This one was in reply to a plot bunny posted on the transfication community some time back. And, since a reviewer pointed it out when I first posted this, this Jazz doesn't have doorwings. Thanks for sticking around and reviewing!

Title: Doorwings for Dummies
Fandom: Transformers G1
Rating: G
Characters: Jazz, Prowl, Smokescreen, Bluestreak, Mirage
Summary: The resident Datsuns have a secret code that Jazz is determined to break.

Jazz- being Jazz –didn't like to stay idle. Mentally, that is. He liked to kicked back and relax, but his processor was always going. His most favorite thing to kick back, relax and think on was watching others and his favorite thing to watch was Prowl. Because as stoic as the tactician was, there were still so many tells in his movements that said more than his words or tone did.

Which was why he noticed something strange when he was in desperate need to watch and think. It was something he'd seen hundreds of times before and after he noticed it that once Jazz didn't understand how he had missed it in the first place.

Smokescreen had gone up to the interceptor and handed him a datapad, standing silently at Prowl's elbow for a minute before going on his way. He hadn't said anything and in fact rarely did in these kinds of passing moments and Jazz- like many others –didn't think anything of it. Until he realized that while neither mechs said anything there was an awful lot of twitching of the doorwings going on.

It's not that Jazz never knew they could move, after so many centuries knowing and watching Prowl it's not like he never had the chance to notice. But he had assumed most of the twitching was an unconscious reaction. The reason doorwings weren't so prevalent now was because it tended to cause strain on the hinges and there were often maintenance issues regarding them. So Jazz had always assumed doorwings twitched in order to flex some kink or get fluids moving unhindered. But what he saw between Prowl and Smokescreen was nothing like that.

So Jazz watched Prowl a little closer. And Smokescreen and Bluestreak, too. He had found out that out of the three of them, Bluestreak's doorwings tended to flicker the least. That is, when he was talking. Whenever he was alone and Jazz could see some dark memory the young gunner was unable to hold at bay flash behind his optics, his doorwings would dip back and twitch at any sudden sound or movement. Whenever they were around Bluestreak, Prowl and Smokescreen's doorwings fluttered a lot, almost reassuringly. Smokescreen's moved the most, the height and angle of them switching around depending on who he was with. Prowl's, generally kept high and angled behind him, moved straight back when he was thinking and flared high and wide when he was reprimanding someone.

It was like their doorwings had a language all their own. He kept watching, keeping a detailed diagram of the different positions of these peripheries in order to decipher them. This kept him happily occupied for weeks and Jazz hurried to finish his work for the day in order work on this new project of his. The first week of this, Prowl's doorwings had gone high and back, realizing Jazz had done all his tasks with the same perfection and attention as he always gave it. Jazz noted this every time it happened.

He noted whenever two of the three would meet- be it passing in the halls or to speak on the command deck –their doorwings would always bob up and out. This Jazz decided to note as a greeting. Oddly enough he found that Prowl always kept his high, Bluestreak's low and Smokescreen's would go from high to low depending on which of the two he was with at the time. Whenever the three were together the blue mech would keep his doorwings somewhere between the height of the other two. Jazz wondered if this was some implication of rank and tentatively put it down as such.

The more Jazz tried to decipher this strange mystery, the more frustrated he ended up getting. He tried to understand the movement of their doorwings using verbal clues, but as he listened and watched he didn't know what the appendages would be saying that they already weren't. He recalled once when they had returned from a skirmish and Bluestreak had minor wounds, Prowl had asked him if he was hurt in that authoritative 'why-did-you-do-something-so-obviously-very-stupid' tone of voice but his doorwings were flexing in and out. Bluestreak had replied that he was alright but he didn't sound at all cowed and his own doorwings waved in a strange, repeat pattern Jazz never recalled seeing before. And he had no idea what it was suppose to mean.

Once Smokescreen had to have both his doorwings removed because he'd been t-boned by a Stunticon and having only one doorwing messed up his equilibrium something fierce. He was so utterly frustrated by that- a strange, desperate anger as Jazz had never seen on the diversionary tactician before. Every time Prowl or Bluestreak was with him, their doorwings tilted down and flapped from side to side. That Jazz couldn't decipher either.

So, almost two months into figuring these odd dances and not coming any closer than when he started, Jazz had almost reached the point where he was ready to just ask one of them for a direct translation. Because anyone that noticed this could tell that it meant something. He sat in the common room, a datapad full of diagrams, context and potential meaning before him when Mirage sat down, leaning to look at what it was that had Jazz so focused.

Jazz just let him look until Mirage sat back with a curious stare. "What are you trying to do?"

"Figure out what our resident Datsuns' doorwings are saying."

A small smile quirked the side of the sniper's lips. "They're not 'saying' anything, you know."

"I disagree. Things don't move like that without a purpose."

"Oh, they have a purpose. But that doesn't mean they say anything." Jazz looked at him uncomprehendingly. Jazz realized he didn't like that feeling. "You know how Spike and Carly tend to move their hands when they speak? Doorwings are like that- they're an emoting device."

Somehow Jazz couldn't accept that it was that simple. "An emoting device."

"That's right."

"So when Smokescreen and Prowl have entire conversations by flicking their doorwings, it's just them emoting to each other?"

"Pretty much. It's like any other body language, really. If you can read it well enough, you don't really have to say anything."

That was true. Jazz knew that intimately well himself. "How do you know so much about this?"

There was a pause. Then Mirage spread his hands with a slightly guilty grin. "I got curious and asked Bluestreak about it once. If you want," Mirage look partly sly, partly embarrassed, "I've actually got a diagram of my own in my quarters trying to figure out the different emotional nuances of those things. We could possibly compare notes…?"

Jazz's lips spread into a long, wide grin. "Sounds like a plan."