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Chapter Text

The woods had been beautiful when little Prowl had first wandered into them. He'd followed a a fluttering bolt-butterfly as it flew from flower to flower in his grandsire's garden, watching the complex patterns move across its wings as it traveled. He had barely noticed when the butterfly had left the well-tamed, formal floral designs of his grandcreator's yard for the petals of wild, spiky titanium that bloomed in the forest that edged their property.

It had been peaceful and non-threatening, as he continued to observe the bolt-butterfly. The crystal trees had sparkled in the sunlight, dazzling his eyes. The bubbling of the nearby energon stream had been a soothing background noise.

Yet the sun inevitably sank toward the horizon, and little Prowl noticed how much time he'd lost. And nowhere, nowhere, did he see his grandsire's house. The crystal trees that had looked so pretty before now loomed, devoid of color and sparkle. Without light, Prowl had to use his doorwing sensors to navigate, a skill he'd not yet mastered. Collisions with the hard crystal trees left him with several nasty dents.

He would not panic. Panic was insensible. He would find his way out, or--or! Prowl shook his head furiously, shoving aside thoughts of his rusting gray frame being brought back to his sobbing grandsire.

That would not happen, he told himself. His grandsire would notice he was missing, and alert the authorities, who would start a search party and find him. He had seen it on the news, where another little sparkling had disappeared, and a volunteer search party had rescued him. His grandsire had warned him then of the dangers of wandering off, and he had nodded gravely, sure that he would never do such an irresponsible thing.

He would not panic and he would not cry he insisted, as one white hand rose up to rub at a baby blue optic that was gleaming with fluid. He had just just stepped on one of the spiky titanium plants and hurt his pede. He was doing a pretty good job in the war against tears, when his optics caught sight of a bright glow in the darkness. A bright pink glow. His pede was bleeding!

Confronted with the energon dripping from his pede, all the fight went out of Prowl, and he sank to the forest floor, sobbing. He was never going to get out! He was going to die here! And even worse, he was never going to see his grandsire again! His wails went on and on into the empty night.

While his wails had tapered off into quiet, hopeless sobbing, something had snuck up on him.

"What're you cryin' about?" a voice asked.

Little white doorwings jerked up in startlement. Prowl darted to his pedes, hurt foot forgotten. He turned around.

"Who's there?" he demanded, doing his best to make his voice sound stern, like grandsire's when he was lecturing Prowl. But his voice quavered. And there was nothing all around him but darkness, no matter where he turned. He shivered.

"M'name's Jazz." the voice said. Its owner stepped out from behind a beryllium bush.

Prowl's eyes widened. It was a sparkling, like him, but Prowl had never seen a mech that glowed in the darkness. The other sparkling was surrounded by a soft warm light. And his wings! Prowl had seen many fliers, and doorwingers like himself, but had never spotted a mech with four huge wings like that, each wing the size of the mech's body.

"Didn't your creator ever tell you starin's rude?" Jazz asked, his voice was light.

"S-sorry!" Prowl stammered out. "I've just never seen a mech like you before."

"I've never seen a mech like you before either, but you don't see me gawking." Jazz said.

"You were probably staring when you were behind that bush." Prowl said peevishly.

"True enough." Jazz said amiably. "What is that on your shoulder anyway? Some kind of bark?" Jazz asked, pointing.

"Huh? That's a tire. You've never seen a tire before?" Prowl asked, incredulous.

"No." Jazz said. "Have now though."

"Where are you from?" Prowl asked. Unsaid were the words, "a barn?".

"From here." Jazz said. It seemed obvious to him. Where else would a mech live?

"Praxus Acres?" Prowl asked.

"What's that?" Jazz asked. He ran a finger down Prowl's tire, fascinated by the feel of the rubber.

Prowl twisted his torso, smacking Jazz's curious roaming hands away from him.

"Praxus Acres is the name of this community." Prowl explained.

"Ah, okay." Jazz said, not really paying attention. He'd now noticed the tiny lightbar on Prowl's back.

Prowl's doorwings jerked up in irritation. This mech was clueless and annoying.

"I don't know why I'm wasting my time talking to you. I need to find my way back home." Prowl said.
He began heading off in the direction that seemed to have less trees. Jazz followed him.

"Y'know, if you're not from the forest, well..." Jazz began.

Prowl stopped, turning around abruptly. "What?" he asked shortly.

"There's a whole heckuva lotta forest that way."

Face tight, Prowl started walking in the opposite direction.

"Much better choice! My creators said that way is where the forest ends. And never to go too far cuz there's horrible mechs out there that will do bad things to you."

"If that's where my grandsire's house is, then there are no horrible mechs there!" Prowl said.

"I'll take your word for it, Tire." Jazz said.

Prowl sputtered. "My name isn't Tire!"

"You didn't give me your name." Jazz said amiably.

"It's Prowl." Prowl said.

"Prowl." Jazz said, his small mouth sounding out the strange new word slowly.

Jazz thought about it, and then grinned. "Prowlie."

"No! Just Prowl!" Prowl argued.

The two little sparklings bantered and chatted the whole way, Prowl's doorwings slowly lowering as he became distracted from his circumstances by the conversation. Finally, the white garden gate of Prowl's grandsire's house came into view. But instead of running to it as fast as his legs would carry him, Prowl turned to the strange winged mech next to him. Jazz.

"Will you come play with me sometime?" Prowl asked.

"I don't know, Prowlie. I'm not really supposed to leave the forest. Here's as far as I can go—and really, my creators would ground me for a vorn if they saw me here." Jazz said.

Not that he was really a rule-abiding mech, but he really had gone far beyond his boundary already. Going into the home of an outsider and risking discovery was a bit much, even for him.

"Then I'll meet you here. But you have to keep me from getting lost." Prowl said, his voice serious.

"That's a deal, mech!" Jazz said, and threw his arms around the other sparkling in a hug.

"Oof." Prowl said. Jazz was squeezing him pretty tight. He patted Jazz comfortingly.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" Prowl asked.

"I'll be there." Jazz said.

They looked at each other for a moment, as if searching for something more to say. Then Prowl turned around and ran for the garden gate, the moonlight glinting off his wings as he disappeared behind the fence into the garden. Jazz waved anyway, although he knew Prowl couldn't see him.

Chapter Text

(Years Later)

The barest hint of light was beginning to taint the horizon, the sky softly purpling away into the black. It signaled the end of their time together for now. With great reluctance, they peeled themselves off the forest floor, brushing away shards of broken crystal leaves. Prowl didn't usually stay in the forest until sunrise, but it was the weekend, and somehow, time had flown like it always seemed to when he was with Jazz. Even very sleepy, yawning before and after every sentence, he couldn't make himself leave early.

An idea had been in his processor, rattling around and keeping him distracted. Should he? Dare he? He really liked Jazz. He had finally reached such a state of exhaustion that his mouth could escape the endless cycling of his processor and form the words.

"Could I have a goodbye kiss?" Prowl asked, trying to keep his voice light and casual, although his throat felt tight and awkward with nervousness.

"What's a kiss?" Jazz asked.

"What's a...You don't know what a kiss is?" Prowl asked, flummoxed. That had not been the reaction he been expecting (his processor had supplied him with many possible scenarios, from the extremely optimistic passionate make-out session to the more likely death of his best friend from laughter).

"Nope, never heard of it. Some kinda parting ritual?" Jazz said.

"It can be for parting." Prowl said slowly. "Or greeting. Or...just because you like someone very much, and they are very special to you."

"Sounds interestin'." Jazz said, his visor gleaming as his ever-present curiosity was alighted. "I'm willin' to try it."

"Okay." Prowl said, but he didn't move. He hadn't really prepared for what he would do if Jazz said yes.

Jazz glanced at the lightening sky overhead. "Starlight's wastin', babe." he reminded Prowl.

Prowl shook himself out of his frozen state. "Okay...you just kind of put your mouth together...like so."

He leaned forward, Jazz watching him curiously. Prowl pressed his lips to Jazz's, his faceplates turning pink. Jazz mimicked him.

"Mmm." Jazz hummed, drawing back from Prowl. "I've never seen anyone smash their mouthparts together before, but it's nice."

"It's called a kiss." Prowl reminded him.

"We'll have to do that from now on. Our greeting and parting ritual." Jazz said.

"I am glad you enjoyed it too." Prowl said.

"Walk you home?" Jazz asked. "I think I have enough time."

"I don't want to leave. I want to stay here forever, just you and me." Prowl said.

Jazz laughed. "I wouldn'ta guessed you had such a romantic streak hidden in ya, Prowl."

"It's not romantic. It's realistic. I enjoy being with you more than anything else." Prowl said.

"Stop! You're gonna make me blush!" Jazz said. "C'mon, let's get you home. You wouldn't want to live in the forest anyway."

Prowl began walking with him, arm in arm. "Why is that?" he asked curiously.

"'Cause when I'm not with you, I'm not alone. I go back to my village. If you lived with me, we wouldn't get near as much time off by ourselves."

"Really?" Prowl asked, intrigued by information on Jazz's home. The black-and-white forest creature tended to be elusive on the subject, dancing away from it with such ease that Prowl had given up trying to get answers out of him.

"Yep. We don't really have spaces—rooms, off to ourselves, like you've told me about."

"How come I haven't seen more of your kind around?" Prowl asked, pressing for more answers. It seemed Jazz was finally in a mood to talk about his kind, and Prowl wasn't going to miss the opportunity.

"Believe me, I had to travel a looooong way to your little neck o' the woods, to get any peace and quiet once in a while." Jazz said.

"So you walk a long way to come see me?" Prowl asked, opening the gate to his grandsire's garden.

"Babe, you are definitely worth it." and with that, he leaned over and smooched Prowl right on his mouth. Doorwings fluttering, Prowl leaned into the kiss. When he felt Jazz pull away, he opened his optics. But Jazz had disappeared.

Chapter Text

The forest was gone, all the crystal trees long since chopped down in their prime, harvested to sell as expensive building materials. But that was only the secondary reason. As Praxus had grown outward, enveloping the suburbs, it soon began to encroach on the nearby farmland. Rents in the city were sky-high, and always rising, and demand was so high that landlords could double rents at every lease renewal and still keep their apartments full.

More must be built, everyone said. The land-developers, sure to make a fortune, the city-dwellers, crying out for rent relief, the politicians, wanting to satisfy their constituents and also make a tidy sum awarding permits to their family and friends' development companies.

Eminent domain had swept away the quiet, sweet little farms of Praxus Acres, and the pretty crystal woods that grew around them. Was it worth it? Prowl, now an adult sporting an enforcer's badge on his doorwings, living in a tiny, overpriced walk-up apartment of his own, would have said no.

But progress was like a force of nature, and that was no surprise to Prowl. He had spent as much time in the forest growing up as he had in 'civilization', and he knew that however much mechs liked to think themselves special, separate from the planet's flora and fauna, that it wasn't so. The mechs of Praxus were acting no differently than any cyber animal that found itself in an overcrowded environment. When a population overstressed the resources of its own territory, stragglers began encroaching on new lands.

It's seeming inevitability did not make it any less bitter to Prowl, who had, with his Grandsire, fought the development companies and the eminent domain order. Unsuccessfully. He had been a teenager then, a youngling mech, when he had to say goodbye forever to the forest and to Jazz.

He could still remember his last visits to Jazz. They were not pleasant memories. He had kept his friend abreast of the developments, and he had felt like his spark was going to shrivel up and die when he had to tell Jazz that they had lost. No more appeals, and the construction company could begin razing the property and forest almost immediately.

Coolant had pooled in his optics as he informed Jazz of their home's fate. But Jazz's face had been completely blank, the first time Prowl had seen it that way. His friend had always been very expressive, whether he was pulling a face in disgust or laughing at Prowl's uptight ways.

And he'd kept that stony facade as Prowl sank to his knees and begged him to come with him, to come live in the little condo his grandsire had secured. Jazz had refused.

"You don't understand, Prowler. I can't live outside these woods. I can't. I would if I could, for you. But I'd die, slowly but surely. And I don't want you to see that."

Prowl had had a million objections, some of them quite good. After hours of tearful arguing and begging, Prowl was finally so exhausted he either had to head home or sink to the forest floor and fall into emergency recharge. That night, when Prowl said goodbye to Jazz, ending with their usual kiss, Jazz had said "Goodbye, Prowl." with a strange finality.

Prowl hadn't believed it, had believed in his ability to persuade Jazz, to make him see reason, to make him give it a chance at least. But Prowl never got the chance. When he waited the next night in their usual spot, a little ways into the forest from the garden gate, Jazz wasn't there. He'd been there every night for years, never missing a day without telling Jazz.

But he wasn't there. Prowl had headed into the forest that night, not caring if he got lost. He knew the ways much better now than when he was a little sparkling. And if he was lost long enough, eventually the logging company would come to destroy the woods and would find him. But he didn't get lost. He searched and searched, until dawn set the crystal trees glittering.

Prowl came out the next night. And the next. He searched, until every tree had been uprooted, and there was no longer any forest to search. Even once they'd moved into their new condo, Prowl had drove back to the construction sites where Praxus Acres had once been. For over a year he'd went out there each night, despite the long trip, and searched for Jazz. Finally, he just had to accept it. Jazz was gone, just like their home.

There was not a day that went by that Prowl didn't think of his best friend. A stray cybermoth fluttering by could set him off, reminding him of his friend's peculiar butterfly-like wings. He'd spent many warm, lazy nights sprawled out next to the energon stream, seeing the glow of those wings reflecting off the stream and the crystal plants around them. They had played every sparkling game under the widespread branches of the trees, from the suspenseful games of tag and hide-and-seek, to the domestic ones like baking beryllium cakes out of river mud, or when they were tired, they would sit under the stars and Prowl would teach Jazz the names of the constellations he'd been taught in class. Jazz would also teach Prowl the names his own family had taught him, which were very different.

They said you had to let the past go, but staring at the empty, dingy white walls of his apartment, Prowl couldn't see any reason why he should. It was better to live in the beautiful but dead, unchanging memories, than to dwell in an ugly and empty present.

Chapter Text

It had been a long day at work. The clock on the wall edged towards 5 o'clock, as the doorwings on Prowl's back tried to droop towards the ground. He fought to keep them as alert and stern as he would expect from any of his fellow officers. Others might hold with slovenly ways, spotty polish and slumped shoulders, but he believed in keeping a professional demeanor at all times.

He wasn't thinking about his appearance at all as he sat there. His mind was drawing up the details for the case report he was writing, discarding irrelevancies and weak words, cutting straight to the point. He almost didn't notice the ping of a message being delivered into his inbox. He checked the lab report for the precise diameter of the murder weapon and typed it in, while skimming the message. The Chief, Coldcase, wanted him in his office, after his shift.

Prowl sighed, closing out of the lab report. He had planned on staying late to wrap up the case, but he knew Coldcase meant his official shift end. He might as well get the meeting over with. He couldn't imagine what it would be about, unless the Chief was wanting him to do another interview. The Sonic Canyon Killer had preyed on the city of Uraya for vorns without the police there being able to catch him. Yet Prowl and the team he'd led had unraveled his identity not even two stellar cycles after he'd began striking in Praxian territory. It had been a public opinion boon for the department and for the city government.

Prowl did not look forward to another round of being badgered by a reporter. He squared his shoulders as he headed to Coldcase's office, knocking gently on the door. There was a 45% chance he could talk Coldcase out of it.

"Come in."

The party was boring. Oh, it had all the right things for a high-caliber party—the finest musicians plucked strings under the huge two-story window of the governor's ballroom. The sparkling high-grade being poured by elegantly-attired serving bots was of an ancient and celebrated vintage. The company, those well-polished shoulders he could rub, could not be beat—if power was your goal. Everyone here was the best at something, the prettiest to look at, or possessed the icy calculating optics of Cybertron's political movers and shakers.

Power was not Prowl's goal, although his presence here marked him as an up-and-coming power player...if only he'd go through the right motions. He took a sip of high-grade, picturing the chains of steps and decisions and variables that would lead him to Chief, and then to Commissioner, and then on to some political appointment. It would mostly involve saying the right things and scratching the right backstruts, not to mention knowing how to bury a few skeletons or unearth them. Prowl had the processor to play the social games if he wanted to, but it was completely unchallenging.

"Prowl! Good to see you made it." the Governor of Praxus approached him, bestowing Prowl with his minute of social attention.

Prowl had little doubt there was a very expensive piece of software tagging names on the visual output of the governor's HUD, but he took no offense at that. Politics was a game, and although Prowl found it tedious, he did not look down on it. Others would have no patience for the games he played, chasing serial killers and sickos, baiting them and collecting their clues. Everyone had their own place.

"Thank you for inviting me, Governor." he said with a perfunctory nod.

"It's the least I could do after you caught the Sonic Canyon Killer so quickly. The people of Praxus were terrified—and because of you, they can have faith that their government will keep them safe." the Governor put on a little shiver, pretty sparkling plating shimmering as he moved.

Behind them, a camera flash went off. Prowl doubted he was even in the shot. He was no one. Although he could be someone if he wanted to. The fact that he could catch those big bad, sick and evil mechs, that preyed on the innocent and Primus-fearing population, was what brought him to the public eye. If he were so inclined, he could bank on the five minutes of fame, on "keeping Praxus safe" and wield power in his own hands. But did he want it?

The governor gracefully parted ways, seeking the next flavor of the month to meet and greet. Prowl was left to muse in peace, the spotlight having shifted. Sipping his high-grade, he turned back to the window overlooking the gracefully sculptured lawn. It was nothing like the wilds of the woods he'd loved exploring as a child, or even the well-maintained but overgrown garden of his grandsire. Here, the grass was the finest polydenum strain, manicured so short and evenly that it looked like smooth metal. In the center a fountain recycled clear coolant, over and over again. It looked refreshing.

Prowl felt a longing to slip away from the party—no one would notice his absence now—and go and sit on the edge of the fountain. The bright lights and the crowds of mechs inside the room made it stuffy. Outside, even in such an artificial environment, the dark sky would be soothing to his optics, the taste of the coolant, if he dared to drink it, more refreshing than the overly-sweet highgrade in his glass. At the very least, he could trail his fingers through the water.

The only thing to be gained from this party was power, and Prowl wasn't sure it was worth pursuing. There were things in the world that could be improved, for sure. There were endless injustices and causes one could get behind. But he didn't believe one mech could ever right them all. He was not an idealist, or a utopian. He could have settled though, for righting one injustice. For chasing one cause. If only the one battle that meant the world to him hadn't already been lost...

With that memory in mind, he downed the last of the high-grade in his glass, and handed it off to a passing waiter. He was just about to turn on his pede and shuffle off for the door, when a movement down below caught the corner of his optic. He turned back to the window, looking for that odd flash of white on the smooth dark grounds below. Had a garden lamp flared? No, it had not been that kind of movement...rather than a flash and a fade, it had been a quick flutter...

Alert blue optics scanned the gardens with an intensity that had the waiter backing away. It didn't matter; Prowl had switched into hyperfocus. Most mechs wouldn't have saw it, but Prowl's processor, capable of tracking 800 objects at once, did. The flutter of white, far off down a pathway lined with bristly metal hedges. And in the middle of the labyrinth they formed, stood, tall and proud, a single enormous crystal tree. Prowl's optics widened. It must have been ancient. Even in the woods of his home, there had only been a handful so old.

He did not see the flash of white again, as if pale plating had caught the moonlight, but it didn't matter. He knew where it had come from. He knew where he had to go.

Prowl had slipped out of the party with ease. No one had said a word, too engrossed in seeing and being seen by the right people. The gardens were as soothing as he had expected, the quiet air like a balm on his overstressed sensory panels after the raucous noise of the party. But he was too intent on his quarry to pause by the elegant fountain and dip his fingers. Nor did his optics linger on the exquisite arrangements of metallo-orchids. Instead he plunged into the maze, processor bringing up a memory map of its twists and turns. It wasn't perfect—the gardens were dark, and he could not have seen every part of it from the mansion's window.

But he had seen enough to tear at the maze for a solution. The Right Hand Rule wouldn't work—in this case, he sought not an exit on the opposite side of the hedge maze, but rather a prize right in the center of it. He ignored the walls of the maze and followed the paths his logic processor highlighted for his end goal.

The paths were dark in parts, but enough light was shed from the mansion's windows to allow him to navigate it safely. Or so he thought. He had walked down one path well-lit by a hanging lantern, and was rounding a bend away from the light when he tripped suddenly, sprawling. The dirt was soft so his knees and arms weren't too badly scratched, but it hurt, and it startled him badly, jarring him out of his hyperfocused mission-mode.

Righting himself, he looked around for something that might have tripped him up – an overgrown root from the hedge, a dropped glass by a wayward party-goer, and saw nothing. But a whisper emerged from the hedges that sent a chill down his spinal strut.

"Betrayer."

"Who's there?" Prowl demanded. He scanned the area, quickly but not frantically. He would not be alarmed by miscreants. Still, his spark clenched as he wondered if it wasn't some random prankster, but rather, someone who had cause to hate him.

In the deepest part of his spark he knew who he hoped to see beneath the bough of the grandfather crystal tree in the heart of this maze. But the possibility was so insane and nonsensical, so beyond any logic or reason, that his processor could not consciously acknowledge that that was what it was seeking. But his spark knew and the fact that his deep longing and hope for a reunion might not be reciprocated, was almost too much for it.

Prowl hurried to the center of the maze. As he turned the corner and walked into the center clearing, the ancient, huge crystal tree suddenly loomed, bigger than he could have imagined. His optics were drawn up and up, to where the stars were windowed by the glittering branches.

He could have been frozen there all night, caught by that beautiful sight that had been lost to him for decades, but movement dragged his optics back down. Back down to the thickest part of the trunk, where little light reached, because the wide branches protected all beneath it from the sky—and from the bright artificial lights in the mansion, illuminating artificial people with artificial smiles.

Still, there was enough light to just make out one small, defiant figure. Prowl raced forward, arms out. "Jazz!" he didn't care how angry the mech was. He was overwhelmed with how good it was to see his friend again, really see him with optics, and not his mind just dredging up memories and dreams.

At the last second, Jazz sidestepped him, seeming to phase into the tree. "Jazz?" Prowl called out, his voice sounding brokenly hopeful.

"Prowl." the same voice from earlier. It was filled with hate. Jazz stepped back into sight.

Finally, Prowl paused to look Jazz over, and really assess him, consider him.

"Why are you so angry?" Prowl asked, confused by the balled fists and scowl on his friends face.

This drew a bitter laugh from Jazz. "You have to ask?" he said.

Prowl huffed in frustration. "Do not think I have forgotten or have let it go. But I would think you would be happy to see me. I am overjoyed to see you...I thought you were dead." his voice broke on the last part.

Jazz's face softened a little at that, but immediately turned back to unforgiving anger.

"Well you just went on living your merry little life anyway, didn't ya?"

Prowl was stunned. This was far from the reunion he'd pictured so many times in his fantasies. It was like the opposite of their first kiss. Then, he'd expected derision, and gotten acceptance, affection. Here, he'd expected joy and welcome, and gotten derision and hate.

"Jazz! What was I supposed to do? I did everything I could!" Prowl defended.

"Did." Jazz snorted. "And are ya doing anythin' now?"

Prowl was caught flatfooted at that. Guilt bloomed in his chest. It was true. He'd given up, accepted that Jazz, the others of his kind, and the forest were dead. Written them off as lost, and done his best to move on.

"You just moved on, found a new home, someone new to kiss n' cuddle, and didn't think twice about us."

"That isn't true!" Prowl snapped.

"Oh, it isn't?" Jazz mocked.

"I might have found a new place to live, but that's all. I've never been with anyone but you, and not a day goes by that I don't think about you." Prowl said.

Jazz looked taken aback at that. "Really? Well, your pheromones say you're not lyin'. That's something, I guess. Still, you gave up on us. You don't deny that."

"I don't." Prowl said. His voice was hollow, filled with shame. "I thought you were dead."

"Well, you were wrong, and now ya know better." Jazz snarked. He turned and began walking away.

Right before he reached the trunk of the crystal tree, he paused.

"Don't bother looking for me again unless you've done something worth talkin' about." Jazz said, his voice dripping with anger. With that, he faded away.

Prowl did look for him again though. If getting the Endangered Flora Act passed wasn't "something worth talking about" he didn't know what was. But Jazz wasn't at the tree when he showed up there next, sneaking away from a garden party thrown by the Governor's conjunx. And, thinking maybe Jazz could only manifest at night (they'd only ever met at night, after all) he returned later that night, sneaking on to the grounds. What he would say if he, the newly appointed City Commissioner, was caught breaking into the Governor's gardens, he had no idea. But he wasn't caught. He didn't see a soul, and that included Jazz. He snuck out to the tree many times over the years, whenever he got a chance, but he never saw Jazz or any of his strange buglike people.

But he wasn't giving up. This time, he knew Jazz was alive. This time, he would never commit the sin of giving up on Jazz...on giving up on life itself.

Chapter Text

Life was a cyclic thing. Everything alive ebbed and flowed, bloomed and died in its time. Mechs, despite their long lives, were no different.

The sun sparkled off of the crystal trees that grew once more in Praxus Acres. For economies and trendy neighborhoods, like the mechs that create them, also had a life cycle. What had once been quiet farmland, and then been classy new condos and coffee shops, was now boarded up old storefronts and half-empty apartment complexes.

And so Prowl had found that the little plot of land his grandfather had once owned, was finally within the budget of a police officer who’d lived frugally, invested wisely, and saved his entire life. A few weeks before his retirement, he’d signed the papers.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that stick-up-the-aft smiling.” One officer muttered to another, as they watched Prowl walking out with the boxed contents of his desk.

“It’s a good look on him.” The other cop said. “Shame he was never that happy here. I wonder why he stayed?”
Everyone down at the station thought he couldn’t stop smiling because he was so eager for retired life. In some ways, they were right. But he’d always enjoyed working in law enforcement. It was the absence of Jazz and the peace of the forest that had taken the lightness from his heart, and left him a serious and dour mech.

Now at least, he would have some of that peace back. He subspaced the small box of his office things (he’d had few desk ornaments, just a small potted plant and a photo of him and Jazz. Coworkers often remarked on his friend’s amazing “costume”.) and drove off, going as fast as was legally allowed. He’d gotten a text alert that his shipment was in.

When Prowl stepped out of the transforming spot in front of the land, his doorwings dipped slightly, relaxing. The smile across his weathered face was one he hadn’t worn in a very long time, since he was a young mech still in school. It was the smile of one who has come home.

His grandfather’s farm, now his own, looked very different from his memories. The house was gone, and so were all the flowers, the trees, the well-maintained fences and gates. No forest teemed around the edges of it now. Just sad decaying buildings and empty lots. The crumbling old café that had replaced Prowl’s childhood home was itself gone now. Prowl had had it bulldozed and the rubble cleared away. Most of it. Prowl kicked a stray chunk of concrete out of his way as he headed for the one patch of bright living material in the area—the collection of saplings Prowl had had delivered.

He inspected them carefully, noting the healthy little crystal leaflets glinting in the warm afternoon light. All they needed was to be planted in decent soil, and provided with enough liquid to grow. The dirt here was still good, he could almost feel the nutritious richness of it beneath his feet.

Prowl had had a small manufactured home installed, but it was tiny, as he needed it only as a place to sleep and store energon. The rest of the acreage would be turned into garden and forest. He headed in to drop off the box from his subspace, and then immediately came back outside. There wasn’t much left of the day, but he would make use of all that he could. He had plans in his head, and written down, from over the years. And only so much time to implement them in.

For the rest of the evening, his back was to the sky as he knelt in the dirt and gently planted the saplings. Only when the sun had completely set, stealing the sparkle from the crystal saplings and from his white doorwings, did he dust his hands off and head inside. There he would set the routine that would follow for the rest of his life. Shower and clean up. Imbibe energon. Sleep, early, so that he could wake with the rising sun and be ready to work more on restoring the land.
~
[Years Later]

The crystal trees were growing taller, and the native undergrowth he’d planted was beginning to take off. A dexi-squirrel ran across the lawn, the first he’d seen in decades. It made Prowl’s lips quirk up, temporarily wiping the frown from Prowl’s faceplates. But it was soon to return, as he glanced at the letter that had arrived like a bottle of poison in his mailbox.

A formal—and very generous—offer to buy his land. Clean it up and make something decent of anything, and the vultures were soon to descend, Prowl thought. The pristine beauty of his restored land had made this little corner of the slums a little nicer and more desirable, the buildings worth a little more than the ones adjacent only to ugly falling down buildings.

Perhaps it was a good thing this development firm was approaching him. All his life, he had been so caught up in planning how to acquire the land, and doing research on habitat restoration, that he hadn’t put much thought into how he was going to protect it from undergoing the same cycle of development and gentrification that had destroyed it in the first place.

Prowl pursed his lips, mentally going over the steps he would have to take to ensure a fighting chance for these trees once he died. Years of environmental advocacy had left him fairly familiar with the process of turning a land over from private ownership to non-profit conservation management. It was annoying to be dragged back into red tape and attorney bills once more, now that he'd finally found some peace here on his childhood land. Hadn't he done his time in the trenches?

Scanning his list of environmental law contacts, he got to work. There was no time for self-pity. He had promised himself he would never stop fighting again. He had to fight so that he could see Jazz again...even if his tactical suite said this chances of ever seeing Jazz again in this lifetime were too low to be calculated.

[Years later]

Prowl frowned, squinting cloudy optics at the tree on the perimeter. The ugly brownish-red clumps of the cyberfungus, Cyber Cedar Rust, had infected another tree. It wasn't too big a deal, even though he hated to see any of the trees suffering. He had foreseen this potential problem and deliberately planted different varieties of crystal trees, some of which were Rust-resistant and would survive even if this rust spread throughout the woods. He had a fungicide spray in the shed for the rest. He would get it and apply it to the sick trees. But first, he needed to rest. Just a little. The morning sun was warm and the ground was soft and moist under the trees. And so he settled down, back against one of the few healthy trees in this copse.

The crystal bark was cool and soothing between his doorwings, which could feel every ridge and groove in the tree. A little bit of gnawed away bark where some Cybertronian insect had nestled in to lay its young, whose wiggles he could feel as vibrations underneath the surface bark. The stiller he stayed, quietly watching, the more life he saw around him. It was always this way, like the forest slowly opened itself up to patient visitors. Forest? His mind must be confused. It was still just a woods, these days.

It looked almost indistinguishable from when he and Jazz had played, tripping through underbrush during games of tag and scaling ancient trees. Not an artificial building or machine was in sight, unless you counted Prowl himself. And there were none of the grandaddy trees here, the ones that had grown in the ground since his grandfather's grandfather's time. But he could pretend he'd just wandered into a new-growth area.

It was nice to think back to that time when he and Jazz had been together. He was so exhausted, his optics didn't want to stay open. They kept fluttering closed, when he wanted to see the pretty red grep-avanoid feeding its chirping young, and the way the wind stirred the upper branches of the trees. Why was so he so devoid of energy? He'd gotten the recommended amount of recharge the night before, and consumed an adequate breakfast.
So tired was he, that when an avanoid settled right on his left tire he did not even notice. As that light weight settled on him, his optics dipped closed.

When he opened them again, Jazz was standing over him, his winged figure blocking out the blazing afternoon sun. Prowl appreciated that, otherwise he would have felt quite warm.

"Have you been standing over me for a while?" Prowl asked.

"That's the first thing you ask? And no, I just got here." Jazz said.

Prowl frowned. That didn't make sense. His metal should have been blazing hot since he had rested beneath a small tree without a large crown. His mind started to wake up as well. He had assumed Jazz was just a daydream, a particularly good figment of his imagination.

"You're really here?" Prowl asked. He resisted the temptation to rub his optics, which were oddly clear.

"I dunno mech, are you really here?" Jazz replied.

"Don't be snarky." Prowl said, pushing himself up off the ground and dusting himself off. "You must've come back for a reason. Logically, either I've 'done something worth talking about'" (He made airquotes at this point) "Or you've come back to nag and taunt me. Which seems more and more likely every klik..."

Jazz sighed. "Wow, this is really the warm reception I pictured, with you running into my arms and calling my name and everythin'..."

Prowl's spark soared. Maybe it was the first reason? Maybe he'd finally satisfied Jazz's desire for justice? Prowl couldn't allow himself to get his hopes up though.

"Are you asking me for a hug?" Prowl asked wryly.

"I would'n say no to one." Jazz said, grinning.

Prowl, normally reserved and slow to show affection, grabbed him as swiftly as if he was tackling a violent bank robber, and squeezed him almost as viciously, as he clamped himself tight around his long-lost friend.

"AHHH! Wings! Mind the wings!" Jazz hissed.

Prowl pulled back, his optics positively sparkling with joy. He laughed as Jazz rubbed at his dusty wings.

"Sadist." Jazz grumbled.

"Turnabout is fairplay." Prowl said, thinking of all his long, lonely, painful nights without Jazz.

"What made you come back now?" he asked, mood turning serious.

"It was just the right time, Prowler." Jazz said.

Prowl felt anger rising in him at that comment, but squashed it down. There would be time to focus on his anger later. He'd already had years to stew in his complicated feelings for Jazz, and examine them from every angle. He would get answers from Jazz one way or another, but for now, he just wanted to enjoy the sight of his friend, real and not memory, for the first time in vorns.

"Would you like me to show you around the place?" Prowl asked. He was eager to show Jazz all the hard work he'd done, how the crystal trees here flourished, how beautifully the titanium tiger-flowers blossomed once more.

"Don't need to, I've been watching you the whole time." Jazz said.

"Oh, and you couldn't have said hello?" Prowl snapped.

"I couldn't. You had to earn it." Jazz said.

Prowl crossed his arms and gave Jazz a look of deep skepicism and disapproval. He was used to his friend operating under strange rules and customs though.

"C'mon sweetspark, let's take a walk." Jazz said. His voice was oddly gentle.

"Where?" Prowl asked.

"I want you to meet my folks."

Prowl's anger faded. That was a treat worth earning. He followed Jazz through the woods. But they hadn't gone far when Jazz stopped suddenly. "Wait, does he know..." he muttered under his breath.

"Know what?" Prowl asked. Jazz was as vexing and confusing as ever. He didn't miss that part of being around his friend. Although in a strange way, he did.

"Take a look back." Jazz said, turning back towards the copse they'd walked away from.

Prowl did, and froze. He couldn't make sense of what his sharpened optics were showing him. There, beneath the tree where he'd awoken to Jazz's company, sat an old Praxian, slumped against the tree with his black and white doorwings around the trunk. A red chevron topped his head, being pecked at by an equally red cyberbird.

"What the slag?! Jazz!" Prowl whirled around to cast a furious and bewildered gaze at his friend.

"It's the end, Prowl." Jazz said, his voice somber. "Of your mech lifecycle, anyway."

"How did you do this?" Prowl asked, still angry.

"It wasn't none o' my doing," Jazz said. "You had to know the time was getting near, Prowl."

"No. I felt fine." Prowl said.

"You were like 7 million years old." Jazz said, rolling his optics.

Prowl ignored him, and walked back to look at his body. It was true that there was no sign of life in the body. Air didn't escape from the vents. Putting his hands on the body's chassis yielded no faint pulse of a spark, nor did he find the soft thud of an energon pump circulating the life-blood.

"So, you were a ghost all along?" He asked Jazz. If true, he could see an explosion of temper coming. Being played with by the dead, giving his entire life to the whims of someone who could never have joined him anyway, who had never really been there, would be too much to forgive Jazz for.

"No," Jazz said. "You're gettin' the wrong idea." Jazz wasn't blind, he could see the heat from Prowl's death-glare. "I'm jest not a mech. And neither are you, all the way." Jazz said.

Prowl cocked his head at Jazz, the deathglare fading only slightly in intensity.

"C'mon mech, walk with me. We got a long ways to go, and there's nothing you can do here. At least, for now..."

Prowl sighed at Jazz's enigmatic ways. Did he purposely tease Prowl with half-answers that only lead to more questions? But he followed Jazz once more, only glancing back at his body once. His old face looked peaceful, as if it really were only sleeping.
They walked through the dappled sunlight, Jazz explaining along the way, answering questions that had niggled at Prowl for years.

"Me and my folks...we are spirits. Tree spirits, born that way...not spirits because we died or anythin'."

"And me?" Prowl asked.

"You're a special case. The folks at home agreed you could join us, when you passed from your mech life." Jazz said. "They agreed to that before the forest was destroyed, even. But after that...hoo boy were they pissed."

"At me?" Prowl inquired, mostly amused at the idea of a bunch of old tree spirits being angry with him.

"Yeah...it goes back to you bein' a special case...see, when a tree spirit and a mech love each other very much..."

"But you just said they were okay with us." Prowl pointed out.

"Yeah...in part cause back in the day one of your ancestors must've fallen in love with one of us. You've got dryad blood in you." Jazz said. "One reason you can see us so easily...and care for the trees so well."

"So I'm one of you, in a way..."

"I could tell at first sight." Jazz teased. "The waggle of your wings gave it away."

"Ha ha." Prowl said.

"But, like I said, you ain't all dryad...just part. And so whether or not you got to see where we live, meet the folks, maybe even join us...was based on your conduct. And I gotta say, my family was not impressed after the forest was razed..."

"I did everything I could to stop it!" Prowl said, his doorwings flaring upward furiously. This would always be a sore spot for him. The agony of his struggle to save their home...the futility of it...and Jazz scorning him over it.

“I know mech. But we’re not like you. We don’t just leave.” Jazz struggled to explain it in a way Prowl could comprehend. It was such a basic fact of life, like sunlight was warm or water was wet. You didn't abandon your home. If your tree died, you died with it. Or were stuck in the spirit plane, unable to cross back over. But leaving and going off elsewhere was unheard of. It was blasphemous.

“It looked bad, when ya left.” Jazz said. “A lot of my family called ya a turncoat and a disgrace. Said I never should o’ gotten involved with you. They’d spit when I mentioned ya—”

“I get it.” Prowl snapped, his wings twitching in fury.

“Don’t worry babe, I’ve always been on your side, no matter what you think. I couldn’t be all friendly or supportive though—you really had to do this on your own. And don’t think people didn't notice.” Jazz said. “We noticed the new trees growin’ up, letting people cross back over. I wasn't surprised at all to see it was you.” Jazz’s visor sparkled, his voice full of pride.

Prowl relaxed a little. It was nice to have some appreciation…Jazz’s family still sounded like a bunch of judgmental ingrates, but maybe they could be tolerated. If it meant being with Jazz.

“I know how much you’ve suffered over the years.” Jazz said. He stopped beneath the shade of one of the oldest crystal trees. “And maybe this ain’t much reward.” He reached out and touched Prowl’s face, concerned. “I hated seeing you in pain. I hope this’ll be worth it for you.”

“I get to be with you for eternity. Of course it’s worth it.” Prowl said, indignant at the thought that it wouldn't be.

Jazz smiled. “Then c’mon. A lot of people have been waiting to meet you…”

The air shimmered in a strange way, and Jazz took Prowl’s hand. With that, they stepped into another realm, far from petty politics and industrial smog, or the background noise of millions of busy mechs.
But still full of crystal trees.