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nn1895 · 2 years

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AU August Fic 31

Soulmate

This is long and huge and un-edited, un-beta’d.

Prowl took two steps into the station and a loud shout of “I don’ know what ya sayin’ afthelm!” split the air.

Suddenly he was 84 vorns old holding his carrier’s servo as he walked Prowl into school. Everything came rushing back - joy, loneliness, the ache of too small spaces, and confusion. He could smell the dust of that tiny habsuite and the polish the other sparklings had used..

Slaggit, he could even taste that stupid slush, it had been his favorite…

Prowl headed toward the shouting. The other officers parted with a quick deferential nod. None of them were in a hurry to help him with angry tourists.

Beside one of the intake desks stood a group of Polyhexians - bright, patterned paint, taller than a minibot, but only just, and round corners. Two had old, crumbling temp paint and spray glitter that was falling to the floor as they violently gestured. Another had a sticky splash of flavored energon on their chest that had partially dried. One wore an enormous purple hat with small crystal blooms on it. They all had an air of exhaustion and suitcases by their pedes.

Three patrolbots were trying to calm them down.

“Listen,” the loudest Polyhex was saying, “I need ta speak wit’ a bot who speaks Hexian! How hard is that?!”

Prowl sighed and gathered his patience. He stepped closer and spoke, the words feeling strange in his mouth.

“I speak Polyhexian, may I help?”

The trio of patrolbots looked at him in relief. Officer Reverse spoke first in a flood of words.

“Commander Prowl! We’ve called the university AND the embassy and they haven’t called back and none of the translation software we’ve tried can understand them and they don’t speak any standard and one of them was shot this morning!”

“Thank you, Officer. You and Officers Takedown and Limit can go and write this down in the log. I’ll handle it from here.”

“Thank you, Commander!” They scattered and Prowl stepped forwards to sit at the desk.

As they walked away, he heard Limit whisper, “I didn’t know Commander Prowl spoke Polyhexian!”

“He’s a really private mech,” Reverse whispered back. “I don’t think anyone knows anything about him except he grew up in Iacon with Magistrate Ultra Magnus.”

He turned to the tourists and continued in Hexian.

“I am Commander Prowl. What has happened?”

The loud one, a mech with a lot of chrome, spoke again.

“One of our bandmates got shot this morning by one of your local artists.” He said ‘local artists’ the same way other bots say ‘space barnacles’ and rolled his optics. “Our mate ’s in the hospital now and no one is taking our statement.”

“One moment. I’ll need your names and reason for visiting, please.”

“Twist, volt-viola player for the ZigZags. We’re playing in the concert tomorrow.”

“Ricochet, singer, same.”

“Topsy-Turvey, dancer, same.”

“Tie-wrap, sound bot and back up singer.”

Prowl entered the information into the system.

“And what happened this morning? From the beginning please.”

“Woke up. Headed ta rehearsals. Hungover from the party. Mech jumps out an’ screams tha’ we suck. Shoots at us. Hits our flutist. He ran off and we called ya. Now we’re here.”

“Do you know the name of the shooter?”

“Wire something, I think. He played wit’ the Dropbeats.”

“Thank you. One klik.” Translating that from Hexian to Standard was harder than Prowl remembered. It was like his processor wanted to stay in one time or the other.

Every Hexian word he spoke pulled him closer to the past. It was unnerving.

“How’s a bot like you, prim and proper Iaconian, learn Hexian? Extra credit?” the femme with the hat asked as she leaned on the desk. She reminded him of his neighbor on festival nights. He’s always worn the traditional hats and let Prowl touch them for luck before the parties. Well, until….

Prowl hadn’t thought about him in a hundred vorns.

“I…spent some time there as a sparkling,” Prowl answered as he typed. “I had to learn the language since no one spoke Standard but the teacher.”

The memories hit him like an electrical surge.

0-0-0

“That means we’re going outside today, to the Plains,” the teacher translated into Standard for Prowl. So that was why the other sparklings were so excited!

To his left a femmeling with bright, Polyhexian colors was jumping in her seat, giggling with the mechling next to her. The trio of siblings in front of him were talking at lightspeed

He turned to the sparkling on his right - Piston - and asked, in halting Hexian, “What are the plains?”

“’s the Plains!” Piston said, turning to another sparkling and laughing. “Ya nevah been ta the Plains? Ha!” Now they both laughed.

“No,” Prowl said. He waited until the teacher wasn’t looking and shifted in his seat, trying to stretch his doorwings. The chairs here were smaller and he had to lean forwards so his wings would fit.

“Stop squirming, Prowl!” another sparkling yelled across the room, tone exactly like their teacher.

Prowl froze and pretended to be reading something as she whipped around. The sharp clatter of her pedes made his spark twist.

She stood in front of him and waited. His spark twisted harder.

“Prowl -

0-0-0

Prowl stood in line to board the bus, dread in his chest. He always boarded last, because his doorwings were too big to fit down the aisle so he had to sit in the first row. The first row was where the teachers sat.

He was still shaking a bit and now he had to sit next to Teacher Bellcurve for the whole trip.

Suddenly the plains didn’t seem that interesting.

“Scoot over, Prowl.” He scrunched his wings in as close as he could, feeling the cables coil and kink. Teacher Bellcurve sat down and another teacher sat on her other side.

Prowl fixed his optics out the window and froze his frame. He would just look out the window and pretend they weren’t there. Or that he wasn’t there.

The van pulled away and Prowl watched the building whip by - it was all so different from Praxus. The doors were narrow and sunk down into the ground with stairs. The buildings were taller and narrow too.

Prowl loved their new habsuite. It was smaller and Creator kept saying it was ‘shabby’ but Prowl loved his tiny room and its giant window, so many stories up. Most days, it was the only thing he liked about their new city.

Except for the fuel - that was the best! If he could have a yellow neon slush for every meal he would.

“I know,” Teacher Bellcurve said in Standard, “why don’t we practice on the drive there, Prowl. That’s is a -” she began labeling things as they passed in the window.

Teacher Bellcurve made his chest feel tight and he couldn’t help but drop his optics when she spoke to him. He didn’t know why.

He tried to keep up with what she was saying, but it always started sounding like static after a while. His creators had taken him to the medic, but they’d said his audials were fine.

After a few too many wrong answers, she stopped at least. She turned to the other teacher - one he didn’t recognize - and said something. They laughed and Prowl felt his face burn.

He missed being able to understand what people were saying. He didn’t miss Creator and Carrier always being scared and they’d been scared in Praxus. He’d noticed.

So he would just deal with it until he learned Polyhexian. It would happen eventually.

He stared out the window and tried to ignore how his wings ached and his spark burned and pretended he was driving alongside them - faster than anyone.

0-0-0

“Is that it?” Prowl burst out in Standard, feeling his optics widen.

“Hexian please!” Bellcurve corrected, but Prowl didn’t pay attention.

It was…immense. Why were all the Polyhexians living in the cramped canyon when they had this within driving distance?

It wasn’t completely flat. There were places where the surface metal had heat and cooled into hollows and dips. Out in the middle was an enormous shard where the undercrust had erupted up and torn the metal out in curls. Up ahead, Prowl could see a cluster of covered pavilions alongside the road with two dozen other buses parked by them. It must have been three or four whole schools!

The bus pulled up to one of the small pavilions and the doors opened.

“Slowly please!” Bellcurve said as she stood. Prowl stood and inched his way alongside the seat. The sparklings behind him complained - they always did - but now he was too excited to care.

He leapt from the top step of the bus and landed with a thump on the hot metal ground.

Where could they go first? Could he try one of the dips? The wind was whipping against his frame like servos and the ever present heat was lessened.

Behind him he heard the quiet taps as the other sparklings leapt out and Teacher Bellcurve was saying something….

“Here, Prowl!” He turned to see all the others neatly lined up and waiting. Oh. He hurried over and stood at the end of the line, slouching as much as he could.

“Now,” Teacher Bellcurve started, “you - the rules - I - you to - them - and no - thank you.”

Prowl nodded with the others.

“You - go,” Bellcurve said, smiling. “Be safe!”

“Woohoo!”

“Yes!”

“Let’s go!”

The sparklings broke from the line and bolted for the plains, some transforming, some not.

Prowl had a question.

“Teacher?” he asked, double checking he was using the right title as he approached her. He’d already gotten in trouble for using the wrong one at the grocery store when he tried to help Creator.

“Yes, Prowl?”

“We go to there?” he asked, hesitantly, pointing towards the shard. Bellcurve followed his finger and smiled.

“Yes! It’s - “ she paused and continued in Standard, “it’s called the Entryway. The legend is that if you look down the side of the shard you can see straight down to Primus. You better hurry if you want to make it there and back though!” She smiled and Prowl smiled back. “Ask one of the other sparklings to go with you,” she suggested.

Prowl nodded and rushed after them.

This would be great! He followed a small group of sparklings that he’d spoken to the most - they all knew a little Standard.

“Hey! Wait!” They were too far away to hear him. He’d never catch up -

He could transform!

He burst out laughing and transformed and it was like meeting an old friend.

Praxians didn’t fit on Polyhexian roads so his creators hadn’t been able to tow him behind them like in Praxus. It had been forever since he’d used his wheels.

He roared over the flat metal after them. The feel of his tires gripping the ground. The whistle of the wind past his frame.

It was the best.

He overtook the group and spun in front of them, transforming as he did.

“Hi! Do you want to go to the shard with me?” he asked, half in Standard, half in Hexian, feeling giddy.

They just stared at him.

“Um, do you?” he asked again in Hexian.

Maybe they - had he -? Had he done something to make them not like him?

One of the femmes stepped forwards.

“No,” she said, “ya too fast. We’re jus’ gonna race around here.”

“Oh. I can - “ but they were all shaking their helms.

“Ya too fast!”

“Yeah, not fair, Prax.”

“Go race on ya own!” said the oldest one, the one with the most Standard that Prowl had been trying to befriend since the beginning.

“Oh, okay.” This was…like how he felt when Teacher Bellcurve corrected him, but also worse. “I’ll go, then.”

He backed up and transformed again.

Then gunned his engine and headed for the shard.

0-0-0

It wasn’t as if he’d had dozens of friends in Praxus. He’d mostly played with his cousins. Even after he’d had to change schools in Praxus from the Academy with Smokescreen to the local Primary, the other sparklings had played with him.

So what if he was bigger? And faster? It was just how he was built! He hadn’t done it on purpose!

Up ahead was a perfect half curve set into the ground and - feeling strange and reckless - Prowl changed course and headed for it.

He went down and then he was flying -

He landed on two wheels and nearly lost control, but he didn’t slow down. There was something in his spark wanted out and he didn’t know what to do.

Creator never wanted to leave the habsuite anymore. He wouldn’t look their neighbors in the optics.

Carrier didn’t talk to them at dinner. He was trying to learn Hexian too, but Prowl didn’t think it was going well. His field felt like something Prowl didn’t have a name for.

He went faster.

He found a hill and raced up and down, doubling his speed on the downslope.

He didn’t fit in Polyhex. He wanted to. His doorwings were always sore. He didn’t understand any of the sparkling cartoons on the screen. He felt like he couldn’t move - like his spark was so cold he was frozen.

If he could just go faster - he could - he would - something would happen and his chest wouldn’t feel like it was full of glass.

There - a ramp!

He went up. He was flying.

He landed with a crunch.

0-0-0

The sky above him was darkening from faint pink to a bruised red. For a klik Prowl just laid there as his gyros spun. Then the pain hit.

“Cre!” he cried automatically, struggling to vent. The wind was louder. Stole his words away.

Prowl sobbed and stood up. It wasn’t fair! He was going to make it! He was going to outrun it.

He reached up and poked a wheel.

Fire licked up and down the axle in his shoulder.

“Ow,” he whimpered. He was glad the other sparklings weren’t there. He didn’t want them to see him cry.

The sky was still getting darker and making his plating cold. He started walking. He wanted to get to the shard. He wanted to look down the side and see if he could see straight down to Primus.

He scrubbed his face with his cleaning cloth and wiped his optics. His audials were ringing so he tried offlining them. It worked sometimes when his optics got tired.

The shard wasn’t even that far away! He’d get there and then he’d head back. By then no one would know he’d crashed.

The closer he got, the more the shard loomed over him. It was huge! He half sprinted the last part - jostling his sore axle - so he could touch it.

“Wow.”

The ground metal curled away from it like flower petals, like the crystals Creator kept alive in the habsuite. Prowl reached out and touched one - it was nearly as big as Creator!

Now he just had to find a way to get up there. He circled the shard - there!

One of the splits in the ground was low enough for him to use as a hold.

He slipped his pede in and heaved himself up, servos scrabbling for something to hold onto above him. He grabbed a splitter of metal, long worn smooth, and pulled himself up to the next pede place.

He could see the edge! Was that light coming out? He strained, feeling his shoulder burn, to reach just a bit higher -

Bah-Boom!

The world shook.

Prowl lost his grip.

Prowl hit the ground and screamed, but couldn’t hear it. He was dying - he was dead - he was in pieces -

The wind was so strong it stung. When had it gotten that strong? Something wasn’t right!

Prowl onlined his audials and the world roared. He looked back, across the plains to where the buses were -

Half of them were gone. He could see small dots running. He could hear the siren of the storm warning.

He could see now, the storm clouds billowing black and purple across the plains, coming towards him.

He scrambled up, clawing at the ground, and ran.

He had to transform!

His frame shook and he fell down. Something was broken.

He ran. He stared at the running dots - were they getting bigger? Was he getting closer?

His pedes ate up the ground - he couldn’t feel them. It felt like he was gliding.

The storm was almost over his helm now and the buses were still so far away!

“Bellcurve!” he screamed - they would come get him! They would!

The storm crashed down and Prowl saw the dots disappear in the rain and wind and dust.

Prowl dove for one of the divots and tried to hide, but the winds were too strong and within a klik, he was blown away.

0-0-0

Prowl couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. The wind was lifting him - he didn’t know -

He couldn’t see.

“Cre! Cari!” he screamed. They would come get him - someone would find him - he wasn’t going to -

He saw the ground and the relief hit him a klik before the ground did.

0-0-0

Someone was wailing.

“‘S alrigh’! Please don’ cry!”

Oh.

He was wailing.

“Cre!” He wanted his creators. He wanted to go home!

He was face down on the ground and everything hurt. A servo touched his back and it was like being set on fire.

“We’re safe! Ya safe! Ya gotta stand up ‘ cause Ah can’ drag ya. Please.” A sob.

Prowl online his optics. The air was thick with clouds and rain, but he could see vague outlines and shapes. The wind was still strong enough that each droplet felt like a needle pinging off his plating.

There was another sparkling, leaning over him.

“We’re inna pocke’,” the other sparkling said, wiping his face. He had a visor that had broken off on one side. It jostled when he scrubbed at his optics. “‘S calm now, but it’ll pick up again. We gotta move. Please?” The sparkling was venting fast, speaking fast, and shaking slightly.

Prowl rolled over and got to his servos and knees.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m coming.” He stood up slowly.

Everything ached.

“Where are we going?” Prowl asked, sniffling. His legs were shaking and his helm hurt. The ground beneath him was littered with damp metal shavings and silica dust mud. It was smeared across his chassis and over his face.

“We’re nearly ta the caves, we’ll hide out there. This way!”

The other sparkling turned and started to walk in a random direction. Prowl strained his optics, but he couldn’t see anything that way. He might be leading him directly into the storm again.

He followed.

“Mah Uncle says the teachers are idiots for comin’ out today. Says citybots don’ know their helm from their - um. He says anyways.” The other sparkling chattered like a cybersong bird, but his voice shook and he was still venting too fast - Prowl couldn’t get his own venting to draw in enough air to cool off his throbbing spark.

“I didn’t know there was a storm,” Prowl said, his vocalizer shaking. “I didn’t hear the sirens and I was too - too far away.” He wrapped his arms around his torso.

“Ah felt it!” the other sparkling chirped, leaping over a crack as wide as he was tall.

“You felt it?” Prowl edged his way around the crack and tried not to look down. The crack wasn’t very wide to him. Prowl could probably have hopped over it if he wasn’t so tired.

“Mmhmm.” The sparkling turned and smiled. “‘S a bit weird, Ah know. The rest of mah village think ’s weird, but - Ah feel the storms comin’.”

The both looked back - the wall of purple clouds and black rain looked farther away.

“All the Polyhexians think I’m weird,” Prowl said. The other sparkling’s face lit up and his optics flashed even bluer behind the visor.

“So we’re the same! Wanna be friends?” He slowed down to walk next to Prowl.

“Yes.”

“Okay! What’s ya name?”

“Prowl.”

“Ah’m Jazzy! Ah like singin’ ‘n dancin’ n playing the flute!”

Ahead of them Prowl could just make out a tall hill.

“Is that the caves?”

“Yep!”

“What’s a flute?” he asked.

“‘S a pipe wit’ holes innit tha’ ya blow inta. It sounds pretty.”

“You make music?”

“Yep! Wanna hear meh sing?”

“Okay.”

Jazzy started singing and while Prowl didn’t really understand the words, he felt the song somewhere in his spark.

They were nearly to the caves, Prowl could see the dark holes in the side of the hill. He looked back -

The storm was closer now.

“Hurry!” He grabbed Jazzy - ow! His arm hurt! - and tugged him forwards.

“Ah’m comin’ Ah’m comin’! Don’t hafta yank mah servo off,” Jazzy grumbled starting to jog. “Go up, ta the one that’s a lil’ wonky shaped.”

Up and to the left was an irregular hole, flatter than the others. They started walking up to it and them started climbing with their hands and feet.

“In!” Jazzy said and crawled into the opening. Prowl followed.

It was big enough that he could sit without bumping his helm and he didn’t need to pull his doorwings in, but it was still small.

“Are we safe in here?” he asked, pressing himself against the back wall.

“Yeah. Opening ’s too small for the wind ta ge’ in and ‘s pointed down, so the rain won’ flood us. Ah’ve ridden storms out in here ‘fore. Come one an’ see!”

Jazzy hadn’t left the entrance. He was sitting, cross-legged, watching.

“I don’t think -” Prowl said, looking down at his servos, clamped on his knees. He didn’t want to get too close and if something happened -

“Come on! It’s safe. Promise.” He waved Prowl closer.

Prowl…wanted to sit next to his friend.

He inched over and sat down across from him. Jazzy smiled at him and looked back out.

The storm was a writhing, living thing out on the plains. The winds rippled the clouds into bizarre shapes that looked like faces and tentacles and grasping servos.

Prowl shivered.

I was in that, he thought. He looked over at Jazzy, grinning out at the storm.

And now I’m not.

“The song is about being alone, isn’t it?” Prowl said, pulling his knees up to rest his chin. “I don’t know the words, but…it’s about being all alone and wanting to find your family?”

“Kinda,” Jazzy said. “Wish Ah had mah flute. ‘S abou’ mah family lookin’ for others on the Plains. Abou’ losing bots ya love out here. Abou’ bein’ thrown outta ya home. Yeah, abou’ being alone.” For the first time Jazzy was quiet.

“I’m alone,” Prowl said. “None of the other sparklings like me. I sound weird and I’m too big to play with them.”

Jazzy sat up straighter and growled. His broken visor wobbled precariously.

“Ya sound fine ta meh! An’ Ah’m a musician! Ah oughta know better ‘n some citybots!”

He looked so - so angry that Prowl burst into giggles.

He reached out and poked Jazzy.

“You’re right!

Jazzy winked. “Ah’m always right.”

They watched the storm until it was on them and then Jazzy tugged him to the back of the cave where they waited as it whistled past.

It wasn’t scary. He was safe and he wasn’t alone.

Jazzy tried to tell him jokes, but Prowl didn’t understand them, which made them both laugh even more. Prowl told him about the crystals he was trying to grow at home. Jazz taught him how to sing.

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” he said without thinking about it.

Jazzy stopped mid-joke and stared at him.

“Ah am?”

Prowl nodded quickly “You’re nice and smart and funny and you tried to teach me how to sing! You’re the best!”

“Ya mah best friend too,” Jazzy said, suddenly shy. Then he tugged on Prowl’s servo and pulled him into a hug.

They both screamed and leapt apart.

It was like being electrocuted!

“Wazzat?” Jazzy asked, scrambling away. “Tha’ hurt!”

“I - I don’t know,” Prowl said, looking around. “It felt like the time I put my finger in the wall outlet. Ow.”

“Felt like bein’ struck by lightnin’” Jazzy said, rubbing up and down his arms. “Like when Ah was a bitty and Carrier n’ meh got hit.” He shook himself. “Is mah plating smokin’ or arcin’?”

Prowl reached out and pulled Jazz closer.

“I can’t really see, but you look okay. Me?”

“Ya look fine too. Weird.”

Prowl looked down at his frame again - he didn’t see anything through the fog. Maybe it was just static from the storm? They’d learned about that in science.

“Wanna hear one abou’ a mech an’ his three hats?” Jazzy asked, settling back against his side of the cave.

Prowl laughed.

0-0-0

Finally, Jazzy declared it safe to go back out.

“Ah can feel it leavin’,” he said as he poked his helm out. “‘S still a little wet and ‘s rainin’, but we’ll be fine. Come on!”

Prowl watched him slide down the hill into the thick purple fog.

He stuck out a servo. The rain wasn’t painful anymore and the wind was slower.

“Coming!”

They passed the shard and Jazzy said his creator told him the shard was from Primus’s helm poking a hole in the surface.

The fog was clearing slowly and Prowl found that he didn’t want it to. He felt happy, walking with Jazzy through the haze of rain.

“Ah’ll walk ya as far as the little roofs an’ we’ll see if ya teacher’s there. Kay?” Jazzy said when Prowl pointed out the first little dip where he’d nearly crashed.

“Okay.”

Despite everything…Prowl was happy. He had a friend! He couldn’t wait to tell Carrier and Creator! He swung their joined servos as they walked.

“What’s your favorite fuel?” Prowl asked, wincing as his doorwings fluttered.

“Berried Energon!”

“What’s that?”

“Ya take energon and ya make it inta these lil’ balls an’ -”

They talked about energon and music and stories until the road came into sight.

“Lookit!”

Some of the buses were still there, parked underneath the pavilions. A few of the sparklings were standing under the pavilions and some of the teachers were walking around too. There was even a medical transport there with the back doors open and bright white medics walking from bot to bot.

Jazzy stopped.

“Ah gotta go,” he said, looking away, his face sad. “Ya can go ahead and Ah’ll head home from here.”

“But -”

But Jazzy probably had family waiting for him too. He wondered which pavilion they were parked under.

“Okay. I’ll get Carrier to call your Creators and we can play together again.”

Jazzy smiled and nodded.

“Um, yeah. Call us.”

Prowl’s spark felt as light as helium. He had a friend!

Prowl let go of Jazzy’s servo and started for the buses. What was he going to say? He was probably in trouble. Again.

He turned and waved good-bye one more time to the shrinking figure of Jazzy. He waved back too.

The sky was getting lighter and Prowl was starting to pick out different people up ahead. As he trudged towards the road, the silica mud starting to cake on his pedes, a familiar figure came into view.

“Teacher Bellcurve!” Prowl shouted, tears springing to his optics at the sight of her. He was safe. “I’m here! Teacher!” He bolted for her looking over his shoulder one more time at Jazzy, who was a small stick now, very far away.

“Prowl? Prowl! You’re safe!” She rushed forwards as well and then stopped.

“Teacher -” She stood rigidly, holding up a servo, her face horrified.

“Prowl, what did you do?” She was backing away.

“Teacher?”

“Medic!” she yelled. “Medic!”

One of them rushed over and gasped when he saw Prowl. The two spoke quickly in Hexian. Prowl’s spark hurt.

What was wrong?

Prowl looked behind him to call out to Jazzy and caught sight of his own servo.

There, still bubbling on the edges, was new paint. Five sweeping parallel lines wrapping around his palm and moving in a squiggly wave down his arm.

“What?” he whispered, turning his arm. He looked down. His legs and pedes had paint too - swirls and dots and tiny stars.

“Come here,” the medic ordered, jerking Prowl’s attention back.

“No, wait -”

His spark was burning now. Jazzy was leaving!

He turned to -

The medic grabbed him and he screamed.

“NO! JAZZY! JAZZY! LET ME GO!” Prowl kicked and thrashed. He slammed one doorwing into the medic’s helm and he was dropped. Before he could race back out, another medic grabbed him.

Jazzy was getting farther away -

“NO!”

0-0-0

When Prowl’s creators had picked him up, sobbing inconsolably, fresh spark-paint still sizzling its way over his frame, they hadn’t known enough of the language to find the other sparkling.

They’d just grabbed him and held him as his spark shattered at having its other half pulled away.

By the time they’d started trying to find the other sparkling, it had been vorns and the cheap neighborhood had turned into a slum.

Polyhex was such a cramped city that getting your spark-paint early wasn’t a big deal. Not like it was in Praxus.

Getting your spark-paint in the middle of a Great Plains storm was a big deal.

For the next twenty vorns, no one in the neighborhood spoke to Prowl and his family except to do business or teach. They eventually moved back to an even worse area in Praxus where Prowl’s spark-paint was looked at with pity. At least Prowl understood why. At least bots talked to them. At least Prowl’s creators could speak Praxian again, although Prowl found that he had gained an accent.

As an adult, one of Prowl’s colleagues from Polyhex had explained some of the superstitions to him.

Bots who got lost on the plains and came back with spark-paint, she’d explained, were marked by the Plains demons.

She’d apologized twice before he could get her to tell him what that meant.

Apparently, it meant that the demons wanted to use him to lure others out onto the plains to eat. Or that they were turning him into a demon. Or that he was doomed to become a demon when he died and bring forth a plague.

There was, she explained, also a heavy dollop of frame prejudice since the most likely bots to get lost in the desert were travelers. Having a sparkmate that wasn’t Hexian was frowned upon and had once also been a sign of being a demon.

She apologized twice more.

Praxus, once their neighbors had realized his sparkmate was a Poly, had added that to their reasons to hate him as well.

Going to live with Uncle Magnus in Iacon had been like stepping into a new life. Sure, it meant new people seeing and noticing his spark-paint, but Iacon was a modern city and a mixed one. There were no superstitions about his paint. He saw bots of every age and frame type with spark-paint. Some - like Orion - had more than one layer. He’d met a shuttle that had been nearly covered in his.

The librarian at the Iacon Archives had beautiful scroll work. He’d had two sparkmates- though he wouldn’t talk about them. The iridescent swirls across this plating clearly represented two distinct personalities - one sharp and bold, the other softer and slower.

He didn’t talk about it.

Prowl spent a lot of time with Orion as he was growing up. Orion Pax never made Prowl feel weird for already having his spark-paint and he gave Prowl hope.

The chances of finding the mechling he’d hidden with that day were slim. Orion Pax gave Prowl hope that there might be a second sparkmate out there waiting for him. He might not be alone forever, wearing the paint of a stranger.

It had all happened so long ago that Prowl found he rarely thought about it.

It was strange to see Polyhexians - and not the metropolitan ones that he worked with, who barely spoke Hexian and at most lit a candle for Ancestors’ Day - Polyhexians that had never learned Standard - had probably never left Polyhex before.

Looking back…Prowl had done most of his growing up in Polyhex. He’d been a teenager when they’d moved back to Praxus and newly an adult when they’d moved to Iacon.

He shook himself.

“I’ll need to take individual statements,” he said to the waiting band. “I’ve already sent the local officers a message to pick up Wirecutter, the mech you’ve indicated as the shooter. Who first?”

“Me!” said the femme with the hat - Riccochet.

“Thank you, please tell me about -”

“Ya paint is Ol’ Hexian,” she interrupted him, looking him up and down. “Where didja meet one ‘a us?”

Prowl froze. In Iacon it wasn't polite to ask about spark-paint. Too many different cultures mixing meant it was better to err on the side of caution.

“Excuse me?”

The femme frowned and put a servo on her hip.

“Ol’ Hexian. They jus’ gave us all “citizenship status.” Meh ‘n my cousin are Ol’ Hexian, the Plains People. Use ta call us demons. Ah didn’ know any a’ them had come ta Iacon.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. My spark-paint is none of you business,” Prowl answered stiffly. This was too much like going back in time. All he needed was Teacher Bellcurve to come correct his grammar and scold him for squirming.

“Oh. Sorry. Jus’...’s weird, ya know? Ain’t seen tha’ paint on anybody, but another Ol’ Hexian. Ever.” She put her elbow on the desk and rested her chin in her cupped servo like they were gossiping younglings. “Maybe it jus’ looks like it? Ah’ll ask mah cousin. He knows ALL about spark-paint.”

Prowl concentrated on not letting his annoyance show.

“Back to your statement. Your cousin was the one that was shot, correct? But he was not seriously injured?”

“Just a glance off his hard helm from an angry rival - but we ain’t lettin’ it go just because we ain’t locals!” she insisted. “Next thing ya know they’ll be wreckin’ our instruments. Jazz‘d be a lot madder if they broke his flute.”

“Jazz?”

It couldn’t be.

“Yep! Stage name is Zigzag right now, but he’ll always be lil’ Jazzy ta me!” She smiled.

Prowl dropped the datapad he held.

“Hey! What -”

Prowl was out the door.

0-0-0

“Sir! Wait -!”

Prowl knocked the patrolbot AND the nurse over and wretched open the door.

There was a mech on the berth - tall for a Polyhexian, silver and gray with blue and red and a bright blue visor. He sat forwards and shot Prowl a quizzical look.

“Need anythin’ officer?” he asked.

Across his plating was Praxian spark-paint - Prowl’s spark-paint. Long lines that crept down the mech’s forearm in the vague shape of a sword, a thick maze on each shin that looked like Prowl’s armor, and a delicate spray of abstract crystals up the side of his helm, disappearing in the bandages.

Curled down his back was the unmistakable outline of Prowl’s sparklinghood doorwings.

“Jazzy.”

“Yeah, tha’s meh -” He stopped.

“Prowl?”

Prowl nodded.

“I looked for you for vorns before we had to leave Polyhex,” Prowl said. Was his voice shaking? Everything else was. “I could never - you lived out in the plains? The femme called you Ol-Hexian? I didn’t know.”

“Ah looked for ya too.” Jazz disconnected his visor and his optics were as bright blue as they’d been that day

Prowl walked over and sat in the chair by the berth. Jazzy was looking at him - Jazzy was looking at him.

Jazzy.

He held out his servo and Jazzy took it.

“You look….”

Jazzy grinned and it was exactly the same.

“Ah look like the pit, mech. Come here.”

Then Jazz and he were spark to spark, holding on as if they’d never been parted.

#transformers #maccadams #maccadam #transformers fanfiction #jazz x prowl

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