rare pairing prompt - Didjerry
Title: Didjerry
Rating: T
Series: Movieverse, in some magical timeline where Jazz isn't dead
Pairing: Maggie/Jazz
Prompt: From tf_rare_pairing : Maggie/Jazz-Dance to the rhythm (Let me show you how).
Summary: Music doesn't always come from instruments.
A/N: Look at me, I wrote another story about Australia! Even though I thought her character was useless, I still liked Maggie, and Jazz is always cool in my book, so why not? This is also me kicking myself for not including certain things in Songlines, so I'm making up for it here. If you've never heard a didgeridoo, then go here for a nifty video, and here to see someone actually play the dang thing. They're not easy, and I can almost guarantee you might pass out the first time you try to play one!
The Sydney Opera House cut a white silhouette into the night sky, like some abstract facsimile of the moon against the stars. While crude, Jazz saw human architecture as immensely innovative and unique, as well as a testament to their diversity. It was different everywhere they went, and not even just between countries. It seemed every time a human took a step outside their culture, they took a piece of it with them to their new home.
He had certainly seen a lot in the past week, thanks to Maggie's carefully thought out road trip/vacation through Australia. It started in Darwin, and would end in the far south on Tasmania, where they would visit her hometown. They'd had a stopover in Beerwah to visit the famous Australia Zoo, and tonight they were in Sydney for an opera. Maggie had been skeptical about leaving him in the parking lot, but Jazz had insisted he could hear the concert just fine. She didn't even have to leave her cell phone on for him.
About twenty minutes before the end of the opera, Maggie was on her way out of the concert hall, apparently uninterested in the finale. He tracked her every step through the building and out into the parking lot, wondering why she was leaving so early. May be she didn't want to get caught in the traffic rush towards the exits, or may be she hadn't really liked the concert. Once she was in view, he watched her feign digging for her keys in her purse, stopping when the lights of the silver Pontiac Solstice flashed twice.
Her stride never faltered, sharp heels tapping a fast beat into the concrete of the parking lot. The way her skirt moved over her thighs was tantalizing, and he could catch only flashes of her knees around the fabric. She let her curled blonde hair down from the clips it had been in, shaking her head to let it loose.
Maggie slid around to his drivers side door, which Jazz had changed to the right side to adapt to Australia's traffic system. Jazz had adjusted to driving on the left side of the road faster than Maggie had an anticipated, but her amusement was squelched when she remembered he was not American: he was Cybertronian. Changing beats and switching tempos was part of who and what he was.
Flashing a brilliant smile at his dashboard, Maggie slipped into the drivers seat, pulling her skirt down as the fabric threatened to hike up. The leather of her thigh-high boots creaked when she crossed her ankles, indicating that it was up to Jazz when they would leave.
“What did you think of the opera?” Maggie asked, fingers slipping into the grooves of his steering wheel. His engine roared to life, headlights flicking on to illuminate another couple on their way to their vehicle.
“Well, little miss, you were right about one thing,” Jazz said, pulling out of his parking spot with more grace than the above-average feline. When Maggie's brows rose up in askance, he continued: “It was different.”
Maggie laughed. “You didn't like it.”
“Now, I didn't say that,” Jazz said quickly. “It was certainly pretty, but a bit slow for my tastes.”
“Slow,” Maggie repeated, pursing her lips as if savoring the word. “Jazz?”
“Hm?”
“Can I drive?” she asked, uncrossing her ankles. Her foot automatically went to the accelerator, resting on it before she had her answer. It was mere courtesy; they both knew he'd never deny her the chance to drive. “I want to show you something.”
“Sure thing, little miss,” Jazz said, and the accelerator loosened under her heel. A smile spread across Maggie's face, and a moment later his odometer was creeping up past the legal speed limit. He didn't resist as she lowered the windows, letting the smell of Sydney rush through his interior. There was something wild about Maggie when the wind swept through her hair and she had the horsepower of an alien engine beneath her heel. It made Jazz's engine rev a little louder, purr a little longer.
Sydney was soon far behind them and the stars burst from the unmarred, black horizon. Maggie only slowed down when concrete turned to dirt, minding she wasn't too rough with the sports car. Jazz appreciated the sentiment, even if he could take much more than what GM had intended for his model of choice. Miles and miles of dirt stretched on, but he didn't question her as they drove deeper into the bush. He noticed they were still heading south, so perhaps this was actually part of her itinerary. Jazz did not recall seeing 'Drive Through the Middle of Nowhere' on the list, however.
They drove in silence, save for the occasional burst of chatter from his radio. Maggie didn't always like to listen to music, Jazz had found, but she would never turn down the opportunity to listen to Cybertronians speak their native tongue. She had once admitted to him, red-faced, about the shivers that Blackout's hacking frequency had sent up and down her spine; Jazz responded with another, kinder frequency that had gone above and beyond mere shivers.
The moon was nearing its midway point by the time Maggie pulled them over, though he hardly thought they had been on any kind of road for some time. He didn't transform until Maggie had stepped away from him, pulling her denim jacket up over her shoulders as the night chill crept in. Her wind-blown hair made her look even more wild, the stud in her nose glinting as the moonlight caught it.
“Do you remember the festival we went to in Darwin?” Maggie asked, not even waiting until he was sitting. He folded his legs together once he was on the ground, noticing that despite her heels, the rocky terrain did not unbalance her in the least.
“That was only four days ago, little miss,” Jazz said, cocking his head to one side. It had been a delightful experience. She had ensured he got at least some exposure to the culture that was wholly and purely Australian - the Aborigines.
“And you liked the music you heard?” she pressed, hands rubbing up and down her arms. Jazz bent down, effortlessly pulling her close enough that she had to climb up onto his leg in order to be comfortable. She never resisted him, especially since he was a fountain of warmth.
“Never heard anything like it, little miss,” he said lowly, now that his face was in line with her body. The music he'd heard was beyond unique, and Maggie had told him the wooden tube they had played was thought to be oldest wind instrument. It took him a moment to recall its name, given how much he had learned in the past week.
A didgeridoo, she'd said, was typically made from the local eucalyptus trees, already hollowed out by natural causes. The sounds that had come out of them were strange, and he struggled to compare it to anything else. It was, he decided, uniquely human - no, Australian, and there would be nothing else like it in the entire universe. Human ingenuity managed to amaze him once again.
“Then close your eyes,” Maggie said, one hand ghosting over his visor. “And listen.”
His visor flashed once in confusion, but he straightened up, obeying her command. He powered down his optics, suddenly acutely aware of the warm body that was now leaning into his chest. Redirecting his attention, Jazz tuned up his audios, listening for whatever it was she wanted him to hear.
There was a whole lot of nothing out here, was his first impression. He had thought may be she would try something once he turned his optics off, but she remained still and silent. At first he felt vaguely disappointed; was there something he was missing? He could run scans for frequencies that his audios would normally be deaf to, but he didn't think there was anything a human could hear that a Cybertronian couldn't. He nearly blotted out the sound of a startled bird taking flight to run the scans when it hit him, and his optics flicked on in surprise.
The sounds from the didgeridoo were not, as he had first thought, foreign or bizarre. The musicians were experts at manipulating the vibrations within the wood, mimicking the very land it had come from. The oscillations were the buzzing insects, the croaking frogs, the leaves rustling and the grass slithering together in the wind. His audios were full of the sound of the earth itself, and he looked down at Maggie in wonder.
“Well?” Maggie asked softly, tossing that tangled blonde hair over her shoulder. Using only two fingers, Jazz pressed lightly on her back, the best hug he could provide.
“Number one on my playlist,” Jazz said, and Maggie laughed. That sound warmed his spark to its very core, and he realized he had somehow managed to lie to her.
Her laughter was the most wonderful song he had ever heard, made even more beautiful wrapped in the music of the earth.
edit: horray a button!
...I have no idea who those two characters are.