AU August Fic 5

AU August Fic 5

Sorry to spam you all with so many chapters!  I’m really behind and I want to get ahead for next week.

Teachers

Jazz got his fair share of odd students teaching music at the community center.  There was one femme that only came to the night classes, has no official address to send her certificate, and had stood uncomfortably close to him while he was demonstrating the harp for her.

Pretty certain he’d taught a sparkeater how to play “Over Vos’s Starry Hills” on the cyberviolin.

Other times it was people who had always wanted to play something and never had the time - everything from construction bots to rich business owners.  Bots that wanted to look more ‘accomplished’ or impress a new lover.  Bots that thought they’d be the next superstar.  He was sure he’d taught them all.

However, he had never - EVER - had a bot walk in, sit down, and claim that his Captain had ordered him to take a class and “re-engage with society.”

Prowl, it turned out, would be a lot of firsts for Jazz.

He was the first bot to mis-tune a cyberviolin so badly Jazz had been forced to stop the lesson and restring it.  

The first bot to declare that he couldn’t tell the difference between punk, folk, and pop.  He further compounded the insult by actually being unable to identify any of the songs by genre.  He’d just sat there, baffled, as Jazz tried to explain the difference between music genres.

He was the first bot to attend all of Jazz’s lectures - even the ones at other community centers.

He was the first to drop a lyre down a heating vent while trying to dry it off.  He was also the first to accidentally turn on the sprinkler systems by starting a small fire with said lyre.

He was the first bot to hear Jazz’s secret plan - hope? dream? - to become a proper musician when they’d both stayed late cleaning up the shattered glass from Prowl’s attempt at the turbotube.

He’d been the first bot to show up in Jazz’s hospital room after the accident, only later admitting he’d been listening to the enforcer’s radio off shift.

He’d been the first bot to ever bring him fuel while he was sick - a surprisingly delicious casserole he’d made himself.

He’d been the first bot to cause an evacuation of the community center when he’d set a second fire with the lyre.

He was not the first bot to kiss Jazz, but he was the first bot to kiss Jazz while they both had their servos stuck inside an accordion.

Sitting in the music room, processor hazy from the kiss, Prowl’s face so close to his…Jazz hoped there would be a lot more firsts to come.

Hopefully ones that didn’t involve that lyre.

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.”

I swear I’m working on Warring Houses.   

Excerpt for proof:

“Bitlet, why is your lip bleeding?”  On the screen, Prowl stood up from his chair and leaned forwards to get a better look.

“Are you injured, Red Alert?” he asked with concern.  

“I hit it when I was hiding,” he said.  He lifted a servo and touched the sore spot.  His fingers came away shiny with energon.

“What were ya hidin’ from?”

Crash!

Shattered glass and energon on the ground.

“Run!”

I have now posted 250,000 words of Transformers fanfic on AO3.  *jazz hands*

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.

AU August Fic 6

TW: death of a parent, grief

Fairies

“I’m…sorry.”  More energon bubbled from Prowl’s mouth.  “I do not want to leave you.”  

“Ya aint!”  Jazz got a better grip and pulled.  If he could just get to the Standing Crystals.  If he could just move faster.  His servo slipped in the energon that was pumping hot and thick from Prowl’s side.

“I…love you.”

“We’re stayin’ t’gether,” Jazz shouted back  He slipped and hit the ground hard.  Prowl screamed.  Jazz scrambled up to cradle Prowl’s helm.

“Ya ain’t dying,” he sobbed.  “I’m gonna fix it.”  Damn the Decepticons.  Damn the Council.  Damn them all.

0-0-0

Jazz’s creator only told him the story after Carrier had passed into the well when she too was about to step over that boundary.

“We wanted a bitlet so badly, brightspark.  Your carrier had lost all her family in the famine and we just wanted more.”  Creator had reached out and stroked Jazz’s helm.  “We wanted more to love.  We had so much inside us and nowhere for it to go.  We waited for Primus to bring us a newspark or to bring an orphaned bitlet into our lives.”  She offlined her optics at the memories.  Jazz stayed silent, holding her servo in a death grip.

“It never happened.  She went ta the standing crystals and…asked ‘em -”

“Carrier never asked for anything in her life.”

Creator laughed.  It was weak, so weak.

“Well, she tol’ me she stood outside the circle, burst inta tears, and tol’ the crystals the entire story - ‘bout losing her family, finding me after the shipwreck, wantin’ a sparkling - all while cryin’ an’ cursin’.”

“Tha’ sounds more like her.”  He could picture his petite - smaller than him even - carrier standing, fists clenched, tears streaming down her face, ranting about how she wanted a sparkling to an empty crystal grove.

“One ‘a the Clear Folk came out, transparent as glass, and spoke ta her.”

“Creator,” Jazz laughed, something rising in his spark that couldn’t possibly be fear.  He was never afraid.  Not him.  “Carrier had a lot ‘a stories -”

Creator gripped his servo tighter.  Her face was drawn and her optics dim, but her voice was as forceful as ever.

“Not a story, Jazzlet.  She saw them.  She said some ‘a them were filled with smoke or starlight or the glitter of the crystals, but they were the Clear Folk. They asked her what she wanted.  She tol’ them, “I want a bitlet.  Any bitlet.  I know your tricks.  I’ll take whatever you will give me.”  They asked wha’ she had ta trade.”  Creator laughed again, just as weak, but with a new ease in her optics.  “She yelled at ‘em that she’d just tol’ them a very good story and if tha’ wasn’t enough then they didn’t understand stories.”

Jazz laughed.  That was his Carrier.

“What did they say ta tha’?”

“That she was loud, even for a mortal.  They must have been in a good mood.  One of them walked up and laid a bundle in her arms.  It started to rain and I opened the door and saw her an’ you in her arms, looking out at the world, as perfect as any sparkling could be.”

“Wha’ wha’ do ya mean, Creator?  If this is a joke -”  It - Creator wasn’t like that, but being so close to - it could make bots act odd.  Maybe -

“They tol’ her there was a deal.  She’d get ta keep ya for one mortal life - your mortal life - and then ya would return ta them when it was over.”

“Creator…Creator, I ain’t one ‘a the Folk.  I’m jus’ me.”  Creator lifted her servo and stroked over his cheek. 

“You have never been “just” anything, Jazzlet.  You have made our lives worth living.  You were worth everything.  I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again…”  Her optics dimmed and her venting paused and then started, slower.  “The Clear Folk don’t have a need of the Well, but maybe we’ll see each other again.”

“Creator, this is jus’ a load of nonsense,” Jazz said, voice raising.  Was it not enough to lose them both?  Now he had to listen to this - to this -

“No bot had ever managed to out play ya, have they Jazzlet?  Never lost a bet either, have ya?  I’ve seen your songs bring the rains, bitlet.  I know what ya are and I’ve always loved ya.”  Creator pulled Jazz’s servo to her lips and kissed it.  “‘Fore I go, anything ya wanna tell ya Carrier?”

Jazz caught the sob with his teeth and forced it back.  He didn’t have time for that.

“Tell her I love her and I’ll always lover her and I WILL see ya both again.  I don’t care what ya say, I’ll find my way ta the Well if I have ta rip a fraggin’ hole in the Universe.”  He kissed his Creator’s cheek, tried to memorize the way it felt under his lips, the smell of her polish, the sound of her breathing.

“Ya just like her, Jazzlet.  I love ya.”  Creator smiled and her optics went dim.  Her vents stilled.

Jazz sat there, waiting.  Waiting for her to come back.  Waiting for her optics to shine again.  Waiting for one last goodbye.

It never came.

0-0-0

Jazz stumbled from the house.  He needed to call a priest - to call someone to help him with his Creator’s empty frame - to do so many things.

He kept walking until he reached the edge of their yard and the rickety steel fence Carrier had put up because Creator was afraid of the turbofoxes.  

He could always feel the barrier.  Even as a bitlet.  The clear division between Home-Safe-Protected and Outside-Danger-Others.  Now, he felt it fading.  The Outside was coming in - doctors, the priest, friends calling on him in his mourning.

There was danger tonight, to any bot standing on a barrier.  Just after a death, the helm of a household’s death, the shifting veils would be thin.

Jazz stood at the gate.  Nothing would come through that night.  Nothing would go through him.

Things were starting to make sense.  He didn’t want them to.

Jazz took a credit from his pocket.  One side displayed Cybertron, the other showed the constellations.  He flipped it.

“Sky!” he called as the coin bounced into his palm.  He looked down at the constellations.  He flipped it again, higher.

“Sky!”  The same.  He flipped it again.

“Sky!”  And again.

“Sky!”  And again and again.

“Sky!”

 “Sky!”

“Sky!”

0-0-0

The Crystals.  The tallest structures for miles.  The guardians and ghosts of his sparkling days.

“Almost there, Prowl.”

Prowl had fallen silent, but he was still there, he was still alive.

The Crystals where his Carrier had shouted and pleaded for him.

Jazz hooked his arms under Prowl’s and dragged him up the side of the hill, using the imperfections in the ground to steady himself and gain ground.

When he reached the top he didn’t bother to pause outside the circle.  

He was one of the Folk.  He controlled the weather with sound and song.  He had never been bested on the fiddle or the harp or thumping beat of the drum.  He won every bet, he couldn’t lose - he couldn’t lose.

This was his place and they couldn’t keep him out.

“He ain’t dying!” Jazz shouted to the empty circle.  “He ain’t!  Tell me what I have to give.”

Only silence.

“Tell me!”  He looked down at his - they were going to be bonded - he was going to ask Prowl to court -

“Please.”  He laid his helm against Prowl’s spark.  He would stay here, just like this until - he wouldn’t miss a second of whatever time Prowl had left - he would -

“You’ve grown.”

Jazz froze.  

“Your Carrier was much angrier.  She scared some of the younger Folk.”  A laugh.

Jazz looked up.

The femme in front of him was etherial.  Pearl yellow smoke shifted behind white optics, filling her frame.

“Please.  He’s…Prowl.  He’s everything.”

The femme knelt.  She titled her helm, watching him.

“What would you give for him?  Would you give your life?”

“Wha’d be the point?”  Jazz wiped his tear away angrily and met her optics.  “Either way we never see each other again.  Creator tol’ me the bargain.  One mortal life.  I jus’ wan’ ta be wit’ him.  For as long as I can.”

“To ask for a life is a very large request,” she said quietly.  “It is not easy.  We could not create a spark for your Carrier.  We could only give her one of ours.  A little Changling, optics not even online.  I don’t know if we could heal him.”

Jazz looked down at Prowl’s face, memorizing each part, every movement of his frame as he struggled to stay alive.

“If ya can’t save him, then at least let me tie our sparks together.  We were going to be courtmates.  Let me follow him to the Well when I die.  Please.”  The Well with Creator and Carrier.  Together.

The femme smiled.

“So you do not want your immortality?  You are one of the Clear Folk.  You will have all the powers of the Folk once you shed your mortal life.”

“I don’ wanna leave them.  Please.”  

She was smiling.  Why was she smiling?

“Well, if you don’t want it.  We’ll find a use for it.  Good bye, sparkling of the Folk.”

She laid a servo over his spark.

Jazz blacked out.

0-0-0

Jazz?

Ow.  Everything hurt.

Jazz?

Who was that?  Why couldn’t he hear right?

“Jazz?  Please.  Jazz, please answer me.”

Prowl?  Prowl!

Jazz online his optics to the most beautiful site in the world - Prowl’s face, framed by the dark start of a rainstorm.

“Prowl?”

“Jazz!”  He kissed him and pulled back.  “Jazz, I thought you had died!  You were so still.”

“You okay?” Jazz croaked.  Nothing was working right - his vocalizer, his audials, his servos.  

“I do not know where we are and my chest hurts and you were not responding - of course I am not okay!”  Was Prowl crying?  He was. 

“You - I - a lot happened.  Will ya bond wit’ me?”

Prowl stared at him.

“What - here?  Out here?  Now?”

“Yes!  I want to be with you forever, Prowl, ‘til the end of the whole slaggin’ universe.  Say ya’ll bond wit’ me.  We’ll court later.  Say ya want me.”

Rain hit Jazz’s cheek.  Prowl was frozen.

Pit-pat.  Pit-pat.

The rain was pinging off Prowl’s doorwings.

He nodded.

0-0-0

They were waiting for an evacuation shuttle.  Jazz wasn’t sure how he was going to explain how they’d got to his sparklinghood village when they’d been in the fighting in Vos a few hours earlier.

First, he would have to explain it all to Prowl.  His new bonded.  He looked down at their intertwined servos.

He wasn’t sure if it would matter.  If it was something he would ever be able to do again.  Had he lost his talents with his immortality?

Jazz reached into his subspace and pulled out a credit.  He tossed it in the air.

“Sky!”