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Prowl huffs another vent, watching the cloud of exhaust and steam leave his intake with narrowed optics. His HUD blares warnings across his vision, all screaming of an imminent shutdown if he does not stop moving right this moment. He dismisses them, servos clenching against the frozen ground in frustration. He slams his fists against it once, twice, before sucking in biting air and continuing on.
He claws at the ground, digging as far as he can into the dirt with damaged servos to try and find some leverage to pull himself forwards. His legs push uselessly behind him, finding hardly any purchase against the ice. It’s only when he manages to drag his knees up enough to push off of them does he actually make any progress, but the effort put into a uniform army crawl only makes the warnings pop back up.
Jazz is only a few meters away. The mech's frame is shuddering with the effort to vent, steam rising off of him like the remnants of a spark. But he’s still functioning. Prowl can see the glow of that visor even from where he's crawling; feel the reach of an EM field beckoning him closer across the debris and ice. A single goal, a single mech, and a single thought that takes all of Prowls processes away from him: Jazz. Get to Jazz.
He all but drags himself across the courtyard, huffing and hissing with each movement. His various injuries don’t do him any favors, only making him lose strength in the form of slowly leaking energon. He can feel it leave him, even if the wounds had long since been numbed to a dull ache due to the freezing temperatures. He thinks his nose is broken, knows that his left pede is hanging on by a few wires, yet he doesn’t have the processor power to be upset right now.
He continues on until he can hear Jazz’s vents–until he can see the energon smeared across his partner's frame, dull and stained.
Jazz doesn’t turn to him when Prowl collapses beside him, labored vents rattling obnoxiously between them. He only chuckles, a wet and faint thing, as his servoless arm waves in greeting.
“Ay, you made it!” His visor flickers, cracks branching from the side Prowl can't see. “Welcome to the after party.”
Prowl grunts and pushes himself closer to Jazz. Here, he can feel the heat radiating off of Jazz’s overworked frame, the smell of stale bodily fluids lingering with the sting of blaster residue. Prowl is more than certain that he is in no better shape, but Jazz is still popping and tinging from rapidly cooling metal, as though he had just collapsed opposed to the joors that Prowl had been offline. It isn’t unlikely, the image of Jazz fighting with all he had until the very end sitting neatly in Prowls processor.
With some effort he flops to his back, now laying side by side with the Autobot spy. Jazz extends a servo between them, and Prowl doesn’t have to look at him to take it.
Jazz reaches a question through his field–through the bond, and Prowl can only shake his helm. Beneath him, one doorwing lay ruined, shot through and dislocated while the other lay somewhere in the wreckage of the battle, torn completely off its hinge. He had lost all feeling and input from his back long ago, only sensing the muted burning sensation that spreads from it to the rest of his frame.
“Does it hurt?”
Jazz’s words are slurred, the glyphs fighting through a glitching vocalizer. Prowl shakes his helm. “No.”
It did hurt, initially. It was the worst pain that Prowl had ever felt. To have his doorwings shot and grabbed, even tearing one off in order to escape the prodding wires of a Decepticon. He believes that is what caused him to offline so abruptly. There was simply too much happening; with an active battle surrounding him and trying to fend off a mech attempting to forcefully hack his processor, as well as keeping tabs on Jazz and praying with every gunshot that the mech wasn’t killed. Tearing off his own doorwing had been the tipping point in his processor, his tacnet crashing with the flood of pain and frame offlining from the strain. He can only be grateful that he no longer feels his doorwing, or the hole where one is supposed to be. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, anyways.”
His own voice is scratched and pitched incorrectly, fritzing out at the end of each glyph. He doesn't bother resetting it.
Jazz squeezes his servo. “I'm glad.”
Their bond pulses, and Prowl sighs with it. Warmth, reassurances, and apologies creep from his spark, soothing his aches in feelings.
They had been overwhelmed. It was no one's fault. Not Jazz's, who fought with all he had, and not Prowl's, who couldn't have possibly predicted this. No amount of simulations or organizations or theories would have accounted for what should have been impossible.
Not even Optimus Prime knew the Decepticons had a space bridge. No one did. They had kept it the perfect secret, just waiting for the opportunity to take advantage of the teleportation device and cut down the Autobots one ambush at a time. It was unfortunate that they had caught wind of the Autobots expedition, and even more unfortunate that the ones on that expedition had been revealed. Head of Special Operations Jazz of Polyhex and Lead Tactician Prowl of Praxus were too big of designations to leave intact, the Decepticons quite literally leaping at the opportunity to take both the Autobots down in one metaphorical swing.
As deeply as Prowl despises it, he has to give credit where it's due: Soundwave's operation was nearly flawless. A full-scale ambush organized completely under their radar, with the proper troops and personnel to back it. The Autobots never caught wind that the Decepticons even knew of Prowl's or Jazz's whereabouts, much less thinking they knew the two of them were now on a co-op mission. They didn't account for it– Prowl hardly even considered the possibilities before giving the go ahead on flying out to a highly isolated planet in the far reaches of space.
The risks had been great, he knew –he ran the numbers for cycles on end, pouring himself over pros and cons and just how much of a loss or gain this operation could yield. The loss is insurmountable; Jazz and Prowl are crucial aspects of the Autobot High Command, running their own branches of the Autobot Military with the precision and authority required to keep their faction above Decepticon waters. Without them, there are gaping holes left in the once tight-knit security, ones that can be easily infiltrated and abused.
The gain…nullified now, he supposes. Nugatory given the unfortunate way things panned out.
Prowl scoffs.
“Ya thinkin’ CSAR?” Jazz asks, the closest thing he can get to laughter drifting through the glyphs.
Prowl fights a smile, making his faceplate twitch oddly. “We are currently thousands of light-vorns away from Cybertron with absolutely no way of contacting Iacon or any Autobot camps. The time, combined with our lack of distress signals, leaves our chances of being rescued at a brilliant 1.4%. Our chances of survival, however, are at 1.2%, given how I have been red lining since I came online and you are missing one half of your extremities.” He lets some numbers keep running just for fun after the initial evaluation. “Fun fact: The amount of energon we have collectively lost could power another Cybertronian.”
Jazz heaves an almost dreamy sigh and intertwines their fingers. “Oh, my Prowler, always so delicate with his words.” Then he truly smiles, flashing his energon stained dentae. “You know this is why they got Smokescreen doin’ debriefs now?”
“And he can keep doing them.”
Jazz's amusement pulls over Prowl like a blanket, soft and dangerously comfortable. His own amusement mixes in, and he allows himself a small smile. Jazz's focus shifts, and Prowl's shifts along with it.
Above them, the stars shine fiercely. Thousands of them, swirling and twinkling together like lights in an entertainment district. Prowl tracks them with his only functioning optic, manually shifting his lenses to see them in different perspectives. He traces them into meaningless shapes, seeing in his processor the nonexistent connections and patterns. There's a whole stellar nebula towards the left that he can just barely distinguish, likely the result of a recently collapsed super giant, cycling in the leftover stardust to morph and mold new beings into existence. He's just grateful that the super giant didn't decide to be vengeful and collapse itself to a blackhole.
Jazz's internal fans are caught on something in his chassis. They spin, trying to get some kind of airflow to the frame before catching on something and stalling, grinding in an awful manner before being set free. There must be something loose in Jazz's chassis, or a foreign object lodged into it that disrupts the natural systems. Jazz pays it no heed. After the third grind, the fans click off.
It would be foolish to ask Jazz if he is in any pain. Prowl knows he's not, he would be able to feel it, but he knows that Jazz is not exactly numb, either. Overall, physically, the mech is just uncomfortable. His right servo had been blasted off, his forearm scorched and sparking from torn and burnt wires. His right leg had been forcefully removed as well, the joint at his knee shredded of all its armor and left unusable. But none of it is painful, just–there, now. Varying injuries that neither of them can do anything about, all aching and stinging and overall annoying in their motionless state. Prowl himself shifts the transformation plates along his side, trying to ease the taught feeling of an old stab wound.
“You can't see the stars in Iacon.” Jazz says, bringing his right arm up to gesture towards the sky with the blunt end. “It’s nice.”
There's too much light pollution and gas pollution and war pollution to see the stars in Iacon. The sky isn't always grey, but the nocturnal stars aren't as strong as their day star and can't shine through the dark curtain with their gentle light. It leaves the sky black, a gaping void where beauty once was.
“You can see the stars in Praxus.”
You can. He remembers, eons ago, how they danced above the clean city, bright and proud and wonderful. They're still there. You can still see them. But not through the scope of the observatory, or in the dark sector of the city park. The stars are still there, they are still bright, and they don't know that the city that loved them is now ruined. It's an oddly comforting thought. If he were to return to his city, walk through the rubble and empty frames, the sky would be the same if he just looked up.
Jazz's helm shifts towards the nebula. “As stuck up as Praxus is, your skyline is always nice. Can't say the same for ol’ Polyhex. Too much nightlife.”
“Too many clubs, you mean.”
“The clubs are the stars, Prowler.”
Prowl lifts his free servo to pick at his burst optic before dropping it on his chassis, thumbing at his Autobot insignia. “The clubs are illegal, you mean.”
Jazz lets out an indignant sound, boarding on a whine when his vocalizer pitches. “They're not all illegal! Only the fun ones are.”
Jazz giggles when Prowl lets out a long, exasperated sigh.
Thoughts of Polyhex surround Jazz, swirling with the stars and making them take on the colors of bright neon signs and glowing paint. Prowl follows along, trying to remember Polyhex as it was.
Loud and bright is what comes to mind, constantly booming with music or shimmering with the latest rave lights. It was a garden of creation and culture, blooming under Luna 2 and going ironically dormant during the day. Prowl is fairly certain that nearly every kind of engex had its origin set in Polyhex, as well as many processor jumpers and boosters. Fun is certainly a word that can be used for it. Highly unregulated is what Prowl likes to think.
“You remember Blasters old place?” Jazz asks, visor gradually dimming with the thought of his friend.
Prowl nods his helm, gently sharing his memory of a large and red mech bouncing around a DJ stand, running his servos over turntables and mixers like they were finely tuned instruments. “Get Off Your Aft Studio, was it?”
The memory spikes, fondness and old excitement radiating off of Jazz at the name. “Best slagging joint around! Man, that mech knew how to run a place–never any trouble, just mechs lookin’ for a good vibe.”
A good vibe included illegal engex and music loud enough to blow your audials, but Prowl keeps his intake shut. Jazz is well aware of what happened there, often being the one that indulged in and advertised such substances, but even so Blaster did know how to run a business. If Prowl can recall correctly, Blaster had some cassettes at the time and never allowed for anything to get too rowdy with them there. Even now, just cussing around his youngest is enough to get you a stern talking to and a warning that the next time your rotary belt is getting stuffed down your intake.
Jazz huffs out a laugh, his plating relaxing and frame finally reaching a cold core temperature. He's no longer steaming or rattling, oddly calm now in the face of memories and stars.
“Do you–”
Jazz sounds nearly reverent, his voice barely above a whisper,
“Do you remember that first night?”
It had been late. He was tired, and the club had been booming. His partner dragged him through those neon doors, explaining away his measly excuse to drink and fuel up while on-duty. Prowl didn't buy it.
“Yes, I remember.” Crystalix –that was his shift partner's name. They had a special assignment in Polyhex, only staying for a brief time. “It was towards the end of my 24 joor shift. I just wanted to go home.”
Prowl officially loses all control over the majority of his frame. His arms and legs go completely lax, armor fanning out from his frame with no suspension to hold it. A small, red timer takes up a registration in the corner of his HUD, counting down the breems until a full-frame shutdown. Prowl always thought that the prospect of death would jar him, or at the very least infuriate him. For a species that is supposedly immortal, dying should be some deep-seeded fear within him, swallowing his last moments in anxiety and terror.
He watches that small timer with mild mirth. It ticks away, promising him of sleep and rest; no war, no work to be done, no duty. No Jazz crosses his thoughts briefly, yet the mech is beside him, spark rapidly slowing in time with his own, fields engulfing each other and servos sewn together. He feels no terror; no anxiety.
The bond within him is so warm.
Jazz pulls their servos to his chassis. “Oh, I could tell. Blaster put me on cop sittin’ duty ‘cause your mug was so ugly.”
Crystalix left his side as soon as they walked up to the bar, anyways. Prowl didn’t want anything to drink, the bartender taking one glance at him and swiftly walking away. He knew that enforcers in an establishment such as this put everyone on edge, and a small, bored part of him was just waiting for one of these inebriated mechs to trip up.
“Ugly enough for you to reprimand me?”
He can feel everyone staring at him. His doorwings twitch under the weight of all those optics, buzzing from the too-loud music and the vibrations of mechs stomping and dancing. He turns his back to the dance floor, choosing to stare holes in the various bottles of hardly coded engex while he lit a smoke.
Jazz squawks, waving their servos in exasperation. “I did not reprimand you! I was hitting on you!”
“Y'know you can't smoke in ‘ere.”
Prowl levels the mech with an unimpressed look and a roll of his optics, taking another drag and holding in the smoke. The mech only stares, a wobbly grin on his faceplate and blue visor bright enough to make Prowl squint. He feels the mech's optics rove over him, visor doing nothing to cover his glaring interest in Prowl. He looks the mech straight in that visor as he slowly blows out the smoke from nose.
“You were terrible, then. You could hardly even talk.” Prowl hiccups, energon pooling in his intake as he tries to speak.
Somehow, after meaningless conversation and unrelenting (terrible) pick up lines, the mech convinced Prowl to dance. Or, more accurately, the mech had put his servos on Prowl's arm, despite his warning growl, and dragged the enforcer to stand awkwardly on the edge of the dance floor.
Jazz chuckles, mild embarrassment radiating off him at the memory, even all these vorns later. “I took, like, five shots of some fragged up engex just to get the fuel to talk to ya.”
Prowl quirks an eyebrow ridge. “Is that why you were such a mess?” The energon makes his voice popple and crack.
“Okay, officer.” Jazz relents, “Maybe it was a bit more than engex. I don't really know what all Blaster had goin’ on in there.”
The energon pours from the sides of Prowl's intake until he turns his helm away from Jazz to spit it all out. It tastes terrible, but he doesn't mind much. He lets his helm rest there, venting through his intake for a klik before turning back to the sky.
It's obvious that the mech is nearly delirious on engex, giggling and holding Prowls forearms as he shimmies , fruitlessly attempting to get Prowl to join him. Prowls pedes stay firmly planted, trying his best to look bored in hopes the mech will lose interest and move on to something more exciting. He doesn't even look at the obvious Polyhexian, instead studying and logging the club around him for the sake of his fritzing tacnet.
He notices a red mech glaring at him from the raised music booth at the other end of the floor. Prowl offers a fake smile, but the mech only glares harder.
Prowl jolts as the Polyhexian suddenly spins, holding Prowl's servo as he twists and landing himself smugly against Prowl with his backstrut to the cops chassis. Prowl instinctually freezes, momentarily stunned by the mech's boldness before he starts to dance again– against Prowl. Prowl is about to tell him off before the mech raises their combined servos above his helm and starts to shimmy downwards, moving their free servo to hold Prowl's side.
Infuriatingly flustered, Prowl yanks him back up, but the mech only smiles a lopsided smile and pulls Prowl forward, deeper into the fray of wiggling frames.
Jazz certainly didn't act nervous when they had first met. He feels Jazz preen internally as he catches that thought, though the embarrassment is still there.
The mech continues to dance, and Prowl tries his best to not join. But it's hard not to move when everyone around you is , and Prowl is forced to give himself over to the flow of it, letting the Polyhexian spin them and use Prowl as a glorified accessory to his dancing. Prowl begrudgingly allows his arms to be moved however the mech pleases, even letting him tug his frame around in spins and dips. All the while he tries to seem completely and utterly disinterested, but…there's something about the whole situation that carves a small smile from him–something that makes him slightly sway in time with the music, adjusting himself to the whims of whatever impressive dance move the Polyhexian tries to execute next.
Jazz suddenly laughs, loud and loving, as he remembers, too. “Man, I was trippin’ over my own pedes that whole night. I remember wakin’ up the next cycle and thinkin’ that was the dumbest fragging thing I ever did and thanking Primus that the pretty cop didn’ arrest me for bein’ stupid.” Jazz wheezes, and Prowl laughs with him.
Prowl is watching as the Polyhexian dances on his own, mechs forming a small bubble around him as he sways his hips and runs his servos down his own frame. From the cheers and whistles around them, Prowl discerns that the mech's name is Jazz. Fitting, he supposes.
It's the first time that night that Prowl lets himself actually look at Jazz, taking in the vibrant temporary paint adorning him, the ridiculous beaded necklaces dangling off his frame at varying spots, and the frame glitter that looks precariously applied. It all makes him shine, glowing in the techno lights of the dark club and accentuating his sharp features.
Jazz catches him staring and smiles with all his dentae, showing off his fangs as he makes his way back to Prowl.
“You're impressive–for a cop.” Jazz pants, throwing both his arms over Prowls shoulders and plastering himself against the Praxian.
Prowl easily takes most of Jazz's weight, both hearing and feeling the mech's internal fans scream between them as they try to cool down his overexerted frame.
“And you're perceptive for a mech overcharged into the next cycle.” Prowl replies, matching Jazz’s challenging sarcasm.
Jazz puffs engex tinted air in Prowl's face, pulling back enough to look Prowl in the optics with a dangerous gleam in his visor. “Overcharged? Mech, I ain't even started yet.”
Prowl turns his helm to Jazz, his voice as quiet and sincere as he can manage. “You are an incredible dancer, Jazz. I don't think you could trip over your pedes if you tried.”
Jazz, to his credit, only spits a small amount of static. His field, on the other servo, flourishes with the compliment, wrapping tightly around them and pushing an unending amount of adoration through the air and bond in kind.
Prowl nearly drowns in it, closing his optics and adjusting as his spark swells impossibly wide.
Jazz laughs and pushes off of Prowl, nearly shoving him over. Prowl grins, following the glittering mech to the center of the floor.
He remembers it all so clearly: the lights, the sounds, the smells.
“You looked good.” He murmurs, “You look good.”
Jazz hums. “Yeah?”
Prowl opens his optics. For the first time that night, Jazz turns his helm to face Prowl.
Half of his visor is shattered, leaving everything underneath exposed and raw. The lone optic cycles, Prowl marveling at how he can see each lense rotate and contract, likely trying to focus on Prowl without the help of the visor. The faceplate underneath is raw, too, wires and circuitry sparking and leaking across Jazz's cheek. He looks tired. He looks happy. His nose is twisted at an incorrect angle, dried energon crusting around it and his intake. His lip is cut and swollen. His expression is so hopelessly open.
Prowls vents hitch. “Mhm. Better than good. You look…”
Jazz watches him. Watches him, logging every one of Prowl's minuscule expressions and the way his intake quirks when he talks. Briefly, Prowl sees his optic flick to the still exposed ports at the side of his neck, the covering bent and partially torn off. But it's only briefly, and Jazz loves him even more for it. Prowl sees it–knows it.
This planet's moon does wonders in painting Jazz.
“Beautiful.” He feels Jazz balancing on an edge, hanging on to every word that Prowl says. Prowl whispers, open and honest. “You are the single most beautiful mech that I have ever known.”
He doesn't mean to make Jazz cry, but coolant wells in his partner's optic anyways, slowly dripping down his face when he closes it. Jazz falls, and Prowl catches him in the form of a servo wiping away his tears.
He thumbs just beneath Jazz's optic, so gentle he doesn't think Jazz can even feel it. But he's too scared of damaging him further to press harder, so he cups the side of Jazz's helm with all the piety of a damned mech to keep rubbing away the tears.
Jazz lets out a shaky sigh, a silent thanks backed by a devotion so deep that Prowl can only smile and nod, vocalizer clicking uselessly in his throat.
After what feels like a lifetime, Jazz chuckles, the sound wet with tears and energon. “Flattery got you everywhere.”
Prowl nods again, suddenly feeling silly. “That it did.”
The bond sings between them, emotions and questions and acceptances becoming indistinguishable, all dancing together as their sparks reach beyond their frames. Distantly, Prowl can see the stars getting closer.
“I jus’ wish I could've kissed you more.” Jazz brings their servos to his intake, pressing his lips to Prowls bruised knuckles.
Prowl feels himself falling, as well. “This is enough.”
Jazz's visor and optic dim. He is beautiful, here, in the stars.
Prowl doesn’t notice the loss of power to his internal systems. When he closes his optics, he is dancing with Jazz in Blasters club, laughing as they spin.
“Yeah…yeah, it is."