Disclaimer: Transformers; do not own. His Dark Materials/Golden Compass; do not own.
Summary: Oneshot, semi-crossover. Only after the whole running-for-your-lives bit did some form of shyness set in. Sam thinks that it would be much easier to get to know their intergalactic neighbours if only they had dæmons.
Rating: K+
Author note: For starwild over at tf2007fun, who wanted to see dæmons in movieverse. Hope you enjoy!
After
It had been a few weeks since Mission City. There was still a government frenzy going on in the background, covering up the fact that they were not alone in the universe, and there were still plenty of questions and too little answers. However, things were winding down. Sam and his family were home. Sam and Mikaela had started going back to school. While Optimus, Ratchet, and a newly fixed Jazz were at the makeshift Autobot base, Ironhide had opted to stay with the Lennoxes.
Bumblebee had officially moved in with the Witwickies.
It was three past midnight. Sam and his dæmon were wide awake, the boy staring at the ceiling, his cougar dæmon beside him, raising her head every once in a while to glance outside the window, before nuzzling her human comfortingly and curling up closer beside him.
Sam wondered if Bumblebee was still awake. Tristanne thought that their yellow guardian was, but who could tell?
It was so strange. He had been enraged, to say the least, when Sector Seven had taken Bumblebee away. He and the Autobot had fought alongside one another and had fought for one another in Mission City. Bumblebee had freakin' saved his life on more than one occasion.
And yet, it was only here in the midst of almost normalcy and in the midst of calm, it was only after the whole running-for-your-lives bit did some form of shyness set in.
Sam and his dæmon had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Sam didn't make friends easily, like Miles did. He wasn't like Mikaela either, who was stiffly polite the first few moments and then was your best friend for life afterwards, if she liked you.
Despite this, Sam was not a timid person. Though it had only been a short while, and though Bumblebee had been recently absent, what with helping to set up the makeshift base and all, Sam was sure that he and Bumblebee would have been best friends already, if only Bumblebee had a dæmon.
"He'd probably think it's silly," Sam remarked to his dæmon. "There he is, giant sentient robot from outer space, and here we are, squishy organics, and we think that the biggest difference between us is that."
"Don't know why it bothers us so much," Tristanne replied. "All things considered, there are other differences that are just as big."
But they both knew that this particular difference was bigger than anything else. They saw something human-esque in Bumblebee, so much so that it was like having a literally big brother in a suit of impenetrable armour. However, a person without a dæmon was like a person without a head, or with their ribs splayed open and their heart torn out.
Sam gave a frustrated sigh. "You don't see the Autobots giving this much of a damn about humans not having sparks."
But it was a huge difference. It would have been so much easier if Autobots were doubly-occurring like humans were. There were so many questions. The great taboo, for one. Was it proper for Tristanne to ride in…to touch Bumblebee? Bumblebee was a person, no doubt about it. But a person never touched another person's dæmon. It was more than forbidden. Even in battle, a warrior would not touch an enemy's dæmon.
Except the Decepticons. They remembered how Megatron had attempted to snatch Tristanne, and Sam felt goose bumps rising on his arms. Tristanne's fur rose, and he held her closely. No, there was something insanely wrong about those beings. Though they were from the same race, they were not like the Autobots at all.
And if their dæmons did freely make contact with the Autobots, were they then denying the fact that Autobots were people?
There was no choice about it, sometimes. Sam knew that, after being saved by Bumblebee, Mikaela already had been instinctively at least a tad uncomfortable about riding in him, mostly because Adair was much to big to sit in her lap and was curled up in Bumblebee's backseat, wary and alert, trying his hardest to touch as little of Bumblebee as possible.
Besides the whole taboo thing, there were also smaller problems. It was hard, really, to know what they were thinking, to correctly interpret their words. The Autobots picked up stuff like tone and body language easily enough, and the humans, for their part, were getting pretty good at interpreting the Autobots' own versions of sighs, titters, shrugs, blushes, and a variety of facial expressions.
But, because an Autobot consisted of one body, they could not compensate for the absence of dæmons. A dæmon's expressions and posture counted as much as the human's in a conversation, and since Autobots were without this second body, the resulting 'picture' that the humans perceived of the Autobots' emotions and words was fuzzy.
The humans were clumsy, to say the least, in communicating with the Autobots. It would have been clumsy and strained anyway, but the fact that they occurred singularly added another level of complexity.
And the Autobots didn't really know how to conduct themselves around the humans and their dæmons. How could they? It was an absurd expectation to place upon them, to instinctively know some things like humans did, and they really were trying. Bumblebee had tried using a holoform of a wolf in place of a dæmon, but perhaps he realized that the humans were more creeped out by a false dæmon than by an absent dæmon, because he had soon stopped.
Sam turned over to lie on his stomach, and Tristanne uncurled and curled up again. They gave a quick glance out the window. They could sense each other's thoughts concerning the newest addition to their family.
"If human dæmons have animal forms," Sam said, "then does that mean that Autobot dæmons would be cars or trucks or something?"
"What would Bumblebee's dæmon look like?"
"Don't know. Maybe something small. Small but powerful." Sam toyed with the idea of a yellow VW Beetle, but Tristanne objected to that as soon as Sam thought it.
In the end, a picture of a fully transformed fifteen foot tall Bumblebee walking around with a yellow Camaro by his side popped into their mind.
"Camaro," Sam said.
"A yellow one, with black racing stripes," Tristanne added.
Sam shifted position again, this time lying on his side. Tristanne lifted her head to face him.
"Maybe a spark is what happens when a human and a dæmon become one," Sam said.
"We are one," Tristanne protested. "You and I are one person." Her head came under Sam's chin, and Sam rubbed her coarse tawny fur comfortingly.
"Well, one in a different way. Like, physically one," Sam said. "Like, somehow, Bumblebee is his own dæmon." A new train of thought entered his mind, and Tristanne looked up at him expectantly. "It must be lonely for him," he added, absently stroking her fur. Even running for who knows how many lives in Mission City, Sam was never alone. Tristanne was always with him, running alongside him. She was his shadow, his companion, his very own heart. He didn't know loneliness like Bumblebee did.
"Maybe that's why he's so…timid," Tristanne said, though neither of them knew this before. "Around us, at least. Maybe it was born of loneliness."
"Maybe we have to make the first move," Sam said. Tristanne jumped off the bed, and Sam was a heartbeat after her. They passed Ron and Judy's bedroom. The stellar jay ruffled his feathers slightly, and the badger gave a soft grunt, but they were otherwise undisturbed. It seemed that in an instant, the boy and his dæmon were standing in front of Bumblebee.
"You are not sleeping," Bumblebee said. He sounded unsurprised and unamused, like a parent or an older sibling confronting a young child that had stayed up past their bed time. In their mind's eye, Sam and his dæmon could hear Bumblebee's Camaro-dæmon give a disapproving rev of the engine. Maybe this could wait until morning…
Tristanne rubbed against the side of his leg, and he remembered why he was out there in the first place.
"You want to go by the lake?" he blurted out. Maybe Bumblebee was surprised, because he said nothing. Tristanne gave a small, distressed growl, and Sam hurried on. "Well, I mean, I was thinking that the sunrise is really beautiful there, and you might enjoy seeing it, but if you don't want to, that's okay too. I mean, you must be really tired and all—"
"I would love to," Bumblebee answered, calmly stopping Sam's ramble. Tristanne's ears perked.
"Really?"
"Yes. Do you think that you'll be able to get up in time?" Bumblebee added. Sam wasn't certain, but he was pretty sure that Bumblebee was teasing him. Tristanne gave a tentative purr.
"I'm pretty sure," Sam said, "but, just in case…" He pulled open Bumblebee's door. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all," Bumblebee said mildly. "This way, I'll be able to make sure that you get some sleep, at least."
Tristanne snorted, and Sam rolled his eyes. "You're taking this guardian thing a bit too seriously, in my opinion."
"Not in mine," Bumblebee said in a sing-song voice. His door was open. Sam and Tristanne looked at one another, and they remembered how they came to the conclusion that Bumblebee was his own dæmon.
Tristanne climbed in. If Bumblebee was surprised, neither Sam nor Tristanne noticed. Sam followed, settling into the driver's seat, Tristanne's head and forepaws resting on top of his thigh.
"Wake me when it's time?" Sam asked. Tristanne's eyes were already closed, and Sam barely managed to stifle a yawn long enough to ask the question.
"Of course," Bumblebee answered.
It wasn't the most glorious of moments, nor the most memorable, but their first move, in the form of a simple question, a simple invitation, had already crossed a barrier.
They didn't go to the lake that day. Though Bumblebee tried everything (he was reluctant to try at all, given Sam's sleep deprivation, but he did promise…), from hard rock music to happy polka music, Sam and his dæmon slept right through the morning and into the afternoon in the figurative arms of a friend.
Rather long author notes: Yes, Bumblebee does have backseats in this crossover. Because people on Earth occur doubly, a human and a dæmon, a two-seater would either only fit one person and his/her dæmon, or two people with dæmons small enough to perch on a shoulder or curl up in a lap. In this particular 'verse, during the tunnel scene where Bumblebee momentarily ditches his passengers, Sam and Mikaela were actually crammed into the driver's seat, and their dæmons (a jaguar and a Chihuahua, at the time) were squishing into the passenger's seat. So Bumblebee went and upgraded himself to a newer version with backseats.
Also: well, after all that, Sam ended up being a cougar. Independent, agile, adaptable (judging by natural cougars' range of habitats), protective (i.e. female cougar with her cubs), not as strong as other members of the family but capable predators of their own right.
…
Dammit, Sam! None of the other fanfiction!characters give me as much problems as you do!
Also, it could just be a weird quirk of mine that humans strongly associated with Bumblebee are paired with cat-family daemons. For example, in AUG1, Spike's dæmon is a cheetah, and Carly's is a white tiger (besides the whole the dæmon-is-the-person-on-the-inside thing, there's also a thinly veiled yet esoteric reference there). In AUMovieverse, Sam's is a cougar and Mikaela's is a jaguar.
