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Jazz had spent the summer housesitting for a rich mech who lived in the wilds outside the Taigan Heights, on the cusp of the Limbranite Tundra. It should have been an easy gig. It would have been if it hadn’t turned out he had a housemate in the form of a dream-eating wight. Jazz didn’t know what would’ve happened if he’d been left alone with the wight, so good thing an ancient wizard had shown up to banish it.Yeah, he’d been skipping over that part when he talked about his summer.He also skipped over the part where the wizard, Prowl, had stayed for a few mega-cycles after the banishing. The wight had been the last of the preternatural creatures, according to Prowl, and now that it was gone the wizard wasn’t sure of his purpose. He didn’t know what he wanted.Well, except Jazz. The way the mech watched him when Jazz played music made that super clear. Not that it wasn’t returned: Prowl was sternly handsome and quietly intense in a way Jazz hadn’t known he liked. But they’d both been feeling vulnerable, for different reasons, and nothing had happened. Prowl had left to give Jazz space – to give them both space – to clear their heads and promised to come find him ‘soon.’Jazz’s housesitting gig was over, it was two deca-cycles into first term, and ‘soon’ hadn’t happened yet. He’d gotten a message letting him know Prowl’d made it safely to Nova Cronum. He’d sent one letting Prowl know he was safely back in Altihex. A package had arrived for him, care of the university’s administrative office, containing carefully wrapped antique sheet music for his instruments. Jazz didn’t know any of the songs, but Prowl had guessed right that he’d like them. As a courting gift (maybe?) it was one of the best. Jazz carefully transcribed them onto fresh writing foil, so he could carry the songs around and not risk damaging them. But there was no sign of Prowl.Then, four deca-cycles in, Prowl appeared at Jazz’s door. Opening it, Jazz stared into intensely blue optics. All of Prowl’s unnerving focus was focussed on him, and Jazz did not mind one bit.“Hello Jazz,” Prowl said. “How are you?”Jazz stared at him blankly for a very long nano-klik before a response came to mind.“Clearheaded,” Jazz said and grabbed for him.The whoops and catcalls of Jazz’s fellow students as they passed by in the hall were no deterrent for either of them as they kissed. Prowl wanted this as much as Jazz, and merciful Primus did the wizard know how to kiss!“Lovely,” Prowl murmured after, cradling Jazz’s jaw in his long-fingered hands. “Have dinner with me. Please.”Dinner would be good. Normal. Fear and wight-free.“Sounds good.” Jazz stole another kiss; Prowl made a pleased sound. “Lemme grab my guitar. I’ve been practicing the songs you sent. Thought you’d like to hear them.”Prowl’s optics brightened, and he favoured Jazz with one of his rare smiles.Prowl took Jazz to the restaurant on the ground floor of Prowl’s hotel. The hotel was only a few meta-cycles old. Jazz would’ve expected Prowl to pick something older, more – seasoned.“This doesn’t seem like your kinda place,” Jazz commented as they waited on their orders.“No.” Prowl looked around. “It’s very – modern. It’s quite surprising there’s a poltergeist in the basement.”“Oh. That why you’re here?”Prowl focused back on him, faintly frowning. “No. I’m here for you. The poltergeist was unexpected.”“I meant in the hotel.”“Ah. Again, no. I simply wanted to try something different.” Prowl went silent as their orders were delivered, then politely thanked the server. “I have been apart from the world for quite a while. I want to see what it’s like, now.”“Trying to figure out where you fit?” Jazz offered.“Yes.” Prowl flipped through the little box of additives on the table and selected one to add to his energon. “Though perhaps I needn’t change that much. Creatures such as the wight may be gone but entities such as the poltergeist, still exist. It has been some time, but I recall how to send them to Vector Sigma. We are not meant to stay here once our frames have greyed.”“Gonna send the poltergeist,” Jazz paused not sure how to phrase it, “on?”“Yes.”“Want me to come with?” Jazz offered, not sure why. He’d had enough of weird critters with the wight, thanks. “Tell me what you’ve learned about poltergeists.”“They throw things, make loud noises, sometimes they set fires or write things,” Jazz recited.“Yes. Poltergeists have power, drawn from their environment, but little intelligence left to direct it. They cannot express themselves as they did in life, and therefore act in anger.”Jazz frowned. “So, they’re not the whole spark? Just a part of it?” This was not the strangest conversation Jazz had had on a date – the mech who insisted tentacled organic beings secretly visited Cybertron using invisible ships and kidnapped unwary mecha driving on back roads stood out. With Prowl, talking about ghosts seemed utterly normal.Then again, wizard.“Perhaps. If anyone has found an explanation otherwise I’ve not encountered it.” Prowl shrugged. “It’s as good an explanation as any. One hopes they will be made whole in within Vector Sigma, or perhaps their fragments return to Primus.”“’’Till all are one,’” Jazz quoted. He didn’t particularly believe, but…he was questioning a whole lot these days.“Perhaps.” Prowl smiled. “Some things are beyond even the ken of wizards.“To answer your original question, yes, I would like your company.”Okay, so, sneaking into a basement to banish a poltergeist wasn’t where Jazz had expected this night to go. He couldn’t say he was entirely surprised though. Prowl just seemed like a person who found weirdness. Sneaking might not be the best term, either: Prowl just walked in as if he belonged, without happening to meet anyone. If anyone saw them on security cameras they didn’t see fit to respond.“Is this place as creepy as I think it is?” Jazz wanted to know once they got into the basement. Ahead of them, something fell off a shelf, like a response. “Yup, guess so.”“Unusual. They rarely begin to act out so soon.” Prowl glanced back at Jazz. “The wight spoke to you.”“You thought I was someone’s apprentice. Maybe the musician thing is confusing them, too.”“Not unreasonable.” A rattling and a distinctly pissed off noise sounded from further down the basement, in the unlit depths. Prowl looked in the direction of the sound. “Follow me. I need to find the focal point.”“Sounds fun.” Jazz followed Prowl anyway. The lights down here were constant but dim, probably lit only for any employees who might have to come down here during the quiet night shift. After living with the wight, Jazz didn’t find the dim, haunted, basement frightening even though strange growling noises and items falling and being thrown were all around. A bit unsettling, yeah, but he knew Prowl’d keep him safe.“Odd,” Prowl murmured. The wizard stopped, looking around.“What?”“Multiple foci.” Prowl frowned. “It’s…suppressing them? No. Feeding.”“Feeding,” Jazz echoed. “Like there’s one big one yanking power from smaller ones?”“Exactly like.” Prowl looked around, still ignoring the chaos that was increasing around them. “Two of them. They’re all close together.”“So, are you going to take out the big one first or the little ones?”A shelf rattled angrily next to them.“The little ones. Else the primary poltergeist may, as it fights me, drain them to the point I cannot send them on.”And some poor spark’d be incomplete. Maybe. “Yeah, that’d – the big one won’t figure out what you’re doing and drain them anyway, will it?”“It is a risk,” Prowl agreed. A plate sailed out of nowhere and clattered at his feet. It didn’t even merit a glance. “If it happens I will attempt to bring a priest here if I can find one.”“There’s a Temple downtown.”“Those aren’t priests,” Prowl said, with disdain. “What you call priests in these days are little more than technicians, and more often than not corrupt.” A low, creepy, chuckle sounded off to their left. Prowl turned toward it. “This way.”Something about the chuckle bothered Jazz on a professional level. The acoustics were all wrong for the space. He upped the gain on his audials and set a processor thread to run the received data through a couple of algorithms designed to clean up and enhance sound. He set that sound to be analyzed in the background, and anything Prowl said to be filtered through to central processing so he could respond.Even Jazz knew when they reached the spot. Like most of the rest of the basement, it was a storage area, but the shelves here were empty, even dusty. That didn’t make sense because the rest of the shelves in the basement were full. This area felt unused, as if the staff didn’t like to come here.“They’re very small,” Prowl murmured. If Jazz hadn’t been filtering he wouldn’t have heard it; the main poltergeist was snarling and banging in the walls. “I would say ‘frightened’ if they had that much awareness left. I need to calm them enough to heed me – perhaps I should take on the primary poltergeist first.”The primary poltergeist protested by clawing the walls and smashing something. Jazz hoped they could get this done and get out before someone worked up the nerve to check that out.So the little guys were scared. Jazz’s mentor had had a friend who’d asked Vector Sigma for a juvenile spark, one to nurture to adulthood, instead of an adult to teach to be part of society the way Jazz had been sparked. They’d crashed at Jazz’s home one night, and the juvenile’d had trouble sleeping ‘cause they were anxious in a new place. The friend had hummed quietly to them to lull them into recharge. Maybe that’d work here.“Let me try something,” Jazz suggested. He still remembered the song the creator had used and began to hum it now.He didn’t know at first if it got the little poltergeists’ attention, but it definitely got Prowl’s. He could feel the wizard’s scrutiny like a physical thing.Didn’t make him want to stop, though.The algorithm finished its analysis. The poltergeist’s noises included a level of infrasound. Maybe if they produced infrasound they’d respond to it? Jazz increased his vocal range to include the same level of infrasound just to see what would happen.“Yes, continue that,” Prowl told him. “I have them.”Jazz kept humming, adding to the song and playing with the melody as he went. The primary poltergeist calmed down too, still tapping in the walls and muttering words Jazz couldn’t make out. He recorded them to analyze later. Prowl was talking too, very softly, in Old High Cybertronian. Jazz recognized the language but didn’t know more than an occasional word.“The final one,” Prowl said, after a quarter cycle. “Don’t stop, no matter what you hear.”Jazz nodded and watched and hummed. He had the same sense of standing in a storm he’d had when Prowl banished the wight. Not as intense, but still. The noises and the muttering and the tapping got slower, softer, and finally faded without even a whimper. The basement felt different, lighter. Jazz guessed that meant the poltergeists were gone. Little fragments of sparks, maybe.“Think they’ll be okay?” Jazz asked. Prowl turned to face him.“Hopefully. They weren’t evil, or predatory, just confused and angry.” Prowl reached over and took Jazz’s hand. “I realize my methods of courtship may seem slow and strange in the modern world, but I promise you they don’t really involve entities and creatures. Those just seem to happen to me.”“Yeah, well, lately they seem to be happening to me, too.” Jazz squeezed Prowl’s hand affectionately. “So you want to take it slow?”“I think it best. I want you,” Prowl admitted frankly, making Jazz’s spark jump happily, “but we were both under stresses of different kinds when we met, and the end of the wight meant my life changed significantly. I need to make sure this is – that is, that we – “Jazz squeezed Prowl’s hand again to reassure him. “’S’okay, Prowl. I get it. I can do slow.” Jazz took Prowl’s other hand and leaned in for a kiss. Slow, like Prowl’d asked for. “You are gonna take me back to your room though, right? I mean, I did promise to play for you.”“Yes,” Prowl agreed. He lifted Jazz’s hand and brushed a kiss over the knuckles. “Thank you, Jazz.”“You deserve it, Prowler.”