Part Four

Prompt: Living and Loving

"Living isn't going to be easy."

Jazz said that to him, the same orn he awoke from stasis to find a medberth below him and half the Autobot officer corps surrounding it. He'd stared at the other mech, not sure how to respond, or quite what his friend meant.

"Sometimes you're going to want to scream and cry and ask why you didn't end up in the Pit with the rest. Some orns, maybe, the dark and tough ones you won't admit to even to yourself, you're going to wish you had… and hate yourself for wishing it."

Jazz had tilted his helm, his expression sombre. He'd waited until the others left to speak up, but there was a restrained urgency to his voice. Prowl, still in shock, had wondered what made the Ops mech think he knew how this felt. He answered his own question in the same thought. Even in the handful of vorns since this conflict started, Special Ops losses had been heavy. They couldn't compare to the city now in ruins, its population entombed in its molten core, but Jazz wasn't immune to the reality of death. Or the survivor's guilt that followed in its tracks.

"You're going to want to do all that. And you won't – because you're you, and it would mean losing control, and that's not who you are. So, I'm here, Prowl. Whenever you need me. I want you to know I'll help, even if it means screaming or fighting, or kicking the slag out of the Decepticons. Even if it just means being here and doing none of that. I'll be here, whatever it takes."

Despite all the awkward, mumbled words of sympathy Prowl heard that orn, and in the decaorn since, it was Jazz's quiet, matter of fact assertion that stayed with him and rang with the most sparkfelt sincerity.

The memory returned to him now, in the darkness of his quarters. It couldn't balance the guilt and pain but, as always, the words brought a fleeting warmth to his chilled spark.

A high-pitched murmur spilled through the dedicated com-link beside Prowl's berth. They'd been growing louder and more frequent over the last breem, and Prowl knew he wasn't the only one whose recharge was broken and restless.

He rose, his repaired and fully recalibrated door-wings flaring behind him for balance as his processor protested its lack of recharge. He didn't let that stop him as he slipped through the newly-installed connecting door, entering the quarters next to his own on silent pedes.

The grey mechling looked even smaller on the full-sized berth. Cushions surrounded him, stopping him from rolling into the improvised barriers all around, but they lay in twisted disarray. As Prowl entered, the recharging infant gave a low cry, his pedes kicking and his arms thrown out as if reaching for something that wasn't there. Prowl scooped him up just as the blue optics lit and his murmurs burst into full-voiced keens.

"I'm here, Bluestreak." Prowl wasn't accustomed to talking to infants. He'd done what he could to avoid them during his time as an enforcer, and there'd been no need to do so in the vorns since. The last decaorn had been a steep learning curve.

He rocked slightly. The tips of his servos stroked door-wings smaller than his palm. Bluestreak buried his faceplates against the larger mech's chest armour, the points of his infant chevron too soft to even leave a mark.

Prowl wouldn't have minded if they had. He owed the infant a debt he could never repay. The guilt he still felt, the memory of little Bluestreak's genitors falling behind, would probably never fade. He couldn't save them. And now the child who'd inspired them to courage and action was his responsibility. It was his turn to do anything he could for Bluestreak – his responsibility and his privilege.

"We're safe." He held the mechling to him and marvelled in the comfort it brought them both. "You're safe now, Bluestreak. I won't let you go."

Bluestreak babbled. Snatches of both Iacon Standard and his native Praxian dialect mixed in with incomprehensible half-words, and choked keens. The infant was always more talkative when he woke from the nightmares than at other times. It was as if he was talking to distract himself, and perhaps to distract the taller Praxian who held and comforted him.

The memories would fade with time, their imagery losing clarity as its details were over-written with more immediate and familiar data. The trauma, this early in the development of Bluestreak's neural net, would leave its mark nonetheless.

Rocking the infant, Prowl vented a sigh. They'd never be quite the same again. Either one of them.

There was a whisper of noise from the main door to Bluestreak's quarters. Jazz slipped through, moving as quietly as Prowl had in the Iaconian night. The light of the Ops mech's visor joined Prowl's optics, casting a cool illumination over both large Praxian and small, and the very different Polyhexian frame facing them.

"Is Blue all right?" Jazz moved closer, one servo reaching out to stroke Bluestreak's faceplates. The infant shied away. He fell silent, his fear instinctive, and his grip on Prowl's armour tightening. Jazz's servo stopped, hovering but coming no closer. It was several klicks before the mechling relaxed. He looked up at the newcomer, his optics wary but not hostile. Jazz was still the only Autobot, other than Prowl, that had made even that much progress in winning the child over. Jazz dropped his servo with a rueful smile. "I heard him wake up. I thought you might be up too."

It was possible. It was also possible that Jazz had a highly illegal hack in Teletraan's monitors, alerting him if either mech or mechling roused. Prowl had no evidence either way… and no intention of searching for any.

"Jazz." Prowl swayed gently. He kept his voice soft and warm, as much to reassure Bluestreak as for his friend's sake. "You didn't have to come."

Jazz's expression flickered, the serious demeanour of that day in medbay showing for a brief second. Then he grinned. He dropped the barriers on one side of Bluestreak's berth, patting the cushions back into shape and dropping down to sit on the edge. He patted the berth beside him in silent invitation, before polarising his visor in a deliberate wink.

"No problem, mech."

The Ops saboteur leaned back, apparently unconcerned that he was sprawling across Bluestreak's berth, or that it was the middle of the recharge joors. He pulled something from his subspace, ignoring both Prowl and the infant as he turned it back and forth, studying it.

Bluestreak let out an uncertain warbling sound, taken aback. Prowl glanced down at the mechling and shrugged. A nocturnal visit from Jazz was becoming part of their new 'normal'. It broke up the long nights, giving them both something to think about other than the memories that haunted them. Usually Jazz would fetch them energon to compensate for the disrupted recharge, chivy them back to their berths, suggest a light vid to watch, or even sing softly to distract them from their brooding. As surprised as Prowl had been by his friend's unselfish company, both he and the mechling had become accustomed to it. For Jazz to ignore them now completely broke that pattern.

Prowl sat next to his fellow officer for want of anything better to do, shifting Bluestreak into his lap as both peered curiously at the thing in Jazz's servos.

Jazz's clever hands gave them only glimpses of whatever fascinated him. The mech's visor seemed fixed on it, but Prowl knew Jazz well enough to tell that the Ops mech was watching Bluestreak, the 'accidental' revelations carefully timed. Intrigued despite himself, Prowl peered closer, his door-wings rising as he craned his helm for a better view.

Bluestreak recognised the device before Prowl did. The mechling reached for it, his small servos making grabby motions as his vocalisor rose in semi-coherent entreaty.

"Please? Me please?"

Prowl wasn't sure he'd heard Bluestreak utter a comprehensible word with to anyone beyond Prowl himself since he woke. The well-hidden triumph in Jazz's posture said that he knew it too.

The Ops mech looked down at his servos, and then at the infant, with an exaggerated surprise.

"You want this? Well…" He appeared to consider it, his helm tilted to one side, before the corner of his mouth quirked up and he held it out. "Here you go, Blue."

Bluestreak tumbled out from the circle of Prowl's arms onto his padded berth, and that was new too. Usually the mechling would cling until recharge loosened his grip.

It was a toy. Just a toy.

Until a decaorn ago, they'd been common. Every child in Praxus must have had one, at the front of their toy shelf, or beside their berth where they could reach it if they woke. As an infant, Prowl had one himself, its capacities constantly upgraded as his processor developed.

Bluestreak was already sprawled on his chest-plates, his little brow furrowed as he worked on the simple puzzle cube, trying to trigger the tune, video, funny picture or other treat that would come with success.

Reaching out with a single servo, Prowl touched the device in disbelief. Its surface rippled, sensing the touch, and Bluestreak frowned. His little hand slapped Prowl's away.

Prowl backed off, recognising his breach of etiquette and unwilling to chide the infant for his own infraction. "I'm sorry," he murmured, a small smile forming on his faceplates as Bluesteak chirped forgiveness and refocused without another thought.

Just a common toy. But it was a uniquely Praxian child's toy, cast aside at maturity and rarely leaving the city platform. Prowl could count every mechling being raised outside his home city on his servos. There couldn't be more than a dozen of these left in all of Cybertron. How Jazz had found one he'd never know.

Prowl hummed, his vocalisor straining a little to hit the high pitch he required. His door-wings felt the resonant response from the data crystal at the device's core – a crystal that, by custom and practice, had come from the Gardens themselves.

"Good." Bluestreak laughed his satisfaction as he made quick work of the basic level Jazz had chosen for a starting point. "Look!" he held it up, a babble of half-formed words coming faster than Prowl could follow. "Good!"

The reward this time was a lullaby, sweet and soft, the music of chiming crystals underlying it. Bluestreak listened, enraptured, his immature door-wings quivering as they too picked up the faint resonance.

The mechling's optics were cycling sleepily when he started on the next level. Jazz noticed. The Ops mech settled a little lower on the modified berth, his frame blocking its open side. His thigh speakers extended, the Praxian melody repeating in the quiet room and then developing as he improvised on the theme.

Prowl leaned back himself, careful to ensure Bluestreak couldn't squirm past him and fall from the berth in his recharge. He ran a finger over the infant's helm, his own spark easier than it had been since he awoke. It wouldn't hurt to rest here until the mechling was safely in recharge. He might as well be comfortable, and – somewhat to his surprise – he found his really was. His optics cycled through a lazy reboot, his door-wings folding down against his back, as the lullaby went on.

He woke abruptly, his processor rebelling against the trauma-corrupted memories it still struggled to file. His frame was tense, but it was warm too and the berth beneath him was far softer than he was accustomed to.

He booted his optics with caution, surprised to find himself still on Bluestreak's berth with the mechling, resting peacefully, curled against his new guardian's chest-plate. Jazz was sprawled beside them both, his servo thrown across Bluestreak and resting on Prowl's upper arm.

It was unfamiliar. Strange. And strangely agreeable.

Prowl vented softly, his frame's tension easing. He didn't fight the warmth and for once the quiet didn't trouble him. He let Jazz's lullaby play again through his memory files, easing the grip of older, darker memories… if only for a moment.

His arms eased around the mech and the mechling between them, sharing the tranquil moment. A surge of affection and gratitude flooded him, the energy spilling out past his armour. Bluestreak squirmed, his tiny servos tightening on Prowl's chest armour. Jazz stirred too, rolling a little closer without ever waking from recharge. Prowl waited for his friend to settle and then settled himself, more relaxed than he'd thought possible. Just a decaorn before, he'd never have dreamed of sharing his berth, or letting anyone slide with such ease into his shaken spark. But then a decaorn before, he'd been a different mech and Cybertron had been a different world.

Living in the world after Praxus fell wasn't going to be easy. But he wasn't alone in the attempt. He knew that now. And, maybe, just maybe, loving would be enough to see them through.

The End