Hey, all, it's that time! I'm participating in the @tf-bigbang again this year with some amazing artists to bring you (Un)Becoming of a Prime. I can't wait to bring the full fic to you, but until then, here's a little look-see!
Title: (Un)Becoming of a Prime
Rating: Mature
Continuity: Continuity Souping a Full AU
Ship(s): Jazz/Optimus Prime (more to be added)
Warning(s): Major Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Unhealthy Coping Behaviors, Body Dysmorphia, Mech Preg (Transformers), (more to be added)
Additional Tags: Jazz Becomes Prime And Makes It Everyone Else’s Problem, The Matrix Owes Child Support (and more to come)
Summary:
Jazz is chosen as Prime after Optimus dies, leaving him saddled with the Matrix, navigating this new peace-treaty between three factions, and mourning the loss of his conjunx. The only benefit he has is unlocking the real secret of the Matrix: the inner realm where the sparks of all former Primes remain, including Optimus. Dealing with gossipy, opinionated dead Primes with their own agendas is worth it to see Optimus again, but discovering Optimus (and the Matrix) left him a little Surprise changes everything. He can’t accept this future, a peaceful, blossoming society, without Optimus there with him, and he is going to get him back, even if he has to break the Matrix to do it.
He’s not raising his sparkling alone.
Sample
“Hey, Sounders,” Jazz called out, before the host-mech could follow his council leader. Soundwave grabbed the last of the datapads on the desk, stowing them easily into his subspace and tilted his head to the side. Listening.
“You know if you joined the Executorship with Prowl, you’d get respect and time off.”
He was teasing him more than anything, but all it did was cause another sigh to be vented, this one deep enough a bit of steam came out with it.
“Soundwave: more valuable within Decepticon Council. Prime: well aware.”
“Oh come on, now, don’t you call me that, too,” Jazz whined. “You’ve known me longer than most of the mechs in this place. ”
“Point: stands.”
“You mean, your point that the Decepticons might collapse in on themselves if you weren’t there to reel Screamer in.”
Soundwave stared at him and Jazz stared back. Finally he slumped into his chair, doorwings twinging a bit. Being bigger did mean that sitting and positions weren’t the same as they used to be and he sometimes still forgot that his doorwings were bigger now than they’d been. He really should have just tucked them in like usual… He reluctantly adjusted his position, sitting up straighter.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Deadlock and Starscream would have taken each other out already if you weren’t the one keeping both of them in line.” Didn’t make him not wish he could snatch him away and hand him to Prowl like a gift to make up for all the other duties he was always pushing onto him.
Thousands of vorn he spent helping Optimus, thousands of vorns spent seeing just how much datawork being Prime required and yet…somehow it didn’t feel so endless when he was helping him instead of it being his own Responsibility. Some things were just different when it wasn’t about you and you could do it with the one you…
“Prime.”
“I told ya, it’s still Jaaaazz,” he reminded him, and even made sure to put extra emphasis on it like he was sounding it out. Yeah, he had been trying to clean up his accent a little, to sound more ‘professional’, as they say, but he knew it wasn’t so big a change that he didn’t sound like himself. And maybe his frame looked a bit different now, but it was still his – mostly, maybe, he thought it should be – and the colors and shape wasn’t that different.
“Position: remains stable. No reason to remove self or cohort.”
Yet. There was always that subtle hint of yet. It’s what kept Jazz coming back, teasing and needling at him even though he knew it wasn’t the right time (yet). They’d done a lot in the last two stellar cycles to fix things on Cybertron, worked out this union of the factions that wasn’t quite a reunion and yet was close enough to reunification that Jazz would argue it’s all in how you look at it. They did call it the ‘Reunification’ treaty, after all, because sometimes you use the word you want it to mean even if it’s not there (yet).
Banding together against a common enemy did wonders for peace talks, if you asked him, especially an enemy set on enslaving your whole race and turning you into appliances to buy and sell across the galaxy.
Maybe he hadn’t thanked the Quintessons enough for that. What a thought he did not want to have. He had those sometimes. More often nowadays. Thoughts that were a bit too dark, even in their twisted optimism. Just gonna…side step that one. Put it away for Later.
Something tugged at him, deep in his chest. He ignored it as he always did, tapping his fingers along his leg instead of reaching up to rub at it.
“Harmonious.”
“Jazz.” He said it this time with a bit more force, pulling himself out of wherever his mind was attempting to go. Then he blinked, forcefully released the tension building up inside him and stood up from the chair altogether. It wasn’t helping to stay sitting, now was it? He smiled, sheepish. “Sorry, Sounders. I get ya, you’re important and they need ya. I won’t push too hard about it. Even if I think you could do a lot of good with Prowl over there.”
“Soundwave: doing good. Harmonious: doing good as well.”
“You’d be doing more good if you weren’t making me wait out here like I can’t hear you!”
Jazz rolled his optics. Sure no one was able to see the act, but when dealing with Starscream, sometimes one just couldn’t help themselves. He snorted, tapping Soundwave – a mech that once towered over him and now was even height – on the shoulder and nudged him out the door, as if he hadn’t been the one keeping him back.
“Can’t blame a mech for trying, though, can ya?” he said. “See ya, Sounders.”
“Next council meeting,” Soundwave reminded him. “Jazz: take care.”
“Always do,” Jazz assured him, shutting the door and locking it once they were gone. He leaned against it, feeling the cool weight of the metal against his doorwings and back plates. He let himself vent. In and out. In and out.
Harmonious Prime. Still sounded wrong, no matter how the notes flowed together. Too perfectly out of sync. Not like it was the first time he’d changed his name, but usually he got to be the one changing it, and he always came back to Jazz. This time…it wasn’t his notes playing.
He was never going to get used to being called Prime. He wondered if Optimus ever felt that way, after waking up to a world where Orion Pax no longer existed to anyone but Jazz.
And now, here he was, Harmonious Prime existing in a world without an Optimus or Orion to remember the 'him' he wished he still was.
