With Mudflap gone with Optimus, Ironhide, and Bumblebee, Skids was left with nothing to do at the Autobot base. He was sitting on top of one of Ratchet's medical desks, waving his legs back and forth. For a while he just stared in silence, which if any of the other autobots would have been there, they would have been rather worried about the young team member for the amount of time he didn't speak or chatter something. The only autobots in the base were Ratchet and Que, but they were in a different part of the base, most likely talking about plans for inventions that the team would benefit from. Skids stopped waving his legs and brought his head up as he heard a faint voice heading towards the entrance of the room, increasing in volume as it neared. It was Sam, Bumblebee's human, and Leo, who was, unfortunately, Skids and Mudflap's human. Skids shook his head as Leo's voice became higher as he panicked.

"I feel like a hostage, I've had enough of-!"

"Yo, Leo!" Leo flinched and covered his ears with his hands at how loud the green twin was.

"What!?" Leo scoffed.

"Wa's wrong wit'chu? Why you screaming like dhat? Blow up mah audio receptors!" Skids said as he took his servos and pulled at the tops of his large, green ears.

"Oh, screw you!" Leo hurried to grab Sam by the forearm and squeeze him to stop walking. Sam was pulled back by Leo, not able to take the step that he was about to as he had to catch himself from falling backwards.

"I can't deal with this man. Every night, dealing with those two. They were practically forced on me! Why don't you take them?" Leo whispered loudly to Sam who shrugged in return.

"Sorry, they're all yours. Bumblebee and I didn't hit it off at first. Maybe you guys just need to talk it out." Sam said. Leo sighed and combed his hair with his hands as he leaned back, taking in a deep, stressful breath. He slapped his hands to his sides, turning around and looking at Skids.

"But I have two." Leo whined. Sam shook his head and prepared to leave the room.

"Just go for a ride." Sam said as he left, waving a hand at Leo.

The ground shook a little as Skids pushed himself off of the medics table. Leo had stumbled a bit, but returned to his footing as he looked back at the green autobot. Skids stood behind him, servos on his sides.

"Well?" Leo said.

"Huh? Well what?" Skids said.

"Really? What do you think?"

OooOooO

Leo held on to the steering wheel as he drove through the country roads, looking straight at the road in front of him. As he drove, both he and Skids were completely silent. It was awkward, and to Leo's surprise, Skids hadn't even turned on the radio to play his tunes. After a while longer, Leo broke the silence.

"Hey, so, uh," he said, tapping the steering wheel with his thumbs, "you know why we're out here?" Skids scoffed.

"So nobody hear you cry." Leo closed his eyes and sighed.

"No, I think Sam's right. We should talk. If you and Mudflap are going to be living with me, we need to communicate. And out here, I think my mind is more clear. And there aren't many distractions, so we can keep each other's attention." Leo explained. Skids didn't say anything back. Leo waited for a few seconds before tapping at the dashboard.

"Huh?" Skids said.

"Did you just hear anything I said to you?"

"Oh, we- uh, I-ju-. Y-Yeah man! I heard ya." Skids fumbled on his words.

"See? This is what I mean!"

"Hey, calm your aft. I saw somethin'." Leo threw up his hands, letting Skids take control of the wheel as he leaned back and covered his face. Leo mumbled loudly and slid his hands down his face.

"Even when we're out in the middle of nowhere and there is absolutely nothing but a road, grass, and telephone poles, you still don't even listen to me! Why!?"

"I'm still experiencing Earth! Still try'na get used to it. It's….." Skids slowed down as he pulled off to the side of the road, coming to a stop.

"Hard." Leo sat back, waiting to see if Skids would say anything else.

"Hey," Leo said after a long silence, "do you…..wanna talk about it?"

"Talk about what? Ain't nothin' ta talk about."

"Do you even hear yourself sometimes?" Leo asked, letting out a short laugh. Skids did the same, sounding almost saddened.

"Hey look," started Leo, "I know how you feel." Skids hood suddenly shifted as he started to transform. Leo took off his seat belt and got out, just as Skids seats lifted to form his arms. Leo sat on the side of the road. After he was fully transformed, Skids harshly pointed at Leo.

"You don't know!" Skids yelled.

"No, really." Leo said, pushing himself up off of the ground. Skids scoffed and crossed his arms over his chassis. Leo went on to tell about how his father left both he and his mother when he was just a little boy. Without him, they couldn't pay bills, and sometimes could afford to feed themselves. His mother had to get another job being a sales associate at a local store, but as hard as she had worked, there was still not enough to pay for everything.

"So with the little money we had left, we moved here and stayed with my grandparents for a couple of years until we could settle back down in our own place." Skids sat down on the side of the road, arms laying over his knees. Leo sat beside him in the say position.

"I guess dhat is…..close." Skids laughed, lowering his ears.

"So how are you doing? You know, with…...here." Leo asked, Skids sighing in return.

"Well," Skids started, but then shook his head, "no!" Leo jumped at his response. Skids transformed back into his alternate mode, locked his doors and drove off. Leo was quick to get on his feet and run after him, shouting for the autobot to stop, but failed to reach him.

OooOooO

Leo had been walking for what had seemed like days, but were merely just hours. His legs ached so bad that he had started basically drag his feet to keep moving forward. His gray t-shirt was soaked in sweat. Beads of sweat rolled down his face and into his eyes. Leo took the back of his hand and rubbed at his forehead. His legs started to feel heavy and he tripped on himself, falling fast to the road. He would have pushed himself back to his feet, but the lower half of his body was just too heavy.

Strangely enough, but to his luck, the country road he was on wasn't very busy. Actually, the last car he saw was Skids, before he ditched him. Leo was already devising a plan to get back at the autobot, but he also knew that Skids would probably shrug off anything he tried to do, or push him into a mud puddle, like last time.

Leo laid in the road, arms crossed underneath his head. He had been wondering what all the twins had really been through before they came to Earth. What happened to make Skids get so upset that he would just up and leave Leo? He must have struck a nerve. Leo was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't hear a vehicle come to a stop behind him.

"It's about time you came back." He said. He heard metal shifting behind him and sighed, smirking, looking back. Leo froze as he saw that the vehicle was not Skids, or even an autobot for that matter. It was a decepticon. He wasn't quite sure which it was though.

Leo started screaming, forcing his body to at least drag him back, kicking at the road as he scooted along frantically. The decepticon chuckled and reached for the human. Leo was too weak to do anything else, so he curled into the fetal position and held himself tight. An engine roared from behind the decepticon and he looked back, hand hovering above the humans body. A couple of shots were fired at the decepticon before another shifting of metal could be heard. Leo opened his eyes to see the decepticon be kicked from behind, sending both him and his attacker over Leo. The decepticons front was sandpapered against the bumpy road as his attacker stood on his back, almost as if he had used the decepticon as a skateboard. While the decepticon was pinned down, his attacker had again readied his weapon and, this time, shot him twice in the back of the head. Hearing the shots, Leo, again, closed his eyes tightly and held his head in his hands, legs fidgeting. The decepticons body was then kicked to the side of the road, energon seeping from where his head used to be. Leo heard and felt footsteps heading toward him. They stopped.

"Y'okay?" He heard. Leo uncurled himself and looked at the green and black autobot, his bigger right servo hovering over Leo.

"S-Skids," he said. Leo sat up a little, hands on the road, supporting him. he wanted to cry, but he knew that Skids would probably leave him stranded again if he did. So instead, he yelled "what the hell man!?" and punched the autobot in the knee. Leo then grabbed his hand, regretting his action as he started breathing heavy and holding himself by the wrist.

"Well dhat was stupid." Skids said. Leo couldn't help but tear up as he looked back at the autobot, teeth bared in an upset frown. Skids moved his servo away from Leo as the human turned around, knees hitting the road.

"Wha's wrong wi'chu, L-?"

"Even though I totally pissed you off, you still came back. You probably just saved my life." Leo said, a single tear trailing down his face. He turned his head back to the autobot, and with a weak smile started to laugh.

"And you could have just let me die." Leo laughed it off, then his laugh turned into a cry as he turned away from Skids again.

"Hey man," Skids said, reaching out to Leo, "na'I wouldn't do dhat. I am ya guardian afta all." Leo started taking the backs of his hands and wiped away at his tears. He stopped what he was doing when he saw that Skids legs to the sides of him, sitting on the road just behind where he sat.

"Looky here now. Y'jus sorta touched on somethin I ain't comfortable with. Y'didn't know. It wasn't right o'me to do what I did, but it's like ya said. Bein' out here, I'm able ta think bettah." Leo sniffled and wiped at his face one more time.

"I-I didn't know." He sniffed.

"But I'd say I kinda got carried away." Skids transformed and opened his driver's seat door.

"Let's get home." Skids said.

"I'm sorry." Leo said as he stood up.

"You di'unt know. S'all right."

"But…..don't you think-?" Skids pulled Leo into him with his left hand, putting him into the driver's seat and shifting back into the door.

"Listen," Skids interrupted. "I'll tell ya about it… Just….give me a while…..m'kay?" Leo cracked a small smile as Skids buckled him into his seat and started driving back towards town, blaring his assorted tunes on the radio.

"Take all the time you need."

Thank you for reading this fic! I know it's very short, but I thought it was a cute idea, so I just wrote it really quick.

Review if you'd like! Thanks again!