AN: I guess minor warning for descriptions of gagging? No throw up actually happens, but it's from Barricade's PoV because it's funnier so there is some detail behind it. But, like, comedic detail. Trust me.
There's a skunk out there somewhere that has Seen God and knows not how to communicate this to others of its kind. It's alive, still, but neither Barricade or the skunk came out with their dignity's in tact.
On Wednesday, Miles could only spend three hours with Barricade before he had to leave. The mech grumbled about it, but didn't raise much of a fuss outside of that. After school on Thursday, Miles received a text saying that Barricade had moved locations, so he used the application he had put on his phone to find him. It was easy to use and he was happy to see that Barricade seemed to have taken into account how far he would have to travel, since the time it took for Miles to get to him had been cut in half.
When he got to the clearing Barricade was in, he found him already in his bipedal mode and focused on something he was doing to the inside of one of his legs. Miles moved forward for a closer look and then even closer when he wasn't paid any attention. He placed the gas container he'd brought on the ground and then he hoisted himself up onto the leg that Barricade wasn't working on so he could peer at the inside of the other one, recognizing similar looking wires and metallic bits as to what he had seen in his arm and chassis.
The only real difference was that this time Barricade had something that looked eerily reminiscent of a saw out, his servos apparently capable of transforming into different things. This made Miles wonder just what else Barricade could be hiding if he'd always had a blade that big on him.
"What are you doing?" Miles asked after a moment.
"Some of the struts in my ped are broken, so I'm cutting through some paneling to access a medical override panel there to turn off the sensors. I am capable of doing so through my processor but only for a short amount of time, while this way will allow me to do it for as long as I need," Barricade explained.
Miles nodded as if he actually understood what the mech was talking about. He took the opportunity to make himself as comfortable as possible on Barricade's leg since he hadn't said anything against it yet or knocked him off. That was when his cell phone rang loudly, the tune telling him automatically that it was his mother.
"Hey," Miles greeted as soon as he picked up. He couldn't help but wonder if his mom could hear the buzzing of Barricade's saw in the background and if she did what she assumed it was. "No, I'm not sure when I'll be back. Oh, Mason? Just drop him with Judy and I can get him on my way home. Yeah, I love you too. Okay, I'll see you late tonight. Bye."
He hung up, glancing up to see red optics focused on him. They immediately returned to paying attention to the leg he had been working on, as if Barricade could pretend he hadn't been caught watching. Miles did his best to not roll his eyes or snort so as not to aggravate the mech.
"Sorry about that," Miles apologized awkwardly.
"As you have reminded me multiple times, you do have a life outside of me. There is no need to apologize."
Miles pursed his lips, trying to tell what Barricade was feeling. He gave nothing away, just continuing to work on his leg. Had it been him, he would have asked a ton of questions, but Barricade asked nothing.
This was only his fourth official day of knowing Barricade and already he could tell he desperately needed someone in his corner. Essentially abandoned by his own faction, left beaten and bloody to lick his wounds from the Autobots, and now all he had for company was a stubborn organic. Hitting a rough patch was an understatement, and Miles was pretty sure he'd be just as crabby as Barricade was if he was in his place.
The issue was that Miles didn't know how to help Barricade in all the ways he wanted to. Talking about what he had done to Sam was probably the most that Barricade had said about himself, and Miles was mostly convinced at this point that he had been trying to scare him off. He was absolutely certain that if he told Barricade to open up or asked certain questions that he would just be shut down, so the only way he could think to encourage it without actually saying it outright was by doing it himself.
And if Barricade hated the word vomit, well, he would just have to say so.
"That was my mom," Miles said. "My dad apparently forgot he's got a buddy's wedding anniversary thing to get to, so they'll be gone for most of tonight. They think I'm at a friend's house to work on a school project and since I had no idea what we might do today I figured it was best just to tell them to take Mason, our dog, and drop him off with the Witwicky family so Sam's mom can keep an eye on him for a bit."
He got nothing more than a grunt for his efforts but it was enough to satisfy him. Miles wouldn't lie to himself, he enjoyed talking and it wasn't a chore to talk about his family and other things he was interested in, so he just let himself babble away. Barricade never asked him to shut up, and even asked him to clarify something he said about skateboarding. It was only because Miles used a term that Barricade apparently couldn't find on the internet, but he still counted it as a victory.
From Officer Barry Ticon: I require immediate assistance.
Miles stared at the text for a minute, debating how best to respond. The only reason he had even noticed the message so quickly was because he was in study hall, which was the only place he could use his phone without teachers caring. He thought of ignoring it until he could actually get to the mech, but if it had to do with an injury of some sort then he'd just end up feeling guilty.
Life or death?, he sent back.
The response was immediate.
From Officer Barry Ticon: No.
Well, that at least made it so Miles wouldn't feel guilty at all about not skipping school to give Barricade his immediate attention.
I'm in school, he texted.
From Officer Barry Ticon: I have been assaulted by some disgusting organic creature. I require cleaning.
Miles digested that text for a moment, multiple horrible images already cropping up in his mind. He kept imagining Bambi meeting Barricade in the woods and something told him that he was not going to enjoy the upcoming cleaning session.
If you can be patient for a few hours I can help you. It's date day so I won't have to worry about my parents, he responded.
Barricade sat in the Lancaster driveway and waited, holoform out and leaning against the driver side of his alt mode. When he'd made the locater app the other day he had ensured it went both ways just to keep tabs on Miles, though he had purposefully not mentioned that to the organic in question. He'd looked at Miles' location a few hours after he'd left the day before and after being attacked in the early morning hours he had made his way to the cul de sac where the teen lived.
He felt relatively safe in the assumption that the resident Autodolt wouldn't stumble upon him here. Miles lived far enough from the Witwicky residence that there shouldn't be cause to come anywhere close and he was more than aware of the strain in Miles' friendship with Sam after the organic's complaining the day before. His biggest worry had been the teen's parents up until Miles had mentioned they would be gone when he texted, so he had performed a quick drive-by to confirm they had left already and then he had pulled into the driveway.
Barricade watched as a large yellow vehicle pulled up a few houses down from Miles' residence. A quick search on the web revealed it was called a bus and usually used for transportation of multiple organics. This one was filled with about ten different young ones.
He watched as Miles walked off the bus and spotted him almost immediately. It was amusing to note that of everything he had done so far, including insulting the fleshy multiple times to his face, this was the thing that made him angriest. It was also the fastest he had seen the teen move.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Miles hissed as he got to the bottom of the driveway. It was then that the wind changed direction and Barricade was able to watch as the smell slapped him in the face and Miles' eyes widened. "Wha-what is that smell? I could smell it on the bus but I never thought—is that you?!"
"I told you I was assaulted," Barricade responded.
To give Miles some credit, it was obvious he wanted to laugh, so the fact that he held himself back was admirable. He was trying so hard not to laugh that Barricade could see his lips turn white from how hard he was pursing them together.
Miles made it up the driveway five more feet before the 'con watched an odd expression cross his face as he made a weird noise that Barricade was unable to figure out how to describe. Something hacking and guttural.
"What is that noise you're making?" Barricade asked warily, "Stop it."
Evidently that broke what little restraint the teen had managed to hold because he started laughing almost immediately, even through the next hacking noise. Miles seemed incapable of controlling it, and his whole upper body moved with the next one. He bent over and continued to make the weird hacking noise despite his laughter. Barricade watched as Miles went red in the face with some alarm.
"Are you dying?" Barricade demanded, moving his holoform over to the teen and hovering an arm over Miles' back. Humans in media were always slapping each other on the back, but he had no idea if it would actually help at this moment. "Breathe, you stupid glitch!"
Miles waved him off, stumbling off the driveway and a few feet into the grass. He made the noise a couple more times and then took a deep, gulping breath as he began to pant. His continued laughter wasn't helping him any, but at least the noises had stopped.
"Are you trying to kill yourself?" Barricade snapped at him. He knew for a fact humans weren't supposed to be that particular shade of red for long.
"Oh, fuck," Miles straightened up and wiped at his face with his shirt, still a little breathless. "That smell was making me gag."
Barricade spared a second to look up what that particular term meant. After some quick research he was extremely happy that Miles hadn't actually finished the vomiting part of it.
"If you ever actually 'upchuck' around me I will not be held responsible for my actions of self defense," Barricade said.
Something about that set the teen off into peals of laughter again, and Barricade was left to watch as Miles tried to compose himself and failed repeatedly. He was unable to calm himself until he turned away from Barricade completely, but even then his shoulders were still shaking with repressed laughter.
"I was being serious," Barricade growled.
"Alright," Miles agreed, wiping at his eyes. "I will do my best to do no more than gag in your presence, oh Great One."
Barricade debated smacking some sense into the stupid organic but decided it would be a fruitless endeavor that would just end up losing him the one creature actually willing to help him out. It simply wasn't worth it, so he chose instead to keep silent and glare.
"Okay," Miles said. He clapped his hands together and turned to face Barricade with a grin. "I'm assuming you want to get the smell off?"
"Yes." Barricade eyed the teen carefully for any further signs of impending laughter, "I can turn off my olfactory sensors so the smell isn't horrible to me, but I was excreted on and I can still feel the disgusting stuff all over my exterior."
Miles bit his lip and looked up to the sky, "Oooookay… Well, I don't know how to get eau de skunk out of alien metal."
"I have already looked on the web and found a satisfactory concoction to get the stench off. Supposedly most households already have these items."
Four hours later, Miles slipped out of Barricade's interior and tossed the drying cloth he had been using onto the ground next to all the other dirtied ones. The mech had desperately needed cleaning even before he had been sprayed down by a skunk, and Miles had been more than happy to actually get inside him and clean out all the dust and the other stuff he didn't want to think too hard about.
Being intimately familiar with someone's gear shift now took on quite a literal meaning for him and because of that it was no longer going to be something he found funny to say. There went that euphemism.
"God, you're a slave driver," Miles complained, stretching his arms up above his head and twisting until he felt his back crack. "You sticking around for a bit?"
"To do what, exactly?"
"To hang." The look Miles got from Barricade's holoform would have made a lesser man shut up and let the mech leave. Miles was stubborn enough to remain unphased, "Come on! Friends do friend things together. Let's just-"
Barricade cut him off, "We are not friends."
"We're totally friends!"
"We are not," Barricade snorted. "I can't be friends with an organic."
"Why not?"
"You'll be dead in less than a vorn," Barricade explained dryly. "There's no point."
"Shouldn't my shorter lifespan be encouragement?" Miles argued. "Get in the good times while you still can."
"There's also no benefit to it."
"No benefit?" Miles scoffed, "You are getting nothing but benefit! I have been nothing but useful to you, asshole."
"There's no benefit on your end," Barricade corrected him.
Miles blinked, surprised to hear him acknowledge it. "I don't need any benefits."
"Why are you doing this, then?" Barricade asked, "You gain nothing from associating with me. In fact, if you had put that inferior processor to use you'd realize there are only downsides to it, like running the risk of angering your pathetic little friend."
Miles stayed silent for a moment as he thought of what he wanted to say. He wasn't sure he could come up with an answer that would satisfy Barricade, not when he wasn't entirely sure why he was doing what he was doing and why he wanted to help Barricade as much as he did. Some of it was sympathy because of Barricade's situation, some of it was the lure of something new and exciting, but most of it was just because he wanted to. He knew there was probably no happy ending here, but he figured what was most likely to happen was that once Barricade finished repairing himself he would leave and Miles would never see or hear from him again.
Barricade was right in saying there was no real benefit for Miles. While he'd just called them friends, he knew it wasn't true. They were barely even acquaintances, but he knew he wanted to get to know Barricade better. Despite that, he'd also spent almost every night thinking over the possible consequences. If the Autobots somehow found out about Barricade and that Miles was linked to him, he had no doubt there would be some kind of backlash for it, and the least of that was Sam finding out and Miles losing him completely. That alone should have been enough to make Miles never go back to Barricade, but even now Miles couldn't convince himself to leave well enough alone.
"Because I want to," Miles said finally.
"That isn't good enough!" Barricade snarled.
"It's not your choice." Miles pointed out, "It's mine. I decide what is and isn't good enough for me."
"It's illogical," Barricade hissed.
Miles frowned, "You already pointed out that I have a short life span. Why should I waste my life being cautious and missing out on things, then?"
"Because you could die!"
"I could die from all sorts of things whether I'm careful or not, that's just how life works." Miles poked a finger into Barricade's chest, noting just how real the uniform he was wearing felt. "I don't want to just survive, I want to live. Walking on eggshells all the time would be miserable."
"You're naive," Barricade sneered. "Once you go through the sort of things that I have you'd act the same way."
Miles shook his head, "You're just scared, Barry."
"Scared?!" Barricade was getting worked up enough that his voice was now coming from his alt mode and his holoform was just standing frozen in place with a scowl on its face, "I'm not scared, I'm trying to survive!"
"All you've been doing is surviving," Miles countered. "I think it's been so long that you've forgotten how to live. Where's the joy, the happiness? When was the last time that you did something just because you wanted to? When did you last have fun?"
"Fun?" Barricade scoffed, "Oh, yes, I was real worried about that during a war."
"I know you're bored, you tried to scare me like three times the other day."
"I can fix my boredom real quick by running your annoying fragging aft over!"
Miles' mouth dropped open in surprise, silence falling as that statement sunk in. Then he started to laugh.
"I hate you," Barricade complained, anger leaving him as quickly as it had come. "I just threatened you and you laugh?"
"There's no way you'd actually run me over," Miles said confidently. "We just spent hours cleaning you and I'd probably take at least six more to get out of your wheels."
"It'd give me some peace and quiet at least."
"Oh, don't you worry about that." Miles gave him a smug grin, "I'm not going anywhere until I either annoy you to death or you leave on your own, and that's a promise."
"That sounds more like a threat," Barricade grumbled.
"Buck up, buttercup." Miles patted his shoulder, "Now shut up and get inside my house, I'm hungry as hell and can't eat out here."
Instead of watching to see if Barricade actually listened, Miles just turned and walked into his house. He didn't have to check to see if he was followed because he heard the door shut behind him, and Mason's tail started to wag because he had the perfect view of the new friend coming to visit from his spot on the couch.
"If that creature comes near me I will step on it," Barricade warned.
"Mason's a good boy," Miles couldn't help the way he practically cooed. "Down, Mason." Mason jumped off the couch, "Say hello." Mason barked, tail wagging faster. "What a good boy!"
"I did not realize they were that intelligent," Barricade noted. "Will he listen to anyone?"
"For the most part," Miles said. "He always does if he knows you have a treat, but if you're a stranger and don't have one he'll only sometimes do stuff. Go potty, Mason."
Barricade and Miles watched as Mason went out the doggie door and into the backyard. Miles turned to face Barricade and realized that he was looking a little too speculative over what he had just seen and he just knew he was thinking about training something and it sure wasn't a dog.
Miles was ready to shoot that idea down, but then he gave it a second thought and realized that it might actually not be a terrible one. He could gush about his beloved canine and tell Barricade about the training, and maybe Barricade would have the bright idea to use it on him. Miles would get some of what he wanted and Barricade would figure out a better way to communicate his wants, it was a win win!
"It's super easy to train them," Miles started, Barricade looking at him with curiosity.
