A/N: Thank you for reading, guys. I want to be sure to say that, though I dallied on the end of this very long fic and some may accuse me of taking an easy (or incredibly hard or maybe just unforgivably cheap) way out, this ending was planned from the beginning. And I'm sort of sorry for that, because it means I'm an awful bastard with no regard for emotions.
Though painful, I like the lesson here because it's one that shows up again and again, no matter where we look in life. Where one story ends, another one begins. For every stage in our life, there is a person who will come to us to teach us what we need to know to face the next stage. Some friends and lovers last us lifetimes, others exit and we have to let them go and be grateful we knew them at all. I believe this with all of me and I think I unconsciously made this story to reflect this life-view that I've only recently come to terms with.
So, preaching over, live long and prosper. Thus begins G1, which will be left to your imagination. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, so go out there and rock your free will, kids.
Thanks for giving a stupid AU a chance.
Cyclic
"And then?"
The cafe was quiet. It was empty, or else he would have feared being overheard — but the waitress was a thoroughly negligent young thing who was too concerned with texting her boyfriend to pay attention to their stories. Prowl took another sip of his tea, pressing his lips together.
"He knocked me out."
His matter-of-fact voice intimated this was far from the first time he had told the story, which was, in a sense, true. It was his simple control that left his audience comfortingly unaware that this was the first time he had told it in a personal setting. His almond eyes were the strangest mixture of steely and aware, but captivating all the same.
"Escaped. Lord knows to where."
Jazz lips pursed to whistle and he found he couldn't. The silence between the two of them seemed very important at that moment, if just because it was laying open before Prowl, giving him more time to speak. Just from looking at the man, Jazz would have never assumed he had so many words in him. After a moment, Prowl cleared his throat and shook his head.
"I had a very, very difficult time trusting anyone for a long time after that. But I had things to work on: my relationship with my mother. Work itself. You have full knowledge of the manner in which we found out that agent Longarm was actually a spy for Megatron. Everything was chaos while Magnus was in ICU, and it was even more tragic when he died. Our office has been in nothing less than a state of crisis for the past seven years, I think. But once I was given a pardon by Optimus and appointed to tactician, I had no choice but to come to terms with the events that had transpired. Others had need of me."
"I don't believe that fer a minute."
Surprised, Prowl looked up with an urbane expression. Jazz shook his head firmly, tapping his knuckles on the table.
"That cant've been the end of it. I mean, I get needin' ta shape up fer others, but how'd you justify it t'yerself? Can't just decide ta get over things like that."
Prowl continued studying the other man, who seemed to realize in the next moment that he had spoken out of turn; the SIC watched Jazz straighten in his chair with a slightly chided look on his face, then sighed softly and looked out the window of the café.
"It took far longer than I ever anticipated, even when I was certain it would consume the rest of my life. The facts are irrefutable and difficult to knit into both my vision of him and my duties. I still have difficulty… being unpartisan." He smiled down into his tea, a wounded expression that very few in his ranks had seen. "He was an enabler. Never did evil directly — he was in no way evil, never spiteful — but through his selfishness and simple need, he allowed the harm of hundreds of others."
"But you had it bad for him," Jazz said quietly, unable to help himself. The expression on Prowl's face became so unsure, so vitally conflicted, that the other man almost took it back and ended the conversation right there. But Prowl closed his eyes and nodded.
"I said I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone. At the time, it was the obvious truth simply because I had never loved anyone — never allowed myself to love anyone." He held his mug lightly between his hands, focusing on the simple sensation of the glaze against his fingers. "But now, after so many years, I can still say it is true. I loved him and I still do, in a way that defies anything we regard as morality or time, or even reason. He is past me, but with me at the same time. He made me who I am today, even in his betrayal, and that is something to remember."
Jazz let out the breath he had been holding since they sat down, leaning back in the tiny café chair that barely held his lanky length and absorbing the difficulty of the moment.
He couldn't quite believe it all. No, he simply couldn't believe it, and was half-waiting to wake up sometime soon. For being such a stiff operator, Prowl was quite the story-teller – then again, maybe the sheer contents of his tales overwhelmed his deadpan delivery and unflinching face. Jazz had heard a few of the newbies at the DPD whispering about some crap in the tactician's past and immediately shrugged it off as office gossip about a higher-up that probably wasn't too popular. When Bumblebee came by and told them to shut the hell up, he thought it was just a way of keeping the hierarchy in place, even as he was a little surprised at the boy's sharpness. He never would have imagined all of it was true.
But maybe the more amazing fact was that he had just gotten a first-hand recount of it all from a man who obviously kept his business very, very close to his chest.
Mind wandering, Jazz absently turned and looked out the full-length café window, watching the thin snow build layer by layer over the body of his white Porsche. It was a beautiful thing, resplendent in blue and red stripes with a fantastically crisp four on the front. A white and black cop car, long Prowl's vehicle of choice, sat parked outside.
Perhaps seeking a small escape from his own thoughts, Prowl followed his gaze and looked at the police car as if seeing himself, black and white and crafted of nonnegotiable lines. A sturdy vehicle and an icon of the law he lived by. His slick black and gold motorcycle was stowed in his garage under a protective sheet, never handled but for joy rides. He knew its place, now.
Prowl had turned thirty a few months ago, completing his sixth year as Second in Command of the Detroit Police force. He was a solid but rather serene man, more prone to smiling, but never unnecessarily. Exacting. Punctilious. Hard to impress, even harder to get close to. In some ways, he was the DPD's greatest anchor; in all ways, considering where he had come from, he was its most unexpected leader.
A few weeks ago, the station received a transferred officer from New Orleans, recommended to Optimus as a top-rank undercover agent. They had been looking for one ever since mounting their true offense against D-Con Industries and Megatron and this man finally seemed to fit the bill. The expert, Jazz, arrived early; obviously caught off-guard, Prowl rose in the middle of a meeting to greet him with a prickly formality that the saboteur would learn to expect only from him.
The rest of the office was pretty chill, but what stopped Jazz in his tracks was a tan, steady man with defined cheekbones, gorgeous eyes, a dark shirt, impressively starched khakis, and, once he was outside in the Detroit sunlight and opening the car door for him, the strangest triangular sunglasses — not that the New Orleans cop could boast, with his much-loved ice blue visor.
"Regardless of how it ended, I realize it was what I needed at the time."
Jazz looked up, startled, then settled in again, studying Prowl's pensive expression.
"He taught me what I needed to know. Valuable, painful lessons. Self-control, not blind denial. Comfort with myself. Humility."
"Sounds like a regular guru," Jazz commented, twining his hands over his knee.
"Not in the manner you're thinking of," Prowl says dryly, smiling to himself: remembering the unprincipled, smirking, spiked fiend of a man as he was in the height of their small-house glory. With it came their scrapes, their simple disparities of personality. "I did, however, learn more about cooking than I ever needed to know. After a time, a small part of me was convinced he kept me around for little more than my quiche."
"I'm sure people'd keep you around for more than your cookin'," Jazz chided him with a quirk of his brow. Prowl returned it with one of his own, only deadly serious.
"I also cleaned."
"Now that's negotiable…" Jazz whistled, tapping his chin. "Edgin' on domestic servitude, akhsally."
"It was an ugly compulsion," Prowl agreed mildly, smiling again. Jazz studied him for a moment, then laughed a bit, drawing an interested look from the younger officer. He shrugged.
"I dunno. I jus' can't imagine you as anythin' other than you are now. Even that's a little mind-bogglin'. Y'may act stiff, but y'still seem really in touch with yourself."
"I am now," Prowl agreed, accepting the praise with an inclination of his head. "It took many scraped knees to get there, however."
Jazz looked at him, marveling a little bit, then remembered what he had wanted to ask before. There was a loose end to Prowl's tale he was particularly wrapped up in, considering his own family experience.
"So what about your mom?"
The slight softening of the SIC's expression thanked him, subtly, for caring enough to ask.
"After she flew to be with me, she lived with my companion for a year and, when she could manage it, took training courses and began to teach elementary school," Prowl explained. He smiled, soft and real, recounting and remembering his mother's growths and the way the strength came back into her own smile after the first year of living on her own, away from Dai. "She now runs a book club and sings in a nondenominational church choir. It is simple, but for the first time in her life, I think she is happy."
"Hey, anythin' that makes ya happy. She sounds like she came a long way, specially considerin' where she started from. But… did I hear you right? Your friend bunked your mom for a full year?" Jazz asked, expression hinging on pure disbelief.
"She is a good friend. Although she needed an excuse to spend more time with her current husband, I suppose," Prowl reasoned with an almost playful quirk of his mouth. The flicker of mirth was made all the more startling by its sudden disappearance as the Second in Command of the DPD suddenly frowned, eyes darkening. "Still, my mother has had a difficult time creating a new life and moving from her previous one. The trial with my father was a painful thing, even when we determined, with the help of our station medic, that he was lying about his broken arm. The case was dismissed as Lockdown was nowhere to be found."
Prowl had to stop for a minute, face pale. Jazz could almost see his mechanical insides rearranging, clamping down on the echo that the name set loose inside of him. Then, with a small nod, he began again.
"Theirs is what is commonly called a green-card marriage. I was angered yet unsurprised to find this out. She told me that they met when she was on a teacher-exchange program in Japan and he pushed her into a marriage after only a few months of knowing her. He did so to get to America where there was a top-ranked company job waiting for him. All of this was strewn out in painful detail at the divorce proceedings. But even as she was desperate to get away from him, I believe my mother loved him in order to survive her life. He continued to haunt us in various ways. When I first cut my hair short and walked into see her… she saw me out of the corner of her eye, I suppose, and stood up so fast she spilled her drink. A hot drink. There was… something close to terror in her face."
The crash of hot coffee on the floor, the squeak of a chair. The breathless moment: one side terrified, the other echoing with that fear yet uncomprehending of it. The dread and pain that corkscrewed in his chest when his mother breathed out and her hand, shaking like it hadn't for months, drifted up to her mouth and pressed there.
"Oh my god."
"She told me that I looked just like him," he said quietly, wrapping his fingers tighter around his mug. He took a deep breath. "I told her that was fine, because I was a completely different person."
Suddenly, Jazz could see the determination and belief in the other man's eyes and knew what Prowl had looked like that very day, holding his hand out to his mother. Taking her down from her ledge and leading her to her chair, both hands on her shoulders. Even as it was fully imaginary, that image hit the older officer and stuck in his chest as Prowl quietly relived the moment in his own head: playing the movie out to its end so he could take it off of his mental projector and stow it away again.
He was so strong, so self-contained. Jazz was painfully interested in him, something he couldn't say was true for much of anyone else. He only realized he was staring when Prowl looked up and his expression became a little startled, as if the SIC was surprised to see that he was still listening. Prowl smiled slightly.
"It has been a long time since I mentioned coffee in such a casual manner. I apologize for my loquaciousness today. I promise you it will not be a common occurrence." Before Jazz could raise his hands to wave off the apology, Prowl regarded him appraisingly with his sharp almond eyes and the other officer fell still, feeling something far deeper than his mocha skin or wary expression being picked apart. "I think I should not tell you all of this… but I feel confident that you are a safe person."
Perhaps no one else but an informed soul would have heard the emphasis on the two modes of function: logic and emotions. Prowl counted as one of his greatest achievements his ability to trust them both and use them where appropriate. He was a fully grown person now, not just a fully grown man. Across the table from him, Jazz gave a short, overwhelmed chuckle and shook his head.
"Don't you worry, man, I'm safe as can be. I don' rock gossip — and I can relate," Jazz assured him, leaning back and patting at his knee with a knowing expression. "I got my own family troubles and I've had a few boyfriends who didn't quite get that I was a cop first and a boo second."
Prowl's nose wrinkled at the odd term, but a small smile was still there. He nodded in understanding. A comfortable silence overtook them, one of sipped tea and easy minutes, no worrying over whether hands were in pockets or on tables or whether cellphones were still on. Then, glancing at his watch, Prowl rose to his feet.
"We should return to the station."
"Could we…"
It popped out before Jazz could think about how he was going to phrase what he wanted to say. It left officer Prowl looking at him expectantly in the most businesslike manner possible, which was pretty bad in and of itself.
He'd had the idea smack in the middle of Prowl's story, but that didn't mean it was well-formed in the slightest: he just sort of panicked in a weird way to see Prowl walking away from him in such a private setting, knowing he had to grab it because it might not happen again. If just from rumor, he knew that Prowl was all procedure and very strict about following the rules that were set in place for a reason — particularly the ones that are meant to save people from embarrassing social situations, like in-rank fraternization.
Choking a little under Prowl's steady stare, Jazz gave a little shrug and a lame smile.
"I mean, it ain't exactly professional since we'll be workin' together, but could we meet up again sometime?"
Prowl's eyebrows drifted up, the rest of his face remaining blank. It was this expression of gentle disbelief that Jazz would come to see on the SIC quite often, but he would also learn that it meant Prowl was seriously considering something. After a moment, Prowl reached for his leather jacket.
"And why would a dinner between two colleagues be anything but professional?" he asked evenly, tone sending a hopeless feeling through Jazz before he actually heard what he said.
"Well, I don' mean t'assume b — hey, wait a – I didn' say anythin about—"
"Next week?"
"Uh?" Jazz stared at him, stymied by and unwilling to jump over the gap between Prowl's flat expression and the words coming out of his mouth.
"I know a fine Italian café. On Miriams," Prowl clarified, pulling on his jacket and pinning Jazz with his cool eyes again.
"When're you free?" Jazz blurted somewhat helplessly, big hands out. He was suddenly a little frightened by how close he came to saying 'sir'.
"I'll leave you a memo."
Finally, Prowl's business face cracked into a small, solid smile. He put out his hand.
"Welcome to the Ark, Jazz."
"The… Ark?" Jazz repeated blankly, reaching to complete the gesture out of reflex.
"Noah's ark. It's a bit of an inside joke," Prowl explained as he gave the saboteur's hand a firm shake, not quite stopping to realize how huge Jazz's dark hand was around his own. "We're akin to Noah's ark, but hopelessly flawed, as we only have… one kind of animal per—"
Prowl was not a joke-teller: he was far too detail oriented and formal for such a thing. Even if he had been, inside jokes were inside for a reason, and Jazz' utterly perplexed look wasn't worth it. Prowl sighed.
"Come to think of it, I don't believe it was ever explained to me either… Welcome all the same."
"Thank ya, Second in Command."
When Jazz made a wait-for-me motion and gestured towards his coffee, Prowl smiled and exited, presumably to phone in that they would be at the station shortly as he warmed up his car.
After taking his drink up front, Jazz took a moment to breathe in and lean on the little café chair, waiting for his drink to be boxed up. The space around him was completely new in a way that first visits couldn't explain: the longer he stood there, he realized he had little to no idea what had just happened. He had just learned more about his new (if temporary) SIC than he suspected the entire team knew and just got arm-wrestled into a dinner with him.
But, regardless (or rather because) of being put off-guard so soon, he rather liked the man's style. Prowl was a methodical monster, perfectionist in all things and damn effective because of it, but could maybe afford to learn the value of a little improvisation. A perfect foil to his own elastic and easy-going nature. To him, new to the force as he was, Prowl seemed a little untouchable but he would learn, in time, to apply his own street-savvy push to the man and counter him. Together, they would become a relatively unstoppable mystery to the rest of the system that churned around them, uncomprehending of how two men, so different, could work so closely and with such good results.
"Hot damn," Jazz exclaimed quietly, smile edging over his face as he stared at the door. The slight man beyond it unlocked his car and started it up with an unheard turn of a well-kept engine. Jazz's own car seemed to steam impatiently in place, eager to plow through the new snow and match tire with the aloof stranger next to him. Slipping the girl a dollar when she handed him his drink, Jazz stared a moment more and smiled before slipping on his blue visor and walking out to their cars, unknowingly ready for the small half-race back to the station Prowl would surprise him with.
Unless he was mistaken or overly optimistic, Jazz felt like this could be the start of something sweet.
