A/N: Written for a prompt on the Knight Rider kink meme. It went a little off-topic but I'm overall pretty happy with how it went.
X.x.X.x.X
Michael looks up when he hears the thunder. It cuts into his thoughts like a beacon, signalling the approaching of what's going to be a huge storm.
Great. He's been shot at, thrown off a balcony, locked in a closet, and nearly hit by a truck, and now that he's safe from everything else, it's going to storm. Just fantastic.
He pulls his jacket tighter around himself. It's cold out here, but the thin pleather seems to do nothing against it. Of course, if this jacket was made for warmth, he wouldn't wear it in California, but not for the first time he wishes it wasn't quite so climate-specific.
He also wishes KITT would hurry up and find him.
They lost each other back at the manor, where the trees were too thick to drive through and the only clear path was blocked by the building itself. His comm watch was taken from him while he was being thrown in the closet and most of the stuff he'd had in his pockets had met the same fate.
The thunder rumbles again and this time he just sighs. It's tiring having walked so far so fast and getting seemingly nowhere, but he keeps walking anyway, knowing that stopping is by far the worse option.
It starts raining just as he thinks this. He looks up at the sky in annoyance, as if daring it to throw something worse his way than just rain and thunder. As if in answer, the wind kicks up, and the rain doubles itself, and if he wasn't drenched before, well, he is now.
"Going my way, stranger?"
Michael whirls around, startled, and bursts into a smile when he sees a familiar Trans-AM gliding towards him.
"KITT!" He puts his hands on the hood. "Am I happy to see you."
KITT observes Michael as he crosses over to the driver's side door, and if he could, he would have frowned.
"You're going to get my interior all wet." He complains.
"Do you expect me to walk?"
"Maybe." KITT answers, but resignedly opens the door. Michael gets in, and KITT pretends the only thing he can think about is how long that's going to take to clean.
"I got what we need." Michael retrieves a packet from his inside jacket pocket, one of the places his captors overlooked in their haste, and waves it in front of the dashboard. "All we need to do now is get back into town before they notice I'm gone."
"That's excellent, Michael." KITT answers, carefully backing through the trees until he gets to a point where he can turn around. When he does, however, he stops. "Michael?"
"Yeah, pal?" Michael asks, worried it might be urgent.
KITT grows slightly awkward. "They can't move until tomorrow. But if they don't move then, they lose big, so they aren't likely to change their plans."
"Yeah?" The human can't help but smile, drawing his fingers over the steering wheel and across the dashboard. He's pretty sure he can see where this is going.
"...With all that being the case, I don't suppose we could spare a few minutes?" He sounds hopeful. Neither of them had realized how little time they actually got alone- one-on-one, that wasn't overtaken by a mission or something else -until they'd gotten together. It didn't help that Devon still wasn't in the know.
Michael chuckles understandingly, moves his fingers down across KITT's vocalizer before returning them to his steering wheel. "Sure. We can do that."
"Thank you, Michael." KITT's voice sounds warm and grateful.
Lightning flashes, lighting up the smooth, wet curves of the Trans-AM in the darkness; thunder rumbles with it, the sound for a moment overtaking the rain. Michael and KITT are for just this moment silent- just this moment in time, where words have lost their meaning, and the rest of the world is another planet. Despite the cold, it's warm.
Michael sinks back further into the seat, turning his head to rub his cheek gently against the headrest. KITT isn't capable of feeling physical sensations in the traditional sense, but a pleasant shudder runs through his CPU at the sight of it.
"I love you, KITT." The words would have been too soft for anybody else to catch, but KITT isn't just anybody. He feels warm in the truest sense of the word.
"I love you too, Michael." He answers softly. "Very much."
The lighting flashes again and a part of KITT thinks that this moment is very much like that one- bright, lasting only for a brief glimpse, but lighting up everything around it for miles.
But then their light, together, is more like the sun- bright, warm, and forever there, even when you can't see it.
It is with this thought that he returns to idly watching the storm, engine purring softly as Michael's hands gently caress the steering wheel.