Part 2 of 'Reputation'-Prowl Style
Title: Logical Fallacy - On Reputation (Prowl)
By: Unseen_Daydream
Rating: pg
Verse: G1
Characters: Prowl, Jazz, Vauge mentions of Optimus, Ratchet and Wheeljack
Warnings: Fluff and angst, Past relaitionships, bets, Prowl plotting, RighteousFury!Jazz
Drabble: 5 (part 2-final part)/?
Notes: This is Prowl's 'Reputation,' which while connected to the series as a whole, it is not Prowl's POV of Jazz's 'Reputation' chapter and instead happens many Vorns before. Also, still searching for a Beta, I'm a horrible procrastinator >_>; Feel free to hit me with a cluebat
Summary: An error in reasoning - when assumptions are made by those who can't see the forest for the trees. A series of drabbles picking apart the fallacies surrounding Jazz and Prowl
There are many rumors surrounding Prowl. There always have been, since the time Prowl first joined the Autobots. Despite Prowl’s own social awkwardness come shyness, Prowl has always been a mech that attracts attention, even when he does nothing more than his job.
(He is very good at his job, the best even, but Prowl is also quite unable to see himself properly, but that is a story for another time)
There are rumors that he is a Sparkles Drone, or that at least that his Creators were Drones. There are rumors that Prowl is secretly a Decepticon. There are rumors that Prowl could care less if they all die in the next Cycle. Rumors that Prowl was never programmed with a sense of humor.
The rumors are, of course, quickly squashed down by those who know better. By those who had taken the time to know the mech who is Prowl and have chosen to at least try to see the mech behind the professional façade. And if not by those mechs, then the rumors are put down by those in the upper chains of command who, even if they feel the same way, have no wish to garner the ill will of those who do know better.
There is, however, one rumor that has managed to stick to Prowl wherever he goes, one rumor that everyone takes as fact, even those who respect Prowl or admire him.
The utter universal belief is this: that Prowl has never been in love before Jazz.
This is completely and utterly false. Not that anyone ever takes the time to ask Prowl if the rumors are true. So firm in their beliefs that no one thinks that the rumors may be just that, rumors. The fact of the matter is this: Prowl is not a Sparkles Drone (nor the creation of one), he is not a Decepticon, he does have a sense of humor (a particular dry wit and sarcasm that does not involve pranks), and Prowl has most certainly been in love before Jazz.
They are talking, Jazz and Prowl, just talking, in the Recreational Room of the Arc. They are not there, not at that point where friendship turn to love (or at least Jazz isn’t, Prowl has always known his own Spark better than most bots) quite yet. The Arc is still stationed on Cybertron, the war is experiencing a temporary lull, and the two friends are taking the opportunity to speak to one another. The Recreational Room has few other bots milling around, most mechs are either performing their duties or recharging at this time of the Cycle.
Bland Mid-Grade is the best available at the moment, the two sip it slowly, savoring the change from the usual Standard Low-Grade, “So Prowl,” Jazz draws out, a mischievous grin crossing his lip components, “Have ya eva’ had a lover before?”
Prowl stares in silence, debating his response.
Prowl likes Jazz, loves him even. Prowl has known this for a long time. Prowl has even begun to enact the first stages of convincing Jazz that Prowl could be someone that Jazz could love without fear (A lengthy process, that; Jazz is convinced that love is not for those is Special Operations). Prowl does know, however, how most of the army views him, as a mech without emotion or capability to love. What response would be the most favorable with Jazz? There are an endless amount of scenarios that rest of Prowl’s next words. Would it be better to lie and say he had not? Perhaps, that response does possess a sixty-two percent chance of a favorable outcome. After all, a lover is far different than being in love. It wouldn’t be quite a lie, just a slight skewed view of the truth. Telling Jazz he had been in love before could quite possibly push Jazz away, a setback to Prowl’s planning that, though possible to overcome, would most likely push Prowl’s plans back another ten Vorns, at least.
A lie then, or at least a skewed version of the truth.
“I have been in love before,” Prowl utters. He pauses, reviewing what he’d just said. That was most certainly not what he’d planned. Inwardly, Prowl reviews why his vocalizer voiced the full truth instead of the skewed version he’d planned. He is mildly frustrated when he comes up with nothing. How annoying.
“Really?” Jazz questions, optics wide, and surprise evident in his voice. Several tables over a small group of mechs freeze and take a closer listen to the conversation.
“Yes,” Prowl responds shortly. This was not what he had planned; his processor is still trying to find a way to turn this conversation to his advantage.
“Did somethin’ ‘appen to ‘um?” Jazz queries, his voice a tone lower and softer than before, causing Prowl to shutter his optics briefly in surprise. This is most definitely not a conversation he wants to have with Jazz, past experience has taught Prowl what potential love interests like to hear.
Absently, Prowl turns the Energon Cube in his servos, reviewing his next words in silence. Though he does not realize it, his sensory panels are drawn closer to his body, his armor plating shifts slightly to close the minute gaps between the plates. It is a subconscious response to the conversation, a step down from whirling weapons systems as his plateing and panels respond to Prowl’s feelings of unease. The shifting is noted by Jazz, who is used to watching for such things, and by the mechs in the far corner whom are paying close attention.
“’Ya don’ hafta answer if ya don’ wanna, Prowl,” Jazz comments softly, understanding that whoever the mech or femme was that he or she had probably died long ago. And by the way Prowl is responding that Prowl is probably still in love with whoever it was.
“No it is fine,” Prowl responds quickly, having accurately deduced Jazz’s thought process on the subject and desperate to correct the train of thought before Jazz becomes convinced that Prowl wouldn’t love another. The words spill from Prowl’s vocalizer before Prowl has time to systematically edit them and control the flow, “It was a very long time ago, before the war began. There was a mech by the designation of Skip Beat who I had encountered during my time as an enforcer. He was a musician, you see, and my fellow officers had convinced me to join them at the bar in which Skip Beat performed.”
“We met there, after his show, and I told him how I had enjoyed his music, he played the Sonic Wires you see. I would visit the bar often after that, as I enjoyed his company. He was…”
Prowl pauses, thinking, something almost like a smile crossing his features, “he was much like you, Jazz; very good with conversation and a deep appreciation for music. He could become fast friends with just about anyone, and nothing ever seemed to bother him for too long. He was…very optimistic as well. He liked to tell me that I was too pessimistic and that I shouldn’t rely so much on probability when I made my decisions,” Yes, Jazz is a lot like Skip Beat was in some ways; his small smile grows a little fonder at the thought. Jazz could be so very light-hearted at times; it warms Prowl’s Spark to see his concern.
The smile fades quickly though, as he continues, “He...didn’t object to using his supposed friends to get what he wanted. And many he called friends, like his band mates, he would often complain about behind their backs. He could be very unkind, and he could be very cruel as well, with his words. Skip Beat understood mechs; he knew what to say that would hurt them the most. And I…I was foolish to believe that I would be exempt from his talks, that I was different from others,” Prowl’s voice turns self-condescending, old anger at his past self burning, “I didn’t see him as what he was, I saw him as what he could be. He could be so kind at times, so willing to listen to what I wished to say, I felt as though I could be myself with him…I fell in love with him.”
Prowl stops, taking account of what he’d revealed thus far and comes up with an answer: too much. It is too soon to reveal this part of his past to Jazz. In fact, this part of his past he had planned to never reveal, sure that it would do nothing but convince Jazz that Prowl is nothing more than a foolish, naïve mech, for not seeing the truth sooner. But deeper than that, perhaps deeper than Prowl realizes there is the quiet fear that Jazz is more like Skip Beat than what Prowl is willing to believe.
What he’d revealed thus far had been a very foolish move on Prowl’s part, a move made more out of Spark than of Logic, and Prowl scolds himself for it. Logic is key; logic would prevent him from feeling the same hurt as before, the same betrayal. Taking stock of himself, Prowl quickly raises his sensory panels to their usual height, loosens his armor to a more natural state and straitens his position. He stops fiddling with the now empty Energon Cube, he rebuilt the walls around himself thrice as tall and thick and impenetrable then before. Silently, Prowl takes stock of the room, of the mechs in the corner: Optimus, Ratchet, Wheeljack…at least Prowl can trust them to keep their vocalizers mute on the matter if they had heard anything.
Without another word, Prowl swiftly stands, disposing of the empty cube and makes his way back to his office without so much as glancing at Jazz. This is a setback in his plans. Surely now Jazz will see him in the same light as Skip Beat had. Boring, the mech had said when he hadn’t realized Prowl was there, boring, oblivious, foolish, stiff, whiney, drone-like…
Pursuing Jazz was a bad idea. It couldn’t possibly work out, Prowl should have listened to what his processor had told him long ago, that this was a bad idea that the probability was too low and that everything about his plotting would lead to nothing but Spark Ache in the end. Prowl could only pretend to be something else for so long. Rapidly, Prowl begins deleting the many lengthy plots in his seduction of Jazz, there is no point to them, not anymore. Perhaps there never had been. In the silence of his office, Prowl sits and stares blankly at the datapads before him, processor too set on scolding himself to notice anything of the outside world. To notice the sound of his door being hacked into and opened, to notice when a mech is standing right next to him calling his designation.
A servo touches his shoulder plateing, and Prowl, so entranced in his deleting of plots and plans, actually starts minutely, weapons systems whining in surprise. He glances sharply up at the mech who disturbed him and is met with the calm and gentle optics of Jazz.
Frag, Prowl thinks, staring into Jazz’s optics, I love him.
“Ya neva finished the story, Prowl”
Breaking the gaze with Jazz, Prowl glances down at the datapads before him. Slagging Sideswipe, messing with Ratchet’s tools again… “What does it matter anymore?” Prowl voice is uncharacteristically vulnerable as he asks this, still avoiding Jazz’s optics, knowing full well he’d give in if he met them.
“Cuz some mech hurt ma friend, an’ that’s ‘mportant ta me.”
Prowl is silent, processor turning over the words and coming up with a hundred different possibilities to the intent behind them. But one thought stops the calculations in their tracks:
Skip Beat would never have followed him like this.
“He said that I was boring, and that I…whined often about my life. He said that I was too stiff to have fun and that I was oblivious to anything that didn’t concern me, like a drone. Apparently he had made a bet, with his band mates, about how long it would take him to get me in his berth, and he was complaining to them on how long it was taking, as he’d lost some credits when the most recent deadline had past.
I had been planning on telling him that Orn of my feelings for him. I left the bar that night and did not return to it. That was the last time I saw him as soon after I was transferred to Iacon to work under Sentinel Prime. I assume that he died when Praxus fell.”
There is silence for a long moment, Prowl still avoids looking at Jazz and Jazz’s servos tighten around his shoulder, loosening only when the metal beneath begins to give under the pressure.
“Well ‘e was a jerk,” Jazz harrumphs with a scowl. Prowl resets his optics and looks at Jazz with surprise, “’e shouldn’ ta treated ya like that. No one deserves ta be treated like that. ‘Specially since ya ain’t any of those things! Ya ain’t borin’, or whiney or selfish an’ ya definitely ain’t a drone! Idiot mech, thinkin’ like that. Ya deserve some mech who ‘kin see ya for da mech ya are. Primus mech, ‘f ah coulda git servos on ‘is face plates…hey! What'er ya laughin’ ‘bout! I’m serious ‘ere!”
And indeed, Prowl is laughing softly, frame relaxed and optics bright with relief and joy, “There is no need for that, Jazz. He hurt me, yes, but I have moved on since then and have since become more cautious on who I trust.” His voice is warm, and the hidden meaning rings loudly through the air like the loveliest of bells, I trust you.
Jazz, shifts, embarrassed, and a small pout crosses his face, “still shouldn’t a’ done that ta ya…”
Again, Prowl chuckles and internally checks his chronometer, his voice becomes amused and his soft smile just a little sly as he responds, “Shouldn’t you be on patrol now, Jazz?”
A pause, no doubt Jazz is checking both the time and the schedule, and instantly Jazz is curseing up a storm, scrambling away and out the door, calling out to Prowl before transforming and racing down the halls, “See ya later, Prowler!”
Silence fills the air, and Prowl finds himself smiling once more, Spark warm and light and Processor absently recovering the deleted data. Jazz isn’t Skip Beat; it is something Prowl should have remembered when he first began his planning. Prowl doesn’t have to be something he isn’t, doesn’t have to say or do things that aren’t true to himself in order to please Jazz because somewhere along the way Jazz has already learned what Prowl is truly like and is not appalled by it or bored by it at all. Jazz accepts Prowl as a friend because Prowl is himself. And maybe, somecycle, Jazz could love Prowl for himself as well.
A thought crosses his processor that baffles Prowl as he mentally reviews what had been said and done the past few Joors. A memory that has his face plates shift with confusion and his vocalizer questioning it aloud with incredulity obvious in his voice:
“Prowler?”
---
End Note1: Sonic Strings: A made up instrument that, in my mind, is a cross between a xylophone, guitar, and a turn table. The mech or femme would turn a knob to tighten or loosen thin metal strings (different metals produce different sounds) to produce differing pitches in the note with one servo and the other would either pluck the strings or hit them with a metal rod (both actions give different sounds). More expensive ones would be charged with electricity that would give the instrument a deeper and 'echo-like' tone to it. I honestly made it up for this fic(I spent half an hour just trying to think of a name before I settled for Sonic Strings) but I love it so I'll probablly use it later at some point...If anyone else wants to use it for whatever reason I don't mind, but pretty please put a note to say where they came from?
End Note2: And the interconnectivity shows its face yet again! Should I just give in an start labling these multichapter? They're not drabbles (too long), and not oneshots (the interconnect too much) but they're no real 'grand plot' to it besides the fact that each one is set in the same AU, so I'm not really sure what I should do with that.