Lift me up. Oneshot.
Title: Lift me up
Rating: PG13
Universe: Bayverse
Summary: Why do we keep hitting ourselves with a hammer repeatedly? Because it feels so good when we finally stop. Prowl and Jazz couldn't agree more.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
Warnings: None
Word count: ~900
AN: One of my few takes from Prowl's POV. He is just so hard for me. Thank you silberstreif for the encouragement to post this.
In the shadows he stayed, watching them. Watching him.
Everything seemed so peaceful, so light as laughter and jokes filled the small room. Every smile, laugh, chuckle, breath - it all made Prowl's spark feel heavier. Every movement felt wrong as he stayed there, hidden; letting them enjoy what little life they had left, knowing it would be his hand that would take it away.
A bright visor turned his way. Of course. He shouldn't have expected to stay unnoticed when he was in the room. Even in the darkest of shadows, Jazz will always be able to find him.
Jazz sent a grin his way. It felt like a slap. Prowl swallowed hard and gently inclined his head, motioning for Jazz to come. What he had to say wasn't for the audios for the team getting prepped to head out.
Jazz easily caught up, both walking into Prowl's office, the door locking behind them. Prowl didn't beckon Jazz to sit on the chairs and neither did he. This wasn't a formal meeting, far cry from it.
"C'mon, Prowler, give it to me before you self combust." Jazz tried to lighten the mood. It didn't work, though Prowl appreciated the effort. He pulled from subspace a data pad.
It was standard procedure in Ops that the most dangerous and important missions to be handed mere breems before the head out. Prowl had handed too many data pads like that and each one felt more heavier then the last. Prowl briefly wondered how he found the strength to pass it onto Jazz, again.
He watched as Jazz read the contents, his visor brightening and lips curling into a smirk though the fact that there was no mirth was clear to Prowl.
"Ouch." Jazz said at last, looking up.
Prowl, for his part simply stared at Jazz, no words able to form. Everything that needed to be said was in that dreaded data pad. He resisted the urge to pull it from Jazz's hands and crush it. Because he knew. Prowl knew that Jazz would never refuse the mission.
"Do you accept?" He forced his vocalizer to work, asking the question per protocol, surprisingly keeping the static at bay.
Jazz let the hand holding the pad drop by his side, his other hand tracing the seams on Prowl's armor as he stepped closer, deep in Prowl's personal space, knowing he was welcomed there. His hand worked its way up to Prowl's face, cupping it. The tactician didn't have the strength to pull away, dreading the words to come.
"Yes." They pierced his spark, just like the last time, and the one before that, and the one before that, "I accept."
Prowl shuttered his optics, stopping the quiver his wings wanted to give.
"Though, this time," Jazz gently started, in a voice that was meant to sooth but it did nothing of the sort for Prowl, "I have a few conditions of my own."
That snapped Prowls optics open and he looked down at the burning visor.
"When I get back," Never an if, never, "I want all the coddling and pampering I can get from you. No exceptions!" Jazz reached back to tickle a sensor panel, "Or else no mission."
Prowl simply stared down at the mech. Why must he always act this way? Can't for once Jazz react like a normal mech would, when a suicide mission was handed to them? Each and every member of Jazz team would die in the next orn, how can he be reacting this way?
"Jazz…" Prowl started, optics narrowing as his wing was pulled away, "This is serious."
"Well, good thing I'm not joking then." Jazz took a couple of steps back, forming a respectable distance between them, making Prowl feel oddly…alone.
"I won't let their deaths get wasted." Jazz said, voice filled with conviction, "Even if it kills me, I'll send ya the info."
That didn't make Prowl feel any better. Not at all. Each and every time he handed the dreaded data pad to Jazz, the lesser the change of him ever seeing the spy again. And that was frightening enough to freeze his spark in silent terror. But a new kind of fear was steadily growing inside of him for a while now - the fear that he was getting used to such missions. Numbness was something he felt far too often.
Jazz just stood there, before him, waiting for Prowl to say something. But the tactician didn't know what. Finding the right words to express himself was always a burden for Prowl. So, wings spreading proudly on his back, he covered the small distance between them.
Sometimes…
He lifted Jazz's face up, crushing their lips together, voicing everything he was feeling right now, and getting it echoed back in return, the pad slipping form Jazz's fingers.
... there was nothing more left to be said.