Jazz: he is beauty, he is grace, he is staring at that bumper yet again.

Title: Third Wheel

Warning: This inhabits a weird area where it's a humor fic, but people sensitive to misunderstandings causing serious discomfort probably shouldn't read.

Rating: PG

Continuity: G1

Characters: Smokescreen, Jazz, Mirage, Bumblebee, Ironhide.

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): People on Tumblr were talking about 'bots dribbling on themselves while fantasizing about voluptuous bumpers. It had to be written.

[* * * * *]

Part One

[* * * * *]

The last thing Smokescreen expected his new commander to do was take one look at him and burst out laughing. "Tell me you're single!"

"Excuse me?"

"You! Are you single? Are you into dating?" The rust-red truckformer reined his laughter down to a broad grin. He turned it on Smokescreen, who didn't quite know how to react to a superior officer asking about his conjunx status. "Looking for a lay? At least tell me you're a tease!"

"I, uh." Well, alright then. He was, if nothing else, highly adaptable to every sort of social situation. Smokescreen put one hand on his hip and the other on his shined, sinfully smooth bumper. Yeah, he knew what people wanted from him. "Who, me?"

Ironhide broke into loud laughter again, this time reaching out to clap a hand on the rookie's shoulder. "That's the ticket, kid! Sorry, sorry, just...the Head of Strategic Planning's in and out of this base all the time workin' on our operations management, and swear to Primus, you're a dead ringer for his frametype. Colors ain't identical, but nobody's gonna care 'bout that. 'Specially since you got guns." He jerked his chins at Smokescreen's shoulder-mounted weaponry. "Nice. T-90 missile launchers, right?"

"Um. Yeah." Smokescreen blinked. He'd been looking for a good way to break the ice with his new unit, but this was the first time a method had been gift-wrapped and dropped into his lap this way. "So…people like Praxians around here?"

"Like 'em? Frag, mech, you're practically a fetish for some of my 'bots. You want a date, you'll have your pick of the lot. C'mon." The truckformer casually waved for Smokescreen to follow. "Lemme introduce you 'round. You let me know if anybody gets up where you don't want 'em, eh?"

Bemused, Smokescreen trailed after him. He knew there were subsets of mechs into nearly every different frametype built on Cybertron, but he'd never run into a nest of Praxian-lusters before. Sure, the occasional mech ogled his chest, but who wouldn't? He looked good and knew it, but a whole base chasing his taillights was a bit over-the-top. It had to be exaggeration. The commander had described his soldiers like a harem on wheels.

He decided to stick with a more neutral side of the topic to feel out the reality of it. "What's the TacHead like?" he asked.

Ironhide nodded to a soldier in the hall, grinning as the mech completely missed his salute due to gaping at Smokescreen's bumper. "Meticulous. Squeaky-clean an' 100% glued to the regs, I kid you not, and completely oblivious to anything that ain't on his tacnet. Drives us grunts up the wall, but he knows his stuff. Plus he looks like he just came off the assembly line."

"Can't stand the mech but love the scenery?" Smokescreen summed up, looking over his shoulder after the gaping soldier. Maybe Ironhide hadn't exaggerated.

"'xactly."

Feeling a touch awkward as a small group of soldiers went by in the same way as the first, optics fixated on his chest, Smokescreen smiled at the next person they passed in an attempt to redirect attention back to his face instead of his front grill.

The mech literally walked into a wall. Ker-thump!

The Praxian almost stumbled himself, he was so surprised. "Uh..? What - should we...help him?"

"Just the shock. Don't worry about it. Ain't ever seen Prowl so much as notice the chaos he leaves walkin' around the place." Ironhide shook his head. "Saw him smile once, and it knocked over the ranks like dominos. And look, he's fine. It'd take more than a wall to take out one of my mechs."

Sure enough, when Smokescreen looked back he saw the downed mech back upright. He also saw him staring fixedly at his aft. The Praxian gave it an experimental pop to the side as he walked, and ker-thump!

Oh dear. He'd have to take an oath to use this power only for good.

Ironhide sniggered without looking back. "You're gonna do just fine here, Smokes."

All in all, after a tour of the base and a briefing on local rules and regs, Smokescreen was feeling fairly confident he could handle this place. The constant staring might get obnoxious, but it wouldn't be too bad. Everyone seemed very embarrassed to be caught out when he pointedly reset his vocalizer, anyway, as if they were unused to the object of their affection noticing the puddles of drool they left in his wake.

So he was doing just fine right up until the black-and-white mech sitting in the middle of the mess hall stood up and threw a tray at his head. It was promptly followed by an empty cube, a full cube taken from a very surprised neighbor, another tray, and a few tablets with what looked like confidential reports encrypted on them.

Not that Smokescreen got a good look at them, since battlefield reflexes kicked in. He dodged the tray and immediately took cover from the barrage of miscellaneous items. "What the frag did I do to you?!" he yelled, ducking under the nearest table and covering his head with his arms.

He heard something wailed about being 'a cosmic joke' and 'why meeeee,' but he didn't come out from under the table to see what the fuss was. Somebody was throwing slag at him for no discernible reason. He wasn't dumb enough to actively put his face at risk confronting the guy.

Eventually, things ceased dropping to floor just beyond Smokescreen's makeshift shelter. His mysterious attacker had good aim, Smokescreen would grant him that. There were intense crashing noises for a little while, presumably as people with their bolts tightened all the way subdued the screw-loose, tray-throwing maniac. After some while longer, the crashing finally stopped.

"We got him!" someone called. "It's safe! Sorry about that!"

Experience told him the battlefield wasn't clear yet. Wary, he peeked over the table edge, but it wasn't a trick. A pile of vastly entertained mechs held the extremely grumpy berserker down by sheer metal mass, grinning the whole time as he flailed helplessly against their combined weight. It was kind of surprising how small the mech really was, at least now that he wasn't flinging stuff. There wasn't much to be seen of him at the moment, what with all the people laying on top of him.

On the far side of the mess hall, Ironhide was coughing his intakes clear. He'd apparently inhaled his ration into his ventilation system laughing at the one-sided fight, and most of the rest of the Autobots in the room weren't doing any better. It didn't make Smokescreen feel any better about the bizarre attack, and he scowled at his new commander as muttering and thrashing came from the pinned black-and-white. What hadn't he been told that was so funny?

"Who the frag's that?" Smokescreen demanded of the soldier helping him out from under the table. "Why's he hate me? What the Pit's going on around here?!"

The smile on the mech's face was far too cheerful for comforting a mech unjustly attacked out of nowhere. "That's Jazz. He's Head of Special Ops."

It took a second to sink in.

Smokescreen took an additional second to thank his lucky stars he'd survived.

His voice fell to a shrill whisper. "Why's the slagging head of SpecOps trying to kill me?!"

"Oh, he wasn't," he was assured, although Smokescreen felt the absolute opposite of reassured by that. "He's just a little frustrated. It's complicated. Don't worry about it. He'll make it up to you later. I'm Hound, by the way. You're the new guy, right?"

"Huh? Yeah, I'm Smokescreen," he said on automatic, because sanity came and went but good manners were forever. The inevitable wave of introductions around the table he'd hidden under kept him distracted from near-death by tray until he'd calmed down some.

Of course, by the time his fuel pump had slowed down to a reasonable rate, the rest of SpecOps had gotten their lieutenant under control. They clustered around him in a churning group for a few minutes, a defensive ring with their backs to the rest of the room. A head popped out of the circle every once and a while to survey the mess hall like a sentry on watch. By the time Smokescreen had introduced himself around to nearby tables and accepted an invitation to the seat beside Hound, the division had sorted itself out.

Two of the group frog-marched Jazz over to dump on the bench opposite Smokescreen. Smokescreen froze like a cornered glitchmouse.

"Apologize," the bright yellow minibot on Jazz's right ordered.

Jazz glared at the tabletop and muttered something. There might have even been words involved, but Smokescreen wouldn't have bet on it.

The elegantly lithe mech standing like an art installation at Jazz's left shoulder cleared his throat delicately. And pointedly. Smokescreen wouldn't have been surprised if the mech was holding a knife to Jazz's back, just out of sight.

Jazz glanced to either side at his mechs, then heaved a sigh gustier than a stormwind. They obviously weren't letting him get away without a fight. Conceding defeat, the black-and-white looked directly at Smokescreen. "Sorry 'bout that."

Smokescreen stared at him. The two SpecOps mechs exchanged exasperated looks. When it clear that was all their boss intended to say, the two leaned on him, squashing him where he sat.

"Hey!"

The bright yellow one scowled. The blue one hissed in Jazz's audio. Whatever it was, it made Jazz flinch, a shamed look replacing the stubborn set to his face. He kept his mouth shut, however, visor shading a mulish blue.

Right. Smokescreen didn't want his cables slit in the middle of the night. It fell to him to smooth the incident over. "Did you attack me because of how I look, or because of whom I look like?" he asked, picking his words carefully.

Jazz stared at him, visor popped wide. Unfortunately, widening his visor that way made it awfully clear how his gaze dropped to Smokescreen's bumper. Smokescreen's polished, shiny, delectably grab-able bumper. The bumper every soldier he'd been introduced to so far - and some he hadn't - had stared at as though it were a lollipop they couldn't wait to lick down to the stick.

A sad little mewl came out of the Head of SpecOps, and Jazz's head abruptly thumped to the table. Trays rattled from the force of it.

His escorts exchanged another look before nodding ruefully at Smokescreen. "Both."

"Both?"

"Both," Jazz agreed miserably, muffled by the table. "You're just so - and he's just like you, except you - your hips did a sway thing as y'came through th' door, and - and all I could think was - " His explanation trailed off into mumbling about a bumper and wanting to touch but not daring to touch and the inherent unfairness of the universe.

Smokescreen blinked through the rambling explanation, picking out the relevant points from the incoherent bits. Also from the fantasy bits. He stored a few of Jazz's wishes away to try out later, once he figured out the list of volunteers at this base. The rest of the soldiers at the table with them were nodding along in agreement and sympathy to Jazz's rambling explanation-slash-wishlist, expressions dreamy, and it make Smokescreen feel a little weird. Also like he'd hit the jackpot. A pair of very shiny frontliners down the table - he swore they were twins, he had a sense for that kind of spark resonance - were eyeing him up like starving Empties seeing an energon goodie.

Best transfer ever.

And Jazz kept talking, miserable and longing. It was sort of pathetic but mostly just lovesick to an extreme.

"Mech," Smokescreen said at last, "you got it bad."

"He really does," the yellow 'bot said. He'd sat down some time around the part Jazz was making illustrative grabby motions with both hands on a line-up of empty ration cubes. His fellow guard disdained to sit down but nodded agreement. Jazz had it real bad.

"The worst part is that Prowl doesn't notice a thing," yellow mech - introduced as Bumblebee during Jazz's speculation about how Prowl's hood would feel under his tongue - said, leaning an elbow on the table as he confided in Smokescreen. "We could draw him a map to Dateville, hit him over the head with a ClueX4, drive him to the land of You're Smeltin' Hot, and let Jazz serenade him with a song about how bad he wants grope his headlights, and he'd still assume Jazz is hitting on him for the laughs."

Smokescreen digested that. "It doesn't seem very funny," he ventured.

"It's not!" Jazz moaned.

"Your inability to keep yourself oiled in his presence hardly helps Prowl take you seriously," blue mech - Mirage, as formally introduced over the dying behemoth sounds Jazz had made while bemoaning his hopes and dreams of ever getting a kiss from Prowl - said. Jazz whined pitifully. Mirage had no pity and informed Smokescreen, "He freezes up the second business is finished. He can be a professional seducer on the field, but outside of reports, he can't string two words together in Prowl's presence. He makes a fool of himself. Prowl rightly assumes there's something off about the situation any time Jazz attempts to hit on him."

"Ya ain't helpin'!" Jazz batted at his subordinate. Friend. Enemy, at this point, because neither Bumblebee nor Mirage seemed to hold any sympathy for his plight. For that matter, most of the table was chuckling at his expense. This was what Ironhide hadn't warned Smokescreen about. Jazz's lack of love-life was the talk of the base.

"We've helped you more than you know," Mirage told Jazz.

"How?!"

"You've had a whole conversation at Smokescreen," Bumblebee said. He smiled. There was more sadism than encouragement in it, but he had a good point. Jazz finally lifted his head from the table, hopeful.

"After throwing things at me," Smokescreen pointed out.

Jazz's head went back down. Thump.

"And 'at' me is right. You haven't really talked with me, yet."

"I'd settle for remembering to close his mouth when he looks at you," Mirage sighed.

Smokescreen struggled to keep a straight face. "Well, I wasn't going to say anything…"

"Please do. He needs all the discipline he can get." The aristocrat looked down at his boss with the expression of a mech handed a losing hand. "He has the self-control of a turbo-rat in a storage depot around Prowl."

"Nngh." Yes, Jazz was aware of what his chances were. Please stop talking about how much he sucked.

"I'm not a hunk of shareware," Smokescreen said to him. "I'm a person."

"Nngh!" Primus fraggit, yes, he knew! He was working on it!

"Do you mind if he practices on you?" Bumblebee asked the Praxian.

"Nnnnnngh!" No! No practice! Hadn't he been embarrassed enough today?

A sliver of blue still peeked over one arm, daring to hope for help.

Smokescreen prudently pushed his tray out of reach. "What kind of practice were you thinking?" He winked at the frontliners down the table, and they lit up, grinning back at him.

"Starting simple would be best. It might change Prowl's current opinion of his intelligence level if he stops tripping over his tongue," Mirage drawled. "How about completing an exchange of 'How are you?'"

That bad? No way. Mirage had to be exaggerating.

Then again, Ironhide hadn't been.

Smokescreen studied the subtle cringe as Jazz waited for an answer. Ohhhh dear. "I don't mind practicing that."

Bumblebee patted Jazz between the doors. "We'll get you an award once you get through a whole conversation. With a frame and everything."

Smokescreen gave him a mildly alarmed look, wondering what exactly he'd gotten himself into. Jazz just flopped himself on the table, giving up.

[* * * * *]