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No day should be dedicated to death, Prowl thought. And whatever came back on these horrible nights devoted to death...he could not accept that this was Jazz.
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Save for some uneasiness around Jazz, Prowl had rarely noticed any significant change about the Third in Command while they were on Cybertron. Certainly during some of the...darker shifts on Cybertron, when the clouds of bleach and nitric acid blotted out any light from the sky, when the battlefield smoke rolled like waves, Prowl had been...unsettled by Jazz's presence. Something imperceptible to his sensors but there, palpably there, had put him on high alert while simply standing next to his comrade.
Perhaps it was their lack of ritual or mythology surrounding death. There was the common belief in the well of sparks, in Primus, but compared to the vast array of human beliefs about death, mechs were painfully unaware of the details of the afterlife.
Damn Jazz for telling him about so many of them. So enthralled by earth culture, enrapt by their funeral customs and heaven and hell and "picnics on graves, Prowl, some of them have picnics on the graves!" Prowl didn't need those ideas running in the back of his processor, unbidden, when the nights on earth were so much more unsettling for the silence and starlight playing tricks on the optics.
Days of the dead. No day should be dedicated to death, Prowl thought. And he refused to look up as Jazz's signature finally returned to the ark.
He wasn't sure how he knew without looking that Jazz was back. He didn't monitor the security grid or check in with the patrols. They wouldn't see Jazz anyway. Without explaining how he did it, Jazz waltzed past Red Alert's best alarms, slipped up through the Ark without being noticed.
Towards Prowl.
He refused to look. He'd learned not to look. Looking meant that he might see Jazz. That soft sense on Cybertron turned into something overwhelming on earth, and whatever happened to Jazz on Cybertron only intensified on this planet.
"Magic," Jazz had said once, trying to explain the concept. "Earth's got magic. Lines you can't see. And between life and death, that line gets thin on certain nights. Like, knife cutting through cables thin."
Of course Jazz would feel at home with illogical concepts. Prowl could not accept it. And he kept his optics down as his office door opened and faint, faint steps entered. Which meant that Jazz wanted him to know he was there.
Prowl did not look up. He could not accept magic, he could not accept strange sensations that reason could not identify, and whatever came back on these horrible nights devoted to death...he could not accept that this was Jazz.
"Nice night."
Jazz's voice swirled like smoke, wavered as if it were underwater, halfway here and halfway somewhere else, and his hand coming to rest on Prowl's desk reflected strange swirls on his helm that Prowl refused to notice.
"Perfect for a picnic."
Prowl's optic twitched. The lights flickered and dimmed, hissing as the electricity in them sparked and went dead, leaving them in the dark. A thin ray of silver glowed over the edge of Jazz's visor, and the swirls on his helm seemed to expand, growing outward as he smiled, and Prowl had the terrible realization that Jazz's smile was likewise impossible in a void of black.
On Cybertron, the darkest nights were made of concrete and steel. Tonight on earth, the night was split in two with Jazz at the indistinct center, inexorably pulling Prowl in with him while his visor flickered like moonlight.