Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
"Someone Who Loves Me" by Abraxas 2009-09-05
Sam awoke to a feeling of emptiness. Something was wrong - missing - denied? He could not wrap his mind around the source of the angst and that only added to its problem. It felt like he had been kicked in the gut and in the wake of that pain watched his life crash out of control - true was false, sanity was insanity - the future he planned vanished as if all along it were a mirage.
Only a year ago aliens were figments of imagination. Now he lived with a shape-shifting alien robot. He used to believe he could be normal. Now, after battles and adventures with AllSparks - and that whole dying business - nothing could be normal again.
He sat at the edge of the bed with the blanket collected about his feet. He sighed while gazing out of the window. The sky was veiled by a cover of clouds. The neighborhood, from house to house, slumbered through the night. The world itself within the confines of his bedroom was lifeless but for the humming of a computer.
It, whatever it was that tormented his spirit, he could not put a finger on it. Something was missing. Of that he was certain. But it was not a normal kind of something.
Without dressing beyond the boxers that preserved his modesty, he walked out of the bedroom, tiptoed across the stairs, headed into the garage. Even when he did not know what the Camaro was, whenever he was struck by pangs of teenage angst, he always went into the garage. It was where he could be alone to re-center his mind.
The sound of a TV came through the door. It was weird that Bumblebee would be up that late. But it had been ages since last he met his friend at night. And it was probably a habit he did not notice.
He grasped the knob then let it go. Maybe he ought to knock? Maybe he should not bother the autobot?
"Come in, Sam," came that voice - that 'Kit' voice of Bumblebee's - that drew a little smirk.
Sam opened the door and stumbled into a room full of light. Blinded, he squinted, trying to see the details. Bumblebee was robotic in front of the TV. The autobot's two blue eyes were brighter than any lamp and drew the human toward them like a moth to a flame.
Sam always felt safe with Bumblebee. Always. And not only safe - to save him his friend would have leveled a city - it was beyond safe. Safe - and without judgement? There could not be such a trust between him and any other creature. But even that failed to describe what it was. And, at last, he stopped trying to compact it with puny human language - words could not describe what it was - he just accepted it was so.
Of course, and at the worst moment of time, he was quite aware of being underdressed - mostly because of the draft crawling up his boxers.
Bumblebee waved to invite his friend over. Sam sprinted across the concrete of the floor then settled onto the autobot's arm. Laying against it, his face atop its shoulder, he felt warm as the exhaust bathed his skin. The other, free arm fell onto the human spreading like a blanket of metal.
Sam chuckled at the effect then, with vision getting clearer and clearer, turned his attention onto the TV.
"What are you watching?" he asked.
"Anime," the robot answered.
"Like, Adult Swim anime?" he prodded.
"No," the autobot shook his head, slowly, left and right. "I downloaded it. It's Samurai X."
"Wow!" he joked. "I didn't know you pirated. What does Optimus Prime say about that?"
"Um, er, innocent till guilty?" the machine replied, scratching his head - and leaving Sam a bit exposed.
"You mean you plead the fifth."
Bumblebee nodded.
A lull fell between them as the anime focused their attention into a passing sort of interest.
"So, you can't sleep, Sam?" now Bumblebee prodded.
The boy sighed - and thought about it a while - "No, that's not it. It's... It's...different."
The autobot turned his head toward the human. The pause returned. They spent the moment just gazing eye to eye.
"Sleep inside of me, again, tonight," Bumblebee said, at last, breaking the spell.
Sam tried to control the goofy little smile that threatened to break through his lips - he gave up the fight too easily.
"Won't you miss the show?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't watch it for the plot," the alien answered. "I downloaded a summary too."
Sam raised an eyebrow. What, then, was the point? What could be Bumblebee's interest with the anime?
"You do so much for me, Bee, in a thousand lifetimes I could not repay you."
"Sh!" The gesture was completed with its finger against its mouth. "You do so much for me, Sam - I - we do things for each other."
Sam nodded and slipped off of the bed he formed out of Bumblebee's arm. He stared as the autobot folded its body into the shape of a Camaro. No matter how many times he saw it, that transformation, it did not cease to amaze. The awe with which the boy viewed the bot was something only eyes were able to communicate.
The door opened. The front seats shifted. The back seat invited.
Sam jumped into Bumblebee and scooted onto the seat. It was already warm. A blanket was not required. He just curled against the leather.
"Bee," he whispered.
"Sam," he spoke through the speaker, "I know..."
He stroked the fabric of the seat.
...sleep inside of me...
Inside - of Bumblebee!
It was odd, 'sleep inside of me', the way Bumblebee said it. Until the words echoed within Sam, he never thought of it, that he was inside another living entity. Inside its body. He paused to consider it - what if a bug crawled inside of his body? He would have shuddered with revulsion. Yet his friend wanted it.
His patience was god-like.
The emptiness Sam felt was amplified by the realization he had been so thoughtlessly taking advantage of Bumblebee.
"Does it bother you, you know, having a human inside of you?" he asked, racked by guilt.
"It was strange the first time it happened but it's you." The voice paused as if to weigh each and every word that followed. "I like you inside of me, Sam, don't you feel safe that way?"
"Oh, Bee," he said, holding onto the leather of the seat, "I'm safer with you than with anyone on earth."
The vehicle seemed to vibrate with excitement as if its engine revved - the passenger sighed, contently, again patting the upholstery.
"You know what would be cool? A trip through the country at night. Just you and me." He looked onward daydreaming. "Quiet, out of the way places. Where you wouldn't need to be a Camaro. We'd camp and tell scary stories..."
"That would be nice," the autobot said with a long, deep sigh. "Like - a normal kind of life?"
"This is my normal now, Bee, and I wouldn't change it for anything."
Sam's voice trailed into a yawn and with that it was lights-off. He always slept well inside of the Camaro. No matter what stress kept him awake, inside of the autobot, those fears were drowned and washed away with a dream. It was like a perfect freedom - he did not have to pretend with the machine - and that soothed his spirit. No need to compete with boys. No need to impress the girls. He was free to be Sam.
And Bumblebee! God, if it were, indeed, possible to return anything he took of his friend. Though the autobot suggested the human already gave as much as was received, Sam's mind could not grasp how, exactly, that was accomplished.
Sam slept uneventfully until the end when night was turning into day. He could have sworn he felt a hand, a human hand of flesh and bone, stroke the side of his face. Comb through his hair. It could not be yet it was a very real event...a spike of fear surged through his body. Sitting, eyes startling, blinking, he remembered where he was and how alone he was.
"Sam, I am sorry," Bumblebee spoke, suddenly, through the radio. "I did not mean to startle you."
"It's OK," he said, twisted by angst, "it's not your fault, I guess, my brain just wanted me awake."
The boy lay against the seat and, weakly, pathetically, tried to return to sleep. The sun was too bright. The air was too cool. The sound of life awakening could not be ignored. Instead, he curled looking onward, silent and safe, within the body of his friend. He did not want to go. The emptiness, whatever it was, vanished inside of Bumblebee.
Sam was sitting at the wheel when he got the call. He beamed from ear to ear recognizing that ringtone - it was Mikaela. They had not spoken since the events of Egypt. The Fallen and all of that...it seemed like the vagaries of another lifetime ago lost and forgotten.
The boy answered while Bumblebee silenced the radio.
Sam did not get as much as a word beyond 'hello'. The only sounds within the cabin were the echoes of Mikaela's voice coming out of the telephone. Bumblebee tried not to eavesdrop - humans, and their notions of privacy, were not always easy to understand - it became impossible, though, as he sensed his friend's stress.
The last trace of smile evaporated. One final attempt to speak was thwarted. The call was dead. The telephone slipped through his grip.
Sam was silent, just sitting and gazing into space.
Bumblebee was silent, too, while gathering what to do. The girl did not want to be with the boy anymore. He did not know what to say. And there was so much he wanted to do. He tightened the seatbelt around the boy - who clung onto it as if it were a tether to life.
The engine revved.
Bumblebee drove with Sam still dazed. The familiar urban landscape, with its maze of lights, faded away. The road itself narrowed then pavement slipped into gravel under the tread of the wheels.
When Sam snapped out of it he realized Bumblebee stopped in the middle of a forest by a river.
He stepped out of the Camaro and sulked toward the water. He sat at the edge with his feet within its current. Above, the sky was dotted with stars. Below, the water shimmered with their lights. It was like a painting of what the night ought to be. The time and space had been chosen perfectly.
Sam heard the crackling of stone - it was Bumblebee, exposed, walking toward the river.
The boy leaned against the autobot.
Nothing was said between them but Sam remembered thinking everything would be OK as long as Bumblebee was by his side.
Maybe, because Bumblebee was alien, Sam was unafraid to be naked with his feelings. Maybe it was like that, too, going the other way - with the autobot shedding its defenses in front of the boy. They were of two different worlds therefore between each other escaped the judgements that could have been with others of their kind.
Truth was that Sam loved Bumblebee since the start of their relationship when they were simply driver and car. The transformer, in any shape or form, was beautiful and the boy was not ashamed to express it. It was true - and he could not help but smile at the image of his friend - yellow and black and sleek, sexy lines.
A car could be a very sexy thing, he always knew that, and there was no difficulty extending that awe onto the autobot.
Yes - god, yes - there was something sexy about Bumblebee - was it wrong to think of it that way?
Sam hoped not.
Beyond admiration though there was a slew of physical touches here and there that seemed spurred by the subconscious. He did not think much of the contact until the emptiness emerged and forced a thorough re-evaluation of life. Little, covert touches like the way his fingers drifted along the stripes on the Camaro's hood. Or the edges of the door. Or the rim of the wheel.
And the attention to detail given during their regular backyard washing! The time they spent together, it was bonding, a way to pass the time with a friend. Of course, caged within the body of a Camaro, his friend got dirty a lot. Now, now with eyes wide, the whole affair took on the shade of another character.
Mikaela. His other male friends. He was close with those people and they got dirty but he did not bathe them. He did not crawl throughout their bodies. He did not reach into secret and hidden areas.
The autobot was not like any friend or like anyone yet the way he washed his friend was it not akin to an act of love?
Other affectionate flourishes could not be excused as habits learned through years of driving. Because he did it and he knew he did it - it was on purpose. Tracing the autobot's insignia. Stroking the vehicle's leather. Holding onto its shift-stick too long to be casual.
Sam was hit by a reality he did not consider - to Bumblebee, who would have felt all of it, was it indeed interpreted as love? Was it satisfying a need particular to autobots? Particular to Bumblebee?
With all of the surprises that changed his life that year the biggest shock were not the possibilities that his friend could be interested, romantically, with him, that he too could be infatuated with him, it was that he was not afraid of what it meant and where it would have lead.
Bumblebee was the most beautiful and awesome thing of all time, ever, but Sam's worship of the transformer was deeper than that. As a guardian he was selfless and willing to protect at the cost of his life. As a friend he was forgiving, understanding, patient and in infinite quantity. Sam question his ability to be as flawless but just the thought of Bumblebee crawling with legs broken, and the anguish it invoked, it brought to surface a strength he did not fathom he possessed.
They returned to the river - it was their place where they could be free to be just a man and a machine.
"Oh," Sam said, suddenly reminded of the package he got through the mail that afternoon. "Yeah, speaking of anime, I got you something, Bee."
"Something?" Bumblebee revved the engine. "A present kind of something?"
The boy chuckled as the Camaro shook about.
"Since you keep watching it I thought you'd like it."
He rummaged through a sack and removed the envelope. It was visibly, almost comically overstuffed. He sliced it and revealed its content.
"It's Sesshoumaru, from Inuyasha, a nice, little plushie."
"Sweet! You got me Fluffy-Sama," Bumblebee said while Sam raised an eyebrow - Fluffy-Sama? he mouthed. "Put it on!"
Sam attached the end of the plushie onto the ever growing and expanding cluster of objects that dangled off of Bumblebee's rear view mirror. A honey-scented 'Beeotch' freshener. A dreamcatcher. A pair of jade dolphins. And a chibi Sesshoumaru with sword.
"Awesome! And, I got you something, too," the autobot announced.
"Buying off the internet again?" the boy teased.
"I plead the fifth! Well, I downloaded it, actually." The windshield flashed like a monitor. The speakers echoed the voice of Witney Houston. "It's called 'The Bodyguard'."
How did Bumblebee know what to do?
Those small, quiet touches that came naturally between boy and bot. The squeezes when he needed to be held. The drives through the country when he needed to get away. The questionable yet appropriate choice of music.
The source of that understanding vexed Sam as he realized that extent of friendship the autobot gave of itself.
Nobody understood Sam like Bumblebee. Nobody satisfied Sam like Bumblebee. Nobody - period. If he lived with any other human a thousand years they would have been strangers compared to what a Cybertronian deduced by observation. The instinct that only contact produced could not be replicated by simply living with a people or immersing into their culture. What the autobot got were the intimacies only a mate would have known.
He was filled with the anguish that always came to life whenever the autobots battled the decepticons. It was born of the fragility of his mortality and climaxed with episodes of running and hiding. He wanted to be useful but stature reduced his role to that of a spectator.
Sam vowed he would be stronger - it was a matter of how to return the affection that Bumblebee showed him. Someway. Somehow. There had to be a way to express that love.
Above all of that, too, was the wish that he could be a better man so that his friend would be justified in feeling that way about him.
God, Sam would have done anything for Bumblebee!
"I'm not worthy of you," he said, stroking the rim of the wheel. "How can I be?"
The seatbelt tightened about his waist.
"How can I be? You are greater than I could be. It's not enough to tell you I love you."
"Wait - don't go - Sam!"
Unable to withstand it any longer he ran out of the Camaro and jolted into his bedroom.
It came to be that Sam realized a very critical truth. He saw himself living without his friends - as strange as it sounded - his world and his notions of what it was to be normal could be upended and he would not care. But he did not see how he could have lived without Bumblebee. Just to picture what it might be like without his friend it was like cutting off a piece of his heart and it did not fail to urge a tear.
Sam flung away the blanket and just stared at the ceiling. A tear clouded his vision. A shiver coursed through his body. He was overwhelmed by the flood of emotion that idea of loss elicited.
It must have been daybreak. The bedroom was filled with light. Was he up that night tormented by his thoughts? His thoughts and feelings about his friend?
That poor, gentle autobot. Was that realization of loss what the bot felt when the boy said he was going away alone? He felt so wrong and ashamed and he promised he would not be that way again.
There was a tap on the glass - Sam turned - it was not the sun, it was Bumblebee's eyes looking into his bedroom.
"It's not too late," Sam exclaimed, elated.
Bumblebee blinked, confused.
The boy raced toward the window almost naked and without attempting to cover it - he reached the bot, laying a hand against his faceplate, raising it.
"I sensed you were pained," Bumblebee said as Sam walked into the garage. "You could not sleep again. Why don't you come to me when -"
"Oh, Bee!" He grasped onto the autobot's shoulders and squeezed - and closed into the only kind of hug their vast size difference allowed. "I was thinking about you, I mean, if you weren't with me. A part of my life. I couldn't deal with it."
"Sam..." He stroked the back of the human's head then up and down his back. "It makes me sad, too, you not in my life."
"I want you to be a part of my life."
"I want that, too, Sam. Here," he withdrew and compacted into the body of a Camaro, "get in."
Sam smiled noticing again too late that he was not completely dressed. He snuck into the back of the cabin where the seat seemed to be already prepared. The door shut and the air filled with a warm, ventilated air - a scent, like honey, was infused into it.
"You cry. Are you sad, still, Sam? You know I will not leave you."
He dried his eyes with his palms - it had not stopped, that well of tears, indeed it only worsened.
"It's not that, Bee, it's that...I want to make you as happy as you make me. You're the most incredible, most awesome thing ever. Of all time. And I couldn't begin to match that."
"Sam - that's not true - Sam! You are the greatest bestest friend I've known. You don't see it, maybe, but I see it. You do things for me that you don't do for anybody."
"Bee..." Sam wept into his hands.
"Do you like this form?"
"Do you mean this car? God - I love you in every form you take. You are perfect to me."
"Sam...I...I want to show you something. I'm not finished with it, yet, I've worked it on and off for weeks. I trust you with it - it's my most personal...something."
"OK, Bee."
Sam looked at the windshield thinking that what Bumblebee wanted to show would be there. Through its glass he got a view of the world as it was - the middle of the night, the garage was as pitch as the abyss, the outlines of objects only faintly revealed by the light of the moon that oozed out of the window. Within the Camaro that onyx was broken by the warm yet sharp green off of the dashboard.
All of a sudden the seat sank a little and the boy drifted sideways as if gravitating toward an object that just materialized. It happened quickly, so much so that he did not look at it, whatever it was, only felt it. A left arm wrapped onto his shoulders. A right arm draped across his chest. The hands clasped about his cheek. The hug that was formed dragged him onto the body the limbs were attached to.
Sam looked.
Instinctively, he reached toward it, to ensure that it was real.
There was another boy along with him in the back of the Camaro. It looked to be a teenager of his age and size - although a lot better built. He felt like he could be crushed by those arms yet their tenderness was familiar. Could it be? Shoulder-length hair, black with spikes of yellow. Almond-shaped eyes, blue like the sky. The face was Asian, like a human version of an anime.
Of course - the anime!
The human, still shocked by the reality of it, allowed the hug to continue until he was face to chest with the figure. Again he reached out to examine the flesh. Its warmth was real. The flex of the muscle. The throb of the heart. The rise and fall of the breathing. How could it be?
Sam looked up while - Bumblebee - looked down.
"It's you isn't it?"
"Yes - it's me - do you like it?"
The human nodded. The figure smiled and squeezed a bit.
"It's how I'd like to be if I were human. Well...we would be about the same age and everything."
The autobot spoke with his 'Kit' voice through the figure.
"It's incredible and it's real?"
"A holomorph. It's as real as it could be. Energy, you know, can be transformed many different ways. Anyway, it's not finished, I'm adding new functions to it. Do you like it? Do you really really like it? I based it off a samurai, 'cause, I guess I would be like your samurai."
Sam stopped Bumblebee's lips with a kiss. It seemed like the most natural and logical way to get his friend to understand he loved it. It did not matter if his friend was a giant robot alien or a car. Or another teenaged boy. The outside did not matter.
Bumblebee was beautiful in any shape and form. Sam accepted that and the anxiety he would have felt at kissing another boy vanished. With the alien a new possibility arose - maybe he was not attracted to other male humans, however, maybe it was different with transformers.
If he could have turned robot he would have right then and there to pleasure his friend.
"Oh, you are my friend forever and ever," Bumblebee replied aping the kiss that Sam taught him to do. The kiss then evolved as it bounced back and forth between the two. They explored, letting their tongues and fingers wander and reach places yet unseen. "Primus..."
Exhausted, the boy settled between the samurai's legs, with his head atop the lap.
"Do you feel all of it?" Sam asked while kissing about the figure's stomach.
"Yes! Oh, yes!" Bumblebee replied, combing his fingers through the boy's hair, wrapping his legs about his friend's body. "It feels so good - so good - so better than when you play with my canon! I feel so many things...there...how can you stand it?"
"I can't...always...take it."
"Sam." Bumblebee grasped the boy's shoulders and raised his chin so they looked face to face. "I've waited a long, long time to hold you. Like another human."
"I love you, in any from you take, it doesn't matter and it will not matter. Ever. OK? It's just you and me."
Sam awoke with a fulfillment he had not felt in ages. He was refreshed and intoxicated by the smell of morning. And the flavor of honey that laced his lips.
Bumblebee was in bed, too, recharging.
The warmth of the holomorph was too tempting to ignore. The boy snuggled against the samurai with those yellow and black spikes. His cheek rubbed against the familiar autobot tattoo above the figure's heart. His hands stroked up and down along the sleeper's back then squeezed a naked, muscled thigh.
It had been a very long night with them testing their functions. Bumblebee was utterly fascinated while refining his projection. Sam was not exhausted, yet, though.
Sam was about to speak when Bumblebee grasped his elbows.
"Oh, please drive me, I want to go places today."
He smiled - as if there could be any reply but yes.
They hugged so close their flesh, real and holomorphic, could have smothered into a single being. Then, again, they locked eye to eye, lips to lips.
"You are so, so awesome. So perfect. It's like I don't deserve you. I just can't get over it. What do you see in me?"
The bot stopped the boy's lips with a kiss then answered - "Someone who loves me..."
END