Human Interactions

Operating Conditions

By Paperkat

07/26/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

"I don't know what you want me to say," Mikaela confessed hesitantly, clearly reluctant to hurt his feelings. The uneasy feeling in the pit of Sam's stomach that had started when Mikaela had shown up just got ten times worse. Mikaela was always straightforward, she never hedged, but right now she was hiding behind the biggest bush he'd ever seen.

"Just give it to me straight, I'm man enough to take it," Sam fibbed smoothly, refusing to acknowledge the male beside him, as he wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

"Come on, just say it. Me or him."

Mikaela narrowed her beautiful grey eyes at the command. No body, but no body told Miss Banes what to do. "Both of you actually," she snapped, her tone icy and curt.

"Alright!" Miles exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air and then slugging Sam with it afterwards. "We passed!"

Mikaela give that tight-lipped, full tooth smile that Sam knew meant that not only was everything not 'alright', it was worse. The gorgeous girl in front of him sunk his sinking suspicions.

"You both failed."

"What?!" Miles exclaimed, slapping both hands on top the long, blonde mop he called hair before throwing his hand back to whine at the sky. "But we studied and everything!"

Sam wasn't going to call staying up all night trying to get the Playboy channel to come in clearly, studying, but he sure as hell wasn't going to confess to what it really was in front of Mikaela. He should have taken Bumblebee's offer to help him study for his history test, instead of letting himself be guilted into 'studying' with Miles.

"According to these test results it wasn't enough. Sorry guys," Mikaela said, smiling apologetically only to Sam, which bolstered his spirits and his ego, until she gave him his test paper. Now he wished that he had waited until Monday to find out his fate instead of allowing Mikaela to pick up his test at the same time she picked up her own.

"How'd you do?" He had to ask, and once again that hedge Mikaela had been hiding behind was back.

"Well enough to opt out of the final," she said with a shrug. Behind her, parked inconspicuously in the driveway, well as inconspicuously as a bright, laser yellow and black striped tricked out Camaro could be, Sam's Guardian, friend and car gave a shutter to get his attention. Once Sam looked in Bumblebee's direction, the Autobot twisted his antenna into a lopsided 'A' and then reformed it into a '+'.

Figures, Sam grumbled to himself. Mikaela had been wiser in her study partner than he had been, and Bumblebee was gloating. Or at lease, Sam thought he was gloating. It was hard to tell with Bumblebee stuck in OCM, also know as, Ordinary Car Mode for those that failed to keep up with the acronyms.

"Guess we better pull another all nighter," Miles said with a 'wink-wink', 'nudge-nudge' that even made Sam cringe at its obviousness.

"Yeah, I better go…" Mikaela said trailing off, making it known with a look of patent disgust in the blonde's direction that she'd rather be anywhere but with Miles.

"No!" Sam cried desperately, grabbing a hold of Mikaela's slender wrist. Between the 'study session' with Miles, the extra work Mikaela had doing for Bumblebee's present and Sam's own part-time job the two of them hadn't been spending a whole lot of time together.

"She can come with," Miles offered with a leer that was just as transparent as his 'wink-wink', 'nudge-nudge' had been.

"No!" Sam repeated, this time for Miles. His human friend gave him a dirty look.

"It's just that… I…uh… that is you…" Sam stuttered, trying to come up with something that would keep Mikaela here, despite Miles' presents.

With trademark perfect timing, his Camaro's radio 'malfunctioned'.

"Give a little bit. Give a little bit of your time to me…" the Goo Goo Dolls called from within the car.

Mikaela flashed him that brilliant 'my boyfriend's a dork, but I think he's cute anyway' smile, or was it the 'my boyfriend's a dork, but I think his car is cute' smile Sam wasn't quite sure. Without missing a beat or letting Miles say anything about the possessed car, Mikaela smoothly supplied a response for Sam.

"I said I was going to wash the car," she told him, as if she had just remember a forgotten promise. "I'm sorry Sam, it must have slipped my mind. It shouldn't take too long, wait for me, 'k?"

With his back to Miles, Sam mouthed the words 'thank you' over and other again. He really didn't want her to leave just yet. Mikaela grabbed her purse slash backpack, and gave him a quick kiss before heading to the house.

"I was wrong," Miles said, watching Mikaela walk away with too much interest for Sam's liking, "She isn't an evil jock concubine. She's an evil muscle car concubine."

Sam frowned, but Miles was completely oblivious as he sat himself down in the only shaded chair on the patio. It had become increasingly clear in the weeks since Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots had entered Sam's life that his friendship with Miles was anything but rock solid.

If he was truthful with himself, something he rarely did because it tended to be embarrassing, Sam would have to admit that his friendship with Miles was based more on need than true affection. They had been two kids too off beat to fit into any of the clicks and had naturally gravitated to each other. A couple of weeks ago, Sam would have said that Miles was his best friend, his only friend really. But now, everything was different.

Sam had been there to see how close they had gotten, how close the whole world had gotten to being destroyed. He had held one of the most powerful forces of life in the universe when it had inadvertently sparked life. And it was still in his hands when he had destroyed it and one of its creations. Somehow, worrying about getting a clear picture on a pirated cable station didn't hold the same appeal anymore.

But in all fairness Miles hadn't been through what he had. And most of the world didn't know the truth about Mission City. Sam couldn't fault Miles for staying the same just because his whole life had changed.

Sam took a chair next to Miles and pulled out his pitifully thin binder of notes for the year and tried to share them with Miles, whom he had found out during the previous 'study session' had none at all. Miles was at that moment trying to balance a pencil on the bridge of his nose and thankfully missed Mikaela's reemergence from the house.

Mikaela had changed into a modest dark blue bikini and a cover up, if you could call a doily in shirt form with quarter sized holes a cover up. Perfectly sensible attire for washing a car on a warm, late spring day, and completely devastating to a teenage boy trying to study for a history exam. Mikaela had taken to carrying bathing clothes in her backpack. They always seemed to end up at the far end of the lake where Bumblebee could stretch out and be hidden in the dense trees when they were out riding around. It just made sense to always have bathing suits and a towel on hand, and Sam wasn't about to complain.

In Mikaela's right hand was a bucket full of supplies and in her left was Mojo. The Chihuahua was sporting the new collar Mikaela had bought him. The only thing that made it different from just a regular collar was the inscribed metal plate bolted to it, which advised to you to; 'if found' to mail Mojo to their address and a picture of a postage stamp. His father thought it was hilarious; his mother loved it, probably because it came from Mikaela and Sam was just relieved there wasn't a rhinestone in sight.

The music Bumblebee had started to play earlier had never stopped and had decreased in volume to be little more than background noise, but Sam could just make out that his Guardian had abruptly switched to Roy Orbison.

"…but wait, What do I see? Is she walking back to me? Yeah, she's walking back to me. Oh, oh, Pretty woman."

The music remained low. That meant it was for Mikaela's ears only. His girlfriend responded by throwing her hip into Bumblebee's backside panel. The sentient car reacted by playing the sound effect of a needle scratching across a record and continuing with the song he had just interrupted. It was one of their 'things'. Bumblebee seemed to try his best to fluster Mikaela when there were witnesses around, so that she couldn't retaliate, but it never stopped her from trying. The two of them had a lot of those kinds of 'things'.

There was that thing they did with the songs. Even though Bee didn't need to communicate with songs and sound bites as much, he still did with Mikaela around. She was so fast at figuring out the meaning Bumblebee was trying to get across that Sam couldn't even identify the song before she would answer back. It reminded Sam of when his parents use to spell everything out when he was a kid at Christmas time and his birthday.

And they were always playing Doctor, or at least that was what Sam called it. They called it 'Autobot Operation' after the kid's game. It was pretty much just like the game. Mikaela would poke around Bumblebee's insides, renaming parts so that she could remember their purpose and function. And just like the game Bumblebee made the buzzing noise and his optics would light up brightly if she strayed too close to anything delicate or vital that neither one of them felt comfortable messing with.

"When are you going to face it man? She's only interested in your car."

Sam was so lost in his daydreaming that he had completely forgotten Miles was even there. "What?" Sam was forced to ask as a delay tactic.

"Isn't it obvious? Look at her."

Sam returned to the activity that he was engaged in before Miles' unwelcome and unbidden observation. Mikaela put her supplies down and unceremoniously dumped Mojo into Bumblebee's front seat. The Camaro immediately switch to 'Who let the Dogs Out?'. Sam knew that Bee really hated Mojo's nails prancing across his seats. The dog didn't seem too pleased either, as the Chihuahua begged piteously from the driver's side window to be let out.

"Are you going to behave?" she asked, and Sam knew she was referring to both the canine and the Cybertonian. Mojo answered with a high pitched squealing bark that was almost drowned out by Bumblebee, who used the barking in the song to respond in a like manner.

Mikaela picked Mojo back up and placed him at her bare feet. As soon as his paws touched the ground, Mojo began to turn circles around Mikaela's feet and the bucket. The vet had said that Mojo was completely normal, but Sam had to wonder. Mojo use to be able to walk in a straight line, now he just seemed to turn tight, right handed circles. Sam attributed to withdrawal symptoms.

"Man, you gotta know," Miles said in a stage whisper, slapping his hand on Sam's shoulder. "She wouldn't give you the time of day if you didn't have that car," Miles told him with something that approached actual sympathy.

That's not true, Sam tried to tell himself.

So what if they had been in the same schools and the same classes since they were six and she hadn't recognized him that first day. Sam was sure there were a lot of his schoolmates that had no clue who he was.

What did it matter that just the day before that, Sam had given a class presentation in front of her and she didn't remember. Hey, most of the class hadn't been paying attention either. Hell, he was surprised the teacher stayed awake.

And it didn't prove anything that even Mikaela's boyfriend at the time, Trent, had actually known his name, or at least some version of his name, and had pinged him in the throat with a paperclip, and remembered that he had tried out for football, and…

I better stop before I give myself a complex, Sam grumbled. The guy that hated me knew more about me and paid more attention to me than the girl I was trying to date.

"Look, Sam, I'm just trying to tell ya. She's bad news, and I can't sit here and watch her tear you apart like a chew toy," Miles told him as he gathered up his stuff. "Look, when you get your priorities straight, come on over. I'm sure I've found a way to get the satellite working again."

Sam didn't watch him leave, but he knew that Miles had ducked out of the whole in the back hedge. He had been doing it for years. Instead Sam focused all his attention on Mikaela and Bumblebee.

Mojo had apparently given up trying to regain Mikaela's attention and had retreated to his birdfeeder/doghouse to watch from above. Buy now, Mikaela had separated all of her supplies and was in the process of wetting Bumblebee's exterior down. When she rounded the corner of the Camaro and crouched down to pay particular attention to Bumblebee's back wheel next to his exhaust, the black striped, bright yellow Autobot blew a puff of something at her with enough force to blow the stream of water from the hose back at her. She gave a screech of outrage as she jumped to her feet.

"Oh, you think that's funny?" Mikaela demanded and was about to shove the water hose up the offending tailpipe when Bumblebee broke out in song.

"…boyfriend's back, and you're gonna be in trouble. (Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back) When you see him comin', better cut on the double…"

"Sam isn't going to save you Bug-Boy!"

Of course Bumblebee easily avoided being violated by simply rolling back and forth to keep Mikaela from accessing his tailpipe. By now Mojo had joined in and was barking insistently at both the girl and the car from his perch. Bumblebee was actively calling for help, or at least back up.

"Help, I need somebody, Help, not just anybody, Help, you know I need someone, help…"

Sam decided right then and there that there were worst things in the world than having his girlfriend getting along with his best friend. Mikaela was laughing so hard she never saw Sam sneak up behind her, so the ear-shattering squeal she let out when he wrapped his arms around her waist was understandable, if not painful.

Water was flying everywhere as the control of the weapon, otherwise known as the water hose, passed between the two teens. Bumblebee's loyalties and assistance shifted depending on who had possession of said weapon at that moment. And by the time Sam's dad yelled at them to settle down, Sam had worked out whatever little insecurity his overactive mind had come up with. After all it was obvious that Mikaela was dating him, not his car. Wasn't it?