One day I was walking along the pleasantly sunny sidewalk when BAM! The monstrous abhorred thing commonly called school slammed into me like the mother of all semi-trucks. And that, my friends, is the only reason that I can give for the current sad state of updates for this story.

And so far my responses to your reviews have suffered as well and I...suck. Because I should have done that instead of giving into the other random little points of time consuming crap that seem to have just piled up while I wasn't looking but really could have waited.

So double the thanks to you for sticking with me even though the time between updates is steadily getting ridiculous. My apologies and I'll try to get my school work done without procrastinating so that I can focus a bit more on this...le sigh. Many thanks also to .groove and ryagelle who helped with my residual spelling mistakes in the last chapter.

Once again mass props to my beta-reader who is the holy light of allawesomeness and who helped me out with the butt-load of inconsistencies that I had in this fic. Really, I had random things that didn't fit and she was kind enough to fix those up until they did and I shamelessly stole a bit of her suggestions for a line of Bee's dialogue. So huge heaps of thanks to Kesera for her continued patience.

Edit: Thanks to .groove and Kesera the italics problem has been fixed. Thank you!

A honk and a yelled exclamation of, "Watch your ass!" jarred Bumblebee back into awareness and his breaks hitched and squealed as he skidded back to his side of the double yellow lines that graced the road underneath him. He had been zoning out since this morning, but this was getting ridiculous. He better get it under control before he made it back to Sam.

Sam.

Bee's engine rumbled and he clicked himself into a higher gear as he threw on the throttle. He roared past the truck and station wagon ahead of him before taking the first off ramp at a decidedly less than safe speed, edging onto the side street and narrowly missing another collision.

Bee winced as the blue Volkswagen swerved and honked as he roared past and through the, in his defense, almost red light. He…was anxious to see Sam. On the way to Tranquility he had sensed a slight disturbance on his radar and he had to leave Sam at his house to check it out, but even those few minutes seemed to be far too long for Bumblebee. He and Sam hadn't had a chance to get together and just talk for the longest of times and for their night to be interrupted by something as trivial as a possibleDeception signal that turned out to be absolutely nothing was a little irritating.

Swerving left onto the Witwicky's home street, Bee left another few honking horns in his wake and he flashed his taillights in apology before rounding the corner and closing in on his destination. Roaring to a stop, he pulled lightly into the driveway and gave a small honk.

Throwing his radio dial on, Bee pumped up the volume and blasted, "Now won't you come out and play! Come out and play! Come on out and play!"

Bee watched in amusement as Sam tore out of the house, hands flapping in wild shushing motions, "Bee! Turn the volume down! My neighbors are going to want to know why my very un-sentient car suddenly started playing music by itself!"

Doing as asked, Bee lowered the volume and sniggered out his intakes, prompting a very annoyed look from the young boy before him. Rolling his eyes, Sam shouted goodbye to his parents through the screen door and walked over to Bee's front door.

"You are such a handful, you know that?" Sam muttered, opening the door and climbing in. He had become so adept at ignoring the small shocks that had been steadily plaguing him throughout the day that he hardly noticed the static electricity that coursed from his palm and into Bee's door. Throughout the whole trip from the Ark to Tranquility everywhere Sam touched he'd get a stab of electrical current and the constant exposure had dampened his notice of such instances a bit.

He wasn't able to quite as easily ignore what happened next. Or, rather, what didn't happen. Officially confused, Sam could only crease his brow in the afore mentioned emotion as Bee, instead of immediately starting and rolling out as per usual, stood shock still and didn't move an inch, "Bee?" Sam questioned, "Are you okay?"

When he still didn't receive a response, Sam placed both hands on the steering wheel and gave it a slight pat, "You're not mad about the whole 'handful' comment, are you? Because you know you're totally worth it, right?"

At the pat and the words, Bee shuddered back to life, vibrating on his axels before settling down and very slowly reversing out of the driveway. Sam, unused to the oppressive silence, left his hands on the steering wheel and continued to throw uneasy glances at the interior of the car, wondering what was up with his guardian.

Bee…felt strange. His alt-mode seemed almost too tight, like he was stretching and growing within an uncomfortable plastic shell that pinched and tingled. His frame was itchy, like he had gotten sand all throughout his gears, and it was only Sam's confused pat and concern that managed to shock him back into himself. Unsettled, he veered slowly back onto the road.

What was wrong with him? He'd been blacking out for a while now—he had constantly gone adrift during the trip from the desert base to Sam's house and now it was starting up again. It was like every time he was with Sam today his CPU just went blank, almost like it was floating independently from the rest of his body, and was filtering through slides of white nothing that he couldn't focus on. He should talk to Ratchet about it the next time he saw the medic. Sam's touch, however, was like a sharp arch of energy that always managed to break him out of his musings and clear his processors. The connection was striking, it had an almost electrical feel—which was silly because Sam was a being of flesh and heartbeats, not circuitry and voltages.

Continuing down the country road that he had turned onto, Bee suddenly registered the looks Sam was shooting his interior as well as the death grip Sam had on his steering wheel and realized that he had been silent for far too long.

Gently tuning on his radio, Bee kept the volume at tolerable levels, "Where is my mind? Where is my mind?" He fizzed out to another channel, "Don't you worry about a thing…" another fizz, Bee so loved the radio's songs. They said everything for him and they did it all with a tune! "I was thinking, over thinking."

Sam was at first startled by the abrupt noise, but nevertheless let Bumblebee finish his montage of songs. After he was done, he smiled a bit and once again patted the wheel before him, absentmindedly noting that the tingle in his hand was growing stronger but was still weak enough that he still managed to shrug it off, "Just thinking, eh? What about? It seemed like something serious. Anything I can help with?"

"No worries, no worries. Say it for me, say it for me…"

"Right, just wondering." Sam stretched out in the front seat, sliding down and leaning back to rest his head on pillowed hands, picking up the strand of conversation from that morning, "So, now that we've done our physiological and meaning-defining thinking for the day, where are we headed?"

"And what else is there, roads getting nearer, we cover distance…"

Sam brought his head up enough to stare at an upcoming sign and read, "Lookout, 2.5 miles." He rolled his eyes, like he had needed to ask. Whenever they wrangled any time to spend alone, they always went to the lookout to talk. Sam loved it—he had been missing his best friend who had been so caught up with fixing up the Ark and he longed for the relative secluded area where they could just hang out and catch up. It was where the whole "completely different species" thing just didn't seem to matter much anymore.

Curling further into the front seat, Sam stared out the window and did his level best not to doze off. He had stayed up late the night before doing a huge science project that he had barely managed to finish and e-mail to his professor before the morning deadline and he hadn't gotten in a nap all day. Ratchet's doctoring had taken up most of the morning and he was majorly wiped. He couldn't completely manage to stop a yawn as Bee rolled into the lookout.

Reaching for the door handle to get out so that Bee could transform, Sam felt the belt buckle (which had until then remained slack at the seat's side) curl around him and tug him back to the leather while the doors clicked to lock. Sam was awake instantly, any lingering drowsiness gone with the sharp current emanating from the nylon crisscrossing his torso, "Bee?"

"If it's all right with you, Sam," Bee said, speaking for the first time the whole night, "I would prefer to remain like this for now."

"That's fine. But you don't want to, I dunno, stretch or something?" Sam asked, tugging at the belt absentmindedly.

"I'll be fine."

Sam shrugged, "Okay, whatever you say, Bee." Relaxing back into the seat Sam stretched again, his arms reaching up and across Bee's roof, dragging his hands through the material as he loudly cracked his back before huddling back into the seat.

Bee shook on his axles at the touch. Sam was instantly worried again at the motion, Bee had been acting weird ever since he had driven him home this morning from the Ark. What if he had some weird alien disease or something? And what if he had given it to him with all this damn static electricity? His thoughts only serving to fuel his worry, Sam anxiously spoke, "Maybe we should go see Ratchet or something, Bee. You keep blanking out and acting…weird."

"No!" Be shouted back instantly.

Sam, startled, lurched back a bit in shock. He'd never heard Bee yell before and it was the icing on the cake of Something Is Not Right and he was determined to find out what it was so he could help his best friend with it. "Bee, tell me what's up!" Resolute, Sam laid his hands on the gear shift and the dashboard, attempting to make sure Bee was paying attention.

The minute his hands came into contact, Bee's frame shuddered again and the Camaro's engine rumbled slightly. "Bee?" Sam asked, his hand around the gearshift clenching in agitation and surprise.

"It's…it's just that," Sam was batting for a thousand, it seemed. Not only had Bee actually yelled today but it seemed that he could stutter as well, "whenever you touch me, my CPU goes blank and my processors get all muggy and it feels like…like electricity."

Sam reeled and immediately withdrew his hands from where they were resting, bringing them into his lap and doing everything but floating in an attempt to not touch anything, "I'm sorry! I didn't know!" he stuttered out, blushing.

"What? I don't understand, why are you sorry? Were you doing something?" Bee asked hesitantly. He hadn't thought Sam was capable of sending electric pulses without having his own spark, but maybe…

"No! Well, nothing on purpose!" Sam exclaimed and Bee let the distant hope die without much regret.

"Then why are you sorry?" Bee asked questioningly.

"Well, what you describe sounds like…uh, like I'm causing you some sort of…," Sam stammered, his blush deepening and his voice drawing into a whisper, "sexual pleasure or something."

"Sexual…pleasure?" Bee echoed out loud without the least bit of an attempt to lower his voice. After doing a quick internet search Bee was fairly confident that he understood what Sam was saying, "Yes…I suppose that is the equivalent in human terms. But Autobots don't feel very well when we're in our alt-modes."

Sam, despite the subject matter, was still drawn in instantly to the explanation. He loved hearing about how Cybertronians worked and he took every opportunity to hear about it. Even though half the time he didn't understand the technical mumbo-jumbo, he figured if he listened hard enough somethinghad to sink in. It was the reason that he and Wheeljack got along so well. Stamping down on his ferociously out of control blush, he cleared his throat and managed to dredge up enough courage to ask, "Do you feel when you're not in your alt-modes, then?"

"Yes, our tactile senses are superior in our bipedal modes." Sam, for all the world, couldn't understand why he suddenly felt the need to test this theory. With Bee.

A lot.

Shaking his head and attempting to pretend that the previous thought had never existed, he smoothed his hand across his shirt, shaking it loose as the crackling static made everything clingy. Licking his suddenly dry lips, he attempted to focus instead back on the conversation, "Why could you feel my…touches, then?" Sam asked, struggling and stumbling over the right word to call what he had done.

"I am unsure. Usually we can only lightly feel electrical pulses while in alt-mode, something that is caused by another's spark's energy." Bee said gently, "So I don't know why I can suddenly feel you. You're not harboring some kind of hidden battery, are you?"

Chuckling a bit at the weak attempt at humor, Sam rolled his eyes and relaxed marginally back into the seat though his hands remained firmly in his lap, "No—not the last time I checked anyway."

"Then I suppose it'll remain a mystery." Bee replied as he settled a bit, the car rocking with his movements. Sam, jostled by the unexpected movement, threw out his hands to keep his balance, one landing on the car door to his left and the other on the ever present gearshift.

Seemingly not noticing the new perches of his human's appendages, Bee remained silent in contemplation as he stared at the sky and simply enjoyed the camaraderie. Sam, however, was only all too aware of his hands' new resting places. The thought from before came back to him and he lightly stroked the gearshift, vaguely wondering what, if anything, Bee might feel. When his action brought no response from the car underneath him, he stroked again, this time with the intention of making Bee actually feel something.

Caught completely off guard, Bee's engine rumbled and his frame slid down and vibrated at the motion.

"Sa-Sam?" Bee stumbled, Sam noticed, for the second time in one day. Completely entranced by what his hands were doing and no longer paying any attention to what his mind was saying about consequences he stroked his hand up again and watched as light flashes of electricity followed in its wake. What was that?

"Sam!" Bee shouted and his frame shook again.

As if a bolt of lightning had shot straight through his clouded mind to blindingly flash the truth at him in bright red letters, Sam came to a realization. Static electricity flew around him in waves but he hardly noticed in his need to vocalize his sudden and almost violent epiphany, "I…think I want this, Bee."

And then it was gone. Wrenching his hands away from everything, Sam clenched his head in a tight grip.

What the hell did he think he was doing?

"What did you say, I know I saw you saying it…" Great, Sam mumbled to himself, Bee was back to using the radio. What the hell was wrong with him? First Bee was acting weird and now his head was all messed up and it had him admitting to things that were meant for black nights and whimsical forgotten thoughts, not the light of day nor to be said to his best friend. His best roboticfriend.

Maybe it was just hormones.

Sam snorted. No way was he that lucky. Sighing, Sam struggled into more of a ball so that the least amount of himself as possible was touching Bee's seat. The admission was wrong, to be sure, but now that it had happened, it wasn't like he could just take it back.

"Nothing. I didn't say anything." But far be it for him not to at least try. He'd deny, deny, deny and maybe just this one time he could get lucky.

"And whoever you think you see, don't lie to me, don't lie to me." Sam could practically feel the raised eyebrow that went with that song. Shrugging his shoulders, Sam continued to feign obliviousness, though it was starting to hint more of desperation then anything. He had to get out and he had to think, damn it, before he did something else stupid. He had to sort himself out.

"It's mutual or so it seems, cause only in the real world do things happen like they do in my dreams…" Still not too far gone in his inner musings to miss the song thrown out of the speaker, Sam's heart quickened and his pulse thrummed in his head. He had to have misheard that.

"I…don't think I follow. Bee, what are you saying?"

"Beautiful one I love you. Beautiful one I adore you. Beautiful one my soul must sing…"

"Oh God." Sam shuddered at the admission and suddenly it was all too much. He had just come to his own insane epiphany, there was no way he could handle this right now. He reached for the belt, fumbling for the unlock latch to make a mad break for it out of the car, but it remained stubbornly closed, "Bee…Stop, stop this. I can't…this isn't right." Sam growled in frustration and with just a hint of panic and of an oncoming mental break. He continued to struggle with the belt that refused to unlatch, knotting his fingers into the nylon and pulling with a new desperation.

"We could be lovers, just for one day." Crooned the radio, apparently growing in confidence every moment as the reality of his absurd admission continued to sink in.

"Bee—stop it! Let me out, let me out, let me out!" Sam screamed, his eyes stinging but he was desperate to do anything but cry, desperate to do anything to get away, desperate to just leave, desperate to just get out.

"I believe in a thing called love, just listen to the rhythm of my heart." Bee's engine revved in agreement.

"Bee…" Sam cried, tears leaking out despite his clenched eyelids as his hands fell slack and loose, sliding off the seatbelt and onto his lap and then onto Bee's seat cushion before resting there softly. He couldn't…he couldn't deal with all this right now. Sam clenched a fist against the soft leather and hung his head down. He just need tothink, to figure out where all these thoughts came from and how the tight mental box he had kept them in had found a way to break open and funnel them out into his frontal psyche and force him into blurting out the most insanethings at all the wrong moments.

"Sam. I know what I feel, and I know what you feel, but I still don't know what this thing is between us exactly. I've been running my processors trying to compute the answer and the closest thing I could find would be…love? But one word? It doesn't seem like it could really mean all of these conflicted feelings."

Sam's head feel back against the headrest and he breathed slowly and deeply, trying to get back some semblance of calm. Love? When had…where had that come from? "I know what you mean," he finally said, quietly and with no little hesitance. There was no use lying to himself anymore and—if he was going to be truthful (which he hated to be in times like these)—then he might as well go with it, "Every time I'm here, with you, my chest feels like it's expanding until there isn't any possible way that I just won't explode. But that doesn't matter Bee, it doesn't because it can't. This wasn't supposed to happen and it shouldn't happen. We can't…we can't do this. You just caught me at a bad time, okay? So just let me out and we can forget—"

"Why you wanna be like that as if there's nothing new. You're not fooling no one, you're not even fooling you."

"Oh God Bee," Sam said with a half-sob half-gasping laugh, nervousness creeping back despite his continued deep breathing. His mom's yoga tapes friggin lied about that breathing crap, "Hilary Duff is not the way to convince me. Just…please, let me out. At least…I just need to think, okay?"

Though Bee's radio remained silent, Sam's belt finally unbuckled and the previously locked door popped open. All but propelling himself onto the gravel that covered the lookout point where he and Bee had stopped, Sam stumbled out from the car with a gasp.

The first thing he noticed was that it was a little colder out in the open than it had been inside. Despite the cold Sam still staggered away from Bee, getting some distance. He didn't know what was happening with him anymore. Just when he thought he had gotten a handle on all his emotions after his whole "angsty" teenage years, his body had to go and throw this gigantic curve ball at him. He rubbed his chest without a clear thought of doing so, trying to soothe the burning that just got worse with every step he took away from his car.

"Tried to walk away and I stumble. Though I try to hide it, it's clear. My whole world crumbles when you are not near." Bee closed his door with a small click, rolling into drive to keep up with Sam, giving him everything but the space he had been attempting to obtain a second ago.

"She fuckin hates me. Sha la la la…"

"Bee! That's not fair! I don't hate you, I just need to…need to…gah! I can't think when you're this close." Sam, hands tangled in his hair, screamed as he strode away from his stalking Camaro.

"What is there to say? And how will I pull through? I knew in a moment contentment and home meant just you."

Sam, pausing, laughed, "That's sweet," He ran a quick hand through his hair before abruptly turning on his heel to face his slowly following car. Decided, he threw caution to the wind and just figured he had to get everything out and then he could make better informed decisions. Right? "Look, Bee, you know how I feel and I can make an educated guess at how you feel—"

"And I will always love you!"

Sam chuckled and, despite his previous mantra, it still had an edge of anxiety to it, "Yes. Thank you," Sam's smile slowly slipped, "But still…Bee, think about it. I'm a human. You're an autobot. It's impossible…it's just, just…"

"And because these daft and dewy eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes. Impossible things are happening every day!"

"Cute. Because quoting Cinderella is so going to make this better."

"Oh, oh Fantasy World and Disney Girls I'm coming back."

Sam just shook his head, "This won't work Bumblebee. It won't because it can't. That's all there is to it."

"Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?" Bee's engine revved again and Sam felt his front bumper lightly tap his legs. Sam snorted ruefully before giving into the soft insistence and leaned against Bee's hood. What was with today?

"Me? Make this complicated? I believeyou'rethe one who decided that this needed to be talked about. I was doing just fine floating down that river in Egypt, thank you very much."

"Sam," said boy was startled to hear Bee's actual voice issue from the stereo instead of some song, "I really do love you."

Sam would have fallen over if he hadn't been leaning against something. Bee had all but admitted it a second ago in song, but to just come out and say it. And in his own voice, for crying out loud, "Wh-what?"

"That's what you say, correct?" Bee asked, "I mean, I cross searched my symptoms and that's what I came up with. All I can think about is you. All I need to be happy is you. All I want is you. I can't stand it when we're apart and I wish that we never had to be. I feel…complete when I'm with you, like I've been a blissfully oblivious half of something that was only made aware of its state of incompleteness when I ran it my other half. You, Sam. But it's such a small word and I…can't really see how it can convey all that I feel, but…I do love you, Sam." And then, as if the addition would increase the magnitude of the situation, "A lot."

Sam's head landed in his hands but even then his tears still managed to leak through and drip down onto Bumblebee's hood, the moonlight hitting them silver before fading into Bee's still brand new paint job.

Wrenching his hands from his face and throwing his head back Sam yelled hoarsely before locking his eyes on the car before him, "God damn it, Bee! This isn't supposed to…we're not supposed too, damn it...Bee…" Sam's shoulders deflated and his whole body seemed to cave into itself. He felt a brief flicker of somethingin his chest—a light tickling that scratched against his insides and made his head drift for a moment. After a second, Bee revved his engine once more and Sam shook himself out of the fog before pushing himself off Bee's hood and facing the headlights of his guardian.

"Damn you, Bee. You couldn't just pretend it didn't exist, could you? We were great friends, great partners…but now, now we're just...just…just in love." Sam's whole posture drooped as if he was finally surrendering to something and the light tickle grew to envelop his whole body with a sense of weightlessness. Suddenly feeling as if he would float up to the sky without some sort of anchor, he pulled himself onto Bee's hood and curled around himself, pulling his jacket tighter against the now uncomfortable chill and hugged his knees to his chest, cuddling into Bee as much as he could.

"I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah…"

"You're telling me." Sam mumbled into the cool paint below him. Paint that was slowly getting warmer, however, as Bee attempted to heat himself up and make his human more comfortable. "Stop that," Sam said with an exasperated swat at the car below him, "That takes too much energy. I'll just get in again."

Bee honked lightly in agreement and swiftly opened his driver side door, his windshield wipers sweeping against his front window with in an almost tail-like wag.

Sam rolled his eyes and crawled off his perch slowly, the sense of lightness still present. Jumping lightly to the ground, he rubbed a hand against his heart and was surprised when it clung to his T-shirt with static electricity. Shaking his hand off his shirt he shrugged it off and made a mental note to make sure that those dryer sheets made it in next time he did laundry and slowly shifted back into Bee's front seat. As the door closed behind him, he glanced nervously at the gearshift and seatbelt before warily laying his hands on the steering wheel, very much conscious of what Bee had said before about touch and the reaction he had elicited in the autobot before.

"I don't know if this is going to work Bee…but I guess we'll find out, huh?"

"You are the one. You'll never be alone again; you're more than in my head, you're more…"

"Thanks, Bee."

"Don't worry, Sam, everything will be okay as long as we stick together."

"Good," Sam smiled, "I…I wouldn't have it any other way."

A few minutes passed in silence and Sam's slowly drooping head was all but broadcasting to Bee that the stress had finally gotten to his human and that they should head back to the Witwicky house before Sam's parents began to worry. Bee started his engine and slowly slid into drive and all but tiptoed over the gravel until his wheels hit the relatively smooth expanse of paved road and he relaxed back onto his axels. He had only driven a short way when Sam's head flew up from its position against the window, his human's eyes fogy and unfocused.

"Bee?" Sam asked sleepily, blinking with a small yawn. And though Bee had no reference for it, he was sure that this was what everyone meant when they said, "cute."

"Yes, Sam?"

"Thank you. For forcing me to not ignore it." Sam was still not really awake and his words were slurred and ran together. He let loose another yawn and Bee's engine purred at the cuteness, "I…" another yawn, "I love you a lot, too, you know?" And then he was back asleep, one had curled behind him over the headrest while the other was thrown protectively on Bee's gear shift. With a slight surge of power, Bee morphed his seat into something more soft, cradling his human's head against the headrest and making it as comfortable as he could.

And though he was sure that he had imagined it, he could have sworn that Sam had shot back a brief surge of power through the hand on his gear shift in reply. Bee ignored it and filed it away under more wishful thinking. Sam would need a spark for that. Still, all interspecies complications aside, Bee figured that this had been a very good day.

"I know Sam, I know."

There was a little plot development! Really! Those two lines are in there somewhere...And finally we've got all the blasted couples down. Yay! Time for some more plot in the next chapter. I'm (sadly) not going to show how the autobot couples woke up with each other, but I was thinking about uploading it as a side story, an idea that was helpfully given to me by EasterOfFlesh. So it wouldn't be a chapter in this story, but I would still be willing to upload them (once they're written, that is) as another story if you guys really wanted to see them.

And if anyone's desperately curious about any of Bee's songs I can list them for you, but I used a new one for about every line so I'm gonna skip it for right now.

Thanks again for everything and the continued support. Please feel free to review and let me know what you think so far!