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Jazz is chaos personified.
Soundwave has always known Jazz to be chaotic, though his chaos has purpose. From the whispers in the shadows of Cybertron’s underbelly, from the one encounter with Jazz he’s sure of, and others he can’t prove -- he knows Jazz to be dangerous.
He’s not a designation that mechs whisper with fear, because Jazz is not the designation people know. Meister is the designation which strikes terror into the sparks of those who dare plot against the Prime. Meister is the gleam in the shadows before death consumes your spark.
Soundwave had been the one to connect Meister to the black and white mech always at Whipstrike’s right hand. His smiling, congenial, and friendly right hand with a joke to offer, the charisma to Whipstrike’s lack thereof.
As far as Soundwave knows, he is the only one who has ever connected Meister to Jazz. Or at least, he’s the only one alive who’s done so.
To this day, he’s still not sure why Jazz spared him. Or how Jazz found him, infiltrated his home, melted out of the shadows to announce himself, and perched on Soundwave’s desk like an avian creature of prey. How his smile had promised death. How he’d purred a promise from Soundwave, and how it was a warning.
The only warning.
Soundwave never told anyone about Jazz. Not even his own master. Perhaps fear stayed him. Or a certain degree of professional appreciation. If Jazz could find him, even in the depths of Kaon’s Obsidian Market, then Jazz was a foe worthy of respect.
He has always appeared to Soundwave as a creature of unpredictability.
He should not be surprised that Jazz has kissed him, and yet… And yet, he is.
He is surprised by the weight in his lap -- much less mass than he would have expected. He is surprised by the warmth of Jazz’s frame, the clever hands on his shoulders, fiddling with a transformation seam. The curve of Jazz’s smile, the glint of his visor.
“You ‘n me, we understand each other,” Jazz says, and his field is layered, harmonics one over the other, so rich and inviting, Soundwave wants to lean into them, to soak into their complexity.
They’re a puzzle he aches to solve.
“That only reason?” Soundwave asks, his hands hovering inches away from Jazz’s armor. He isn’t sure he has permission to touch, and knows better than to presume.
“Of course not.” Jazz’s fingers stroke along Soundwave’s intake column. “But it did lead to the other reasons.”
Soundwave inclines his head, not daring to move, relieved that Ravage and Laserbeak are elsewhere at the moment. Which Jazz would have known. “Ah.”
Jazz looks up at him, and everything around Jazz goes still, field and frame and ventilations. “You don’t want this?” The sheen of his visor shifts to Soundwave’s hands, hovering and not touching. “Or me?”
There’s a vulnerability in the question, one Soundwave understands all too well. He lowers his hands, slowly, like he had when trying to coax a skittish Ravage out of the shadows of a trash-filled alley. He rests them on Jazz’s hips, and when no knife invades his chassis, he dares stroke a thumb over the jut of Jazz’s hip armor.
“Wary of reputation,” Soundwave says.
He is not immune to Jazz’s charm. There is appeal in being allowed to touch someone so dangerous, to be let close to the fortifications of a fortress. And if he’s really lucky, to be let beyond the walls.
Jazz chuckles, though there’s little humor in it. “That’s right,” he murmurs. “You’re the only one who knows what I am. Best decision I ever made, I think.”
“Why?” Soundwave asks.
Jazz shrugs and scoots closer, his thighs pressing in on Soundwave’s hips, his warmth radiating through Soundwave’s seams to tease at his cables. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Risky,” Soundwave says.
“Life’s a risk.” One of his hands slides down to Soundwave’s chassis, resting right over his central seam. “You ‘n me, it’s up to us to keep ‘im safe. You got it? The Senate’s gonna try and chew him up, but we’ve got sharper teeth.” He grins wide like a Sharkticon.
And there it is now, Jazz’s field unfurling for him, a carefully leashed thing of violence and pride and determination. But below it, lust and hunger and need, a tentative thread of trust aimed at Soundwave’s very core.
“Are you with me?” Jazz asks.
A shiver winds around Soundwave’s spark -- not one of fear, but of purpose. “Affirmative,” he says. “Freedom ours to take.”
Jazz’s visor is a brilliant blue-white of satisfaction. “Damn straight.”
***