Work Text:
After boarding the Ark, Jazz had remembered the broken and old as frag data pad floating around in his subspace. Curiosity had gotten the better of him and he handed it off to Wheeljack, with the words, "Do meh a favour and 'elp fix 'his thang in yer 'ree time."
The mechanic of the Autobots, being the kind friend he was, accepted the small burden without a glyph of complaint, replying, "I'll try to."
A few cycles or so later, when every bot was settled, Wheeljack had commed Jazz to come to his berthroom where he worked most of the time, rambling something about how he managed to make the data pad somewhat turn on and to "get your aft in here or so help me--" because he just found the most interesting thing he'd ever seen.
So, with hasty pedesteps, Jazz zipped to the other's berthroom, entering a few wrong ones and as a result, tipping off the Dinobots (which shared one, massive room) and Cliffjumper. Optimus was nice enough to send him on his way, explaining in detail how to get to Wheeljack's room before promptly shutting the door in his face.
He did, eventually, make it to the colorful mech's room, venting heavily as he entered the code and stumbled in.
Wheeljack peeked at him from around a stack of data pads which were dangerously leaning to one side. He nodded in acknowledgement before going back to whatever he was playing with while waiting for him.
The data pad had been placed to one side, turned off.
"So, what's the 'ews bossmech?" Jazz huffed, subconsciously using both of his servos to stabilize the stack.
"Managed to turn it on, though it's a bit slow." The mechanic sniffled, picking up the data pad and pushing it in the saboteur's direction, "What's interesting is the content in it."
"Really, eh? What sorta 'ontent?" Jazz received it with two servos, turning the device over to inspect the back of it.
"Notes. Music notes, specifically. Seems super old, could be from the start of the Golden Age of Cybertron or way before."
Jazz looked at him in shock, the blue optics behind his visor resetting, "Huh. Thought all 'em olden mechs 'n femmes used polymers to write on. Anyway, ya said music notes?"
"Uh-huh. Very elegantly written music notes. It's a rather short piece so, have your way with it, I guess." Wheeljack turned back to the parts he was tinkering with, signalling the end of the conversation.
"A'ight, thanks a 'unch, mech." Jazz mock-saluted lazily, sauntering out of the room.
There was a synth in the rec room, so why not try it out? See how music used to sound like in olden times.
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"Let's see 'ere..." Jazz took a seat at the creaky synth, setting the data pad on its music stand.
His optics cycled at the overly bright light emanating from it as he turned it on, but it was soon replaced by staffs upon staffs of notes.
The saboteur was momentarily taken aback by the onslaught, chords mashed together in a somehow orderly mess with the occasional individual note squeezing in here and there.
Taking a deep vent, Jazz shook out his servos, placed them on the keys and started to play the melody, relying solely on his optics to sight-read as he went.
The tune was rather simple-sounding despite its messiness, like writing a short story. There was the start, where everything was peace and quiet until it reached a certain section when it began to grow louder then...BOOM! The climax entered onto the stage, going on for quite a while, as if it was portraying a long-lasting argument between two bots. Eventually, it quietened back down to the start, the fighting seemingly having ended.
The composition sounded delightful when put all together. Hence, with a plan in mind, Jazz hastily left the rec room, data pad in hand, to go find Prowl.
He was probably sitting somewhere devising some strategy for their next battle against the Decepticons or calculating the odds of other slag but no matter what, Jazz will get him to the rec room.
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Two joors later, Jazz was dragging a grumpy Prowl to the rec room by his servo, the bigger mech having thrown a silent fit for being pulled away from his work.
"I 'wear, Prowler. This'll be 'orth yer 'ime!" The saboteur drawled, turning a corner. The rec room was already in sight.
"What could be more 'worth my time' than finding new strategies to defeat the Decepticons?" Prowl huffed petulantly, like a little sparkling whose creators wouldn't let them stay outside for too long.
"Uh, meh?" Jazz pointed out, lugging the mech into the empty room. The creaky as frag synth sat innocently to the side, waiting to be played, "Anyway, its 'ust a 'weet lil performance fer ya, don' need ta get so 'orked up."
He directed Prowl to a seat not far from the synth first before taking his own seat on the ancient bench, the data pad having already been placed on the music stand when they came in.
"A'ight, ready?" Jazz dug his digits into the grimy keys and without waiting for a reply, he began the motif.
The last note rung out kliks later, and he instantly turned to face his audience, whose expression was a mixture of indifference and pleasant surprise.
"That was...absolutely lovely, Jazz."
The said mech frowned at the mediocre praise, "That's it? C'mon, bossmech, ya gotta 'ave a 'etter comment than 'hat!"
Prowl cleared his voice box uncomfortably, "Well, I'm afraid I cannot provide you with a better response. If I try to, I think I'll suffer a processor crash that'll put me out of comission for cycles."
Jazz's own processor screeched to a stop, analyzing the glyphs the other had said just moments before.
Then, he snapped back to reality, crooning cheekily, "Aww...is 'hat how ya 'ay my playin' was 'antastic? Ya emotionally 'onstipated sap!"
Coolant tinged Prowl's cheeks blue, confirming the other's guess.
"'Hat's so 'ice. C'mere, lemme give ya a hug!" Jazz pounced onto the larger mech like a cyber-cat, and they tussled around for a bit, with Jazz giggling like a gossiping femme and Prowl fondly smiling at him.
(Somewhere in the Well of All Sparks, Prima Prime and Megatronus Prime observed the duo quietly.
"They are like us, are they not?" The white and gold-coloured mech chuckled.
"I still stand for Optimus and Megatron. They are exactly like us." The other reasoned, leaning his helm on the top of Prima's. The leader will forever be shorter than him, in life and death.
"Hm, alright. Let us agree to disagree."
The only response was a low, rumbling 'hmph'.)
-fin-
BONUS:
"Wha' the FRAG?!" Jazz shrieked rather comically.
"Language, Jazz." Optimus scolded lightly, "Anyway, Ratchet's scans are never wrong and I can confirm that the two corpses you found were indeed Prima Prime and Megatronus Prime. As well as that you took the very first piece of music ever made on Cybertron by Prima himself."
It was then that poor Optimus had to be subjected to the saboteur's entire swear-cabulary being released onto him and had to call in Prowl to take his Conjunx Endura away, kicking and screaming.