Spitfire

Chapter XXXV

"Hey Hound?"

The green and silver Autobot opened his optics at the sound of his newest friend's voice, and stretched contentedly against the slope of the dune before pushing himself into a sitting position. Shading his bright gaze from the glare of the setting sun, he glanced over to where Tyler lay beside him, his hands tucked behind his head and one leg crossed over its encased other. The teenager's face, bronzed and healthy, glowed with the same emotions Hound felt: peace, simple happiness.

Tyler blinked when Hound's shadow fell across his body, and he too opened his eyes, sat up. He was silent for a moment, observing the Autobot thoughtfully; as he did so, rehearsing what he was about to ask for the umpteenth time, wondering why his question seemed so hard to voice aloud and unable to admit that he was afraid of a gentle but firm rejection, No, I'm sorry, Tyler, you're stuck with a guardian that despises you, he wished that it was already over and done with. He wished he knew the answer, and above all, he wished it was the answer he wanted to hear.

His chest inflated, deflated, as he took an uneasy breath, preparing himself.

"If I asked him," he began, forcing the steadiness of his voice to remain strong, "do you think Optimus Prime would allow me to switch guardians?"

Hound started with surprise, his optic ridges narrowing in curiosity. "Is there something wrong with your current guardian, boy?" he replied, all the while wracking his processor in an attempt to remember which of his fellow Autobots Tyler had been paired with. It was only after making a few cross connections, Ratchet and Zachary, Bumblebee, Sam and Mikaela, Jazz and Antonia, Optimus and Pilar, Ironhide and...he realized that Tyler had been placed under the guardianship of Ironhide after Optimus had discovered there was no one else for him to go with. Considering the fact that Ironhide was spoken for as far as charges go, and taking into account the weapons specialist's nasty personality...

"Oh." Hound winced and wilted at Tyler's expression, which had changed from its earlier tranquility. It had turned stormy, wounded. "You are...Ironhide's charge."

"He hates my guts," Tyler stated bluntly. His eyebrows furrowed together as he bowed his head, staring at his hands splayed in his lap. "He hates me, and I don't even know why. While Zach is buddying up to Ratchet, while Antonia and Jazz are sharing secrets...My guardian's hiding from me." Tyler's weak attempt at an incredulous smile died before it reached his lips. "Do you know how shitty that makes me feel? I mean, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I did something to...to offend him, but I didn't. I did nothing and yet, he can't stand to be around me!"

Hound remained quiet as he listened, his frown deepening with every sentence Tyler completed. He wondered absently if Ironhide had the slightest clue he had affected his reluctant charge so much, and at the same time, he answered this flyaway thought himself: No. There was not a chance Ironhide cared enough about what others thought or felt, much less about what a youngling thought and felt, to realize how much he had hurt Tyler. It made him sad to think that his old friend had not changed from what he remembered of him on Cybertron. Since Chromia's death, he had been so bitter.

"Is it me, Hound?" Tyler asked, bringing Hound out of his reverie. His tone had become accusing, though Hound knew that these accusations were not aimed at him. "Is it me? Is there something wrong with me?"

The stocky Autobot lifted his hands in an attempt to dissuade his human companion. "Tyler - "

"Because if there is," he continued, speaking above Hound's voice, his own sounding forced and increasingly angry. "I think I should know. You need to tell me the truth too, you can't lie to make me feel better about it! That won't help - "

"Tyler." When his name was spoken, as though it was a command, the teenager stopped, his chest rising and falling with quick, short breaths. His gaze bore into Hound's own, searching for an explanation.

"Is it me?" he barked once more, his jaw set firmly, furiously.

Hound stared back at him, calm. Nothing about his demeanor hinted at the pain he was feeling for the first human friend that he had made since arriving on Earth, nor did anything hint at the uncharacteristic irritation he felt, one that was steadily escalating into fury, toward Ironhide. If only you knew, he thought again of the weapon's specialist distractedly. Would it make any difference?

"It is not you," Hound said softly. "It is Ironhide. But you must realize something. He has...faced hardships that have caused him to act the way he does. He is hurt, Tyler. Incredibly so. He is..." Optimus Prime lost a spark-mate as well, yet he is nothing like Ironhide.

He sighed, the air whistling through his intakes as this realization popped up in his processor. "...That...that does not justify his behavior towards you, and I was foolish to think so," he admitted sorrowfully. Why am I making up excuses for him? He does not deserve them. "I am sorry."

Tyler's expression softened, the storm system that had haunted his expression breaking down into nothing more than rain clouds, each of them a different shade of gray. "It's all right, it just..." He shrugged and allowed his sentence to end there.

It just hurts, that's all, Hound pieced together silently. Of course it does. I would hurt too.

He scooted closer to Tyler, slipping along the sand on his backside. Desperate to redirect the conversation, he poked him in the side teasingly. "Who are you going to request to become your new guardian?" Hound asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Tyler, however, caught on quickly, and he shot the Autobot a small smile.

"Take a guess," he suggested.

Though he had had an idea that it would be him, it was nonetheless flattering to learn that it was true. Hound's spark warmed within his chassis as he returned Tyler's smile with one of his own. "I think I would greatly enjoy being your guardian," he stated. "Of course, if it was me you were talking about..."

"Yeah, it's you, Sherlock," Tyler countered playfully. His expression had bounced yet again. It was momentously happy, sunlight breaking through the clouds on his face. "You mean it, though? You wouldn't mind being my guardian?"

"Wouldn't mind? Did I not just say, 'greatly enjoy'?" Hound replied, his optics bright. He carefully lifted Tyler by tucking his fingers around his torso and placed him companionably on his shoulder.

"I mean it," he confirmed. "I would like it very much."

Tyler stared at Hound, a goofy smile that he couldn't seem to control still plastered on his lips. He didn't know what to say, was at an utter loss for words that didn't sound as though they came straight off the sentimental bromance bandwagon, and even those seemed unsuitable for this situation. The feeling of being wanted, the feeling that he had a guardian that he could connect with and enjoy being around, just as Antonia did with Jazz and Sam did with Bumblebee, was not a feeling that could be described and explained with words. How quickly Hound had caught on to him and how readily he had accepted his request further rendered him silent. His earlier, skittering uncertainty about Hound's response seemed so silly to him now.

Trying to regain the ground that had been tugged away so unexpectedly beneath him, Tyler was forced to resort to what he knew and did best.

"You know what this is?" he asked, giving an exaggerated sigh as he leaned back against Hound's shoulder plating. "This is a Kodak moment."

Hound, more than pleased with Tyler's rebound, was on the verge of agreeing with him when he stopped mid-nod, looking a little confused.

He glanced at Tyler. "What is a Kodak?"

"Have you listened to our inferior Earth music yet?"

Jazz's optical visor flickered and brightened, and he propped his arms beneath him so that he could rest against his elbows. He glanced at Antonia, sitting a few feet away and holding something small and square with a pair of earphones tucked around it.

She raised an eyebrow in curiosity and dangled the thin object by the white wire of its earphones, teasing him with it.

"Well?" she asked. "Have you, amigo?"

Jazz pushed himself into a sitting position. "Once or twice," he replied loftily, reaching out for the tiny device.

Once or twice was an understatement. He had discovered music much sooner than any of the other Autobots had, just as he had discovered the diversities and complexities of organic culture as a whole; had discovered it and delved into it with a curiosity and an interest that was unmatched, even when compared to Bumblebee's.

He had wasted hour upon hour poking and prodding and exploring the human world with the help of the internet, learning everything and anything he possibly could about the species with which they shared a planet, merely because their civilization was so intricate, their ways of life so new, that it had him hooked with absorption from the moment the Autobots had arrived. Most of this study had occurred during the dark and extraordinarily boring, dismal days he had been spent under Ratchet's overprotective care, but even after he had received a reluctant bill of health, he still used his off-time to learn and pioneer boldly where no Autobot had gone before. Some of these adventures led him to places he did not want to go ever again...But more often than not, his virtual escapades were successes.

What he considered his most successful one to date was his encounter with music, an aspect of organic life that did not seem to have an end. There were so many different types of music, so many different voices that sang different songs with different lyrics and different meanings, it was, at times, almost too much for his processor to handle. It was incredible, the amount of levels there were to the concept of music, how many components, how many bits and pieces. He felt as though he had barely scratched the surface; he had not even pushed his way through to dances and instruments yet, which were incredible microcosms of their own.

It was his newest interest, this universe of song and word, and it was his favorite. Even without its complexities, twists and turns, it would remain his favorite because of something rather simple.

He loved the sound of the human voice.

Its many pitches and tones, its ability to create emotion without words, by mere noise, the way it could vary between soft and hard, quiet and loud, within a second's time; he loved it all, everything about it. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard, and because it was, he enjoyed his organic voice more so than he had enjoyed the clicks, squeaks and overall bland quality of the Cybertronian language.

Once or twice was most definitely an understatement.

Antonia dropped the device into his enormous hand and he absently thanked her, his attention already focused on the object he held carefully between his fingers. The tip of one claw pressed against the play button of what he determined was an iPod, and its screen brightened. A long list of artists appeared after another few clicks, and he began to scroll through them, every once in awhile coming across a name he recalled. Daft Punk, Dirty Vegas, Gorillaz, The Killers...

He didn't notice Antonia's close proximity until she reached out with her bronzed hand, so small compared to his own, and tapped the screen. "That's a good band," she stated quietly, startling him out of his silent inspection. He glanced first at her, wondering distractedly how he had failed to notice her presence, and then at the band she had mentioned.

"Huh." He clicked it, bringing up a list of the band's songs as he did so, and all the while trying to ignore the spark thrumming pleasantly within his chest cavity. She's so close, an irritating inner voice exclaimed happily. Isn't it nice? Isn't it lovely, her being so close?

Hey, do you think you'll be going into overload soon, or what?

He gave his head an oblivious shake, quick and uneasy, before focusing on Antonia again. "What's your favorite song?" he asked as lightly as he could manage.

Jazz relinquished the iPod when Antonia wordlessly gestured for it, peered over her shoulder as she scrolled down the short list, and then nimbly caught the headphone she tossed at him when she found what she was looking for. Although he inspected it curiously, he did nothing else with it.

At Antonia's questioning expression, he shrugged. "Ain't got an ear to put it in," he stated in response, flashing her sheepish grin.

Antonia frowned. "What are those silly things on your head, then?" she questioned, giving one of his antennas a tweak. Before he could voice a retort, 'Scuse me?, she waved a hand dismissively. "Nevermind. Can you listen to it some other way?"

Jazz nodded. "Guess'o. Bee's not the only one with a radio. If you got a plug or somethin' I could use..." Just as he had caught the useless headphone, he caught another white wire, a small plug, as well, twirling it effortlessly around his pointed pinky finger as he did so.

Fiddling with his chest plate, his still-throbbing, traitorous spark hidden thankfully beneath it, Jazz made the right connections, plugging the wire and its attached iPod into his radio as quickly as he possibly could, and still desperately attempting to silence that twittering inner voice - so close just have to reach and touch so close are you going to overload yet - to no avail.

With one last mental shove, the voice, whoever it belonged to, quieted down. At that same moment, the song Antonia had chosen began to beat from his speakers.

At first, there was nothing but soft, purely instrumental music, rising and falling in intermediate spikes, and as soon as it reached his audials, Jazz deflated.

Forgetting his squeaky mind-monster, he leaned against the wall and slid slowly down so that he was nearly lying with his back pressed to the metal panels of the floor. His legs crossed loosely, as did his arms, and he propped up his chin so that it rested on the rise of his chassis. His visor dulled to a dim glow, the Cybertronian equivalent of closing his eyes. This was the sort of reaction he experienced time and time again, as if the music drained him of his energy and left him loose and limp, casting a spell on him that could not be broken until the song was finished. It was not a reaction he succumbed to unwillingly, but thoroughly enjoyed, almost needed.

When the lyrics, somehow sounding both strong and watered-down, spilled themselves into a mixture of instruments he could not immediately identify, Jazz felt Antonia quietly and carefully rest her head against his chest. Expecting some sort of burning explosion to rock and roil his spark chamber, he braced himself for the overload his painfully-irritating inner voice continually nudged him about.

None came.

She's a rainbow and she loves the peaceful life,
Knows I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight.
There's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet,
And there's a part of you that wants me to riot...

In the place of an explosion, there was spreading, sweetly numbing warmth, beginning within the core of his spark and rolling through him in soft waves, twining through his circuits the way a vine twines its careful way up a tree. Feeling this warmth lap at the edge of his processor, Jazz reached out with one clawed hand and draped it, after a moment's hesitation, over Antonia's small body. In silent response, she gripped the tip of his pointed index finger and squeezed it in the same way she had when they'd first met, with her splayed out across the broken pavement and him standing sentry beside her, the only one of the Autobots sensitive enough to realize how badly she had needed someone to simply hold her hand and tell her that she would be all right.

...Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear?
The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear.
Oh, but a change of heart comes slow...

It's not a hill, it's a mountain,
As you start out the climb.
Listen for me, I'll be shouting.
We're gonna make it all the way to the light,

But you know I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight.

They remained that way, curled together in the starlit darkness of the projected observatory, throughout the remainder of the song, suns, moons, stars, planets, worlds upon worlds steadily twirling around them in a scattered array of bright diamond chips, some labeled in strange dialect and others unexplored, unnamed. The lack of conversation, the silence resting between them, was not uncomfortable.

There was nothing that needed to be said.

Shouting to the darkness,
Squeeze out sparks of light.

You know we're gonna go crazy,
You know we'll go crazy,
You know we'll go crazy if we don't go crazy tonight.

His heart was beating extremely fast, too fast; it was a wild animal determined to break out its cage, ripping and tearing at the rusted, trembling bars that held it back, screaming and wailing as it slammed its body against its confines, wide, liquid eyes red with a nasty mixture of rage and confusion.

Beating was too soft a word to describe his heart's pace at this point. It was slamming, and it was painful.

Sam gasped and tore frantically at his t-shirt, his brow glistening and beading with iridescent droplets of sweat as his fingers tugged and pulled clumsily, his barbaric heart still slamming BUMPBUMPBUMPBUMP within the captivity of his ribs even as he wiggled free of the shirt's thin fabric. He moaned in disgust at how wet it was, soaked with his frightened sweat, and proceeded to ball it up and throw it weakly across the small expanse of the bedroom. He forgot about it even before it reached the metal, square panels of the floor, too busy listening to the tribal drum of the muscle that appeared to be experiencing some sort of intense spasm.

Falling back against the coverlet of his tiny bed, Sam gripped the edges of his mattress with fingers that twitched and trembled, his eyes bulging from their sockets, heated blood rushing through his veins at speeds his body was not designed to handle. He retained the scream that was building itself up within his lungs by pressing his wet lips into a thin line and, after great difficulty, closed his tearing eyes, begging for some relief from this immense pain BUMPBUMPBUMPBUMP that had appeared out of nowhere.

As soon as the lids of his burning eyes dropped, memories of sounds, voices, places, faces exploded within his broiling mind like Hell's fireworks, bathed in every shade of red and orange imaginable.

- Megatron rearing above him, his intricate expression pierced with an imposing, sharp smile as he reached toward him with greedy, clicking, clawed hands I SMELL YOU BOY HUMANS DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE GIVE ME THAT CUBE -

- Optimus Prime collapsing to his knees, desperately attempting to fight Megatron, to keep him away from Sam, away from the Cube, trying to kill his sibling in an effort to protect a tiny planet and all its inhabitants One shall stand One shall fall THEY DESERVE TO CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES In your debt Sam I am in your debt Sam -

- Mikaela, beautiful Mikaela, his beautiful Mikaela, her hand grasping his, her face turning toward him, still somehow so perfect even when bathed in blood and dust, even when smelling of fright and city streets No matter what happens I am really glad I got into that car with you... -

- Bumblebee, his first car, his guardian, his protector, his best friend, the friendly neighborhood alien, leaping for Barricade, sliding across the ground and catching him and saving him, saving him, always saving him, always fighting for him even when his legs had been blown clean away I would like to stay with the boy -

Sam spasmed against the bed sheets, his legs and arms flailing and twitching with an enormous amount of kinetic energy that he seemed unable to contain, as every memory collapsed in on itself and exploded violently within his mind, exploded in a strange rainbow of voices and faces and feelings. His heart beating ever quicker BUMPBUMPBUMPBUMP, the scream escaping his lungs and climbing up his throat with the force of a derailed freight train, his fingertips digging into the his mattress and his lips becoming unhinged as he prepared for either a complete meltdown or death by explosion of the heart, Sam gasped and twisted into a sitting position, his mouth nothing but a gaping, black hole.

It was then, the moment his heart was ready leap free, the moment his scream was ready to do the same, something inside of him snapped. Or rather, it deflated, the way a popped balloon would do when it has had a run-in with an unexpected point.

The scream, the jack-hammer of his heart and the throb of his blood stopped no sooner than he could bat an eye; his muscles, all of which had been so incredibly and uncomfortably tight seconds before, loosened, as did his grip on the mattress. His flailing legs and arms dropped like rocks against the bed spread, the bones within them feeling no stronger than jelly. He didn't have the strength to lift the lids of eyes to any more than thin, tearing half-slits.

It was as though someone had flipped a switch, successfully powering him down when he had been on the verge of overloading.

Gasping up at the paneled ceiling and seeing nothing more than a blurred, hazy gray, Sam felt every surface of his body, drenched in a cold, frightened sweat, tremble. What just happened? he thought, repeating the words in an unacknowledged whisper as the last throes of the power-down wracked him with another, harder shiver. What just happened to me...?

Letting his eyes slip closed once again, Sam Witwicky spiraled down, consciousness abandoning him to comatose, black exhaustion.