Originally started as a request from MoonWallker, but my angst muse took over. Sorry about that. One day I will do it properly.

Battlefield

The battle had gone badly.

Very badly.

The few autobots who weren't in the medbay were either going back and collecting their dead – for many what was left of them – or they were running trying to help where they could.

It took almost a full cycle until it was calm enough for them to sit down and take the break they direly needed. For once, Prowl was willing to turn a blind eye to the high-grade that was being passed around by the twins.

The twins, by some twist of fate, had narrowly avoided deactivation via an enraged Starscream when their jet packs suddenly stopped working in unison. They fell like stones into the sea below them and resurfaced a joor later.

Now feeling that there was enough order for them to function without him, Prowl retreated back to his office. He hadn't emerged since he first went in there, and nobody had heard a single thing from him. Not a single peep. Jazz took it upon himself to check up on the mech, as it was Prowls plan that had failed so badly. He knew how hard Prowl took it when disasters such as this happened – he took it personally. Tricked himself into thinking that he'd killed every single mech who died with his own hands.

Of course, this was far from the truth. But would Prowl listen – or accept that? No. He wouldn't.

Jazz knew this.

So he wasn't surprised when he unlocked the doors to Prowls office to find Prowl slumped over his desk nursing a cube of high-grade. From the state of the floor, it obviously wasn't his first. He carefully picked his way over, making sure not to step on the empty cubes that littered the floor.

"Prowler?"

Prowl hummed, lifting his head slightly to look at Jazz. His optics were dim and significantly wet looking. Jazz felt himself deflate. Damn, Prowl was literally drowning in his sorrows. He plucked the cube out of Prowls hands, placing it further away from him on the desk. Prowl protested slightly until Jazz started rubbing in between his doorwings. He just couldn't be bothered to push Jazz away and tell him to stop – he liked it and damn it, he needed the comfort right now. He barely suppressed a hiccup.

The office stunk of high grade to the point where it was starting to hurt Jazz's optics. They stung a little, and coolant had started to leak from them in a desperate attempt to soothe his optics. The two remained in silence for a little while longer until Jazz broke it.

"Ya really shouldn' hole ya'self away, Prowler."

"They don' need me." He mumbled in reply. The slur in his voice betrayed how much he'd had to drink.

"No one blames ya fer what happened. All our intel told us tha' Devastator was outta action."

"I should have known."

"Nobody knew. Nobody blames ya."

"I should have known!"

Jazz silently pulled Prowl into a hug, still massaging his back, murmuring comforting words into Prowls audial when he began to hug Jazz back, shaking with the force of his sobs.

Sslaxx – I ship them together so hard it hurts, Transformersfan524 just fuelled the flame. I did see Hot rod as being their kid before, but after reading their fics it got fixated in my head and I legitimately cannot see it any other way any more. Welp.

Lair of the Twisted Muses – Yep! That would! I've managed to make myself crack up just thinking about how happy Optimus would be because he finally wouldn't have to strain his neck to maintain eye contact with anyone. Simple things please simple people, ey?

As always, I'm open to requests at all times! I'm starting to run low on the nice list MoonWallker gave me.

~Llama