Warning!! Contains some slash now and will have much more slash later! Don't like slash or yaoi, please don't read. You've been warned! Thanks!

Edited by the wonderful Taralynden

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Ok, "Vorn" = about 1 year, "Stellarcycle" = about 6 months, "Decacycle" = about 1 week, "Cycle" = about 1 day, "Orn" = about an hour, "Breem" = about a minute

"click" = bout a mile

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Chapter 3

Jazz was an exceptional planner. As a Saboteur, Head of the Special Ops branch, and newly named Third in Command, he had to be. The success of his missions, as well as the safety of his squads, depended on him working out every detail. However, when his processor wasn't plotting out an upcoming mission, it was working on the one other plan that consumed him.

It had become his favorite pastime, his favorite game. The game of ensnaring one deliciously elusive tactician. And the game was proving harder than Jazz thought it would be. He had made it so he could "bump" into Prowl just about anywhere on the base, at any time. Prowl had seemed less than impressed by this. Of course Jazz could tell Prowl, using the prettiest and most lyrical words he knew, just how gorgeous Prowl was to him but Prowl wasn't a vain mech and Jazz knew aside from a polite 'Thank you' (as Prowl was always polite) no words of his could woo the stoic tactician.

Jazz was having to sit down and reevaluate the way he was going about this. So far his efforts had not yielded him the prize he sought. So Jazz backed off and just watched Prowl, nothing else. Just watched and watched Prowl. For about two decacycles, until a realization struck him like lightning. A realization so obvious, Jazz had to wonder why he didn't take note of it before. Dear Primus, had he been so taken with Prowl, walking around in such a haze, he had lost all sense of observation!?

All of Jazz's tricks, showing up out of nowhere to greet Prowl or "bump" into him along various halls, trips to the record vaults, had all been a waste of time and energy. Jazz now knew what the stolid tactician liked. Prowl liked routine. He thrived on it. The same motions day in and day out, over and over and over. It had to have something to do with his overdeveloped logic center. No wonder Prowl had climbed the ranks of the Autobot Army so fast.

Oh yes, Jazz had already taken the liberty of hacking into the files that contained scads of information on Prowl and his past. The most surprising piece of information Jazz found was just how young Prowl was. Slag it all, Prowl wasn't that much older than Bluestreak! And Blue was one of the youngest bots they had at the base. No wonder Prowl's age was buried so deep in his file. One would never have guessed it, Prowl acted in such a way that made him appear older and more mature than a good portion of the bots at the base.

Prowl's age aside, because, truly Jazz didn't care how old or young Prowl was, Jazz knew what he needed to do. Prowl loved his routine, so Jazz would have to become a fixed part of it. No more appearing in the rec room when Prowl was in there or showing up sporadically in a the same hall as him. No, Jazz need to plant himself into Prowl's routine permanently. To become such an intricate part of Prowl's every cycle that when the saboteur was not there, for any unexplained reason, it would bother Prowl...and Jazz already had the plan all worked out.

--

Prowl had been so good about keeping his glitch under control since his arrival, but he was sure if Jazz kept this up his entire logic center was going to shut down, he'd crash, be sent to the Med Bay and be yelled at by Ratchet. Prowl was sure when it began that this was just another way for Jazz to get him alone and proceed get too close and say inappropriate things to him. But that didn't happen.

The day it all started, he had been in his office making notes on a report he needed to finish and give to Optimus Prime, only looking up when the door to his office slid open and in stepped Jazz holding a good sized stack of data pads. Before Prowl could even question him, Jazz walked in, scooted one of two chairs up to the opposite side of the desk Prowl sat at, and made a nice neat stack out of the data pads he had brought with him on a corner of the desk Prowl had not occupied. He then sat down, picked up one of his data pads, leaned back in the chair making himself comfortable, and proceeded...to work. Prowl didn't quite know what to think or how to react. It occurred to Prowl that maybe Jazz's office had fallen victim to one of Sideswipes pranks, which could be quite destructive at times, and had come here lacking anywhere else to work.

"Jazz, is there something wrong with your office?"

Jazz simply shook his head, "Nope" and continued working on the data pad.

"Is there a reason your working in my office?"

"Yep."

Jazz didn't even look up, he just continued to work away on the data pad.

"And what would that reason be, Jazz?"

"I like your office better."

That stunned Prowl.

"Our offices are identical."

"Nope, yours is better."

"How so?"

Jazz finally looked up at Prowl, "Cause you're in it."

Jazz flashed Prowl a small grin then returned his attention to the data pad, leaving a slightly flustered, confused, and suspicious Prowl on the other side of the desk. Prowl sat for several breems watching the saboteur, watching for any movement that might give away why Jazz was really there. Jazz gave nothing away though and Prowl eventually started to work on his own reports again, still keeping a wry optic on the saboteur. Aside from Jazz putting one report down and picking up another to work on, he made no other moves.

The orn grew late, and Prowl decided to call it a night and finish the rest of the reports in the morning. Placing unfinished reports aside, Prowl noticed Jazz doing the same. Jazz got up and headed to the door and signaled for it to slide open, Prowl stood up and followed, noticing that Jazz didn't have any of the data pads he had brought with him. Looking back he saw them stacked in two piles on his desk, giving Prowl the distinct impression that Jazz would be back in his office in the morning, occupying the same spot. What the...?

"Prowler."

Prowl turned back to Jazz who was leaning tiredly against the door frame, Jazz inclined his head toward the hall,

"Ya comin', Prowler? Cycle's over an' some recharge is soundin' great right about now."

Prowl hesitated a moment then walked toward the door as Jazz unfolded himself from the door frame and stepped in the hall. He waited patiently for Prowl to lock his office and fell into step with him as they walked in the direction of their quarters, Jazz's being just down from Prowl's.

Curiosity was eating at Prowl.

"What were you working on?"

Jazz glanced at him, "Huh?"

"What report were you working on, Jazz?"

"Optimus wanted a detailed account of Mirage's an' Bee's last recon mission."

"Oh."

Prowl fell silent, that was real, Optimus had mentioned to Prowl he was going to ask Jazz for that. What Jazz had been working on was no facade. Thankfully they reached Prowl's quarters and he could go inside and fall into blissful recharge. As Prowl stopped and started to tap in the code to open his door, he saw Jazz continue to walk on to his own quarters just down the hall.

Without even turning around Jazz threw Prowl a wave, "Night Prowlie" then tabbed in his own entry code to his quarters and went inside.

Prowl stood there, shook his head, finished entering in his own code and went inside. He refused to think on it, not everything Jazz did made sense.

The next cycle found Jazz in Prowl office occupying that same chair, working on reports. And the cycle after that and the cycle after that and the cycle after that and on and on. Prowl eventually didn't even look up when Jazz would enter his office and assume his spot across the desk. The first time Prowl didn't bother to look up as Jazz entered and had simply greeted him with "Morning, Jazz", he completely missed the grin that split across the saboteur's face plates.

Four decacycles later Jazz introduced a whole new element to his invasion of Prowl's office. Strategy games. Apparently Jazz had a cache of them. One eve, as Prowl was shutting everything down, Jazz had asked if he'd be interested in playing a round or two of such a game. It was a strategy game, so of course Prowl was interested! Prowl could rarely find anyone to play him at such games, aside from Optimus every now and again when they had some down time to spare. Jazz had grinned big, told Prowl not to move from his seat and dashed out of Prowls office, sprinted to his quarters, grabbed the game and two cubes of energon he had stashed away earlier just for this occasion, and dashed back to Prowl's office.

And so it began, usually twice or more a decacycle the two black and whites would sit in Prowl's office engaged in various games, sipping on energon and occasionally some high grade.

It had to be about the third or fourth time they had sat down and played a strategy game that it occurred to Prowl that Jazz was more than fairly good at strategies. He was really good in fact. Good enough to be doing the job Prowl himself was doing. Which brought about a question in Prowls processor, why did Optimus Prime ask him to be Second in Command when Jazz seemed very qualified to do the job?

"Whats on your processor, Prowlie?"

Prowl shifted his gaze from the game to Jazz, and gave him a questioning look.

Jazz smiled, "Ya got that distant look about ya, usually means your thinkin' bout somethin' pretty deep. Whats on your processor?"

Jazz sipped on his energon, looking at Prowl expectantly.

"I was wondering why I'm here, Jazz. Why I'm in this job, this position."

Prowl watched Jazz straighten in his chair, there was now no trace of that easy grin, from behind the visor his gaze seemed to gain intensity as he focused on Prowl,

"You unhappy here, Prowl?"

Prowl looked at Jazz for a moment, trying to read him, Jazz seemed...tense.

"No, not at all, Jazz."

Prowl watched as Jazz relaxed into his chair again. What was that about?

"What do ya mean by that, Prowlie? Why would ya be wonderin' why you're in the position you're in?"

"You seem...capable of handling the duties and responsibilities that come with being Second in Command, Jazz. Why didn't Prime hand this position over to you? Why call me in?"

Jazz grinned widely,

"I'm flattered, Prowlie, truly flattered you think I could do your job. Truth of the matter is, even if I could do your job, I wouldn't want to. Heck, I didn't really want to be Third in Command. I had to sit down with Optimus and hammer out all kinds of details and conditions if I was to agree to be Third in Command. I'm Special Ops, Prowlie. Since I joined the squad way back when, careerwise I've had only one desire: to be the best there is. And I am. That eventually got me placed here, in charge of the Special Ops Division. I got what I wanted and I'm happy right where I am."

Prowl nodded as Jazz took a long drink of his energon then leaned on the desk toward Prowl,

"What about you, Prowlie? You happy right where you are?"

Prowl gave that a moment's thought, then gave Jazz a small smile,

"Yes."

--

When Jazz had put his plan in action, he didn't expect it to go as smoothly as it did. He had prepared himself to be kicked out of Prowl's office, thrown out, escorted out, something! But Prowl had done none of that. After a safe amount of time had passed, Jazz had "thanked" Prowl for letting him stay and work in his office and had expressed how glad he was that Prowl hadn't simply thrown him out. Prowl's response had been brief: "You aren't breaking any rules, Jazz, I would have no basis for throwing you out". Good ol' rule huggin' Prowl! Any other mech would have tossed Jazz out on his aft with barely a second thought.

Prowl had been at the base over a vorn now and for about the past stellarcycle Jazz had occupied his office, evey cycle. The only exception was when Jazz was on a mission, and Prowl always knew when that was since he was always in the planning of those missions. It had become an unbroken routine, until one morning when Jazz received an unexpected comm from Mirage who was needing some advice on an upcoming recon mission. Jazz headed to Mirage's quarters and spent sometime going over any questions the spy had for him. Afterwards Jazz headed back towards Prowl's office, only to be stopped by Optimus and Ironhide. Optimus and Jazz quickly went from discussing business to chit chatting about completely unrelated matters. Jazz was leaning against the wall, talking, until he heard footsteps rounding the corner behind him and saw Optimus slide his gaze from Jazz to whoever now stood behind him. Jazz turned around to find Prowl standing there, an odd expression playing lightly on his normally neutral face.

"You ok, Prowl? Ya look...bothered."

Prowl stood still for a moment,

"You didn't come to my office this morning. I waited. I... Is everything all right, Jazz?".

Prowl had a worried expression on his face and he was working to mask it. Jazz had to school himself to refrain from showing the elation he felt. Jazz had just unintentionally but very successfully upset Prowl's cycle by simply not showing up in his office this morning like he was supposed to. Upset Prowl so much he went looking for Jazz! This pretty much declared Jazz an important part of Prowl's routine. Jazz had to swallow and hold back the huge grin that wanted to break out on his face.

"My apologies, Prowl, Mirage commed me first thing this mornin' with a bunch a questions bout the mission and then I got ta talkin' with Optimus here."

"My apologies for holding Jazz up, Prowl. I wasn't aware you had a meeting with him."

Optimus, indeed, looked very apologetic; Ironhide stood by his side, an expression of distaste on his face. Of course, there was no meeting. To Jazz's knowledge, Optimus didn't yet know he was doing all his work from Prowl's office. Prowl looked like he was about to speak before Jazz stepped in. There was nothing wrong with him working in Prowl's office, however he didn't want Optimus to give Prowl a good logical reason for why he shouldn't be in there, not when everything was going so well.

"Not a problem, Optimus, Sir!" Jazz turned back to Prowl, "Lets go, Prowl." and with that Jazz turned Prowl around in the direction of his office and gave him a light push forward.

But Ironhide stopped him, "Prowl?"

Prowl stopped short and tuned back to face him, "Yes, Ironhide?"

"Yah know, if yah have need a' anythin' or if anythin's...upsettin' yah, you can always come talk ta Optimus...or me, right?"

By this point Ironhide had crossed his arms over his chest and was scowling at the floor.

Prowl seemed to think this over, "Yes, Ironhide, Thank you."

Prowl looked at Optimus and nodded, "Sir." then turned around again and started walking back to his office.

Jazz flashed Optimus and one sour-looking, grumbling, Ironhide a grin and then turned to catch up with Prowl. Falling into step with the other black and white, Jazz couldn't help but grin the entire way to Prowl's office.

--authors notes--

I had hoped to get more Jazz/Prowl mushy goodness in this chapter but it got WAY too long. So, next chapter will have it! And some angst...oh no, a Decepticon attack! Ooo, what will happen!? XD Stay tuned, chapter 4 will be up soon!

And Thanks to everyone who has read this thus far and thanks to those who took time to send a review or fav or any of that!!

And as always...You like? Then please review! Reviews let me know the story is enjoyed and to keep going :) Also questions, concerns, ideas, suggestions...feel free! :)