It had been nearly a decacycle since Jazz had moved in and he had seen Prowl a total of maybe a joor, and spoken with him for maybe twelve breems.
Three cycles after the move-in, Jazz had attempted to contact him by camping out in the dorm room all the time, with the obvious exception of classes and energon retrieval. That hadn't worked, and Jazz's need for socialization had suffered big time. Occasionally he would spot the black-and-white around the campus, but before he could engage Prowl, the mech would disappear.
It was starting to irritate Jazz.
For one, he kind of had something to prove to Blaster and Beachcomber because of an incident involving a bet concerning Prowl and a rather unfortunate loss of credits. For another, he had attempted to transfer dorms already, but the Housing Director told him that unless he had a clear and valid reason to transfer, he would be staying put. He currently had no such reason.
At the moment, Jazz was sitting on the floor of the rec center while Blaster and Sunstreaker sparred. Sunstreaker was winning.
He and Prowl did share one class-Political Studies. Unfortunately, they didn't have the class at the same time, but they did have the same Professor. Maybe he could use that to get Prowl to actually talk to him.
It would be difficult. A grunt from Blaster sparked an idea for Jazz. Blaster often asked for help with his studies, at least the ones he didn't like.
A surprised cry followed by a loud thud as Blaster was slammed on his back. Yes, that would probably work. From what his professor had said, Prowl didn't have many other students approach him for tutoring, but when they did, he was more than happy to help.
Except for one problem. Jazz knew the subjects. True, he procrastinated about completing his work and usually had to pull several all-nighters before the due dates for big projects, but he always got his stuff in on time. Most of the time with a few breems to spare!
Blaster picked himself up, ventilations gasping. "Heh. Good one, Sunny. Next time I won't go easy on you." 'Sunny' braced himself, and easily swung Blaster around into the wall when he lunged.
Well, he was a skilled actor, so he could probably feign ignorance. He didn't want to, but if he was ever going to find some dirt on the mech, he probably had to. Besides, it would only be for a few joors, right? It couldn't be that bad.
It was that bad. Once again, Jazz sat on the floor of the rec. room and watched as Sunstreaker knocked Blaster's legs out from under him. Blaster landed with a loud 'oomf!' and Sunstreaker laughed in reply.
Jazz had managed to schedule some tutoring time with Prowl (with the help of Professor Shockwave), but he had only managed to last about half a joor before he had 'miraculous understanding' of the subject and thus ended the session.
It wasn't that Prowl was a bad tutor, or a particularly unpleasant bot. Quite the opposite. He was an excellent tutor, going slowly, systematically, going into explicit detail to make absolute sure Jazz knew everything he needed to know about what he was doing. And he was incredibly polite the entire time.
Jazz hated it.
For one thing, he didn't do very well with systematic. He preferred his on-the-fly, almost chaotic method of doing things. Sure, he was fine with explicit detail. When he presented his case to the Housing Director, he would need a great amount of it to convince the mech.
For another, Jazz didn't like being treated 'politely.' He liked being treated like a mech who could hold his own, stand on his own two peds. Prowl had gone into such great detail and had gone to such extreme measures that he understood that Jazz had felt like a helpless sparkling again.
"Keep your guard up." Sunstreaker coached.
If only Prowl was more like Sunny, Jazz thought wistfully. He watched as Sunny landed a hit to Blaster's abdomnal plates, directly after he had told the mech to guard his chestplates.
"What the frag?!" Blaster wheezed while clumsily blocking another hit to his side.
"What do you mean?" Another jab to his shoulder, another block.
"You told me to guard my chassis, and then you go for my tanks!" Blaster punched at Sunny's side, a hit that was easily blocked.
"Move your feet. The point here is to teach you to move your guard as needed." The golden mech took a small step back and then launched into a series of kicks that had Blaster backed up to the wall of the ring.
"I am moving my guard! I moved my arms and then you-"
"Hey, could you guys keep it down? I'm trying to brood here." Both mechs in the ring froze and turned to look as Jazz went back to pondering over his dilemma. Blaster had been spared from a rather unfortunate kick to his neck cables. Maybe if he brought some energon goodies, he could convince the Housing Director with what he had. But that just opened up a whole other door of problems. If he brought energon goodies, it could seem like he was trying to woo the Director, and he certainly didn't want that!
"Having problems with your new roommate?" Blaster suddenly appeared beside him.
Jazz sighed. The sound was tinged with an air of reluctance. "Yeah..."
"Spill. We can help." And there was Sunstreaker on the other side of him. Great. He was a sandwich.
"Fine." The two bots backed up a bit as he got up. He could feel, FEEL Sunstreaker's smugness at what was about to come out of his vocalizer. "You were right..."
Two nearly identical cries of "HA!" enveloped him as he headed towards the sparring ring. Sunstreaker followed, as Blaster was thoroughly beaten already.
The two took their starting positions, and once the match began, Jazz explained his problem with no small amount of chagrin.
"My apologies for the inconvenience, Director Soundwave, but as you can see, we simply not compatible as roommates." The young student finished explaining.
Soundwave looked down at the console screen that displayed the current dorm arrangements. He had placed the third-years Prowl and Jazz together, and so far both of them had come to request a change of accommodations within the same two joors.
"Soundwave: confused. Dorm room: originally Prowl's."
Prowl frowned at that. What was going on in that processor? It was so very tempting to find out. But...the last time he had given in to the temptation, he had uncovered a student-teacher affair that was highly disturbing, even if they were both Vosnian. "That is true, but I would never be so inconsiderate as to demand Jazz be moved. He's already been uprooted once." The Praxian's doorwings twitched a bit, belying his nervousness. There was something else going on. How badly did Soundwave really want to find out?
"Request: understood, accepted."
Prowl nodded and thanked him before turning to leave. But there was something in his expression that undermined whatever gratitude he had just shown. Add that to the miniscule sagging of the black and white doorwings, and it added up to: disappointment. Fascinating.
Soundwave watched the mech until he had closed the door behind him, before he made a mental note to further investigate, but not through telepathic means. Then he made another note on the console next to both Prowl and Jazz's designations, each indicating they were to be moved.
Separating them would inherently end whatever problem there was, and he wanted to find out more about it. He couldn't do that if the problem was removed, now could he?
Under his face mask, Soundwave smiled. He hadn't smiled in decacycles.
They were going to hate him so much.
Oh, Soundwave. *shakes head* What are you getting yourself into?
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