Dreamers and Dancers - Ch 1/?
Verse: G1 (pre-Earth)
Characters: Jazz, OCs (no, they're not Sues, please give them a chance)
Pairings: Mention of Jazz/?
Rating: PG
Warnings: erm... dancing? mentions of vices.
Summary: Jazz's life-story is a rainbow, and she's just one of the many colors.
Notes: This is a spin-off from my Hit It Maestro verse (the story of Jazz's creator and creation). Don't need to know it to understand this, but certain things from that story will be referred to in this one. This is also based on something that was revealed in an RP about Jazz being a dancer. What kind of dancer? You'll have to read to find out.
Disclaimer: The TFs belong to Has/Tak; OCs belong to me.
Prologue Here
Dreamers And Dancers
Chapter 1
Jazz stared at the screen of his datapad blankly. He was supposed to be studying, but the ancient Cybertronian glyphs and symbols were slowly becoming a blur to him. His concentration, too, had drifted away a long time ago and he had to keep reminding himself of why he was doing this time and again.
There was a position open for a new division head. Optimus Prime called it “Special Operations” and he and some other mech he didn’t know were in the running to take charge of it. Keeping with the rigid standards and rules of the ailing Autobot Council, he was required to sit for a series of examinations to determine if he was a suitable choice.
He scoffed. Like the word of their Prime wasn’t enough. He hadn’t even been interested in the position to begin with - it sounded like far too much trouble, and he wasn’t really comfortable in leadership positions. However, Prime had pushed for him to just try anyway, citing the benefits of landing the position.
Jazz knew when he was being used. Sure he knew Prime cared for the welfare of his team, but he also knew the mech he was up against was a supposed favourite of the Council. Having that mech on his team would mean all Prime’s doings would be reported back to the Council, who would then try to interfere. If Jazz scored the position on the other hand, Prime was mostly free to do as he liked.
Didn’t need high test scores to see that. Jazz shut off the screen with a frustrated sigh and tossed the pad onto his desk. How the frag would test scores determine if a bot was qualified enough? They only proved a bot had academic intellect and good retentive power.
They didn’t determine if a bot could hold his or her own on the streets, and Jazz had plenty of experience with the latter, both during the start of the war as a soldier and later as a saboteur, and way before that. It was how he’d lived this long after all.
He quirked an optic ridge behind his visor. If what he’d heard about the Special Ops requirements was true, then it wasn’t really surprising that Prime put him forward. He had the most experience in dealing with the ‘streets’. He sighed again; it wasn’t something he was looking forward to.
Just dance… gonna be okay… Just dance…
See now his music player had the right idea. That wasn’t a bad suggestion at all. He pushed back from his desk and stood, grabbing up his rifle - never leave home without it! - and heading to the door. Doubtless some would question why he was going out to a club when he should be studying for the exams, but he didn’t care. Dancing the night away was a much better option.
~~~~~
Not long after arriving in Iacon with the rest of the young Autobots that had been rounded up from the outlying towns to serve as soldiers in the upcoming war, as soon as Jazz had studied the layout of the city, one of his first personal missions was to check out the Arts scene.
It had been his and his creator’s dream, before he died, that Jazz would survive and one day make it to Iacon and make a name for himself in the performing arts as a musician. Well, two out of three wasn’t bad even if he would have liked to carry on making music instead of making bombs.
Still, he kept the dream alive and had checked out the scene, only to find that in Iacon, too, that one very important aspect of a race was starting to die out. The only thing that still held a little value was the visual arts, but the performing arts had dwindled to some dancing at clubs while pre-recorded music played out of a speaker, and acting was reduced to bots making up a story to curb the undesired advances of another.
It had nearly broken his spirit to see all of it, but he held on to his dream and adjusted. Someday, when the war was over, it would all come back. For now, even in beautiful Iacon as it had been in the towns he grew up in, dancing in a club would have to do.
The streets grew busier the further away he got from the military-controlled areas, and as the scenery changed, so too did the populace. A few high-profile, high-society bars and clubs still remained in Central Iacon to cater to those who could still afford it - like those close to the Council.
Jazz could have gotten into any of them had he wanted to, but he hated places like those. Soulless pits where bots gathered to look down on those less well-off than them. Job and function had taken him into a couple of them where he’d played the part of a young, well-bred Iaconian, but inside he’d seethed.
So he headed to Lower Iacon, the towns-area that sat on the borders. These were surroundings he was more familiar with, bots he could relate to, to a certain extent. The club he pulled up outside of was one he’d frequented since coming to Iacon, and the guardsmech waved him through with a smile.
“Someone up in Central or Decagon slag you off again?” he asked.
Jazz grinned. “Just avoidin’ a date.”
“Ah. Mech not working out for ya?”
“With studyin’, Brick. Mech’s fine.” Jazz paused. “Though… he doesn’t know I’m here. Probably for the best.”
“Sneakin’ out huh?” Brick shook his head. “When do I get to see this elusive ‘Mech’?”
Jazz shrugged. “Mech don’t do the whole club thing. So ya probably won’t.”
“Sometimes I don’t wonder if this bot’s just made up,” Brick said, grinning and turning back to his post as Jazz went inside.
The club was just like any other typical nightclub. Low couches and tables hugging the side walls, higher tables near the bar with the tall stools crowded together. There was an unspoken rule to never let furniture bleed onto the dancefloor.
The lighting was low, with spotlights and strobe-lights flashing and dimming on the bodies moving in time to the loud pumping music that played at volumes that would have made the audios of some of the more high-society bots up there in the Decagon blow. Jazz loved it.
He moved over to the bar to grab himself a cube of standard grade. The barmech shook his head at him and moved off to serve the next customer, but Jazz only smiled. He’d come here to dance, not get cratered, and he still had to report for duty the next day.
The music called, but didn’t pull just yet, and the dancefloor was still a little too crowded for his liking, so he stayed by the bar, sipped his energon and scanned the crowd. A rather good-looking mech eyed him appreciatively as he came over to the bar to get his own drink, but Jazz only smiled and shook his head; he wasn’t interested in going home with anyone.
The mech however wasn’t so easily put off, and leaned in closer to whisper something in Jazz’s audio receptor, even as he moved a hand lower. Jazz humored him by listening to the full proposition before he spoke.
“Touch me and lose the hand, mech,” he said.
“He’ll do it, too,” the barmech added, coming over with the mech’s drink. “Last mech that tried funny business with him ended up with his skidplate handed to him - literally.”
The mech looked at the bartender, then at Jazz who just shrugged. Finally, deciding he liked his skidplate just where it was, he moved away. Jazz smirked at the barmech.
“Thanks.”
He smirked back. “You’re getting sloppy, Jazz. Next time I might not be here to rescue you.”
“My hero! What would I do without ya?!” He drained the last of his energon and disposed of the cube.
Don’t let me down, come to me now… I got to be with you somehow!
“And now if you’ll excuse me, I think the dancefloor’s callin’ my name.”
The barmech shook his head again. “Yeah, yeah. Go on and have your fun.” He waved Jazz off. “And be careful out there, I actually have to work tonight, not haul your aft outta trouble.”
Jazz blew him a kiss and sauntered off, falling into the rhythm of the song even as he walked so that by the time he reached the dancefloor he was already moving to the music.
As always, when Jazz danced he attracted an audience. He could move fluidly and gracefully no matter what song was playing, and even when the songs changed he could easily alter his steps to match the new rhythm flawlessly.
Sometimes the mech in charge of playing the music would purposely change the music mid-song to see if he could throw Jazz off, and now it had become something of a friendly rivalry between them - the music spinner challenging the dancer to see just how far he could go.
Tonight though, Jazz noticed that the crowd’s attention was divided between him and someone else on the dancefloor. He looked to the spinner who nodded in the direction of the ‘someone else’. More out of curiosity than jealousy that attention was being diverted from him, Jazz started to dance his way over to this mystery bot. Or not a mystery…. As the crowd parted slowly before him, he made out flashes of pale, soft yellow and white. Only one femme he knew had that color combination, and she was the last bot he expected to see in these parts at this juncture of time.
He studied her first, not making his presence known just yet. She looked older - well, she’d always been older than him - but she still had that same grace and beauty on the dancefloor that he remembered… and when she launched into a sequence that he knew from many vorns ago, he decided it was time to announce himself.
A gunshot on the floor…
She was just ending a spin when he stepped in and caught her hand in perfect timing, leading her into the next move. She almost stumbled out of surprise when she looked up and saw him, but recovered quickly to pick up his lead, a knowing and relieved smile on her face. Jazz smiled back as he led her, knowing a LOT of bots would be talking about this tomorrow - who was the mysterious femme ‘their’ Jazz had danced with? - the gossip would entertain them for a while.
“Give ‘em a show, Sparky?” she asked him.
“Would be my pleasure, ma’am,” he replied….
~~~~~
Jazz hadn’t felt this happy dancing in vorns. He may have been in a relationship, but he always came dancing alone. Sometimes he’d indulge in a no-touch dance with a mech or femme, but they rarely gave him satisfaction, and he knew they just wanted to be seen dancing with the popular mech. Besides, they’d never be able to keep up with him if he really got into it.
Now though… now he could really cut loose and he was a little surprised how easy it was to go back into those sets when he had a partner who knew what she was doing. Correction, they knew each other. Just the slightest pressure of his hands on her shoulders or back and she knew exactly what came next.
Dancing, acrobatics and a little combination of both, they made it look easy. When they finally finished their routine, the crowd roared its approval, and they bowed slightly in acknowledgement, before he lightly pecked the hand he held and she patted his cheek with the other.
“Buy ya a drink?” he asked as he led her back to the bar.
“That’d be nice,” she replied. “Thanks.”
The barmech looked them over as they came up, and placed two cubes of standard grade energon on the counter for them. “On the house,” he said. “You look like you could use them after that little performance.”
Jazz thanked him and handed one to the femme.
“So by the looks of it, you two know each other.” The barmech leaned slightly over the counter, wanting to hear this story.
“Oh, Sparky here and I go way back,” the femme said.
“Old flame, Jazz?”
“Naw…” He smiled at her. “Somethin’ far more than that.”
Enjoy, and feedback is <3