& I'm off to bed
Title: Fishtailing (2/13)
Verse: G1 AU
Rating: PG-13/T
Characters: Prowl, Jazz, Barricade, Backbite, Sideswipe, and Grapple
Warnings: none
Summary: Fishtailing: when the driver of the car loses control and the end swerves side to side; like their lives that spun out of control, and they were just along for the ride.
Notes: This whole chapter ended up way longer than originally planned. If you see any mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them.
Chap 1
“We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.”
- Dag Hammarskjöld
Jazz looked around the racetrack feeling an odd, giddy excitement that he hadn’t felt since he was a youngling participating in his first race. There were tons of racetracks all over Cybertron, but the city of Praxus had the most and the best of all of them, but the one that stood helm and shoulders above them all was the famous Rubidium Crystal Track, and Jazz was standing in the stands of that very track.
This particular track contained 10 levels of racetracks and stands for each one of them. The top four floors were for private racing that required invitations, but Jazz was free to wander around the lower six tracks and their stands, observing the hustle and bustle around him.
Anyone could sign up for the public races, but they were preset decacycles in advance, so it would be awhile before Jazz could participate in any of the races, so he was content to simply look around for now. He knew it would be worth the wait, so Jazz signed up for the earliest race he could - three decacycles to the orn - and began to mech-watch. He watched mechs’ interactions, gathering the social-norms of track, and what was expected, and that was when his visored optics caught sight of a dark colored Praxian framed mech the same time the mech glanced his way.
The mech arched an optic ridge at him, and Jazz grinned in reply, deciding to take it as an invitation.
It didn’t take him long to reach the mech, and once nearby Jazz could see that the mech wasn’t just dark colored, his plating was mostly glossy black, offset with a few white highlights, and rounded off nicely with dark red optics that completed the look.
Optic color was generally a lifestyle choice, and generally not all that telling about a mech, but with this mech, Jazz could see that it was meant to accent his dark colors, which it did well.
Sliding up to the mech, Jazz mustered his most charming smile.
“Hey, come here often?”
Two pairs of optics swung around to stare at him, one pair red, belonging to the mech Jazz had locked optics with, and the other pair a dark gold, belonging to another mech standing next to the first.
“Often enough,” the red optics mech answered, looking somewhat amused.
“So, ya know any other great places to race then?” Jazz wheedled, tilting his helm forward a bit, still keeping eye contact with the mech.
“If you’re lookin’ for a tour guide, there are places to find one,” the yellow opticed mech cut in with a growl, and Jazz glanced over, hiding a frown.
“But then I wouldn’t find such fine company!” Jazz protested, his friendly grin put to its maximum output to make both the mechs feel at ease with him. It wouldn’t do to make enemies as soon as he arrived, and the red optic mech was nice looking.
“You’re new here, right? So how would you know if we’re ‘fine company?’” the red optic one asked, turning to face Jazz completely, and Jazz could see the mech’s optics wandering up and down his frame. Jazz leaned against the wall behind the red optic mech, so that the light from the track highlighted parts of his frame. “We’re just random mechs that you decided to proposition.”
“’Cade, he’s not propositioning us, he’s propositioning you,” the yellow optic mech snorted, and Jazz latched onto that.
“So, you’re Cade then, huh? I’m Jazz, nice to meet ya,” Jazz purred holding out a servo, that the red optic mech shook.
“Barricade, actually,” Barricade answered, and the other mech groaned in exasperation. “He’s Backbite.”
A group of mechs wandered close to their little group, looking like they had the intention to stick around, when Backbite grinned menacingly, with far too many denta, and the group scurried off. Jazz noticed it warily, but chose to push it back to think about it later, deciding instead, to focus on the good-looking mech in front of him.
“Well then, Barricade, what’s a mech gotta do to get a racin’ partner ‘round here?”
Jazz saw one of Barricade’s doorwings give a minute twitch, and Jazz had enough time to wonder if he had said something wrong, when Barricade answered, all confidence in his voice, but not a spec in his body language.
“Depends on what kind of race you’re going for.”
Jazz was about to make a cheeky reply, but was cut off by Backbite.
“Crasher’s here.”
Barricade’s attention was immediately focused on where Backbite was looking, at the through the space between the track and the stands of the racetrack above them, on the seventh level track.
“You’d think he’d be on time for once,” Barricade muttered, obviously irritated, and Backbite snorted.
“Nah, he has to make it difficult for us,” Backbite retorted, and began to head toward the lift. “The lift’ll let us up now, c’mon Cade.”
Barricade looked at Jazz apologetically with a half-smile.
“I have to leave now, but perhaps I’ll see you around again, Jazz,” Barricade told the visored mech, and Jazz nodded, a bit confused.
“Yeah, sure, look forward to it.”
With that, Barricade walked away, following Backbite’s lead. Jazz could see their lipplates moving, obviously talking to each other about something, but what caught his attention was Barricade’s still minutely twitching doorwings.
Jazz contemplated Barricade’s odd body language during the last part of their conversation as the two mechs walked out of sight. Body language was different for each city state, but some things carried over, and Barricade’s body language distinctly reminded Jazz of mechs in Iacon telling others to back off. After a breem or two, Jazz pushed the thought aside, and started to actually watch the race that was happening on his level, he was in Praxus now, it probably meant nothing.
===
“This is it?”
“Were you expecting something different?”
“Red Alert had seemed very impressed and excited, so I had assumed that there would be more to the land than… this.”
“Aw, c’mon, Grapple, at least this way, you get to start from scratch, instead of building over or restoring another track,” Jazz said, nudging the less than enthusiastic mech.
“Red Alert’s excitement mainly stemmed from both the closeness of the area to the Ark,” Prowl explained, and Grapple vented softly, considering. “At any rate, we have a location, and you agreed to design a racetrack for us. So the question now becomes, what materials do you foresee needing?”
“If this were to be a traditional track, the Tungsten-Cybertronium mix would be non-optional, but with tires, there would be no friction, and therefore no racing. If everyone would switch back to their hovers, that wouldn’t happen, however,” Grapple began, looking closer at the land.
“Hovers will not operate well on human roads, though that would also help the speeding problems as well,” Prowl mused, and Jazz snorted in good humor.
“You just try taking my speed from me, Prowler, you’ll regret it.”
“Don’t I know it,” Prowl lamented, and Jazz grinned, which widened when a thought occurred to him.
“What about we make it like the human roads?”
Both Grapple and Prowl looked at Jazz in surprise.
“Think about it, we can’t use hovers, ‘cause they don’t work on human roads and Ratch’ll decorate his medbay with our sparkcasings on display as trophies if we even suggest that we reformat from tires to hovers and back every time we go to the track. And ya gotta admit, that new asphalt is awesome under tires,” Jazz explained, and while Grapple looked thoughtful, Prowl had been shaking his head before Jazz was even finished.
“New asphalt might be nice to drive on, but it wouldn’t hold for very long and would soon become worse than those old back roads because of the wear and tear that asphalt simply cannot handle,” Prowl explained, and Jazz frowned.
“Hadn’t thought of that…”
“It might not be plausible to use asphalt, but Wheeljack and Perceptor may be able to create another form of Tungsten-Cybertronium mix which includes other elements, and cause similar properties to asphalt,” Grapple suggested, and Jazz saw Prowl’s doorwings minutely twitch, something that Jazz had learned long ago meant a warning.
“Very well, I’ll talk to Wheeljack and Perceptor about synthesizing something that will work,” Prowl allowed, and Grapple nodded. “However, if Wheeljack blows something up during this experiment, you get to deal with the paperwork.”
“Very well,” Grapple agreed, amiable to that, and Jazz burst out laughing.
“Mech, ya have no idea what ya just agreed to.”
===
“So, how’s the construction planning going?”
Prowl looked up to see Sideswipe leaning on the doorway to his office.
“Well enough,” Prowl answered, gesturing for Sideswipe to come inside and take a seat. “Why do you ask?”
Sideswipe sat down in the seat across from Prowl’s desk, leaning back and putting his arms behind his head.
“Well I heard that Wheeljack’s now working on something for the track, and I figure that, it is my right as a good little Autobot to be a little worried about the sanctity of our future racetrack when you have Mr. Explosion himself working on it,” Sideswipe grinned, and Prowl huffed through his vents, signing off on the report in his hands. It wasn’t hard to multitask when Sideswipe decided to come and chat like this.
“First, you are not little, and judging from the pranks I know you’ve pulled over the vorns, you are not ‘good’ either,” Prowl began with a faint smile. “Second, I’m surprised you haven’t heard Jazz gloating about my deal with Grapple about allowing Wheeljack to work on creating a new material for the roads of the racetrack.”
“Is that what he was grinnin’ about? Wasn’t really paying attention,” Sideswipe shrugged, and made a movement as if to put his pedes up on the desk, but was stopped by a glare from Prowl. Sideswipe waved his hands apologetically. “Sorry, old habits.”
“What about old habits?”
Sideswipe and Prowl both looked at the doorway to see Jazz standing there, and once he had both of their attention, the visored mech strolled into the room and sat down in the seat next to Sideswipe’s.
“Nothing important,” Sideswipe answered, getting up and heading for the door. “Talk to you later, Prowl.” Sideswipe paused inside the doorway and looked back at Prowl and Jazz with a wry grin. “Just make sure that the track won’t explode under our wheels.”
Prowl rolled his optics and Jazz broke out into snickers while Sideswipe left, the office door closing behind him automatically. Once Jazz’s snickers died down, Prowl looked at him pointedly.
“I seem to be very popular today, is there a particular reason why?”
“What? I need a reason to visit you in your office?” Jazz teased, and Prowl arched an optic ridge at him. “Well, okay, I do, Ratchet wanted me to give you the latest medbay reports and tell you that ‘if Wheeljack causes the road to blow up underneath anyone’s tires, there won’t be enough pieces left of you to make a blender.’”
Prowl held out his hand and Jazz pulled out a stack of datapads out of his subspace and handed them over to Prowl.
“I am confident that Perceptor and Skyfire will be able to rein in Wheeljack’s destructive tendencies,” Prowl replied, placing the datapads in a neat pile on his desk.
“Especially with Grapple’s vents exhaling on his back, and man am I glad about that, wouldn’t want the track to turn out to be some sort of obstacle course of death,” Jazz commented and Prowl nodded.
“The paperwork would never end, and I would never get a chance to use the racetrack myself.”
Jazz gave Prowl a curious look.
“Ya know, I never really took ya for the racing type, Prowl. I mean, ya hardly ever accept any of my invitations to go out for a drive,” Jazz said pointedly, and Prowl gave him a bemused look.
“Perhaps that’s because almost every time you ask me, it’s to get me to ‘relax’ when I’m busy handing out punishments. And I’ve been on those back roads mechs have been using, and I don’t appreciate the glass grinding into my tires,” Prowl explained patiently, and Jazz sheepishly nodded, accepting it. “Besides, Jazz, I’m from Praxus, it was considered odd if one didn’t periodically participate in any of the various races that were taking place.”
“Heh, you’re right about that, I remember seeing some mechs in Praxus race rigidly at the same time same place every decaorn or so when I was there,” Jazz remarked, with a small smirk. “Alright, I’ll leave ya alone now.”
“Can you take these to Optimus, please?” Prowl asked, picking up another stack of datapads and handing it to Jazz.
“Sure thing, mech. What are they for?”
“They are the last of the paperwork from the last time Wheeljack had an explosion,” Prowl explained, and Jazz shook his head, snickering.
“And that happened, what, three months ago? Grapple really has no idea what he agreed to.” Jazz laughed standing up, and Prowl smirked in reply.
“The situation was made worse because there were human ambassadors visiting Ratchet at the time, and seeing a mech rushed to medbay causes them to doubt their safety within the Ark,” Prowl said, and Jazz shook his head in good humor, and subspaced the stack of datapads.
Jazz began to walk to the door, when a thought occurred to him, so he turned to face Prowl.
“Ya know, there was one track I really liked that was near an enforcer station, any chance ya ever raced there?” Jazz asked, honestly curious, and Prowl considered the question for a moment before answering it.
“I might have, though if you had seen me, I doubt you would have recognized me.”
Jazz accepted the answer with a nod, and left the office, the door behind him sliding shut.
Verse: G1 AU
Rating: PG-13/T
Characters: Prowl, Jazz, Barricade, Backbite, Sideswipe, and Grapple
Warnings: none
Summary: Fishtailing: when the driver of the car loses control and the end swerves side to side; like their lives that spun out of control, and they were just along for the ride.
Notes: This whole chapter ended up way longer than originally planned. If you see any mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them.
Chap 1
“We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.”
- Dag Hammarskjöld
Jazz looked around the racetrack feeling an odd, giddy excitement that he hadn’t felt since he was a youngling participating in his first race. There were tons of racetracks all over Cybertron, but the city of Praxus had the most and the best of all of them, but the one that stood helm and shoulders above them all was the famous Rubidium Crystal Track, and Jazz was standing in the stands of that very track.
This particular track contained 10 levels of racetracks and stands for each one of them. The top four floors were for private racing that required invitations, but Jazz was free to wander around the lower six tracks and their stands, observing the hustle and bustle around him.
Anyone could sign up for the public races, but they were preset decacycles in advance, so it would be awhile before Jazz could participate in any of the races, so he was content to simply look around for now. He knew it would be worth the wait, so Jazz signed up for the earliest race he could - three decacycles to the orn - and began to mech-watch. He watched mechs’ interactions, gathering the social-norms of track, and what was expected, and that was when his visored optics caught sight of a dark colored Praxian framed mech the same time the mech glanced his way.
The mech arched an optic ridge at him, and Jazz grinned in reply, deciding to take it as an invitation.
It didn’t take him long to reach the mech, and once nearby Jazz could see that the mech wasn’t just dark colored, his plating was mostly glossy black, offset with a few white highlights, and rounded off nicely with dark red optics that completed the look.
Optic color was generally a lifestyle choice, and generally not all that telling about a mech, but with this mech, Jazz could see that it was meant to accent his dark colors, which it did well.
Sliding up to the mech, Jazz mustered his most charming smile.
“Hey, come here often?”
Two pairs of optics swung around to stare at him, one pair red, belonging to the mech Jazz had locked optics with, and the other pair a dark gold, belonging to another mech standing next to the first.
“Often enough,” the red optics mech answered, looking somewhat amused.
“So, ya know any other great places to race then?” Jazz wheedled, tilting his helm forward a bit, still keeping eye contact with the mech.
“If you’re lookin’ for a tour guide, there are places to find one,” the yellow opticed mech cut in with a growl, and Jazz glanced over, hiding a frown.
“But then I wouldn’t find such fine company!” Jazz protested, his friendly grin put to its maximum output to make both the mechs feel at ease with him. It wouldn’t do to make enemies as soon as he arrived, and the red optic mech was nice looking.
“You’re new here, right? So how would you know if we’re ‘fine company?’” the red optic one asked, turning to face Jazz completely, and Jazz could see the mech’s optics wandering up and down his frame. Jazz leaned against the wall behind the red optic mech, so that the light from the track highlighted parts of his frame. “We’re just random mechs that you decided to proposition.”
“’Cade, he’s not propositioning us, he’s propositioning you,” the yellow optic mech snorted, and Jazz latched onto that.
“So, you’re Cade then, huh? I’m Jazz, nice to meet ya,” Jazz purred holding out a servo, that the red optic mech shook.
“Barricade, actually,” Barricade answered, and the other mech groaned in exasperation. “He’s Backbite.”
A group of mechs wandered close to their little group, looking like they had the intention to stick around, when Backbite grinned menacingly, with far too many denta, and the group scurried off. Jazz noticed it warily, but chose to push it back to think about it later, deciding instead, to focus on the good-looking mech in front of him.
“Well then, Barricade, what’s a mech gotta do to get a racin’ partner ‘round here?”
Jazz saw one of Barricade’s doorwings give a minute twitch, and Jazz had enough time to wonder if he had said something wrong, when Barricade answered, all confidence in his voice, but not a spec in his body language.
“Depends on what kind of race you’re going for.”
Jazz was about to make a cheeky reply, but was cut off by Backbite.
“Crasher’s here.”
Barricade’s attention was immediately focused on where Backbite was looking, at the through the space between the track and the stands of the racetrack above them, on the seventh level track.
“You’d think he’d be on time for once,” Barricade muttered, obviously irritated, and Backbite snorted.
“Nah, he has to make it difficult for us,” Backbite retorted, and began to head toward the lift. “The lift’ll let us up now, c’mon Cade.”
Barricade looked at Jazz apologetically with a half-smile.
“I have to leave now, but perhaps I’ll see you around again, Jazz,” Barricade told the visored mech, and Jazz nodded, a bit confused.
“Yeah, sure, look forward to it.”
With that, Barricade walked away, following Backbite’s lead. Jazz could see their lipplates moving, obviously talking to each other about something, but what caught his attention was Barricade’s still minutely twitching doorwings.
Jazz contemplated Barricade’s odd body language during the last part of their conversation as the two mechs walked out of sight. Body language was different for each city state, but some things carried over, and Barricade’s body language distinctly reminded Jazz of mechs in Iacon telling others to back off. After a breem or two, Jazz pushed the thought aside, and started to actually watch the race that was happening on his level, he was in Praxus now, it probably meant nothing.
===
“This is it?”
“Were you expecting something different?”
“Red Alert had seemed very impressed and excited, so I had assumed that there would be more to the land than… this.”
“Aw, c’mon, Grapple, at least this way, you get to start from scratch, instead of building over or restoring another track,” Jazz said, nudging the less than enthusiastic mech.
“Red Alert’s excitement mainly stemmed from both the closeness of the area to the Ark,” Prowl explained, and Grapple vented softly, considering. “At any rate, we have a location, and you agreed to design a racetrack for us. So the question now becomes, what materials do you foresee needing?”
“If this were to be a traditional track, the Tungsten-Cybertronium mix would be non-optional, but with tires, there would be no friction, and therefore no racing. If everyone would switch back to their hovers, that wouldn’t happen, however,” Grapple began, looking closer at the land.
“Hovers will not operate well on human roads, though that would also help the speeding problems as well,” Prowl mused, and Jazz snorted in good humor.
“You just try taking my speed from me, Prowler, you’ll regret it.”
“Don’t I know it,” Prowl lamented, and Jazz grinned, which widened when a thought occurred to him.
“What about we make it like the human roads?”
Both Grapple and Prowl looked at Jazz in surprise.
“Think about it, we can’t use hovers, ‘cause they don’t work on human roads and Ratch’ll decorate his medbay with our sparkcasings on display as trophies if we even suggest that we reformat from tires to hovers and back every time we go to the track. And ya gotta admit, that new asphalt is awesome under tires,” Jazz explained, and while Grapple looked thoughtful, Prowl had been shaking his head before Jazz was even finished.
“New asphalt might be nice to drive on, but it wouldn’t hold for very long and would soon become worse than those old back roads because of the wear and tear that asphalt simply cannot handle,” Prowl explained, and Jazz frowned.
“Hadn’t thought of that…”
“It might not be plausible to use asphalt, but Wheeljack and Perceptor may be able to create another form of Tungsten-Cybertronium mix which includes other elements, and cause similar properties to asphalt,” Grapple suggested, and Jazz saw Prowl’s doorwings minutely twitch, something that Jazz had learned long ago meant a warning.
“Very well, I’ll talk to Wheeljack and Perceptor about synthesizing something that will work,” Prowl allowed, and Grapple nodded. “However, if Wheeljack blows something up during this experiment, you get to deal with the paperwork.”
“Very well,” Grapple agreed, amiable to that, and Jazz burst out laughing.
“Mech, ya have no idea what ya just agreed to.”
===
“So, how’s the construction planning going?”
Prowl looked up to see Sideswipe leaning on the doorway to his office.
“Well enough,” Prowl answered, gesturing for Sideswipe to come inside and take a seat. “Why do you ask?”
Sideswipe sat down in the seat across from Prowl’s desk, leaning back and putting his arms behind his head.
“Well I heard that Wheeljack’s now working on something for the track, and I figure that, it is my right as a good little Autobot to be a little worried about the sanctity of our future racetrack when you have Mr. Explosion himself working on it,” Sideswipe grinned, and Prowl huffed through his vents, signing off on the report in his hands. It wasn’t hard to multitask when Sideswipe decided to come and chat like this.
“First, you are not little, and judging from the pranks I know you’ve pulled over the vorns, you are not ‘good’ either,” Prowl began with a faint smile. “Second, I’m surprised you haven’t heard Jazz gloating about my deal with Grapple about allowing Wheeljack to work on creating a new material for the roads of the racetrack.”
“Is that what he was grinnin’ about? Wasn’t really paying attention,” Sideswipe shrugged, and made a movement as if to put his pedes up on the desk, but was stopped by a glare from Prowl. Sideswipe waved his hands apologetically. “Sorry, old habits.”
“What about old habits?”
Sideswipe and Prowl both looked at the doorway to see Jazz standing there, and once he had both of their attention, the visored mech strolled into the room and sat down in the seat next to Sideswipe’s.
“Nothing important,” Sideswipe answered, getting up and heading for the door. “Talk to you later, Prowl.” Sideswipe paused inside the doorway and looked back at Prowl and Jazz with a wry grin. “Just make sure that the track won’t explode under our wheels.”
Prowl rolled his optics and Jazz broke out into snickers while Sideswipe left, the office door closing behind him automatically. Once Jazz’s snickers died down, Prowl looked at him pointedly.
“I seem to be very popular today, is there a particular reason why?”
“What? I need a reason to visit you in your office?” Jazz teased, and Prowl arched an optic ridge at him. “Well, okay, I do, Ratchet wanted me to give you the latest medbay reports and tell you that ‘if Wheeljack causes the road to blow up underneath anyone’s tires, there won’t be enough pieces left of you to make a blender.’”
Prowl held out his hand and Jazz pulled out a stack of datapads out of his subspace and handed them over to Prowl.
“I am confident that Perceptor and Skyfire will be able to rein in Wheeljack’s destructive tendencies,” Prowl replied, placing the datapads in a neat pile on his desk.
“Especially with Grapple’s vents exhaling on his back, and man am I glad about that, wouldn’t want the track to turn out to be some sort of obstacle course of death,” Jazz commented and Prowl nodded.
“The paperwork would never end, and I would never get a chance to use the racetrack myself.”
Jazz gave Prowl a curious look.
“Ya know, I never really took ya for the racing type, Prowl. I mean, ya hardly ever accept any of my invitations to go out for a drive,” Jazz said pointedly, and Prowl gave him a bemused look.
“Perhaps that’s because almost every time you ask me, it’s to get me to ‘relax’ when I’m busy handing out punishments. And I’ve been on those back roads mechs have been using, and I don’t appreciate the glass grinding into my tires,” Prowl explained patiently, and Jazz sheepishly nodded, accepting it. “Besides, Jazz, I’m from Praxus, it was considered odd if one didn’t periodically participate in any of the various races that were taking place.”
“Heh, you’re right about that, I remember seeing some mechs in Praxus race rigidly at the same time same place every decaorn or so when I was there,” Jazz remarked, with a small smirk. “Alright, I’ll leave ya alone now.”
“Can you take these to Optimus, please?” Prowl asked, picking up another stack of datapads and handing it to Jazz.
“Sure thing, mech. What are they for?”
“They are the last of the paperwork from the last time Wheeljack had an explosion,” Prowl explained, and Jazz shook his head, snickering.
“And that happened, what, three months ago? Grapple really has no idea what he agreed to.” Jazz laughed standing up, and Prowl smirked in reply.
“The situation was made worse because there were human ambassadors visiting Ratchet at the time, and seeing a mech rushed to medbay causes them to doubt their safety within the Ark,” Prowl said, and Jazz shook his head in good humor, and subspaced the stack of datapads.
Jazz began to walk to the door, when a thought occurred to him, so he turned to face Prowl.
“Ya know, there was one track I really liked that was near an enforcer station, any chance ya ever raced there?” Jazz asked, honestly curious, and Prowl considered the question for a moment before answering it.
“I might have, though if you had seen me, I doubt you would have recognized me.”
Jazz accepted the answer with a nod, and left the office, the door behind him sliding shut.