10 Snuggles - Gift - Dance All Night
Alright, slowly reaching the tail-end of these. Here's the prompt for Gift, and much mad thanks to Vixen for some of the dialogue help.
Dance All Night
Bumblebee sidled carefully into the med bay within the hangar, not wanting to make a noise incase the medic was in the middle of something important. The last thing he wanted right now was to slag off Ratchet, especially when Ratchet was probably the key element to his plan. Besides, it was either him or Ironhide, and Bumblebee preferred to try his luck with the less violent of the two.
“What do you want, Bumblebee?” Ratchet asked, not looking up from his work.
The yellow mech looked a little sheepish. “You heard me?”
“No, I saw your reflection in the mirror. What is it?”
"Well I have a question for you," Bumblebee said.
"Yes?"
"It's about Jazz."
"What about him?"
"How would you surprise him?"
Ratchet turned around then and regarded the little yellow bot with a quirked optic ridge. "I wouldn’t try. He’d know I’m coming before I get within a 100 yards of him."
"No, no, I don’t mean to sneak up on him. I mean give him a surprise. Like an unexpected gift or something." Bumblebee looked eagerly at the medic. "You've known him longer than I have. There must be something about him you know that I don’t."
Ratchet shook his head. "What I know of Jazz is what everybody else knows. You know how he is. If he's fine with sharing something, the whole world will know about it. If he's not, he'll take those secrets to his grave - as the humans put it. If he hasn't told you anything, as his companion, then the rest of us have no way of knowing."
Bumblebee looked crestfallen. "There must be something, surely."
The medic sighed. "Well, if you must know, when he was younger, he had the tendency to get a little shy."
"Shy? In what way?" Bumblebee perked up now, trying to imagine his very out-going companion as a quiet, little wallflower.
"He got embarrassed easily. Loved the attention from a distance, but didn't like getting the compliments on it. He got over it, obviously."
Bumblebee chuckled. "Obviously. Now he wont stop showing off. Any way to get the shy Jazz back?"
Ratchet contemplated this. "You could figure out something he's good at that isn't part of 'the public jazz', something he doesn't let everyone know about, and compliment him on it. If nothing else, he might get bashful."
"That's quite hard." The yellow mech rubbed the back of his neck at the thought of even attempting this.
"He's full of surprises, it might be easier than you think," Ratchet replied. He glanced at Bumblebee and saw the look the scout was giving him, and sighed. "Rumor had it he took up a certain type of dance - classical Cybertronian - if I remember right, and they said he was damn good at it."
Bumblebee fluffed up a little. "Well of course. Jazz is good at everything he does." Then he frowned a little. "I wonder if anyone could confirm the rumor though."
Ratchet smirked. "Well, you could tackle Ironhide. He and Jazz were quite close in their academy days. He might know something."...
... Ironhide looked up from cleaning his cannons. "Jazz and classical dance? Where did you hear that one?"
"Ratchet. He said you might know something about it."
Ironhide grunted and looked back at the weapon. "He's got the ability, that's for sure. always dancin' down the hallways."
"The rumors had to start somewhere, Ironhide." Bumblebee looked at him eagerly.
"I don't know, little Bee. I've seen him get startled. You know, like when you don't expect someone to walk into a room? Then he'd play it off, say someone finally managed to sneak up on 'em and leave the room like his aft was on fire."
"Okay, what else?"
"Heard that the kid was taking lessons in the theater sector on his time off. Heard he was in a couple of minor performances. Got in one, but was so far back I couldn't honestly tell you who was where or when."
Bumblebee pondered this. "Is that what makes him so agile?"
"Everybody's got some agility, Bumblebee. His is something different though. He flows from one move to the other. There's gotta be some kind of training somewhere to teach that."
"Classical dance perhaps?"
"Perhaps. What I saw at the theatre that time was pretty similar." Ironhide set the cannon down. "Why all the questions about this, anyway?"
"I want to give him a surprise, that's all. He's always looking out for me and I'd like to give him something he wont expect."...
...Jazz looked up at the building hesitantly. When Bumblebee had asked him to follow him to town earlier that night, he had done so without question, but this had been unexpected. The last place he'd thought they'd go to was the theatre and he glanced at Bumblebee quizzically. The yellow mech just grinned and beckoned Jazz to follow him up to the roof.
Shaking his head, but curious to see what his companion was up to, the white mech followed him up, careful not to step too heavily or make any sudden movements so as not to disturb the humans inside. They didn't have to worry about the structure giving way under them as they were both small enough and light enough for it to support them.
As they neared the top, Bumblebee held a finger to his mouth-plates signaling Jazz to be extra quiet, then slipped in through an opening. Blinking in surprise, Jazz simply followed him in. He found himself high up in the roof looking down on a stage, just as the lights dimmed, the curtains parted and the music started up to applause from the audience. Beside him, he felt Bumblebee shift to get a view as well.
"Care to explain all this, Bee?" Jazz murmured softly in the yellow mech's audio, as he snaked an arm around his waist and carefully pulled him closer.
Bumblebee gave a little shrug. "I thought it looked interesting. It's called 'Swan Lake', performed using a classical human dance called ballet."
"Well, yeah, it does." Jazz fidgeted a little. "The music's nice."
"Yeah it is," Bumblebee replied. "Could you dance to this?"
"Maybe."
"Care to show me some time?"
"Well, I only said maybe. This kinda dancing's complicated."
"How complicated?" Bumblebee snuggled up to him.
"Quite a bit. It looks similar to Cybertronian classical dance - needs balance and posture and timing."
"Sounds as if you know quite a bit about this kind of dancing." Bumblebee shot him a look.
Jazz only smiled and cast his optics away for a moment, and Bumblebee could have sworn he looked slightly bashful about the whole thing, which only served to make him all the more adorable. He leaned over and nuzzled Jazz's cheek.
"It's alright. You don't have to admit you did classical dance back on Cybertron if you don't want to, but I figured you enjoyed doing it, so I thought I'd bring you here to see the humans' version of it, as a sort of surprise gift."
The white mech returned the nuzzle. "Thanks. Though I have the only gift I could ever want right here."
"What's that?"
Jazz chuckled. "You, silly."
~END.