Hello again!
It's been a while, huh? Uhh...in my defense, finals week is next week. But then it's spring break! Which will give me the time I need to catch up on this thing. It feels like I've created a monster. And just in case I haven't given a disclaimer yet (umm...have I? I don't know. I should check that...) I don't own Transformers. If I did, I would have never let Michael Bay direct the movie.
Another round of thanks goes to .groove and Kesera who were kind enough to point out the blasted and dreaded italics problem in the last chapter.
Though I don't think I'll ever be able to thank her enough, another giant helping of ultimate glory of thanks once again goes to Kesera who not only took the time to beta-read my story, but she took the time out of her weekend off to do so. That was unimaginably nice of her and she deserves a thousand more accolades then I could ever hope to provide. I didn't even know Web MD actually existed before she pointed it out.
Here's chapter six! And I can officially say that this is the longest thing I've ever posted. Phew. Hope you enjoy!
Edit: Much thanks to the ever wonderful Daebereth and .groove who were kind enough to point out some of my (grrrr...) spelling mistakes that just REFUSE to not exist.
There was something extremely peculiar happening. It probably had something to do with his dad pounding rather loudly on the window, but Sam thought it also might have had something to do with his curiosity overhis father.
Which was odd, because he really shouldn't be curious about his father, he knew what his father was. He was his father. But—still there was this tickling in the back of his head that whispered of…puzzlement. Groggily sitting up from his position half sprawled over the center console and passenger seat, Sam rubbed his eyes and blinked slowly at his steadily tapping father, the fuzzy questionings fading slowly into the back of his blearily reawakening mind.
His father, noticing his movement, made a rolling motion with his hand and pointed down at the window. Squinting his eyes as he attempted to make sense of the cryptic hand language, Sam just continued to blink slowly at his father through the glass. Ron Witwicky just rolled his eyes at his son's almost ritualized morning antics. The boy had never really been a morning person. After a few seconds, coherency reared its head and Sam bit back another yawn and rolled down the window.
"Dad?" Sam asked scratchily, wincing into the sun that framed his father.
"Well, who else would it be?" His father asked snarkily, leaning on the rolled down window and slightly into the car, "I know you've got these…things to protect you and all, son, but your mother and Istill have you under a curfew, you know?"
Sam took a moment to give his father a 'wa?' look before understanding rushed in upon the heels of coherency and he stammered out his apology, "Oh! Dad! I am so sorry, it was just that Bee and I lost track of the time! We were talking and—" Sam stopped, mouth gaping and eyes fixed on a point above his father's shoulder as he realized the implications of his words.
Realized just what he and his guardian had talked about, exactly.
Damn it.
"Yes? 'And' what?" His father prompted, tapping his fingers absentmindedly on the window pane. Before he abruptly remembered that the car could probably feel him doing that. Unwilling to accidentally cause undue discomfort to the 16 foot tall guardian disguised as a car, Ron immediately stopped his tapping and hesitantly and cautiously removed himself from leaning against the window, the whole while keeping an eye out for any sudden hostile robotic movements.
Closing his mouth a few more times before any sound could make it past his suddenly dry as desert throat, Sam just replied with a quick, "No-Nothing, Dad."
"Right. Sure, I'll believe that." Ron said with a raised eyebrow.
"Really?"
"No."
"Oh." Sam said disconsolately, slumping back into the seat as his dad went into a lecture about being punctual, especially for curfews. He cast a glance at the dashboard, still having trouble believing what had happened last night. Could he have really…admitted that stuff to Bee? And Bee returned that…feeling? Was there something in the water that made them go completely crazy or what?
Sam spent about a second longer mulling over the thought that, really, Bee didn't actually drink water, so that was essentially out of the question, before shaking himself out of his internal tangent and interrupting his dad's rambling speech, "Um, Dad?"
"—like that one time in 1987 when your mother and I accidentally went to that 'special' beach in Europe because—"
"Dad!" Sam insisted, throwing his hands up and covering his ears. He had been scarred for life the first time his parents had told him that…beach story. If there were ever two things he never wanted connected in his mind they were "parents" and "nude beach."
"What?" Ron, noticing his only child's shudder of suppressed repulsion, rolled his eyes. Honestly, he could be more embarrassing if he wanted to. Sam should consider himself lucky, really.
"I've got to go back, okay? There's a few things I…need to check out." Bumblebee, who had until that time remained completely silent and still, revved his engine in agreement. Something was so not right and the weird static and the confessions and the everything in between and it needed to be figured out and sorted through just as soon as Sam could wheedle his way back onto the street and on his way to the Ark. Surely Ratchet would be able to help him with all this mess.
"Go back? Again? To that Ark place? Why?" Ron was confused, Sam had spent most of yesterday at that place, and more importantly—"What about school? It's only Wednesday! You can't miss school just because—"
"Come on dad, it's uber-suber-duper-really-really-important!" Sam whined, hands back to griping the wheel before him in an agitated need to get going. Bee's engine clicked on and he shifted into reverse, though he remained stationary in the Witwicky's driveway.
"Sam…" Ron warned slowly. Absolutely no way was he letting him miss school again!
"Dad…" Sam whimpered back, pulling out the puppy-dog eyes.
It was then that Ron Witwicky realized he had been a part of raising a completely manipulative and scheming little con-artist of a brat-child that would have his way or the highway. Or, in this case, both, "…fine."
"Yes! Thanks dad, it really is important—" Sam said in a rush, Bee already backing them down the driveway and out onto the street.
"Yes, yes. Look, if your mother asks, you got some horrible, ah, alien robot disease, okay? And you had to knock me out to get by me because I still insisted you go to school, okay? Now get." Ron said with a sigh, watching as Sam did just that, his sleek Camaro masterfully easing itself and the boy out of the driveway and into the street. It was the ease with which the car performed the maneuver that convinced Ron that Sam was not the one currently in control of the driving. He had been in the car when his son learned how to drive and while, in all fairness, it had been about two years since then, his son still wasn't what he would call a "safe" driver.
Sighing again before rolling his eyes as the car honked once before speeding off and away, Ron made his way back into the house, debating on how to handle telling his wife that he had basically given their son permission to skip school. Again.
Rolling out the driveway and throwing one more glance his dad's way, Sam had a heart-wrenching moment where he considered just how true his dad's words of "alien robot disease" might actually turn out to be.
"…Sam?" the question sounded out through the radio's speakers and Sam put it down to the absolute oddity of the situation that Bee was speaking to him with his voice rather than just using the radio's music.
"Yes, Bee?" He replied tiredly, rubbing his eyes and dislodging a bit of eye crust that was still left over. Sam made a face before rubbing it out on his shirt.
Huh. No static electricity.
Before he could fully take in the fact that, while yesterday he had seemed to be the focal point for all the static electricity in the universe he now seemed to not have a single negatively charged atom on the whole of his fabric person, Bee continued to speak.
"Are you…alright?" was the hesitant question. Sam could have smacked himself over the head, if he was feeling confused about the whole admitted feelings thing last night then surely Bee would have a few questions about it, too.
"I'm fine, Bee! No worries." Sam said as reassuringly as he could, patting the steering wheel lightly and doing his level best to not put any electricity into it.
"Oh. I was just…last night, we, ah, well…some things were said, and—" Bee said slowly, his processor stumbling as it attempted to provide him with the words he needed.
"And I meant them, Bee." Sam said, defiant. He let his hands caress the edge of the steering wheel lightly in added reassurance.
"You…did?" Bee asked incredulously. He had thought Sam would think their actions reprehensible and attempt to go back on them today. He had onlined sometime before Sam's father had awakened his charge and he was overwhelmingly surprised and a bit nervous about the night before. He…hadn't meant to say the things that he had, and now he was beyond relieved that he wouldn't have to apologize for it. The feelings he had expressed were true.
Even with all the universal odds stacked against them, it still seemed that the Autobot couldn't help somehow falling head over heels for this young human.
"'Course I did, Bee." Sam said softly to Bumblebee's earlier question, "I didn't expect to tell you, mind you, but…yeah. I meant it. Mean it."
"Good." Bee said, his engine rumbling in agreement.
Sam laughed, "Yes, definitely good."
The rest of the car-ride back to the Ark was in companionable silence, broken only by the occasional song Bee picked up and played over the radio. Sam was hard pressed to hide his smile as he couldn't help but notice that most, if not all, the chosen melodies were love songs.
Upon reaching the Ark Sam and Bumblebee were faced with a bit of a predicament: Bee was running low on energy reserves and needed to make a quick trip to an energon dispenser. Uneasy about leaving his human alone, especially after the revelations last night, Bee tried to work it so that Sam would come with him and thenthey could go try and find Ratchet. But the car-ride had only served to give Sam the opportunity to get even more antsy and worried about the mysterious electrical charge that had all but disappeared this morning and so, against the scout's wishes, he and Sam split up with Bumblebee going to the main rec-room for a quick gulp of energon and Sam trying to immediately locate and find Ratchet in the hopes that the medic could help him with his suspicious chest pains and previous affinity for electricity.
After searching the med-bay, a few of the hallways the CMO usually hung around, and even his personal quarters, Sam, however, had all about just given up when he ran into the twins.
Instantly on alert, he asked them about Ratchet. If anyone would know where Ratchet was surely it would be the two terrors that drove the grumpy medic half crazy. To his infinite astonishment, however, the clearly agitated twins responded that Ratchet was hiding from something.
Actually hiding.
Sam attempted to wrap his mind around the fact that Ratchet, irritable, ornery old mech extraordinaire, was hiding from anything, better yet from the two mechs that he was known to throw a wrench at every once in a while. After failing astoundingly, he figured that if the medic was indisposed (freaking hiding), he should try to find someone else to tell of his condition. Just in case it turned out to be something horrible or something.
Still not wanting to bother Optimus who he knew had been busy ever since the Ark had been found, what with having to reorganize his previously unconscious hordes of Autobots, Sam decided that he should try the second in command.
Only to all about be bowled over by a very anxious Jazz as he was coming down the hallway. Sidestepping the huge mech, he just managed to avoid getting squished and his yelp of fright was enough to catch Jazz's audios and make him realize that he almost had a human-pancake on his hands.
"Sam? What's up? Can it wait?" Jazz asked in a rush, visored head constantly ticking towards the end of the hallway and then back down to Sam, clearly wanting to make haste to wherever he was headed.
"Umm…I was just wondering where Prowl was." Sam said with a weary glance up at the mech before him. Out of all the Autobots (excluding Bee, of course) Sam had always considered Jazz to be the least intimidating. His sudden new flighty attitude, however, was placing the human on edge.
"He's missing." Jazz answered with half a mind, "That's all, right? Kay, look, I've got to go find the slag-headed aft-glitch anyway. Let me know if you find him first, yes?" and with a wave that was clearly lacking in its usual energy, Jazz stepped over the human and raced around the turn of the hallway and was gone from sight.
Sam just continued to stare after him in shock. Wait a minute—there was no way that Prowl could possibly be hiding, too. What the hell was up with the Autobots today? First Ratchet and now Prowl? It was like Sam had stepped into an alternate universe where grumpy medics who would just as soon throw a wrench at your head as cure you and outstandingly professional and yet amazingly conscientious tacticians just up and, with an absolutely complete turnabout of personality, actually ran away from whatever problems they had found themselves in.
Sam now understood how those people in the Twilight Zone episodes must have felt.
Wide-eyed, Sam shook off his astonishment and went to find the next mech on his list. If the medic and the tactician were busy, surely the engineer could help him?
Making his way to Wheeljack's lab, Sam ran into Sunstreaker and Sideswipe again who were, it seemed, still looking for Ratchet. After telling them that, no, he still hadn't seen him, the twins leapt off into another corridor to, presumably, continue the search. Sam just stared bemusedly after them. Why did they care where Ratchet was? Did they need repairs or something?
He could get Jazz looking for Prowl, those two obviously had a strong friendship going on. When Prowl had awakened and found out about Jazz's almost death by Megatron, he had all but dived down into the ocean himself just to make sure that Megatron really was dead, and if not, then to rectify the mistake with his own two hands and many long, painful measures.
At Jazz's reawakening, however, the two had done one of the biggest almost hug things that Sam had ever seen and it had made him cackle with amusement (much to the bemusement of the other Autobots). He knew that it was a human habit for men to be afraid of hugging each other in emotional situations when in front of other friends, but he didn't know the social stigma also extended to alien robot warrior lieutenants' fear of being too emotional in front of their troops. It was a refreshing take on what he had previously mistook for emotionless machines.
Blushing, Sam recalled his and Bumblebee's confessions the night before once again and decided that he was greatly mistaken about the emotional capacities of the autobots. Rounding the last corner and striding towards the door to the engineer's lab, Sam could distinctly make out what sounded suspiciously like yelling on the other side of the sliding door.
Confused and not a little alarmed, he nevertheless palmed open the door with the specially built human height door-keys that had been placed on most of the doors on the Ark, and stepped slowly inside.
And promptly wondered if he really was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Wheeljack had never been neat—Sam had a sinking suspicion that if 'Jack ever found himself organized and without any clutter he would go insane—but the state of his lab at the moment could only be attributed to a hurricane. Datapads were strewn everywhere, tables turned over, and even a few sensitive cultures of earth plants that he had been cultivated for study were upturned over the floor, the fauna spilling out in a sludgy, muddy mess.
The most worrying thing in the room, however, was a distressed Bluestreak hollering at a door and apparently trying to convince it to open.
"Blue?" Sam called across the lab, making his way slowly over to the grey gunner.
"What?" Bluestreak, normally an animated and talkative mech, shouted over at the human. Sam, startled by the yell, slipped in some mud and only just managed to catch his balance. Noting the human, Bluestreak made an obvious attempt to soften his features, "Ah, Sam. Sorry…just, I'm a little busy at the moment."
At Blue's quick nod towards the door, Sam raised an eyebrow, "I can see. Why, do tell, are you talking to the door?"
"It's not the door I'm talking to." Bluestreak replied dryly.
Sam was confused. And right now, he was really, really tired of being confused. "Blue, just tell me what's up and where I can find Wheeljack, please?"
Bluestreak snorted and banged on the door harshly, "He's the one I'm talking to. He's holed himself behind the door andhe won't open the bloody thing!" Bluestreak yelled, banging on the door a second time.
A muffled curse and then a shouted, "Just go away! I…I—go away!"
Yessirie, that sounded like Wheeljack. An overly emotional and stressed out Wheeljack, but him nonetheless. Sam blinked at the whole situation.
"Wait a minute, is he hiding, too? What is with everybody today?" Sam yelled, fed up with all the personality shifts.
"What do you mean, 'too'? Who else is hiding?" Bluestreak asked distractedly, never ceasing his knocking on the door.
"As far as I know Ratchet and Prowl are AWOL. I've been looking for someone because I think something might be wrong with me." Sam replied, squatting down in a somewhat clean spot on the floor to get more comfortable.
Bluestreak paused for a moment in his frantic battering of the door, "Prowl? And Ratchet? Why?"
"The hell if I know. I was hoping someone could tell me." Sam snorted and gave in to his quaking knees, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
"Sorry, I've been stuck here since onlining a little while ago. Trying to get the sorry aft head to open the fragged door and talk things out like any rational mech!" Bluestreak shouted, punctuating each phrase with a harder than before slap at the metal barrier between them and Wheeljack's hiding place, "But you can go ahead and tell me what's up and I'll report it to the bloody sparkling once he grows up and comes out of this glitch of a closet."
"Thanks." Sam said wryly, "I just need someone's opinion."
"I'm no medic and I certainly ain't a qualified human physician, but I'll do my best." Bluestreak said compassionately, toning down his knocks to hear Sam over the din.
"Yesterday during…some revealing events," Sam blushed but Bluestreak seemed not to notice, "I got this burning pain in my chest."
"Sounds like heartburn." Bluestreak said after a quick search of Web MD.
"No, not that kind of burning pain." Sam admonished, "More like…like electricity, y'know? Like there was this…ball of electrical impulses that was writhing and creating tension and would just all about burst if somethingdidn't happen. And it had a beat. Almost like a heartbeat."
Bluestreak said nothing for a while, even his knocks slowing down to almost small pats, "It…sounds like something weird, that's for sure." Another quick internet search gave him nothing on Sam's condition, "If you were Cybertronian, I would say that it sounded like a spark that was about to spark-bond, but that would be impossible. A spark would create way too much electricity for your human body to contain. You're way too flammable; you'd have been burnt to a crisp from the inside out by now."
"A spark?" Sam echoed, forcing his mind not to dwell on the image of his flaming corpse running around screaming for help, "No…that would be impossible. Right?"
"Most definitely." Bluestreak replied, once again starting up his banging with renewed vigor, "But remember that I'm not a trained medic nor a son of a glitch of an engineer who needs to stop wailing like a sparkling and talk about it so take what I say with a, um, grain of salt, is it? Human expressions are so strange."
"Yeah…thanks though Blue." Sam said slowly, his mind still processing and cataloguing the possibilities. It was impossible—it had to be.
…But with the Allspark? Maybe…maybe it wasn't so impossible. But even if, somehow, someway, the stupid cube managed to give him a spark, wouldn't he have still been burned up into a human sized bit of char like Blue said? What, then, was keeping him alive?
"Sam?" a voice questioned from the open doorway and Sam drifted out of his musings long enough to glance at Bee. He smiled slowly and, though his guardian had no lips, he still got the impression of a smile back. Blushing (he was making a damn habit of it), Sam waved him over to where he was sitting and where Bluestreak was still shouting obscenities and banging on the door.
"Hey Bee, did you get the energon that you needed?" Sam asked as Bee sat down next to him and he winced as the Autobot paid no attention to the generous puddles of mud, his hip landing in one with a wet splash.
"Yes, thank you. Did you find Ratchet?" Bee responded, gently picking up the human in his palm and setting him on his knee. He noted Sam's wince and tried to avoid the rest of the puddles. Shifting to get into a more comfortable position, Sam hardly found it strange anymore that he could get comfortable on the metal underneath him. Bee was surprisingly pillow-like for a being made completely out of hard metal plates.
"No, I didn't. And I couldn't find Prowl either. Found Wheeljack, though." Sam responded.
"Really? Where is he? What did he have to say?" Bee chirped, swinging his head back and forth in search of the aforementioned mech.
"Over there." Sam said wryly, waving a lackluster hand over at the screaming Bluestreak and the still closed door.
Bumblebee blinked. He had automatically tuned Bluestreak out, a talent that he had become adept at after spending thousands of vorns in the grey bot's company and being subjected to his, at times, never ending babble. Focusing on the young gunner, he phased his audios into once again picking up his voice.
"…bloody hell glitched spawn son of a fragged off defunct motherboard, open this bloody door!" And reeled back at the zealous cursing offered to him.
"I…don't understand. Where's Wheeljack?" Bumblebee asked, leaning his voice module closer to Sam in an effort to whisper.
"Behind the door that Blue's trying to get open. I dunno what happened, Bee. I came in on it about a minute ago myself. But I talked to Blue and he had no idea what was up, either. Said it sounded like a Spark. But that's impossible…" Sam trailed off, waiting for his guardian to cut him off and interject with his own negative agreement. When he didn't, Sam twisted around in his position, locking his eyes onto the yellow bot's optics, "Isn't it?"
"Sam, I have…suspected something. But I was hoping Ratchet could find out for sure. Since no one seems to want to be found, however, we shall have to make them be found." Bee replied before carefully standing, Sam gradually sliding off his leg and onto the floor.
"What? Bee, what do you mean?" Sam was distressed—what did Bee suspect? And what did he mean make them be found?
He got his answer to the last question as Bee went up to the door and, completely ignoring Bluestreak's continuing efforts in drawing the engineer out, he unsubspaced a spare combat rifle and shot the electrical panel.
With a pained whoosh and the smell of fried circuits, the door burst open, startling the human and gunner who just looked at Bee with something akin to astonishment. The Camaro just shrugged.
"We need an opinion. There's no time for pleasantries." He said, subspacing the rifle back into oblivion and stepping into the closet.
"Blue! I said I didn't want to talk, okay!" Wheeljack screamed from his curled position plastered against the opposite wall.
"Blue's not the one that wants to talk, Wheeljack." Bumblebee said shortly, edging into the mech-sized closet. Wheeljack started and turned sharply around at his voice, staring in confused shock at the young Autobot.
"Bee? What—where's Bluestreak?" Wheeljack asked, his voice lacking any tone and sounding weak. Sam wouldn't have believed it had been Wheeljack who spoke if he hadn't seen it himself, usually the inventor was so loud and boisterous, even after getting blown up. What could have caused him to curl so far within himself?
"I'm here." Bluestreak said lightly, completely opposite to his previous loud noises a second ago, pushing through Bee and approaching Wheeljack cautiously, "I'm not gonna leave you, you slag-head."
"Blue…things have gotten way too messed up." Wheeljack said softly.
"I know. And I'm sorry." Bluestreak said sadly, halting his advancing steps and lowering his head in shame.
"Don't you dare be apologetic!" Wheeljack shouted suddenly, causing Sam and Bumblebee to frantically backpedal out of the closet that they had slowly been inching in to get a better view of the two conversing Autobots. Blue only took a single step back, his optic's widening.
"But I was the one who—" the gunner started.
"What? I asked for it Blue. It was me. If anyone should be sorry, it should be me." Wheeljack stated firmly, uncoiling from his ball and standing straight.
Bluestreak met his optics in puzzlement, "Then why did you run away? If this was really all your idea, why did you hide from me, 'Jack?"
"It was just too much. I know that, now, you know all about my…" Wheeljack made a vague gesture to his once again in place facemask, "And I didn't think I was ready to share that particular piece of my past."
Blue shook his head in something like affectionate annoyance, "You don't think it changes my feelings for you, do you? You should be able to feelnow that it doesn't. Just like I can feel that you, knowing my dark little secrets, still love me."
Despite Blue's confident tone, Wheeljack could still hear the slight edge of questioning in his last words, "Yes, I...guess I can." He sent his admission through their new bond as well as vocally, his mental touch tentative and explorative down the new pathway that lead to his lover's mind and that could never again be fully closed. Blue felt him reach out and, just as tentatively, accepted him.
All at once all tension drained from both bot's frames as they were plunged into the sea that was their love for each other. No matter their pasts, they still could, and would, always love each other.
Sam and Bumblebee, not privy to the mental exchange, could only see the physical aspect as both bots' postures stopped emanating tension and instead started to radiate something close to relaxation. Sam sent a questioning look up at his guardian who could only shrug in response, "Wheeljack and Bluestreak are one of the most confusing couples I've ever seen. I don't get it and I've stopped trying to."
Sam couldn't hold back a chuckle at Bee's reply, "It must have been some sort of lover's spat, then."
"That would be my guess. And still…Wheeljack hardly ever acts that inconsiderate, even when he's mad at someone." Bee said contemplatively. Sam just sighed in increased puzzlement. He just wanted answers, damn it, not more questions.
The two lovers were unaware of the exchange that was going on between the observing mech and human, still wrapped up in each other through their bond. Dragging himself out slowly and regretfully, Wheeljack took a deep intake of air before even attempting speech, "That is..."
"Worth it—the secrets. So, so worth it." Bluestreak breathed back, off balance still after the exchange. At this stage they were still too inexperienced to hide feelings from each other, so they'd be getting the brunt of each other's emotions for a while. Bluestreak frowned slightly, they also couldn't exchange anything other than emotions. Words were too complicated for this early stage, but he desperately wanted to know more about his mate and silently worded communication would have made it all the more private and easy.
" 'Jack?" the inventor tilted his head lightly to indicate he was listening, his ear-fins still emanating a pleasant glow, "Even if it was worth it now, in retrospect, why'd you want to do it then? If you thought you weren't ready?"
"I…" Wheeljack started hesitantly, faltering slightly before steadfastedly holding onto his hardened resolve, "I…don't really know. It was almost as if something was…pushing me towards it. It felt like a burning pain in my chassis, right over my spark. It pulsed and writhed and it made me…want it like I never had before."
At Blue's crestfallen look, the inventor suddenly tried to amend his words, "It wasn't that I didn't want it, Blue! Those feelings were real, you know that, it was just that I never thought that I would act on them so soon, s'all." Wheeljack sent his hurried placation through their bond as well and Blue, when obtaining both the verbal and mental assurance, nodded that he understood—his doubt once again forcibly banished in light of his absolute knowledge of Wheeljack's feelings for him.
"Sorry to break this up guys, but I needed to talk to you, Wheeljack…" Sam said lightly, stepping into the closet only enough to let the bots notice him. Optic's darting towards the human, both of the bots still inside the closet were surprised to realize that there were other people there.
"Sam! I'm sorry!" Bluestreak said, rushing his intakes in a quick bout of embarrassment and awkwardly moving himself out of the closet and out of the way.
"What can I help you with Sam?" Wheeljack asked, leaning down to be on more of a level with the human. He spared a second to shoot an amused glance at the still flustered Bluestreak who was almost outrageously alarmed at being so inconsiderate. Bumblebee was making a rather poor attempt at comforting his fellow bot, just tapping him lightly above the shoulder wing and spouting out a few monotone sayings to try and pacify him.
"I wanted someone to check out a few things that I think might be wrong with me." Sam said, and, at Wheeljack's worried and frazzled look, assured him that he didn't think it was anything immediately life threatening, "Bee thinks it might have something to do with the Allspark, so I wanted to see you guys instead of just an earth doctor."
"He says he gets chest pain." Bumblebee piped up from outside the closet, still absentmindedly patting a still babbling Bluestreak.
"Sounds like heartburn." Wheeljack stated.
Sam rolled his eyes, "Been there, done that."
"What?" Wheeljack asked, confused.
"Never mind. Just trust me that it's not heartburn, okay?"
"Okay…" Wheeljack said uncertainly, "But shouldn't you bee seeing Ratchet about this? Or at least reporting it to Prowl?"
"I would if I could, but they're, apparently, in hiding." Sam shot out.
"What!" Wheeljack asked, incredulous. The thought of either of those bots hiding from their problems rather than just shooting and or yelling at them was baffling to his CPU. It, simply, did not compute.
"That's what I thought, too." Sam agreed with a self-satisfied nod.
"Do you think you could do something?" Bee asked. Blue hiccupped once and finally ceased his rambling apology. Bee, taking this to mean he was consoled at last, removed his hand from its continued patting motion and rolled his arm's joints slightly to ease the soreness that had accumulated from the repetitive movement.
"I could try, but we really should find Ratchet and do some tests." Wheeljack said, standing and stepping over the human and out of the closet.
Following, Sam watched the closet door close sluggishly and painfully behind them before facing the three Autobots, "If you could just give me your opinion on if you think it's something serious or not would be great, 'Jack."
"I can do that. Describe your symptoms?"
"It's like a burning pain right over my heart. It's not at all overly painful, more pleasant than not, but it makes me feel all, well, bothered, I guess. And…" Sam tried his hardest not to blush and shot a look over at Bee who, for his part, did that small smile thing in encouragement, "It almost always happened whenever Bee or I…admitted something to each other."
"Ah…" Wheeljack said knowingly. A little too knowingly for Sam's liking, as the engineer glanced between him and Bumblebee with a significant look.
"Hey, that sounds like what you said you felt, 'Jack." Bluestreak interjected. Sam furrowed his brow, either the gunner had gotten the hidden message and had already accepted it, or he'd just missed it all together.
"It does, doesn't it?" Wheeljack agreed, his optics going blank in a way that Sam had learned to associate as Wheeljack's Thinking a Problem Through Time, "Sam?"
"Yes?"
"During these, ah, 'attacks,' did they seem to influence your behavior into doing something that you previously might not have done?" Wheeljack asked with no inflection in his voice.
"Kinda…it, um, well, it got us to confess those...things. To each other." Sam said stiltedly, his head turned and refusing to look anyone in the face.
Wheeljack took his answer in stride, a frown clear in the frantic flashes of his ear fins.
" 'Jack?" Bluestreak questioned in apprehension.
At the sound of his name, Wheeljack's optics lost its sheen of concentration and he glanced down at a still flushed Sam, "We need to find Ratchet. Now."
"What? Wheeljack, what's wrong with him?" Bumblebee asked, his voice rising slightly. Sam, the implications of Wheeljack's request sinking in, ceased all fidgeting and just stared in uncomprehending fear at the floor. Taking one look at his charge, Bee pushed his way over to the inventor and grasped him by his shoulders, shaking him lightly, "It has something to do with the Allspark, doesn't it? Doesn't it!"
"I…don't know yet, Bee." Wheeljack said with compassion, staring him straight in the optics, "But I do know that we need to run some tests. Immediately. And I need Ratchet for that."
"Sam said that he was hiding, though. How can we find him?" Blue said, grasping Bee's hand and pulling it off his mate's shoulder. He blamed the bond's newness for his over-protectiveness as he did it with a bit more force then he technically needed to. Bee, however, wasn't paying enough attention to notice, still focused on Wheeljack and waiting for him to answer Blue's question.
"I've known Ratchet for most of our lives. That's thousands upon thousands of vorns in each other's company. I'd like to think that I know him well enough by now to know where'd he go if he didn't want to be found." Wheeljack said, his optics gleaming. Bee nodded in acknowledgement and took another glance at his human before shuttering his optics.
"So, where do we go and what do we do?"
I swear, if the italics thing is still messed up I'm going to have a fit. Gah! But it looked okay in the preview, honest!
Ah...right.
I hope you enjoyed and we get even more explanation next chapter! Yay! And, to answer those of you who wanted to know where Ironhide and Optimus are (ShiTiger and gs I'm looking at you here), they'll be in the next chapter. At least Optimus will. I'm not too sure if Ironhide's making his appearance next chapter or in the one after next.
Thank you for reading, once again, and please feel free to drop me a line!