Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers
Please R&R
(Am back from the Christmas Hols sober and a year older... meh... enjoy!)
The clock ticked restlessly upon the desk, the Cybertronian scanning through the data-pad wincing as a powerful pain lanced across his stomach plating, the recent welds that now kept him together blatantly obvious as the light glinted off of his silver paint. Cursing in discomfort at the slow burn, the visored mech reached forward and swiped his Medical Grade Energon from the desk and tossed back a generous gulp, sighing as a cool, dark sensation whispered through his processor erasing his pain with a comforting sweep.
"Good old Ratchet," the Autobot Jazz sighed pleasantly, mentally saluting the neon green medic that had grudgingly put the pain reliever nanobots in the saboteur's energon, less he have to track down the visored mech when he was denying his pain.
Coming back from the brink of deactivation had changed Jazz.
It hadn't really surprised Optimus when Smokescreen had handed over the data-pad of his chaotic psychological evaluation at the behest of the flame decaled leader when the saboteur had randomly started screaming at Sideswipe's apparent immaturity. Which was disturbing because a) Jazz was an easy going mech that took everything in his stride and b) Sideswipe's immaturity was a mile wide as it was and didn't really need pointing out.
It had been the third year in a row Jazz had acted out on this particular, normal day at the exact same time.
Ratchet, in an attempt to find out what was wrong had poured over the coding in the saboteur's processor. "Just a ghost Ratchet." Jazz grinned brushing off the medic after they had uncovered nothing. "It's only a ghost."
Sighing the Autobot TIC slouched into his office chair abandoning his 'light duties' in favour of staring into the face of the human clock that Sam had offered him after he had commented on the soothing rhythm of the incessant ticking.
Tick, tick, tick.
Nanoseconds passed.
Tick, tick, tick.
A breem.
Tick, tick, tick.
Baring his denta in a snarl the silver mech swatted the clock from the desk, perfect cogs, springs and glass tinkling to the floor as the door opened and a familiar black and white mech strode into the room, his doorwings, elegant and high, as golden optics narrowed in exasperation.
"Is there a reason you seem to be shattering your gift to pieces?" Prowl asked tilting his chevroned helm, the door hissing shut behind him. "I thought you liked the ticking."
"I've changed my mind." He sulked, crossing arms across his chest plates his visor locking with neutral gold optics, "What are you doing in my office Prowl?"
"You didn't come home to me." The Praxian said slowly, wings twitching, "I called you. I came to find you."
"Sorry. Ratchet is good." He replied with a casual shrug, "But don't worry Prowl, they may have forgotten but I won't."
"You never do." Came the pleased deep rumble as Jazz mentally begin to mimic the ticking of human seconds to his chronometer. "Tick, tick, tick." Prowl clicked soothingly, his outline smudging with heavenly silver.
"Tick, tick, tock. Chime." Jazz grinned brightly as his chronometer highlighted an old memo in his processor that had just become a millennium old. "Happy Death orn, Prowl, SIC of the Autobots who died on the battlefield at this precise moment a human millennium ago…"
The ghost grinned back, an expression that had rarely crossed the faceplate in life. "I'll be waiting for you Jazzy." His old lover cooed as his faded in silver whisps of light, "And this time. Make sure you properly die."
"Will do, love." Jazz snickered waving to the ghost as he disappeared for yet another year, leaving the TIC and Head of Special Operations to pick up the cogs and screws of his destroyed clock with his servo magnets, gently manipulating the earthen metal with his powerful magnets and reconstructing the time keeper. Soon, a dented reconstruction stood crookedly on the desk as a silver finger gently prodded a battery into the slot, winding the arrows to their correct positions.
Chuckling darkly, the TIC Autobot Jazz sighed as a rhythmic 'tick' began to fill the room as he retrieved his data-pad, the highlighted memo fading back into the back of his processor or another year.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
