Chapter Text
Everyone was excited to see what Jazz had gotten this year.
It had shown up the day after Thanksgiving and sat there, arousing everyone’s curiosity for more than a month. And no one’s curiosity was more aroused than Jazz’s himself. He was spotted on multiple occasions in the rec room, where the tree would eventually go, just staring at it.. The box was at least big enough to fit Jazz himself in, in his alt form and no one knew who it was from. It just had For Jazz written on one side, beneath the impeccable (huge) bow.
No “from” sticker could be found anywhere on the outside of the package. Jazz knew this. He’d checked. Multiple times.
The Box (yes, it had capital letters now) refused to give up its secrets.
That easily, Jazz insisted. He wasn’t done.
While The Box sat there, it was subjected to every single test Jazz could think of to find out it’s origins and contents. Shaking it was out. The thing was the size of an Autobot, weighed at least twice that, and Jazz might be able to pick up a comrade and help him off the battlefield in a pinch, but he was not Brawn. Picking The Box up far enough to give it a good shake was out.
Jazz gave up on shaking and turned to other methods of ferreting out The Box’s secrets.
By the time he’d stolen one of Ratchet’s medical scanners and subsequently been given a cease and desist order from Optimus, some of the ribbons were fraying and The Box had acquired a few scorch marks, but had remained frustratingly intact. Who knew fire resistant wrapping paper was a thing?
Up exactly at dawn on Christmas morning, Jazz didn’t wait until the others were up, he just dove in and started ripping paper away.
Two hours later, when the others on the Ark wandered into the rec room, bleary, sleepy but eager (except Prowl, who was freshly polished, groomed, and as poised as he ever was), and Jazz was still tearing paper and cardboard to get at the present within.
The rec room had been turned into a warzone. A one-mech war. Jazz vs The Box. And so far The Box was winning.
Boxes rather. Each layer Jazz ripped away revealed only another, smaller, brightly wrapped box and some scrap metal to give the thing weight. Jazz was NOT AMUSED.
(Everyone else was, however.)
Eventually though, people lost interest in watching Jazz cuss as he tore into yet another neatly wrapped back and concentrated on their own presents.
Thirty minutes later, Jazz’s cry of triumph got everyone’s attention again.
Jazz finally, finally, held not another box covering bright wrapping paper and ribbon, but a box of hand carved wood about the size of his own fist. Everyone watched avidly as Jazz carefully opened the final barrier between himself and his mysterious present --
-- And gasped as one as Jazz withdrew a traditional Polyhexian sensor-horn ornament. Meant to be inset and integrate into the horn’s armor, it was the sort of thing that once put on, could not be taken off. A request to bond.
Jazz held it, examined it. Gold plated titanium setting, the primary spark-shaped crystal was the same blue as Jazz’s visor, the smaller red spark-crystal nestled next to and intertwined with the larger crystal, it wasn’t quite a match for his stripes. Not that Jazz would expect them to. That represented the person asking him to bond…
There was a note inside the wooden box, but Jazz didn’t read it. He just let his optic band seek out the only person this could be from and met Prowl’s hopeful optics.
Yes.