Where There Is Smoke
Rated T for language, alcohol use and anything else I forgot to add.
Disclaimer: I own nothing here except my OC's and original concepts included to fill in any blanks left by the actual show.
Talking:
"English or other Earth language"
"Cybertronian"
"Talking on the phone or recordings"
:comm. link:
[Texting]
'Thought'
(Bond talk)
** (Bumblebee speaking) **
Spark feelings
Flash back or change of time or place
Time changes:
Nano-klik=1/2 a klik. Klik= less than a second. Breem (cybertronian minute) = 8 minutes. Cycle=hour. Joor (cybertronian hour) = 6 hours. Solar cycle= = 1 week. Orn= 13 days. Groon= 1 month. Deca-orn = 3 months. Stellar cycle= 1 year. Vorn=83 years
Miko spent another night at the base for observation after June called her host parents and told them she hurt herself on some broken glass she had found and tried to pick up, which wasn't a complete lie.
The next day was Monday so the children were taken to school while June was taken to work and the Autobots went about their usual business.
That night the other bots, with the exception of Optimus and Ratchet, gathered around the ground bridge with Blaster.
Blaster looked around at the others that were waiting for the ground bridge to open "A'ight, everyone here that wants to go?"
Wheeljack looked at everyone else and walked away. "Pfft, I was waiting by the ground bridge so I could get back to my ship and get out of this hole,"
Blaster smirked to himself and pretended to not care "Hey, Wheeljack, help meh make it look like the DJ equipment Ah'm hauling in is actually as heavy as it is to humans an' drinks are on meh,"
Wheeljack stopped midstep and thought about it for a second with his ped still in the air. "Deal," he pivoted around and rejoined the others just as the swirling green portal hummed to life.
Once they all stepped through they came out on the other side in a patch of Nevada desert they had never been to before. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip shone in the distance, they all transformed into their vehicle modes and followed Blaster to a small building just outside of the city limits.
Arcee activated her holoform as they got closer so no one would see a motorcycle driving itself. "This is a night club?"
Blaster lead them around back and they all parked by a door that was marked "Employees only," "Most of it is below ground level, Ah'll go let the manager know we're back here,"
Blaster activated his holoform and went around the side of the building and a short time later he came out the door with a man with blonde hair wearing a light blue shirt and khakis who frowned at the other bots in holoform "Who are all of you? The main entrance is out front," the man spoke with a gruff south-western accent.
Blaster held up a hand "Hey, chill man. These are some friends o' mine that Ah asked to help move some of mah equipment,"
The manager looked at them skeptically "They're all old enough to be in here, right?"
They all nodded, they were all older than the city of Las Vegas itself but they weren't going to tell him that. The man nodded back "Ok, make it quick. I don't want any minors sneaking in the back door,"
The man turned and left and the others turned to Blaster. "So, now what?"
Blaster went over and opened the tailgate of his alt. mode "Like Ah said befo', This stuff is supposed to be heavy fo' humans to lift so if Ah carry it in like Ah normally would the humans ah gonna know somethin's up so I need some help making it look like it is as heavy as a human would think it was,"
The others all paired off and "hefted" whatever speakers or other piece of sound equipment was in the back of Blaster's vehicle mode while Arcee, who was the smallest and least likely to lift the heavier stuff had she been actually human, went ahead of them and held the doors for them.
The inside of the night club was built like a nine tiered cake that was flipped upside down and had steps leading from the entrances and exits down to the bottom level where the dance floor was. The top tier was where the bar was located opposite the DJ's sound booth and the rest rooms were located on the side where they had come in, the seven tiers below it was all tables and booths for people to sit at and the bottom was the dance floor which was lit by black lights and strobe lights to make it look like the inside of a storm cloud.
Once they got everything hauled in and set up Blaster checked to make sure everything was where it should be.
"A'ight thanks guys. Well, a deal's a deal," he led them over to the bar, Smokescreen and Bumblebee didn't want anything so they went down the steps to find a spot for them to sit. Blaster tapped his hand on the bar top "Hey, bartender,"
A tall man with hazel eyes and dark hair that was spiked up with neon blue colored gel wearing a white button up shirt and black slacks came up to him. The man wiped his hands on a rag, having just washed his hands in the sink behind the bar. "Can I help you?"
Blaster smiled at him "Sho' thing, my man. I was wonderin' if it were possible to open a tab fo' mah friends here. They helped meh move mah equipment so I was gonna pay fo' their drinks. Would that be a'ight?"
The bartender thought about it and nodded. "Okay, that would be 'a'ight',"
Blaster specified that it would be just himself andthe other five of them included on this tab so no one else tried to add themselves to it when they didn't want to pay for their own drinks.
The man took out a notepad to right down whatever was placed on the tab to be added up later. "Alright, and your name would be?"
"Billy Laster, DJ-ing under the stage name "Master Blaster"," Blaster went back to the DJ's booth to make some last minute preparations before the night officially started.
Wheeljack looked at Bulkhead "Hey, Bulk, let's have a drinking contest. For old time's sake,"
Bulkhead rubbed the back of his head and looked up at the drink choices. "I don't know, Jackie, Blaster said he'd buy for us but that doesn't mean we can just go crazy and stick him with the bill,"
What Bulkhead didn't say out loud was that, while he was tempted, he also didn't want to get too drunk that night because he didn't want Miko to find out and he had been trying to set a better example for her.
Wheeljack elbowed Bulkhead. "Ah, c'mon, Bulk, where's that Wrecker sense of adventure?"
Then Bulkhead spotted something on the list of drinks. 'Jello shots? What are those?'
He knew what shots were so he looked up "Jello" on the internet, which told him it was a dessert that was popular among human children and also liked by adults. 'Hmm, those must be for when someone who's old enough to be in here brings kids with them because they can't find anyone to watch them…' Bulkhead pointed at the name on the drinks menu "How about we use a few of those? They're cheaper than the other shots so we're not mooching off of Blaster's payroll as much,"
Wheeljack nodded and tapped his hand on the bar top to get the bartender's attention. "Hey, bartender,"
The bartender turned around to face Wheeljack's holoform. "Yes?"
Wheeljack smirked at him "Can me and my buddy get a few shots? We're gonna have a little contest,"
The bartender quirked an eyebrow at him "A drinking contest?"
Wheeljack rolled his eyes "Well, we're not going to be having a drawing contest with them,"
The bartender laughed, seeing the humor in Wheeljack's sarcasm. "Alright, just asking because any shots used in drinking contests here come by the tray. Did you want a certain kind or do you want me to pick one at random?"
Wheeljack looked over at Bulkhead "What ones did you say you wanted to use again?"
Bulkhead rubbed his head "Uh, Jello shots?"
The bartender looked at him strangely then shrugged and got out a tray and loaded it with small plastic cups filled with multi-colored gelatin. "Alright boys, here's your Jello shots. May the best drinker win,"
While Wheeljack picked up the tray and went over to the table Smokescreen and Bumblebee saved for them with Bulkhead close behind him, the bartender leaned against the bar and looked over at Arcee with a flirtatious smile. "And what will the lady be having tonight?"
Deciding to be a smart ass, Arcee half-smiled at him and said "How about a nice glass of… Bite me!"
The bartender smiled and said "Alright, one 'Bite me' coming up," he turned around to get started on the drink he was fixing for her.
Confused, Arcee did some research on the internet and found that "Bite me", while being an insult, was also the name for a cocktail. 'Well, this ought to be interesting,'
After the bartender gave Arcee her drink she thanked the man and went over to where the others were sitting. As she walked away he called over his shoulder to someone in the back room "Hey, Cheryl, we're going to need some more Jello shots ready!"
By the time she got down to their table Bulkhead and Wheeljack were sucking down their Jello shots while Smokescreen kept track of how many Wheeljack had and Bumblebee kept track of how many Bulkhead had.
Arcee rolled her eyes as she sat down. "Really, guys, I'm not even gone five minutes and you're acting like animals?"
They all stopped long enough to shrug before resuming their contest.
In the end, Wheeljack won the contest being as he snatched the last one off the tray while Bulkhead reeled for a moment as the alcohol started to kick in and by then Arcee had come back with a refill on her drink—turns out "Bite me"s taste pretty good—and there were a lot more people there having drinks or down on the dance floor moving to the beat of Blaster's music under the crazy lighting.
After a while Bumblebee tried to get everyone to get up and dance, Wheeljack and Bulkhead absolutely refused but Arcee only hesitated a moment before letting the scout pulled her up and lead her to the steps that lead down to the floor.
"Wait, what do I do with this?" she held up her drink so Wheeljack grabbed a coaster off the stack of them in the center of the table.
"Put a coaster over the top of the glass, it's universal human bar lingo for 'This is mine, I'm coming back for it so leave it alone',"
Smokescreen looked at him "How would you know that?"
Wheeljack smirked "As soon as I got my holoform I went bar hopping in Rio, needed something to do when the 'Cons were quiet,"
Smokescreen nodded and started to lean back in his seat when a hand grabbed his. He looked up and saw Arcee's holoform pulling him with her as she took a step towards the steps leading down to the dance floor.
"Want to dance?" Smokescreen hesitated so she pulled him to his feet. "Come on, one dance isn't going to kill you,"
Smokescreen followed her and Bumblebee to the dance floor where the two mech's holoform's shone under the black lights due to the white and yellow clothing they were wearing while Arcee became like a constellation in the night sky that had been brought to life and was dancing gracefully between them as they formed a circle and danced together.
What no one else knew was that Arcee used to be a dancer before the war, she was also going to school to be a teacher but dancing was always her passion and with passion she danced.
Smokescreen couldn't help but stare at her as the strobe light changed to mimic lights that were reflected off of water ripples and the black lights had a sort of "moonlight" effect on her; she was beautiful.
Bumblebee was completely oblivious as he just danced wildly using moves Raf had taught him while Arcee used motions that combined ballet, hip hop and interpretive dance and Smokescreen just swayed to the music enough to look like he actually knew what he was doing.
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At two o'clock the bartender sent a waitress over to the DJ's table to ask Blaster to announce the last call for alcohol which he did and then started playing slower songs to "Wind things down for the night,"
After most of the people filed out of the club, the 'Bots in holoform helped Blaster load his "gear" onto a cart to keep up the pretense that the detachable components that formed part of his robotic body were just heavy pieces of sound system equipment and grabbed their holographic jackets and started to walk towards the back door they had come in.
Bulkhead was leaning heavily against Wheeljack, who could barely walk straight himself, while Bumblebee made sure made sure the two actually made it out the door and to their alt. modes—he almost had a mini panic attack when he saw they almost accidently wandered into the entrance to the ladies room instead of the exit.
Smokescreen was about to follow them out when he noticed Arcee was leaning against the back of the chair she had been sitting in with her eye lids at half-mast as if she were about to fall over from exhaustion.
Cautiously, he went over and nudged her side with his elbow "Hey, you okay?"
Arcee's head snapped up and she looked at him "Yeah, I'm fine. Just dizzy,"
Smokescreen nodded "Come on, let's get you home," Arcee stiffened when he put his arm around her to try to support her "Don't worry, I'm not going to try anything. I just want to make sure you don't accidently go into the wrong restroom like Bulkhead and Wheeljack did,"
Arcee relaxed slightly and let Smokescreen walk her outside where they all climbed into, or in her case onto, their alt. modes and Blaster put his sound systems into place since no one was around to see him lifting a speaker almost as big as he was in one arm and a sound board in the other.
Once everyone was set they all transformed into robot mode so they could hop the fence so they wouldn't have to circle around a few blocks to get into the open field out back where Ratchet could send a ground bridge without anyone seeing it.
But as soon as the 'Bots that drank that night got into robot mode, they all could tell something was wrong. Bulkhead, Wheeljack and Arcee all felt a tingling in their circuits and swayed on their peds as if they were drunk.
Smokescreen steadied Arcee since he was the closest one to her while Blaster and Bumblebee tried to hold Bulkhead up with help from Wheeljack, who wasn't as bad off as the other two.
Smokescreen patted on the side of Arcee's faceplate to try to keep her awake "Arcee, You sure you're okay?"
Arcee slowly reached up and rubbed her optics. "Mmmm, I feel like I'm overcharged. But how? I just had a few drinks with human alcohol in them…"
Blaster' helm snapped up "What kinda alcohol was it and how much did ya have?"
Arcee shrugged "I don't know… I had a few 'Bite me's "
Bulkhead rubbed his helm and mumbled "Jackie and me just had Jello shots so I think we're safe,"
Wheeljack looked up at Bulkhead "Bulkhead, Jello shots have alcohol in them. That's why they're shots,"
Bulkhead's optics widened "So we were drinking alcohol?"
"What did you think we were doing? Having a Jello eating contest?"
"…Yes,"
While the two Wreckers were bickering, Blaster looked up the recipes for the Arcee's drink choice and "Jello shots" and groaned "Guys, that stuff's got rum in it. Rum has a high alcohol content so it's highly flammable. Which means ya get even more energy out of it than anythin' else. So yeah, the three o' ya ah overcharged,"
The others were quiet for a moment until Bumblebee buzzed **(Ratchet's not gonna be happy.)**
Wheeljack snorted "He'll only be upset because we're overcharged and he's not. Tell him if he has a 'mint mojito' while in holoform it'll be the same as Praxian high grade and he'll shut right up,"
Blaster contacted the base :Ratchet, we need a ground bridge to our coordinates. Arcee, Bulkhead and Wheeljack can't drive right now.:
He got a response ping and cut off the link just as Bulkhead passed out on the ground.
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Back at the base
When Ratchet got the communiqué from Blaster he feared the worst, years of being a field medic in a war did that to a bot, and opened the ground bridge portal and waited to see if someone would come through.
Smokescreen stepped out of the ground ridge with Arcee in his servos bridal style. Ratchet gave the two of them a double take before shaking off the initial shock and asking "What happened? Where are the others?"
Smokescreen nodded towards the still open portal "Still trying to figure out how to get Bulkhead back to base. The mech can't even walk straight…"
A second later the others came through the portal; Blaster, Wheeljack and Bumblebee had tied Bulkhead's hands and feet together so he was curled up in fetal position and were now rolling him into the base like a giant beach ball.
Ratchet put his servos on his hips and frowned at them "Seriously?"
Wheeljack shrugged "It was the only thing we could think of since we can't exactly carry the big lug,"
Ratchet pinched the spot between his optics. "Fine, just put him someplace out of the way. He can go back to his room when he's able,"
"No problem, Doc, we can just put him in his room now,"
While they were talking, Arcee stirred in Smokescreen's arm-servos. At first he paid her no more mind than making sure he didn't drop her, but then he noticed the way her helm was rubbing against his chest plates and her arm-servos were tightening around him and realized she was cuddling with him!
"Uh, I'll go see if I can get Arcee to remember the access code to her quarters so she can recharge in her berth tonight,"
Smokescreen started to walk down the hall but stiffened when Arcee's digits started to find their way into the seams between his armor. "Whoa, hey don't do that," he looked over at the mechs that were about to start rolling Bulkhead again "Um, one of you guys want to trade?"
Arcee seemed to hear him, she wrapped her arm-servos around his neck and whimpered, like she was afraid he was going to drop her off with someone else, or just drop her.
Wheeljack saw this and chuckled "Nah. She wants you, Smokescreen,"
Smokescreen adjusted his hold on her mumbling "Poor choice of words, Wheeljack,"
Smokescreen carried Arcee down the hall and to her quarters, the femme gradually relaxed in his arm-servos the longer he held her. When he came to her door he nudged her with his digits "Hey, Arcee, we're here. You think you can unlock the door?"
Arcee slowly brought her optics online and looked up at him groggily then she looked at the keypad like she had never seen it before.
Realizing Arcee was probably too out of it to remember the access code, Smokescreen looked around and then at the door to the quarters he was assigned which happened to be across the hall.
The others had already brought Bulkhead in his room and Bumblebee went to his quarters while Blaster went to the room he and Smokescreen had cleaned out which he converted to his own quarters.
"Ah, screw it. I'll just stay at the garage tonight," Smokescreen stepped across the hall so he could open his own door. He had a hard time keying in the code with her in his arm-servos so he shifted her so she was over his shoulder, careful not to drop her or accidently hit his doorwings, so he had one servo free.
Arcee let her arm-servos swing and giggled "Whee! I'm upside down,"
While Smokescreen was typing in the code, Arcee caught sight of Smokescreen's aft and got a mischievous smirk on her face. Striking like a viper, she reached down with both servos and brought them down on Smokescreen's aft with a loud smack and squeezed.
Smokescreen jumped with a loud yelp, making Arcee giggle with her servos now over her mouth. Smokescreen craned his neck to try to look over his other shoulder at her. "Oh, you think that is funny, huh?"
He punched in the last few digits of the code and maneuvered her back down into his arm-servos as the door slid open so he could carry her over to the berth that was set up in the corner.
As Smokescreen walked in and carefully laid Arcee on the berth, she looked up at him, her processors so fuzzy from the extra energy that was derived from the flammable alcohol her holoform consumed that evening she couldn't even recognize him. 'Who is this? Why does he seem so familiar?'
Then she got a look at the room they were in and recognized it 'Oh, I think I remember now. Primus, how could I forget him?'
Smokescreen carefully laid her on the berth "Sorry I couldn't bring you to your own quarters, Arcee, but you're welcome to recharge here for the night,"
She looked up at him with a dopey little smile on her face "Are you gonna re-sh-arge here too?" her speech pattern was slurred with intoxication.
Smokescreen went and grabbed the waste bin out of the corner and placed it next to the berth. "No, I'll let you have the berth and recharge somewhere else. Waste bin's right next to the berth in case you need it,"
Arcee pushed herself to an almost-seated position and pulled Smokescreen into a hug. "You're awesome, you know that?"
Smokescreen stiffened then relaxed. "Oh, yeah?" If she was just saying that because she was drunk all he could do was play along so he wouldn't offend her, but if she really meant it…
Arcee nodded "Uh huh, you were always sho nice to me and I've been nothing but a glitch to everybot. I don't really mean it, I'm just having a hard time getting over… ya know,"
Smokescreen hugged her back "I know, I know," he spoke softly but in his mind he was cheering 'SHE LIKES ME! SHE LIKES ME!'
"Thank you," Arcee tightened her grip before releasing him, suddenly very tired.
Smokescreen noticed and eased her back onto the berth. "Power down, you'll feel better after some recharge,"
Arcee shuttered her optics and lay still so Smokescreen stood up and walked out of the room with a new spring in his step.
What he didn't notice was Arcee opened one of her optic shutters a crack and whispered"You're the best… Cliff,"
AN: *le gasp* What's going to happen next? Find out in the next chapter.
Another shout out to the people that read this, namely Kaleia (Guest) and Sparklight Prime.