Fluff Bingo Chapter 61: Friends To Lovers

Fluff Bingo Chapter 61: Friends to Lovers

Oh slag Oh slag ohslagohslagohslageohslag!

Where could he go? What could he do?  

No.  Stop. Think and plan.  You are the Special Ops Helm.  You do not panic.

Jazz onlined his optics and caught sight of Prowl, still asleep on one of the the Rec room benches, one arm tucked under his helm, the other tucked up against his bumper.  His doorwings were twitching gently.

Okay.  You panic a little.

0-0-0

It would be fine. Everything would be fine.  This could and would be dealt with in the same way all unexpected things were, with careful planning and tactical precision.

You have the most advanced tactical computer at your disposal. You are fully capable of using it to figure this out.

Prowl vented deeply and looked up at Blaster’s impromptu stage.  Jazz spun around, the microphone in his servo mostly a prop, and caught Prowl’s optic.  He winked.

Perhaps, now would be a good time to seek more experienced insights.

0-0-0

“Ratchet! I need some major talkin’ down!  I think I’m losin’ it!”

0-0-0

“Optimus, if you have a moment, I would like to discuss something urgent.  I believe I am experiencing a full processor error.”

AU August Fic 2

Artist’s Muse

The roof was slick and cold from the earlier frost.  Jazz had to watch his balance, even while using his magnets.  He slipped down into the wide gutter beneath his window and edged along it until he came to the farthest corner.  Beneath him, three hundred stories down, he could see bots buzzing home after a late evening.  He gazed at them, transfixed as he pulled his lyre from his subspace.

It was a thing of beauty.  Jazz ran his servo over the curve of the arm with its carved swirling details. Its origin was ugly and painful, but Jazz was helplessly in love with it anyway.  The artist who had created it, the musician who had played it before him…they were innocent.  This was a Strand lyre - he’d only ever made twelve of them - and it was an honor and a pleasure to play it.

His employer had four.  The other three were still pinned to the wall in the entryway like fragile dioflies, lighting up as the passing headlights shone through the window.

Across the road the balcony doors opened.  The warm yellow light sparkled differently through the moisture heavy air.  The doors closed and Jazz watched two servos appear on the railing, still heavily bandaged.

Jazz lifted the lyre and began to play.

The mech had been badly hurt.  Each night he slowly shuffled to the edge of the balcony as if he was crossing the Polyhex Plains.  Jazz tried not to imagine what injuries the bandages hid.  The only part they’d fully repaired had been his doorwings, shiny and new, glinting in the light.  Jazz had looked him up after the fourth night he’d watched him stumble out onto the balcony. 

Officer Prowl, on loan from Praxus.  He’d run back into a flaming shuttle again and again, according to the reports - a shuttle shot down on accident by Polyhex’s own turret guns.  Ha, ‘accident.’  Everyone knew who controlled those turrets and it wasn’t Polyhex.

The first night Jazz had come out onto the roof, it had been just to watch the cars.  He’d laid down to watch them, pretending it was the icy cold wind making his spark and frame ache.  It was only recently that he’d been brave enough to bring his lyre for company.  He was content at first just to feel the warmth of it in his subspace.  Then he’d pulled it out to cradle the beautiful instrument in his lap.  Then the call of the music had been too strong and he’d let the first haunting notes spiral out of his spark and into the world.

He kept returning.  Somehow, playing to the black sky and the echoing canyon of the skyscrapers had drained some of the poison.  It no longer hurt to look at the bots below.

He’d known he’d made a mistake minutes after he’d signed the contract.  He’d been hungry and tired, pushed past his limits.  He’d known that the ‘live-in musician’ contract was a sham.  Just like the turrets, Jazz only appeared to be in control.  Starvation for freedom, fuel for imprisonment.  He was never going to win.

Here at least, in the dark, with his silent audience, Jazz made the air dance on his command.  

He thought about the bots below, driving home to loved ones and the notes lifted up into happy, rose-red bubbles.

He thought about his audience’s injuries and the tempo slowed, the sounds deepening with sorrow and grief.

He thought about the will it must have taken to dive back into the flames, even as his paint burned, over and over again.  The notes came faster, overlaying each other in a messy melody.

He imagined his muse whole and healthy again.  He coaxed sweetened sounds from between his fingers, sending each note from the tip of his fingers out across the divide to stroke - gently! so gently - over his muse’s powerful, ravaged frame.

Across from him, the mech turned towards the music, unmoving, but clearly listening.  The shadows of his face made him look like carved crystal.  Those servos, strong and good, on the balcony edge…Jazz imagined them on his shoulders, stroking down his back.  He imagined taking them in his own and curling around them protectively.  The gentle twitching of his doorwing in the night, like an unknowing conductor, set Jazz’s spark aflame with want.  He couldn’t stop himself.

He sang.

The notes turned silky and smooth, like melted gold in his mouth as he did.  Not words, just notes and hums that twirled around the sound of his lyre in the night.  He poured everything into his voice - admiration, longing, desolation, joy, fragile hope - until his spark was empty and the space between the two of them was full.

The echos bounced back for an eternity before it was silent.  He would need to go in before anyone noticed he was missing.  Jazz took one more long look at his muse.

“Primus, mech, you’re beautiful,” he whispered to himself, setting his lyre down.  The mech across the road seemed to be looking right at him, if it weren’t for the bandages across his optics.  “Wish I could tell ya that.”

It made his servos ache, but he put his lyre away and crawled back towards the window.  He unlatched it and froze.

His…patron was standing there.  

“Sir -”

He was seized and pulled through.  As he was slammed into the wall, Jazz’s vision went white.

0-0-0

Prowl titled his helm - uselessly, his audio functions were still offline - and ‘listened’ harder.

“What do you think you were doing?  Out there with my property!”

“I wouldn’t have dropped it -!”

“That wasn’t what I was talking about.”

The faint sound of a servo striking a face.

“I bought myself a musician.  I spent a lot of money on it.  It is mine.”

“Yes sir.”

The window was pulled shut and his doorwings couldn’t sense through the thick walls.

Prowl turned and shuffled back towards his room, processor spinning.

At first, Prowl had thought his private serenade was another patient in the next wing.  The songs had started out so sad…  When they grew lighter and happier he’d thought the invisible musician was healing.

He’d asked about the wing across from his window yesterday and was informed that it was actually a high end recording studio.  That explained why the music went silent once the window closed.

This time, his singer had left the window open.  This time he knew why his singer’s songs had started out so sorrowful.

Prowl was not particularly gifted in any of the arts, but in his own field, he was something of a maestro.  The thunderous symphony that he would be bringing down, upon the mech that dared harm the one bright spot he’d found in his recovery, would give the critics something to write about.

Friends to Lovers

Oh slag Oh slag ohslagohslagohslageohslag!

Where could he go? What could he do?  

No.  Stop. Think and plan.  You are the Special Ops Helm.  You do not panic.

Jazz onlined his optics and caught sight of Prowl, still asleep on one of the the Rec room benches, one arm tucked under his helm, the other tucked up against his bumper.

Okay.  You panic a little.

0-0-0

It would be fine. Everything would be fine.  This could and would be dealt with in the same way all unexpected things were, with careful planning and tactical precision.

You have the most advanced tactical computer at your disposal. You are fully capable of using it to figure this out.

Prowl vented deeply and looked up at Blaster’s impromptu stage.  Jazz spun around, the microphone in his servo mostly a prop, and caught Prowl’s optic.  He winked.

Perhaps, now would be a good time to seek more experienced insights.

0-0-0

“Ratchet! I need some major talkin’ down!  I think I’m losin’ it!”

0-0-0

“Optimus, if you have a moment, I would like to discuss something urgent.  I believe I am experiencing a full processor error.”

0-0-0

Prowl stirred his drink as he waited, feeling a mixture of emotions – tight threads of worry constricting his spark, the electric feeling of meeting a friend, and a warmth he couldn’t quite place.  For want of something to do with his servos, he poured in more flakes and watched them swirling in his cube.  The faint glint of the silver flakes in the pale blue energon matched the weather outside.  A thin frost of hydrogen was settling on the street and on the shoulders of the bots passing by the window.

Chapter 2 is up!  If you like it and have the spoons, tell me what you think! 

Second Chapter of Virgin Widow! 

Summery: Prowl's and Jazz's families arrange their bonding for business reasons. Prowl works hard to protect the people of his city, but when he goes home he is at the mercy of his family.  Jazz was born in space and is ostracized because of his frame type and appearance.   

Excerpt:

“Captain, are you okay?”

Strongarm again.  He half missed his previous sergeant, Puller, who had the intelligence of an energon goodie and had been quickly promoted above Prowl.

“I have been better,” he said, knowing the triteness would only annoy her.  Sure enough he heard a huff behind him and Strongarm came up beside him.  She knelt next to his chair and waited.

“It was a difficult evening, Strongarm,” he finally said, quietly.  “I am just tired.”

“Is your bonded unkind, sir?”  Prowl turned.  She was half again as tall as he was, even kneeling she could meet his optics.  She looked concerned – actually concerned.

“No.  I’ll probably never meet them.  It was by proxy.  My family is just difficult.”  He had never explained what he meant, but he was certain most of the station had guessed by now.  He’d returned from visits enough times with something bandaged or dented.

But the Praxian Shipping Empire funded the entire Enforcers Corps – no one was going to say anything.

AU August Fic 10

Space Academy

 Jazz stepped into the room with a datapad under his arm and a tightly controlled field.  He was looking forward to hearing these bots explain themselves.  He looked around at the seated bots - generals and sergeants and captains, all wearing their decals proudly.  None of them stood when he entered.

 So that was how it was going to be.

 “Hello,” he said, masking his accent, “My designation is Commander Jazz, 4th Legion, Special Operations and Internal Affairs.”

 The mech on his left stood and held out a servo.

 “I’m so glad you could come, Commander, but it’s really not serious enough to warrant Spec Ops or even the IA.  One of our newest recruits has been having some trouble adjusting to life in the service and -”

 “It was my understanding that he has been missing for six hours and none of you have been able to locate him,” Jazz interrupted him.   “And I will be deciding what is important enough for our attention, thank you.”  He released the mech’s servo and stared at him until he retook his seat.

 He turned back.  A few of them were leaning back in their chairs, casually, daring Jazz to say something.  Technically he was of equal or superior rank to all of them.  Jazz said nothing.  He was saving his anger for something more important than a bit of disrespect.

 “I’ve been reviewing the files you sent over,” he said, omitting the fact that Jazz had had to request them twice and then just hack the system and pull them himself.  “Tell me more about this, Cadet Prowl.” He lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table.

 “I’m his Sergeant,” the bot on the end said leaning forwards.   “Like we said, he was having some trouble adjusting.  We didn’t realize that he was so close to the edge.”  There was real regret in the mech’s voice.  “I’ve been out searching myself, but no bot knows the canyons like Prowl.”  

 “I agree,” said another bot, a femme with an ‘Educator’ decal.   “I used to catch him wandering away during our hikes.  He even drew his own maps with prediction software to anticipate how the rains would change the paths.  He went on makeup hikes in his spare time with other classes when he could.”

 “He wrote his own software?” Jazz asked, pretending he didn’t know.  “Sounds like he was adapting quite well to the base.”  Those were Optimus’s favorite words -  ‘quite well’ - when he knew someone was lying to his face.

 “Listen,” the Sergeant took control of the conversation again.   “No one is saying Cadet Prowl wasn’t smart.  It was everything else he struggled with, but I was trying with him.  He was a bit weird with the other cadets - always wanted to be with them, but never had anything to say.  Never talking about home with them or swapped stories or care packages.  

 “I’m not sure if he was cautious or a bit lazy.  Every time we did the obstacle course he would pause before each transition, looking around like he’d never seen any of it before.  It didn’t matter how much we made him re-do it, he took his time.

 “He was a bit of a whiner too - every little thing needed a visit to the medic or a pain patch.  He couldn’t stumble without it becoming a two day limp -”

 There!  Jazz interrupted him.

 “You believe he overreacts to pain?”

 The Sergeant shot Jazz a foul look, but it was the Quartermaster that spoke up.

 “Well, yeah,” the mech said, leaning his chair back on two legs, arms crossed over his chest.  “He’d be standing there, cool as cadmium, saying his pain was a six or a seven and wanting a patch.  Pft.  He needed to harden his plating if he was going to stay with the SA.”

 “He tripped one time and I had to tell him to get up.  He wanted to go to the medics,” the Sergeant put in.  “I made him walk it off and he was fine.”

 Jazz dug a claw into his thigh under the table to keep his temper.

 “And this has been consistent throughout his training?  Constant claims of being in pain that were dismissed by his superiors?”

 They shifted uneasily as he reframed it.

 “No,” the Sergeant said, slowly, thinking.  “After the first month he stopped.  He’d toughened up a bit too,” he put in quickly.   “The others said he used to have trouble recharging and that he’d complain of helmaches after class.  They said he stopped after that.”

 “What did his friends say?” Jazz asked, already knowing the answer. He leaned back and rested one elbow on the chair arm.  

 “Oh, he didn’t really socialize much.  Kept to himself,” the Sergeant said.

 “So, if something was wrong, say, something that would cause him to drive off in the middle of the day for no reason, who would he talk to?”

 The Sergeant opened his mouth automatically and then closed it. The teacher from before looked like she was trying to think of an answer.

 “So, what you are saying is that you had a young recruit who stopped telling you when he was in pain, had no friends or close companions, was recently reported to display signs of illness, and has now disappeared into the wilderness.  Is that correct?”  Still as a zero gravity oil pool.  Don’t let them see your next move.

 “Hey…” Dosage said at last.  “It’s not like we were yelling at him for it or anything. He was the one always wanting a pain patch for little things -”

 “Did you have him examined by a medic?”

 “Well, no, he looked fine -”

 “Then have you considered that he had a very high pain tolerance?  That believing his word was more important than “toughening” him up?”

 Uneasy shifting all around.

 “Listen,” one of the generals cut in, “I don’t know what it’s like at your fancy-dancy base, but we’re training soldiers here - “

 “Which part of training is this?  I must have been absent the day we did “runs off just before a deadly storm.”  Could you explain it to me?”

 The general coughed and grumbled, but didn’t answer.

 “Thank you all for meeting with me. I am going to locate Cadet Prowl and after he is found, I will continue my investigation.”  Jazz stood and left without waiting for a reply.

 He headed straight out the eterior door and made his way to the edge of the base where Prowl had last been seen.

 The sky above him was a thick, dusky purple.  Hopefully the rain would cool him enough by tomorrow.  He didn’t think he was ready to have a civil conversation yet.

 Prowl’s test scores were exceptional.  Jazz had sped-read his essay on ‘Improving the Space Academy’ on the flight out.  It was usually trite nonsense since it wasn’t technically part of the acceptance criteria.  

 Prowl’s was six times the required length and talked about everything from their diplomatic efforts to their colonization aims.  It was dry, but incredibly well researched and direct.  Jazz was going to hand it over to Optimus the moment he got back.  Optimus would use his superior people skills to get the ideas into the right servos.

 He’d written his own - very advanced - software and improved mapmaking for unstable regions across the board.

 His interview answers had been about improving lives and meeting new bots.  He’d rated “Working with my fellow cadets” as the number one thing he was looking forward to when entering the Space Academy.

 The medics had noted uneven layers throughout his frame - probably indicative of fuel shortages throughout his youth.  Not uncommon in sparklings from the poor cities.  Very uncommon in the rich distinct of Praxus that Prowl was from.

 They’d also noted an aversion to touch at the start of the exams.

 His family doctor had taken a very long time to transfer his files and when he did, the data clerk had made a note that some of the dates were wrong, as if the medic had added parts in later.

 These things painted a very clear pattern.

 Jazz longed to wrap up this dedicated, mistreated genius and bundle him back home to Optimus’s naive enthusiasm and Ironhide’s gentle experience.  

 Teetering on the edge of a war with Quintessa, struggling to handle a rising revolt, and this was how the Council was treating new recruits?

 Jazz transformed and gunned it.  He opened a comm as he drove.   Best to have all his targets lined up before he blew the place’s roof off.

 :Hey, Ratchet, I’m going to need a medic down here.  Can you send that sweet one, your assistant?  The one that couldn’t scare a sparkling?:

 :Do you mean First Aid?:

 :That the one so cute everyone wants to just pick him up and squeeze him?:

 :Pick him - Jazz, he is three times your size.:

 :Doesn’t mean I don’ wanna pick him up and hug him.  I got a mech runnin’ scared, probably suffered at home before joining the SA.   Probably not good with medics, authority, yelling, or criticism.  I need someone he’ll feel comfortable wit’:

 :Putting my “cute” soft-sparked apprentice on the plane now.:

 :Thanks, Ratch.:

 :Hmph.:

 Thunder shook the air.  Prowl had been out here alone - at this base alone - too long.

 Jazz was going to find him.

 0-0-0

 The rain was mostly solvent from the landlocked lakes, but it had mixed with Oil from the sea and the chemicals from the city had added small pockets of weak acid.

 It was cold, slick, and it stung.  Prowl curled himself up smaller into the shallow divot on the side of the cliff.

 His processor was racing, faster and faster, but it just kept circling back.

     Failure failure failure.  Weak.  Stupid.          Banished        .  

 It was over.  He needed to accept that it was over.  It was his own fault.  It was always      him    that was wrong.  The wide-opticked hope of his first week seemed vorns ago.  He’d been so      stupid….  

 0-0-0

 The datanet had      said    this was what he was supposed to do.  Multiple sites and a question on GlyphMe (using an untraceable account) had all assured him that he would be fine.  This was a normal thing to do.

 He approached the window with a small plaque that read “Non-medic dispensary.”  He had read in the pamphlet that he could request over-the-counter meds.  The datanet said that asking for a pain patch for a helmache was something all bots did.  No one would get mad at him.

 He stood and waited to be acknowledged by the mech - Quartermaster Dosage according to the sign.

 “Hello!  New cadet?” He was smiling.  He pointed to Prowl’s small rank decal that displayed the Youngling constellation.

 “Yes.”  Prowl clenched his fists and stilled his doorwings.  “I have a helmache and would like to request a pain patch.”  That was what the datanet had said to say.

 “Oh?  First day aches and pains, huh?  You’ll get used to it!   What kind do you need?”  He leaned on the counter.  Prowl blinked.

 “What kind?”  The datanet hadn’t said anything about different kinds!  The medics on television just slapped in whatever was in their subspace.

 “Well, yeah.  If you’re having a processor crash you’ll need something a bit stronger than a light patch.  But if I gave you a level 4 patch for an achy helm, you’d be passed out until next month!”  The Quartermaster laughed and Prowl smiled, pretending he understood.  “How bad is it, on a scale of 1 to 10?”

 “Uh…”

 Dose rolled his optics skyward.

 “One is you bump into a wall walking around the corner, 5 is getting your arm broken, and 10 is being thrown in a vat of acid.”

 Oh!  That made more sense.  He’d had his digits slammed in a door once.  The medic had spent forever setting them all.

 Prowl confidently pointed to 4.  This was easy.  He could do this.

 Only Dosage was frowning at him.

 “Cadet, if you were in that much pain you’d be on the floor and I’d be sending you to the medic.  Here’s a light pain patch.”  He thrust an individually wrapped patch at him.  “I know the classes are more than you’re used to, but you’re in the Space Academy now.  It’s time to grow up.  Drink more fuel and push through it.”

 Prowl took the patches.  His servo didn’t even shake.  He’d gotten it wrong again.

 The next time he waited until his helm was so bad his optics were cycling on and off.  They’d done the obstacle course three times and his processor wouldn’t stop analyzing each step, providing alternate approaches, insisting that he needed to bypass the obstacles because that was the most ‘logical’ route.  

 He said his pain was a three and received a single pain patch, only slightly stronger and a long lecture about not being a ‘whiner.’  

 The time after that he had fallen from the obstacle course - the damn obstacle course - and cracked his plating.  

 “Quartermaster Dosage?”  Prowl approached the dispensing window nervously.  He had a real injury this time.  His Sergeant had even said he should get a pain patch if it still hurt after the evening mess.

 “What can I do for - Cadet Prowl.”  He smiled - he always looked friendly, but -

 “Sir, my Sergeant said I should report to you for a pain patch for my arm.”  He held up the limb, timidly,  as proof.

 Dosage raised a brow.

 “Oh?  Why are you only coming now?”

 “He told me to wait until after dinner, in case it wasn’t anything serious.  May I - may I have a pain patch?”

 He waited, torn between hope and a gnawing fear that -

 Quartermaster Dosage vented loudly and let his field extend.  He was mildly annoyed and amused.

 “Listen, Cadet, if your Sergeant thought you were actually hurt, he’d have sent you right after you got that little ding.  What he wants you to do is tough it out and act like an SA Cadet.  Soldiers don’t run around asking for pain patches all the time.  When you’re out on the field, do you think the medic is going to waste a pain patch on your little nicks when she’s got bots leaking out?”  Dosage gave him a queer smile.  “You’re in the Space Academy now, youngling, it’s time you started acting like it.”

 “I -” Prowl started, not sure what to say.  Was he agreeing?  Was he going to explain how much it still      hurt    ?  Dosage didn’t give him time to speak.

 “Academy cadets are strong and resilient.  Now I know you probably have a pair of creators at home that worried over all your falls and scrapes - it’s what they do.”  He gave Prowl a mock scowl.   Prowl struggled to make sense of what he was saying.  “But you have to accept that being a soldier means pain.  It means getting hurt and not stopping.”

     “-we aren’t going to stop and rest, just because your legs hurt, Prowl.  You ruin everything.”  

 It was just like home.

 “I’ll give you a patch, because I can, but you don’t need it.”   Quartermaster Dosage turned around and started rummaging in the drawers.

 “I am sorry for bothering you, Quartermaster.  I won’t do it again.”  Prowl turned and walked away as swiftly as he could.  Dosage called after him.

 “Hey, hey!  Do you still want a patch?”

 Prowl never went back.

 0-0-0

 Jazz didn’t bother taking anyone with him.  He was faster than most of the bots on the base and, if their superiors were anything to go on, smarter too.

 He roared down the road, heading into the canyon as the rippling black clouds spread out across the sky ahead of him.

 0-0-0

 Prowl stood up on shaking legs.

 “Sir - Sergeant!  I think - I think something’s wrong.”  His hip joint was throbbing and his pede felt strangely numb.

 “Walk it off, cadet!  We don’t have time to kiss all your boo boos!”  

 The others were thundering past him, onto the next section of the obstacle course. Someone slammed hard into his side and sent him back down onto the unforgiving concrete.

 It felt like he was being electrocuted.  

 Everything went white and then black.  His audials turned off.  Then everything came back into focus.

 Someone was clapping in front of his face.

 “Get up!  Get up, cadet!”  The Sergeant.  His face was inches from Prowl’s curled up in a snarl just like -

 Carrier.

 Prowl got up, his frame numb.  He felt like he was floating above the ground.  He turned and followed the others.

 That night he laid in his bunk, a servo clamped tightly over his mouth as his leg spasmed and twitched.  

 For the first time, the place felt horribly, terrifyingly, like home.

 0-0-0

 Jazz knelt and turned up his sensors.  Yep, that was energon.   He pressed his fourth digit into the small spill and let his very tiny and very expensive spectrometer analyze the sample.

     High levels of chemicals associated with stress  

     Indications of a prolonged period of insufficient fueling  

     Not a single molecule of chemical pain blockers or stims.  

 He wasn’t surprised.  The military, even the Space Academy, had a bad habit of seeing any bot that didn’t conform as being an aberration.  They wouldn’t have known what to do with a young, freshly painted cadet that looked like a well cared for youngling new to his adult frame but acted like a returned prisoner of war.

 “Sorry, Prowler,” Jazz whispered, looking up to scan the road.  “Ya didn’ fail us, mech, we failed you.”

 Jazz was going to fix this.

 0-0-0

 Something was wrong.  

 It started during evening meal two weeks ago in the mess hall.   He’d taken a seat on the edge where it wouldn’t be as obvious that no one spoke to him.  He’d been sipping his bland energon when something in his chest twisted.  

 He barely made it out the door before purging everything he’d intaken for the day.

 The bots nearby had ridiculed him.

 “Can’t stomach the mess, recruit?  Go back to Carrier and Creator!”

 “Aw, want me to rub your back for you?”

 “Gross dude!”

 “Nice projection!”

 Prowl had stumbled back to the barracks and laid down.  He’d recharged in fits and starts until morning.  He skipped the morning fueling.

 He knew what wasting fuel at home got him.  He was terrified of what they would do to him here.

 Since that day he’d barely managed to keep anything down.  He sipped on the lowest grade fuel that had and waited for whatever was wrong with him to pass.  He didn’t dare go to the clinic again.  What if Dosage told his Sergeant?

 It didn’t pass.  It was one more thing - his hip that never stopped hurting, his helm that always seemed to ache now no matter how much he recharged, and now the never ending throb of hunger.

 0-0-0

 Prowl whimpered.  Was that - did he hear something?  The rain was      so    loud.

 0-0-0

 It hadn’t happened in any dramatic way.  Not on the hated obstacle course.  Not in one of the classes where his helm threatened to split in two.  Not in the mess hall where the other bots ignored him.

 They were clearing one of the fields that had been used for training earlier before the rains.  His Sergeant and the base Commander were talking on the edge of the field.  Two of the cadets were struggling to carry one of the long tunnels between them.

 Prowl was collecting the small magnets that marked the course.   He had to pause and vent slowly each time he bent down as his hip ached.  He caught sight of the pair out of the corner of his optics, saw their mouths move, and froze.

 “Those two look like they could use a servo.”

 “Nah, they’ll figure it out.”

 “And that one?  If he takes much longer to pick up the markers he’ll find himself putting them back for tomorrow.”

 “Yeah.  He needs some work.  That one’s not my best.”

 Those simple words.  

     “He needs some work.  That one’s not my best.”  

 Prowl hadn’t been meant to hear it.  His processor, that never shut down, never rested, had simply taken in the data and read his Sergeant’s lips and field.

     That one’s not my best.  

 Prowl was never going to be anyone’s anything, was he?  

 There was a roaring in his helm and he felt everything shattering - his helm, his frame, his sparkcase.

 “All right!”  His - no,      the    - Sergeant was shouting.  “Time to go back in!  I don’t want you whiners getting a rust infection from the rains!”

 “Aw, Serg, you      do    care about us!”

 “It would break my spark!” he answered.  His smile was wry, but real.  There was fondness there for the loud recruit.  Not for Prowl.

 Suddenly, he couldn’t.  He couldn’t face going back to those barracks and sitting in his bunk reading over the course material while the others laughed and joked.  He couldn’t sit there, worried about whatever was wrong with him, worried about hiding it.

 His -      the    , not his, never his,      the    - Sergeant called his name, but Prowl didn’t turn back.

 0-0-0-

 Jazz almost missed him.  The visibility was slag-awful and half the time he was relying more on his treads than his processor to keep him on the road.  

 The rain had only gotten worse.  Everytime he transformed to investigate something, he noticed little streaks where it had gotten through his paint and was starting on his plating.  It made him drive just that much quicker - Cadet Prowl had been out in it longer than him.

     Hold on, sweetspark.  

 Jazz spun around a corner and caught movement on the very edge of a scanner.  He slowed and transformed.  He stood, frozen in the middle of the road, extending his range.

 A twitch.  The barest hint of a spark signature.

 He leapt down from the road into the ditch and plunged through the undergrowth, following that signal.

 He finally got a visual on him as the ground started to climb.  A gray and black smudge against the side of the cliff, pressed tightly into a small creavass.  

 “Prowl?” he called softly, keeping his distance.  He could outrun the mech if he spooked, but Jazz was itching to get him under cover, cleaned up and warm.  Clearly Optimus was rubbing off on him.   Yeah, that was it.

 The smudge moved and a helm appeared, optics dull and flickering.

 “Oh,” the smudge said.  “I’m in trouble again, aren’t I?”  He started to droop away from the cliff, like a sticker peeling off in the wash racks, limp and uncoordinated.  “Sorry.”

 “Nothin’ ta be sorry for, mech.  Nah, I’m jus’ here ta get ya inside.  ‘S dangerous out here.”  Jazz stepped forwards, feeling the metal beneath him bend and crack, weakened by the acid.  He slid down into a ditch full of rain and dissolved slush.  

 They needed to get moving before the roads flooded.

 He slowed as he drew nearer, but Prowl barely acknowledged him. Instead he was staring down as his own servos, leaking dull colored energon from the joints. Jazz winced, imagining the rain slipping into those gashes.  Prowl’s face was completely blank.

 “Hey, hey mech.”  Jazz leaned over him, shielding as much of Prowl’s battered frame as he could with his own.  What he wouldn't give to be a giant like Ironhide at times like these.

 “Hello.”  Prowl’s voice was unnervingly calm.  “I’m not going back,” he said clearly.  He looked up at Jazz.  “I’m not.”

 Prowl’s field was drawn in far too tight for such a young bot, but at the word ‘back’ it lashed out and Jazz got a taste of Prowl’s emotions.

 It was lucky he was who he was, Optimus or Chromia would have been crying and raging, respectively.  Ironhide would’ve just picked him up and spent the evening using his superiors for target practice.  

 To Jazz, it was a familiar mixture of shame, despair, and spark-aching loneliness that came with being raised as a punching bag.

 “Ya don’ have ta go back, Prowl.  Ya comin’ wit’ me instead okay?  We’ll find ya a place where they’ll take care of ya.  Don’ worry.  Can ya stand?”

 Prowl contemplated the question before nodding.  Jazz helped him stand and then slotted himself under Prowl’s arm on his weak side.

 “Slow ‘n steady, mech.”  They took a few, faltering steps before they found a rhythm.  Jazz kept up a steady stream of - “keep going, doing good, I got ya” - as they walked.  He wasn’t expecting Prowl, who’s field was as weak and thin as light in a black hole, to join in.

 “Tore myself apart for them,” Prowl said, absently, after they had staggered their way up the side of the last ditch.  “I would have - would’ve kept doing it, too, if they’d loved me.”

 Jazz focused on taking each step, on keeping them from slipping.

 “Your creators?”  He felt Prowl’s helm nodding against his shoulder.

 “First them.  I tried to do everything they wanted me to, but I kept failing.  I studied and I went out for sports - I liked racing - and they were never happy.  Sometimes it would be fine for months - we were happy for almost a vorn, one time, when I was younger - and then I would mess up and they’d be mad again.

 “The datanet said - it said that they took everybody in the SA. It was where you were supposed to be part of something.  I read all the stories.  I just wanted to be part of it.  I thought, maybe, I could find bots that wouldn’t mind it if I messed up.  ‘S always my fault.”   Prowl’s careful speech was starting to slur.  “Tried not to whine, but then I couldn’t -” he trailed off and Jazz could feel his pedes start to drag.

 “Hey, heyheyhey - Prowler, Prowl-love, I need ya awake, okay?   We’re goin’ ta get ya warm and then I’ll take care of it all, okay?   Prowl?”

 “Okay,” came the whisper, Prowl’s helm tucked up against Jazz’s neck.

 0-0-0-

 “Would you like me to explain it using simple words?” Jazz asked, spreading his servos like a showman.  The bots gathered before him had lost much of their previous bravado and swagger.  They shifted and checked the time, instead of looking at him.  They slumped in their chairs or sat ramrod straight.

 It had been less than a day since he’d trudged into the camp with Prowl mostly unconscious, but he’d found the energy to finish his investigation.  A fury-fueled furnace burned short, but he didn’t need long.  It was not complicated.  

 “Four months ago, Cadet Prowl escaped from an abusive home and joined the Space Academy since he had no family, no money, and nowhere to go.  The SA prides itself on being a place where you can find a home and a family among other recruits.  

 “When he arrived he was told repeatedly that he was not in enough pain for a patch, despite being in, at times, extreme amounts due to an untreated glitch that the intake medics missed.  A glitch that would have been discovered if anyone had taken his claims of a helmache seriously.  

 “At one point, he -” Jazz found the Sergeant’s stricken optics, “I believe you said, ‘tripped’ and tore half the sensory relays free from his hip.  He was told to walk it off, and, since he had been told repeatedly that his pain was to be expected and that it wasn’t severe enough for medical intervention, he has been living with the slowly increasing damage of this untreated injury ever since.

 “Unaddressed anxiety and trauma had reduced his recharge significantly as he was trying to make friends and was told that he was being,” Jazz pretended to consult his datapad, “a ‘sucky little sparkling’ when he had nightmares.  His solution was to cease recharging because he didn’t think he had any other options.

 “The most recent change was first noticed by other cadets outside the mess hall.  His frame is rejecting fuel.  His glitch had reached such a severe level that his processor was having trouble maintaining all of his frame’s functions.  He has been starving himself for the past few weeks in order to avoid ‘wasting fuel’ as he put it.   Because he believed that fuel, to keep him alive, would be wasted.”

 Now, Jazz let the full force of his anger enter his field, let that expand, let every mech in the room know what their negligence had done.

 “A traumatized mech came to all of you repeatedly, asking for help and you disregarded him to the point that he did not think he was important enough to fuel.  To the point where he stopped coming to you with his needs.  To the point where he ran off into the canyon to avoid returning.”

 He looked around the room, making sure to meet each bot’s optics.

 “You have failed your duties in every way possible.”  Jazz sought the gaze of one bot in particular, remembering his words the day before:      a bit lazy, a bit of a whiner, a bit weird, but I was trying    .

 “I’ll - I’ll explain that it - that this wasn’t his fault.  That I didn't mean for him to -  I’ll apologize to him,” the Sergeant said, standing, his face horrified.

 Jazz stood as well and the room stilled.

 “No.”  It wasn’t what was best for Prowl.  If the Sergeant walked in and explained that he’d never      meant    to hurt Prowl, Prowl would forgive him.  He would find a way to twist everything until it was his fault again.  It wasn’t Prowl’s responsibility to make sure bots like the Sergeant could recharge peacefully at night.

 The Sergeant needed to apologize.  He needed to explain himself and feel as if he had fixed everything.  He wasn’t a bad bot.  He was probably beloved by his recruits.  Had probably changed their lives.   They probably told their friend and sparklings all about ‘their Sergeant’ and wrote him letters.  That didn’t mean he hadn’t done terrible damage to someone he was supposed to be nurturing and mentoring.

 “He doesn’t need your apology.  He doesn’t need you.  I’ve already arranged transport.  My team’s medic is on it and the custody will transfer to him once Prowl is in that plane.”  Jazz looked across the table and met the optics of every bot there.  “None of you will contact him.  None of you will speak to him before he boards.  A full investigation will be launched by the Internal Affairs.  I expect you to all comply.”

 No one moved.  

 He wasn't a “young upstart” now.  He wasn’t the annoying junior investigator anymore.  He was a threat.

 It was something he’d always been very comfortable being.  An easy role to slip into.  He wanted very much to carry out the threat he represented on Prowl’s behalf.

 Instead, he nodded at them all, gathered his things, and left.

 0-0-0

 On the plane - Skyfire, one of Jazz's friends from his Polyhex childhood - Prowl was gently strapped into one of the fold down berths. First Aid was curled up on the next berth, his helm just brushing Prowl’s whenever they hit a spot of turbulence, deep in recharge as well.

 Jazz remained on the floor beside them, Prowl’s servo in his.   He kept them both wrapped in his field, pressing affection and safety on them, until it felt like an overstretched cable.  He didn’t stop.   Prowl was still and quiet and free from nightmares.  He deserved a good rest for once in his life.  Jazz would be damned if he wasn’t going to give it to him.