deal with it, if he even could reach out for what he needed. Two years of pep talks, alternately sympathetic and chiding, from the sister who knew the reasons he'd periodically visited a psychologist since she was six and he was sixteen, had done nothing to make him actually speak across that distance between himself and other people. It had better to just be friends, he'd thought, than to ask for more and be rejected out of hand... and far better than to get into a relationship only to have it painfully end.
Jazz's precipitous disappearance had mocked Michael's cowardice, though, made it apparent to him that he'd made the wrong choice. There was no logic in matters of emotion, and he had discovered that he would far rather have had a gentle letting down from Jazz, or even a moment's happiness, than to be constantly realizing anew, feeling it for the first time, just how empty his life was. Michael wasn't stupid, and it hadn't taken him two whole years to realize this fact--significantly less than two weeks, in fact--but there hadn't been anything he'd been able to do to change the situation. There hadn't been anyone else he'd wanted to let in, and the one person he'd gravitated toward was gone.
Then one night he'd seen Jazz again, and had known that there was no way he was going to let his friend vanish again without saying his piece, without letting him know--without even getting a goddamn explanation! He'd let fury and frustration and pain take him during that chase, and they'd faded as soon as Jazz had caught him, ebbing away like adrenaline, leaving only a sick-feeling hollowness in Michael's heart. He needed Jazz more than anything, was drawn to him like he'd never been drawn to anyone before, and he had screwed up all his chances beyond comprehension.
God had been merciful and given him just one more shot. Michael had taken it. And almost every minute since had been as beautiful and as terrifying as freefall. He didn't know when this was going to end, or how, but he knew with absolute certainty that when it did, it wasn't going to be like the dreams where he woke up just before hitting the pavement. It was going to kill him the day Jazz said 'no more' and walked away.
"But we go on pretending," Michael whispered into the silent morning, "stories like ours have happy endings."
Behind him Jazz stirred, just a little, and murmured in reply, "I can't imagine a time when I won't care."
"Heh." Michael breathed a laugh. "You've seen 'Chess'."
"Great musical," Jazz replied. "Great story, great songs." He levered himself up on one elbow, trailed fingers over Michael's shoulder. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Michael denied.
"Prowl...."
Michael relented. "Just... feeling like this is too good to last. I'm wondering when it's going to end, and how."
Jazz sighed and flopped back down behind him. "Thought so." He was silent for a moment, then asked, "Ya ever see th' movie 'Th' Last Starfighter'?"
"No."
"Y'should. Good movie," Jazz recommended. "There's a line in it, t' this kid who thinks his life sucks: 'Things change. Always do. You'll get your chance. Important thing is, when it comes, you've got t' grab with both hands, an' hold on tight.' Good advice, that."
"You think I'm pessimistic and giving up too easily."
"No," Jazz replied, "I know you're a pessimist. That's not what I'm sayin'. What I'm sayin' is... didja ever think that maybe you're my chance, an' I'm holdin' on with both hands?"
"You?" Michael scoffed.
"Me," Jazz confirmed, a hard note in his voice, a hint of... anger, at not being believed? Michael wasn't sure. "Y' like t' think you're th' only one isolated from th' world, Prowl, but you're not."
"You do not have SPD," Michael pointed out flatly.
"No, I don't. Doesn't mean I've really loved everyone I've been with, either," Jazz pointed out. He sighed and his head fell forward until his forehead rested against Michael's back. "Last time I loved anyone this much, I was nine. An' nine-year-olds don't love half-hearted. So it's not just pretty words, Prowl. You own me. An'... maybe that's a little terrifyin' too."
Michael was silent for a moment, taking that in. Trying to see clear beyond his own messed-up feelings. "I'm sorry," he finally apologized. "I've been... an emotional ass. I'll stop doubting you, Jazz. Or at least try."
"That'd be good," Jazz nebulously agreed. "An'... jus' for th' record, Prowl? I admire how ya try t' work past what's hard for ya. If we were reversed, I don't think I'd be able t' do th' same."
"Yes, you would," Michael disagreed placidly. He shifted a little, turned his head to look behind himself. "Jazz?" he asked.
"Yeah?"
"Will you let me make love to you?"
*
Jaysen ended up flat on his back, as helpless as he ever was blind. He remembered Prowl's earlier threat--promise?--of tying him up like this, and suppressed a delightful shiver. Prowl moved in response, and... oh, hell, that felt nice.
"You," Prowl said, "are thinking of something kinky." His weight pressed Jaysen into the mattress as they faced each other, his hands on Jaysen's chest for balance. His hips shifted steadily back and forth, each movement a throb of want.
"I'd never tell ya if I was," Jaysen retorted huskily.
"Yes, you would," Prowl replied with equanimity. "All I'd have to do is ask, and you know it." He paused, shifting his weight up in the best way, and ran trailing fingers down Jaysen's chest. "This is about me tying you up, isn't it?"
"Maybe," Jaysen defended.
"Tell me." Prowl shifted his weight again, moving in small circles. He leaned forward until their faces were nearly touching and breathed his question against Jaysen's lips: "Would you prefer silk neckties, or steel handcuffs?"
This time, Jazz could not suppress the shiver. And Prowl's soft, throaty laughter that followed only made him want his partner more.
*
CODA:
Brian examined his shift partner as he effortlessly sifted through commercial broadcast feeds, separating the figurative data wheat from the chaff. It was completely obvious, if you knew what to look for, that Jazz had gotten laid the night before. Ever since he'd first hooked up with Prowl, even before they'd all known about the detective, there had been days when Jazz had come on shift moving just a little lighter, a small I-know-something-that-you-don't smile curling his lips.
It was probably crass for Brian to be wondering who was on top, or if they took turns.
"Got some kind a' program takin' up all your processor power, B'?" Jazz asked, startling him. Brian hadn't realized his scrutiny had been so obvious.
"I...." Curiosity overcame embarrassment. "I was just wondering how you and Prowl...."
Jazz turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised above the top of his visor. "Now, B', with all th' wonders a' th' Internet at your disposal, ya can't be tellin' me ya don't know how things like that work."
"Not that!" Brian rebutted. "The... we're not human anymore, physically. Isn't it too dangerous? To him."
"Ahh." Jazz nodded in comprehension. "I see what you're askin'. Wouldn't Ratchet be a better choice for this kinda conversation?"
"He's... Ratchet," Brian replied.
"An' this's th' kinda talk ya don't wanna have with your doc or your dad?" Jazz asked understandingly. He switched over to a private comm channel. "Is there any particular reason you're curious?"
Brian fought down a blush. "Maybe."
Jazz grinned. "A he or a she?"
"...He."
"Right. Point one: yes, I could hurt Prowl real easy. So I'm careful not ta. Two: Ratch' wasn't about t' cut off his own nose t' spite his face when he made himself int' this 'long with th' rest a' us. It still feels really good, better even in some ways 'coz ya can monitor an' measure how intense ya feel things. There's no biological imperative anymore, but if ya find yourself spendin' time with th' right person... it's still all there."
Brian nodded.
"Three--an' this one's a secret from everyone who ain't a part a' th' Project, so don't ever tell anyone--if ya ever decide somewhere down th' line that ya want kids, go talk t' Ratchet."
Brian blinked. "Why?"
Jazz grinned. "Let's just say that he took certain 'biological samples' from all a' us, an' has 'em frozen an' stored safe somewhere."
That took a long moment to process. "He... did?"
Jazz's smile was kind. "He ain't always as hard-shelled as he seems, B'. He knew this would screw all a' us up, so he wanted t' give us th' ability t' keep our options in reserve."
"But...." It was hard to reconcile the sudden possibility of future family with what Brian had lived and believed for the past year and more. "But he's with... and you're with...."
Jazz shrugged. "Things sometimes change, an' even if they don't... well, there're ladies out there who donate eggs, an' others who do things like be surrogate moms. An' that's assumin' Ratchet ain't got schematics for an artificial womb in his head somewhere. Wouldn't surprise me if he did. But that's a little far out t' be plannin' yet."
"Yeah." Brian nodded. "I'd need to get the boy first before I could start thinking about a family."
"Don't break the team," Jazz warned him, expression suddenly serious. "We need ya an' we need him. Make sure he's worth it an' wants it, first."
Brian glared at him. "Who said anything about anyone on the team?!" he demanded.
Jazz just gave a knowing smile. "Everything's 'bout th' same as what ya can find out for yourself," he continued his lecture. "If he fucks ya, he'll need a condom. There're 'trace biological waste elements coupled with bacteria'," he quoted, "that can lead t' infection. Other way doesn't hold th' same, though; we can't get infections that way. That said, I use one as a matter a' courtesy."
"So you do top, then," Brian sent before he even thought about it.
"Wasn't aware that ya had a bettin' pool goin'," Jazz replied, eyebrow lifted in amusement. "An' for that matter, not always. Either's nice, with th' right person."
"And Prowl's your 'right person'?"
"Yes."
twins_eternal posted the next several pages of Little Tin Soldiers today, a comic which is sparked from the same prompt of sbx's as this story!This story happens between chapters seven and eight. It contains cursing and graphic consensual m/m sex (yes, yaoi) between two partners who are of age. If that offends you, if you are underage, or if reading this is illegal where you live, please don't read it. You will not miss anything vital to the plot of the main story by skipping this. Otherwise, please enjoy!
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 7.5: Desert Rose
by K. Stonham
prereleased 5th September 2007
The last line was spoken, the curtain fell; the actors reappeared for their bows, the audience applauded. And at the end of things they stood on their collective feet and left the theatre, participant and spectator alike, the shared illusion of the story no more than a memory, its only power now in the whispering ghost it cast on their psyches.
"Not bad," Jazz admitted, "though I gotta say I still prefer Hamlet, far as depressin' endin's go."
"Heathen," Michael jibed without rancor. "It's a very good play, with a lot of social commentary that remains applicable to the modern day."
"Didn't say it wasn't," Jazz replied. "Jus' a bit restrained for m' taste."
"You've never been that much of one for social restrictions," Michael agreed with a small smile.
"Pot, kettle," shot back Jazz. "You jus' hide it better, Prowl. C'mon, we've got a dinner reservation t' get ta."
The chef laughed at his expression as Jaysen bit warily into the spider roll. Chewing and swallowing, Jaysen laughed too. Even Prowl had a hint of a smile hovering around him. As much as the curvature of his lips, with Prowl it was the way his eyes crinkled at their corners, the way he set himself back just a little as if he was amused. "'Kay, not th' strangest thing I've ever eaten," Jaysen confessed, "but gettin' closer. Interestin', though," he told the chef.
"I like this friend," the Japanese man told Prowl. "You should bring him around more often."
"If he's lucky, I might," Prowl replied. He looked sideways at Jaysen. "Should Yoshi-san and I continue expanding your culinary repertoire, or is that enough for the night?"
"Gimme a minute," Jaysen said. "Do I want t' ask what was crunchy in that, or 'm I better off not knowin'?"
"Crab," Prowl and the sushi chef replied as one.
"Shelled?" Jaysen asked, knowing his disbelief was scrolling across his face.
They both nodded, wearing different expressions of mirth.
"Maybe ika next," Prowl told Yoshi-san. "And... tako, I think," he said, a small expression of intense satisfaction crossing his face. Jaysen had spent the last hour coming to associate that expression with Prowl ordering increasingly outlandish food for him to try.
"Good choices," the sushi chef replied.
"Y' know, Prowl, you're really scary when you're tryin' t' be evil," Jaysen commented lightly. "An', if you're tryin' t' scare me offa sushi... it ain't workin'."
"I'm not trying to," Prowl replied as one of the customers at the far end of the sushi bar called out to the chef. Yoshi-san nodded quickly to them and went down to the other end. "How did you know about this place?" he asked quietly.
Jaysen shrugged a little and confessed. "Called Carla. Asked her where she thought ya might like t' be taken for a... evenin' out."
"Is this...." Prowl hesitated. "About what happened the other day?" he asked finally. "Because if it is, I'm fine."
"It's not." Jaysen shook his head, denying the accusation. "Ya said you're fine; I believe ya. I trust ya t' tell me th' truth if you're not, Prowl. I bought th' tickets an' made th' reservation here before ya ever went on that investigation." Prowl nodded. Jaysen waited a minute, then continued, more lowly, "Though... if this was for that, maybe it'd be as much for me. I know that it wasn't ya speakin', but sometimes it helps t' pretend t' be normal, y'know?"
It took a moment, but he saw understanding sink into Prowl. "I didn't consider that," Prowl said quietly.
Jaysen shrugged. "Didn't expect ya ta."
"That's what I have you for?" Prowl jibed.
"Verily." Yoshi-san reappeared and set two more trays down before them. One contained ovals of white rice topped with palest cream flesh, while the other had the same ovals of white rice topped with.... "Tentacles?" Jaysen asked.
"Octopus." Prowl snagged one piece with his chopsticks and bit it neatly in half, his eyes gleaming with laughter.
Jaysen sighed, smiling just a little to see Prowl so amused. "Quod me non interficit, id me firmiorem facit," he said prosaically, and followed suit.
The day's heat had been excessive and had lingered on into the evening. It wasn't long before Jazz joined Michael in the shower, two bodies cozy in the small space. Smiling slightlessly, Jazz held out his hand for the soap and Michael handed it over. Jazz's idea of washing the two of them always lay more on the side of play than efficiency, and usually Micheal didn't mind. Tonight was no exception, and he let Jazz wash him all over, only chiding and flicking water at him in protest when Jazz's hands wandered too far off target.
"So... enjoyin' th' night thus far?" Jazz asked as he massaged shampoo through Michael's hair.
"Ibsen and sushi," Michael replied. "Yes. Thank you."
"Night's not over yet," Jazz pointed out.
"Oh?"
Jazz directed the spray nozzle, water sluicing the bubbles out of Michael's hair. Michael ran fingers through it, combing soap free. "Well," Jazz admitted, "I just might see m' way clear t' givin' you a whole-body massage...."
"And...?" Michael inquired, catching the trailing end of the sentence.
"An' then I was thinkin' a' makin' love t' ya all night long," Jazz concluded.
"All night long," Michael felt the need to confirm.
"Yup," Jazz answered easily.
Michael twisted to look at him. "Are you being ambitious, or just...?"
"I'm not teasin' ya," Jazz told him. One hand was splayed on Michael's chest, over his heart. Blind eyes, looking perfectly normal except for the fact their pupils never dilated, met Michael's. "There's somethin' I wanna try with ya, if you'd be okay with it."
"What?"
Jazz's smile was soft, loving. "Ya ever heard a' Tantra, Prowl?" he asked.
Michael blinked. "You want to have Tantric sex," he said unbelievingly.
"Ya don't havta say it like that," Jazz replied, sounding just slightly stung. "Things get ugly when ya label 'em."
"This is because of that chip," Michael said in comprehension.
"Mmm, maybe a little? Dunno," Jazz admitted with a shrug. "Ya don't wanna try?" he asked. "'Sokay, Prowl." And try though he might to see something hurt or disappointed in Jazz's expression, Michael couldn't find anything like that. It was like Jazz really was okay with it if he didn't want to experiment.
"Did I say I was unwilling to try?" Michael asked softly.
Jazz shrugged again. "Ya sounded it."
"Skepticism is healthy," Michael informed him. Nonetheless.... "If you think it might be interesting," he said, "...I'll try it."
The catch of Prowl's breath as they moved back into the bedroom was gratifying, and well worth the few minutes Jaysen had spent setting the mood before joining his lover in the shower. He couldn't see it himself at the moment but he knew what Prowl was looking at: dozens of small red candles flickered in their glass holders all around the room, completely negating any need for artificial illumination. He'd been sure to purchase scentless ones, so they wouldn't interfere with other parts of his plan. Concealing them from Prowl and getting them set up and lit before he was suspected of lingering had been the hard part.
"Ya like?" he asked quietly. It wasn't always easy to tell from the outside, but he'd long ago figured out that cool, logical, no-nonsense Michael Powell was a romantic at heart. The tricky part for Jaysen was guessing how far he could go with something before it triggered Prowl's self-defenses and made him retreat an emotional step. He didn't always push those boundaries... but Jaysen couldn't deny that skimmed their verges quite often.
"Yes," Prowl answered simply.
"Good." Jaysen caught hold of Prowl's hand and dragged him to where he knew the bed to be. Prowl's half-resistance was teasing at best. Jaysen ended up backing into a corner of the bed and moved around it to the right side, the side he slept on. "Sit?" he invited, and felt Prowl acquiesce, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. Jaysen grinned and reached out, hand questing for the items he'd left on the bedside table. He found them and skipped nimbly from the tube of lubricant to the small glass decanter to its left. He uncorked it and held it out for Prowl to sniff at. "Is it okay?" he asked, the mingled notes of sandalwood, jasmine, and vanilla already overlaying for him the smells of soap and shampoo and the warm scent of melting wax.
"It's okay," Prowl said after inhaling.
"Good," Jaysen said again, glad the mix he'd made wasn't horribly offensive. Sometimes people got weird about smells. He knelt on the floor in front of Prowl and poured a little of the scented oil into one palm. Setting the decanter down by his side, he warmed the oil between both hands and began his massage, hands grasping a calf and beginning to work the tension away.
Metal skin, Michael had found, did not absorb oil the way human skin did. Instead the thinnest tracings of it let his fingers glide across Jazz, a touch like silk or satin. Not that his mechanical muscles had precisely needed massaging, but Jazz had always liked Michael touching him. It was psychologically, if not physically, rewarding for both of them. But now Jazz had claimed his turn again and he had Michael just about melted into the bed. His technique was strong hands and smooth strokes and somehow always knowing exactly where to touch and how much pressure to use.
"Blind man's prerogative," Jazz had told him once. "Try watchin' some Zatoichi sometime."
And when Jazz's caresses slowly turned into to something else, into something sultry and teasing, more sensuous and sexual, it felt completely natural to give in and let Jazz touch him how and where he would. Everything felt good, right. So when Jazz's fingers brushed against his anus, Michael sighed, smiled a little, and shifted back against them.
Jazz took his time, going slowly. It was long minutes before he did anything other than touch. Long minutes until he even uncapped the lubricant tube and began the gradual process of introducing his fingers into Michael. And when he did, his internal caresses were unhurried, coaxing, almost hesitant. One finger, then eventually two. Gentle scissoring, gentle stretching. A third finger and more lubricant and it all felt so good that Michael couldn't help but want more of a connection. To have Jazz in him and wrapped around him, to be able to melt into that strength, to be safe and free in those arms....
Jazz's fingers gently swept up the length of Michael's erect cock. Jazz's breath whispered low in Michael's ear. "More?" Jazz asked.
"More," Michael assented.
The fingers withdrew from him, and then there was the sound of a foil packet being opened, a pleased intake of breath, and slippery flesh on slippery non-flesh. Jazz spooned up behind Michael, insistent cock prodding forward until it pressed against Michael's opening. "Love ya," Jazz breathed into Michael's ear.
Michael smiled. "I know," he replied, and he did. Even if it was so seldom said, he loved Jazz with every last fiber of his being, frightening though that love was. And he knew Jazz loved him back. Letting his breath go, he relaxed back and down, letting Jazz into himself, letting Jazz fill him.
Jazz's breath stuttered. "Prowl," he breathed, his voice full of longing.
Deeper and deeper they sank together, hungry connection of needing hearts being metered out in physical touch. It was absolutely exquisite, and Jazz's few hesitant strokes of Prowl's own cock a seemingly needless coda that soon died away. Their bodies fit together like they had been intended for this one moment only. They moved together; they breathed together.
It was perfection.
It was a long while before Prowl, half-conscious and half-lucid, shifted. Jaysen had one hand on his lover's stomach, trapped beneath the proud length of Prowl's cock, while his other arm curled beneath Prowl's head, being used as a pillow, hand coming to a rest over Prowl's heart, feeling the low, steady thudumps of his heartbeat.
That heartbeat was important. The fact that there was no longer a twisted mind-control chip in Prowl's head was equally important. It wasn't all about debts and balances, but the fact that Prowl had been the feather changing the weight on the scales when Jaysen's sanity had been hanging in the offing... well, that thought was never too far from Jaysen's mind. And the only way that kind of debt ever could be repaid was in kind. Prowl had guarded him, kept him sane via simple, honest affection; Jaysen could do no less.
The thought of a relationship hadn't really crossed his mind when they'd become friends four years ago. He'd noticed Prowl was good-looking, of course, but the man had never read as anything other than "straight" to him, so Jaysen had never given it a second thought. He'd wondered about that blind spot in his people-reading skills for a while after he and Prowl had gotten together. Jaysen had finally concluded that maybe the reason he'd been so wrong had been because Prowl hadn't been interested in anyone.
Except him.
That was one of those little things that made Jaysen's breath catch every time he thought about it. He mattered. That much. To Prowl. Prowl who didn't let practically anyone matter to him. As much as the relationship, the sheer shock of being so important to someone was what kept Jaysen balanced and coming back for more. He wasn't used to... mattering like that.
It wasn't precisely a new lease on life Prowl had given him, but a realization that the old one still existed. And that, mechanical freak that he was, he could still have a slice of it. It was just a fraction of what had once been a whole, but still... it was space enough to breathe. It was the most precious thing he'd ever been given.
Acceptance.
Love.
With no strings attached, what's more. There had been no obligation to continue beyond that first night, no expectations. He could have just let Prowl touch him, thaw him, and if he'd been gone in the morning, Prowl would have known why and they would have had their unspoken goodbyes still lingering between them, understood.
But Prowl had been his friend, and Jaysen hadn't wanted to let go. He'd wanted to hold onto that small angle of normality, of humanity, that had somehow turned out unexpectedly large. Prowl had been the secret he'd kept for as long as he could, not wanting anyone to tell him that he couldn't have this, to forbid it, to order him to end things. Never a secret because he was ashamed, only one because he didn't want to lose Prowl, lose his chance to be human again.
And somewhere in those four months before discovery, what had started as friendship had blossomed into so much more.
So when Prowl shifted in his arms, then shifted again in the same way, slowly starting to fuck himself on Jaysen, Jaysen smiled and freed his hand from where it was trapped beneath Prowl's cock, using it to grasp that self-same piece of anatomy and gently stroke it. The texture of the skin, hot and velvety-rough, was familiar, as was its shape and the way it fit into his hand. Prowl's breath quickened just a hair and his movement sped up. "Prowl," Jaysen breathed his name softly into his ear to see if he was awake.
"Mmmm..." came the half-conscious response, so Jaysen guessed not quite. He trailed fingers up one side of Prowl's manhood and down the other, then reached further down and back, gently rolling balls between palm and thumb while fingers tickled further back still. "Jaaaazz," Prowl crooned half-brokenly, starting to come to.
Jaysen chuckled. "Nice dreams?" he inquired. He grasped Prowl around the waist and half-tilted, half-rolled so that they shifted to being upright, himself sitting seiza style as he'd learned from his martial arts masters, Prowl's legs on the outside of his. The weight of Prowl's body was suddenly in sync with gravity; he sank just a little deeper... and moaned, waking a little more fully with a shudder.
His other arm now freed from its pillowy duties, Jaysen found a nipple and tweaked it gently. "Jazz, what are you--" Prowl cut off his own dreamy question with another moan as Jaysen grasped his cock again, the tip of the head surely appearing and disappearing out of his fist as he worked in steady strokes. The moisture leaking at the tip provided just enough lubrication. Prowl began to rise and fall against that touch. "Jazz," he pleaded. "Jazz...." One hand clenched on Jaysen's hip, flesh fingers unable to indent metal skin. The other threaded through Jaysen's hair as Prowl's body moved against his.
"What would ya like?" Jaysen murmured near Prowl's ear. It was one of the things he'd found out early on, that first night, in fact. Prowl was exquisitely sensitive to touch--part of his deprivation, maybe?--and couldn't lie in bed to save his life.
"More," Prowl gasped, demanded, really, fingers tightening momentarily in Jaysen's hair. "Touch me...."
Well, this wasn't quite Tantra any more, but there was no way Jaysen was going to disobey that command. He ran his free hand over Prowl's body, fingertips memorizing anew the living map of skin and scars, muscle and flesh. His touch ran along Prowl's stomach, his chest, out an arm and back, down his side, along the leg to the foot where he engaged in a second or two of reflexology, and then all the way back again. He scraped his teeth lightly on one shoulder, then the other, pressed a cool kiss against Prowl's spine where the vertebrae ridged out under the skin. And then, taking a chance, he gently touched a fingertip to Prowl's newest scar, the red line behind his right ear where he'd had a chip placed into his head... and taken out again.
Prowl jerked violently to the side, away from the touch.
"Sorry, I won't--"
"Do that again," Prowl cut him off, straightening, shaking slightly.
Cautiously Jaysen obeyed.
The sound Prowl emitted was halfway between a moan and a whimper as he arched back against Jaysen.
"Does that... feel good?" Jaysen asked, uncertain.
"Yes," Prowl breathed harshly. "I don't know why--"
Jaysen carefully touched the mark again. Ratchet would rip him a new one if the fragile skin tore or if he got Prowl infected, so he was gentle and slow as he stroked it. "Like all your nerve endings're right here?" he asked quietly as Prowl gasped and shook, moving frantically against him. Part of Jaysen wanted to move frantically back, to let sensation build up and then achieve release with his lover. But more of him wanted to draw things out, to make this last all night for them again. He knew Prowl could come more than once a night; with this shift in plans, he was intending to take advantage of that fact. He squeezed Prowl's cock and pumped it even slower, teasing, forcing his pace deliberately against his lover's. "I want you to feel good, Prowl." He continued his slow caresses.
"Jazz... Jazz--!" All at once Prowl tensed, blunt nails pressing against Jaysen's skull and hip as Prowl shook silently, gasping, in his arms, thick heat splashing on Jaysen's hand and Prowl's stomach. White heat and tension and pleasure all around him-- Jaysen let his fingers remain motionless on the small scar, controlling himself, until Prowl shook his head, whimpering "Stop...." Jaysen quietly took his fingers away.
Prowl was crying, he realized, feeling wetness on his lover's face. "Shh, 'salright," Jaysen soothed, fumbling blind for the face towel he'd left on the bedside table. "'Sokay now. I promise."
Prowl didn't answer, just wiped his face dry and leaned his head back against Jaysen's shoulder, submitting as Jaysen cleaned them both off. Maybe it was just because the scar had been so unexpectedly sensitive, Jaysen thought as he set the cloth back on the table. Or maybe Prowl did have issues left over from Arkeville's chip. Jaysen didn't pry; Prowl would tell him if he wanted to or felt he needed to. "I'm sorry," Prowl said quietly.
"Don't be," Jaysen answered, holding Prowl against himself, rocking slightly. "It's you."
"That makes no sense," Prowl told him.
"Ya expect me t' make sense," Jaysen informed him. "There's th' flaw in your logic right there." Prowl breathed a laugh and shifted a little. They could both feel that Jaysen was still hard inside him.
"Stay with me?" Prowl asked.
"Always," Jaysen told him.
He didn't know how long he slept before he drifted awake again, coming to consciousness slowly, aware only of the most delicious ache coming from within as he moved slowly, helplessly, against its source.
"Jazz...." The name was a crooning moan.
"'Wake again?" his lover asked, chuckling lowly. He took a draw of air as Michael moved on him. "Damn that feels nice, Prowl."
"You..." Michael breathed, "are evil...."
Another chuckle. "'M not th' one who started movin' and whimperin' in his sleep."
"I did not," Michael denied, breathing raggedly. It felt like his eyes would cross, were they open, as he tilted his head back against Jazz's shoulder, baring his neck to the saboteur's mouth. It was better this way. The last time.... Michael turned his thoughts away, not wanting to fall down that rabbit hole again. Not tonight.
A kiss brushed across the exposed skin. "Did so," Jazz whispered. His hands caught Michael's as they moved, pinned them to his sides. "No touchin' this time," he said. "I wanna know if ya can come just like this... just from me inside ya." He punctuated his interest with a roll of his hips that made Michael gasp.
"I can," he gasped. "Keep that up and I will."
Jazz stilled. "Serious?" he asked.
"Yes. Jazz!"
"'S there a story here?" Jazz asked conversationally, far too calm for the situation.
Michael attempted to rock back and forth, but Jazz's hands were on his hips and Jazz's grasp was preternaturally strong. "Jazz!" Michael protested again, denied.
"Make ya a deal," Jazz murmured. "Tell me th' story a' how ya found that out, an' I'll make love t' ya so thoroughly you'll see spots."
"That's extortion," retorted Michael.
"Mm-hmm," Jazz agreed happily with a small thrust that nearly made Michael bite his lip clean through. "So d' I get m' story or not?"
"College," Michael gasped. "Senior year. I was tutoring a pair of twin brothers in calculus."
"Twins?" Jazz asked, with impressed laughter in his voice. "Twins're good. What happened?"
"Our last review session before finals... they'd decided they thought I deserved a bonus. Suffice it to say that it involved cotton rope, silk scarves, and all three of us were almost late to our finals the next morning."
"Two at once. You're not near as tame as ya let people think, are ya, Prowl?"
"Maybe not," Michael nebulously agreed. "Now pay up!"
"All right," Jazz agreed, and loosened his grasp, rocking back and then forward into Michael again. "But sometime," he whispered against Michael's ear, "I want details about ya an' these twins... lots an' lots a' details...."
"You'll have to earn them," Michael retorted.
"Believe me," Jazz breathed, "I intend ta." And he didn't release Michael's hands but held them still against his sides and did a few things with his hips that were probably illegal in most states--
Biting his bottom lip as Jazz increased his pace and power, seeming to move against exactly the right place each time, Michael whimpered. Release danced around him like a prize just out of reach. He'd woken up already too close to the edge this time, and Jazz teasing had only made the need worse. "Jazz," he begged, "please. Please...."
"I want t' feel ya come 'round me again," Jazz breathed in his ear, voice sultry. "I want t' feel wrapped up inside a' your pleasure an' know I made it happen. I want ya t' feel so good, Prowl...."
"Oh God," Michael begged, sobbed. "God, Jazz, please--"
"Love ya so much," Jazz murmured. "So much...."
And then the heat wrapped around him, all the knots tying themselves up at once. Micheal didn't know if he screamed or was utterly silent because he hadn't felt anything like this in years... not since college. It was white heat flashing through him, a roaring deafness in his ears that pulsed around him like a palpable, living thing, beating to the rhythm of his heart. The only thing that sliced through it as he fell back into soft cloudy darkness was Jazz's voice, whispering raggedly, "...Prowl... so much...."
Jaysen listened to Prowl's heart pound, his gasping for air, felt his lover's body throb around him in the most exquisite rhythm. He pushed away the urge to come himself, mentally tuned down several notches the sensitivity of certain parts of his body, rode instead the ebbing waves of Prowl's pleasure, arms wrapping around that other frame.
It was with a little surprise and no small amount of smug satisfaction that he realized that Prowl had slipped straight from orgasm to unconsciousness.
Gently laying Prowl back down on the bed, he slowly withdrew from Prowl's still-pulsing body, eliciting a subconscious whimper of protest from his lover and a moan of desire from himself as that last ring of muscle didn't seem to want to let the head of his cock free. But eventually he pulled out and sat up, Prowl half rolling onto his back into the space Jaysen had vacated. Reaching for his visor, Jaysen slipped it on, appreciating for the first time the way the moonlight and the guttering candlelight played across Prowl's unclothed body. A string of milky pearls decorated the smooth skin of Prowl's flat stomach. He looked like a sculpture by some Italian Renaissance artist. Only the rise and fall of his chest betrayed the illusion.
Smiling softly, Jaysen reached for the cloth he'd used earlier and folded it to the clean side, wiping away again the evidence that Prowl had enjoyed himself. Prowl murmured and shifted slightly under his touch, but did not wake. "...Make love t' ya all night long," Jaysen whispered the promise, and dropped a kiss on Prowl's forehead.
Then he rose and headed toward the bathroom, where he washed clean the hand towel, wringing out the excess water, then drank half a glass of water himself. He didn't linger, though; Prowl was waiting for him back in the bedroom, and the night was still young. He exchanged his condom for a fresh one, tossing the old and the foil packet alike into the small wastebin and rolling the new one onto himself. Returning to the bedroom, Jaysen found Prowl where he'd left him, draped chiaroscuro across the bed. He stood still and memorized the sight, committing it to his databanks. Even when they were old and dead, Prowl would exist digitally like this, young and sensual and painfully beautiful.
Jaysen slipped back onto the bed and ran a light touch across Prowl's chest. He didn't know how he'd fallen so hard. He didn't know when Prowl had started being the cornerstone of his existence. At some nebulous point, though, Prowl had slipped from being the friend with benefits who kept him sane to his most important person. "I'd give ya anythin'," Jaysen whispered. "Anythin' ya wanted. All you'd havta do's ask me for it...."
He wondered if Prowl felt the same way. If that was what made him feel so terrified of their relationship. He supposed it was scary, handing that kind of power over yourself to another person. Prowl could probably destroy Jaysen if he really had a mind to. And Jaysen could probably return the favor without much difficulty either. But that was what trust was for. And faith. And love. Any relationship was dangerous, though; one like theirs, where they each needed the other so badly, was likely as stable as any.
Smiling at the thought, Jaysen uncapped the lubricant and poured some onto his fingers. Rolling it around, coating them, warming the slick substance, he reached between his sleeping lover's legs and touched Prowl's anus, stroking gently. Prowl made an incoherent muttering in his sleep and pressed downward against the touch. Jaysen breathed a laugh. "Like that, do ya?" he murmured, and pressed a finger inward. Prowl sank down onto it and almost seemed to purr. Jaysen felt a throb of want at how sensual his partner was, how sexual. His cool, distant persona was really nothing more than a shield for all the passion, for everything he kept hidden inside. Jaysen felt honored to be able to witness that side of Prowl, to be one of the very few who even suspected it existed. He pressed a second finger inside of his lover, one as happily accepted as the first, and scissored the two, spreading the lubricant. He watched Prowl's cock twitch and rise again and felt the wicked compulsion to wake his lover again like this.
That would be too easy, though, he decided, and slowly pulled his fingers out. Prowl practically seemed to mewl in disappointment. Grinning, Jaysen took off his visor and poured more lubricant onto his hand, smoothing it over himself, hissing at the sensation and forcing his own desire down once more. Instead he lay down beside Prowl and scooted ever closer until Prowl turned on his side. Then Jaysen positioned himself and pressed slowly forward against that sweet ring of muscle until it gave way and he found himself inside Prowl again, with the dizzying feeling that he should never be anywhere else. Controlling himself--and fighting for that control every centimeter of the way--Jaysen pushed slowly deeper, Prowl helping by pushing back against him, until he was fully buried again.
Body humming with pleasure, Jaysen curled one arm beneath his head for a pillow, draped the other across Prowl's hip, and waited for his lover to wake once more.
Waking with a moan, his body shifting relentlessly in search of more touch, more Jazz, Michael reflected, was fast becoming a habit. "Jazz," he breathed, leaning back against the warm body spooned behind him, within him.
"Prowl," Jazz teased in response, matching his tone and nipping at his neck.
"You're incorrigible," Michael told him.
"Mm," Jazz agreed. "An' you're insatiable."
"That's entirely your fault," Michael informed him.
"Ya say that like I'm s'pposed t' act offended an' deny it," replied Jazz, his hands wandering. "D'ya really want me ta?"
"No," Michael breathed, arching into Jazz as one hand brushed a nipple and the other caressed his inner thighs. "God, no...."
"Keep talkin' that way an' I'm gonna start thinkin' I'm takin' advantage of ya," Jazz said. "Nice Catholic altar boy an' all a' that."
"I was never an altar boy," Michael denied. "A choir boy, yes. And, I'm lapsed Catholic," he corrected.
Jazz hummed against the back of his neck, fingers drifting slow and intimate. One tapped against Michael's two medallions--one of Saint Christopher, the other of Saint Michael. "Couldn't tell it by these," he murmured. "'S bein' gay why ya left th' Catholic Church?"
"Not... precisely," Michael answered, shuddering as Jazz's ghost-like touch made chills of pleasure run up his spine. "I've never had a problem with being homosexual. I only had problems with the Church saying it was wrong. There's a... difference," he gasped as a feather-light touch drifted across his perineum, "between faith and religion," he finished.
"So your own personal faith doesn't have any problems with you an' me, then?" Jazz asked. "Or even just me?"
"Only with you being such a tease," Michael retorted. "Touch me already!"
"Make me," Jazz replied.
Like he could ever make Jazz do anything, Michael thought. Jazz was stronger, faster, less easily hurt....
"Jazz," Michael crooned, relaxing back against his lover, clenching himself around Jazz's cock. "You know how good you can make me feel."
"Oh, baby," Jazz moaned helplessly, his fingers tightening against the skin of Michael's stomach. "Said it before, an' I'll say it a thousand more times: you're evil."
"You like it," Michael retorted. "Just like you like knowing that if I really wanted I could have you visorless, tied up, and at my mercy before you even suspected I'd begun plotting."
Jazz paused, and Michael could practically see the image working its way through his brain and CPU alike. Jazz shivered delightfully. "You say th' hottest things," Jazz eventually murmured against Michael's neck, grinding into him. "I'm not gonna be able t' concentrate for th' next week with that in m' mind...."
"Heh." Michael allowed himself the slightest laugh before shifting imperatively against Jazz. "Now stop teasing me before I'm forced to do something about it."
"Yes, oh master," Jazz replied easily. His right hand, just slightly tacky with the lubricant they used, curled firm around Michael's cock, stroking up and down. Michael groaned, throwing his head back against Jazz's shoulder, moving against Jazz's hand. His own hand crept back, threaded through Jazz's thick black hair, and teased at the column of triangular plates that ran up and down Jazz's spine. Jazz gave something between a hiss and a moan and tightened his grasp, teeth biting down on Michael's shoulder. That plating could be unduly sensitive when Michael touched it in just the right way. "Prowl," Jazz growled, his left hand raking blunt nails across a nipple and down Michael's stomach.
"You're an addiction," Michael gasped, pleasure curling low in his body, pooling and tingling everywhere Jazz touched, hot and sticky where their skin clung together. He kept fingering the smooth metal plates, his reward in the almost sub-vocal whines issuing from Jazz's throat, the way Jazz's touch was increasingly frantic. Their bodies moved together, apart, together, apart, like a well-oiled unit. "My addiction. You make me feel--"
"Feel everything," Jazz said, breathing heavily against him. "Prowl, you take me-- you turn me inside out--" his voice broke off. Something hot and wet trickled onto Prowl's shoulder. Tears. "You own me," Jazz said huskily, voice raw with emotion. "I'm yours."
The confession, coupled with Jazz's touch and the sheer want Michael had cumulated, pushed him over the edge. He couldn't even gasp for air as he came in his lover's hand, shot after sticky shot coating his stomach and Jazz's fingers. Jazz whimpered lowly against his back and shook slightly. "Prowl..." he eventually whispered, voice hoarse.
"You're mine," Michael murmured, feeling dazed and a little bit shocky. "Mine, and I'm not letting you go. And... I'm yours," he admitted. "Completely yours."
They were both quiet for a few minutes. Eventually Jazz recovered enough to fumble behind himself for something, then bring a washcloth to lave clean Michael's stomach and his hand. Michael shifted back a touch as he did, and realized something. "You're still hard," he accused less than half-heartedly, drained. His body echoed continued pleasure around that length inside him as Jazz's hand worked across his stomach.
"Jus' barely," admitted Jazz.
"You're cheating," Michael realized.
"Heh." Jazz's laugh was soft. "If ya got it, use it," he teased. "Tell me another story, Prowl?" he asked quietly.
Michael let out a soft breath and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against Jazz's shoulder once more. "Once upon a time, there was a young man who'd always known he was gay," he started. "It never really bothered him, and his parents, while quizzical, accepted it as part of who he was. The church they attended, however, did not."
"So what'd this young man do?" Jazz asked, wiping his hand clean on the cloth.
"He thought about it for a long time, then remembered that the church condemned Galileo for his heliocentric theories for a hundred and thirty-five years, and only apologized for it two hundred and thirty-four years after that."
"Science havin' what t' do with th' story?"
"Man is fallible; God is not," Michael explained softly. "Either God made a mistake making me as I am, or the Catholic Church makes a mistake in condemning it."
"Heh." Jazz breathed a laugh and a kiss against his shoulder. "An' between God an' th' Church, ya figured one was better'n th' other t' put your eggs in their basket?"
"Something like that," said Michael. "This is what I am, and who I am, and these are the challenges He has given to me."
"I love ya," Jazz said quietly, "an' if that's wrong, it's like Tristan said, an' this is worth goin' t' Hell for."
"I'm not Iseult," Michael retorted as Jazz shifted, tossing the washcloth back onto the bedside table he'd picked it up from.
"No," Jazz said quietly, cuddling back up behind Michael again, "you're not." His voice softened, as though he was drifting off. The effect was hypnotic, and catching. Michael caught his own eyes falling closed. "You're Michael, an' you're Prowl, an' you're mine. An' tonight that's all that matters." A gentle kiss against Michael's hair. "Sleep..." Jazz urged
Tired, and knowing that their encounters for the night weren't over just yet, Michael obeyed, letting Jazz's voice follow him down into slumber, tangling pleasantly in his dreams.
Drifting pleasantly, his mind's need for rest marginally winning out over his body's desire for release, Jaysen found himself wishing that he could fall asleep like this every night. Oh, not inside Prowl--though that was very, very nice--but just with him. It made him feel safe. Complete.
Prowl wasn't the first man he'd ever slept with, or even the second. But despite his preferences leaning slightly toward the feminine, and the long list of names trailing behind him, Jaysen knew that Prowl was the first person he'd been in love with since blonde, curly-haired Cindy Adams in third grade. And unlike Cindy, Prowl wasn't likely to disappear from his life when his parents moved away over summer vacation.
His best friend. His lover. And while Prowl could theoretically be kicked back out of the Project, civilian consultant role and all that, Jaysen... couldn't. None of the six of them who had undergone alteration ever could. So in some ways his choice of partner didn't really matter. In other ways, though, for the sake of military discipline and not incurring the ire of higher-ups, it was best to be discreet. Prime turned a blind eye to this liaison the same way he'd long turned one to Ratchet and Ironhide's thing with Lennox. He was quietly supportive of all of his people in a "what do you need so long as it doesn't blow all of us sky-high?" way. Even the tech staff. Especially the tech staff; they were probably a good deal more normal and sane than the five of them who went on missions with Optimus. The tech staff, in fact, were probably part of the answer to Jaysen's wondering what kept Prime grounded and sane within the Project.
Smiling wanly, grimly, Jaysen wondered what the hell was going to happen now that his CO's de facto daughter had been located within Cybercon. Because he really doubted that Optimus' wife was that far away, and he had a nebulous sense of things about to go wrong. Jaysen had had that same feeling a few times in the past, usually just before finding out that he was outgunned and outmaneuvered. Cybercon getting their hooks, however briefly, into Prowl hadn't helped his sense of foreboding any.
But that was for tomorrow and planning and places that were outside the haven of here and now and the safety that was Prowl's apartment. Resolutely closing his eyes, Jaysen forced away everything that wasn't resting in his arms; at the moment none of it mattered.
Only this.
Only Prowl.
Little sisters who thought they knew everything, Michael had long ago decided, were surely only marginally less annoying than little sisters who actually did know everything. Still, at least one of them had gotten the brains in the family, even if his parents and then later himself had reined Carla in from skipping grades and starting college at fourteen, all in the name of socialization. She might have ended up bored and taking supplemental classes at the J.C., but she'd had a normal development, a normal high school life to help keep her stabilized in whatever heights to which she might soar.
Unfortunately, Carla's frightening intelligence meant her police detective brother couldn't keep a thing from her. Not Jazz's reappearance, and especially not the fact that Michael had finally taken that step forward and now had Jazz as a boyfriend. Though Michael did stubbornly refuse to discuss with her anything to do with Jazz's work and the reasons for his two-year disappearance from their lives.
Michael had always found it hard to care what other people thought or felt. Their concerns were, at best, like puzzle pieces to be fit together to explain their actions, deduce the reasoning for their actions or crimes. They were things which were outside of him and thus unconnected. Even his coworkers' lives were simply sets of motivations, actions and reactions according to a sort of social Newtonian law. Except for Carla, Michael hadn't been close to anyone since his parents died. His had been a clean, precise, cold existence, standing on the outside looking in. He had been aware, once in a while, watching people and life move around him at what seemed like a distance, that he was probably lonely, but for the most part he hadn't let it bother him.
Then he'd met Jazz.
A whirl of color, of noise, of confusion, the Air Force Captain had descended into Michael's monochrome, quiet, ordered life, and nothing had been the same since. Michael had found what he was lacking, what he wanted... and he'd been struck dumb, not knowing how to deal with it, if he even could reach out for what he needed. Two years of pep talks, alternately sympathetic and chiding, from the sister who knew the reasons he'd periodically visited a psychologist since she was six and he was sixteen, had done nothing to make him actually speak across that distance between himself and other people. It had better to just be friends, he'd thought, than to ask for more and be rejected out of hand... and far better than to get into a relationship only to have it painfully end.
Jazz's precipitous disappearance had mocked Michael's cowardice, though, made it apparent to him that he'd made the wrong choice. There was no logic in matters of emotion, and he had discovered that he would far rather have had a gentle letting down from Jazz, or even a moment's happiness, than to be constantly realizing anew, feeling it for the first time, just how empty his life was. Michael wasn't stupid, and it hadn't taken him two whole years to realize this fact--significantly less than two weeks, in fact--but there hadn't been anything he'd been able to do to change the situation. There hadn't been anyone else he'd wanted to let in, and the one person he'd gravitated toward was gone.
Then one night he'd seen Jazz again, and had known that there was no way he was going to let his friend vanish again without saying his piece, without letting him know--without even getting a goddamn explanation! He'd let fury and frustration and pain take him during that chase, and they'd faded as soon as Jazz had caught him, ebbing away like adrenaline, leaving only a sick-feeling hollowness in Michael's heart. He needed Jazz more than anything, was drawn to him like he'd never been drawn to anyone before, and he had screwed up all his chances beyond comprehension.
God had been merciful and given him just one more shot. Michael had taken it. And almost every minute since had been as beautiful and as terrifying as freefall. He didn't know when this was going to end, or how, but he knew with absolute certainty that when it did, it wasn't going to be like the dreams where he woke up just before hitting the pavement. It was going to kill him the day Jazz said 'no more' and walked away.
"But we go on pretending," Michael whispered into the silent morning, "stories like ours have happy endings."
Behind him Jazz stirred, just a little, and murmured in reply, "I can't imagine a time when I won't care."
"Heh." Michael breathed a laugh. "You've seen 'Chess'."
"Great musical," Jazz replied. "Great story, great songs." He levered himself up on one elbow, trailed fingers over Michael's shoulder. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Michael denied.
"Prowl...."
Michael relented. "Just... feeling like this is too good to last. I'm wondering when it's going to end, and how."
Jazz sighed and flopped back down behind him. "Thought so." He was silent for a moment, then asked, "Ya ever see th' movie 'Th' Last Starfighter'?"
"No."
"Y'should. Good movie," Jazz recommended. "There's a line in it, t' this kid who thinks his life sucks: 'Things change. Always do. You'll get your chance. Important thing is, when it comes, you've got t' grab with both hands, an' hold on tight.' Good advice, that."
"You think I'm pessimistic and giving up too easily."
"No," Jazz replied, "I know you're a pessimist. That's not what I'm sayin'. What I'm sayin' is... didja ever think that maybe you're my chance, an' I'm holdin' on with both hands?"
"You?" Michael scoffed.
"Me," Jazz confirmed, a hard note in his voice, a hint of... anger, at not being believed? Michael wasn't sure. "Y' like t' think you're th' only one isolated from th' world, Prowl, but you're not."
"You do not have SPD," Michael pointed out flatly.
"No, I don't. Doesn't mean I've really loved everyone I've been with, either," Jazz pointed out. He sighed and his head fell forward until his forehead rested against Michael's back. "Last time I loved anyone this much, I was nine. An' nine-year-olds don't love half-hearted. So it's not just pretty words, Prowl. You own me. An'... maybe that's a little terrifyin' too."
Michael was silent for a moment, taking that in. Trying to see clear beyond his own messed-up feelings. "I'm sorry," he finally apologized. "I've been... an emotional ass. I'll stop doubting you, Jazz. Or at least try."
"That'd be good," Jazz nebulously agreed. "An'... jus' for th' record, Prowl? I admire how ya try t' work past what's hard for ya. If we were reversed, I don't think I'd be able t' do th' same."
"Yes, you would," Michael disagreed placidly. He shifted a little, turned his head to look behind himself. "Jazz?" he asked.
"Yeah?"
"Will you let me make love to you?"
Jaysen ended up flat on his back, as helpless as he ever was blind. He remembered Prowl's earlier threat--promise?--of tying him up like this, and suppressed a delightful shiver. Prowl moved in response, and... oh, hell, that felt nice.
"You," Prowl said, "are thinking of something kinky." His weight pressed Jaysen into the mattress as they faced each other, his hands on Jaysen's chest for balance. His hips shifted steadily back and forth, each movement a throb of want.
"I'd never tell ya if I was," Jaysen retorted huskily.
"Yes, you would," Prowl replied with equanimity. "All I'd have to do is ask, and you know it." He paused, shifting his weight up in the best way, and ran trailing fingers down Jaysen's chest. "This is about me tying you up, isn't it?"
"Maybe," Jaysen defended.
"Tell me." Prowl shifted his weight again, moving in small circles. He leaned forward until their faces were nearly touching and breathed his question against Jaysen's lips: "Would you prefer silk neckties, or steel handcuffs?"
This time, Jazz could not suppress the shiver. And Prowl's soft, throaty laughter that followed only made him want his partner more.
CODA:
Brian examined his shift partner as he effortlessly sifted through commercial broadcast feeds, separating the figurative data wheat from the chaff. It was completely obvious, if you knew what to look for, that Jazz had gotten laid the night before. Ever since he'd first hooked up with Prowl, even before they'd all known about the detective, there had been days when Jazz had come on shift moving just a little lighter, a small I-know-something-that-you-don't smile curling his lips.
It was probably crass for Brian to be wondering who was on top, or if they took turns.
"Got some kind a' program takin' up all your processor power, B'?" Jazz asked, startling him. Brian hadn't realized his scrutiny had been so obvious.
"I...." Curiosity overcame embarrassment. "I was just wondering how you and Prowl...."
Jazz turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised above the top of his visor. "Now, B', with all th' wonders a' th' Internet at your disposal, ya can't be tellin' me ya don't know how things like that work."
"Not that!" Brian rebutted. "The... we're not human anymore, physically. Isn't it too dangerous? To him."
"Ahh." Jazz nodded in comprehension. "I see what you're askin'. Wouldn't Ratchet be a better choice for this kinda conversation?"
"He's... Ratchet," Brian replied.
"An' this's th' kinda talk ya don't wanna have with your doc or your dad?" Jazz asked understandingly. He switched over to a private comm channel. "Is there any particular reason you're curious?"
Brian fought down a blush. "Maybe."
Jazz grinned. "A he or a she?"
"...He."
"Right. Point one: yes, I could hurt Prowl real easy. So I'm careful not ta. Two: Ratch' wasn't about t' cut off his own nose t' spite his face when he made himself int' this 'long with th' rest a' us. It still feels really good, better even in some ways 'coz ya can monitor an' measure how intense ya feel things. There's no biological imperative anymore, but if ya find yourself spendin' time with th' right person... it's still all there."
Brian nodded.
"Three--an' this one's a secret from everyone who ain't a part a' th' Project, so don't ever tell anyone--if ya ever decide somewhere down th' line that ya want kids, go talk t' Ratchet."
Brian blinked. "Why?"
Jazz grinned. "Let's just say that he took certain 'biological samples' from all a' us, an' has 'em frozen an' stored safe somewhere."
That took a long moment to process. "He... did?"
Jazz's smile was kind. "He ain't always as hard-shelled as he seems, B'. He knew this would screw all a' us up, so he wanted t' give us th' ability t' keep our options in reserve."
"But...." It was hard to reconcile the sudden possibility of future family with what Brian had lived and believed for the past year and more. "But he's with... and you're with...."
Jazz shrugged. "Things sometimes change, an' even if they don't... well, there're ladies out there who donate eggs, an' others who do things like be surrogate moms. An' that's assumin' Ratchet ain't got schematics for an artificial womb in his head somewhere. Wouldn't surprise me if he did. But that's a little far out t' be plannin' yet."
"Yeah." Brian nodded. "I'd need to get the boy first before I could start thinking about a family."
"Don't break the team," Jazz warned him, expression suddenly serious. "We need ya an' we need him. Make sure he's worth it an' wants it, first."
Brian glared at him. "Who said anything about anyone on the team?!" he demanded.
Jazz just gave a knowing smile. "Everything's 'bout th' same as what ya can find out for yourself," he continued his lecture. "If he fucks ya, he'll need a condom. There're 'trace biological waste elements coupled with bacteria'," he quoted, "that can lead t' infection. Other way doesn't hold th' same, though; we can't get infections that way. That said, I use one as a matter a' courtesy."
"So you do top, then," Brian sent before he even thought about it.
"Wasn't aware that ya had a bettin' pool goin'," Jazz replied, eyebrow lifted in amusement. "An' for that matter, not always. Either's nice, with th' right person."
"And Prowl's your 'right person'?"
"Yes."
