The Band's Called...

Disclaimer: Last one. Same.

"All right! First gig! First real live show! I'm excited!" Swerve stepped out from behind the bar and whipped right back around after two steps. "I am freaking out Skids help me."

Skids shrugged. "It won't be that bad. You'll be fine."

"That doesn't help me at all!" Swerve hopped onto his secret bartender stepstool that put him at chest height to the bar. "Tailgate, you help me."

"U-um! Uh- W-we're all in this together?" Tailgate tried.

Swerve grinned wide. "See, Skids, that's how you do it."

Skids laughed. "Yeah, with Disney quotes. I should have guessed."

Chromedome laughed, and Cyclonus smiled, and Rewind was probably recording it, and that had been life. It had been the band for a month, hanging out in Swerve's room and the band room between shifts and leaving little trophies and tokens in the nooks and crannies of both spaces. It had been a lot of movies and Swerve pointing out "Can we learn this?" over and over again until they actually found something that worked with their setup. It had been unplugged jam sessions with the band sitting in a giant circle and watching each other, getting the feel for how they played. It had been about 330 temp band names. Most of them involved tables and night stands, at first, until the joke got old and then finally so old that it was no longer an old joke, it was a 'reference'. The reference solidified when Swerve painted "The Table" on Tailgate's bass drum in big black glyphs. It was a weird, but comfy state of being.

Skids had the struts to say they could play live, and here they were. It was like life had jumped them right to the gig. Time had gone so fast.

"It's trippy, isn't it?" Swerve whispered into his ear. "It's like an exposition dump."

Skids recoiled to scratch his ear. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"He's been spending time with Brainstorm again," Cyclonus explained. "He gets like that."

Swerve thumped the bar. "Gimme more!"

Tailgate flustered and stuttered until Trailcutter slipped in. "It'll be like when we played Visages, but better! Loads better! And we're gonna bring in a ton of business!"

"Right! I can do this!" Swerve hopped off his stepstool and out from the bar! "I canNOT do this!" and back he went. "They're all gonna laugh-"

Skids stood. "Cyclonus, get his shoulders."

"-at me NOT AGAIN YOU TALL GLITCHHEADS!" Swerve wailed through Cyclonus snatching him up by the arms.

Skids put the mini's legs over his shoulders. "We have a schedule to keep, Swerve!"

Away they went, Swerve cursing and kicking at Skids' head the entire five steps from the bar to the stage. Skids plopped him down, facing the audience, with a heavy thunk, and Cyclonus passed a microphone into his hands before he could realize what he was holding.

"NO more nightmare fuel for y- stage." Swerve locked up, seams and all. "Stage."

Skids took his spot on the stage, and yeah, now he could see where Swerve was coming from. They had the bar's immediate attention, a big change from Visages, and they were all standing close. Skids could teach out and pet Nautica on the head if he wanted to. He did want to; it felt like it would break the tension that was building in his tanks. Even with Cyclonus standing guard and Rewind perched on his shoulder for a good vantage point, he was feeling uneasy. He checked the band to see if they were feeling it too. Trailcutter was wringing the neck of his bass. Tailgate was shrinking to hide in his drum kit. Chromedome's fingers danced over his board, constantly sliding and fiddling with the audio mixers.

Swerve's gaze shot up to his, impressive with a visor and considering he was pretty well frozen in fear, and he whispered. "Skids you're glaring. Relax."

"You relax."

"Shut up I'm trying."

"Not you're not."

Rodimus cackled from the crowd. "Freebird!"

"A-ha!" Swerve bounced, dramatically pointing at Rodimus. "You think you can get us with that hackneyed heckle? Skids! Play Freebird."

Oh that was an easy one! They'd heard it as a tired old joke on enough TV shows to learn it in earnest. Skids only got as far as the first few measures before someone in the crowd dramatically wailed "NOOO NO SKYNARD!" and sent the rest of the audience into laughter.

Tailgate flinched. "Oh no, they hate it!"

"N-no no, I can work with this!" Swerve whispered. "I think they're laughing at Rodimus!"

Swerve owed the co-captain a free drink, as far as Skids was concerned. With the tension finally broken for good, the bartender cleared his throat into the mic and spoke up. "Welcome, everybody, to the first live music night at Swerve's! I'm Swerve, this is my bar, and we're the band!"

"'The Band'?" Inferno shouted. "I thought you were The Table!"

Swerve stepped aside just enough to tap the side of the bass drum. "No no, the drums are named 'The Table'."

"Then what's the band called?"

"We're called 'Bang-'" Swerve stuttered; the old band name had come out in the wrong order. "'Bang Tailgate on the Table'."

The patrons guffawed, and even over the din, he could hear Tailgate squeaking out a scandalized "What?! No it isn't!"

Skids followed Swerve's line of sight to a very still, very pissed off Cyclonus. Swerve kept talking. "You're right, it's called 'Cyclonus is Definitely Going to Kill Me Now'."

The laughter was so intense and room filling that it hurt Skids' audials.

"I-is this good?" Trailcutter asked.

"It looks good to me," said Chromedome. "It's not like they're laughing at us, they're laughing at Swerve."

"Quick, while they're distracted!" Swerve piped up. "Start the set!"

"No!" Tailgate huffed. "You embarrassed me!"

"My tongue slipped!" Swerve conspiratorially whispered into the microphone. "We can call the band 'Throw Swerve Under the Bus' instead."

Tailgate's head cocked. "I didn't know you were into buses."

The crowd whooped and oo-ed at Tailgate's first successful innuendo, and happy to get in a laugh at Swerve's expense, the little bot started up the count for their first song.

They were lucky to be on a ship full of Daft Punk fans. Or maybe all the bots that didn't like Daft Punk were at Visages, where the losers went to drink. Either way, for shuffling the set list, hearing "Get Lucky" first put the crowd in a good mood and started a little bit of a dance up in the front rows. Skids in particular got into a good grove with Swerve, locking optics with him and rocking side to side in time with the riffs, his hips moving to the same groove at Swerve's shoulders. Swerve had taken to singing to a face rather than the void of the audience. It worked well for Skids. It let him keep pace with the band. Kept his tempo in check, or however Cyclonus put it- oh! Speaking of Cyclonus...

He had to check. Rewind and Cyclonus stayed on the edge of the crowd, still and professional, cameramech and camera stand for lack of a better word... and then Daft Punk's verse came in and Swerve held up the microphone to Chromedome and Tailgate in the back. It was their special surprise, one that had been a pain to keep secret from the band's designated archivist and Tailgate's peripheral. It was worth it to suddenly hear Rewind squeal like a fangirl and Cyclonus's stony face crack into an unguarded genuine smile.

That night, they felt like rock stars. The set went long and Ultra Magnus had to break up the concert before they went on to the next morning. Later Skids would look over the footage and distantly realize that they looked ridiculous, with his homemade square guitar and Trailcutter big enough on his own to take up half the stage and yet hunched around a skinny stand-up bass and many, many other things. But being up there was something special, and it was that group of mechs that made it that way.

That was worth keeping up, wasn't it? He sure thought so, and it was all out of Swerve getting excited for something that, by all means, shouldn't have even been an idea in their heads at any point in their lives. Maybe there was a theme park out there for them. Skids wasn't sure. Maybe they'd made their own.