A/N: Hi! Updating this chapter to insert a preface. I'm not the biggest fan of writing author's notes all the time but I do understand why they are necessary, and I especially do wanna say a couple of things here. First things first, thank you so much for reading, reviewing, faving, following, etc. For the people that have done so, quite a surprise when I saw the email notifs haha! Still though, it does mean a lot, especially because beyond anything, I want to know if this story is making even the tiniest impact or has made some sort of impression. Please do not be afraid to leave reviews, PM me anything, etc. I'd love to know what you think of what's being written here.
The other reason why I wanted to insert an AN here is because it's also unlikely I'll insert another until the very end of the story. Thus, I figured it's time to come clean about who and what has inspired me to write this story. The idea that would eventually become this story has existed for a really long time, even long before I even started to write the very first fic I published on this site! When I was younger, a lot of my fic ideas were based upon Transformers after having been exposed to G1 and the Bayverse when I was a literal kid. I was especially super into very emotionally confused and devastating Transformer/Human dynamics and relationships and also ones where an Autobot becomes an OC's guardian. Mix that with an also simultaneous interest in TV talent shows at the time and you basically had something resembling this story at an age where I was just learning how to write. However, I wasn't quite ready to embark on this kind of story yet, and I didn't know how to really fashion that kind of dynamic or even write a story back in the day.
It took a lot of reading fanfic and a lot of what happened in my RL to really put this story into focus. It wasn't until fairly recently that I finally began to 'get' what I think I want to write as my character here. While it is true that I've had the kernel of this story since at least the early 2010s, its actual conception didn't really begin until late last year. Even so, this story owes a lot of debts to a lot of influences. On the Transformers side, I owe the biggest debt to Twin Times the Fun. If there was one story from way back in the day that stayed with me, it's that one. And if anything, that story has inspired me so much that I was afraid of following some of points beat-by-beat. I'm also deeply indebted to TF Prime and Smokescreen's character, as well as the multitude of fanfics I've read where he was a character of focus. I also owe 2018's A Star Is Born not just for the title, but for a lot of the music that has inspired this fic as well as the character work that inspired who would become Roland. While I have no intention of writing a romance, aspects of both Ally and Jackson (but primarily Ally) have found an afterlife in the words I've written and in the words I hope to write. Really, that movie formed one of the many backbones that this story is built upon (and in a way-it would not be difficult at all to guess the eventual ending of the story), and it's why I chose 'A Star Is Born' as the title. In a lot of ways, Roland became who he is because I wanted to bring together the tragedy of Ally and Jackson into one character. The Greatest Showman inspired some of the optimism I hoped to bring, and the ways in which its songs have found a long life in televised talent shows is also one I've noted down here.
It's a melange of influences, some of which would end up dominating the chapter on its own if I spent even more time explaining this. As a result, it's also resulted in a story where I'm not quite sure what kind of continuity this exists in. This does exist in a universe where at least the first two Bayverse movies have happened, with the third movie still in the pocket. Regardless, I'll try my best to stick to at least that kind of cultural moment in the early 2010s.
I hope you enjoy reading. Thank you so much for clicking and hopefully sticking around. Please do feel free to leave a review-I'd love to talk with readers.
The bar smelled of cheap liquor, musky and unpleasant yet adding a paradoxically thin and resonant sense of camaraderie in a Chicago dive bar. In places like these, there was always a focus on enjoying the night away in the forms of affordable spirits, mostly beer and whatever other cheap drinks were on offer. Sometimes the proceedings got too rowdy, and sometimes they fell into this strange lull where even the highs and the hollerings just got too typical. Rosa, the woman who tended to the bar, often saw these patterns especially in the wake of alien organisms being now painfully public knowledge. It was a strange thing to accept in the fabric of what was ostensibly normal life on this planet, the undeniable proof that there were aliens, that this was not the concoction of conspiracy theorists looking to profiteering off hysteria and sensationalism. Liquor was the escape that Rosa saw so many indulge and engage in when those tragic events in Mission City transpired. From the Johns to the Marys to the Sues, to whatever walks of life that often went into these dive bars, they all wanted an escape from this new reality.
This wasn't how things were meant to be, when there were already so many problems that were left unsolved in Earth itself.
Nobody wanted to be a part of some traumatic and action-packed movie. That was the chatter amongst the patrons in this night, the dive bar relatively quiet even as it often played host to musical guests or loud music blaring through the walls and the props to give some background noise. It was an unofficial open mic for those brave enough to dare sing, and it was often that the audience here wasn't the most responsive one. It made sense, given that it was sometimes hard to see the singers when the cheap lights and the strong glare that emanated from them which made it hard to see, and sometimes local acts just didn't induce that much interest. It was hard to garner the attention of a panicked public, but even under ostensibly 'normal' times, it was sometimes difficult to command attention beyond just simply fleeting glances.
One of the performers slated for the night, Roland Morrow, didn't want to be forgotten in the crowd. Yet, from his sight and from the way that how he was introduced was rather rushed, there was a mountain to climb and villages to build if he wanted to have a prayer in even winning over this crowd. Granted… what he sought beyond just the confines of entertaining a bar crowd was dreams he knew were of a delusional magnitude, but he simply tried to steel his nerves with a deep breath. This was part and parcel of how those that shared his aspirations, either its wildest variations or its most practical avenues, needed to pay their dues to prove they had the grit and patience to bear with how unforgiving and ruthless the life of performance could be. He quickly rehearsed the set of songs he had in his mind in the hopes that perhaps one song could attract the attention of at least one patron, instead of him being relegated into the muddle of background noise.
He began a song he was familiar with, some mega-hit earlier on in the century that should inoffensive enough not to cause any jeers, yet hopefully catchy and impactful enough that he could showcase what he thought were some modicum of his talents. The song meandered a bit, an acoustic instrumental accompanied by some self-reflective, if indulgent, lyrics that he wished he could've written or expressed. It was a great song for those nights where one needed to listen to something personal and universal all at once. It wasn't too demanding on him vocally especially as he began to move into the chorus, though nothing he did was attracting their attention. The bar carried on as it normally would, the patrons far more invested in their shots of liquor than giving him the time of day or recording.
He just wished the lyrics didn't cut so close to home as he sang, seeing the uncaring faces of the crowd. It was a sight he should be used to, yet the past couple of months began to bear down on him, and thoughts that he was fighting were battles that he kept losing over and over. It came with the territory of wanting to break into the music industry, but never did he feel more isolated and perhaps even incompetent than at this very moment. There was one thing to attract controversy, but to not even garner a reaction… it was something he tried not to contemplate as he moved through song to song, each of them mostly geared towards showcasing his vocals.
His voice was pleasant, powerful even in spots, but as far as the crowd was concerned, he was nothing to really write home about. There was not even a crowd that mobilized around him as he approached the end of the set, and it all ended as it began, with the announcement of another singer before last call and a perfunctory cheer for somebody that was brave enough to show their craft. Roland just wished he was farther along than he already was, leaving the dive bar with his mind blank, his throat needing to be relaxed, and a dread that sat in his heart. He wasn't sure where external circumstances began and where the blame could be shifted to his part at a burgeoning career that wasn't working out, even though in perspectival terms… things were okay in the sense that he wasn't in total destitution. His place of residence had dodged the destruction wrought by the Cybertronians, with neither Autobots nor Decepticons having been sighted (as far as he knew anyway). He still had an apartment and a job he was barely holding down.
Yet even so, he couldn't deny the fickleness of the industry he was hoping to get into, in trying to find an elusive entry point or even a door that he could force open before he was deemed too old or too out of style.
He paced out of the dive bar and to his car, trying to move quickly through the darkened Chicago streets as paced past late night stragglers and the shady characters that were typical. He walked with a hastened pace, concealing his face to not reveal what he could only call a frustration that stormed within him. Once he reached his car, he opened the door, locked it, and gripped the steering wheel with both hands that were somewhat weakened from the chill. He actively tried to fight against the temptation to yell, but it was far too late. Before long, he pressed his face against the worn steering wheel and screeched into it. It was hardly the most graceful way to vent out his frustrations, and even then, it devolved into a moment where he found himself leaning into the leather, crying into his car before he realized he had devolved into that extent. The screaming did not last for long, knowing it aggravated his throat.
His eyes stole glances at the messes that were abound the car, from his attempts at songwriting to the many letters filled with rejections and notices. They were correspondences with local talent agencies, to CDs filled with his own recordings that he dressed up as demos, to job letters and copies of his resume for those that demanded paper copies. He needed a better handle on how to organize this, that much he knew. That wasn't even discounting the even older messes that he knew were buried beneath these newer papers, knowing they probably revealed just how long he was fighting to achieve this amorphous dream he held within.
He sobbed and laughed all at once, knowing that the power to pull a geographic didn't really change anything.
He started the car so as to not attract suspicion. Besides, it was getting far too late to linger and loiter. He gently coaxed the car out of the parking space he used to perform the dive bar he wanted to make a normal habit out of performing in, but he knew it was probably time to start looking at other places. Tired and exhausted as he was, other concerns would enter his mind. There was the question of paying his rent that would be due in at least a week, hoping that the paycheck from his job as a sales associate would come through the e-deposit at some point so he would not have to contend with an angry landlord. There were searched he needed to keep ahold of, opportunities to see if he could land some collaborations or even moving to a larger city to pursue what could truly be a bigger break. There was the holy grail of moving to either coast, the dream of recording in either New York or Los Angeles, even though those two cities were prime targets to be targeted in the current geopolitical extraterrestrial climate.
There would always be a new day, that much he tried to remember as he navigated the familiar streets of Chicago. It was distressingly close to the witching hour as he drew closer to home, with an expected lack of people given that last calls were either happening in some bars or they had already shuttered for the night, not wishing to deal with those wanted to drink during the wee hours of the morning. A part of him wished he had made it a bit more of a hustle to get to home, but there was no controlling the sometimes-unpredictable hours that came with performing.
"Get it together, Roland… get it together," he whispered as a mantra as he began the process of pulling up to the driveway where he stored his car in, having approached the cheap for Chicago apartment complex that he'd called home ever since he became an Illinois transplant.
He knew that he needed to collapse and get at least three to four hours of sleep before preparing for a long workday and what no doubt was going to be more hours after scouring for any chance to hopefully expose his voice and material. It was all part of the grind, all part of the process… at least he got to sing, that much he tried to use as a genuine consolation. And in many ways, it worked when the process brought joy, which it sometimes did. As soon as he closed the door and exited his beat-up sedan, an odd instinct went through his neck and shoulders, a strange sense that there was something here.
He tried to shake off the instinct; perhaps staying up at this hour was causing him to imagine things that he knew should not be here. The shadier nature of things when time crossed into night didn't help, but he swore there was something in the corner of his eyes… did a car just move from the corner of his peripheral vision? Was somebody just messing around this late into the night? He was not sure, and he was not brave enough to take out his phone, lest he wanted to risk getting robbed in the middle of the parking lot. With a sigh, he tried not to pay too much mind, but again… he saw something move.
He shook his head as his frazzled thoughts led his mind to act slower and faster at the same time, where logic would normally be dictating his actions being subsumed under a billowing panic that left him paralyzed. He looked around to see if there was anybody else about to pull up or any other souls that would be walking about, and to his dual relief and anxiety, there was no other human soul to be found about the area. It was not the smartest idea to ensure that his car was locked with his keys once again, causing the double beeping to reverberate through the area and echo a touch. Whatever was soul was hidden would be ensured that somebody was here.
He stuffed the keys into his pockets as curiosity got the better of him. There was no way this night would've gotten more interesting than it already has, but perhaps trying to see what that moving car was about wouldn't be too huge of an issue. As he approached what he thought seemed to be rather strange perpetrator, it looked just like any vehicle parked around here… except it seemed to have a peculiar shine to it, as if whoever owned the vehicle seemed intent on making sure that anyone who walked by would know that this car was extremely well-maintained. However, there was something about the way it shined against the blaring lights of Chicago that made it appear rather unnatural… to Roland's eyes, the car appeared rather uncanny in a way, or perhaps he was simply projecting what he did not know onto this.
He was hardly one to be around those who cared for their belongings in such an expensive way. In a lot of ways, it reminded him of how much he needed to take care of his own car, given the amount of maintenance obligations he could not even afford yet were desperately needed. He turned his head around, with every intention to simply walk away and linger about his apartment until he heard a peculiar sound from the direction of that car. It was a sound he could not describe, one that grated on his ears until he turned around to see the car suddenly… on? There were headlights but there was a lack of an occupant in the driver's seat. Before long, what was a heavy exhaustion gave way to a panic that quickly developed in his mind and body, his chest constricting as the car seemed to approach autonomously.
His mind couldn't even conceive of the possibilities or its impossibilities, he was no technophile. Any thought of this being a dream as he began the process of pacing away quickly, but Roland's panicked demeanor only caused him to start yelping. He did not even make it a few paces to his apartment when he heard that metallic grating sound begin to intensify, the sounds of what he could only latently described as 'belonging to the future' as metal began to grind on metal, causing him to have to cover his ears for a moment.
However, if the sound was shocking enough, it was when Roland turned around was when he was practically immobilized.
His night turned out far too interesting, with Roland's eyes bearing witness to a being he could not describe. There was a towering metallic biped in front of his eyes that seemed to resemble the shape of the car he once saw in some parts, but what struck him the most were the red eyes that seemed to have every intent on murdering him. Curiosity clearly had clearly angered the metallic being, if Roland could even recognize such a metallic face expressing an emotion. Fight or flight took over Roland's instincts as he began to run, screaming from the pit of his throat not even caring it was not the thing to do for someone like him. His life was on the line, metallic thuds erasing any thought he had from earlier regarding his own station in life.
He willed for his unconditioned body to run as fast as he could, but the lack of balance and training meant that shortly along the way and not even a couple of paces away, he would fall to the ground in his desperate attempts to run. He had inched closer to the apartment but did not clear enough distance away from the parking lot as the panic was far too much to overcome. Tears began to stream from his face as he stared into the face of his would-be alien killer, a small part of him hoping that tonight was just some horrid nightmare that he would soon wake up from. His eyes could only catch what looked to be murderous intent in those horrifying red optics. Roland closed his eyes as all he could do was but prepare for an untimely demise, framed by being in a parking lot that had all but engulfed in flame from what he assumed were destroyed cars.
Tonight was a confluence of fortune in both extremes, with Roland opening his eyes to find that the perpetrator, what he assumed to be some sort of metal construct was knocked back. The first thing he would glance at was the ruined destruction wrought by the towering metal creature, seeing his own car destroyed, and seeing others crumbled and unusable. There was an unpleasant chorus of car alarms and chaos devoid of other people.
He was so panicked that he hadn't even realized he encountered a Decepticon, and such knowledge only came to him when he saw what he confused for a living metal construct to be the very same Cybertronians that had made entry into this planet years ago. If it was possible for panic to burrow even deeper into his being, it was certainly possibly now. His tired eyes saw not just one, but two of them engaged in a hurried fight. There was another with what he saw were blue optics, bearing a rather metallic silver and blue finish. The sight was far too surreal for him to turn away, his instincts only returning when the fight drew closer to his position, and he would again book it, trying to find a safe place for cover somewhere. Even so, that meant hiding against some fence post nearby, not even thinking that it was flimsy and pathetic protection.
He didn't want to stay here for the night, now that the implications began to settle in. Just when he thought the world began to heal from the crisis wrought by Cybertronians being here, it was only luck that he would encounter one of each from both factions. The fight would get uncomfortably close and all Roland could do was scream until his voice gave out, his throat so past the point of being able to produce such loud sounds that he wasn't even sure he could talk. The time from contact to battle felt so incredibly long, but soon, when the fighting began to die down, and when grunts, metal scraping, and fire finally ceased… the battle seemed over.
Each inch of his body was trembling, the adrenaline within him not ceasing. He felt the tremor of the earth seeming to shake when he saw one of those Cybertronians walk towards his direction. Roland looked up, expecting again to find that his life would be extinguished in mere moments, but his eyes instead saw the sight of the Autobot that had… seemed to survive the battle? He could see a concerned and curious look in the Autobot's face, the silver and blue mech kneeling down towards his direction and seeming to reach out with a hand.
"Hey… hey. Are you… are you okay?" The robot asked.
Roland quickly shook his head no, feeling his throat was way too strained to speak with little effort. He quickly felt around his body, but the adrenaline was far too much for him to efficiently determine if he was suffering from wounds external and internal. As far as his mind was concerned, nothing was okay in this moment; the stress had caused him to cry almost to the point where he wasn't even realizing it, and it took a few moments for him to settle and find the wherewithal to answer.
"Who…" Roland tried to ask, only finding the will and ability to speak after having had to repeat that same word again. "What… who… are you?..."
"Whoa, calm down. It's okay!" The Autobot sounded awfully… cavalier? Calm about the situation? "My name is Smokescreen, and I'm what you… humans, right? I'm what you all call Autobots."
Roland wasn't sure how to describe the attitude that felt youthful, no less a pride in his voice. In a way, the reassurance seemed to work. However, the distant sounds of police sirens blaring off into the distance had caused their conversation to be cut short. Of course someone would've called the cops on a commotion, and the singer began to panic at the realization of having to potentially explain the unexplainable. The destruction was far too much. He swore he could hear the Cybertronian utter a 'slag' before looking towards Roland's way with a look of concern and subsequently transforming into a car before his very eyes, the make and model recognizable except for looking worthy of a magazine shoot for some car enthusiast magazine. The car door opened.
"You good for a drive?" He could hear from within, the very same voice that Smokescreen bore. It was one thing to say this through 'leaked' videos of questionable quality, but before his very eyes?
A part of Roland had only one thing to say to this entire situation: 'fuck it, basically.'
He had made far worse decisions in the past. Going back to his apartment was likely the wiser choice, but being near death brought about its own sense of bravery that toed the line of being needlessly foolish. As strange as it was to enter a car who he knew was an actual living, robotic being, he quickly did so. He entered the car, finding it odd that Smokescreen hadn't made the split-second choice to simply vacate the area. Weren't Autobots like him meant to live their lives in secrecy? It was a paradox, given that the existence of Cybertronians was something of an open secret at this point.
Still, he tried to get comfortable in the driver's seat, hesitating to put his hands on the driver's seat. It was far more luxurious than any car he's ever been in, with Roland marveling at the indoor technology on offer before realizing that Smokescreen had began to speed off to who knows where. Roland tried to fight through the panic and shock that reverberated through every thought he tried to think, knowing he needed to get some sort of answers from the Autobot as to why this was all happening.
"So… what's your name? And what were you doing out there?" He heard the Autobot ask through the sound system, not too long after they began to depart from the area. Roland was far too slow in coming up with questions.
"My… name is Roland," his voice was still rather shaky, but he was slowly gathering the wherewithal to speak beyond a sentence. "I was… going back home and then… they… they…" He wasn't sure how to describe what happened. God, he knew that the police would've had a strange field day with his shock, given how desperate they would've been for answers.
"It's okay, it's okay." Smokescreen tried to reassure him but given just how casually the Autobot seemed to be taking this, the amount of trust that Roland wanted to contemplate giving him was still rather low. "Assuming you live 'round here then, right? With all of these… these blocky buildings, right?"
"Yeah… yeah," Roland responded, "Apartments basically… That… attacked me as I was about to go. I heard some noise from there and… they just did that thing like you did, where you transformed."
How could someone like Smokescreen have been so easygoing? He wasn't sure how to measure the age or demeanor of alien beings, but something about the way the Autobot talked… was he a new arrival on Earth? What was going on? Shouldn't he have been in that military base somewhere? He had so many questions, but he wasn't sure where to ask or begin. The last thing Roland wanted was to ask something that would anger the Autobot and find himself stranded without any way to get back home, given just how late it was getting.
"What… were you doing here then?... I… I had thought you all were supposed to be… hidden from us?..." It was not the most elegant way to ask a set of questions, and Roland nearly wished he had the ability to be able to immediately erase what he had just said. However, these were questions he could not easily take back so easily. Given that the dashboard had began to light up in a formulation of a response, he knew that it was far too late for him to take it back.
"Well... That's a huge set of questions there, bud." How in god's name was Smokescreen was so casual? Roland couldn't even fathom the thought, though he awaited how the Autobot would respond to the questions. At the very least, he didn't seem so outwardly hostile so immediately.
"I figured from all the information I got this thing… you all call it the internet, right?"
Roland quickly nodded, trying to stop brain from the temptation to press the Autobot with even more questions. The adrenaline wasn't something that would easily fade even when away from some form of immediate danger. For his case especially, each second spent within a literal stranger's alternate form was more miles way from the dinky apartment he called home.
"So, I don't think you're in cahoots with those Decepticons, so I can think I can trust ya. I uhh… guess you can say I crash-landed here by accident. Was supposed to go to a place called Tranquility and regroup with my leader, Optimus Prime. You know of him at the very least, right?"
He could only nod again, sinking further into the seat as he absorbed the information as best he could.
"Well… One little tiny problem became a big one, and I ended up crashlanding in… Chicago, right?"
"Yeah… Chicago, yeah."
Even if he was well-aware that he was speaking to what was practically a talking, conscious metal construct (he wasn't sure what to call them, technological organisms? That was probably more likely), there was an ease to Smokescreen that did make going through the panic easier than it should've been. He was still guarded, but there was a part of him that wanted to place just a bit more trust into the Autobot, and to see what a fun night could be… besides, he knew that stepping into the car constituted his current form constituted what might as well be a 'fuck it' moment.
Given the breaking point that was before he nearly had his life taken by what the Autobot called a Decepticon… making taking such a huge swerve, even if he was going to pay the consequences dearly for being late to work, wouldn't be such a bad idea for one night.
"And my comms systems are all messed up, so I can't exactly be sending messages to Optimus that easily, and… I don't really know anyone here, so I've just been trying to get a lay of the land, y'know? Anyway, it feels like I've been talking too much, but I know you got a whole bunch of question, and you're in a pretty sweet ride. Anything else?"
Did Smokescreen really just brag about himself? If Roland wasn't so exhausted, he would've snorted or pulled some sort of jokingly bemused face. For the first time tonight, maybe it was due to a strange adrenaline induced euphoria or perhaps the disregard for logic, he… actually smiled at that. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, knowing staring slack jawed at a steering wheel wasn't going to help matters at all.
"You're fine. Don't… worry." It was a strange thing to try and reassure Smokescreen, but a part of him couldn't excise his worry over suddenly being dumped in the middle of nowhere nor the fact that the Autobot was in a clear position to more than overpower him. "So… I'm usually far more coherent than this. This has just been… a really long night, I wasn't expecting that De.. decep…."
"Bud, don't even sweat it, that Decepticon could've mauled you. Take your time. Are you okay, though? I'm no medical officer, but you haven't been holding too well."
Smokescreen did have a point. That was something Roland could not deny as he the effects of the past however many hours he was awake for began to truly take its toll. With the adrenaline having slowly seeped away, he was fighting between the tendrils of exhaustion that risked him sleeping amongst the company of strangers to the anxious implications that threatened to keep him up. He fought through the exhaustion, having a feeling that there wasn't going to be really any notion of catching some form of sleep tonight. As tempted as he was to be more honest with Smokescreen, he was still a stranger… and the last thing he wanted was especially to overshare. He couldn't get a read on who Smokescreen truly was amongst his species outside of him being what he assumed to be a younger Autobot, but even so, the scant details of what he'd heard about what was happening with the Cybertronians was enough to have Roland be guarded enough should he ever had the miniscule off-chance of interacting with one. He sincerely doubted Smokescreen would have the patience to listen to everything he could've said.
For as much as the situation allowed… he was feeling fine.
"I'll be fine. I'm just… not used to all of this kind of stuff. I haven't seen a Decepti… Decepticon, that up close. I did have a question yeah… how long have you been on Earth, Smokescreen?"
"Figured you were gonna ask that one!" He was amazed still at just how… no, Roland didn't want to chance it. He awaited Smokescreen's answer as he slowed down to a more reasonable pace, especially as he began to crossover to some areas where there was still traffic late at night. "Well… let's just say I haven't been here for too long. Been trying to get used to how you humans measure time so… slag what did you all call one 24 hour cycle again?"
It was also amusing to know their variations on curses and measurements of time. He figured some things just weren't translatable from what he presumed was likely their original language. That fact didn't surprise him, given that there were concepts between human languages that remain untranslatable, losing their nuances and sentiments when they are forced within the other side of another language that doesn't have the exact saying.
"A day," Roland responded.
"Yeah! That's what it was called," Smokescreen sounded so endearingly enthusiastic, almost to the point where Roland was this close to making some sort of remark on it. He held his tongue. No need to chance it. "I've been here for just a day. A lot has happened, wasn't expecting to end my first here by finding a Decepticon that quickly, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Slaggers are everywhere.
"Anyway, is there anywhere you need me to drop you off? You look like you need recharge, or whatever you guys call it."
"We call it sleep," he said with a light chuckle, the strain of staying up for so long adding a bit of a rasp to his voice. "Honestly… that Decepticon was close to where I stayed home. Those tall buildings… the cops are probably swarming there at this point."
"Frag… well then you got a friend nearby? Or another place nearby? I don't wanna keep driving you around especially if you got a place to be, and besides… having one of you nearby doesn't do the whole Autobots in disguise thing well, doesn't it?"
Was it strange that Roland didn't quite want this to end? The practicals of everything meant that the wiser choice was to go home, try to escape in the cover of nights, and act as if he was none the wiser and go to work. However… what was there lying in wait except for another day at work? Granted, the opposite question was, where could even he take Smokescreen? Where could Smokescreen take him? That also begged the question, would Smokescreen even want to take him anywhere? And why was he asking these questions?
"Whoa, sensors picking up increased heartbeat man, was it something I said?" And Smokescreen sounded worried too.
"It wasn't you, I swear." Roland immediately responded. "It's just… is it bad that I don't… necessarily want to go home? At least for right now?..."
"Really? You humans are more interesting than I thought, but also… I get that."
Why was it that the first long conversation that he had with someone, the easiest one ended up being with an alien organism? He couldn't help but crack something of a saddened smile when Smokescreen mentioned so. Places came across his mind as to possibilities of making this a late night impromptu with a stranger, a dangerous scenario in and of itself. However, it'd been some time since Roland had a night of spontaneity. He was still at an age where he could justify it… and not feel too bad about it in the process.
"I… I know we just met, but I got a question."
"Shoot away, little human."
Oh, he just knew that this Autobot was the type to push buttons. He was almost afraid at how Smokescreen would be if he'd saw him around what he presumed would be older Cybertronians. He wondered who this Optimus Prime was in the flesh (metallic flesh—if one were to be more accurate), but Roland doubted he would ever get that far. He had the errant thought of guiding Smokescreen to a place a couple of miles out of Chicago where he would often relax against nature. It wasn't necessarily about being away from the bustle per se but finding some space away from the people that belonged in it.
From his boss to the people that he was trying to network with in order to make this music thing happen… he wanted to get away from it all, even if pulling temporary geographics was more of a band-aid than an actual sustainable solution.
"If… you're not too busy tonight, and if you trust me… there's this place I could guide you too where I often go just to get away from things. You could drop me off there and I'll find a way home, but you wouldn't mind like… just having a talk, right?"
"What you humans call hanging out? Well…"
The brief silence made Roland incredibly nervous, to the point where he was twiddling his thumbs. It was probably a bad idea, but a late night that ended in a quiet uber ride seemed to always be in the cards.
"You know… maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Are you sure, though? You seem… pretty out of it, yeah, that's the way I think you all say it."
As much as he wanted to have this down as Smokescreen being incredibly observant (which he had no doubt he was being), there was always the reminder behind Roland's back that he was a robotic alien that seemed to have far more advanced senses than what he could even fathom. Even then, it was not as if he was making it an incredibly hard job to hide what he was feeling at that moment. The Autobot was indeed right, the singer had long been out of it throughout the whole ordeal. Yet it begged the question, when was he ever not at moments where he wanted nothing more than to throw caution to the wind?
The lifelong concerns he had over making it in the music industry seemed so distant at this moment, yet those were the thoughts his exhausted mind returned to. His decision to want to break into the US music industry… that in itself was throwing proverbial caution to the wind, was it not?
Thinking of that sounded ridiculous to his mind, but he still couldn't help but hold a bitter smile. Maybe a night out in Rosewood Beach didn't seem like a bad idea after all.
"It's gonna be a bit far, but I think I know where to go. I'll guide you if you think your… systems?"
"Hah, cute. I'll be fine… Roland, right?"
"Yeah."
"I'm good. Just tell me the location and I'll take us there."
"Rosewood Beach. This late at night, there's no way anybody should be there. It'll be ways away from Chicago, but… I like it that way."
Roland wanted to chastise himself, treating this whole endeavor like some lucid dream he would probably wake up from. It didn't help from the chortle he heard through the sound system, but really, so many things had happened tonight that logic itself had been thrown to the window so long ago. This was the first time in a while where he felt like he could laugh with actual joy in his mind, instead of it being tinged with some strange melancholy when he thought of the implications of something for too long.
Smokescreen was surprisingly fun, and maybe…
"Ah, I see you like being near the water then. This better not get my gears rusted… Ah frag, not sure what kind of name would be good for you. I don't like fleshling, and I don't like calling you human either."
"Just Roland really is fine, really."
"No embarrassing or endearing nickname for you?"
"Not… that I know of."
"Heh… you're a lucky one then."
He couldn't help but smile at that as he settled into the seat, watching the streets blur by as Chicago would become Evanston.
As if on instinct, he would hold a hand to his chest, beginning to sing under his breath.
