Long Patrol By WandersUnderStarlight

Long Patrol by WandersUnderStarlight

This is one of my favorites and a complete story so I will start here with my read through.

Link for those who want it.

Ahh, interesting!

The Flaw in Every Crystal Chapter 4

‘Welcome to Praxus’ Part 4

aka The Great Escape, Plan A

aka My work schedule finally lightened up a bit

Gotta admire Jazz’s spirit and resourcefulness, even if it did result in him blowing himself up…multiple times..

You can really feel how desperate Jazz is here to just get out of the room and away from the house even if he doesn’t have a real plan and already knows what will happen if he tries to leave the city. 

This is really kinda a no win for him. Praxus doesn’t seem to have a homeless population he could blend in with, his frame type is different enough to get him spotted immediately, and he doesn’t have a lot with him. Even trying to get someone to help him could just leave him in a worse position of being someone’s “pet” and being blackmailed with arrest and becoming property of Praxus.

So Prowl took a while to find out that the source of the smell of hurt mech and recent explosion was THAT ROOM, which makes me worry a bit about the real possibility that Jazz could have been forgotten in there. Not for long mind you, and Jazz wouldn’t have realized, but still. Kinda darkly funny to imagine Prowl about to go to sleep, then suddenly his eyes light up with an “oh shit!” expression as he goes to check on Jazz.

Poor Jazz completely lost track of time it seems while injured, and couldn’t have gotten the door open by himself. Its good there was nothing else flammable in there or he would have gotten out of Praxus in the most permanent way possible. And from how Prowl describes what he finds, Jazz did almost make that trip.

“Prowl, what happened to that mech you worked so hard to get as a mate?” “Oh, he exploded….quite tragic…”

Probably the creepiest parts of this story is just how much Jazz’s terror and sadness are down played by everyone around him. Even here Prowl is treating this more as a costly annoyance, seemingly not even thinking that Jazz just admitted he was desperate enough to cause a small explosion to try to escape the room. The fact that the medic automatically goes to “trouble training huh?” like a firefighter called to deal with a kitchen damaged after a cooking accident/fire. I worry what something “too extreme” would be? An outright suicide attempt? Even that I could see as being spun as “oh, guess that mech just wasn’t a right fit/guess he had prior emotional problems/these things happen.” Not to mention trying to comfort someone when you’re the one causing them to be in pain. 

Prowl says the medic wears traditional colors, but is it the same colors or lighter/grayer shades of them since she is the sub in a prior relationship?

 Kinda wish there was a time glossary at the top of the chapter. Otherwise I associate joor = about an hour while orn = about a day to a transformer. So Jazz says he was locked up for an hour, medic says a few hours and Prowl says he was gone five days? I know that I’m probably reading that wrong but I don’t really have a reference. Jazz isn’t complaining about low fuel and we don’t read him refueling so I don’t think it could have been more than what they would consider a day to be…

We also see Jazz send out comms to both his friend, Blaster, and his boss. We later see Blaster trying to help out but never the boss. I wonder if the boss doesn’t know, didn’t get the comm, or got some kind of compensation to “fire” Jazz and no longer care about his employee? Maybe even a forged note from Jazz saying he quit and decided to stay in Praxus? That one I could very easily see happening.

We also see that although the medic is in a loving relationship, she can still get talked over, with Prowl stating that he would talk to Derby to come up with compensation for her mate being damaged by Jazz. I’m almost surprised that Prowl listens to her being so flippant about saying how no compensation is necessary even if she does say that her mate allows her to make some of these decisions. It does really show even in a good relationship overall the system only works because the dominate mate “allows” the sub some say in her life. It does lead to the worry of what would happen one day if the mate decided that being a medic was too dangerous and decided that she should quit. There would be really no recourse for the medic, would there?

It’s like Triage understands perfectly what danger Jazz is in and her only advice is to stop fighting and just give in. It’s especially ironic since that would probably be the fastest way to have Prowl lose all interest in him, since a Jazz who doesn’t fight back is pretty much dead inside.

 Ah yes, Jazz wanting to see Praxus “as a citizen” and the through review that included never talking to Jazz about it. “You probably misunderstood something” but too bad because its already done and you have no rights now!

You know, this type of bonding seems like a fast and easy way to get some nice, skilled personal slave labor. 

I love that Prowl sees alerting the medic to a stuck door as overly cautious but still was willing to leave Jazz alone in a room. Though I guess for him he was thinking he would only be gone for a few minutes and what could Jazz possibly do in that amount of time? Though now that Prowl can drop Jazz in an instant it really wasn’t much of a problem.

And now Prowl has a new, harder to break out of room. Yaaayyy… we also see how adaptable Jazz can be, now going along with it since he doesn’t want to die and starving out of spite won’t get him to his goal. We see Prowl almost treating Jazz like a child, feeding him, petting him, and then saying “Are you going to be good now and behave?” In pretty much the same wording my parents would say to me after a time out.

And it seems like at one point Jazz did read the bonding datapad. We see Jazz trying to discuss things with Prowl and Prowl not rejecting, but still acting like he’s indulging Jazz in this. Odd Jazz mentions seeing his mentor, yet he didn’t try to comm him. Could it be the mentor is worse off than Jazz and couldn’t help?

It’s really sad to see Prowl react to what he wants from Jazz. It seems like he wants only Jazz’s good traits. Its almost like he wants two different mechs. The perfect sub in public and the Jazz he finds interesting in private. I could almost see that working and Jazz going along with it if it was an outside force keeping Jazz there rather than Prowl. 

Prowl mentions training almost like its an arms race with wound returned for wound until you just wear the other down. Prowl really thinks too highly of himself. Jazz point blank tells him, no, this isn’t going to work, continue and you will lose me. And Prowl just waves it off saying Jazz could still have goals that he may even get to keep if a third carries. Though I cannot imagine Jazz with another in the house. He would either hate/try to hurt the third if they didn’t go along with trying to escape. 

And then Jazz lashes out at Prowl again after Prowl says how much better Jazz will have it here. Only to be locked away again. I wonder if one of the other things Prowl secretly likes about Jazz is how Jazz can get so much of a rise out of Prowl, even having Prowl leave while flipping Jazz the middle figure in door speak. And Jazz is left in the dark trying to soothe himself.

Thus ends another chapter. Till nex time!

The Flaw in Every Crystal

Chapter 8

Intermission Number 1

Aka Triage’s situation

So, Triage became limited in who she could treat on a regular basis to people of her own class. Even triple-checking. I wonder if this is because the medic or the patient might lie, or both. Does this mean that a medic could have to drop a patient once they bond, but then pick that patient back up if the patient bonds as a sub?

Interesting that Prowl would have to hold a high rank to allow Triage to have an occupation, but said that Jazz could do approved work. So, is medic considered higher valued that Prowl would need to rank up to do that but most stuff Jazz could do Prowl would be high enough rank for?

Is it possible to be too low of a rank to bond someone? Derby is mentioned as having to climb up a few ranks. Has there been a Romeo/Juliet type thing ever?

Why didn’t Prowl try to trine with Derby and Triage to rank up. Was he worried Derby wouldn’t go along with the plan to get out of Praxus? Or was it the lack of feelings between them all?

Chapter 4: Gotta Earn that T Rating

Back again with Chapter 4. Let’s get to it.

Prowl now seems more okay with keeping his distance from Jazz. Jazz at this point is just playing mirror with Prowl and wondering about who Prowl actually is. It seems that now that Jazz knows that he is safe and help is coming for him, and that Prowl is single, he is able to focus more on the current situation and a possible future with Prowl. As he is able to let his mind wonder, he begins to take in more of Prowl’s physical characteristics in a romantic light whereas before it was more based on Prowl’s actions towards him.

We also get to see more of Jazz as a character when not in survival mode. He sees Prowl as a possible romantic partner but still recognizes that he can only move forward if Prowl is in the proper frame of mind to consent. Admirable traits for our main character. We also see more evidence latter that Jazz tends to babble when distressed, from his messages to Ricochet earlier and his talking to Prowl when “captured” by him.

And then we get to see Jazz’s mating dance toward Prowl. Or in other words, we get to see Jazz further trying to slave off cabin fever by using movement and dance steps since though unable to respond verbally, Prowl is able to mimic and follow Jazz’s physical movements. We see Prowl no longer simply following along with Jazz and now reaching out to touch Jazz. It is hard to decipher Prowl’s motives for this. My theory is it is earlier a delayed reaction from when Jazz reached out to him during the dance beginning or as I jokingly stated before, it is Prowl accepting that this is Jazz’s mating dance for him.

 Then we get an odd if interesting dance/chase as Prowl tries to grab Jazz who simple is able to evade. Bit of a mistake on Jazz’s part for being the one to initiate this sequence of events. We also see the extent of Prowl’s base attraction as an “chase” and dance that in what was described as a small room couldn’t have taken more than a minute to end still got Prowl rather hot and bothered. 

We also get the same admirable trait from Prowl in that he backs off when Jazz tries to push him back, even if unhappy about what must seem as horribly mixed signals to him. Prowl may have even been worried that it was a sign of rejection as he sees Jazz then turn away from him to get food for himself rather than depending on Prowl for food. Prowl physically moves Jazz in an attempt to bring back the normalcy of their current relationship with Jazz waiting for Prowl to feed him. Prowl also then goes back to the regular sleeping habits without any of the previous touching from last time. Perhaps trying to take it a bit slower with his mate?

You know, it might just be me, but I kinda how that the reason Drift and Ratchet showed up in Dying of the Light is because Riptide told him the Rod squad would be there. Probably just to go pick them up or something.

Riptide is/was friends with Drift and it would explain him and Ratchet knowing to go there then....just saying.

Yes.