Another one of my story snippets
How to Have Fun at Halloween
Prompt 24: Good-Looking (Continuation for 8: Action)
Author: Thalanee
Verse: Human Transformers
Word-Count: 2100 words
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: Jazz being drunk and acting quite silly
Disclaimer: Transformers don’t belong to me, I only wish they did.
Summary: Jazz is having a very good Halloween, especially after getting arrested in the park
Author’s Notes: This was inspired by a review from Phoenyx Starr for one of the first story snippets (8: Action) and is a companion piece for that snippet.
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Jazz pouted.
He was having so much fun and then that police detective had to come along and spoil it by dragging him to the precinct. And he hadn’t been doing anything wrong, he was just having a little Halloweeny fun sneaking around the park and startling people by jumping out of the bushes and vanishing again.
It was Halloween and the party in Central Park was legendary. Everyone knew what they were getting into when they ventured into the trees, so Jazz saw nothing wrong with what he did. In fact it was perfectly reasonable, right? It was Halloween, it was supposed to be scary and fun and … well, halloweeny (Jazz really liked the sound of that word), and people wanted to be scared, why else would they meet in a dark place in the middle of the night on the most frightful night of the year to watch horror movies?
So when his friends, the twins, had come up with the idea after a few drinks, both he and Blaster had been thrilled and immediately set out to put their wonderful plan into action: they would roam the park and play their parts as monsters to help people get into the spirit of the day. It was brilliant!
Thus the park had suddenly gained a new attraction in the form of one Zombie (Blaster), a werewolf (Jazz), a vampire (Sunny, who had insisted on not “dressing like an idiot” and had appeared in an old 19th-century suit, which in the course of the evening had gained a cape courtesy of Sides) and a rather sloppy mummy (Sides), trailing pieces of toilet paper and other assorted wrapping papers.
It had gone so well, too! The reactions they had garnered from unsuspecting people passing their hideout had been hilarious in the extreme. One guy had even run away, screaming something about the end of the world and how he had always known the zombie apocalypse was coming (Blaster had been the one to jump out onto the path that time).
At that point they had started awarding themselves points for severity of reaction, length and volume of screams and speed of flight, with extra points for style. They had had the fun of their lifetimes.
Until Jazz had picked out his latest target.
About an hour after they’d started their game, a lone young man had come down the path. At first Jazz hadn’t seen him, because he was dressed all in black apart from a white shirt, but the light of the lamp further down the path had been caught in the man’s auburn hair as he approached.
“That one’s mine guys,” Jazz whispered, stopping Sideswipe who’d been about to move.
“Alright,” the red-haired twin shrugged. “Make it a good one, though. This guy looks like he’s got something up his aft. Needs a good scare, if ya ask me.”
Shaking his head, Jazz turned back to watch his intended prey come closer. He waited until he could see the other’s eyes (they were a really pretty shade of blue, Jazz mused), before checking his costume. Nodding to himself once he was sure nothing was out of place, he grinned giddily and readied himself.
He jumped from the bushes with a loud “Woof!”, eager to see how the man would react, but to his surprise he suddenly found the way in front of him empty. Before he could even wonder where his prey had gone he found himself flying through the air and landing on the ground, hard. All the air was knocked out of his lungs on impact and he swore there were stars twinkling about everywhere, even inside his own head. When his ears stopped ringing he was looking up at the rather pissed looking young man holding up something shiny- which turned out to be a badge. A real one.
That was how Jazz, or rather Jasper Adams (which was his legal name), found himself arrested by a New York City homicide detective by the name of Alexander Powell. It had been so nice of him to introduce himself, Jazz thought he’d be nice in return and nicknamed him Prowler. It was a funny nickname, Jazz explained to the exasperated detective, because it described him perfectly, after all he’d prowled up on poor Jazz to arrest him. And it sounded a little like his own name, wasn’t that a bonus?
Judging by the Look that had earned him, Prowler didn’t think so. The young man had read him his rights and then escorted him to his precinct (his friends, those traitors had been sitting in a near bush laughing at him… until the detective had sent his colleagues after them, too).
Looking after the swiftly retreating figures of Jazz’s friends, the detective shook his head and snorted. Probably in disgust, Jazz thought, not in amusement.
The other seemed so earnest, Jazz thought, reflecting on that fact in the back of Prowler’s car as he stared at the effect of the street lights on his hair and all the way to the old building housing the precinct. Prowler deserved something to laugh about. Besides the precinct was sooo dreary, full of scowling and frowning cops. Those poor people shouldn’t look so glum on such a great day. He would do something about it, Jazz decided. But how to make them all lighten up? Then he had an epiphany! It was so easy. He would just have to make Prowler and the other cops see how much fun Halloween was!
He saw his opportunity when they stopped at Prowler’s desk on the way to the drying- out cells. Prowler’s grip on him had slackened just a little, so he jumped up on the desk, somehow managing not to upset the neat stacks of files (he hadn’t even known that it was possible to pile up paper as orderly as that) and began his performance by howling at the moon as lifelike as he could make it.
Everywhere in the room people jumped up from their seats, looking around, some were so startled they dropped files. Jazz grinned to himself, finally he could get the party started. Maybe Prowler would smile a little now.
Abruptly the world turned sideways and the dark-skinned man tumbled from the table, right into the detective who had tugged at his still cuffed wrists to get him down.
“That is quite enough, Mr. Adams,” Prowler admonished him in that stern tone of voice he used to address Jazz, guiding him away from the desk and into the direction of the holding cells. The people they passed looked at the unlikely pair, some of the cops on duty glowering at him. When Jazz tried to bow, he nearly tripped over his own feet. Only Prowler’s hold on him kept him from making a more intimate acquaintance with the floor.
“Already told ya ta call meh Jazz,” he answered, his accent a little heavier than usual, thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol he had imbibed. Then a little but important detail registered: Prowler was still scowling at him. And he looked really cute doing that.
“I will call you by the name in your papers, Mr. Jasper Adams.” The detective insisted, while he opened the door to the cell tract, still keeping an eye on his suspect.
At the front desk the pair stopped, so Prowler could update the logs himself and store Jazz’s belongings properly. Apparently the officer on duty had been called away to deal with a disturbance in the entrance hall. He could hear the sounds of someone singing very loudly and very off-key even back here. Now Jazz was a great fan of music in general, and he encouraged people to sing whenever he could, but even he would have happily strangled the person responsible for the caterwauling.
Muttering something along those lines, he was surprised to hear a small chuckle from Prowler’s direction. With one hand on Jazz’s arm and a bunch of keys in his other, Prowler guided him along the rows of cells, most of which were occupied (though the occupants seemed to be in various stages of unconsciousness). “At least there is something we can agree on.” Was it a trick of the light, or was there a faint hint of a smile on his lips? Jazz was mesmerized.
“Ya know, ya look really cute like that.” Oops, he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
The detective looked at him as if he had grown another head. That looked cute too. “Excuse me?”
Jazz was confused. He thought he’s been very direct. Had he mumbled? “Ah said, ya look cute. What, no one ever told ya ya’re good-lookin’ before?”
“That is none of your business. Now keep walking, please.” The detective looked flustered. Maybe his theory was right after all? Jazz simply couldn’t believe that no one had ever complimented the detective before. That wouldn’t do at all!
“But ya do, all blue eyes and auburn hair. Ya look real pretty.”
“If you are trying to get into my good graces in order to avoid a night in lockup, I should inform you that you are not endearing yourself to me. You should cease your advances.” Now Prowler was just being stubborn. Narrowed blue eyes pinned Jazz to the spot with a look that would have anyone else quaking in their boots. Luckily, previous exposure to similar looks, lack of shame and inebriation all worked together to make Jazz immune. Otherwise Jazz would have meekly stepped into the open cell in front of which they had stopped. Too bad the Jazzman didn’t do meek.
And Prowler really wasn’t helping his case any, looking at Jazz with blazing blue eyes and hands on his hips. Damn, he still looked good, all angriness and authority. Jazz cocked his head to the side to look at Prowler more closely. He looked very good actually, practically edible. He’d really like to nibble on that long white neck, Jazz thought.
Now Jazz had almost no shame even when he was sober, so he didn’t think twice about stepping closer to the detective when he was searching for the keys to the cell and mouthing that yummy looking neck, prompting a surprised mix of a squeak and a yelp from his victim. Humming in joy when he felt the minute tremors the touch to the detective’s neck elicited, he focused all his attention on the spot.
However before he could get much farther he was being held at arm’s length by a furiously blushing detective, out of reach. “What the hell was that?!”
“Ah already told ya, ya look real good, an’ Ah’m a werewolf, Ah’m supposed ta be nibblin’ on ma prey, and prey means somethin’ Ah like right? An’ Ah really like ya,” he purred, grinning at the other man.
It made perfect sense to Jazz in his drunken state, so why did Prowler shake his head in exasperation (and maybe just a little amusement?) and look at him like that? Didn’t he see that Jazz meant it? He may be drunk, he thought, but that didn’t mean he’d lie. He wouldn’t joke about something like that, especially since he wanted to get to know him better.
“Just get into the cell, please.” Prowler sighed and pointed to the empty cell.
“Alright.” Jazz acquiesced, stepping past the detective and entering the cell without anymore antics. The doors clanged shut and with a turn of the keys, Jazz was now officially in prison for the first time in his life. But this momentous experience did nothing to distract him from what was important. So he turned back to Prowler, who was still there and turned all of his considerable charm loose on the detective. “Hey, can Ah have ya number? Then Ah can ask ya out once Ah’m outta here.”
“Sure,” Prowler replied, sarcasm dripping from his voice, as he turned to leave the cell tract, studiously not looking at the dark-skinned man in the werewolf costume anymore until he was gone.
For a moment Jazz pouted once again, put out about being left behind like that, but after a moment’s thinking his expression lightened and he flung himself down on the berth in his cell, his arms folded behind his head so he could use them as a pillow. All in all, Jazz had reason to be very happy with how the night turned out, he realized.
Tomorrow, before he would leave, he’d get Prowler’s number and ask him for a date.
After all, the detective had said yes!
The End (or not?)