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The Night of the Storm

Transformers Halloween fic time!  Cross posted on AO3.

Summery: Prowl misses his old school, his old life and his kind, awkward uncle.  When his creators decide to send him to an elite boarding school, Prowl is plunged into a world of bullies, controlling teachers, and homesickness.  One night, he runs out into the rain and meets a curious sparkling that is not just a sparkling.  This sparkling is -!

This sparkling is an idiot.  

Prowl&Jazz kid friendship fic!  With light vampire elements!

Prowl was not scared.  He was not a sparkling.  He was not crying.

He just…he just missed Uncle Magnus.

The branch scrapped against the window again and Prowl bit his fist to keep from yelping.  It was a wicked storm and the Darkling season in Praxus was famous for them.  It wouldn’t be letting up anytime soon.

All the other sparklings were in recharge.  

He didn’t know why his creators had decided to send him away to school after ignoring him for most of his life.  Why couldn’t they have just left him with Uncle Magnus?

The room lit up with strange, bizarre shadows as the lightning spiraled down to the metal planet, sending arcs and sparks out in all directions.

Prowl grabbed the heavy blanket and pulled it tightly around his shoulders and imagined it was Uncle Magnus, hugging him on the couch.

On stormy nights when neither of them could sleep, Prowl would curl up against Uncle Magnus and listen to him read.  Uncle Magnus didn’t care for vids and had never owned a holoscreen.  He said the pictures ruined a good story.  As he grew, Prowl found he preferred listening to stories as well.

He wanted to go home.

Was Uncle Magnus sitting up, right now?  Was he still reading The Mystery of the Floating Optic? Or had he only been reading that for Prowl?  He claimed he’d been waiting for Prowl to be old enough to read it to.  He’d said it was his favorite as a sparkling.  Had he lied?

No.  Prowl shook his helm under the covers.  Uncle Magnus didn’t lie to him.  He needed to remember that.  Uncle Magnus always told him the truth.

And he loved him.  Even if he said it with actions instead of words like Archivist Orion and Officer Strongarm.

He built the picture up in his mind.  The tiny front room with the squashy couch facing the huge window.  They were on a high floor and their room looked out over the ocean.  They could watch the storms roll in and have sweet energon and spicy crisps.  Uncle Magnus would –

Was that a window opening?  No, everyone was asleep.  He was fine.

Uncle Magus would pick up their book from the table and scroll down to where they’d left off.  He’d –

That sounded like something slithering across the floor, didn’t it?  Or was it the rain against the window again?

He’d start reading right where he’d left off, as if they’d never paused and he’d show Prowl the pictures.  There was a really scary one where Detective Lamplight was walking down an alley and he didn’t know that behind him –

Something slammed into the berth frame and shrieked. Prowl threw himself out of bed and screamed, pulling the blanket over him.  He started to roll under the berth – find a safe place to defend from, then attack – when he heard the laughing.

He saw a half dozen pairs of pedes bouncing in excitement as they spoke.

“Did you see him?”

“What a snotling!”

“He screamed and everything!”

“Hey, slagbrains!  Anyone ever tell you monsters aren’t real?”

“Aw, want creator and carrier, little sparkling?”

“Run away home, little sparkling!”

They burst into louder, rougher, crueler mirth and it scratched at his plating like glass shards.

Prowl stood up.  He was sad and lonely and he hated them.  His spark was exploding out of his chest and they were laughing.

He wanted to – he wanted to – hewantedtohewantedtohewantedto –

Prowl ran.

The blanket slipped from his servos and he slammed into the dormitory doors.  The hallway flew by him – his pedes weren’t touching the floor – and then he was out in the storm, still running.

The problem was, that he could. He’d taken martial arts classes since before he came up to Uncle Magnus’s knee.  He could have hit the other younglings.  They were just other younglings.  They’d probably only gotten into playground scrapes before.

Prowl could have hit them and they’d have stayed down.

And because he could have, he didn’t.

Prowl’s pedes slapped the wet ground as he slowed, splishing in the puddles of oil and solvent rain.  He came to a stop in the big courtyard, the grand hall on one end, the professor’s quarters on the other.  The huge, gaudy front gardens looked dull and messy in the storm.

He stood still, helm down, letting the steady, firm rhythm of the rain solder him to the ground.  He out here, in the quiet, he felt like himself, like Prowl, Magnus’s creation, the enforcers’ favorite and the librarian’s bane.

Prowl stood still in the downpour and vented.  The rain collected above his optics and dripped heavily onto his chest.  He could feel it running down his back and drizzling off his fingertips like cold lightning.  He stared at the chapel, tinted purple in the rain.  The small, run-down chapel was the only thing Prowl liked about his new school.  The rest of it was…style and pomp, Sergeant Kup would have said.  It made Prowl vaguely embarrassed to be a student.

He would have to go back in.  He briefly entertained the thought of running away, back to Uncle Magnus, but shut it down quickly.  He would only send Prowl back and Prowl didn’t think he could watch that again.  If there had been anyone sadder than Prowl that day at the train station, it had been Uncle Magnus.

Prowl had pretended not to hear the many – many – angry conversations between Uncle Magnus and his creators.  He had heard the words “socially maladjusted” more than once on both ends.

Well, if this school was an example of well-adjusted younglings, Prowl preferred the company of his fellow weirdos.

Prowl was just starting to convince himself that the idea of going back inside and drying off sounded nice – it was difficult, but he’d been captain of the debate team back home – when he noticed something odd.

At some point, while he’d been staring at the chapel, it had started staring back at him.

Two dim green optics shone out of the top window.  Which was strange, because Prowl knew that behind that window was open air, since the chapel had vaulted ceilings and no attic.

And, because he was Prowl again, not the cringing shadow of himself that the school was slowly forcing him to be, he marched up to the chapel doors to see what was hovering twenty feet in the air, inside a sacred house.

0-0-0

Prowl didn’t pause to knock, he threw open the doors and looked straight up.

“Eep!”

He stared into the bright green optics of another sparkling, floating above him, servo over it’s mouth.

“Eep!” it said again and plastered itself to the wall, as if that would hide it from view.  It did not.

“I can see you!” Prowl shouted up.  “What are you doing in here?!”  He put his servos on his hips and tried to look like Uncle Magnus when he spoke to the door-to-door salebots.

“Um…Ah’m not!  Ah’m…ah – ah – Ah’m –“ the sparkling sputtered.  Its – his – voice was high and thin.  “’m an optic-owl!”

“No, you’re not.  You’re too big and you don’t have wings.”

“Ah’m two optic-owls!” he shouted down desperately.  Unfortunately, Prowl had noticed, that as he’d been talking, the window in front of him was vibrating, the old, rusty latched threatening to give way under the wind.  He opened his mouth to warn him.

At that moment, it snapped.  The window slammed open, smacking into the sparkling that had been clinging to it, and sending him tumbling to the ground in front of Prowl.

Prowl rushed forwards and bent down.

“Are you okay?!”  He grabbed the sparkling’s helm and turned it, looking for dents, like Uncle Magnus did whenever Prowl fell turning training.   “What hurts?”  He didn’t have a first aid kit, but he could run back up to the school if -

The sparkling sat up with a groan, letting his servos fall into his lap, optics mournful.

“Mah pride,” he said sadly, rubbing his backside and wincing.  He slump forwards.  “Ah am an idiot.”

“Yes,” Prowl agreed.  He brushed a bit of chapel dust off the mech’s forehelm.  “Why are you in our chapel?”

“Cause it’s rainin’ outside it?” he said, confused.

“I mean, why aren’t you at home with your family?  Are you lost?”  Wasn’t there something else – “and how were you floating?  You’re not a seeker.  Why are your optics green?  I’ve never seen green optics.”

He certainly wasn’t a seeker.  He was smaller than Prowl with rounded shoulders and a wide face.  He was silver all over with a single red stripe going down each side.

The sparkling blinked at him.

“Ah dunno?  Every energon seeker Ah know has green optics so –“

“Every what?”

“Energon seeker?”  The sparkling kicked his pedes, nervously.  “Ya not a Seeker hunter, are ya?  ‘Cause if ya are – I’m not one!  I’m an optic-owl shifter!”

“I am not,” Prowl answered, peering closer now.  Uncle Magnus didn’t read a lot of scary stories, but his class had read Tales of the Energy-Suckers and he’d seen Don’t Let It In! with Officer Kup, who had laughed through the whole movie.

The sparkling had strange colored optics.

He could float without anti-gravs or wings.

He had called himself an energon seeker.

He had, now that Prowl looked, two sets of very sharp, very long, fangs.

Oh.

Prowl considered, briefly, being scared.  He decided against it.  It wasn’t useful and being scared of something like, well, the clumsy sparkling in front of him would be embarrassing.

“Are you going to attack me?” he asked and the sparkling jumped.

“Wha – no!  Carrier says ta always ask first!  It’s rude not ta ask!”  He was shaking his helm quickly.  “Ah’d get such a lecture if Ah didn’t ask!  So, can I?”

“Can you what?”  Prowl asked before his processor caught up.

“Bite ya? Ah’ve been flying all night and –“

“No! You – “  This was getting him nowhere.  Every time he asked a question the sparkling sparked two more.  First things first.

“My name is Prowl.  What is yours?”

The sparkling sprang to his pedes and smiled.

“Ah’m Jazz!  Nice ta meet ya!”  He stuck out his servo and Prowl shook it.  Then he tried to let go.

“Jazz?”

“Yeah?”  Was he inching forwards?  Yes he was.

“I said no biting.”

“Yeah, Ah know.  I’m not gonna bite ya.  That’s bad.”  His optics were becoming dimmer.  Prowl waited.  Better to know now if Jazz would keep his word and Prowl was confident in his abilities to fend off…what he could only describe as a doofus.

“Then why are you getting closer?”  Jazz’s pedes bumped Prowl’s.

“Ya warm…”

Jazz flopped forwards and Prowl’s arms came around him automatically.

Now he had an admitted energon seeker – and idiot – wrapped around him like an robo-squid.

“Jazz.  What are you doing?”  Prowl wiggled and took a step back, but Jazz came with him.

“Need it,” he mumbled.  “Been out alone too long.”  He nuzzled Prowl’s shoulder.

Okay.  This was odd.

Jazz was chilled against him, but not freezing.  He definitely had a spark. This close Prowl could feel the faint corona of it through his plating.  He shouldn’t be that cold…

Out ‘alone’ too long?

“Who are you supposed to be with?” Prowl asked, trying to sound stern.  Jazz beeped at him like a sparklet and hugged him tighter.  Surely no one would let, well, this, out by itself.

Prowl looked out the window.  The storm was regaining strength.  The walls of the chapel were shaking slightly.

“Carrier ‘n mah twin.  Lost ‘em over the valley when the storm hit.”

Prowl counted back.

“That was four days ago!”

“Yeah, long time.  ‘s cold.”

“Do you know how to locate them?  Where do you live?”

“No?  Ah live wit’ em, that’s where I live,” came the non-answer.

“What is your plan then?”  Prowl wiggled his servo between them and started prying Jazz away from him.  Outside the storm grew louder.

“Plan?  Ah found the chapel ta stay out of the rain.”  Jazz hadn’t caught on yet and was blissfully unaware.

“That is not a plan,” Prowl said as he shoved and popped Jazz off his plating.

“Hey!”

He caught the surprised sparkling and stood him upright.  “We are going to go inside and call my Uncle Magnus and he will help find your carrier. Come on.”

Prowl held Jazz tightly by the upper arm like Kup had showed him and tugged him towards the door.

“Hey – no!  It’s wet out there!  I’ll get cold!”

“You can hold onto me,” Prowl said grimly.  He could put up with Jazz –

Splat!

Great.  Now he had an extra set of limbs to navigate through the storm.

Prowl held onto one of Jazz’s arms to keep it from strangling him and opened the door.

Outside, it was nearly black.  The clouds had thickened and the warm starlight from earlier was gone.

“Let’s go,” Prowl said and pulled.

They found their way mostly by feel.

Jazz whined the whole way and tried to crawl inside Prowl’s plating.

“We’re at the door you – just – hold on!”

Prowl tugged his servo free and pushed the door open.  They stumbled inside and, despite the lashing of the rain starting to turn painful, Prowl wanted to turn around and walk back out.

The dreary brown walls and the imposing busts and statues seemed larger and darker.  Prowl remembered his arrival and his entrance through these doors with perfect, horrible clarity.

There was none of the frantic, weary joy that his old school had been filled with.  Nor the creaky, worn care that has suffused the Enforcer’s station where Uncle Magnus worked.

The chilly cruelness of the teachers and the students had seeped into the walls and floor and he remembered stepping inside, like stepping into a silent methane blizzard.  It hadn’t gotten any better, but Prowl had…maybe he’d gotten tired of fighting against it and trying to keep warm.

“Huh,” came a voice beside his audial.  “This place is gross, mech.  Ah don’t like it.”

Prowl laughed.

“Me-me neither.  Let’s find the comms unit.  This way.”

They were dripping on the floor and Prowl took a vicious glee in tracking as much muck in as possible.

The public communication hub the school boasted was strictly guarded and its use was heavily regulated.  Prowl hadn’t managed to ‘earn’ the privilege of using it yet.

It was located in an alcove close to the main doors to look like it was easily reached, but during the day there was always a teacher or older student watching it.  At night they turned it off completely and set the code.

As if Prowl hadn’t learned to break codes at the pedes of Iacon’s finest hackers – the Archivists.  Primus defend anyone who tried to put a paywall between an Archivist and a rare text.

He stepped up and turned it on.  The quiet beep of the system set up echoed in the little alcove.  A few clicks and Prowl broke through the factory setting password – if he’d known it was this easy…

The keypad lit up and the screen read Ready To Dial Out.

“Move away, I have to dial.”  Prowl shook him off.

“But Ah’m cold, mech!” Jazz whined.

“Give me a klik!”

Prowl typed in their area code and then Uncle Magnus’s number and waited.

Click.

“What has happened,” Uncle Magnus demanded.  “Is Prowl all right?  I am coming down there now and if you have –“

“It’s me!” Prowl interrupted him.  “I’m okay!”

“Prowl?  You are all right?  What happened?”

“I –“

His vocalizer stalled.  It had been so long since he’d heard someone talk to him like this.  So long since he’d heard Uncle Magnus.

“I-“ he tried again.

“Ya need help?” Jazz asked, swinging their servos, unconcerned.

“No.”  He tugged his servo free – when has Jazz taken it? – and continued.

“Uncle Magnus, I need your help.  I…something happened, but I’m okay!  It’s hard to explain….”

“Just start at the beginning and go slowly,” Uncle Magnus urged.

Right.  He could do this.

Prowl took a deep, even vent.

“The-other-sparklings-were-mean-to-me-and-so-I-went-outside-and-I-saw-optics-in-the-chapel-so-I-went-in-and-there’s-an-energon-seeker-here-and-he’s-just-a-sparkling-and-you-have-to-help-me-find-his-carrier-and-his-twin.”

There was a klik of silence.

“Frag.  I had not planned on telling you about all of this so soon.”

Prowl’s mouth dropped open.  Jazz inched closer again and Prowl was too shocked to stop him.  Uncle Magnus had cursed!  Wait…

“You know.  About energon seekers?”

“There is…a second part of my job that we’ve never really discussed.  There are cybertronians that don’t fit with our understanding and when they need help with the law, I am a liaison.  Of sorts.”

“Of sorts,” Prowl repeated, sarcasm edging into his voice now that the panic was ebbing away.  Uncle Magnus would sort everything out.

Jazz snuck closer still and tucked his helm under Prowl’s chin.

“Yes. I am going to drive up to the school and pick you both up.  Go back to the chapel and wait there.  I am putting you in charge, okay?  Take your new friend and hide there.  You are safe as long as you are on sanctified ground.”

Prowl peeled Jazz off and stood up.

“Safe from what?”

“I will explain later.  Go back to the chapel and wait.”

“And you’ll pick us up?  Both of us?”  Prowl cycled his optics furiously – he was not going to cry in front of Jazz!  He was in charge!

“Yes. And if your creators want to interfere again…I have made friends over the vorns with bots who can explain things to them more clearly.  Be safe.  I lo– I look forward to seeing you.”

“Okay.  I love you too.”  Prowl hung up.

“So, we’re going home?  You too?” Jazz asked, servo creeping into Prowl’s.

“Yes.”  Prowl gripped Jazz’s servo hard – and grabbed his arm with his other servo for good measure – and pulled them both back into the rain.

He was going home.

0-0-0

The next morning, being rocked gently as they drove on hidden back roads, curled up with Jazz in Uncle Magnus’s altmode, Prowl felt safe.  He watched the trees pass them by and drifted in and out of recharge.

The strange shapes and shadows outside the window didn’t bother him.  Uncle Magnus had called them friends and that was good enough for Prowl.

So...the other stories will be late.  A little bit of Halloween bleeding into November never hurt anyone, though!

The Night of the Storm 2/2

The kid fic vampire transformers story was supposed to be a one shot.  Came into my head quickly, got scribbled down, posted, done.

Then, in a moment of weakness, needing words to reach that 1667 count, I continued it.  Here it is:

Tap. Tap.

Prowl didn’t bother onlining his optics.

“Jazz.  Go home.”

A muffled “come on!” came from outside his window.

Prowl rolled over and buried his helm under a pillow.

“Prooowwwl,” the other sparkling wailed.  “Let me in!”

“No.”

“But it’s cold!”

“Go home and bother Ricochet.”

“PROOOWWWWLLL –“

He wasn’t going to stop.  Prowl shoved himself up and crawled to the bottom of his berth were it butted up under the window.

Outside, hovering, faceplates pressed against the glass, was an accident prone energon-seeker with less common sense than a glitch mouse.

Prowl knelt up and unlatched the window.  Jazz tumbled onto his berth, bouncing slightly before unrolling like a carpet and flopping down, helm resting against Prowl’s thigh.

“Hi!” he said, smiling up at Prowl.  “Thanks for letting me in!”  He snuggled against his leg.

Prowl gave him a shove and crawled back to the helm of the berth.

“You know I have school tomorrow, right?”

He got back under the covers and pushed his pillow into the right shape before laying his helm down.

“Yeah sure!”  Jazz rolled over and hopped on his knees up to sit next to Prowl.  He looked from the covers to Prowl and back again, making a mournful noise.

“Fine.”  Prowl wiggled and lifted the blankets for Jazz.  He immediately scooted inside and plastered himself against Prowl.

The routine was very familiar by now.

They laid there in silence.  Prowl tried to fall back asleep.

“Don’t you have something to do?” Prowl asked finally.  “Like – I don’t know – energon-seeking?”

“Carrier says ‘m a ‘hindrance’ –“ he carefully sounded out the word, “and that Ah need ta learn how ta be charming ‘stead of just cute.”  Jazz shrugged.  “Ah thought Ah was doing okay.  The femme sold us the spare energon.”

“And that’s good enough for energon-seekers?” Prowl asked.  Jazz, unsurprisingly, was incredibly chatty and would never be trusted with any secrets.

“For a while.”  He shrugged.  “It’s better than just straight energon outta the ground.  Won’t replace the real deal.”

The real deal.  Energon taken out of a living bot.

He didn’t know a lot about the reality of energon-seekers.  Nothing much beyond what the movies and the books said – and he knew those were probably wrong.  He could have asked – Uncle Magnus or Jazz’s Carrier would have been happy to tell him.  Scrap, he could have even asked Jazz.  But he hadn’t.

Prowl hadn’t asked – not out of politeness because Jazz wouldn’t notice manners if they smacked him in the face – because it still frightened him a little.  The idea of someone draining away his life’s energon, even if it was just a small amount.

When he was sitting up at night, picking away at his pile of homework or cleaning, he couldn’t quite shake the image of the monsters from the movies.  Sometime they gaunt, dark-opticked energon-seeker from the movie would merge with Jazz in his processor and –

It faded whenever Jazz found his way back into Prowl’s room – and into his lap – but it always made Prowl feel slightly ashamed.  He knew Jazz wasn’t like that.  He liked Jazz’s Carrier and they weren’t like that either.

All of the mixed up feelings – shame, embarrassment, and that edge of fear had kept him from actually asking how energon-seekers and energon worked.

Well, he hadn’t ended up in Emergency Services four times because he was a coward!  Prowl vented slowly and turned towards Jazz, who was now nibbling on his blanket because Jazz was a turbopuppy that couldn’t be left alone.

“Stop that!  You’ll put a hole in it!”

“Mmon’t!” Jazz mumbled as Prowl tugged it out of his mouth.  “Hey!”

“Do you have to bite everything?” Prowl asked, exasperated.  “Am I going to find you nibbling my digits in the middle of the night?”

“No!” He sounded indignant.  “Ah told you!  Carrier says ya gotta ask first!  An’ ya said no.”

Prowl blinked.

“What – you mean that first night we met?”

Jazz nodded.  “No means no.  It means no wheedlin’, no threatenin’, and no forgettin’ when ya want ta.  Ya gotta respect the rights of other sentient being.”

“So you’ll never ask me again?”  It should have been reassuring, but for some reason it…wasn’t.

“Not if ya don’t want me ta.”  Jazz was smiling proudly.

Jazz was…cute.  Prowl would be lying if he said otherwise.  He was smaller and younger and he did silly things that should have made Prowl mad, but instead just made him laugh.

It would be stupid to be scared of Jazz.

“What if I did want you to?”

Jazz  tilted his helm. “To do what?”

“If I wanted to…” Prowl tried to explain with gestures, but Jazz just stared at his servos.

That wasn’t working.  He tried again.

“What if I wanted you to ask again and if I said yes.  About you biting me,” he clarified.  Wow, not something he’d ever expect to say.

Jazz sat up and Prowl followed.

“Would you?”  There was a seriousness his Jazz’s optics that Prowl didn’t remember ever seeing before.  Even when he’d been lost and alone.

“I…might.  What would that mean?”

“Well,” Jazz said slowly, digging his claws into the blanket scrunched down around his hips.  “If ya say yes ta one, it can just be the one time.   Some bots that don’t mind it, they get paid and set up a schedule.  Some just do it the once.”  He shrugged.  “It’s whatever you want it ta mean.  Ya say yes and Ah bite ya or ya say no and Ah don’t.”

“And you biting me would be like…?”  Prowl found himself morbidly curious what getting bitten by an energon-seeker was like.  The movies had made it seem violent and terrifying.  Also fatal.  Which couldn’t be right.

“Don’t know!” Jazz said brightly.  “Never been bitten!  Except by Rico when he’s mad.  It don’t hurt, Ah know that. I think ya supposed ta fuel more the day before or the day after, but Ah’m not sure.  Otherwise…that’s it!”  He smiled again.

Prowl vented and thought.  It didn’t sound bad…and Jazz needed it to live…

“If you…if you want to ask again?” he said hesitantly.

“Ask again?”

“If you want to ask to bite me again one day…I’ll say yes.”

Jazz’s optics widened to the size of Prowl’s fists and his mouth dropped open.

“So if Ah ask ta bite ya, you’ll say yes?”

“Yes.”

His face broke into a smile, brighter than daylight.

“Ah can?!  Okay!”

“Yes, maybe tomorrow we can talk about a time– “

At that point, Jazz lunged over him and bit his forearm.  Hard.

“JAZZ!”

Prowl was rolling out of the berth before he even realized he was moving.  He stared.

Jazz was hanging off his arm, floating mid-air, optics squinted shut, smiling broadly around Prowl’s wrist.

Prowl shook him.  Jazz rumbled in contentment.

Well scrap.

“Jazz,” he said, “I didn’t mean right now.”  Nothing.

Scrap. Scrap. Scrap.

Prowl brought the arm – and Jazz – closer to his optics and stared.

Each of Jazz’s four sharp teeth were embedded in his plating and, likely, in the energon tubing below.  If he concentrated, Prowl could feel the smallest of power draws near each tooth as his frame tried to send more energon to the site of the leak to keep his plating from graying.

If he looked even closer – Strongarm had spent two days arguing with Uncle Magnus to get him the magnification mod – he could see energon moving through the hollow center of each fang.  His energon.

It didn’t hurt – ached a bit and he was sure it was going to be sore and sensitive – but overall Prowl would rate getting bitten by an energon-seeker as one of the better experiences on his list.

“Jazz.”

“Mmmhmm,” Jazz mumbled, flexing his fangs so that they sunk just a little deeper.

“Jazz, when are you going to be done?”  He wanted to get some recharge before tomorrow’s exam.

“Mmmmmm.”

Well that was no help.  Prowl should have expected it.

“Okay, well, let’s get back in the berth.”  Better to be comfortable, Kup always said, just as he commandeered the only stool in the room and parked himself down.

Between poking and nudging, Prowl got Jazz back on the berth and then under the covers.

“Shove over.”  Jazz scooted back, dragging Prowl forwards by the arm and pulling the cover’s over his helm.

“Jaaaazzzz…” Prowl climbed back in and pushed on Jazz until he got him up against the wall on the very narrow berth.  Jazz whined and Prowl tucked a pillow behind him.

Prowl arranged them so that Jazz was on his back, his helm resting on Prowl’s shoulder.  Prowl’s trapped arm was wrapped up and around which Jazz apparently approved of, because he immediately tucked one servo up into Prowl’s elbow and snuggled in.

Good for him.

“If I do badly on my exam because I didn’t get any recharge, Jazz…” Prowl warned, settling in for a long night.

Then he promptly fell into recharge.

0-0-0

Jazz woke in the night.  Where was he?

Oh, right, Prowl.

Prowl!

Prowl had let Jazz bite him!  Now they were best friends!

Jazz chirped and rolled over so he could wrapped his arms around Prowl more easily.  The other sparkling was out like a light, optics dark, venting coming slow and even.

Jazz loved Prowl.

Prowl was smart and brave and the best bot in the whole world.  He’d found Jazz when Jazz was lost and then he’d found Jazz’s family – well, called his uncle and his uncle found them, but all the same – and then he’d kept letting Jazz in, even after they were both home and safe.

Even in their strange community, energon-seekers were seen as a bit odd, Jazz knew this.  Other sparklings had told him so.  Carrier had tried to explain it once, but after they’d started talking about a war that had happened 12 millennia ago that involved Unicron, Primus, and the planet splitting, Jazz had just sat there in confusion.  What did that have to do with the other sparklings not wanting to be his friend?

Carrier hadn’t tried again.

Prowl wasn’t scared though.  Prowl didn’t even really get mad at him!  Not like everyone else did.  Prowl just got huffy and grumpy, but he never really said no to Jazz.  He just shoved and squished and got Jazz into a better position and went about his day.

He did say no about some things.  Jazz was not allowed to asked about his creators, follow him to school, or pick Prowl up and fly him without asking first – and Prowl had to be awake to ask him, dream-speak didn’t count.

Prowl was the first bot ever that Jazz had done dream-speak with.

He hadn’t done it on purpose.  Carrier had never bothered to teach him or Rico about it because no one used it anymore.  You had to ask now because of – something something rights of all sentient beings – something something else citizenship.  It meant that energon-seekers and bots didn’t used to see each other as the same and did bad things that Carrier wouldn’t talk about.

So, when he’d snuck into berth with Prowl and started talking to him – because he had a lot to say and it didn’t really matter if Prowl was awake or not to hear it – suddenly Prowl had started answering him!  That had been cool!

Seeing Prowl’s dreams had been even cooler and also, at first, terrifying.  It was like he was watching it inside his own helm – dreaming awake.  He could feel Prowl’s mind – quicksilver and strong – shaping the inner reality.  When he’d realized Jazz was there, he’d quickly shaped it around Jazz to pull him into the dream as well.

Prowl had tried to describe what it was like to see Jazz in his dream.  He’d said it was like being asleep and awake at the same time.

Maybe…now that Prowl was okay with Jazz biting him, he’d be willing to try the dream-speaking again.  He’d liked seeing inside Prowl’s processor.  It had felt safe.

0-0-0

Ultra Magnus was an early riser.  He liked the quiet of the morning before anyone else was awake.  He liked drinking his energon slowly and reading or tidying up.  He liked the unhurried pace of the weekends when he could drag his mornings out longer, letting Prowl sleep in.

This hadn’t translated very well to working his second job which took place late at night.  It had been further complicated when his brother had dropped a very small, very frightened sparkling off one day before going off planet.

It later turned out to be the best day of Ultra Magnus’s life, but at the time he had been late for a meeting with the Underground Council to discuss ways of stopping development into their territory that didn’t involve murdering construction workers.

The sparkling didn’t know his name, where his creators were, or who Ultra Magnus was.  It made for a difficult introduction, with the sparkling a second away from bawling, staring up – and up and up because Ultra Magnus wasn’t small, even compared to full grown bots – and shakily saying ‘hi.’  

Brave even as a bitlet.

Ultra Magnus never learned what Prowl’s first name had been, as his brother hadn’t bothered registering the sparkling, even though it had been twenty six vorns and the bitlet was starting to toddle.  He’d done it himself, naming the small, curious being ‘Prowl’ to match his habit of ‘adventuring’ when he was supposed to be napping.

That first day, though, before he’d had his name and before Ultra Magnus knew how something so small would change everything, he’d been late and tired and out of options.  There was no one he could leave the sparkling with in the middle of the night – no one he trusted anyways – because most of them would also be at the meeting.

So, Prowl’s first diplomatic mission had been strapped in a sparkling sling against Ultra Magnus’s chestplates.  He’d recharged through the entire meeting and charmed half the tunnelers so much that the meeting had ended early and in Ultra Mangus’s favor (and the favor of the oblivious construction workers).

After that, Ultra Magnus had taken a more distant role and allowed Strongarm to take the lead.

It had been a surprise to receive a call in the night from Prowl – brave, protective, clever bitlet – that he’d found a lost energon-seeker sparkling and needed help.

Ultra Magnus had been waiting for Prowl to call – he’d been eagerly looking forward to storming down to the school and pulling Prowl and damn the consequences.  He’d spent one miserable afternoon wondering what code words Prowl would use if someone were to be listening in on their conversation and how he could send coded messages back.

It was only later that he’d learned the supposedly ‘public’ communication station was guarded and censored.  In the end Prowl had been forced to break into the comm to call him.

Of course he hadn’t thought to do so until there was someone else in need.

Pulling up to that school had been just a bit cathartic.  He hadn’t waited for the Dean to let him in – he’d transformed and pulled the decorative road fence out of the wall.  Then, as the alarms went off around him, he’d made his way to the dilapidated chapel.

Seeing Prowl, sitting calmly in one of the pews, the much smaller sparkling curled tightly into his side, Prowl’s arm around him, had made his spark ache.

This was not his brother’s creation in any way.  Prowl had none of his careless selfishness or his thin way of talking that made you feel like you were wasting his time.  He was not thoughtless.  He took care of things whether they were his toys or his friends and even when they weren’t his at all.

Prowl was Ultra Magnus’s creation from helm to pede.

Prowl was his greatest achievement.

This morning Prowl had an exam he’d been fretting over and Ultra Magnus wanted to make sure he started the day well.

He set out Prowl’s favorite brand of morning energon and knocked gently on his door.

“Prowl?”  He opened the door.

It was expected these days to see Jazz snuggled in beside Prowl in his berth.  He came begging to be let in 5 nights out of nine.  His carrier has asked Ultra Magnus if it was becoming a problem.  He assured them it wasn’t.  Secretly he was just relieved to see Prowl with more friends his own age.  He had a few as school, but none as close as Jazz was becoming.

So, seeing Jazz wasn’t surprising.

Seeing the row of tiny, healing, fang marks was slightly more unexpected.

Among adults it was a serious step of trust.  A good way to get energon-seekers to trust you quickly was to offer.  It was something a lot of bots were hesitant to do – too many scary movies or too much baggage around it.

Ultra Magnus wasn’t sure if it was Jazz’s innate – and dangerous – cuteness or Prowl’s insatiable curiosity that had led to this.  Possibly both.

He closed the door.  He would give them both a bit more recharge and set out a second place for breakfast.