Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, not even one of their toys…
Author's Note: Thanks to Exactlywhat for the bunny. I was telling her about a friend who can never think of the right word, so she just makes them up. She suggested having a bot who does just that and Prowl's confusion over it. This is the first fanfic I've actually written down, though I have been writing some "warm fuzzies" for a fic that Exactlywhat is posting.
Prowl was confused. He was so confused that he even let it show on his faceplates. He was pretty sure his mate was speaking English, but he didn't understand him at all! Jazz had just giggled and waved him off when he suggested a trip to the med bay to have Ratchet check for a glitch in his vocalizer. What was a tactician to do?
He and Jazz had been looking at a data pad full of pictures and observations of earthen fauna that Hound had just turned in.
"Prowler, smallen that one. I wanna see tha one behind it!"
"What do you mean by 'smallen,' Jazz?" Prowl asked, his doorwings drooping fractionally.
"Ya know, make it smaller or put it down in the menu bar!"
Prowl stared at his mate for a moment before doing as he asked. He immediately regretted it. For as soon as Jazz could see the picture of an angora bunny sitting in a human's lap, he started speaking in a strange language. This language was almost English, but not quite. It certainly wasn't Cybertronian. Nor did it sound like any other language Prowl had ever heard. He tried looking up the words that Jazz was using, but found nothing on the internet to ease his thoroughly confused and overworked processor!
"Prowler? Prowl! Are you okay, mech? Ah was just sayin' that tha bunny looked very floofy. Ah wonder what that human's doing wit' its fur, though. She's got a spinny-whatzit attached to it and it looks like she's pulling the floof right offa tha bunny! Ah hope she's not hurtin' it!"
Prowl just sat in his chair, looking like he was about to crash. His doorwings were twitching uncontrollably, his optics were bright and unfocused, and worst of all, he had the saddest, most confused look on his face that Jazz had ever seen! At this point, the smaller black and white began to worry. He commed Ratchet to come help before Prowl could get in even worse shape!
"Did you break Prowl, again?!" came Ratchet's growl from the doorway.
"Uuuuhh, yeah. But Ah didn't mean to! Ah was jus' talkin' about the pictures Hound gave us to look at!" Jazz hurriedly explained.
Ratchet just grunted, then asked Jazz to tell him exactly what he said to Prowl before he froze up. After hearing the explanation, Ratchet whacked the smaller mech on the head with his trusty wrench, saying, "Of course he crashed! You used too many Jazzisms! You should know better by now. Seriously, what were you thinking?" Jazz simply stared down at his pedes, chagrined.
A week later Prowl found himself in a similar state while sitting in the rec room. It seemed like everyone was speaking this strange, new language! He seemed to be the only one who could not comprehend it. Sideswipe, who was walking by, noticed how confused the doorwinger seemed. "What's wrong?" he asked. Don't you understand the great new words that Jazz came up with? They're so much better than the real words for things!" At that, the world went dark and blissfully silent for Prowl. Sideswipe, however, was stuck catching the SIC and calling Ratchet for help.