Past Life, a Transformers G1 one shot
Title: Past Life
Day: Sept. 10
Prompt: "Prowl used to be a what?!"
Verse: G1
Rating: PG13
Words: 2,383
Other Characters: Sideswipe, Bluestreak
Warnings: transgenderism
Summary: Sideswipe comes across some unexpected information.
Notes: for prowlxjazz’s Sexy September challenge. Happy third anniversary, pxj! Also, thanks to minibot_love for the beta!
He picked up the picture from his shelf and looked at the image with a nostalgic smile. The femme displayed there was expertly captured mid-jump, artfully displayed at the perfect moment of musical interpretation via dance. He remembered this performance vividly-the last before the accident and before everything changed.
He ran his fingers over the delicate chevron on the femme’s helm, briefly wondering how things would be different right now if that dancer hadn’t been involved in that accident the vorn before Praxus was razed. He almost, for a moment, wished that she had gotten away that day.
But if she had, the Autobots would never have acquired the tactician who-according to Jazz, at least-turned the tide of the war.
With another smile, Prowl set the picture back on the shelf and turned away from the memory his first life.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“Morning, lover,” Jazz said with a grin.
“Good morning, Jazz.” Prowl returned the grin with a soft smile and allowed the saboteur to pull him into an embrace. Feeling a moment of particularly good humor, the tactician bent down and placed a kiss on Jazz’s lip components.
“You feeling all right?” The saboteur asked after they broke apart. “You’re not usually one for PDAs like that.”
“I’m fine, Jazz.” The tactician turned to look at the other bots in the rec room-most of whom were staring at him in surprise. “But none of them will be if they keep staring.”
“There’s my Prowl.” The shorter mech chuckled as everyone frantically turned away from them. He retrieved two cubes of energon from the dispenser and gestured toward a table.
After they were seated, Prowl took one of the cubes. “I was missing? And here I thought I was just sharing my good mood with you.”
“Oh, you shared, my mech. You shared.” Jazz took a drink of his energon and made a face. “Ugh. Still get taken by surprise by how different it tastes when it’s made from fossil fuels. Hey, you busy tonight?”
Prowl ran pulled up his schedule and ran through it quickly. “No. I have nothing planned after my duty shift ends. Why?”
“Well, I know this is a big day for you. Or, the anniversary of a big day, anyway. Thought you might want to go out and do something nice.”
“It’s not an occasion you need to feel like you have to celebrate,” the tactician told him softly. “It was fairly traumatic, actually, when I came back online and realized what had happened.”
“Yeah, I bet. But it gave you a new start and you made the most incredible life out of it!” Jazz gave him a smile. “Surely that’s worth celebrating.”
Prowl paused for a long moment, thinking. Then he reached out and laid one of his hands over the other mech’s. “I would hardly call losing everything, including my personality, worth celebrating. But Prowl the dancer would never have been in a position to meet you. So, if you want to do something with Prowl the tactician that is unrelated to his first life, I would like that very much.”
“You really just want to forget?” The saboteur’s face was disbelieving.
“Not forget. I couldn’t do that, even if I wanted.” The tactician took a drink of his energon as he tried to find the right words. “I don’t want to dwell on it. Prowl the dancer is in the past and I would like to leave her there; she has no place in this war or the life we live right now.”
“Sure. Okay.” Jazz’s grin was back in place at his words. “So, you wanna go out tonight? The Humans are having some kind of folk music festival a few miles from here. Be an easy, there and back sort of trip.”
“Jazz, I thought I said I wanted to leave her out of it?”
“Hey, just because Prowl the dancer ain’t around anymore, doesn’t mean she doesn’t influence the thinking processes sometimes.”
The two black and white mechs continued their date planning and friendly banter, utterly unaware of the stunned look on the face of the red mech standing near the energon dispenser.
Sideswipe blinked his optic shutters several times as he tried to process what he’d heard. Prowl used to be a femme?
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
By the middle of his duty shift, Prowl was receiving more curious stares than he could attribute to his public display of affection toward Jazz. Mechs who didn’t normally pay much attention to him at all during the course of the day were even staring, and mechs who did weren’t even trying to hide their looks. Even Optimus had given him a curious look at the beginning of their daily report. It was becoming uncomfortable.
He was grateful when he could retreat to the solitude of his office. He would be away from the curious stares of the crew-whatever had caused them-and able to focus on his work. And when he was finished, he would go with Jazz to the music festival and forget all the awkwardness of the day.
As Jazz said, sometimes Prowl the dancer still influenced his thinking processes and she had always relaxed best around a good song.
The tactician had just settled down to review their last battle when someone knocked tentatively on his door. He sighed. “Enter.”
“I’m sorry, Prowl,” Sideswipe said the moment he cleared the door. “I just asked a couple of mechs, I didn’t know that they were going to spread it around like a virus.”
“You didn’t know what would spread?” Prowl pinned the red mech with a stern glare. “What did you ask about, Sideswipe?”
“I just… I overheard you and Jazz this morning and I wanted to know if it was true. I swear I wasn’t trying to start trouble!” The warrior rubbed his optics in a tired gesture. “It was just so crazy. I had to know. I’m so sorry.”
Mentally Prowl reviewed his conversation with Jazz and winced. He had a sinking suspicion of what Sideswipe had accidentally let loose. “You had to know what, Sideswipe?”
“If you were really a femme.” The red mech’s voice was more subdued that the tactician had ever heard. “It sounded so crazy and I had to know. I didn’t mean to start trouble for you.”
The black and white mech frowned deeply. The knowledge that he used to be a femme getting out would have caused all the curious stares he had experienced this morning. It could also cause him no end of trouble if certain mechs decided he was no longer worthy of their respect as a result.
“It didn’t occur to you to come and ask me yourself? Instead, you felt it best to spread my personal life out among the other members of the crew?”
“I didn’t mean… I didn’t want you to be angry with me. I thought it would be better if I asked Hoist, since he’s been part of the crew for so long and then Grapple overheard and started asking about it loudly enough that Cliffjumper heard while he was walking by and it all just went to the Pit from there.” The red mech buried his face in his hands. “I swear I wasn’t trying to pry. You just don’t act like a femme at all and so I didn’t believe it. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
Prowl sighed. There was nothing that would save his secret now, anyway. If it was out, everyone would want to know the truth. “Yes. There was… an accident, not long before the war. It required that my spark and laser core be transferred into an entirely new frame, but there wasn’t time to build one to my old specifications. I went offline in the road a femme and came back online in the medical center as you see me now.”
“Oh, wow. That’s…” Sideswipe sunk into one of the office chairs. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. That just… sucks. Didn’t you ever try to change back?”
The tactician shook his head. “My frame is carrying experimental upgrades-I understand the science department was rather vexed at having to give it up-and once I had integrated into it, there was no going back.”
“Man. So, even now, you couldn’t go back? Even if we had the stuff?”
“Sideswipe, think about it logically for a moment.” Prowl leaned back in his chair, relieved that his past didn’t seem to be affecting his current relationship with the red twin. “I have been in this frame longer than you’ve been alive. I am optimized for tactics and strategy, two functions that are vital to our current circumstances. Why would I want to try and go back now?
“Yeah, but don’t you want your life back?” Sideswipe looked genuinely confused.
“No. This is my life, Sideswipe and I wish for nothing else.”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“Jazz, did you know?”
The saboteur blinked his optic shutters in confusion as Bluestreak practically pounced on him as he walked through the entrance to the command deck. “Know what? I just got back from patrol, mech.”
“Oh right.” Bluestreak gave him a sheepish grin. “You wouldn’t have heard about Prowl then, I guess.”
“What about Prowl?” Jazz’s tone turned serious-and maybe a little worried.
The sniper clapped his hand over his mouth as he realized he was being more than a little indiscreet. Jazz was, after all, seeing Prowl in a pretty serious maybe-pre-bonding sort of way. “I… uh, we probably shouldn’t talk about it on the command deck.”
As Bluestreak spoke, Jazz realized that most everyone else on the command deck-including Optimus-was watching them. Whatever this was about, it seemed like everyone else already knew. But he’d humor the younger mech. “All right. Let’s step out into the hall then.”
“Okay.” Blue led the way out to the hall, doorwings drooping. As soon as they were in the hallway, he started talking again. “I’m sorry, Jazz! I didn’t think! I know you’re with Prowl and that I should have let you find out from him instead of ambushing you like that. And I know it isn’t any of my business and I shouldn’t be spreading gossip like that and I really don’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling. Please don’t be mad?”
“Blue, you know I can’t promise that. Especially if what you have to say is going to be hurtful to Prowl.” Jazz pinned him with a dark look. “Now spill.”
The younger mech nodded. “Right. Um… did you know Prowl used to be a femme?”
That hadn’t been at all what the saboteur was expecting to hear. As far as he knew, only he, Prowl and Ratchet knew that little detail. “Blue, how did you hear about that?”
“Blaster was talking about it during the midday break. He said he heard from Cliffjumper who overheard Sideswipe and Grapple and Hoist talking about it this morning.” If it was possible, Bluestreak’s wings sank further. “Please don’t be mad. You know I wouldn’t hurt Prowl by spreading a rumor like that on purpose and I was going to go ask him after my shift was over. …So, is it true or was Cliffjumper just hearing things and jumping to conclusions again?”
Jazz sighed. It wasn’t his place to tell Prowl’s secrets, but it was his duty to do some damage control once something like this got out. “Yeah, it’s true. But if you want to know how it happened, you need to talk to him about it, not me. Ain’t my place to say more than yes or no, understand?”
“Yeah, I understand, Jazz.” The sniper gave him a relieved look. “Thanks for not being angry with me.”
“I’m saving that up for whoever let the cat out of the bag,” the saboteur assured him. “Make sure you tell anyone else who has questions to go talk to Prowl, too. His personal business don’t need aired all over the ship.”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
By the time his duty shift was officially over and Jazz could step off the command deck, he was absolutely floored by the number of mechs who knew Prowl’s secret. Everyone had stopped by his station at some point to ask about his lover’s reformatting, even Optimus Prime. He was sure that if one more bot asked him about it, he would scream in frustration and then demand that Prowl just write up a memo to the whole crew.
Prowl didn’t look much less frustrated when he walked into his office.
“So I guess you know that they know?” The saboteur asked tiredly.
“Yes.” Prowl scrubbed a hand over his optics-a gesture they had all picked up from Sparkplug not long after landing. “At least Sideswipe did me the service of coming to me and telling me he had accidentally started the gossip chain. But I had never thought the crew would be so interested in such ancient history.”
“It was a pretty long time ago, even by our standards,” Jazz agreed, walking around Prowl’s desk and pulling him into an embrace. “So how did this even come up? I know why you decided to keep it under wraps, but this came out of the blue.”
The tactician relaxed against the saboteur gratefully. Jazz’s presence was always comforting. “Apparently, Sideswipe overheard us this morning in the rec room. Instead of just asking one of us, he decided to go snooping on his own first.”
“That’s his style. And I suppose things just snowballed from there?”
“That’s putting it kindly. I would say it was more like an avalanche.” Prowl sighed. “I’m almost ready to just issue a memo about it and tell everyone to quit asking.”
Jazz chuckled softly. “Was thinking the same thing when I came in. What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not going to worry about it until tomorrow.” The tactician stood, and pulled the other mech closer to him. “Right now, I just want to raid your field rations and get out of here for a few hours. Prowl the dancer hasn’t forgotten about that music festival, after all.”
“And I’d hate to let such a beautiful mech down,” Jazz replied with a grin.
Day: Sept. 10
Prompt: "Prowl used to be a what?!"
Verse: G1
Rating: PG13
Words: 2,383
Other Characters: Sideswipe, Bluestreak
Warnings: transgenderism
Summary: Sideswipe comes across some unexpected information.
Notes: for prowlxjazz’s Sexy September challenge. Happy third anniversary, pxj! Also, thanks to minibot_love for the beta!
He picked up the picture from his shelf and looked at the image with a nostalgic smile. The femme displayed there was expertly captured mid-jump, artfully displayed at the perfect moment of musical interpretation via dance. He remembered this performance vividly-the last before the accident and before everything changed.
He ran his fingers over the delicate chevron on the femme’s helm, briefly wondering how things would be different right now if that dancer hadn’t been involved in that accident the vorn before Praxus was razed. He almost, for a moment, wished that she had gotten away that day.
But if she had, the Autobots would never have acquired the tactician who-according to Jazz, at least-turned the tide of the war.
With another smile, Prowl set the picture back on the shelf and turned away from the memory his first life.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“Morning, lover,” Jazz said with a grin.
“Good morning, Jazz.” Prowl returned the grin with a soft smile and allowed the saboteur to pull him into an embrace. Feeling a moment of particularly good humor, the tactician bent down and placed a kiss on Jazz’s lip components.
“You feeling all right?” The saboteur asked after they broke apart. “You’re not usually one for PDAs like that.”
“I’m fine, Jazz.” The tactician turned to look at the other bots in the rec room-most of whom were staring at him in surprise. “But none of them will be if they keep staring.”
“There’s my Prowl.” The shorter mech chuckled as everyone frantically turned away from them. He retrieved two cubes of energon from the dispenser and gestured toward a table.
After they were seated, Prowl took one of the cubes. “I was missing? And here I thought I was just sharing my good mood with you.”
“Oh, you shared, my mech. You shared.” Jazz took a drink of his energon and made a face. “Ugh. Still get taken by surprise by how different it tastes when it’s made from fossil fuels. Hey, you busy tonight?”
Prowl ran pulled up his schedule and ran through it quickly. “No. I have nothing planned after my duty shift ends. Why?”
“Well, I know this is a big day for you. Or, the anniversary of a big day, anyway. Thought you might want to go out and do something nice.”
“It’s not an occasion you need to feel like you have to celebrate,” the tactician told him softly. “It was fairly traumatic, actually, when I came back online and realized what had happened.”
“Yeah, I bet. But it gave you a new start and you made the most incredible life out of it!” Jazz gave him a smile. “Surely that’s worth celebrating.”
Prowl paused for a long moment, thinking. Then he reached out and laid one of his hands over the other mech’s. “I would hardly call losing everything, including my personality, worth celebrating. But Prowl the dancer would never have been in a position to meet you. So, if you want to do something with Prowl the tactician that is unrelated to his first life, I would like that very much.”
“You really just want to forget?” The saboteur’s face was disbelieving.
“Not forget. I couldn’t do that, even if I wanted.” The tactician took a drink of his energon as he tried to find the right words. “I don’t want to dwell on it. Prowl the dancer is in the past and I would like to leave her there; she has no place in this war or the life we live right now.”
“Sure. Okay.” Jazz’s grin was back in place at his words. “So, you wanna go out tonight? The Humans are having some kind of folk music festival a few miles from here. Be an easy, there and back sort of trip.”
“Jazz, I thought I said I wanted to leave her out of it?”
“Hey, just because Prowl the dancer ain’t around anymore, doesn’t mean she doesn’t influence the thinking processes sometimes.”
The two black and white mechs continued their date planning and friendly banter, utterly unaware of the stunned look on the face of the red mech standing near the energon dispenser.
Sideswipe blinked his optic shutters several times as he tried to process what he’d heard. Prowl used to be a femme?
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
By the middle of his duty shift, Prowl was receiving more curious stares than he could attribute to his public display of affection toward Jazz. Mechs who didn’t normally pay much attention to him at all during the course of the day were even staring, and mechs who did weren’t even trying to hide their looks. Even Optimus had given him a curious look at the beginning of their daily report. It was becoming uncomfortable.
He was grateful when he could retreat to the solitude of his office. He would be away from the curious stares of the crew-whatever had caused them-and able to focus on his work. And when he was finished, he would go with Jazz to the music festival and forget all the awkwardness of the day.
As Jazz said, sometimes Prowl the dancer still influenced his thinking processes and she had always relaxed best around a good song.
The tactician had just settled down to review their last battle when someone knocked tentatively on his door. He sighed. “Enter.”
“I’m sorry, Prowl,” Sideswipe said the moment he cleared the door. “I just asked a couple of mechs, I didn’t know that they were going to spread it around like a virus.”
“You didn’t know what would spread?” Prowl pinned the red mech with a stern glare. “What did you ask about, Sideswipe?”
“I just… I overheard you and Jazz this morning and I wanted to know if it was true. I swear I wasn’t trying to start trouble!” The warrior rubbed his optics in a tired gesture. “It was just so crazy. I had to know. I’m so sorry.”
Mentally Prowl reviewed his conversation with Jazz and winced. He had a sinking suspicion of what Sideswipe had accidentally let loose. “You had to know what, Sideswipe?”
“If you were really a femme.” The red mech’s voice was more subdued that the tactician had ever heard. “It sounded so crazy and I had to know. I didn’t mean to start trouble for you.”
The black and white mech frowned deeply. The knowledge that he used to be a femme getting out would have caused all the curious stares he had experienced this morning. It could also cause him no end of trouble if certain mechs decided he was no longer worthy of their respect as a result.
“It didn’t occur to you to come and ask me yourself? Instead, you felt it best to spread my personal life out among the other members of the crew?”
“I didn’t mean… I didn’t want you to be angry with me. I thought it would be better if I asked Hoist, since he’s been part of the crew for so long and then Grapple overheard and started asking about it loudly enough that Cliffjumper heard while he was walking by and it all just went to the Pit from there.” The red mech buried his face in his hands. “I swear I wasn’t trying to pry. You just don’t act like a femme at all and so I didn’t believe it. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
Prowl sighed. There was nothing that would save his secret now, anyway. If it was out, everyone would want to know the truth. “Yes. There was… an accident, not long before the war. It required that my spark and laser core be transferred into an entirely new frame, but there wasn’t time to build one to my old specifications. I went offline in the road a femme and came back online in the medical center as you see me now.”
“Oh, wow. That’s…” Sideswipe sunk into one of the office chairs. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. That just… sucks. Didn’t you ever try to change back?”
The tactician shook his head. “My frame is carrying experimental upgrades-I understand the science department was rather vexed at having to give it up-and once I had integrated into it, there was no going back.”
“Man. So, even now, you couldn’t go back? Even if we had the stuff?”
“Sideswipe, think about it logically for a moment.” Prowl leaned back in his chair, relieved that his past didn’t seem to be affecting his current relationship with the red twin. “I have been in this frame longer than you’ve been alive. I am optimized for tactics and strategy, two functions that are vital to our current circumstances. Why would I want to try and go back now?
“Yeah, but don’t you want your life back?” Sideswipe looked genuinely confused.
“No. This is my life, Sideswipe and I wish for nothing else.”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“Jazz, did you know?”
The saboteur blinked his optic shutters in confusion as Bluestreak practically pounced on him as he walked through the entrance to the command deck. “Know what? I just got back from patrol, mech.”
“Oh right.” Bluestreak gave him a sheepish grin. “You wouldn’t have heard about Prowl then, I guess.”
“What about Prowl?” Jazz’s tone turned serious-and maybe a little worried.
The sniper clapped his hand over his mouth as he realized he was being more than a little indiscreet. Jazz was, after all, seeing Prowl in a pretty serious maybe-pre-bonding sort of way. “I… uh, we probably shouldn’t talk about it on the command deck.”
As Bluestreak spoke, Jazz realized that most everyone else on the command deck-including Optimus-was watching them. Whatever this was about, it seemed like everyone else already knew. But he’d humor the younger mech. “All right. Let’s step out into the hall then.”
“Okay.” Blue led the way out to the hall, doorwings drooping. As soon as they were in the hallway, he started talking again. “I’m sorry, Jazz! I didn’t think! I know you’re with Prowl and that I should have let you find out from him instead of ambushing you like that. And I know it isn’t any of my business and I shouldn’t be spreading gossip like that and I really don’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling. Please don’t be mad?”
“Blue, you know I can’t promise that. Especially if what you have to say is going to be hurtful to Prowl.” Jazz pinned him with a dark look. “Now spill.”
The younger mech nodded. “Right. Um… did you know Prowl used to be a femme?”
That hadn’t been at all what the saboteur was expecting to hear. As far as he knew, only he, Prowl and Ratchet knew that little detail. “Blue, how did you hear about that?”
“Blaster was talking about it during the midday break. He said he heard from Cliffjumper who overheard Sideswipe and Grapple and Hoist talking about it this morning.” If it was possible, Bluestreak’s wings sank further. “Please don’t be mad. You know I wouldn’t hurt Prowl by spreading a rumor like that on purpose and I was going to go ask him after my shift was over. …So, is it true or was Cliffjumper just hearing things and jumping to conclusions again?”
Jazz sighed. It wasn’t his place to tell Prowl’s secrets, but it was his duty to do some damage control once something like this got out. “Yeah, it’s true. But if you want to know how it happened, you need to talk to him about it, not me. Ain’t my place to say more than yes or no, understand?”
“Yeah, I understand, Jazz.” The sniper gave him a relieved look. “Thanks for not being angry with me.”
“I’m saving that up for whoever let the cat out of the bag,” the saboteur assured him. “Make sure you tell anyone else who has questions to go talk to Prowl, too. His personal business don’t need aired all over the ship.”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
By the time his duty shift was officially over and Jazz could step off the command deck, he was absolutely floored by the number of mechs who knew Prowl’s secret. Everyone had stopped by his station at some point to ask about his lover’s reformatting, even Optimus Prime. He was sure that if one more bot asked him about it, he would scream in frustration and then demand that Prowl just write up a memo to the whole crew.
Prowl didn’t look much less frustrated when he walked into his office.
“So I guess you know that they know?” The saboteur asked tiredly.
“Yes.” Prowl scrubbed a hand over his optics-a gesture they had all picked up from Sparkplug not long after landing. “At least Sideswipe did me the service of coming to me and telling me he had accidentally started the gossip chain. But I had never thought the crew would be so interested in such ancient history.”
“It was a pretty long time ago, even by our standards,” Jazz agreed, walking around Prowl’s desk and pulling him into an embrace. “So how did this even come up? I know why you decided to keep it under wraps, but this came out of the blue.”
The tactician relaxed against the saboteur gratefully. Jazz’s presence was always comforting. “Apparently, Sideswipe overheard us this morning in the rec room. Instead of just asking one of us, he decided to go snooping on his own first.”
“That’s his style. And I suppose things just snowballed from there?”
“That’s putting it kindly. I would say it was more like an avalanche.” Prowl sighed. “I’m almost ready to just issue a memo about it and tell everyone to quit asking.”
Jazz chuckled softly. “Was thinking the same thing when I came in. What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not going to worry about it until tomorrow.” The tactician stood, and pulled the other mech closer to him. “Right now, I just want to raid your field rations and get out of here for a few hours. Prowl the dancer hasn’t forgotten about that music festival, after all.”
“And I’d hate to let such a beautiful mech down,” Jazz replied with a grin.