A/N: I don't know what this is. Another weird mushy story about lusting after robots or something, probably. Well, in this case, robots disguised as Peterbilt trucks.
Let me know if anyone actually reads this and wants to see it continued - I may or may not depending on real life stuff, as usual. I was planning to write some kind of truck smut lmao cause I haven't written anything smutty in like YEARS it feels like. But who knows. Eh. Whatever, cheers! Machine lovins for life.
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Moonlight
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The highway had its own aesthetic. The orange midline markers flicked past, winking jewel-bright at him from either side of the double-yellow, reflecting the last rays of a fine summer's day as a burgundy sunset slid over the land. It was that strange time of day where the half-light painted everything in unreal colors, transforming the forest of evergreens on the northern border of Highway 91 into blurred shadows. To the south, a rolling paddock became a sea-green carpet, and here-and-there he'd catch a golden sparkle as a distant tin roof of someone's barn caught the light. It was beautiful; the road pitched with the land, and—not that Optimus Prime would ever admit it—it was probably his favorite stretch of freeway that he'd ever come across.
Oh, and he knew it well. The freshness of the open air whistled through his Peterbilt form's front grill with only a trace of the nip of gathering darkness. His cab felt pleasantly warm and comfortable as the last vestiges of light shone inside of it, the heat emphasising the cool rush of wind outside in the most exhilarating way. And the road was freshly paved, too; it felt so good to drive on, like black velvet, running smoothly along the treads of all ten of his (for he'd forgone his trailer tonight), handsome new Michelin tires. It might have been nothing more than part of the route he must take as a part of his duty to patrol the area for Decepticons; however, it would be a lie to say that it wasn't a guilty pleasure of his to drive it.
And because he liked it so much, it wasn't unusual that he'd somewhat stretch it out a bit—it wasn't as though he was on a time restraint anyways, technically speaking—and there was such a nice little rest area about halfway between the last town he'd passed and the next. He never looked out of place, stopping there, for the pullout had two amenities close-by, just for truckers and weary travellers who fancied a nap or a snack before reaching the big city's outskirts. A rather lonely Texaco gas station was one of them, whose high red neon sign burned into the night, flickering erratically beside a run-down Motel 91. Optimus guessed that there must be some kind of a bar in there, for often groups of motorcyclists would gather outside, and its occupants were always raucous and rowdy.
The magnificent Peterbilt checked his speed as he saw the little cluster of flashing neon lights and buildings approaching, geared down smoothly and then seemed to glide over the transition from velvet asphalt to gritty, sandy gravel seamlessly. The custom flamed paint job on his front blazed blue-and-red in the gathering darkness, highlighted in neon reflection, and a strip of dust followed him past Motel 91's occupants and past the handful of long-haulers at Texaco who waved at him and whistled, and over to the lonely, shadowy end of the pullout. He hadn't forgotten his obligation to the task at hand, to be on the lookout for passing Decepticons; but it really was advantageous to just stop on occasion and watch the highway traffic. And that was what he would argue, if anyone saw him here, pulled over. He would never let anyone know how much he really did enjoy planet earth itself sometimes—the way that the periwinkle sky had transformed into star-strung indigo and then black, for example.
Optimus was not sure for how long he'd sat there alone, drinking in the sounds of laughter and merrymaking from the nearby pub, the rumbling jake-braking from the occasional truck exiting the highway, and the soft hiss of their airbrakes as their drivers parked to refuel before anything notable happened. There were other, more earthy noises, too, like the call of a loon from somewhere in the depths of the forest behind him, the echo of crickets, and the rustling of field mice in the tall grass. It wasn't until the moon had gotten bright enough to reflect brilliantly against his tall chrome stacks did something happen to distract him from how peaceful he felt.
A smaller vehicle had exited the highway and was approaching. If it hadn't been for the crunchy pop of gravel underneath its tires, Optimus might not have even noticed it; its paint job was dark, only distinguishable because of the moon overhead. The exact color of it, however, was not—perhaps it was a trick of the light, but it seemed almost holographic. But what really caught his attention about it was that he'd seen this exact vehicle before. Twice, to be exact—in the same place—at the same time. At first, he'd thought nothing of it, assuming that whoever its driver was (as the vehicle did not seem to be emitting a Decepticon signal or any kind of energon signature at all, for that matter), that their motives were almost as pure as his were, and maybe they had just desired to stop to have a look at the stars, too.
But three nights in a row to meet here… was past coincidence, and Optimus was immediately suspicious. He watched carefully as they rolled slowly forward. The driver was lost in shadow, but he had the sudden feeling that they were watching him, and that they were apprehensive, for some reason—they couldn't know that he was an Autobot, could they?—but regardless of whether or not they were aware of what he was, they came and parked hesitantly beside him.
Some distant part of him might have found this amusing if it had been a different situation, for he saw now that the vehicle was also a truck—a pickup truck, to be exact—but no more than a tiny toy version of one compared to him. It had to be lowered, the holograph-reminiscent paint job accented by its clean body lines, windshield dark beneath a matching visor. Whether because of its size or something else, Optimus distantly felt an elegant, almost feminine vibe radiating from the truck, not that it mattered much to him at the moment—his intent was fully focussed on the driver and understanding their motivations.
It was a few minutes until anything happened at all. Optimus, of course, was not about to give away his sentience by making the first move; but he did notice that the longer he watched, the more his mistrust of the situation seemed to drain away. Maybe he was reading too much into the tiny truck's docile aura, but he could have sworn that the driver was not a threat.
He watched and listened carefully. They shut off their headlights, and then the ignition, and sat for a moment before swinging the driver's side door open. The sound of the tiny truck's engine and exhaust had been quite loud for its size, and the silence pressed in around them as he waited. There was the crunch of boot heels against gravel and then the driver emerged slowly, and peeked at him from over the top of their truck with wide, feminine eyes. Optimus was immediately taken aback.
It was a human woman he had never seen before.
That in itself was not what was so remarkable. What surprised him was how—scared—she looked. No, perhaps scared was not the right word for it. Nervous may have been better—she was staring right at him, trembling with nerves from under a mop of dark brown hair. It made him feel bad, for it reminded him of how much he disliked the reputation that he sometimes had among the humans as an Autobot. Some of them thought that he was scary and dangerous. He remembered well what Bumblebee had told him of Sam and Michaela's first interactions with himself after learning that he was in fact a giant robot.
But this girl could not know that he was an Autobot. It did not make sense. And yet… he had the undeniable feeling that there was something to the way that she was looking at him.
Optimus continued to watch her in confusion. She inhaled sharply, squared her shoulders as though steeling herself, and approached him. A quiet crunch of gravel accompanied her every step, audible even over the minute sounds of nature and the ever-present hum from the highway. He noticed that she was quite short—not that he'd known many human women that personally, or been close enough in proximity to them to even notice height differences much because of his own height, but he did remember that Michaela had been a lot taller than this girl. She was still visibly trembling even as she reached out a shaking hand to the handrail on the side of the driver's cab door and climbed up onto him.
Her pale face—partially pale from the moonlight and also pale because of nerves—was reflected in his window. Optimus was not accustomed to being climbed on like this, and he had to admit that it felt a little bizarre to him. Not that he minded, really, as he had had humans climb onto him before, but if he was honest, not when he hadn't been expecting it, and certainly not while he was in his alt-form. Her breath fogged a small patch of glass as she looked into his empty interior before she raised her fist and knocked gently at the glass.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He had an almost overwhelming urge to roll down the window and speak to her over the radio, but he thought better of it at once—he did not want to reveal himself to her, or worse, startle her, especially not when she could fall. Optimus kept as still and silent as he could. She seemed to be waiting for something that did not happen, because after a few minutes in which she did not do anything except for breathe sharply against his glass, she tried again—more persistently this time.
Tap. Tap. TAP.
The crickets living in a nearby ditch continued to chirp noisily, and then—
The woman's demeanour changed dramatically as if a switch had been thrown. Suddenly, she was no longer nervous and trembling but redoubling her grip against his rail, looking up at his shiny chrome visor, his majestically tall pipes and how they glinted at the moonlight. He saw them reflected in her eyes as they widened and filled with something he'd never seen in a human's eyes before—not something he'd seen directed at him, at least. It looked almost like—
—It looked almost like lust.
He'd hardly had time to wrap his mind around this realization, however, before she closed her eyes and let all of her weight fall against the side of his body. Her forehead and nose pressed directly onto his glass. Reeling, he fought not to squirm at the sensation of this unknown human, and he was suddenly very aware of her vitals; he could feel the mist of her breath fogging his glass, and how its rhythm had changed from quick and nervous to slow, steady, and deep; her heartbeat, too, had changed, and he could feel it beating strongly against him; and dimly, he recognized that the fingers of her delicate little hand wrapped against his railing were moving, stroking, caressing…
Optimus was in shock. He wasn't sure for how much longer he could hold it in. He had to do something, he had to say something—
He was so, so confused… surely his ability to read a human's vitals and body language was malfunctioning, because how—why—
Her eyes fluttered open… she lifted her forehead off the glass. Optimus barely even heard her as she leaned in close and whispered, "Hello, gorgeous, it's nice to finally meet you…" and kissed him plainly on the smooth, cool middle of his window, leaving a little imprint of her lips.