Title: Owls and Larks
Author: BlueLunacy7
Chapter Warnings: OC's, Foul language, reference to past sexual acts
Pairings: None at the moment but future Sam/Bee
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, the any quotes or lyrics, or song titles in anyway, shape, or form. Basically, nothing you recognize is mine.
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Chapter 2: Ladies in my life
Sure, God created man before woman. But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece.-Author Unknown
After the final strips and flakes of dead skin were removed, the masseuse, a pretty red-head girl named Bethany according to her nametag, started to polish his scales with soft, oil-soaked cloths. Sam loved this part, for not only did he get a pretty girl to rub him down, the oil in the clothes soaked in quickly, leaving his skin suppler and buffed his scales. It smelled very nice as well; redolently spicy with a hint of leather with the added benefit both the softness and the scent would carry over to his human form.
Once his scales were burnished to a shine, Sam preened a bit in the reflective metal of wall. If he was honest with himself (and he did try to be), he was a little vain about his coloration, deep cool colors in shades of blue, he was rather lovely if he did say so himself.
His preening, however, was cut short however when his sensitive hearing picked up Alexis's voice sounding like it was coming from the hallway. He couldn't believe that she was here on this level of Pearl; most people would have waited until he came out, but not her it would appear. He decided that a quick exit out the back would be wise, quickly transforming, he dressed and snuck out the back to the car.
Of course, given the day he had so far, didn't work.
"Witwicky!" Alexis called as she stomped across the parking lot.
'Goddamn it!' He had just opened the car door. Sam wondered if he could pretend he didn't hear her, slip into the car and drive away. However, seeing as she screamed his name loud enough that he was sure people in England probably heard her, it wouldn't be the best idea.
"Well?" She asked when she got to him, arms folded across her chest. She was on the opposite side of the fashion spectrum from Sam: a pink polo shirt, a khaki skirt with white tennis shoes, topped off with a pearl necklace and earrings. 'Preppy chic. Yuck.'
"Well what?" he groaned as he slumped against the car, not wanting to believe she had tracked him down for that. If he was right, he knew exactly why she was pissed, and really didn't want to deal with her anal retentiveness at the moment.
"Where is your paper work?" Alexis was absolutely fanatic about proper paperwork and proper procedure, considering that she had tracked him down about it. Knowing it droved her crazy made Sam less inclined to keep up with his paperwork. However, to give the Devil her due, she was the one who kept this branch of PARA running smoothly.
"I turned it in." 'I think.' Hell, he wasn't sure he even did the paperwork on the mimic (as he learned it was commonly called) he killed last night, never mind turning it in. "It probably hasn't been filed yet."
"You need to turn your paperwork in sooner," She told him, hands on her hips. "You need to be more responsible."
"You need to chill the hell out before you pop a blood vessel," Sam murmured, opening the car door, "But that's not gonna happen either."
"What did you say?" Alexis growled, her foot tapping in annoyance.
"I was wondering how you keep your shoes so very white." Sam had considered telling her exactly what he had said and a bit more, but he didn't want to spend the next half hour arguing with her and end up on an episode of Cops. "Look if you've come to bitch at me, can we do this later? I have somewhere else to be."
"Oh and where's that?"
"None of your damn business," Sam replied as he slipped into the car. Before she could stop him, he started the car and drove off, leaving a fuming Alexis in the parking lot, no point giving her time to find something else to bitch about or something to throw.
A quick run through the Grocery store, picking up basics like milk, bread and diapers and he was on his way to Mrs. Sarah's. The Lennoxs lived on a large piece of forest-y land just inside the city limits, which now hummed with wards. Not very powerful as wards went but they were perfect for what Mrs. Sarah needed: a deterrent for human criminals and protection from unfriendly entities. If something was powerful enough to get through them, the wards would let him know that something was wrong and would give her enough of a warning to arm herself.
Sarah Lennox wielded a mean frying pan as Sam had found out months ago. For a few nights, Sam had been tracking an Aimal, a nasty creature that was a distant cousin of the Lamia but instead of drinking an infant's blood, it would drink the babies' life force. Since there was no marks on the baby, the death was usually ruled SIDS related.
According to Mrs. Sarah, she had interrupted the Aimal before it could feed fully on her daughter, Annabelle. She had managed to chase it out of the nursery with a fire poker. At least until the Aimal had realized that the poker was brass and therefore completely harmless to it. Adding to the fact that it hadn't fed since Sam had started tracking it made the situation go quickly from bad to worst.
Luckily, they had been the kitchen at the time so when the Aimal snatched the poker from her, another weapon within reach: a cast iron frying pan, which was far from harmless. By the time Sam had arrived on the scene, Mrs. Sarah had managed to chase the Aimal out of the house and was proceeding to beat the crap out of it in the front yard.
When she saw Sam, she back peddled quickly and fell down. Sam quickly killed the Aimal before it could attack her or escape. Without thinking, he went over to check on Mrs. Sarah without changing back to his human form. Concerened about her, he didn't take how he looked at the moment into consideration: big, scaly, with bloody fangs and claws, not realizing just how scary he looked.
Therefore, once he'd gotten close enough, she whacked him on the nose with her frying pan. Hard.
While he didn't have a weakness to Cold iron and he was much tougher than a human was, the whack didn't break anything but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. Mrs. Sarah admitted later that, strangely enough, what calmed her most was hearing the human voice of a young man coming out of an otherworldly creature, saying "Jesus Christ! What the fuck was that for? Goddamn it, that hurt!"
Things got better after that, especially after he had assumed human form. A quick trip to the hospital revealed that while baby Annabelle was fine, Mrs. Sarah had sprained her wrist. The doctor had gotten it in his head that Sam was Mrs. Sarah's son for whatever reason and told him that he would need to help her with the baby while she healed. This was how he had gotten wrangled into being the grocery delivery boy.
His mom thought it was cute and his father had told him to be careful, that people may get the wrong idea. The last thing her solider husband needed to come home to was rumor and gossip that he wife was cheating on him with some young thing. Sam promised to be careful. The first thing he did was get Mrs. Sarah another frying pan, an iron poker set and special bullets in Silver, Cold Iron and Blessed Lead for the gun she now kept in her nightstand. He then got Miles's mom (the Lancaster witches were well known for their wards) to set wards.
Sam didn't think he was doing anything out of the ordinary, she was a mother who was home alone most of the time with her infant daughter, she needed all the protection she could get. Anyone else would have done the same thing. The fact she was very pretty with pale blond hair and blue eyes had nothing to do with it. Besides, once her husband came home, Sam wouldn't be needed anymore.
Sam pulled into the driveway just as the sun began to sink into the horizon. Gathering up the groceries, he trudged to the front and knocked. When he tried again, still not receiving any answer, he tried the door. Finding it unlocked, he opened the door and walked inside calling, "Mrs. Sarah?"
"I'm in the living room." She called, her voice sounding thick and odd as if she had cold.
"Are you getting sick?" He asked as he walked to the living room, "You need to take some C-What's wrong?"
This, of course, was absolutely the wrong thing to say to a crying woman. It was a magic phrase that, for whatever reason, would trigger new a deluge of tear in a woman and Sarah Lennox began crying softly.
The whole situation was made surreal by Annabelle, who was sucking on a pacifier without a care in the world.
'Goddamn it.' Like most of his gender, Sam was at a complete lost at what to do. He was convinced that some sort of weird biological thing linked with testosterone turned an otherwise intelligent man into blithering idiot in the face of a woman's tears.
"The base that Will was deployed at was attacked." Mrs. Sarah sniffled, gesturing to the TV which showed the Secretary of Defense Keller; Sam thought his name was, talking to the press. "They said it didn't look like there were any survivors."
Once he sat the groceries on the floor, he tried to comfort her by awkwardly patting her shoulder as she cried, not knowing what else to do besides saying lamely, "I'm sure he's okay."
A few more minutes of tears, she pulled herself together. "I'm okay." She said as she took Annabelle out of the baby-carrying thing she was in.
"Do you need me to do something for you?" Sam asked.
"You can hold Annabelle for a bit."
"Anything else you want me to do?" He offered quickly, knowing the look on his face said that he would rather hold a snake, a big poisonous one.
At first, Mrs. Sarah had been offended when Sam didn't want to hold her baby, until Sam told her why. Sam was much stronger than a human, strong enough to rip a car door off, no sweat or he could put his hand through said car door without breaking his skin. He could hurt Annabelle by accident even if he was careful.
Usually she respected his wishes but not tonight. With a quickness only mothers seemed to possess, she deposited her offspring in his arms with a towel over one of his shoulders before he could ask 'what the hell?'
Then she walked away, of course, making Sam panic, "Where are you going?"
"To the kitchen, I have to fix her bottle."
"Don't leave me alone with her." Sam as he followed Mrs. Sarah.
"Sam," Mrs. Sarah said with infinite patience, "She is not a tiger, she will not eat you."
Of course, he planted his ass in entrance of the kitchen so he could give the baby back if she started crying. Annabelle was tiny and warm; she stared at him with her big grey-blue eyes as if trying to figure out what he was.
Holding her as gently as he could without dropping her, Sam eyed her back, "Don't you throw up on me."
It was as if he had given her a command. Milky white liquid spurted out of her and, thankfully, onto the towel. "Okay, I'm done." Sam said trying to hand Annabelle to Mrs. Sarah. "Take her back before her head starts spinning.
Mrs. Sarah giggled a little as she took Annabelle back. "I'm sorry, Sam."
"It's okay," Sam said, making a face as he folded the towel up and handle it to Mrs. Sarah, "At least it wasn't my shirt." He took in her red-rimmed eyes and air of worried sadness that hung around her despite the slight smile on her face. "I know some people who do the remote viewing thing, if you want I can ask them look for your husband."
"Does that really work?" She asked hopefully.
"Hey, the government spent however many billions studying it," Sam said with a shrug, "It wouldn't hurt to ask."
It was dark when Sam headed home and he gave no thought to the old yellow camaro behind him.
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A deep dark secret, it something Sam would admit only under slow and painful torture.
Dirty babe
You see the shackles
Baby I'm your slave
I'll let you whip me if I misbehave
It's just that no one makes me feel this way
He liked SexyBack by Justin Timberlake.Come here girl
Go ahead, be gone with it
Come to the back
Go ahead, be gone with it
VIP
Go ahead, be gone with it
Drinks on me
Go ahead, be gone with it
Sam was currently listening to the radio, dancing to said song in nothing but his boxer shorts, enjoying himself until he heard an odd, half-choking noise.
He then remembered that he forgot to lock his bedroom door. Slowly, like the heroine of a slasher film about to confront the killer behind her, Sam turned around. Miles was standing the doorway, or trying to as he was laughing so hard that he could hardly stand with a hand over his mouth trying to muffle the sound.
"You know I'll have to kill you now." Sam deadpanned, his annoyance rising when his threat simply made Miles laugh harder. "Get your ass in here."
Miles didn't say anything as he was still laughing but he did do a few mocking dance moves until Sam punched him in the shoulder. "God man, some thing should be immortalized," Miles said still sniggered as he flopped down on Sam's bed, "I wish I had a camera."
"That you would have eaten" Sam said when he turned the radio off and locked his bedroom door.
"So who did you want me to find?" Miles asked, still giggling a bit. When Sam said he knew some people who did the remote viewing thing, he meant he knew Miles. He was pretty good at it, if Sam was any judge.
Sam picked up the picture off his desk and handed it to Miles. On the back of the picture was written William Lennox, SOCCENT Forward Operations Base, Qatar. "This is Mrs. Sarah's husband?" Miles asked.
"Yep." Sam said as he sat down on the chair in front of his desk, "The base he was at was bombed. The news said that they didn't think anyone made it."
"So what, you want me to locate his body?" Miles said as he opened his duffle bag that he had brought with him and pulled out a notepad.
"Nooo, would you find out if he's alive or not."
"Didn't they say there weren't any survivors?"
"No, they said they didn't think there were." Sam said with a shrugged, "I just want you to double check."
"That far away? In the desert? Someone I've never met?" Miles shook his head, "You know how difficult that is?"
"Just try. Anything would be good."
"Dude, I hope the sex is good."
"I'm not sleeping with her."
"Sure, sure," Miles said as he shook his head, "Anything for pair of pretty blue eyes."
"Shut up Miles." Sam replied as he turned around to face his computer and turned it on. When the desktop appeared, he got on line to check his mail. Unsurprisingly, there was an e-mail from PARA. They didn't give assignments per say, but they gave out information packets on 'things that needed to be watched for.'
The Paranormal Activity Research Alliance also known as PARA was what it sounded like, only if the 'research' turned up a dangerous being causing trouble, whether human or not, it was deal with. Sam had been 'approached,' if one could it that, by PARA when he was fifteen.
To say Sam's birth had been something of a surprise would be an understatement. Though dragons could and did assume human form, they were not supposed to be compatible with humans on a genetic level. Somehow, everything had lined up correctly to create Sam. His parents had called him their miracle baby.
Turns out there were more 'miracle babies' and they weren't exactly welcomed. Some dragons considered draconic halflings to be abominations and hunted them. There were also clandestine human organizations that did so as well. Sam's mom had given up her scales in order to stay with Sam's father, she could no longer transform, couldn't train Sam to defend himself. It was why he worked with PARA, to receive both health benefits and training in his new abilities.
A basic 'help us protect the world and we'll teach you how to fight' type of deal.
The email didn't contain any pictures, which was odd, but it did contained reports of…haunted cars. Apparently, there were some cars pulling a Christine and scaring the crap out of people. Two confirmed 'haunted' cars were a Saleen S281 police car and yellow 1976 Chevrolet Camaro. Deciding that it was probably some gremlins taking them for a joyride, Sam opened another email, this one from Nanami Delaney, a half cecaelia he'd met a few months ago through PARA.
When someone had explained that Ursula from The Little Mermaid was cecaelia, he had expected Nanami to be ugly. She turned out to be gorgeous, a bit older than himself, a curvy woman with an Asian cast to her features, shiny black hair, pearly skin and blue eyes….she managed to hit several of his weaknesses when it came to women that he had ended up following her around like puppy for days.
Turns out she was curious about dragons… well…lets just say she knew how to use to those tentacles of hers.
Hi Scales,
Sam couldn't help but smile at her nickname for him; it was a reference to his dragon form.
How r you? I'm ok but busy. I need a 2nd set of eyes, do u mind? I've sent attachment, read it & tell me what u think.
OXOXO
-Nanami
When Sam opened the attachment, he was greeted by reports, similar to the one he did (or didn't) turn in about the mimic. Curious as to why Nanami would send him something like this, Sam quickly read through them.
Hidebehinds, Kuchisake-onna victims, Dybbuks, Mylings, black dogs packs, kelpies, rusalka, vodyanoy, kappas as well as numerous reports on Shadow people sighting and various other nasty things in Mission City and around Hoover Dam.
Hoover Dam's numbers didn't really surprise Sam. Its numbers had always, always been high, rating a 9.5 on the creepy meter. For whatever reason, it seemed to be a gathering place for Bad Things. What did make him uneasy were the Mission City numbers. Such numbers would be normal in like a month or two. These numbers had been coming in for the last few weeks.
While Sam had noticed a slight increased in Tranquility, it was nothing like this. Something bad was probably going to happen there, the last time there had been such a dramatic upswing somewhere like this was September 11.
Sam sent Nanami a reply:
Hey Beautiful,
I'm fine, it's kind of slow here. Are these numbers 4 real? What the hell is up with Mission City? What do the Seers say?
Much love,
-Sam
"E-mailing Takoyaki again?" Miles asked, peering over Sam's shoulder.
"Her name Nanami," Sam corrected as he hit send. "And yes I am."
"Sam, Sam, Sam," Miles said, shaking his head, "Think about it: a Japanese woman and Tentacles. This will not end well."
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Author Notes:
So what did Miles find about Will? Find out in the next chapter.
Some things I need to clear up:
1) Moulting: I'm sorry about this. I thought Dogs = shedding, Snakes = Moulting. But I forgot about the whole "snakes shed their skin," thing. I didn't even think about the bird association.
2) The title is a reference to chronotypes: the sleep and alertness patterns that determine if a person is an 'owl', a night person or a 'lark', a day person. In this case, the 'owls' are the non-human creatures since they mostly come out at night and owls are predatory bird. The humans are larks since they are out and about during the day.
3) Alexis is not the Alexis from the Unicron Trilogy continuity. She is an OC.
4) Nanami is mine, though she may not show up 'in person'. I needed her to show that Sam is not bothered by someone's "inhumanness" and because I thought it would funny.
5) Sam is bisexual in this fic.
6) The haunted Saleen S281 police car is Barricade and yellow 1976 Chevrolet Camaro is Bumblebee.