I was reminded about the @keferon Earthspark JazzProwl au by my friend :)
Prowl is such a goofy little guy and it’s nice to see Jazz as the more serious one. I like it. I also think it's very nice to see BOTH Jazz and Prowl be silly little guys
I’m trying to get into the habit of drawing rough character designs before making a comic. They’re basically Keferon’s designs but I changed some details here and there
I was at a family party for 5 hours today, during which I wrote this. It is based off of @keferon's amazing Earthspark JazzProwl au and, more specifically, this comic.
This fic was just my attempt to get into Jazz's head during that comic, so it uses a lot of its dialogue.
When had Prowl become close enough to Jazz that Optimus would think they were friends?
Thinking about it, Prowl couldn’t pinpoint when the change happened. When Prowl moved from bust being a fellow Autobot to being someone Jazz let close to him. To being someone Jazz wanted to trust. He didn’t even realize it was happening until Optimus pointed out that they were friends.
That was bad-wrong-not-supposed-to-happen. He was supposed to keep everyone else at a distance so no one got hurt. So they wouldn’t be able to use their friendship against Jazz, and so they couldn’t be used against him by others either.
He didn’t have friends. Optimus was the only exception to that rule. But Optimus was strong, trustworthy, and it was already part of Jazz’s job to protect him.
Prowl was not Optimus. Despite the impressive amount of Decepticons he managed to capture and take down during the war, it clearly wasn’t because of his fighting skills.
He lacked any coordination in battle, quickly loosing all of his ‘play’ fights with other Autobots. This terrible performance in fights was the same the few times he saw Prowl fighting the Decepticons. One hit and Prowl was down, and he wasn’t skilled at dodging to keep himself from going down either.
It made Jazz uncomfortable. Seeing Prowl go down during a battle and no one showing any concern for him—not even after the fighting had ended. No one even offered to pick him up. There wasn’t any concern for Prowl when he fell in the base either. Jazz started catching Prowl when he started falling—when did he feel comfortable enough with Prowl to do that?
Jazz knew he couldn’t trust this. Experience taught him that mechs only wanted to get close to him to either hurt him or to hurt Optimus. Jazz couldn’t allow that to happen again.
That was why Jazz decided to do some investigating while Prowl was away on a long mission. It was the perfect time to investigate since Prowl wasn’t around to interfere if he realized what Jazz was doing. He wasn’t even here to realize what was going on.
It was easy to slip into Prowl’s office, but skimming through the datapads didn’t yield any incriminating information. There were secrets of course, but not the ones Jazz was looking for.
The plan for how to deal with Megatron if he ever betrayed the Autobots was interesting though. He’d have to give it a more thorough look later. For now, he had more important business to deal with.
One of Prowl’s datapads was recently taken, and Jazz thought he knew who did it. He passed by a nervous Elita holding a single datapad on the way to Prowl’s office. It was too suspicious to be a coincidence. The big question was if she was doing this under Prowl’s direction or for some other reason.
He would figure that out later. He needed to get that datapad now before she could destroy it.
Running over to where he last saw Elita Jazz moved to cut her off, slowing to a more casual pace when he got close. Leaning against the corner next to her he casually called, “Elita.”
The way Elita froze. Her fear at his greeting. Bingo. If he didn’t know she had the datapad before, he sure did now.
“Jazz! Hi.” Elita said, turning to face Jazz with a stiff smile. It wasn’t convincing at all.
“Throwing out a single datapad? What did it do to you?” Jazz asked.
“Oh, it’s just, you know. Old and laggy. . . and, er, stuff.” Elita said. She really needed to work on her ability to lie.
Instead of pointing that out Jazz said, “Ooh okay. Could you be so kind as to take my old datapads too? Since you’re already heading to the compactor?” Jazz pulled out a few dummy datapads he always carried around. They were good to have, just in case.
“Sure!” Elita said. She still looked nervous, but it didn’t look like she thought Jazz was onto her. Good. No need to tip her off.
“Thanks!” Jazz brightly said putting the dummy datapads in Elita’s arms and taking the chance to insert a thumb drive into the datapad he was after and began downloading the information in a blank datapad he kept just for this purpose.
He had what he needed.
“No problem.” Elita said as Jazz pulled away. Relaxing now that they were done talking.
As Elita walked away Jazz cheerfully mentioned that Optimus wanted to invite her on a mission to keep up appearances. No need to make Elita suspicious.
Returning to his office Jazz propped his feet up on the desk as he waited for the datapad to copy over. The download was only 23% of the way done when an error message popped up. Elita was quick about destroying it—not that it mattered. What he had should be more then enough to figure out what Prowl’s plan was.
“Okay, let’s see what your actual secret is Prowl.” Jazz muttered, opening the datapad. “You think you’re so slick and clever with your. . . perfect gift for solstice chart?”
Jazz couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was a chart cross referencing what type of presents Jazz would like for the solstice with how suspicious he would be to receive it. Prowl was trying to find the best gift to gie him. There were even little notes all around the document, like how he was sad that Jazz wouldn’t trust a new sound system enough to use it, or hos disappointing it was that Prowl couldn’t find an energon cube that would match Jazz’s ‘really cool’ color scheme.
Prowl liked his colors? He thought they were cool?
Jazz slammed the datapad screen down on the desk. That couldn’t be right. He, he had to be reading it wrong. Carefully lifting the datapad up by it’s corner Jazz peaked at it again. The chart was the exact same as before.
What was going on? Jazz was expecting to see plans on how to use Jazz or Optimus’ death to his advantage. Not an entire file dedicated to figuring out the best present to give Jazz that he’d actually use.
Maybe the present was part of a deeper scheme? He’d have to keep looking. Going through the datapad, the next thing he noticed was the file Jazz_boundaries_to_remember_full_list_upd_upd2.D
“What?” Jazz muttered, looking away from the datapad to trying and process what he was seeing.
Ignoring his trepidation Jazz opened the file. It was, as the name suggested, full of notes about Jazz’s boundaries. How close he allowed others, how Jazz was willing to touch others for their comfort but didn’t enjoy it himself. It was full of similar observations, but instead of feeling exposed and vulnerable at every facet of him so carefully laid out in this file Jazz felt. . . touched that Prowl would care enough to notice and remember his preferences to even the smallest detail.
Why would Prowl try and hide this from him? It was actually kind of sweet. Did he think Jazz would hate him for this?
Oh, there were side notes too.
[Jazz now turns his helm in my direction when something happens. For now I assume he wants to see my reactions and he wants me to know he does. Exciting!]
Jazz hit his visor. Was this actually it? This was Prowl’s big secret?
[Side note: I noticed that he does the little head motion whenever Megatron talks about the Autobot codex. Problem?]
[Side note upd: New theory. I think he is rolling his eyes.]
[Side note upd2: I rolled my eyes at the same time as him to test my theory. He kicked me under the table and smiled for 0.45 sec.
Positive interaction—achieved!
Eye contact—achieved!
Leg contact—achieved. (was not a goal) ((was fun anyways)) (((Jazz has strong legs)))]
Prowl liked his legs?
Wait, no, he couldn’t get distracted. He needed to see what else Prowl had to say. Jazz read through the rest of the notes, holding in a giggle at a few of them. He didn’t realize Prowl could be that funny. Soon, too soon, Jazz was met by a wave of ‘corrupted file’ and ‘error’ messages.
“Not fair. These were just the side nots. Let me see the main thing!” Jazz complained drumming the datapad back on the desk. “For once the secret is nice and funny and you hide it from me?
Jazz sighed standing up. “At least now I know his secret is not treason he’s just. . .” Jazz trailed off.
The entire datapad was full of notes about Jazz. Careful consideration for what he wanted. Where his boundaries lied. Every giddy side note about an interaction with Jazz. Prowl’s need to hide this and only this datapad from Jazz. Everything came together to form one conclusion.
Prowl had a crush on him.
Did he like Prowl in the same way?
No, he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t trust that Prowl would be different. That he wouldn’t be used to hurt Jazz like all his other friends were.
It would be better for both of the if Jazz kept his distance. That way Prowl wouldn’t die because of him.
Yeah, it would be better that way.
No matter how much the thought of never sitting next to Prowl and asking for his opinion again hurt.
Jazz knew it would hurt more if Prowl died because of him.
