Work Text:
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☙ ❤ ❧
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It was time. It was more than time. Jazz had been weighing how feasible it would be for the last year, more or less, and things were better than they’d been in what felt like an age. They were also stable in a way they hadn’t been in an age, which meant it wouldn’t be irresponsible and reckless to ask for what he wanted.
Usually he didn’t have a problem with being irresponsible and reckless, but not with this. He couldn’t. He should wait until the war was completely over, but at the same time things were stable. Stable should be good enough… right?
Jazz wasn’t typically the one prone to overthinking things. That title went to Prowl, but trying to anticipate how he would react and plan for all the ways he would overthink things was making Jazz overthink them, and after a couple of days of getting nowhere he decided to just take the plunge and hope for the best. All he needed to do now was find Prowl.
He peeked at the schedule so he knew Prowl should be off duty. Prowl often stayed late in his office though, especially when things went wrong around the Ark… like a routine explosion in Wheeljack’s lab earlier today. Which was why, when first starting his find Prowl quest, his first thought had been to check Prowl’s office.
“He’s not in,” Sideswipe told him when their paths crossed one hallway away. “His light’s even off for once.”
“Prime?” Jazz prompted, just because he didn’t want to admit he’d been looking for Prowl — not to Sideswipe — even though he totally was.
“Yeah. Unless you weren’t coming to talk to him about the Valentine’s Day party.” It looked as though the thought had only just now occurred to Sideswipe.
“I wanted to run some party ideas past the bossmech,” Jazz went ahead and improvised smoothly. “Have a dance party — lights, music, the works — once all the lovey stuff wraps up. If Prime’s not in, you have any idea where he is?”
“Nope,” Sideswipe shrugged. “Maybe he went for a late lunch.”
“More likely Ironhide dragged him out for a break if that’s the case.”
“Heh. Probably. See you later!” Sideswipe waved as he rounded the corner, continuing on his way.
Jazz filed away the idea of a Valentine’s Day dance party as something to talk to Prime about for real later, but right now he was actually looking for Prowl. If Prime wasn’t in his office, then the chances were even greater that Prowl was in his, whether he was supposed to be or not.
Sure enough, Jazz knew that Prowl was inside before he even knocked on the door (yes, he knew how to knock).
“It’s open,” Prowl called from inside, sounding distracted.
“If it’s open, what’s keeping you in here?” Jazz took the invitation and came in, unsurprised to find Prowl behind his desk, focused on the screen in front of him. “You’re not locked in you know.”
Prowl looked up, and something small but complicated happened with his expression that gave Jazz hope that he wasn’t about to get his spark stomped on. “I’m afraid this has to be done today,” he defended his overwork as he always did. “I’ll leave as soon as it’s done.”
“And when will that be?”
Prowl’s doors flicked iritably. “Hopefully before Wheeljack is released from the medbay. I’m tallying how much it’ll cost to replace the equipment he ruined, so that the order can go out as soon as our supplier’s office on the East Coast opens.”
“Is that all? That doesn’t have to be done today.”
“If we want our science department to remain functional, yes it does.”
“No,” Jazz corrected, “it needs to be done by 5AM tomorrow, which means you can take a break and come back to it later.”
“Taking a break now means starting my shift even earlier tomorrow,” Prowl countered. “And dealing with it alongside whatever problems came up while I was off duty. If it’s all the same, I’d rather have it done.”
“I guess…” He hadn’t wanted to start an argument, he’d just wanted to ask, “So another time then, when you’re not busy. Maybe. If you want.”
Prowl narrowed his optics suspiciously. Then he sighed. “What did you do?”
Oh, for the love of— “Nothing, apart from really botching this conversation.”
Now Prowl looked away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Jazz. Come sit?” He gestured a little awkwardly at the underused visitor’s chair across from him. “Would you like to stay?”
Did he want to sit there and watch Prowl type for hours? Not really, but as a means to the end that was spending time with Prowl? “Thanks,” Jazz said, taking the offered seat. “I know what you’re doing is important, really. I’ve just been thinking over some stuff lately.”
“Yes?” Prowl inquired mildly, encouragingly, as he turned back to his accounting.
Maybe it would be better if he wasn’t looking at him. Jazz turned to stare at the wall while Prowl focused on his screen. “Things are different here on Earth. The war isn’t over, obviously, but it’s different. Slowing down, almost. It’s got me thinking about things we couldn’t afford to think about before. Things we might have wanted but couldn’t make time for.”
“I know what you mean,” Prowl said, optics fixed on his spreadsheet. “I’ve thought a lot recently about starting a singing garden. A small one, perhaps.” His doors drooped a little. “If I could get some seed crystals anyway. Earth crystals form entirely differently than Cybertronian living crystals do.”
“Yeah. If you’d like though, we could try to come up with something. Together. You know, spend time together.” Ugh. He was starting to confuse himself, which meant there was no telling how confused he was making Prowl. Jazz took a deep breath. Just do it. Stop dancing around the issue. It was a little rude, but Jazz was killing himself trying to be polite and stumbling over his own words. “I want to know if you’d go on a date with me.”
“I—” Prowl broke off, paused, then looked up from his screen. “Please repeat that.”
“Will you,” Jazz met his surprised optics, “go on a date with me?”
He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that Prowl took the time to think about it. Prowl always thought about everything before he committed to a course of action, of course, but… surely if he felt like Jazz did, there would be less thinking?
After what seemed like a thousand years had passed, Prowl slowly nodded. “I would be amenable to attempting a… date, assuming the venue isn’t expensive or distressingly loud.”
“Um. Okay.” Jazz hadn’t gotten as far as planning the actual date in question. He’d been too worried it might not even happen. “We’ll come back to that, because I really should have asked it like this: do you want to go on a date with me? Not to a specific place or for a specific activity, but what it would mean for us. Our relationship.”
Prowl drummed his fingers on the desk a couple of times. “I see no problems with our relationship as it is, but I would not be against exploring and perhaps deepening it. A date is the traditional first step.”
Coming from Prowl, that was almost enthusiastic. “I’ll come up with something that fits those parameters then,” Jazz said, “and hope that it becomes something you aren’t just willing to do, but really want to do.”
“I enjoy spending time with you.”
Jazz smiled. “I enjoy spending time with you. So much that as we finally start to have time in our lives for more than this war, I want to fill it with you.”
“You can’t though,” Prowl said evenly, drumming his fingers on his desk again. “I have more work than you do. Unless you wish to spend all of your time watching me do the Ark’s budget, I can’t fill up your time.”
“What— Prowl, I don’t mean literally changing out minute for minute one for the other.”
“Oh.” Prowl’s doors sagged slightly. “Then what did you mean?”
Scrap. What was a good way to explain? “I mean that you’re important to me and I want you in my life. Not just for work, but… because.”
“Interfacing,” Prowl said bluntly.
Jazz’s engine choked, making an odd noise to match the squeak of his vocalizer. “No! I mean yes. I mean hopefully? But not just that!”
Prowl just blinked at the intensity of his reaction. “Isn’t that what ‘couples’ do?”
“One of the things, yes.” It was like they weren’t even speaking the same language. Jazz hadn’t even considered being so forward leading up to this conversation. He’d assumed it would be too much or scare Prowl off. Now he just hoped Prowl would understand when he said, “I love you.”
Jazz didn’t expect Prowl to love him back. He didn’t! Not yet, not when Prowl apparently hadn’t even considered dating. But he also hadn’t expected Prowl’s doorwings to twitch again, this time in what he recognized as a sort of faint confusion. “I hope that won’t ruin our working relationship if ‘dating’ doesn’t work out?”
Of course. He was still worried about the practicalities. “Ruin it, no. Affect it, probably, but not in a lasting way.” Which was to say nothing of how long it would take Jazz to get over it if it didn’t work out, but unless Prowl did something so horrible he’d have a problem with it even if they weren’t dating, it would be only a matter of time.
Prowl nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Was there anything else you wanted to say before arranging for our first date?”
Uuuhhh… “You aren’t under any obligation to reciprocate my feelings on any kind of schedule,” Jazz said, cringing inwardly at just how unromantic that sounded. It seemed like the sort of thing Prowl would appreciate though. “I’d appreciate it if you give it a fair trial period, but if you really don’t want to continue, please tell me.”
“That seems like a fair and reasonable expectation.” Prowl’s doors perked up a little and he even gave Jazz one of his rare, shy smiles. It gave him hope, enough that he was able to relax and smile back.
“I’ll leave you to your requisition forms,” Jazz said, standing from the chair. “And I’ll bring you a proposal tomorrow.”
“I look forward to reviewing it.”
Once back in the corridor, Jazz took a moment to lean against the wall and marvel at how much of a not-disaster of a disaster that had turned out to be. At the very least, it had proven him right about one thing: overthinking things didn’t help. And really! How had Prowl been the one doing less overthinking about it?! Jazz giggled in a mixture of relief and hysteria. Prowl had—
Actually he wasn’t entirely sure what was going through Prowl’s head other than a willingness to try. Which was all Jazz could ask for, but… how had Prowl thought Jazz was asking to spend all his time watching him work? Not that Jazz wouldn’t spend time watching Prowl work, but… it had been metaphor-ish. Romantic hyperbole. Not literal!
Of course now that it hadn’t ruined Jazz’s awkward as frag attempt to ask him out, it did make Prowl even more adorable.
Deciding that he was crazy and not caring a bit, Jazz set off to figure out what to propose for their first date.
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☙ ❤ ❧
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Jazz was all but vibrating with excitement. Prowl had — conditionally — agreed to a date and fortunately he’d listed off thost conditions so Jazz could tailor his selection to them. Now he just had to track down Prowl and let him know what he’d come up with.
Starting again with his office, Jazz was disappointed but unsurprised to find Prowl still behind his desk. “Morning,” he said with a wave to get Prowl’s attention. “Don’t tell me you stayed here all night.”
“No.” Prowl looked up at him and tilted his head quizzically. “I went off-duty a few hours after we talked.” He turned back to his terminal and opened it up. “I’m just familiarizing myself with today’s tasks.”
“Good. I was half afraid I’d find you face down on your keyboard.”
“I’ve never fallen into recharge on my keyboard,” Prowl countered while the computer booted. “I’m glad the crew seems excited though.”
“About what?”
Prowl shot him another quizzical look. “About the Earth holiday party you’re organizing? It’s only been a couple of orns since Christmas, but I understand that time moves differently on such a fast paced world.”
“Oh! Yeah, humans like having things to celebrate. I’ve got a couple more ideas to float past OP, but I’m actually here about a different Valentine-adjacent activity.”
“Oh?” Prowl opened up his calendar to check the duty roster and his optic ridges furrowed in confusion.
Jazz plowed ahead before he could get too dug into his work. “How about, for our first date, we go out for a drive through the canyon together?”
Prowl’s doors flared in surprise. “What?”
Oookay. Not the reaction Jazz had expected. “You don’t like it? It’s not expensive or noisy, apart from whatever noise we make.”
“Well, no, it’s not that.” Prowl’s doors raised a little aggressively. “It is, however, rude to present such a request as a foregone conclusion. We’re coworkers.”
“We’re—” Jazz stepped back, hurt and confused. “You said you were looking forward to hearing my suggestion.”
“What?”
“I asked you last night if you would go on a date with me. You said yes.” He hadn’t understood right away, and he hadn’t exactly been bubbling over with anticipation, but that was different than this, this, whatever this was. “Don’t you remember?”
“The only thing you talked to me about yesterday was a morale update on the Ark,” Prowl countered. He looked down at his desk to place his hands firmly on the top so he could stand up aggressively— and stopped suddenly. He froze halfway through the motion, glaring at his screen. “The date’s wrong?”
A worrying suspicion bloomed in Jazz’s processor “What date does it say it is? Because I gave you that morale update two nights ago.”
Prowl growled his engine in frustration. He finished standing but the motion was much more resigned than the aggressive one he’d started. “I’m afraid our conversation will have to wait,” he told Jazz politely, shutting off the terminal.
“Yes it will,” Jazz agreed, “because right now I’m taking you to Ratchet.”
Prowl sighed but didn’t argue. Probably because he’d figured out something was wrong about the same time Jazz had. He didn’t need an escort, honestly, but Jazz was worried! Worried enough that he was one-hundred percent going to make their first date-that-wasn’t-a-date-because-Prowl-didn’t-remember-agreeing-to-a-date a visit to the doctor.
How romantic.
They didn’t talk much on the walk. Prowl seemed pensive and even a bit anxious, which Jazz could completely relate to. Losing an entire day’s worth of memory was no small matter. If it had happened to him, his first thought would have been that he’d been hacked. He didn’t know what Prowl was thinking, but he had to be considering the possibility and that was… frightening. Prowl didn’t get hacked! He didn’t get captured and he stayed in the Ark most of the time for exactly that reason!
“Ratchet?” Jazz took the lead when they arrived, announcing their presence. “We’ve got a bit of a problem that needs your attention.”
There was a sound of wordless frustration from the depths of Ratchet’s open office. “What now? I just kicked Wheeljack out!”
“Just? You mean he’s been here since yesterday morning? What the frag did he do?”
Ratchet appeared in the doorway already looking them both over. “His little ‘experiment’,” there were air quotes around the word, “scrambled more than a few circuits. What’s wrong?”
Jazz was about to explain when Prowl rather neatly answered the question by asking, “What experiment?”
Ratchet looked at him curiously, and after a moment he sighed. He was a quick study too. “You,” he pointed to Prowl, “up on the berth.”
Prowl obeyed without any of the complaining Jazz might have indulged in, but he didn’t look comfortable. Jazz hovered beside him to offer support. Nevermind that Prowl actually seemed silently confused by said hovering.
Ratchet directed Prowl to lay down and he started scanning. To Jazz’s surprise, he started by popping Prowl’s network access cords open and plugging them into an analysis machine and set the the more invasive, in-depth diagnostic to run before he pulled out the more routine scanner he usually started with.
“You think it could be that serious?”
“I think if it was something simple I’d have seen it yesterday.”
Prowl blinked. “I was here yesterday?”
Jazz, meanwhile, was putting two and two together and getting Wheeljack. “I’m going to kill him.”
Ratchet caught him by the plate of armor on his back before he could go commit murder without taking his optics off his readings. “Not after I spent so much time putting him back together you’re not.”
“It is his fault though, isn’t it?” Jazz twisted and tried to get away, but Ratchet’s grip was solid.
“I’m sure Wheeljack didn’t mean any harm—”
“He never does,” Ratchet grumbled, talking over Prowl, “but somehow harm manages to happen anyway. Jazz, if you don’t stop squirming I’m going to strap you to a berth of your own.”
“But—!”
The analysis machine started spitting out printouts with the results of its diagnostic and Ratchet dragged Jazz along to go look at it, ignoring his protests.
“Am I correct in assuming that I was involved in an incident involving Wheeljack that I have no recollection of?” Prowl asked.
“You were caught in the blast,” Ratchet confirmed, reading the printout while Jazz continued to squirm. “I saw you here, fixed up some minor injuries, and gave you a clean bill of health then. There appears to be some lingering effects of the electromagnetic pulse that accompanied his mishap that I didn’t catch at the time.”
Jazz stopped fighting to escape and turned to Prowl. “Why didn’t you tell me you were there?”
“When would I have told you?”
“Our conversation last night—”
“—that I have no memory of,” Prowl interrupted. “I can’t possibly tell you why I didn’t mention it.”
Jazz kind of wanted to scream.
“Well,” Ratchet interrupted. “It seems Wheeljack’s doohickey overloaded the circuits involved in writing what’s in temporary memory to long-term storage during recharge. It’s an easy fix normally, but your tacsuite makes things tricky, Prowl. I’m going to need some circuits we can’t manufacture here on Earth.”
“How long will it take to acquire them?”
“To mount an expedition to Cybertron, find or make some of the appropriate circuits, then come home?” Ratchet shrugged and finally let go of Jazz. “You two would have a better idea of that kind of timeframe than I would. I’ll volunteer Wheeljack for the mission though.”
“In a best case scenario, an operation like that would run roughly a week,” Prowl said, visibly thinking his way through the variables. “A suboptimal timeframe would be in the two to three week range.”
“And let me guess, suboptimal is more likely. Actually, no, I don’t have to guess.” Jazz was familiar with all the things that could and regularly did go wrong on missions to Cybertron.
Prowl eyed the diagnostic machine, then primly reached over and unplugged himself. “We should get started,” he said, sitting up. “Jazz, one or two of your agents should accompany Wheeljack. Ratchet, put together a list of materials from Cybertron we need that we can retrieve at the same time. I’ll start putting the plan together and get Prime’s approval.”
“Hold up,” Ratchet called out, holding up a forestalling hand. “That should be a priority, yes, but you’ve got a few other things that are equally important to consider before you just run off.”
Prowl waited, tilting his head inquisitively.
“Until I’m able to repair the damage, you won’t be able to write any new long-term memories. You’ll forget whatever you’ve done and everything that’s going on around here every time you recharge.”
“All the more reason to get this underway today,” Prowl countered. “Not only does putting it off extend the complication for longer, but tomorrow I will not know that the mission needs to happen at all. I can leave myself detailed tactical notes for the attack on the Space Bridge but having a plan to follow is an absolute necessity.”
“You’re going to need notes on more than that,” Jazz said slowly as the true scale of the problem spread out in his processor. “What about all the other missions you handle on a regular basis? The updates on crew morale, injury status and inventory levels? Right now you’re only one day behind, a day where not a whole lot happened except for Wheeljack deciding to blow the memory circuits of the lead tactical and logistics officer of the entire faction.” A fact that put them all in danger, even if only the three of them currently knew it. “What happens when you’re a week behind? Two?”
“Exactly. At some point you’re not going to be able to reabsorb everything efficiently from notes, so you’re going to have to prioritize,” Ratchet said.
“I am aware of the enormity of the problem,” Prowl said, a little scathingly.
“You’re also going to have to account for your emotions,” Ratchet retorted, bringing Prowl up short.
“How so?”
Jazz grimaced. “On a scale of one to ten, how confused and frustrated are you already about this mess?”
Prowl gave that due thought. “Approximately one point five. Some of that is due to a pair of mechs who aren’t acknowledging that I do realize I am incapacitated.” He folded his arms across his chest. “But I am also indispensable. As long as I am capable of operating at more than thirty percent of my total capacity, it would do more harm than good to remove me from duty and have Smokescreen take over everything. Especially since he has his own, also essential, duties as well.”
“Believe me, as much as I’d like to put you in stasis to avoid stressing your systems and minimize the chances of this causing costly mistakes, I know it’s not feasible.” Ratchet turned and pointed to Jazz. “You I would knock out immediately.”
“I’d ask you to!” The idea of trying to do his job with increasingly large gaps in his memory was terrifying. In Jazz’s case, however, there were others who could reasonably cover his duties in the event of a protracted absence. He was the best at the things he did, but he wasn’t the only one who could do them. Prowl, on the other hand… he really was one of a kind.
“Now that that is settled, and keeping in mind that I now have a very limited amount of time to plan and prepare the mission, may I leave?”
Ratchet sighed. “You’re free to go. Jazz,” he said before he could follow Prowl out the door, “stay a minute. This time tomorrow he won’t remember any of my advice, but you might.”
“Will,” Jazz corrected. “I’m going to help him through this.”
“He shouldn’t stop recharging, for one.” Ratchet held up one finger and touched it in emphasis, then held up a second. “I think it’s obvious even by this point that Prowl’s going to push himself. That’s going to have an effect on his patience and temper. He hides it well, but he does have a fully functioning emotional center, and as keeping up becomes more frustrating and things fall through the cracks…” He shrugged. “Try not to talk to him like he should know what’s going on. He can’t help it, and being reminded that he chose to forget, I don’t know, some gossip you told him or whatever, to prioritize reminding himself about our tactical situation will be…” Ratchet sighed. “Frustrating.”
“I’ll do my best,” Jazz promised, though with how observant Prowl was there was a good chance he’d be reminded to some extent simply from the way he behaved. Prowl didn’t remember him asking him out, didn’t remember saying yes to a date, but Jazz couldn’t forget, and Prowl had noticed him being what he probably considered “overly familiar”.
Ratchet sighed again. “I suppose that’s the best we can ask for.”
“Because I can’t ask for Wheeljack’s head on a plate?”
“Not if you want Prowl back to normal sometime this century,” Ratchet retorted. “I can’t galavant off to Cybertron any more than our tactician can, and Wheeljack’s the only other mech in this outfit that can tell a FIM chip from a targeting circuit, much less manufacture a specialized, tacsuite-safe memory regulation array from scratch if they can’t salvage one.”
“Fair point.” Fairer than Jazz taking out his frustration on Wheeljack, even if it was the mech’s fault. “I don’t know what Prowl’s going to decide as far as who all to tell about this, but what are your thoughts on it?”
“Prime needs to know of course. Beyond that, it’s kind of up to him. It’s his medical problem.”
“And not the sort of thing we want to advertise.”
“Go ponder the tactical ramifications somewhere else. My lips are sealed.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Prowl was probably back in his office already at the pace he’d taken off at.
The medbay door closed behind him with an impatient woosh.
As much as he wanted to go talk to Prowl again, Jazz instead turned toward his own “office” near the back of the ship where the Spec Ops briefing room was. Prowl would probably appreciate it if Jazz had his agents picked out for the mission before he went and bothered him again.
It didn’t take him long to settle on Bumblebee and Hound. Once they were on Cybertron it would be more of a scout mission than an infiltration, especially with Wheeljack in tow; plus, it meant Mirage would still be on Earth where Jazz could call on him for help, professionally and personally. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of worrying about Prowl’s emotional wellbeing while forgetting his own. Even if he hadn’t just confessed his feelings, Prowl was his friend, and it hurt to see friends hurting.
Also he was going to have to confess all over again… which wasn’t really so bad, was it? He’d kind of botched the first attempt. Prowl had said yes, but it had been stilted and awkward and full of misunderstandings before he’d agreed.
A do-over sounded pretty good actually.
Taking the first thing he’d learned to spark, Jazz set aside thoughts of a personal conversation until Prowl wasn’t busy with work. “I’ve got my recommendations,” he said when he went to see him again. “You have what kind of briefing you want to give on this one?”
“By which you mean will the briefing include an update on my condition?” Prowl’s doors drooped a little. “I don’t think it’s avoidable. We never risk a mission to Cybertron unless it’s some sort of emergency and telling the team exactly what they’re looking for improves mission success rates.”
“To an extent, yes. It might be feasible to limit that information to a few core members of the team though. I’ve never heard of Sideswipe or Sunstreaker needing more than a passing ‘Ratchet needs parts’ to be up for a round of jet judo.”
“My thoughts as well.”
“Alright. Let me know who needs to hear what and I’ll take care of that part.”
Prowl nodded distractedly. “I’ll inform Prime myself.”
“Okay. Ratchet said no one’s hearing anything from him, so we’re covered there.”
Another nod. A minute passed, then Prowl sighed. “I apologize for forgetting about our date.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jazz reassured him. “And you didn’t forget to do anything. We still needed to decide on a time and place.”
Prowl nodded in agreement, but his doors still drooped. “It still seems rather crass of me.”
“When there was literally nothing you could have done about it? I can’t imagine how it would be.” It wasn’t like either of them had known last night that they should write it down.
“I’m afraid that pursuing whatever relationship we’d agreed to will have to wait,” Prowl said neutrally. “I won’t have time to go on such dates, and it would be useless if I will not remember them anyway. I think the term is ‘rain check’?”
“That’s the one,” Jazz confirmed. “I’ll be happy with a rain check until things work out.”
“Thank you.” Prowl turned back to his terminal. Jazz hesitated only a moment, then let himself back out.
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The first time Jazz was able to convince Prowl to recharge didn’t come until after the space bridge attack to get Hound, Bumblebee and Wheeljack to Cybertron (which, hey! Actually went pretty well!). Admittedly, he hadn’t tried very hard before that, only going so far as mentioning a couple of times that once the mission was properly underway and out of their hands Prowl should make sure to get some rest. Prowl, of course, had blithely ignored the reminders until Jazz stopped letting him.
They had heatedly debated the pros and cons of Prowl resetting his internal clock back to Cybertronian time, a tactic that would see him spending two thirds of the three-week long orn awake with the hope that he would be repaired before needing to recharge again. The hope… but not a guarantee. Jazz had to admit it was a gamble that might just work, but that’s what it was: a gamble, and one that would leave Prowl unavailable for over a week at the end of that orn while he recharged, whether it paid off or not. They couldn’t afford to lose that gamble, and so in the end Prowl conceded and went to bed.
Jazz lurked outside Prowl’s room the following morning, determined to catch him before he encountered something or someone who would mention the mission to him, unaware that he wouldn’t remember it.
The door opened and Prowl stepped out. His brow furrowed in mild confusion. “Good morning, Jazz. Aren’t you supposed to be on-duty?”
“I am, sort of. First thing on my schedule is to check in with you.”
“Oh.” Prowl considered that. “Does that mean you’re one of those who knows about…?”
“I am,” Jazz confirmed, “and I’m here to help.”
Prowl nodded and started walking towards his office. “Then catch me up on the state of the Ark,” he said. “My personal briefing said there was a party of some sort coming up?”
Jazz knew without asking why Prowl had that in his notes — preparations for said party would be coming across his desk, and he needed to know what to do with them. “It’s for another one of the human holidays: Valentine’s Day. It’s about celebrating romantic feelings and relationships. Also eating chocolate.”
“It seems all of the human holidays involve eating chocolate,” Prowl mused, then somewhat predictably pointed out that, “We don’t eat chocolate at all.”
“No, but we do have relationships. Besides, we don’t have to have everything in common with human holidays for them to be fun.”
Prowl nodded. “How is the mood after yesterday’s mission? I saw we had some minor casualties.”
“We did, but everyone’s doing better after a night of rest and recovery apart from Ratchet.”
Prowl’s brow furrowed. “Did Ratchet get injured? I didn’t have a mention of that…”
“Ah, no, I just meant he didn’t get any rest himself because he was busy taking care of everyone. He’s off-duty barring emergencies at the moment.”
“Good.” Prowl nodded. “Thank you Jazz.”
“Anytime. You want me to hang around for a bit or just be on call?” He suspected the latter, but was willing to do either.
“I believe I’m fine for the moment. Thank you for the offer.”
Called it. “I’ll see you later then,” Jazz said, keeping himself to a wave when he really would have liked to pat Prowl’s shoulder. Maybe at lunch, if they were able to have a conversation about feelings, he could pat his shoulder then.
Prowl disappeared into his office and Jazz didn’t let himself stand there, staring at the door. Prowl would be fine. He would!
That didn’t stop Jazz from returning to said office with a pair of cubes when Prowl didn’t emerge for lunch. Prowl went to the rec room to eat much more often than mechs thought he did, but he skipped enough meals that it wasn’t unusual either and Jazz wasn’t going to let him skip this time.
“Room service,” he announced cheerily, setting one of the cubes down on Prowl’s desk for him. “I brought fuel and company.”
Prowl, who had been staring in mild confusion at a report of some sort, transferred his gaze to the fuel without changing expression.
“You look like you could use a break,” Jazz commented.
“I can’t afford a break,” Prowl retorted, shaking himself. He put aside the report that was confusing him for another.
“I’m not trying to pull you away for long,” Jazz promised, trying to talk Prowl around to the idea in a different way than he had before. “Ten to fifteen minutes, tops. That’ll give you an uncluttered priority tree to pick things back up, along with the energy boost.”
Prowl considered that, then sighed. “I suppose that’s a valid point.”
“I have been known to have good ideas on occasion.” Jazz claimed the visitor’s chair and raised his cube to salute himself before taking a drink. “How are you doing?”
“According to my notes and my memories, I am only three days behind. I’m awaiting reports on how the Decepticons are reacting after yesterday’s attack on the space bridge.”
“No news is good news, to an extent.”
“Or that they are focusing their efforts on hunting down our team on Cybertron,” Prowl predicted pessimistically, finally taking a drink of his energon.
“Yeah.” That was very much not what Jazz was hoping for, but, “We won’t know until we know though.” He took another sip, pretending it was high grade for the courage. “Can I ask you something unrelated?”
Prowl tilted his head curiously and nodded.
“The Valentine’s day party, the one celebrating romantic relationships… is that something you might be interested in exploring?”
“I’m not particularly interested, no.”
“No?” But he’d said he was willing to… “Does that mean you don’t ever want to date anyone?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Prowl admitted, narrowing his optics at Jazz. “Why are you suddenly asking about dates? Aren’t we talking about the party?”
“Is that what you were talking about?” Well that was a relief! Even if Jazz wanted to bang his head on the desk for once again running into spectacular communication issues. “I was talking about relationships.”
“And asking if I have ever thought about them?” Prowl asked to clarify.
“If it’s something you’ve ever thought about pursuing, yeah.”
“Not particularly,” Prowl said. He swirled the energon around in his cup a few times then took another drink. “The… concept is nice, I suppose.”
That was a little more promising. “What parts of it do you like?”
Prowl swirled his energon again and this time Jazz recognized a tick meant to buy himself a little time to think. With anyone but Prowl, Jazz wouldn’t consider the pause to be enough for much thinking to happen, but, well, Prowl. “The idea of it,” he said. “Having a partner you enjoy being with enough to decide to be with them for the rest of your life.” Another swirl accompanied another pause, then Prowl tacked on, “and interfacing. I’ve always been curious about that aspect of it too.”
Note to self, no need to tip-toe around that topic. “I’ve always considered it to be a positive aspect.” Sex and stability though… “Guess you’re not a flowers and candle-lit dinners kind of mech though, huh?”
“Hound likes flowers,” Prowl commented, like he didn’t understand that Jazz hadn’t changed the subject. “The biology and chemistry of plants in general is quite complex. I know one of our ongoing projects is attempting to utilize a photosynthysis-like process for energon production.”
“So,” Jazz paraphrased, trying to follow that train of thought and bring it back around when it wasn’t even on the tracks anymore, “flowers as inspiration for energon production is better than flowers as a romantic gesture.”
Prowl blinked. “Is that a human thing?”
“Ooonly as far as flowers being an Earth thing,” Jazz said slowly, searching for an analogy. “It’s like renting a private holo-pod for a night.”
Prowl wrinkled his nasal ridge in confusion that bordered on disgust. “I thought that was something people only did in movies.”
Wait. Seriously? “It’s in movies because people really did it. You know, back when holo-pods were a thing, and spending money on someone instead of survival was feasible.”
The disgust in Prowl’s expression strengthened. “That’s…”
It was romantic, was what it was. Indulgent. A way to show appreciation.
“Incredibly wasteful.”
It was also, clearly, not a good idea if he wanted to impress Prowl. Probably a good thing that there weren’t any holo-pods and that wasn’t even on Jazz’s list for potential date venues then, assuming he could get Prowl to agree after his memory was repaired. “What would you do together then, if you had a partner like that?”
Prowl considered, this time not bothering to hide the fact that he was taking a moment to think about his answer. “Post coitial cuddling,” he said decisively.
Awwww. Now that? That was sweet. “Cuddling is nice.”
“It is.” Prowl looked at his cup, then drank the rest of it. “I should get back to work.”
Jazz wanted to keep talking, but it looked like his window of opportunity had closed. “I’ll head on out and let you have some quiet in here,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.”
Back in the hall, Jazz took stock of what he’d learned. Prowl hadn’t realized the conversation was supposed to be hinting at his interest in dating him, but now he knew that, in addition to putting work first, Prowl didn’t see much value in romantic gestures — or rather, he saw too much value being put into them and considered such excesses wasteful. Some mechs might have felt they weren’t worth spending money on, but with Prowl it seemed more like an extension of his appreciation of practicality than an issue of self esteem.
Valuable information, even if he hadn’t managed to actually ask Prowl on a date! Practical gifts and doing things that didn’t cost, or waste, much would go over much better than a truckload of flowers or a night in a private holo-pod.
Unless those flowers were ones that could make energon. Jazz giggled. He could work with this.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
“Morning,” Jazz greeted Prowl outside of his room.
“Good morning. You’re here to give me my morning briefing?” Prowl looked tired and a little leery, but seemed in okay spirits.
“Yup. Morning briefing, moral support, all that jazz.” Jazz grinned. “I’m fully read in on what’s going on.”
“Has there been any reaction from the Decepticons after the attack on the space bridge?” Prowl frowned. “I didn’t mention one…”
“There weren’t any signs until just a couple hours ago. Skyspy spotted Soundwave lurking around the power station they tried to hit last month.”
“Hmm…” Prowl nodded, thinking. “Send Bluestreak and one of Blaster’s cassettes to watch the station with strict orders to stay either under cover or in alt form. I want to make sure they don’t attempt a sneak attack. And have a team on standby — the Aerialbots, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, and the rest of Blaster’s team — to provide immediate support to Bluestreak if there is an attack.”
“I’ll get right on that, though the Aerialbots aren’t clear to combine until tomorrow. Hopefully things won’t get that dicey.”
“Why aren’t the Aerialbots cleared to combine?”
Jazz just caught the sound of Prowl’s engine making a stressed, frustrated whine and felt bad for him. “Short answer: Fireflight got hit by lightning,” he said, hoping to alleviate some of Prowl’s distress. “Longer answer involves a courier mission and inconvenient weather patterns; he’s fine, but Ratchet had to rewire a few circuits and doesn’t want to stress fresh connections.”
“I included the incident in my notes, but I didn’t indicate any tactical consequences…” Prowl growled to himself. Then he reached up to rub his optics and nasal ridge. “Okay. I can… The Aerialbots are primarily needed because Megatron has been making excessive use of the seekers lately. Put Warpath and Ironhide on the team to help dogpile the members of any combiner units that show up.”
“You got it.” It was a simple adjustment, but Jazz knew it bothered Prowl that he’d had to make it. He was used to having the most current duty status roster right there in his processor, but of course the version he was looking to out of habit was now five days out of date. Once he got to his office he’d be able to update it with the live roster, but it was an extra step he normally never had to do.
“Thank you, Jazz. Was there anythi—” Prowl growled again. “Of course, it’s useless to ask that.” He sighed. “What about the Ark’s morale? There’s a party coming up and I noted that you seemed especially interested in it?”
Aw, he had? “It’s got me thinking about relationships,” Jazz said, wondering if this conversation would go any better first thing in the morning. “The human holiday celebrates romantic relationships and I started to think about the relationships I have and if there was one I wanted to deepen.”
Prowl just made a humming sound of mild interest — paying attention and encouraging Jazz to talk, but now that he had his answer for the “unusual interest” he’d written about, no longer especially curious.
Jazz didn’t let that discourage him. “I came to the conclusion that there was one relationship, one person I wanted to pay more attention to,” he said, and rather than waiting for Prowl to get the hint — because he wouldn’t — he elaborated, “and it’s you. Us. Our relationship.”
Prowl missed a step and then caught himself. “That’s… unexpected.”
“How so?”
Black and white doors bobbed in a shrug as Prowl continued toward his office. “I just thought you’d say someone else.”
As much as he wanted to ask why, there wasn’t enough hallway left. Jazz skipped over the question rather than sinking time into it to get to the point. “Well, I didn’t. I really like you, Prowl. I enjoy working with you, talking with you, and spending time with you. I want to do more together with you.”
“Such as?”
Here it was, the moment of truth: “I’d like to go on a date with you.”
“You realize this is very bad timing, right?” Prowl didn’t sound angry or offended. He didn’t even sound mildly annoyed. “Tomorrow I won’t remember this conversation.”
“So we’ll have it again.” Like they were right now, though Jazz wasn’t going to say as much. “I’m not going to stop talking to you about things just because you won’t remember. I don’t mind repeating myself, assuming that hearing me say how much I care about you is a good thing.”
“I… don’t dislike it,” Prowl allowed cautiously. “But I’ve never thought overmuch about pursuing a life partner.”
“Which means you haven’t ruled it out either, right?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll count that as a point in my favor. I’m looking to start a journey and see where it takes us, not jump to the end of the road.”
Prowl repeated the line to himself as though needing the repetition to parse the metaphor. They’d reached his office, but he paused at the door. “I suppose that means you have a timeframe in mind before attempting to interface.”
Ha! This time Jazz was ready for that topic. “One dictated by comfort level and interest more than actual calendar days. I have my ideas, but I don’t know yours yet.” Except that he did, a little, but regardless, “The goal is for both of us to be happy.”
“Admirable.” Prowl opened the door to his office and gave Jazz a slight smile. “Happiness will have to wait, though.”
“That’s alright. Love is patient.”
The smile morphed into confusion, but Prowl didn’t say anything and simply closed the door, gently shutting Jazz out so he could focus on the task of keeping the Ark running and supplied. Not quite the final note he’d been hoping to strike, but that confession was one Jazz didn’t feel the need to cringe at. Plus, he had the rest of the day now to ask more questions!
First thing first though: get the surveillance and strike teams ready to go if Soundwave tried anything hinky at the power plant. It was a positive sign that the Decepticons might be focusing on Earth over the team on Cybertron, but that didn’t mean the Autobots shouldn’t do all they could to stop them.
After arranging things according to Prowl’s plan. Jazz returned to his office with a pair of cubes for lunch. “How are you doing in here?” he asked, peeking through the now open door.
“Why do we need one hundred pounds of pink, red, and white crepe paper streamers?”
“Be~cause we’re having a party, and parties require decoration?”
Prowl glanced up at him and narrowed his optics suspiciously. “One hundred pounds seems excessive.”
“Depends how much space,” and how many mechs, “you’re planning to decorate. Or, potentially, and I’m not saying this is likely, but it’s possible, juuuuust barely, that someone might have gotten a little bit carried away.”
That earned him a flat look. “I’m authorizing ten pounds of crepe streamers.”
“Awwww, come on, only ten?”
Prowl looked down at the requisition form, edited it, signed it, and filed it. “Make do. You still have the balloons I signed off on yes— several days ago.”
“Okay,” Jazz said, not calling attention to the slip, “we’ll make do with the balloons and streamers.” Then he grinned. “What about glitter?”
“Glitter is on the list of permanently banned substances,” Prowl recited automatically. “That ban has Prime’s, Ratchet’s, and my signature on it, and you spent three weeks in the brig the last time you tried smuggling some in.”
Jazz had known the answer before he’d asked the question, but he’d had to try. “You never know. There might have been a special Valentine’s Day dispensation for it.”
“Not according to Ratchet.”
“Guess that means I won’t be able to make you a garishly decorated card that doubles as an affront to nature. That’s one of the things the humans do,” Jazz explained when Prowl looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “They buy or make cards to give each other to express their feelings.”
“Decorated with glitter until they are an affront to nature?” Prowl’s confusion once again twisted into disgust. “Please don’t.”
“Okay. I won’t.” He didn’t want to spend another three weeks in the brig, or make a joke of his feelings like that. “What do you think is a good way to share feelings like that?”
Prowl stopped poking his terminal and finally shut down the Ark’s budget in favor of the fuel Jazz had brought. “Words seem perfectly effective,” he said succinctly.
“Well sure they’re effective, but what about when you want to do more?”
Prowl thought about that one for a minute or two, looking at his fuel. “I suppose that’s when we reach the ‘interfacing’ portion of this ‘journey’.”
“That’s… one way to do more, yeah.” It wasn’t what Jazz had meant though, and he wasn’t sure how to verbalize the difference. “But, like… if I wanted to show you how I feel, not just say it?”
“I would prefer not engaging in pre-interfacing gestures in areas that aren’t appropriate for private activities.”
Huh. A preference for “appropriate” affection wasn’t surprising, but everything Prowl kept coming back to was physical. Jazz really did need to get used to the idea that Prowl wasn’t as hands-off as he came across. “Does your office count as inappropriate for private activities?”
“I’m not adverse to expressing affection in my office, during breaks,” Prowl said slowly, feeling out the words as he said them. “But we won’t be interfacing here.”
Don’t start fantasizing about it. “Noted.”
Prowl nodded like the matter was concluded. But it wasn’t, was it? Prowl still hadn’t said what kind of romantic gestures he did like!
They sat quietly for a moment, sipping their fuel.
“What if I serenaded you?”
“What?!”
“Serenaded you! I know lots of love songs.”
“Why?”
Why? What kind of question was that? “Because it’s romantic!”
“Is it?” Prowl drummed his fingers on his desk. “I always wondered why movie characters didn’t file stalking charges.”
Woah. “You’re serious.”
“It is stalking,” he insisted, flaring his doors. Then he calmed. “I suppose given our current forced proximity it’s… a lesser form of stalking than when the movie is set in a major city like Iacon, but in general if you find someone outside your apartment doing creepy things, you should call the police. Not…” he shrugged.
Jazz just shook his head. “I’m with you on calling the cops on creepy stuff, but I don’t see how singing to someone is creepy — singing to someone you know about feelings they know about, that is.”
Prowl just blinked.
“Would you not like it then, if I sang to you?”
This time Prowl’s pause was… less hopeful, from Jazz’s perspective, but he did eventually nod. “You do have a nice voice. I suppose in private that would be acceptable, but I don’t exactly want people looking or laughing at me like they were Smokescreen and Sideswipe at the movie night last month when you decided to sing to them.”
“You were there?” He couldn’t have been there the whole night, there was no way Jazz would have missed that! But if he’d stopped by only for a short while, especially when he’d been busy teasing Smokescreen and Sideswipe… It wouldn’t have stopped him making fun of them, but he still felt bad for not noticing Prowl and saying hello. “That was singing, but it wasn’t serenading. A serenade is something special, something you only do for someone you love. I wouldn’t go around singing parody songs about you.”
Prowl started to respond, and from the expression on his face Jazz was braced for another confusing mix-up, but then the monstrous Wheeljack-made phone/comm system hybrid rang with an incoming call and he dropped the conversation instantly to check the caller ID. “I’m sorry Jazz. I need to take this.”
Damn. “Should I stick around, or…?”
“You can, if you want, but if this is the call I’m expecting it’ll take a few hours if I want to get things resolved today instead of waiting for a callback tomorrow.”
Which of course he didn’t want to do, because that would mean having to start over in some respects. “Think maybe I’ll get out of your way then,” Jazz said and finished off his cube to stand. “See you later.”
“Yes.”
So. Prowl didn’t want people looking at him or laughing at him because of anything Jazz did. Jazz considered that as he headed back to his own office. That was two marks against any kind of grand romantic gestures — if the expense didn’t offend Prowl, the spectacle would.
What did that leave him to show Prowl how much he loved him?
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
The next day Jazz noticed right away that something was different about the way Prowl looked at him when he opened his door. “Uh, good morning?”
“Had we agreed on a date venue?” Prowl asked abruptly.
He remembered?! No, that was impossible; as soon as he got his processor in gear Jazz realized he must have put something about yesterday’s conversations into his notes despite not having done so before. “We hadn’t,” Jazz answered, thinking back several days. “I’d suggested a drive together in the canyons, but our conversation had to be put on hold before we could evaluate the idea.”
Prowl nodded and turned down the hall toward his office. “Once I’m fit again, I’ll give us a patrol shift together.”
That might be a lot of fun, honestly, and Jazz wasn’t against the idea, but, “That’s more of a work date than a date-date.”
“You don’t think patrol will be more… pleasant… with company?” Prowl inquired mildly. “I would enjoy using the time to… hang out?… with you.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I would too! I think it would be nice to try sometime,” Jazz replied. “It’d just also be nice to do something where we don’t have any obligations or schedules, you know?”
“And that was the sort of drive you had hoped for?”
“That’s what I was thinking of, yeah.” What else could they do together? “Or we could do a night in with a movie.”
“I rather assumed I could find you in the rec room most movie nights,” Prowl mused. “You make a habit of attending them, correct?”
“Yeah. It’d be more of a date if it was just the two of us though.”
“Why?” Prowl shook his head. “Nevermind. I should be giving you a chance to update me on the Ark, not monopolize your time discussing this.”
Jazz would have happily let the subject monopolize his time! But Prowl had limited time, and it would be a poor use of it to continue talking about potential dates when, yet again, they couldn’t seem to get on the same page. “Party supplies have been ordered and should be arriving soon. No one’s currently laid up in medical, but Cliff’s in the brig along with Tracks for an altercation last night.”
Prowl frowned but nodded, accepting that. “And the power plant situation? I assigned a couple of different teams to respond if something changed.”
“Still standing by.”
“And there hasn’t been any other sign of Decepticon response to the space bridge attack?” The frown deepened. “Nothing?”
“Blaster caught some chatter about Cybertron, but nothing mentioning our team specifically.”
“I dislike that.” Prowl shook his head. “Keep the power plant team in place, but batten down the Ark. Keep Prime here. You have a higher success rate at convincing him to cancel his appointments. If they aren’t actively hunting the team on Cybertron after this much time there is an eighty-two percent chance Megatron is stewing and will launch an attack on Prime’s current location.”
“I’ll do my best.” Jazz had been worrying about that possibility too, and Optimus, as usual, wasn’t taking the level of precautions he felt he should. There was an argument to be had about not shutting down completely at every single threat — an argument they had frequently, and were once again in the middle of rehashing — but there was also such a thing as compromising security too far. “The party’s been good for that, actually, since pretty much everything to do with it is here on the Ark.”
“Yes.” Prowl’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Something about romantic relationships? I’ve ordered the decorations. Was there anything further I needed to authorize for it?”
“The schedules, once we’re closer to the date. And more highgrade, if you’re feeling generous.”
“I’ll make a note of the schedules.” Prowl’s doorwings moved pensively. “I’ll have to look at the amount of highgrade that’s already been authorized before I consider more.”
“Fair enough.” There was an opportunity there, to mess with Prowl and slip things past him. Jazz wouldn’t dream of it. “There’s a command meeting this afternoon. Not all of the other officers have been read in yet, so…”
“Right.” Jazz could feel Prowl’s stress level jump just at the mention of it. He put his hand on his office door, and took a breath. “I need to prepare for that.”
“I’ll help you however I can,” Jazz said softly, laying his own hand on Prowl’s arm. He half expected for Prowl to shake him off — to stiffen, at least! He just didn’t seem like the touchy type! Even after days of talking about dating, and Prowl agreeing to said dating, several times, this was Jazz’s attempt at physical contact.
Instead of rebuffing him, however, Prowl put his other hand on top of Jazz’s for a moment, then steeled himself to open his office and step inside, letting Jazz’s hand trail over his plating. Jazz smiled, a bubble of elation floating up through the otherwise serious situation. It was the first sign he’d gotten that Prowl might actually want to date, not just willing because Jazz wanted it.
Alright. Time to batten down the Ark and see if Optimus had any plans he had to be talked out of.
Fortunately, due in part to the upcoming meeting, Optimus wasn’t planning to go anywhere until that evening. Unfortunately, he intended to go to a basketball game then, and that was a problem.
“I’ll be close,” Optimus assured him. “And Ironhide will be with me.”
“And you’ll be in a public area with poor security, surrounded by humans who would be caught in the crossfire.”
“We have to keep living or the Decepticons have won.” Optimus looked at Jazz seriously. “They won on Cybertron. By the end there was nothing left but the war. It is a miracle that we have the opportunity to live again, despite the risks.”
“It is, absolutely. One hundred percent. But there’s times when those risks are greater than others, and when that happens it’s our responsibility to handle things accordingly.”
“And if the other Autobots see me hunkering down?” Optimus shook his head sadly. “Jazz, would you have approached your current crush if I had behaved like we were in constant danger?”
“That—” Okay, that was true, but it was also unfair. “Look, we’re not talking about me right now.”
“No. But it is relevant.” Optimus smiled, his optics tilting above his battlemask. “The same could be said for any of us. I did not ask to be Prime, but it is my job to care for you and put your well being above my own. If I act like this war continues to be all-encompassing, then all of you will follow. You would not have asked a certain someone to go driving with you. Bumblebee wouldn’t go to that fantasy convention he has planned with Spike. Powerglide would cancel his flights with Astoria. Not only would our lives be worse for it, but we cannot afford to pull away from our human friends, or appear to them as machines built only for war. Our leisure time is vital, and not just for our mental health.”
How did Prime even know about…? “Well someone,” Jazz said, “has enough to worry about right now without also having to worry about your safety.”
“He doesn’t have to. As I said, I’ll be taking guards. We’ll be well prepared if something happens.”
Jazz sighed. He wasn’t going to be able to convince Optimus not to go this time, and he obviously couldn’t pull rank on him. “He’s still going to worry.”
“I will be especially careful for this outing,” Optimus promised.
“Please do.” Not that that would make it any easier to break the news to Prowl. “I guess I’ll be on my way then.”
Prime put one hand on Jazz’s shoulder. “Things will work out.”
“Glad someone thinks so.”
Prime patted him and moved on.
Ugh. The worst part was that if this issue with Prowl’s memory weren’t happening, Jazz would probably be on Optimus’ side of this issue. It was really only because he was worried about Prowl that he was more worried about Optimus’ safety during this particular game. And since he couldn’t change Optimus’ mind, all that left was being strong for Prowl.
Knowing he’d be cramming for the meeting, Jazz didn’t think forcing him to take a break would be appreciated today, but surely he would still like some fuel? Cubes in hand, Jazz knocked on his door. “Prowl?”
“Come in,” Prowl barked, sounding extremely irritated. That tone alone would have been enough to scare off most Autobots.
Jazz, however, wasn’t most Autobots. “Brought you a cube,” he announced as he stepped inside, taking in the sprawl of Prowl’s preparations. “Thought you might be too busy to step out and grab anything.”
“Thank you.”
Bracing for the potential explosion, Jazz poked at the building pressure. “How’s everything going?”
“I left myself a briefing on this,” Prowl said icily, glaring at the mess spread out across his desk. “But I did approximately sixty percent of the finalizations yesterday and now I can’t figure out what the frag I was thinking.”
Because he didn’t know how he’d gotten to his conclusions. “Do you not trust the work you already did?”
“I’m not supposed to trust that my work is the best!” Prowl’s fingers flexed and a few sheets of paper crumpled under the pressure. “I’m supposed to make sure! If I’m not sure, the humans’ll take advantage of us, our budget will be unable to cover the Ark’s expenses, and we’ll all die of equipment failure!”
Wow. That escalated quickly. “That isn’t going to happen in the course of a week or two. I’m not saying you’re wrong to worry about it,” Jazz said calmly, “but it’s not going to happen over a single meeting where you’re only at forty percent.”
“I’m operating fine,” Prowl almost yelled, suddenly flexing and twisting. The desk crashed violently against the wall and paper flew everywhere, fluttering down like particularly large snowflakes. Jazz twitched, but Prowl hadn’t been aiming for him. He hadn’t been aiming for anything, except perhaps the angle least likely to actually damage the terminal and phone/comm system, the bulk of which were both under his desk. Some wires had gotten ripped out at their plugs, and they would need new screens from their storerooms, but they were both unharmed.
“You are,” Jazz agreed. Prowl’s actual capacities hadn’t been diminished at all. The problem was how many moving pieces he needed to be aware of in order to make the best use of his abilities, and how many of those depended on a continuity of information rather than individual data points. “Your process has been temporarily interrupted, but your processor is working fine.”
Surveying the destruction, Prowl calmed. Or, given the still-stressed whine of his engine, he just bottled the emotion in. “Please tell me Prime will be staying in the Ark.”
Jazz winced. “I wish I could. He’s not going alone, but I couldn’t talk him out of it.”
Prowl made a sound of extreme, primal frustration. His acid pellet rifle appeared in his hands and he stomped through the place where his desk had been.
“Where are you going?” Jazz hadn’t stepped away from the door since he’d arrived, but now he moved directly into Prowl’s way.
“To commit deicide.”
It wasn’t funny, but Jazz chuckled. “No you won’t.”
Prowl growled. He tried stepping around Jazz, but Jazz stood his ground and he was forced to still. “I won’t,” he admitted. “But he won’t be leaving the Ark without a leg.”
“And you won’t be doing any good from the brig.” With the way he’d responded to the hand on his arm earlier, Jazz took a chance. He tucked away the cubes he’d brought so he could reach out and pull Prowl into a hug. He wasn’t surprised when the acid rifle disappeared automatically. He was somewhat surprised when Prowl practically melted against him and that stressed whine grew in volume, like a keen. Aww… “Hey,” Jazz rubbed his back, wishing there was somewhere in the office they could sit down together. “It’s going to be okay.”
“We’re all going to die.” If Prowl hadn’t been plastered against Jazz’s chest, wrapped in his arms, keening like everything was falling apart around him, that would have sounded calm. “We’re going to die because I missed something obvious, and I won’t even remember what it was.”
“If we all die, you won’t remember because you’re dead,” Jazz pointed out, still petting Prowl.
He snorted, and his frame trembled. Then he took a deep breath, pulling himself together. Jazz thought he would step back, but he actually took several more breaths, fully composing himself before he stepped back and out of Jazz’s arms. Even then, he allowed Jazz’s hands to linger on his waist for a minute longer, then he turned to go put his desk and scattered papers to rights. Jazz didn’t interfere with his organization, but he did have the cubes back out, ready and waiting, when he finished.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I don’t know,” Prowl almost whispered.
Jazz didn’t really know either, but he still wanted to try. “Why don’t you give me the stuff you did yesterday and I’ll sort it into things that are probably okay as they are and things you might want to take another look at? I know you want to redo them all, but…” There just wasn’t enough time.
Prowl’s lip curled in an expression of self-directed anger, but he pushed one growing pile of papers toward Jazz. “These are the treaty alterations I’m supposed to present at the meeting this afternoon. I talked to the chairman’s aide yesterday. Apparently.”
Now Jazz wished he had stayed for that call. “I’ll pull the most important ones. If it’s any consolation, I doubt we’ll be able to discuss them all. We could argue we need further review before we finalize anything.”
“Thank you.”
Working together like that, they were able to get to the point where Prowl was confident about sixty-eight percent of the material. Jazz did multiple passes through the rest so he could at least be sure there were no overt surprises hiding in them, though of course it wasn’t enough to make Prowl completely happy. Jazz didn’t take offense; he was doing the same thing Prowl was, trying to make sense of the information without all the necessary background data, and he knew it.
They finished just in time for the meeting.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
“Hey there,” Jazz greeted Prowl the next day, glad for his sake that the stress of the scramble yesterday had been wiped from his memory.
“Good morning,” Prowl replied, sounding calm. “How are the party preparations?”
“We’ll be able to start decorating today, as long as the streamers arrive on schedule.”
Prowl’s steps paused as he froze momentarily. “I… ordered them, correct?”
“You did, approved quantities and all.”
Prowl relaxed, nodding. “My notes on the command meeting said we put off the finalization of the treaty adjustments until some later date.”
“We did. It wound up being a good compromise because the human delegates brought up another consideration they wanted to add, and we weren’t as prepared as we’d hoped to be.” Because naturally, none of them had planned on Prowl winding up in a perpetual not-Groundhog day.
Prowl frowned. He understood that he had been the one that had been unprepared. “More time will help,” he murmured, sounding a little depressed. It would, and it wouldn’t. Jazz reached over to stroke Prowl’s arm. Prowl stopped and very carefully stepped away. “Jazz?”
Why was he…? Oh. Jazz’s spark sank along with his hand as it dropped back to his side. “Sorry,” he said softly.
“I will guess I neglected to record something from yesterday that would have provided context for that,” Prowl said evenly.
“You can’t record everything.” It stung more this time, after realizing a level of physical intimacy that Jazz suddenly missed intensely now that it was gone, but it wasn’t Prowl’s fault. “You didn’t neglect anything, it just didn’t make the cut when you prioritized what you needed most.”
Prowl nodded, but he still looked unhappy.
“Do you,” Jazz hesitated, but he needed to ask, “want me to tell you about it or wait until a more prudent time?”
“I suppose I should know, but.” Prowl sighed. “I don’t think you can expect me to put whatever-it-was in my notes now. I’m not dependable.”
“That’s a load of scrap,” Jazz refuted immediately. “You are so dependable, even if it’s not to the extent you’re used to.”
Prowl just looked away.
“You are. Not putting our conversation in your notes was a valid decision, and one I knew you would make. I’m the one who forgot here, and I’m sorry about that.”
“Nothing you’re saying is untrue,” Prowl admitted with a sigh. “I still feel terrible. It’s obvious you’ve been helping me a lot, and I didn’t make that, make you, a priority at all. That is the definition of a bad friend.”
Primus, Jazz wanted to hug Prowl right now. “Not prioritizing your friends on purpose would make you a bad friend. This is beyond your control, which, admittedly, sucks big time, but you haven’t hurt my feelings.”
“I’m relieved,” Prowl whispered.
He looked so miserable… “This isn’t how I want you to hear this,” Jazz said, feeling worse about this misstep than his first disastrous confession, “but what we talked about yesterday was going on a date together. I care about you, a lot, and I told you.”
“Oh.” That did put a break on Prowl’s misery, but replaced it with momentary surprise. “That… is rather important.”
“As a personal detail, sure. Compared to your professional responsibilities though?” Jazz shrugged. “Like I said: I knew what you would have to prioritize. Offering physical comfort without any kind of explanation was thoughtless on my part, and next time I won’t put that burden on you.”
Prowl didn’t say anything, but he looked marginally less upset. “Where had we agreed to go?” he asked after a moment.
“We were still working out the details.” It was small, but Jazz smiled again. “I’d suggested doing a private movie night together.”
“Don’t you go to movie night in the rec room every time?”
“Yeah, but making that a date would involve everyone else there. I got the impression you wouldn’t care for being a spectacle, and I don’t want to share.”
Prowl nodded. “If you don’t mind the redundant activity then that is acceptable.”
“Cool. I’ll keep it in mind for both of us then.” And he’d keep trying to think of other suggestions too. He wanted to do better than “acceptable”.
When they reached Prowl’s office, this time Prowl reached out and carefully placed his hand on Jazz’s arm. It was a happy surprise, and Jazz covered Prowl’s hand with his own and smiled.
“I am thankful for all of your help,” Prowl said softly. “Even if I don’t remember it.”
“I’ll be here for you every day,” Jazz promised.
Prowl’s doorwings twitched in a way Jazz wasn’t sure he could read, and then he disappeared into his office.
This time when he went to pick up fuel for lunch, Smokescreen caught him in the commissary. “Jazz! Come sit with us!”
Trailbreaker and Inferno both echoed the invitation. Jazz diverted to come stand by their table, but didn’t sit down. “Hey there, mechs. What’s going on?”
“We’re trying to convince Inferno here to bring Red to the party so we can have one of our real couples kiss on Valentine’s Day, make it official.” The rest of the table snickered.
“Uh huh. And what would Red Alert think of that idea?”
“He’d hate it,” Inferno said seriously, to a short chorus of boos, “which is why I’m not doing it.”
“Good mech.” If he’d had a hand free Jazz would have clapped Inferno on the shoulder. “It wouldn’t be fair to spring that on him.”
“I’d say what happened to fun-Jazz, but you always were a bit of a buzzkill on this sort of thing,” Smokescreen heckled. “Having lunch with Prowl again? Maybe he’s the one who should be kissing on Valentine’s day.”
“Is Prowl okay?” Trailbreaker interrupted before Jazz could respond. “He’s been shut in his office more than usual. Two days ago he sent our tac assignments by email instead of briefing us personally.”
“He did?” Jazz knew Prowl was spending more time in his office, struggling to keep up with the increasingly long gap in his memory, but this was the first he’d heard of him withdrawing from his usual interactions from the crew.
“Yeah,” Smokescreen confirmed. “It’s weird, but yesterday there was that command meeting, and he’s got teams assigned all over to deal with fallout from the space bridge thing so I’m not surprised he’s busy. I am surprised he’s still letting you in,” he wheedled.
Trailbreaker shoved the Praxan, who flailed. “Shush you. He’s okay, though, right? Just busy?”
“I didn’t see him for breakfast again,” Inferno murmured. “So I’m guessing… not okay? Or really busy. We retaking Cybertron or something?”
Didn’t they all wish. “More along the lines of ‘or something’,” Jazz said in a light tone. “Prowl’s got a lot on his plate right now.”
“He usually does,” Inferno acknowledged. “I just usually see him for breakfast. He doesn’t talk or anything, but it’s weird not to see him around.”
“Maybe Teletraan murdered him and is covering up by sending out emails from his office,” Smokescreen heckled.
“Pfft. If Teletraan’s gone and murdered him, just who have I been having lunch with?”
“You’re in on it,” Smokescreen returned without so much as a beat of hesitation. His tone was way too jovial to be making any sort of accusation though; he was just running with the idea for laughs. “You have lots of practice covering up murders too. You’re helping Teletraan for nefarious reasons of your own.”
“Hmm. If that’s the case, you probably don’t want to be getting on my bad side now, would you?”
“I have faith Optimus will bring you to justice eventually.”
Trailbreaker shoved Smokescreen again.
“Right.” Jazz laughed. “Look, you know I can’t go into details, but Prowl’s fine. He’s just up against a series of deadlines right now, and you know how he gets when he’s got a timetable to micromanage.”
Both Smokescreen and Trailbreaker groaned knowingly. “Ugh.”
“Exactly. All things considered, you’re probably better off with emails than him hovering over your shoulder.” Nevermind that the emails created a trail Prowl could refer back to that wouldn’t disappear every time he recharged, which Jazz suspected was the real reason he’d taken to issuing orders in writing.
“Tell him we miss seeing him though,” Inferno implored like the big sweetie he was.
“You got it,” Jazz promised, hoping Prowl wouldn’t take it as another reason to beat himself up for “being a bad friend”. He deserved to know people missed him.
He arrived at Prowl’s office with lunch with no further diversions or interruptions.
“It’s open,” Prowl called when Jazz chimed for entry.
“Hey there — it’s just me. Brought you this.” Jazz placed a cube on the desk for him. “Should I be bringing one with in the morning too? I heard you haven’t been at breakfast.”
“I keep canned energon in my room for recovering from crashes and migraines,” Prowl said succinctly, this time accepting the cube — and the proffered break — without a protest.
“Good.” Jazz grabbed his chair and sat. “Inferno says hi, by the way.”
Prowl’s brow furrowed worriedly. “Was there a social commitment with Inferno I missed?”
“Not a scheduled one,” Jazz assured. “He just noticed you haven’t been out of your office much lately.”
Prowl frowned. “It seemed prudent, given how forgetting the details of a conversation can so easily offend. I honestly thought few people would notice.”
“So far it’s only a few, but you don’t have to be the most popular mech on the ship for people to miss you when they’re used to seeing you here and there throughout the day.” Jazz shrugged. “Can’t argue that limiting contact with them will help keep them from suspecting what’s happening though.”
Prowl’s frown remained, pensively staring at his fuel. “I didn’t ask for a morale update on the Ark this morning.”
He hadn’t, had he? “Because I distracted you.”
“I won’t begrudge you a mistake, or its fallout,” Prowl insisted. “But I would like an update.”
“Of course.” The biggest development was probably mechs remarking on Prowl’s absence, but Jazz updated him on the other little things bubbling around the Ark. Prowl nodded along, taking a couple notes, though Jazz could never tell just what sort of morale information Prowl thought was significant. He could guess when Prowl was keeping an optic on a specific development that he’d be interested in how that was… developing, but in the absence of a specific feud or developing relationship, Jazz could never see the pattern.
Probably even less so right now, with Prowl himself unaware of how his patterns were changing from day to day.
“Is there anything specific you want me telling people who ask about you?”
“Just that I’m busy is fine,” Prowl answered quietly. “I’m… fairly certain I couldn’t keep up with any social developments right now. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“And I don’t want you risking your safety. Not that anyone who found out would take it straight to the ‘Cons or anything, but still.”
“We have more avenues for information leaks than the Decepticons do,” Prowl acknowledged, though for the moment he didn’t sound irritated by that idea.
“Yeah. So. Busy it is. It’s definitely not a lie,” Jazz said, side-eyeing the stacks of work on the desk.
“No it isn’t.” Prowl followed his gaze, and sighed. “I’m afraid that working out the details of our date will need to wait.”
“I understand.” Didn’t like it, but he did understand. Normally he might have asked Prowl to keep it in the back of his head and send him some ideas that evening, but he didn’t want to put a distraction like that on him when he had more than enough on his plate. “It’ll work out.”
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
This time, Jazz reminded himself to keep his hands to himself until Prowl said, “You… wanted to go to one of the movie nights with me?”
So Prowl had said something in his notes from yesterday. And, honestly, after thinking about it, Jazz couldn’t really be surprised. It seemed like the “first” day that Jazz asked him out, Prowl thought keeping that in mind was vitally important, but it got pushed further down his priorities until it dropped out of his notes after a day or two. Which, if nothing else, told Jazz that Prowl definitely wanted to remember going on the date. “Yeah, I wanted to do something special with you. Doesn’t have to be movie night. We could drive up into the mountains,” but not just to drive, because then Prowl would try to turn it into a patrol again and Jazz wanted more than that for a first date, but what else could they do… “and make snowmen.”
“Why?” Prowl’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Is there some significance to snowmen I’m not aware of?”
“They’re fun?” As date ideas went it was a bit silly, but, “Spending time together without other people or distractions is more important than what we wind up doing, really.”
“Ah.” Prowl nodded with just enough hesitation to cast doubt on whether he was considering or agreeing. “In that case then snowmen sound fine.”
Just fine. Not good. Jazz was determined to find something Prowl would actively look forward to, but for today at least, “Then you and I have a date in the snow.”
Prowl was silent for a couple of steps, then said wistfully, “The last time I spent any leisure time in the snow it was the Praxan solar harvest festival.”
“Yeah?” Jazz recognized the ocasion, but he didn’t know much about it. “What was that like?”
“It’s a little bit somber,” Prowl said, letting Jazz pull him into reminiscing. “Not like the religious holidays though. It’s just quiet, even though most open air markets tend to be noisy.”
“Did you have any traditional treats? The vendors at the equinox observance in Polyhex always had hard candies frozen inside an acrylic compound that became malleable as it warmed. Suuuuuper messy,” Jazz laughed at the memory of the sticky stuff getting out of — and all over — hand when not eaten quickly enough, “but seriously tasty.”
“We had those too, I believe.” Prowl hummed. “But I was always more partial to the warmed energon.”
Ooh, he’d had a favorite? Note to self! “A solar blend, I’m guessing?”
Prowl gave a very small, reserved laugh. “It was the solar harvest festival.”
“You never know!” Jazz was elated. “Some city states used standard mid grade as the base for pretty much everything.”
“Hmm… That is true.” Prowl sighed, then his doors flicked, shaking off the memory. “I need an update on the Ark.”
And now they were back on routine. Jazz smiled. “We’ve started decorating for the party. Well, more like we’ve started planning the decorations in detail so we don’t waste materials. It’s got everyone in a good mood, even if some mechs have gotten the idea in their processors that we need an ‘official couple’ to celebrate.”
Prowl’s nose wrinkled. “Why?”
“I’m honestly not sure. It isn’t part of the human holiday, not this one anyway.”
“I hope you weren’t planning on volunteering me,” Prowl said primly, his doors flicking high for a moment, then the nearest one rested lightly on Jazz’s shoulder before they went back to their usual, more neutral, position.
Jazz shook his head. “No way. I wouldn’t mind it, but I know you would. I haven’t… huh. You know, I was going to say that’s why I haven’t said anything to anyone else about asking you out, but I wasn’t saying anything before that came up too.”
“Yesterday was not the first time then, I take it?”
“It wasn’t,” Jazz admitted.
Prowl frowned. “Yet you don’t mind. I can’t have been an especially… attentive lover these past few days.”
“You can’t help that. I wish Wheeljack had had better timing, but it is what it is.”
“Agreed.” Prowl paused his next step, just a handful before they arrived at his office. “We… hadn’t interfaced had we? I think I would have recorded that, but… I don’t know what I was thinking yesterday…”
“I don’t either, beyond knowing you said no sex on your desk.”
“Primus no. That’d be distracting. But we haven’t… someplace other than my desk?”
“No.” Jazz swung his arm out to brush Prowl’s fingers with his. “Not yet.”
“Probably for the best,” he said, letting their fingers tangle briefly before closing the last of the distance to his office and opening the door. He looked at the pile of work on his desk, and his doors drooped just a little. But then he resolutely stepped inside. “I need to start.”
“I’ll come by later.”
“I look forward to it.”
Jazz waited there for a moment, feeling a little giddy. He was getting used to Prowl’s rather confusing approach to romantic things, but more importantly—
He did not bolt away from Prowl’s office looking for Smokescreen. He walked. With purpose. He had a recipe to shake out of the other Praxan!
“Hey! Fancy seeing you here,” he said, suuuuper casual when he found the mech in the cafeteria. “Got a question for you.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not my fault and if it is you can’t prove it.” Smokescreen sidled away, looking wary.
“Oh? That sounds like there’s something I should know about.”
“Not even a little.” Smokescreen sidled more. “Especially not while you’re so cozy with Prowl.”
“What’s me being cozy with Prowl got to do with your guilty conscience?” Jazz followed Smokescreen’s movements, not letting him get away. “For that matter, what’s me being here now got to do with it?”
“Nothing. Because that would require that I have a guilty conscience.” Smokescreen stopped trying to run, but he didn’t look happy about it. “Which I do not. Because I don't have a conscience, guilty or otherwise.”
“Pfft. You have a conscience, but sometimes it really could stand to be a little louder.” Smokescreen was a good mech, but wow was he ever good at getting into trouble too. “But that’s absolutely right — I’m not here about your conscience. I’m here,” Jazz paused for dramatic effect, “for a recipe.”
Smokescreen looked at Jazz like he’d suddenly turned into a beastformer, then he sank down to sit at the table he’d been trying to escape. “A recipe.”
“Yes: a very specific, regional recipe.”
The Praxan groaned. “You really are trying to romance Prowl. It’s dumb. Stupid. If you think he’s frustrating to work with…”
“I don’t think he’s frustrating to work with,” Jazz countered. “And who said anything about romance? He’s been working hard! I’m trying to do something nice for him.”
Smokescreen gave him a flat, unamused look. “How are you the spies and dirty tricks commander again? I think that was the worst lie I’ve ever heard.”
“Wasn’t a lie.” Wasn’t the whole truth, maybe, and he knew he wasn’t really going to be able to keep the truth from Smokescreen, but still. “I am trying to do something nice for him.”
“You attempted to imply it wasn’t romantic, but I don’t think Valentine’s Day being right around the corner is a coincidence.” Smokescreen scoffed. “But I’ve worked with Prowl since you were off flitting around Decepticon territory nine orns out of ten, and I saw several would-be suitors crash and burn hard. He’s just not romance material.”
“I was beginning to get that impression, yeah. He’s had other relationships then?”
“I see what you’re trying to do. You’re fishing for information. You’re not even being subtle.” Smokescreen sighed. “From what I heard and saw, things tended to fall apart before the first date. Often before the mech even managed to ask. And those who got to that date, never got a call afterwards. Mech is an icy wall.”
“I don’t know about icy, but if we’re comparing him to a wall he can be as dense as one.” If Jazz hadn’t gotten a completely unprecedented do-over, it might have fallen apart for him too. “At least when it comes to certain things, which is all the more confusing because he’s so sharp with everything else.”
Smokescreen shrugged. “Mech was not built for romance. Find someone else to crush on, for your own sanity.”
“What sanity?”
“Does that mean I need to tell Prime just how overdue you are for your most recent psych eval?” the Praxan snarked back.
“Nooooo, it means you need to tell me how to make solar harvest festival warmed energon.”
“Oh good. Something easy.” The statement dripped with sarcasm.
“But you do know how to make it.”
“If you’re asking about the traditional formula sold from the temple-run market booths at the Solar Harvest Festival… No. No one does. The exact blend was a secret.” Smokescreen deflated and looked down to the table in front of him. “There were forum groups and scrap devoted to puzzling it out though, and I still have a couple of their recipes saved to my hard drive.”
That was a shame; still, “I’ll take what I can get. It’s not like I can recreate the whole festival anyway, but a recognizable approximation of something familiar would be nice you know? As a gesture.”
Smokescreen rolled his optics. “Useless gesture, but whatever. I’ll send you what I have.”
“It’s not useless.” Useless would be doing something Prowl would hate. “Even if it means more to me than it does to him.” And Prowl wanted to remember the date. It couldn’t be his priority, but if he didn’t want Jazz to keep asking, he’d… well, Jazz suspected he would have just said no in the first place, but he wouldn’t make an effort to remember and feel bad when he couldn’t if he didn’t want to go on a date with Jazz. Right?
“Whatever. I have work I need to do, since I don’t have underlings to foist it off onto.”
“Aww. You needing a minion or two?”
“Of course!”
“Hmm.” Jazz pretended to consider. “No, you’d just use them to expand your gambling empire.”
Smokescreen grumbled and mock-stomped away. Jazz waved at his back, internally relieved that Smokescreen wasn’t so overburdened that he couldn’t make jokes about his workload. Of course that meant that Prowl probably wasn’t foisting extra tasks on him and Trailbreaker to try and lighten his own workload the way he should be.
He wouldn’t be able to get away with that forever though, and he was going to hate the hell out of it.
Prowl needed an assistant.
“Prowl?”
There was a pause, one much longer than any of the previous days, before Prowl tiredly called out, “It’s open.”
The sight that met his eyes sparked definite concern in Jazz and the words came tumbling out. “You need an assistant.”
Prowl glared at his desk like it had betrayed him. It hadn’t, not really. Jazz couldn’t see anything unusual about the amount or kind of work that had piled up on it, but Prowl’s demeanor… He looked stressed and wan. His paint, which had by this point been neglected for several days while Prowl’s memory of his last touch up receded further into the past, was only just starting to chip, but combined with how tired he looked, it gave him an unusually disheveled appearance. This morning, with Prowl fresh from recharge, it had been much less apparent than it was now.
Despite that, “I’m fine,” Prowl insisted.
“You’re approaching not-fine pretty fast then.”
Prowl’s mouth thinned into a stubborn line. “My workload has not increased in volume or difficulty from baseline levels.”
“It doesn’t need to.” Incredibly unfair, but there it was. “Your working speed had the brakes applied. It’d be better to plan for an assistant and decide how to best use one now before there’s an unavoidable need.”
“I don’t need an assistant.”
“Short of a miracle, you’re going to.” Jazz wished he could make that miracle happen, but even their best-case scenarios didn’t have Wheeljack and the others getting back until the weekend. “I’d volunteer myself, but I don’t have the training or the time to do it as well as, say, Mirage.”
Prowl’s doors flicked — almost flinched — downward. “No.”
“No, he wouldn’t do better than me or no, you don’t want him to do it?”
“No, I don’t need an assistant.”
“Prowl…”
“I don’t.”
“Prowl.” Jazz set down the cubes he’d brought with him and walked around behind the desk to stand beside the stressed mech. “Please.”
Prowl stood, his doors flaring, then flinching. “I don’t need help.”
Jazz sighed. “If you won’t let someone help you with this,” he gestured at the desk, then held out his hand, “will you at least let me take care of you?”
Prowl stared at the hand like it was a cryosnake coiled up to bite him, clearly debating. It almost hurt to watch, because what Jazz was offering was something he never would have dared before asking him out, and subsequently watching some of his barriers against physical interaction come down. And Prowl didn’t remember any of that, and didn’t know where Jazz thought they stood with each other. How intimate did Prowl think this was, versus how intimate Prowl thought they were? Versus how intimate Jazz thought they were?
Jazz didn’t say anything, afraid Prowl would bolt if he pushed.
It paid off, because after that long, tense pause, Prowl carefully took Jazz’s hand. Jazz squeezed his fingers, a solid, gentle pressure. “Come on. Let’s take a break from this office.”
Prowl’s nose wrinkled and he opened his mouth to protest, then fell mulishly silent, but let Jazz pull him away from his desk.
“Here.” Jazz let go of his hand in order to press a cube into it before taking the other for himself and opening the door. “Follow me.”
Prowl didn’t follow. “I don’t want them seeing me like this,” he whispered.
“We aren’t going far,” Jazz promised. “Just to the pools.”
Prowl’s nose wrinkled again. Cautiously, he followed Jazz out into the halls.
They didn’t encounter anyone on the way to the pools, for which Jazz was grateful. It wasn’t a private space, but it was one meant for relaxing and soaking in the heat of the volcanic springs: a place to feel safe. If nothing else, Prowl could hide in the water and let the warmth carry away some of his tension. It would loosen any dirt on his plating so that Jazz could offer to help him with a few retouches after as well.
“I just—” Prowl started to protest when they arrived — I just cleaned up a couple days ago — before falling silent and entering the water with something like resignation.
“I know saying ‘try not to think about it’ won’t do any good,” Jazz said, sliding into the pool himself, “but we can try to talk about something else as a distraction?”
“Like what?”
“Like… have you ever gone on a date with someone before?” Yikes. Subtle as a brick. Maybe Smokescreen was right.
“I guess,” Prowl said, somehow not bothered by the blatant fishing. He found one of the alcoves with a ledge to sit on that was positioned for a ‘bot of his size and reached up into the associated cubby that held communal cleaning supplies to retrieve a cotton rag and a bottle of soap.
“You guess?”
Prowl’s doors shrugged as he started to scrub his plating in neat little circles to remove dirt. There wasn’t much, it was the tiny chips in his paint that revealed how long it had been since he’d last done this, not a buildup of dirt, but Jazz wasn’t surprised that Prowl was being thorough. “There were a couple of times I went to dinner with a coworker and I was informed after, when I had offended them by not making contact the next day or made some other faux pas, that they were supposed to have been dates.”
“Oh. That doesn’t sound like fun.” It also sounded like something that would have happened all too easily with the level of miscommunication Jazz had experienced with Prowl. Actually using the word “date” when asking a mech out was itself considered a bit of a faux pas by many, but with Prowl it was a necessity.
“It was not.” Prowl’s doors drooped a little. “There were a couple where I actually wouldn’t have minded attempting a relationship, but it wasn’t possible after my missteps.”
“They weren’t understanding after you explained?”
“What was there to explain? I thought I was going to dinner with a coworker, not a potential life partner, and they took the hint to back off. That I was not trying to send that hint… well.”
That was a complication, yeah, but, “Did you ever tell them it was unintentional?”
“Once or twice.” Prowl looked down at his hands. “It never made a difference.”
“I’m sorry.” Jazz went over to him and reached for the cloth. “May I?”
Prowl gave Jazz’s hand a suspicious look — probably again pondering how intimate they were versus how he remembered them — before handing it over. Jazz kept himself to the less sensitive areas of Prowl’s plating, still getting used to the intimacy himself.
“It will make a difference with me.”
“If I told you that I hadn’t noticed we were on a date?” Prowl snorted softly. “But this time I know you’ve asked me on a date.”
“And I’ll try to make it clear each time,” Jazz promised, “but if I’m not, telling me will help.”
“Alright.” Prowl relaxed into the scrubbing. “I won’t remember this though.”
Yeah… Under other circumstances, Jazz would have considered this bath their first date, but he wanted their real first date to be something they both remembered, and remembered fondly. Besides, while the intimate implications had not escaped Prowl at all, he hadn’t shown any sign he’d noticed the potential romantic ones of being alone in a warm bath together. If Jazz didn’t call it a date, it didn’t look like Prowl would consider it one.
“That’s okay. I’ll make sure you know when you can remember it.” He deserved to know that Jazz wasn’t going to be like those other mechs. “You deserve to know you’re wanted.”
“Interfacing?”
Well, “Yes. That and company and conversation.”
“I’m not a particularly adept conversationalist,” Prowl pointed out.
“You’re not a particularly conventional conversationalist,” Jazz amended. “Doesn’t mean you’re not interesting to talk to.”
Prowl hummed. Not disbelieving, just… not sure how it was relevant. Jazz took it as a victory and resumed gently stroking his plating with the cloth, this time more to soothe than to clean anything. Prowl shifted, and Jazz almost stopped before realizing that Prowl was getting more comfortable, adjusting so he could lean against Jazz and give him more access to his plating.
Cuddling. He was cuddling in the baths with Prowl. Jazz couldn’t have kept the smile off his face if he’d tried.
Too bad Prowl didn’t think this was romantic. Because it totally was.
Hmm… His next suggestion for a date venue should definitely include cuddling. Cuddling and warm energon.
Eventually of course, other mechs arrived to use the pools as well. The look on Cliffjumper’s face when he spotted the two of them curled up together was priceless. There was no way he didn’t think it was a date.
His entrance also was Prowl’s cue to finally move. “I need to get back to my office.”
“Okay.” Jazz let Prowl go with a final pat on his shoulder. “Thank you for taking a break with me.”
They hadn’t gotten to the touch-up, but the lessened stress in Prowl’s stance and posture went a long way in making his chipped paint less noticeable. Maybe tomorrow he could convince Prowl to do this again, and next time he wouldn’t get distracted by how unexpectedly cuddly Prowl was.
And he’d pester him again about getting an assistant.
Cliffjumper had the (rare) good grace to wait until Prowl had gone before he pounced. “Tell me I did not just see Prowl of all mechs curled up over there with you.”
“Sure,” Jazz returned, wiping himself down with the washcloth. “Totally wasn’t Prowl. Figment of your imagination.”
“Like slag it was. That’s too crazy for me to make up!”
“Sounds like a personal problem,” Jazz heckled, because he was never going to be not-smug about Prowl agreeing to a date, even if he hadn’t been advertising it either. “Maybe go see Ratchet.”
“Maybe you should see Ratchet. Prowl? Seriously?”
Jazz sniffed. “Prowl is a catch no matter how you slice it.” Deciding he was done with his own bath, he followed Prowl’s footsteps and climbed out of the wide pool. “You’re just jealous.” Cliffjumper probably wasn’t jealous, but only because he didn’t see how sweet Prowl could be when he let his guard down a little. Something Jazz was only just discovering, true, but Jazz had plenty of reasons to already be in love with Prowl. “Well he’s mine now,” for now, “and you can’t have him.”
Cliffjumper snorted. “Pretty sure he wouldn’t want me. I’m surprised he’d want you!”
“I’m a catch too.” Jazz preened mockingly. “Don’t you forget it.”
“Oh, you’re a hot piece all right.” The leer Cliffjumper tried to give him only lasted a couple of seconds before he broke. “I didn’t mean that you weren’t though. More like… I’m surprised he’d want anyone. He’s just not the type.”
He sure came across that way, Jazz could acknowledge that. It was yet another reason he’d dithered so long, and he was still learning to navigate Prowl’s weird blindspots when it came to romance. “We’re still working out the specifics,” Jazz admitted. “He’s just busy. We’re still figuring out our first date.” He knew better than to ask Cliffjumper directly to keep it quiet, but, “I don’t want anything to mess this up…”
“Wait, what was this then? If it wasn't a date?”
“Just testing the waters a bit.” Jazz grinned at the unintentional pun, and Cliffjumper groaned. “Nothing official.”
“Buuuut,” Cliffjumper gave him a searching look, “you want it to be.”
“Yeah.” Jazz shook himself to settle his plating and checked himself over. Then he gave Cliffjumper his best pleading look. “Please don’t ruin it for me. He’s kind of shy…”
Cliffjumper’s expression took on an element of understanding… or maybe it was just pity. “If it’s what you want, I won’t mess with it — even if I mess with you a little.”
“Thanks Cliff.” Jazz smiled. “I just don’t want the gossip scaring him off.” Between Cliffjumper and Smokescreen, gossip was inevitable, but he could keep it quiet and Prowl out of the Ark’s collective center of attention. And especially out of the party planning!
“It’ll be hard for that to happen with the way he’s holed up in his office all the time, but I get it.”
And there was that.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
Jazz bolted out of his berth at oh-dark-hundred the next morning when the Decepticon attack alarm went off. He was out of his room and down the hall before he was fully conscious of what was happening, Prowl’s voice already calling for a sitrep through the active commlines.
Blaster, Bluestreak, Warpath and the Arialbots all responded. Soundwave had finally made his move at the power plant.
By the time he arrived on the bridge, they had confirmation that Rumble and Ravage were present on the ground, though Soundwave himself had yet to be spotted. Prowl was already on deck, paging through a datapad as though not entirely sure how to read what was written on it. He called for another sitrep.
“There’s nothing more to report!” Blaster spat back irritably. “So far we’re handling it.”
“Why— Nevermind. I’m arranging for a backup team to meet you there.”
“They’re already prepared,” Jazz told him. There was no way he’d have had time to look at his notes from yesterday regarding the Ark’s current and continuing tactical situations; he probably didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he was powering on admirably. “Cliffjumper, Windcharger, Tracks and Ironhide,” who had originally been with the team at the power plant, but had gotten switched with Brawn so he could play bodyguard during Prime’s excursion to the basketball game, “will be ready to move out if necessary any minute — check with Ironhide.”
Prowl looked at Jazz in confusion, no doubt wondering how Jazz knew this when he didn’t, then opened up another commline. “Ironhide. ETA for your team?”
“Three minutes till we can deploy,” came the reply. “Is it looking like we’ll be needed?”
“I don’t—” Prowl looked around, then back down to his datapad, not sure.
“I’ve spotted Soundwave,” Bluestreak reported from the power plant, and Prowl steeled himself.
“Yes,” he told Ironhide. “It might be overkill—” definitely overkill for just Soundwave and two cassettes, given the team that was already in place “—but I want you already en route in case things escalate.”
Things did escalate. Two more cassettes, Swindle, and several more Decepticons were soon spotted. What had been an attempted sneak attack turned into a free for all. Jazz watched Prowl flounder through the skirmish without letting on to anyone else that something was wrong, leaning on pure tactical ability in lieu of knowing anything about what was going on.
“Has anyone seen Megatron or any of the seekers?” Prowl called out as the melee started to wind down and Soundwave called for his strike team to retreat. The flurry of negative responses seemed to worry Prowl, and he pinged Skyspy and Cosmos to check the areas around the Ark for any sign of the Decepticons.
“All clear.”
“Same here.”
Damn. “Any activity around the spacebridge?” Jazz asked.
“What does the spacebridge—” Prowl started just as Cosmos answered: “Noo— wait! Yes! Someone just went through. I think it was Starscream. I still don’t see Megatron though.”
“Keep eyes on the spacebridge,” Jazz directed. “They would have been happy for Soundwave’s little sortie to be successful, I’m sure, but it looks like this was mainly a diversion.” Just what they’d been afraid of, and there was little they could do about it in the moment. They didn’t have a way to get a warning to Wheeljack and the rest.
“I—” Prowl looked around the bridge, then he checked in with the teams at the power plant, nodding when everything seemed okay there, then silently walked out of the Ark’s bridge.
“You good coordinating things from here on?” Jazz asked Blaster, itching to go after Prowl.
“Yeah, I think so,” Blaster responded. “Everyone’s accounted for. Just gotta deal with the humans before we come home.”
“Alright. You got this — let me know if anything changes.” Satisfied that things were in hand, Jazz turned and left the bridge with an external calm masking deep concern. If he’d woken up to a situation as disorienting as the battle must have been to Prowl, he’d have been concerned something was seriously wrong with him, and seriously freaked out about it.
Office or Ratchet… Office or Ratchet. Office or Ratchet. Office or Ratchet. Mentally Jazz flipped a coin and decided to go see if Prowl had decided to hide in his office for a while before seeing Ratchet.
“Hello?” he called when he reached the door, knocking gently. “Prowl?”
“Please go away, Jazz.” Jazz tried the door and found it locked as Prowl continued. “I need to finish locking myself out of the systems.”
Ouch. Jazz kept his expression neutral in case anyone came by and lowered his voice. “You haven’t been compromised. I know you’re confused, but you’re safe.”
“You can’t know that. I’m— I’ve—”
“You don’t remember what’s happened. I know.” He could have the door unlocked quickly enough, but, “You leave notes for yourself for when you wake up, but you didn’t have time to read them. Would you like me to get them?”
“I… what?”
“Or I can come in and explain.” And if Prowl didn’t answer, he was going in anyway.
After a few seconds of silence, Jazz hacked open the door.
Prowl wasn’t over behind his desk deleting his own clearance codes or whatever else he thought would be necessary to contain such a massive security breach. He was in the corner of the room, curled up, looking scared.
Scrap. Jazz wanted nothing more than to sink down next to him and pull him into a hug, but he’d have no idea what he was doing or why. Setting his head firmly in co-worker mode, he closed the door behind him and came up to Prowl’s desk, stopping there. “You don’t remember it, but you got caught in one of Wheeljack’s mishaps. It damaged your ability to record long-term memory, and Ratchet can’t fix it until Wheeljack gets back from Cybertron with the right part.”
“I…” Prowl looked at him fearfully. “I wasn’t hacked?”
Jazz shook his head. “You weren’t hacked. Ratchet can confirm it, when he’s not busy with the aftermath of the battle.”
Prowl shuddered with relief, trusting Jazz implicitly. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Like I said, you left yourself notes to catch you up on important details,” Jazz reiterated, “but in broad strokes, we sent a team with Wheeljack to Cybertron to get the part and have been watching the ‘Cons for signs of them going after them. We got intel that Soundwave was snooping around the power plant, but there was no way to know how much they were going to throw at it. We prepared to respond assuming the worst, but…”
“The power plant attack was typical of operations planned and carried out entirely by Soundwave,” Prowl recited, then shut off his optics and leaned back against the wall. “It was a distraction while Starscream, and perhaps Megatron as well, went after the Cybertron team.” A groan. “That means that Shockwave has been unable to locate or stop our team, but… I completely forgot to watch the space bridge.”
“You didn’t know it was more likely to come into play than usual.” Prowl’s last memory had all of the Autobots on Earth. “We still caught them going after the away team, and that’s really all we could have done.”
“As long as the space bridge remains under Decepticon control, that is true,” Prowl acknowledged, “but I still should have been watching it, in case the distraction had been to keep us from rescuing the team as they returned.”
Jazz couldn’t deny that. “We got lucky. Not what you like to rely on, I know, but I’ll take it this time.”
Prowl buried his face in his hands and made a sound of frustration.
Jazz put his hands on the edge of the desk to remind himself to stay put. “Prime, Ratchet and I are the only ones who know your status at this point.”
After a moment Prowl pulled his hands down and rested them on his knees, the gesture too controlled and deliberate to be the result of true calm. Prowl nodded. “That makes sense,” he said quietly. “If it’s known that I'm compromised, the Decepticons could…”
“…yeah.” It would be bad times all around if that happened. “But it’s temporary.”
“If the Cybertron team returns with the parts,” Prowl pointed out pessimistically.
“I prefer to assume they’ll succeed until they fail.”
“Either way, there’s nothing we can do to help them.” Prowl leaned his head against the wall again. “I need to assess the fallout from the attack, write down any ongoing changes to our situation…”
“Start with your notes from yesterday,” Jazz advised. “And consider how you want to read Mirage in.”
“Mirage?” Prowl sat up and looked at him. “What does Mirage have to do with this?”
Would he take it any better this time, after what had just happened? “You need an assistant.”
Prowl bristled, then sagged with defeat. “Yes, I do.”
Getting that admission from him didn’t feel like a victory. “I’m sorry.”
Prowl just turned his head and glared down at his chassis. “Doesn’t Mirage usually go on Cybertron missions?”
“Usually. He’s not on this one though — Hound and Bumblebee went with Wheeljack so he’d have more scout support.”
Prowl nodded, accepting Jazz’s assignments as he had the first time when he hadn’t urged Jazz to reconsider the team when he’d put the mission together.
“We didn’t want to bring him in right away to delay anyone asking questions, but…” Jazz shrugged. “We knew it would need to happen eventually.”
“Mirage makes sense as an assistant,” Prowl agreed softly. “I—” He glared down at his plating. “I should go clean up.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I— no. Thank you for the offer.” Prowl stood, brushing nonexistent dust from his plating as he walked to the door. “And thank you for your assistance on the bridge, and following me to explain.”
“I only wish I could do more.” He really, really did.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
This time, Jazz was a little nervous as he waited for Prowl to emerge from his room. The chances of Prowl knowing about their date was vanishingly low. Yesterday had been so hectic he hadn’t gone to his room to recharge until late, which meant whatever new reminders and updates he left for himself wouldn’t include anything from the previous ones. Prowl hadn’t known about the date yesterday, so he wouldn’t know about it today. Unless he’d read his previous notes yesterday and kept the mention of it, something he’d had no time or reason to do no matter how much Jazz wanted to believe it could have happened. So yeah. No touchie.
Prowl looked better than he had yesterday as he stepped out though. He’d given himself a touch up and fixed all the tiny chips and dings in his paint. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. You go through all your notes?”
“Yes. I’m relieved that, at least, the power plant is no longer under threat from Decepticon attack.” Prowl sighed and started walking to his office. “I’m worried for our team on Cybertron though.”
“So am I.” Jazz walked with him, leaving behind his disappointment at the confirmation that Prowl had no knowledge of his feelings in favor of figuring out how to tell him again. “Even if we find that Megatron is still here on Earth, they still have to contend with the Seekers.”
“And there’s nothing we can do from here to help.” Prowl’s doors drooped a bit before returning to their normal resting position. He thought for a few moments, then, “Do you have an update on the Ark’s morale for me?”
“As you might imagine, it’s a little low after that battle. No one knows what exactly the mission to Cybertron is for, but the mission itself isn’t a secret and neither is the fact that Soundwave’s attack was a diversion.” In this case, at least, that hit to morale was manifesting as nervous energy rather than depression. “It’s making people a little restless.”
Prowl’s nose wrinkled as he slotted that in with whatever he’d written to himself about the mission and Soundwave’s attack. “Do you think you can arrange something — a game, or something here at the Ark — to bring their spirits back up? I don’t want fights or pranks impacting our battle readiness.”
“You could always authorize an even bigger Valentine’s Day party.”
Prowl’s brow furrowed further. “How big is it currently?”
“Big enough, honestly,” Jazz chuckled. “It hasn’t reached Halloween-party levels yet, but it is set up to be a most-of-the-day event.”
“The Halloween party was certainly… memorable.” Prowl grimaced, then shook his head. “No, I think a… soccer?… game or whatever you feel is appropriate should suffice.”
“Soccer’d be easier than basketball,” Jazz agreed. “Unless Prime wants to play, in which case I’ll probably get overruled.”
Prowl nodded. “Anything else I need to be aware of then, before you get that underway?”
“Mirage will be coming by in a little bit to help you out, but you can call on me too okay?”
“Are we sure I need an assistant?”
Poor Prowl. He wasn’t whining, but he wasn’t far off it. “I’m sure, Ratchet’s sure… you were sure yesterday, though I know that doesn’t mean much now.” While it was possible Prowl could eke out another day or two unaided if nothing went wrong, that wasn’t something they could count on. “Just think of him as a medical device — but maybe don’t say that to his face.”
Prowl quirked a small smile and made no promises. “Thank you,” he said, opening the door to his office. “Please don’t boost everyone’s morale to the point they injure themselves.”
Jazz laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Can I preemptively schedule lunch with you later?”
Prowl tilted his head curiously, intrigued — it hadn’t been Jazz’s habit to go to lunch with Prowl every day before all this started. “Yes. I’ll make a note of it. I’ll see you later then.”
“Great!” Jazz smiled and took his leave. He had a soccer-slash-possibly-basketball game to organize.
The squirrely and antsy Autobots proved to be more than open to a distraction. All Jazz had to do was bounce the oversized soccer ball from storage through the rec room as mechs were finishing up their morning fuels and they basically organized the rest themselves. Jazz played on one team for the first half, then stepped back to play the role of referee. He’d been serious about being careful! Ratchet would kill him if he created more patients for him. It was super fun though, and it definitely gave everyone the opportunity to get some of their nervous energy out.
After two games, the players all tumbled back into the Ark for lunch planning to hold a third game pitting the winners of the first two against each other.
“Ready for a game update?” Jazz asked Prowl when he brought their cubes to his office.
“Yes.” Prowl quietly dismissed Mirage to go have lunch and cleaned up the desk a little while his new assistant left. “Hopefully a successful endeavor?”
“We’re off to a good start! The ‘championship’ match is going to be a lot of fun. And, as promised,” Jazz handed Prowl his cube, “no one got sent to the medbay.”
Prowl nodded in satisfaction, accepting the cube and taking a sip. Most of the Autobots would be surprised at how many of Jazz’s “impromptu” games and other morale activities — even, occasionally, including harmless pranks or “illicit” parties — were actually prompted by Prowl after Jazz told about some aspect of the Ark’s morale. He took a serious interest in their overall wellbeing, and it wasn’t purely about damage control.
“Good. We need to be ready to rescue the Cybertron team when they come back through the space bridge.” Prowl sipped again at his fuel, then put the cube down. “What was so important that you wanted to schedule time to address it today?”
“You. You’re important.” Somehow it got easier without getting easier. Maybe it was just less awkward. It still felt significant each time. “I wanted to ask you out on a date.”
Prowl’s doors flared in surprise. “A date?”
“Yeah.” Jazz smiled. “I’d like to deepen our relationship.”
“I have no objection to attempting that,” Prowl said slowly, “though your timing could be better. I won’t remember this tomorrow. Deepen in what way?”
“From friends to… well. Lovers. Partners.”
“Interfacing?”
“Yeah. Interfacing. Among other things.”
Prowl contemplated his cube of fuel and then took a small sip. “What other things are there?”
“As a noncomprehensive list? Going on dates. Spending time together doing things that aren’t work related. Cuddling.” Because Jazz was really on board with this cuddling thing. “You know. Stuff that’s intimate and romantic.”
Tapping his fingers on his desk, Prowl considered that. “I understand ‘intimate’,” he said, “but the ‘romantic’ things I’ve seen in films and holostories tended toward exceedingly wasteful or obnoxious.”
“There’s more to romance than what’s in movies,” Jazz countered, since he did already know how Prowl felt about excess and nuisance. “It’s about showing how much you care, putting feelings into actions when they’re too big for words.”
Prowl tilted his head in faint confusion. “That doesn’t make sense. I know there are pre-interfacing rituals we should engage in, but… words would be much more efficient.”
“Romance doesn’t need to be efficient.”
Prowl clearly disagreed, but he didn’t vocalize that objection. “Have you given any thought to a venue for our first date?”
Had he ever, and even then he was still working to zero in on a perfect first date. “I was thinking something simple,” Jazz said. “Maybe take some fuel and find a nice place to picnic.”
“A picnic?” Prowl thought about that, then nodded. “Acceptable. Would one of us bring all of the fuel, or should we each bring a separate dish? I will warn that I am not a very proficient cook, but I can usually manage simple gelatinized fuel dishes.”
Jazz hadn’t considered that, but it wasn’t a bad idea. It would give them more variety, more to talk about, and it was — very important with Prowl — a practical approach. “I think it’d be nice if we each brought something to share.”
Prowl nodded. “I believe now is when we would ideally talk about timing. ‘Tonight’ seems traditional, but I’m afraid that we really should wait until after my, uh,” his doors drooped at the reminder. “Until after I’m fixed.”
“Probably,” Jazz agreed sadly. “But I didn’t want to wait to ask, even if there’s not a lot of planning we can do until then.”
“Why not?” Prowl tapped his fingers on the side of his cube. “I would not have known had you waited, and if you happened to tell me you had done so for whatever reason, I promise I would not have been offended. My… condition is very inconvenient.”
“A heck of a lot more inconvenient for you than me, I’d say.” That Prowl would be concerned about it inconveniencing Jazz wanting to go on a date with him when he couldn’t even do his job without help anymore was… “That’s why you shouldn’t have to wait to hear that you’re special.”
“That is… nice of you, but I’m sure you don’t have to ask me on a date to say that.” Prowl tapped the cube again; this time there was a pensive note to the sound. “I’m going to guess this isn’t the first time you’ve asked.” His doorwings waved slowly, up and down — a thinking pattern. “I would suspect you’re using the opportunity to practice getting past my much-rumored awkwardness on the subject of dates before you ask me on the real one.” He nodded. “It’s a good strategy. A little ruthless, but given my past mistakes I cannot fault you for it. We haven’t interfaced yet, have we?”
“Wh— that— Jeez!” Prowl didn’t seem upset, but Jazz still felt like a jerk. “It’s not like I’m plotting to take advantage of you or anything, I promise! I’m not going to ask you to interface with me when you won’t remember it. Besides, it was my awkwardness that made the first attempt such a mess.”
“Oh? That would be… new.”
“Yeah, I, ah, found out that you’ve had trouble with that kind of conversation in the past,” Jazz admitted. “But I definitely confused you, and that’s on me — or at least it’s as much on me as it is on you. I’m trying to do better.”
“So you’re using my condition to practice.” Prowl seemed more smug at having figured out why Jazz had chosen this very inconvenient time to ask him out than offended at being taken advantage of. Even if it was only about… two fifths of the reason. He really did want Prowl to feel special and loved, and it helped Jazz settle emotionally to “catch Prowl up” on where they stood with each other every other day.
Still, just to confirm, “You’re not mad about that?”
“I’m not opposed to dating, or to specifically dating you, and I know exactly how it would have ended if you hadn’t taken this opportunity to refine your offer.” Prowl’s doors lowered a little, and he looked down at his fuel. “I’m the one who has a tendency not to recognize when I’ve been asked on a date, even once I'm actually on the date in question.”
As big a blindspot as he had, Jazz didn’t really blame the mechs who’d backed off after those occasions, though he couldn’t help feeling that they must not have known Prowl very well. If they had, they would have known he was worth talking to about it and trying to understand. “It has felt a little like we’re talking across each other. I wasn’t sure you really wanted to go out with me and weren’t just humoring me at first, until I saw the difference between when I’d asked you and when I hadn’t, and once I did… It looked like it made you happy. I want to make you happy.”
“Oh.” Prowl’s doors lifted a little, slowly. “That’s… a very nice sentiment.” He paused, then tentatively offered, “I prefer it when you’re happy over the alternative as well. Is… that the correct thing to say?”
Jazz smiled and his spark warmed. “Yeah. You could work on your style, but the substance is right.”
Prowl tilted his head. “Style?”
“Yeah — style.” What was a good example? Repeating himself wouldn’t explain anything. “Like, ‘I don’t ever want to imagine my life without you’ instead of just saying ‘I prefer your company over your absence’.”
“That first seems… unnecessarily hyperbolic.” Prowl took a drink of his energon. “Possibly to the point of deception.”
Deception? “Really? The first sounds more disingenuous to you?”
“With the exception of promises or oaths, speaking in absolutes about an unknowable future is always somewhat suspect,” Prowl said thoughtfully. “If you promised never to imagine a life without me, I could at least believe you were speaking about your current intention, but thoughts are extremely changeable things. I could believe the intention, but would not believe it possible going into, again, an unknowable future. The second states a fact, in the present, about a current preference and thus leaves no room for ambiguity.”
“Okay… I think I’m following the logic there, but it completely misses what ‘I don’t ever want to imagine my life without you’ actually means.”
The confused look on Prowl’s face suggested he had no idea it could mean anything else.
“It’s not about intentions at all,” Jazz continued, struggling to put words to something so instinctual to him it was hard to comprehend how Prowl didn’t understand even with him telling him how he heard the words. “When I say something like that it’s not literal or deliberate or calculated — it’s an expression of how I feel. Saying ‘I prefer your company over your absence’ might be true, but it’s so unemotional. That sounds disingenuous to me, because if you can just say that and keep going like it has no bearing on you, how much do you really mean it? It doesn’t tell me how deep your feelings go.”
It didn’t help that Jazz knew, as of right now, his feelings for Prowl weren’t returned. He loved Prowl, and was asking for a chance to express it and see if Prowl could love him back. But it sounded like Prowl wouldn’t say anything “hyperbolic” even if he was in love with him.
“I’m not sure how your version actually conveys any sort of ‘depth’ of feeling,” Prowl said, as if in confirmation.
It would to anyone else. Jazz shook his head, pushing the comparisons away. Prowl wasn’t anyone else; he was Prowl. “It’s not the kind of thing I’d say to anyone but the most important people in my life. People I love.” He looked up at Prowl, wishing he could will him to understand. “It means ‘I love you’.”
“Oh.” Prowl considered that. “I suspect we’re no longer talking about hypothetical statements?”
If Cybertronians could blush… “Not sure when that happened, but no. I’m not. Sorry, if that’s not something you’re comfortable with.”
“As long as it doesn’t impact our working relationship should our courtship not work out, I will be fine with it. And I have heard that ‘falling in love’ is rarely logical or convenient.”
“In my experience it’s not always logical, no.” There were usually reasons or contributing factors, but that didn’t mean it could always be explained. Case in point: communicating with Prowl was turning into a nightmare, but it made Jazz treasure every success. “Convenient is more up to the mechs in question though, and while I might need an adjustment period if things don’t work out, I don’t think it will permanently impact our working relationship.”
“Good.” Prowl paused, then finished off the last of his fuel. “I still don’t see how a hyperbolic statement is supposed to convey the sentiment of love. You could just say that, and forgo any potential misunderstanding or making promises that are impossible to keep.”
Jazz opened his mouth to respond, though he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make more than a frustrated squeak. He wasn’t given the chance though, because a knock on Prowl’s door was quickly followed by Mirage opening the door partway to look in. “Should I… continue to make myself scarce?”
Yes.
“No. Come in, Mirage.” Prowl gave Jazz an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I need to return to work.”
“Of course.” Work trumped personal conversations. This one was very much Not Over for Jazz, but maybe he would benefit from a break. “Thanks for having lunch with me.”
“I did enjoy it,” Prowl said, handing Jazz his now-empty cube. “We should do it again in the future, if I’m not too busy for the break.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Jazz grinned, then, with a nod to Mirage, stepped out of the office.
Had that been Prowl-ese for “I can’t wait until we can do this again”? What he’d said just sounded so matter of fact and uninvested! But he’d also just said that he meant what he said, so if Jazz ignored any and all subtext as unintended and went purely on the words, then… yeah. Prowl liked having lunch with him and he wanted to do it again.
That was good because Jazz wanted to do it again too. It had felt a little like Prowl had tolerated Jazz having lunch with him for most of the last week, but now he finally had confirmation that Prowl actually enjoyed it. That alone made Jazz’s spark flutter.
He allowed himself to enjoy that feeling for a little bit, focusing on it the rest of the way back to his office instead of how confusing the rest of their conversation had been. Prowl didn’t like romantic language. Prowl… didn’t even seem to understand romantic language! How was that even possible?!
Jazz shook his head as he closed his door and flopped down in his chair. It didn’t make any sense, but it did explain some things, and he’d be better off figuring out how to work with it than why it was a thing in the first place. Actually… Prowl didn’t tolerate interruptions to his work even for heavy emotional topics, didn’t recognize when he was being asked out if the mech was too subtle about it, thought that romantic tropes from movies and such were wasteful and obnoxious, didn’t get romantic language unless it was spelled out explicitly, and even then didn’t see the point of it… It was almost like Prowl just plain didn’t understand romance at all. Jazz had never heard of such a thing before, but the pieces fit.
Part of him was sad. Prowl was missing out on so much fun! And Jazz was going to miss not being able to flirt and spoil Prowl the way he’d imagined he would. He hoped that once Prowl was able to remember things and they could start having ongoing conversations about it, he would be able to start recognizing what Jazz meant when he said or did certain things. Jazz could curb some of it in deference to Prowl’s dislike of wasteful gestures, but there had to be a compromise somewhere — he couldn’t completely change the way he talked, let alone how he thought and felt. But, presumably, neither could Prowl.
And Jazz meant what he’d said to Prowl a few days ago: he was an unconventional conversationalist, not a bad one.
Just the reminder to himself made Jazz feel more cheerful about having those difficult and maybe-frustrating conversations about “style” in the future. He didn’t actually want to change how Prowl talked. He just also didn’t want Prowl accusing him of being a liar if he said something “hyperbolic”.
Until they actually had that conversation though, he also didn’t want Prowl thinking he was lying — or worse trying to mock him — about his feelings. Jazz pulled a sheet of flimsy from his desk to see if he could figure out some expressions of “clear, unambiguous statements in the present tense” that still sounded sufficiently romantic.
He was rather proud of what he’d come up with and was looking forward to getting a chance to try them out when he had to go and oversee the soccer “finals”.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Prowl returned, tilting his head as if confused by Jazz’s presence in the hallway. What was up with that? Sure, Jazz didn’t usually accost Prowl first thing in the morning for a briefing — not in Prowl’s memory at least — but Prowl hadn’t been this confused any of the other mornings he’d been here to meet him. “I’m surprised to see you,” Prowl explained before Jazz could ask. “Yesterday I wrote that we had scheduled a lunch together, not a… breakfast?”
Ah. “Yeah, we’re doing lunch — as long as something doesn’t come up.” And it had better not. “But I’ve been giving you morale updates in the mornings and checking if you need anything. Less important now with Mirage helping out too, but you know.”
“I will make sure that lunch stays clear then.” Prowl nodded. “There was a… basketball game yesterday?”
“It wound up being soccer,” but that wasn’t a bad guess. Prime had a well-known fixation. “The impromptu tournament really helped with all the excess energy people were building up.”
“From an attack by Soundwave,” Prowl said slowly. “We lost the power plant?”
“No, we managed to drive them off. Our coordination was a little rough though, and in the end it turned out to be a diversion. Mechs were frustrated.”
“Right. Of course.” Prowl took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It sounded like the details of the last several days were finally becoming unmanageable, even before anything new came along to add to them. It still didn’t feel like a victory, but it was a good thing Prowl was already working with Mirage. “Something about the spacebridge? Has Megatron been spotted?”
“Not to my knowledge. Mirage’ll have an update on that, I imagine.” Jazz reached out for Prowl’s hand. “I love you and I would make this easier for you if it was within my power.”
Prowl blinked in surprise, pausing, but just about the time Jazz’s spark started to sink and he thought that maybe Prowl hadn’t actually included the date in his note to himself about lunch after all, Prowl curled his fingers around Jazz’s hand, gripping it lightly. “Thank you. That’s… I wasn’t expecting it, but I appreciate it.”
Jazz could have floated the rest of the way to Prowl’s office. Prowl was holding his hand.
Mirage was already there and he noticed the hand-holding too, but Mirage was generally discreet and if he wasn’t he could be threatened into silence, unlike Cliffjumper.
“I’ll see you for lunch then,” Prowl said evenly, releasing Jazz’s hand so he could step inside his office.
“See you then.” Jazz waited until he was alone in the hallway to turn around. He knew it was in his head, but he still felt like his fingers were tingling. Giddy at how well it had worked, Jazz pulled out his flimsy to see what else he could say to tell Prowl just how much he loved him.
After a morning of pointless — okay, actually pretty important, but he had Priorities here! — distractions, Jazz swung by the commissary for a pair of cubes and returned to Prowl’s office.
“Going to run for Valentine’s Day co-Primes?” Mirage murmured to Jazz when he answered the door.
“Who, me?”
“Yes, you. Stage hog.” Mirage bumped him playfully as he let himself out of Prowl’s office to leave them alone.
“Pfft. I don’t go out of my way to be the center of attention,” Jazz joked, “I can’t help being popular.”
Mirage just waved and walked away.
Valentine’s Day Co-Primes? What strange twists of imagination had happened in the Autobots’ collective processors now?
“Jazz?”
Jazz turned the second he heard Prowl call him and smiled. “Hey! You ready for a break?”
“My current tasks are not too urgent,” Prowl told him, placing the final datapad in a pile that was out of the way and clearing his desk. Scheduling Prowl’s breaks worked so much better than needling him, didn’t it? Not that it would work if Prowl thought his tasks were urgent, but it was a vast improvement over Jazz’s initial approach.
“It makes me happy when you make time for me,” he said as he took his spot across the desk from Prowl.
“I can’t promise I will always be able to do so,” Prowl said, accepting his cube as Jazz handed it to him, “but I prefer seeing you happy over the alternative.”
“Knowing that means a lot, even when you’re not able to manage it.” The fact that Prowl had said almost the exact same thing the day before made his words sound even less spontaneous, but at the same time it proved he really felt that way despite only having a few sparse notes about their previous conversation.
Prowl took a sip of energon then put down the cube to reach into his subspace. “I looked these up last night. Apparently they’re for you?” He laid three flimsies down on the desk between them.
“Hmm? Oh!” They were recipes. Simple ones, all for basic gelatinized fuel. “For the picnic.”
“…Yes. I believe so.”
“We thought we might do like a human potluck and each bring something,” Jazz filled in the details for him. “You warned me you weren’t the best cook, but I’ll appreciate the effort even if it isn’t fancy.” He wanted to say he’d be happy no matter what Prowl showed up with, but since it was theoretically possible for Prowl to show up with congealed, inedible slag, that would be unnecessarily hyperbolic.
“I will do my best then. I want this to go well.” Prowl nodded to the three recipes. “Do you have a preference?”
They weren’t exactly the same, but they were very similar. Jazz weighed his options and pointed. “That one,” with the iron filings.
Prowl took the recipe in question and immediately wrote Picnic - Date - Jazz’s choice across the top before subspacing all three of the recipes again. “Thank you.”
Jazz smiled. “I’m looking forward to our date. It’s one of the most anticipated upcoming events on my calendar right now.”
And awkward as that sounded to Jazz, Prowl looked flattered. His doors actually fanned out before lowering shyly. He leaned forward and offered his hand across his desk. “I want to schedule it officially, but this isn’t a good time. I’ll try to remember all of the proper rituals for a date,” he promised. “I think I would enjoy sharing intimacy with you.”
“Yeah?” Jazz closed the distance between them and took the offered hand. His fingers were tingling again. “Emotional intimacy or physical?” He had a guess which Prowl meant, but it was important to ask, “Because I’d love both.”
“I believe I would as well,” Prowl said, surprising him.
Jazz didn’t answer so much as make a happy, affirmative sound.
“You’re already a very dear, valuable friend,” Prowl went on, stroking Jazz’s hand in his with his thumb, “and I suspect you’ve been helping me much more right now than I’ve been able to record each day, for which I am deeply thankful. I can’t imagine it’s been easy for either of us, or that you have not already seen me at some of my lows.”
“I’ve seen it be pretty hard on you, yeah.” Those moments sucked, big time. “It contributed to me wanting to tell you how I feel and ask you out over and over, even though you wouldn’t remember.”
“How did you still think I would be opposed to emotional intimacy then?”
“I’m not— not sure isn’t right, but I’m— this will sound bad and I know it’s not how you really feel but I don’t have a better way to say it,” Jazz fumbled his way through trying to put words together in a coherent sentence. “You didn’t like the things I suggested or said when I was trying to be romantic, so I thought it wasn’t something you wanted.”
Prowl wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know how to resolve that.”
“I don’t either, but thanks to asking you out a bunch of times I at least know where to start,” Jazz chuckled. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation without those practice runs, and now you’re saying ‘hey actually emotional intimacy would be great, looks like we’ve been saying the same things and just completely misunderstanding each other this whole time’. That’s fantastic.”
Prowl titled his head, then looked down at their hands to hide a small smile.
“So…” They still couldn’t plan an actual date, but Jazz felt so happy. “Yeah.”
“I hope you continue to be patient with me,” Prowl murmured softly.
“I will. You’re worth it.”
Prowl’s doors fanned out slowly, pleased. Pleased because Jazz had promised to put effort and understanding when dealing with Prowl’s blind spots instead of just assuming things had stalled and he was getting the cold shoulder.
“Backtracking and explaining has been helpful, once I know I need to. You keep telling me when I need to, and I’ll work on being more straightforward in the first place. Unless I can’t help myself and just have to be an utter romantic sap for a bit. Maybe I can preface those with a signal for you!”
Prowl furrowed his brow, thinking. “A signal… like how the genre of the movie tells me whether I’m supposed to take the wasteful, disrespectful, and sometimes illegal actions of the characters seriously or not?”
“Ooh, yeah!” Jazz lit up at that idea. “Then you’ll know to think in terms of tropes instead of getting confused or annoyed that I’m not making any sense.” Other mechs didn’t need to be explicitly told when people around them were leaning on romantic tropes, but for whatever reason, Prowl didn’t pick up on that context on his own. Giving him that piece of the puzzle was totally something Jazz could do.
“Regardless of ‘context’ I hope you wouldn’t engage in some of the behavior script writers seem to think is acceptable. Regardless of intent, some of it is wasteful, disrespectful, and illegal.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to fill an oil pool with molten gold so we can gild each other or bombard you with messages every hour of the day,” Jazz said, throwing out the first scenes he could think of that Prowl might take offense to. Judging by the expression of disgust that flitted across his features, he was right. “And I’m certainly not going to kill your enemies and leave their frames on your doorstep as a symbol of my love for you.”
“Please don’t.” Prowl drew back, recoiling from the suggestions, though he didn’t let go of Jazz’s hand. “Those aren’t things… people actually did, are they?”
“The thing with the gold? Probably not, though who knows for sure what the Towers used to get up to.” It was the sort of thing they might have done, which was why it had worked so well in the film. “The nonstop messages though, some mechs really did that. I get wanting to share things, but that level of constant contact would drive me nuts.”
Prowl’s doors relaxed and he took a moment to consciously release tension from his frame. “I don’t see the appeal.”
“You don’t have to. Honestly, the only one of those three I might have ever considered is that last, but…” Jazz looked away, head bowing with the weight of his thoughts. “Looking back, that was probably because I never would have actually killed someone. Driven to commit the ultimate transgression for love… I won’t lie: it sounds romantic, as long as it's theoretical. The war… ” Jazz had been forced to kill so much, for so many different reasons, including mere proximity. The idea of killing was too cheap now, and it made the idea of killing for love feel cheap too. Cheap and almost sickening. Instead, other things felt infinitely more precious. Picnics, though monetarily and morally simple, demanded resources and leisure time the war had taken from them, made them into something as excessive as killing had been before, and thus much more romantic. “The war changed things,” Jazz summed up.
Prowl put his other hand on top of the one of Jazz’s he was still holding. “I wouldn’t want a corpse as a gift anyway.”
“Thank Primus.” Jazz couldn’t help a small chuckle. “If you did, it would mean you wanted it for something.”
“Corpses have a number of uses,” Prowl agreed. “The moral consequences are rarely worth it.”
“Yeah. So, none of that either. I think most of it will wind up being unnecessarily hyperbolic language lacking any literal intent.”
Prowl wrinkled his nose.
There was a knock on the office door.
“Aww. Is lunch over already?”
Prowl checked the time, then nodded, withdrawing his hands. “Apparently so.”
“Alas.” Jazz stood reluctantly. “I won’t keep you then.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Prowl asked hopefully before Jazz could open the door.
“Absolutely.” And anything Prowl didn’t remember, Jazz would tell him again. He opened the door, ready to hand the office over to Mirage, only to find Prime standing there patiently, smiling at him. “Oh.”
“Come in, Prime,” Prowl offered, standing, and Optimus edged around Jazz like the giant walking truck he was.
“Hey there, OP.” Jazz ducked out of the way when he was able, stopping just short of the door. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. I just need to talk to Prowl.” With visible relief to get his head away from the ceiling, Optimus lowered himself into Prowl’s visitor chair.
“Play nice,” Jazz joked, then slipped away, processor quickly switching gears to the Valentine’s Day party. He needed someone to explain this co-Prime thing to him!
He found Bluestreak and Sideswipe talking while they hung paper hearts and bundles of curled ribbon from the spots where the streamers were anchored to the walls in the rec room. “Hey! Need an extra set of hands over there?”
“Oh, hi Jazz!” Bluestreak chirped before Sideswipe could do more than turn. “Sure! We need more curly ribbons. If you can just wait until we’re done hanging these, I’ll show you how to make them.”
“You got it.” He had a pretty good idea how to make them already, but it didn’t hurt to let Bluestreak show him how he was doing it. “I can’t believe it’s almost here at last!”
“It’s going to be so much fun.”
“More fun,” Sideswipe interjected with amusement, “if more bots take the opportunity to pair up, at least for the day. Rumor has it that you’re chasing someone’s tires.” He leered.
“Who’s spreading rumors about me now?” The usual suspects, probably; if anything, Jazz was surprised it had taken this long for someone to bring it up to him. “And what if I am?”
“Smokescreen was talking about you ‘driving repeatedly into a wall’ with Trailbreaker and Inferno and Cliffjumper said that Prowl looked into it when he caught you two in the bathing cave,” Bluestreak rattled off obligingly.
“Which means we’re going to have an actual couple come to the party, right?” Sideswipe winked and tested the ribbon-and-heart decoration and proclaimed it, “Done.”
“Come on,” Bluestreak grabbed Jazz’s hand and yanked him over to the table with the ribbons. Sideswipe followed at a more sedate pace and grabbed one of the finished ones that were waiting there.
Jazz went ahead and let them see how happy he was about things with Prowl. “Yeah, okay, you got me: I asked him out.” He picked up a spool and began unwinding a length to curl. “He said he was amenable to the idea.”
Bluestreak made a squeak that only dogs, bats, and mechs with exceptionally wide frequency pickups on their audial horns could hear. “That’s so cool. Are you two coming to the party together?”
“Heh. Have you seen his schedule lately? I’m waiting for a break in it to sneak in our first date, but,” Jazz shrugged, not about to go into what he — and Prowl — were both really waiting on. “Something tells me he’s not about to make the party.”
Bluestreak pouted a little. “Here, you tie all the ribbons together at the center and then,” he took a dulled blade that had been left on the table and scraped it along one side of the ribbon, removing a tiny bit of the material and making the whole length curl up into a loose spring. “Like that. You should see if you can get Prowl to come anyway! It’ll be so much more fun to have an actual couple be the co-Primes.”
“What is that, this co-Primes thing?”
“Sideswipe and Sunstreaker came up with it!” Bluestreak giggled. “We talked a lot while hiding at the power plant. Since we didn’t have a romantic couple to celebrate, they suggested that we vote on an honorary couple, like the Prom king and queen.”
“Ohhh, okay!” That was a heck of a lot better than harassing Inferno and Red Alert into making a public spectacle of themselves. “Great idea, Sides!”
“I have them occasionally!” Sideswipe called back, making Bluestreak giggle.
“Every once in a while,” Jazz allowed with a cheeky grin. “Kinda defeats the purpose of having the co-Primes not be an actual couple if we were it though.”
“It’d just be cool to have a real romantic couple here for the Valentine’s Day party.” Bluestreak sighed, tying another bundle of ribbons. “Having some real love for us to celebrate would make it feel more like a real holiday, and less like a morale-building party for the army, you know?”
“Aww. Yeah, I get that.” Jazz paused his ribbon-curling to pat Bluestreak’s shoulder. “We’re still celebrating love though, even if it’s not romantic love right there in the room with us. Heck, even if Prowl could make it, we wouldn’t be very romantic.”
“Smokescreen says Prowl’s terrible about feelings,” Bluestreak agreed sadly.
“Remind me to give him a very stern, disapproving look next time I see him.” Jazz shook his head. “Prowl’s not terrible about feelings at all.”
“Really? Because Smokescreen had some stories about people who’d tried dating him back on Cybertron…”
“Yeah. He’s had trouble dating before.” He probably didn’t need to defend Prowl, but Jazz still wanted to. “It’s not because he doesn’t do feelings though. The problem was communication.”
“Oh! Okay.” Bluestreak brightened up. “You said you were trying to wedge a first date into his schedule right? Maybe you should take him stargazing after Prime kicks him out of his office for the night. Venus is supposed to be at its highest point tonight.”
“Really?” That would be… huh. Stargazing would be inexpensive and private and perfect for cuddling. They could even still bring treats; warmed energon would be even better in contrast to the cooler night temperatures.
“Really. Venus is closer to the sun than Earth so it's only visible in the mornings and evenings,” Bluestreak started chattering. “The Morning and Evening Star. So you get a better look at it when it’s to the side of the sun. Supposedly it’s the brightest thing in the sky other than the moon when it's visible. And Venus is the name of some ancient human god of love. How cool is that?”
Awww, that was beyond perfect! Jazz wanted to rush back to Prowl and ask him now, but… “I love it. Thanks for telling me, Blue.” As much as the symbolism appealed to Jazz, Prowl wouldn’t care which stars they were looking at so much as he would care about remembering it, and that was the most important thing.
Blue grinned and preened, waggling his doors proudly. He held up his bundle of now-curled ribbons and attached one of the paper hearts to the back. “I’m going to go hang this.”
“I’ll get some more made up,” Jazz said, pulling another strand of ribbon over the dulled blade. He’d enjoy the thought of watching Venus rise in the sky with Prowl, even if they didn’t get to do it.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
Jazz brought his hand up to wave at Prowl when he emerged the next morning. “Hello.”
“Hello.” Prowl nodded in greeting. “Could I get an explanation for this?” He drew a piece of flimsy from his subspace and handed it to Jazz. It was the recipe for gelled energon with iron filings, with the words Picnic - Date - Jazz’s choice written across the top.
“I can absolutely explain that. Do you have any other notes about talking with me yesterday?”
“I wrote something about communicating better and using a signal before non literal statements, but it wasn’t very clear. It was only a couple of sentences at the bottom of the file.”
“Gotcha. Okay then, context time: I expressed a desire to pursue a deeper relationship with you and, to that end, asked you on a date. We were discussing agreeable activities, though of course we weren’t able to schedule anything.”
“A date?” Prowl frowned thoughtfully. “Given this,” he gestured with the flimsy, “that’s not entirely unexpected, but I still find myself surprised. Are you sure?”
“Sure that’s what happened, or sure I meant it?” Jazz didn’t wait for Prowl to respond. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“Oh. Have we interfaced yet?”
“No. We’re waiting to do more than discuss things until you can remember them.”
Prowl nodded, accepting that. “You’ve been giving me updates on the Ark every morning instead of as-needed?”
“Yup.” He didn’t have anything new to say today, but it would still be news to Prowl. “Valentine’s Day is in two days, so everyone’s getting pumped for the party. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had the idea to combine it with a ritual from another human event where they pick two people to be the center of the party, but so far the lucky mechs haven’t been chosen.”
“That’s… interesting.” Prowl’s nose wrinkled, this time just in thought and it was adorable. Then he sighed. “I suppose it’s good that everyone’s having fun.”
“It’s good to have a distraction too, since more mechs have noticed you’re extra ‘busy’ lately. Then again, they’d still have the distraction of me asking you out even without the holiday.”
Prowl gave him a curious look. “Why is that a distraction?”
“Because it’s new. And,” Jazz shrugged, “because it’s something they can take sides and make bets on. You’ve seen Talk About Love, right? Where the main couple’s friends spend the whole movie going back and forth about whether the couple will actually stay together or not?”
“I saw it once,” Prowl acknowledged. “I can’t say I understood it.”
Yeah, Jazz had been expecting that. It had been very schmoopy. “You don’t have to understand it to recognize it though, and even though that was a fictional story, plenty of mechs do that kind of thing in real life.”
Prowl snorted softly. “It’s very hard to tell with those movies what is a reflection of real life and what isn’t.”
“That’s where the working on communicating comes in — I’m prone to doing and saying some things that you don’t see in the same context I mean them in, and vice versa.”
“Ah. That’s… different.”
Jazz tilted his head. “Good different?”
“I… yes. I know that things are very likely not to actually work out, but I find attempting a deeper relationship is something I’m amenable to. Actually getting far enough to make the attempt is better than the alternative.”
That sounded every bit as dry, technical and unemotional as a user manual. Jazz still smiled. “See, a couple days ago I would have thought that meant you were just going along with it because it’s easier than arguing. But you really do want to, don’t you?”
“I think I would enjoy intimacy with you,” Prowl answered, slowing slightly as they approached his office door. “You somehow managed to communicate your intent for more than having dinner with a coworker. What makes you think I would hesitate to argue if I objected?”
“Uhh…” No specific examples sprang to mind, but, “you’ve stood back and let me just do stuff you thought was dumb before?”
“I recognize that I rarely have the ability to stop you from doing things I believe are dumb, and further realize that there is often benefit I cannot yet see to be gained,” Prowl corrected. “Such things have never involved myself, unwilling participants, or outright breaking laws however. Becoming so pushy for a ‘date’ that the person asked feels they cannot say no is harassment, and punishable.”
Jazz didn’t doubt for a second that Prowl would take action in that scenario. “Guess it sounds kind of dumb when you put it like that. Logically, it makes perfect sense. Only thing is, when the logic comes second to emotion and I read a different emotion than you meant, I wind up down a sidetrack.” He shrugged. “See? Communication. It’s important.”
Prowl hummed in agreement. “I need to begin work.”
“Right. Mind if I come by for a lunch break later?”
Prowl thought about that, then nodded. “Assuming no urgent tasks present themselves, that would be fine.”
“Works for me.” With another smile and a parting wave, Jazz left Prowl at his office and headed down the hall in search of Sideswipe. He needed the latest on the co-Primes race.
“It’s not a race,” Sideswipe scolded when he asked. “We’re Autobots. In the absence of the Matrix we’re voting.” He gestured to the frilly pink-and-red, ribbon-covered ballot box that currently took center stage in the room.
“You’ll still have to call the race once the votes are in,” Jazz pointed out. “Are there nominations to choose from or is it just pick a name, any name?”
“Because Inferno is a party pooper, we have a limited list of candidates. We don’t have time to do full nominations, so we just included everyone who isn’t a known introvert who hates parties. Here’s a ballot.” Sideswipe shoved a piece of flimsie into Jazz’s hands. “You’re only allowed to fill out one. No stuffing the box.”
“Scout’s honor,” Jazz promised. He spotted his own name on the ballot, but after skimming down the entire list didn’t see Prowl’s. Good. “Rank your top three choices?”
“Yup. With three being your top choice. We’ll close the ballot box tomorrow night, count who has the most points, and crown our honorary couple during the party.” Sideswipe practically bounced.
“Nice!” Jazz approved of the selection process; it would ensure they had runners up ready if one of the “winners” didn’t make the party, and it would keep anyone who wouldn’t appreciate the honor from being dragged into it if they turned up unexpectedly. Now he just had to decide who he was going to vote for!
Normally, he’d be at the top of his own list. Being crowned “king”, hanging with his “co-king”, and generally being the center of attention for a party sounded like great fun, but… even though the “honorary couple” wasn’t going to be a romantic one for real, the romantic overtones of the holiday made him hesitate. Maybe if he wasn’t persuing Prowl, but he didn’t want Prowl getting any wrong ideas!
Well. Any wrong ideas would probably go right over his head, actually, but Jazz would feel awkward about it.
That in mind, Jazz cast his votes for Bluestreak, Skyfire and Eject. He sauntered back into the rec room to put the ballot into the frilly pink ballot box, waved to Sideswipe and Sunstreaker (who did not look happy about being yanked in as a party decorator), and went to go get some actual work done so he wouldn’t have any urgent tasks of his own pop up during lunch.
It wasn’t like eating lunch with Prowl was more important than the Autobots. He just didn’t want anything interfering. And if he stayed on top of his tasks, then things shouldn’t take that long. It was like he’d said to Prowl the first time: the war wasn’t all-encompassing now. Prowl was busy, sure, and busier than normal right now, definitely, but overall they could do things like eat lunch together every day, instead of rushing from crisis to crisis, managing a war that encompassed the entire planet.
And so, naturally, the war chose that morning to intrude itself anyway.
“Activity at the spacebridge!” came the announcement over the command channel.
Frag. Jazz started towards the bridge until a follow up ping came with his orders: he was deploying to the spacebridge as the on-site commander. He diverted to the Ark’s entrance to join up with Skyfire and the others. Whatever was going on, they were going to take care of it.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
“He’s taking care of him,” Jazz reminded himself for at least the sixth time since being kicked out of the medbay for being a nuisance. Not that he was really being a nuisance! Ratchet had everything well in hand, now that Wheeljack and the others were back from Cybertron. Everyone who’d been damaged in the battle to bring them home had been repaired, and now the only one left in surgery was Prowl — and Jazz was stuck trying to find a way to keep from going crazy.
He turned on his radio, flipped through a few channels looking for something that would settle his mood, then turned it off in frustration. He picked up a bookfile, opened it, and ended up staring at a page while he paced.
He checked his email. Nothing new there, but… Smokescreen’s message from a few days ago, with the recipes for recreation warmed energon was still there. Jazz had opened it when he got it, glanced at it, then put off doing too much with it until he and Prowl actually could pick a date for their date. Which should, barring anything going wrong, be any day now.
A practice run was probably a good idea, and it was something he could do to occupy himself.
He needed… wow, a lot of different things. It looked like the base flavors were copper and quartz, but there was a whole list of other ingredients. And of course solar energon, which the Autobots didn’t have a lot of yet since they relied on geothermal energy to run the Ark. Maybe for his first attempt he should just use the geothermal, so he didn’t waste more limited resources.
“Hey, what are you making?”
Jazz smiled, happy to have Bumblebee’s cheerful voice back on the Ark. “I’m testing out a recipe,” he said, balancing ingredients in his arms.
“Ooh. Sounds like fun.” Bee rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Is it for the party tomorrow? Want help?”
“I would love help,” Jazz said immediately. “Though no, it’s not for the party. I’m working on a personal project.”
“This isn’t like the sticky grenades again is it?” Despite the skepticism, Bumblebee fell into step next to Jazz.
“No,” Jazz grumbled, “this isn’t like the sticky grenades.”
“Cool.”
“Just can’t let that go, huh?”
Bumblebee just gave him a cheerful look. “So what are we doing?”
“Warmed energon — it’s an old festival recipe from Praxus.”
“Oh!” Bumblebee took a couple of things from Jazz so that he could more easily key open his room. Usually he’d do this in the rec room, but right now it was a frenzy of last minute decorating. “Is this about that thing I heard about you and Prowl earlier?”
“You heard about that already?” He probably shouldn’t be surprised, but seriously. They hadn’t even been back a full twenty four hours!
“Well Bluestreak and Cliffjumper were saying—”
“Ugh.” It would be them. “Whatever they said, I’m sure they got at least half of it wrong.”
“Meaning, there is something with Prowl.”
“Ugh.” Jazz dumped his armful of ingredients down on the counter, making sure none of them burst open, then pulled the hot plate, the flash-freezer, and the burr grinder out of the pile to go plug them in. Bumblebee put his things down more carefully, radiating an aura of expectation. “Fine. Yes. There’s something with Prowl.”
Bumblebee grinned. “Good for you.”
“You are a little wretch,” Jazz grumbled, trying to find the right setting on the flash freezer for the first step in his recipe. “I hope you get stepped on by a combiner.”
“Aw. I love you too.” Bumblebee took a moment to line up the ingredients so their labels were visible and they weren’t in danger of falling off the table. “I’m just glad we didn’t get stepped on this last mission.”
Honestly, Jazz was pretty happy about that too. “Anything happen I should know about?” he asked, even though the Cybertron team had already been debriefed by Prowl and Prime; Jazz hadn’t been able to settle enough to read over the specifics yet.
“We’ve got some updated terrain maps for Delta sector, though they’re incomplete. Turns out parts of it collapsed, but we didn’t get a chance to see which paths were still viable.”
“Any updates are good updates.” Jazz looked over Smokescreen’s recipe one last time, then started measuring out the amounts he’d need. Just like cooking anything else, from oilcakes to fireworks: measure first, then start mixing. “Could you grind up the quartz and amethyst for me? The measurements I have are for pre-ground powder.”
“Sure. Separately, I’m assuming?” Bumblebee chuckled as he began with the quartz. “Starscream’s aim still hasn’t improved.”
Jazz laughed. “That’s a good thing though.” Finishing up by measuring out a three heaping spoonful of the copper powder into two dishes, he turned his attention to the ingredients that needed to be heat-oxidized — the copper and some of the zinc — before worrying about any of the things that needed to be flash frozen before they were added to the energon.
“A very good thing,” Bumblebee agreed. “He was surprised to see Wheeljack too. I think he made him nervous.”
“Yeah, well, the mech is prone to explosions.”
Bumblebee giggled. “Yup. Some of them are even deliberate.”
As long as no more of them happened around Prowl… Jazz shook the thought away. He doubted Prowl would appreciate it. And he needed to concentrate on the flash freezer or he’d give the plastics freezer burn.
Ack! Or fingers. No freezer burn for his fingers, please and thank you.
Bumblebee dumped the quartz from the burr grinder and measured it out, then loaded up the amethyst pieces. “So what is the deal with you and Prowl?” he pressed when he paused the grinder to shake the contents and redistribute the chunks. “Wasn’t he having memory problems while we were gone? Thought that was the entire point of the mission.”
“It was.” And the mission had been successful. They had the part. Prowl was going to be fine. “Not like that stopped him from doing his job or kept us from talking.”
“Is that a hint of defensiveness I hear?”
“No. Maybe.” Jazz sighed. “It was hard on him.”
“I can imagine.” Bumblebee shuddered, no doubt imagining right then what it would be like for his own memory to go on the fritz like that. He finished grinding the amethyst and measured out the amount of powder Jazz needed. “Alright. What’s next?”
“Uhh…” Jazz checked the recipe. “These two need to be mixed with a mild acid,” he summarized, pulling the next ingredients together.
“Powdered citric acid coming up! Want me to reconstitute it with water or…” Bumblebee eyed the rest of the ingredients.
“Yeah, it looks like it’s supposed to sit in the acid for fifteen minutes before being added to the rest.” So many steps! Standard rations weren’t the pinnacle of cuisine, sure, but they were so much more straightforward.”No wonder this stuff was only brought out for special occasions.” Jazz started to slowly heat up the energon so that it’d be the right temperature when it was time to start adding things.
Bumblebee read the instructions on the citric acid, then mixed a few spoonfuls into the water until it all dissolved, then added the quartz. “I only went to Praxus once before the war. A lot of their stuff was really thick, almost syrupy with additives. Nothing was served plain.”
“Yeah?” If he’d ever known that, he’d forgotten it. “I won’t panic if this starts to congeal a bit,” Jazz chuckled. “I hope he likes it.”
“So is this a get well soon gift?” Bumblebee mixed another cup of citric acid to start soaking the amethyst in.
It could have been, but, “No. Once he’s better, we’re going out.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Prowl just doesn’t seem like the type.” Bumblebee stirred both of the acid mixtures a little impatiently then set them down to continue soaking. “Everyone knows he doesn’t like social events, and he seems, I don’t know, a bit prudish.”
Prudish. The mech who’d bluntly brought up interfacing and expressed straightforward interest in it multiple times. Right. “That’s why I’m asking him to watch the stars with me. Just us, the stars, and a nice treat.”
“Sounds fun.” Bumblebee didn’t say anything else about Prowl, or his supposed lack of emotional range. Jazz was grateful.
“…this whole thing had the worst timing,” he said after a moment of quiet. “He forgot I asked him out.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeeeah. We made the best of it by the end, but it made things a little awkward more than once.”
“Ouch,” Bumblebee winced again. “So he doesn’t technically know yet?”
“Probably not,” Jazz admitted. “Sometimes he included it in his notes, but even if he did this time,” and when would he have had the time between the aftermath of the battle and Ratchet pulling him into the operating theater, “reading that something happened isn’t the same.”
“Well I hope things go okay.” Bumblebee strained out the powdered crystals from the acid and set them aside for Jazz to add into the energon mixture when he was ready for them.
Now that the energon was hot all the way through, Jazz started adding the ingredients one by one, waiting for it to cool to the proper temperatures before adding the next one. It would take a while, but it kept him out of Ratchet’s way. Curious about how far this was supposed to cool, since it was supposed to be a warmed energon recipe, Jazz scrolled down to the bottom and found he could let it cool completely, then heat it up again right before serving. Nifty.
They didn’t let it cool completely this time though. Both Jazz and Bumblebee were too curious to taste it by the time they finally had a finished brew. It was indeed thicker than Jazz had initially expected, and it was quite pretty to look at. Definitely looked like something he’d buy at a festival!
“Bottoms up.” Bumblebee raised his tiny tasting glass in a toast before drinking it. He didn’t throw it back like a shot of highgrade, but took a cautious sip of the warm mixture. “Interesting.”
“Hmm.” Jazz sipped slowly as well, then, pleased that it wasn’t immediately disgusting, sipped again. It was odd, but it wasn’t bad. “That’s… huh. It grows on you, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not sure I’d want it to grow on me, personally.” Bumblebee finished off his tiny glass. “But I wouldn’t call it bad.”
“I wonder how much of a difference using solar makes. That’s what it’s meant to be.”
“Since I’ve never had this mix before, I really couldn’t say.” Bumblebee considered, then reached out and tapped the container with the rest of the mix in it, sending glittering ripples across the surface. “Solar’s usually lighter in color, right? Even if the flavor isn’t much different, I imagine it makes the final result sparklier.”
Jazz smiled. “Can’t go wrong with more sparkly.”
“Right!”
Well then. One trial run successful. Now all he needed was Prowl.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
Ratchet called to let Jazz know when Prowl’s memory circuits had been replaced, but told him that if he showed his face in medbay before Prowl woke up the next morning, he would sedate Jazz so hard he wouldn’t wake up for a week.
Hell hath no fury like a protective medic. Jazz cursed Ratchet to the Pit and back and waited.
Dawn on Valentine’s Day saw Jazz waiting patiently (patiently! Really!) in the main medbay for Prowl to wake up. Mindful that pacing would get him kicked out and then he wouldn’t be able to see Prowl until after Ratchet was done with him, Jazz kept himself still, quiet and unobtrusive in a corner. It wouldn’t be long. Ratchet wouldn’t turn off a mech’s internal alarms unless the mech really needed to rest. Prowl was fixed. He had recharged all night. He was due to be discharged this morning, his normal alarm should be going off any minute!
Primus, it was easier to wait out days on a mission than it was to—
Prowl moved!
“Stop twitching,” Ratchet grumbled as he passed Jazz’s “hiding” spot to go check on Prowl.
That wasn’t fair. Prowl was the one who had moved! Jazz was perfectly still.
Prowl moved again, stirring and then stretching as though he was in his own bed in his own quarters, then rolled over to stretch his doowings out behind him as far as they would go and then out to the sides. Then he pushed himself to his knees. The blanket Ratchet had tucked around him last night finished falling off of his frame and he finally turned on his optics. Jazz saw the moment he registered the bank of medical screens that lined the wall above the bed, rather than the wall of his own quarters as he seemed to expect.
He looked around, optics falling on Ratchet almost immediately. “What’s happened?” he demanded.
“There were additional complications from the incident in Wheeljack’s lab,” Ratchet opened with. “I’ll explain, but first I need to confirm a few things. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Going to bed,” Prowl said crisply, seating himself on the edge of the medberth so that Ratchet could take his scans and such. “Yesterday Wheeljack arranged for a demonstration for this afternoon, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“It went ahead as planned, actually — right up until it went wrong, and you were caught in the fallout.” Whatever his scanners were telling him, Ratchet seemed satisfied. “You onlined the following morning with no memory of the explosion.”
Prowl opened his mouth, but he reconsidered whatever he’d been about to say and simply nodded. “So I’ve been unconscious?”
“It was a little more complicated than that. We didn’t have the right component to repair the damage immediately, so you kept working while a team went to Cybertron.”
Prowl made a face; it was subtle, but it was there. He was more than capable of figuring out for himself how well that had worked. “So I go to my office, then return here for the night so you can monitor my condition?”
Ratchet shook his head as he set down the last scanner. “No, you were stable enough to sleep in your own quarters, and it was less jarring to you that way. You couldn’t encode long term memory, so each time you recharged you woke up… well, like you are right now.”
“Having lost my memories of the days before. So if I’m in medbay now, either something went wrong or the Cybertron team returned with the parts you needed.”
“Fortunately, the latter. You,” Ratchet pointed at Prowl, “are good to go make some permanent memories again.”
Prowl nodded and stood up from the berth. “Thank you Ratchet.”
Ratchet waved him off. “Thank that one over there,” he said, and Jazz couldn’t help a slight flinch.
Prowl took a few steps toward him. “Jazz?”
At least he didn’t have to hide anymore. “Hi,” Jazz said, coming out to greet Prowl properly. “Mirage and I stepped in to help you on the homefront while Bumblebee and Hound made sure Wheeljack brought back what Ratchet needed.”
“Thank you.” Prowl looked around, saw Ratchet, and started, “I’m—”
“Not going to your office,” the medic finished without even looking up. “The party starts in a few hours. Why don’t you go there?”
Prowl scoffed. Then turned back to Jazz. “Party?”
Jazz shrugged and smiled. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”
“I remember you talking about it.” Prowl straightened and set his doorwings at their normal, neutral angle before leading the way out of the medbay. “I just didn’t realize it was today. I hope all the planning and decorating went smoothly?”
“It did! Everyone’s really looking forward to it.” Jaz had been too! But Prowl was better now. Prowl would remember now. “I have something else I’d like to talk to you about though.”
Prowl turned down the hallway leading towards his quarters. “Hmm?”
“It’s personal in nature,” Jazz prefaced, “and I know you’ve got a lot to catch up on — you wrote up notes every day for yourself, but that’s still a lot of reading. Would you rather do that first?”
Prowl took a moment to think about that. “No. I would prefer to commit fully to my reading without curiosity. So please, continue.”
Woot! “Okay: I would like to explore a more intimate relationship with you, including but not limited to interfacing. To that end, would you accompany me on a date?”
Prowl stopped mid-step, tilting his head as though examining the words carefully. “Repeat?”
Ack. He hadn’t said that since the first time. Jazz held to the confidence that the success of his previous proposals gave him. “I like you and I’d like to try being more than friends. Will you go out with me?”
“Give me a moment to think,” Prowl said, resuming his walk. His pace was not as crisp now, and his doorwings were at a more thoughtful angle.
“Of course.” Jazz matched his steps to Prowl’s, walking quietly at his side.
Prowl stayed quiet until they reached the door to his quarters. He reached out and keyed the door open, but he did not step inside. “You asked while my memory was faulty,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “That is why it is the first topic you wish to discuss now that I’ve been repaired.”
“I mean, I want to talk about it because it’s important to me, but yeah. It’s not the first time I’ve asked. The first time was actually the same day as the explosion.”
“Ah.” Prowl stared into his room. “And what did I say?”
“Pfft. Isn’t that cheating?” But there was no point in not telling him. “You said you were amenable. It’s in your notes to yourself in a couple of places, though we never did set an actual first date or do anything more than discuss things.”
“But you’re not holding me to my previous answers? Of course not,” Prowl answered his own question. “I believe I am still amenable. Would you like to come in for a few minutes to discuss those details?”
Jazz’s spark soared. “I would love to.”
Prowl stepped into his room, leaving the door open for Jazz to follow.
.
☙ ❤ ❧
.
Stargazing, as it turned out, was absolutely the perfect first date with Prowl. He’d hesitated initially when Jazz outlined his plan for that very evening, but only because he knew how much Jazz enjoyed the Ark’s parties. Jazz had assured him that no, he really would rather spend the night with Prowl, and he hadn’t regretted a single minute of it.
“The humans named the planet Venus after a goddess of love,” he said, pointing up at the bright point in the evening sky. He reached for one of Prowl’s iron-flecked gelled energon squares with his other hand. “I like the symbolism of seeing it together like this.”
Prowl took an appreciative sip of Jazz’s warmed energon recreation. “It’s just a planet,” he countered as he looked up. “And it’s one of the more visible and predictable objects in the sky. It doesn’t ‘symbolize’ anything.”
But he snuggled in closer, pressing their frames together under the blanket, and Jazz couldn’t be happier.
.
.
.
☙ end ❧