No Rest For The Weary

“Oh these curtains are all wrong!” Judy threw the material away from her in disgust. “I am so glad that you never served in the military, Ron. At least you still know that green does not go with everything.” Ron had long since sat down in the arm chair, watching his wife complain about everything in the small barrack they had been given to live in. The building was nice if narrow. Every wall was white-washed into bland hell, the floors worn gray wood that felt as smooth as stone under their bare feet. Judy had immediately enacted her ‘no shoes’ rule when Sam had walked in with muddy feet after the sky had opened up not ten minutes after the entire party had gotten back.



“Ron, what do you think? Does this couch look better in this corner or next to these windows?” Ron quirked an eyebrow, the difference between the two locations was a meager three inches.



“The windows dear, you can see better when you read.” This seemed to satisfy his wife who bustled off to find something else to move around. Ron sat back, his head lying back on the chair. He and Judy needed to get to sleep soon, but Judy would not rest until she had every molecule in this room exactly as she wanted it. That and she wanted Sam to sleep in the same barrack as they did even though there was no room. Ron had given up trying to reason with the woman and just expected her to pass out from sheer exhaustion and sleep where ever she fell.



The lights in the other barracks across the way from them had gone out half-an-hour ago. Ron would not tell Judy that Sam had moved into those barracks with Mikaela. The fact that Bumblebee glanced over that way every few minutes or so was not lost on his father. He was distracted by Judy falling face first on the couch, snoring noisily through the cushions. Ron chuckled and picked his wife up and put her into their bed or beds rather, since they had needed to push two beds together to make something larger for them both to sleep in. The thin mattress squeaked as they lay down, Ron’s eyes closing almost immediately after hitting the pillow.







Mikaela smiled softly to herself, her hair plastered to her neck as she lay on Sam's chest, listening to the gentle sound of his breathing and the beat of his heart. For the past few months she could swear she could feel a slight charge run through her fingers when she touched him over his breast bone. It was odd and yet it seemed totally natural to have Sam be something like his guardian. She had laid on Bumblebee's chest many times and had felt the same charge running through her fingers when she had dipped them below his armor just over his spark. Sam would not say it, but Mikaela knew that the battle in Mission City a year ago had affected him more than he let on. The scars on his hands were only one sign.



Like tonight, when Sam came, Mikaela could swear that his eyes had become the same sky blue as Bumblebee's, their glow piercing through the darkness and into her mind. She felt almost like something was reaching out from Sam, trying to make a connection in her. It had gotten so close this time. She could almost feel what Sam was feeling, could feel the burning urge tearing at her insides as he tried not to go too fast. She could feel that his strength was increasing, his weight was increasing as well, making it uncomfortable when he collapsed on top of her, utterly exhausted.



Mikaela's eyes drifted to the window, watching the rain as it fell in a steady drive. She knew that the Autobots were meeting with the new arrival, which was quite possibly irritable already from being interrupted mid-coitus by Ratchet's prude adherence to human codes of modesty. Either that or the medic enjoyed getting Iron Hide's goat. Mikaela smiled as she raised herself to the window and looked out toward the lights on the far side of the base. The Autobots along with Chromia were standing under a tall sheltered awning with several members of the Defense Secretary's staff, talking in low voices. It seemed that Keller was prepared to pull as many all niters as it took to make sure that every new arrival was documented and tracked. It seemed Keller had pulled a lot of strings with Congress enacting the Transformer Registration Initiative, making it an offense if any of the Non-Biological Entities coming to earth did not register with any governing body in the U.N. Keller had also gifted the Autobots with the use of this base, all 550 acres of it to use as they saw fit.



It was really good of Keller to do so since along with the acreage, the base also had a no-fly zone of nearly ten miles all around which made it impossible for anyone to come peeking into the Autobot's affairs. Mikaela looked down as Sam stirred, his eyes opening slightly, a smile creeping onto his face. "This is a good view," he smiled, his hand caressing her side. Her left hand trailed down to his chest, smiling as small tendrils of energy caressed her fingertips. "Something on your mind, 'Kayla?"



Mikaela sighed, watching Bumblebee for a moment before looking back down at Sam, molding herself to his side as he pulled the covers over the both of them. Sam noticed where Mikaela's eyes wandered, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "You and Bumblebee are good friends, right," she probed carefully, not meeting Sam's eyes as she played with the energy that met her fingers.



"Yea, Bee's like my best bud." Sam smiled, his hand covering Mikaela's as he pressed it to his chest. "And he considers himself your protector and friend, too." Sam smiled as Mikaela shifted against his side. "I think he likes you the same as you like him," he ventured cautiously. "I wanted to ask you, but he said that you should come to it yourself. If you never did, he would be cool with it." Sam felt Mikaela smile against his chest, her thumb brushing across the top of his hand. He waited as she sorted her feelings in her mind, feeling the slight flush that came over her face as her mind wandered.



Mikaela couldn't speak yet. She almost expected to hear Sam tell her it was a joke, that it was silly for her to love him and Bumblebee at the same time. But when all she heard was silence, she looked into Sam's eyes, seeing her smile reflected back at her. So it was true that Sam had feelings for Bumblebee as well. The thought sent a warm tremor through her body. "But, how would we...be together?" The question made her feel a little stupid, but she had been wondering ever since she had discovered that she saw Bumblebee as more than just Sam's Camero.



"Well, Bee told me about a few ways. One would be if we touched his Spark. He said it would feel just like sex, but you would definitely not be able to take his...well, the best word for it would be 'transfer cable'," Sam laughed at Mikaela's expression. "Yea...when he showed it to me, I got a little jealous." Mikaela let out a snort, poking Sam in the ribs. "Yea, it looks a lot like a human's, except it has prongs." Mikaela had to bury her face in Sam's shoulder to keep from laughing too hard.



"Prongs? What does it plug into?" Mikaela remembered earlier with Iron Hide and Chromia. "You mean it goes to the same place? You mean the females have a...a..."



"An access port," Sam finished. "Yea, it goes to the same place and from what he told me, it feels the same too." Sam watched Mikaela's face take on an incredulous look of wonder. "I know, their more like us than I thought. But there's another way too."



"And?" Mikaela asked, rolling her eyes as Sam just grinned at her, drawing it out as long as possible.



"He has a hologram, I think it's called. It's pretty solid, and he can feel through it. Bee said he was working on it for months to get it right." Sam smiled. "He asked me if it was alright, but I think you should be the one making the call," Sam asked, quirking his eye brows. "Do you want to? Tomorrow after they take my parents back to get a few things from the house?" Sam left out a pleading 'Please?' simply because he didn't want to sound too overly excited. Bee had been pestering him for more than a month with 'Does this look alright?' every few days. Sam sighed with relief when Mikaela nodded; finely laying his head back down. Mikaela lay next to him, her eyes finely drifting closed.



Sam stayed awake for a little while longer as the meeting between the Autobots and the Defense Secretary was adjourned. Bumblebee came to rest beside their barrack, transforming in front of the door to stand guard. Optimus headed off for a well deserved recharge under a smaller awning that would protect him from the rain. The Autobot leader transformed into his alternate mode, booting up the needed programs as they ran system checks before they put him into a similar state as when a computer was set to hibernate. Ratchet did the same, satisfied that neither Iron Hide nor Chromia had suffered any lasting damage from Starscream's weapon. He watched as the weapons specialist walked off with Chromia into the darkness. The two seemed to disappear into the driving rain, leaving the medic to slip into recharge.

Sam started at the low rumble of thunder, his eyes drifting to the clock by his and Mikaela's bedside. It read three in the morning. Sam groaned, he had only been asleep for about two hours and he felt groggy after being awakened again.



Slowly, Sam disengaged himself from Mikaela and stepped to the window. He leaned on the frame, watching the rain pound the dry ground into thick mud. Normally he would have found the sound soothing, but his ears seemed to pick up every splash of the water on the ground and every little tap of the water on the roof of the barrack. He had even found that it was possible to count every rain drop and calculate how much rain was being dumped on the area. Sam rubbed his face, breathing deep of the cool, damp air. It was raining at nearly three inches per hour, and judging by the puddles already forming around the barrack, it had been raining this hard for nearly two and a half hours. Lennox called it a 'gully washer', referring to how the gullies and streams would be over flowing right about now.



Thunder rolled in the distance, seeming to stretch forever before fading into the patter of the rain drops on the wet ground. Sam closed his eyes and listened, concentrating on every sound. He found that if he concentrated hard enough, he could hear just about everything going on around him. Most of the time his brain tuned it all out to prevent a sensory overload. But he let it all in. The rain on the ground and roof of his and his parent's barracks. The sound of the thunder rolling through the wet air, infusing every cell in his body with its dull rumble. The tickle of the wind as it gently blew across the ground, cooling and soothing the ground from the blistering heat of the day. The grunts and groans of passion in the distance...



Sam opened his eyes, furrowing his brows. That wasn't normal. His first thought was that his parents were breaking in the new home, but they were nothing like him and Mikaela. They were the most prudish people he knew. Ellie was asleep in her barrack, so it wasn't her. Keller was old; any thought of him doing anything remotely similar to what he was hearing made him shiver. The only two people that were not accounted for were Iron Hide and Chromia. Sam rolled his eyes, sending the bluish light around the window frame. A slow smile crept up on his face. He could test his eyesight and find something to rib the rough Autobot about from now until forever. Horny little meat bag indeed.



Sam squinted his eyes, trying to find how to make the picture clearer. The only thing he got was a headache and the strange feeling that he looked like he was having trouble on the toilet. Forcing it wasn't working. Sam sighed, staring out in the distance, focusing only on the rain and haze. He felt a familiar tickle at the corners of his eyes that always meant something was happening. The first time he had this feeling was when he was trying to watch the teacher write on the black board. Of course, his eyes had not glowed, but he did get a few people asking when he got his contacts. That had been the first sign that something strange was going on in more than just his hands.



The haze lifted, the optical illusion of water hanging in the air gone as his eyes tracked every single rain drop as it fell from the sky. It was like putting a picture in to Photoshop and sharpening it until every detail was outlined in black and standing out boldly. But instead of confusing the eye and screwing up the picture, it brought everything into focus. His eyes could jump from one drop of rain to the next, tracking its trajectory and possible sites where it might land based on wind speed, direction and humidity. Filtering out the rain drops entirely, Sam could see twin gems of energy in the distance. It took a moment before his eyes could gather enough light from the surrounding area and displayed the scene as clear as day.



The twin gems were the sparks of Iron Hide and Chromia. The notion that they were blinking came from the fact that they were moving against one another on the flooded desert floor. It seemed that Autobots could not kiss in the normal sense like humans, but they were just as intimate. Chromia had thrown her head back, arching her spine as she gave Iron Hide access to the sensitive circuitry that ran from under her jaw down to the edge of her armor where her collar bone would be if she were human. Sam watched as Iron Hide gently rubbed his mouth and nose along the exposed circuitry, the night lit up with the transfer of energy. Iron Hide's fingers were tracing electric patterns around the creases in Chromia's armor, making the femme writhe in agonizing pleasure under the weapons specialist.



Sam watched, completely entranced as Iron Hide opened Chromia's spark containment chamber, using his hands to gently caress the glowing star within her chest. He could almost hear the femme's cries as the two were lit up by a pulse of light from Chromia's spark. Sam grinned when he realized what had happened, watching as Iron Hide linked the two of them together with a transfer cable the size of an Elephant's...trunk. Sam's jaw dropped. He remembered what Bumblebee had told him about Transformers as they got older. 'More information is transferred between mating couples when those couples are older and have spent more time together. The transfer cable needs to grow to accommodate the exchange of increasing amounts of information.' Apparently Iron Hide and Chromia had been bonded for several million years. That would explain a lot. And he was among the oldest, even older than Optimus Prime.



Iron Hide opened his spark containment chamber, lowering his body onto Chromia's until their sparks shone as one. There seemed to be a huge amount of energy being transferred between the two as their bodies writhed together in a rhythm familiar to any being on earth. The joined sparks seemed to pulse as one being Chromia's hands clutched the armor on Iron Hide's back, looking as though she would shred through it as her cries got loud enough for normal people to hear. Apparently they would be the local 'noisy' couple every one complained about but secretly wanted to be like. The two must have been working each other into a frenzy during the night, because it only took a few minutes before their Sparks emitted a blinding light as they both roared their climax. It almost sounded to Sam like the shows on Discovery featuring Lion prides during mating season.



The night seemed to fall back to the patternless rhythm of falling rain and rolling thunder, Sam's eyes returning to their dark hazel. He had been so enthralled with the two Autobots in the distance that he did not hear Mikaela walk up behind him. She too had heard the cries, smirking as Iron Hide inspired Sam yet again. She reached around his body, grasping him firmly around the base, causing Sam to stiffen in surprise. "Iron Hide will grind you into mud if he knew you were watching him." Mikaela teased, laughing when the color rose on Sam's cheeks. "Besides...you can show me what you saw." Sam stood at attention then, turning around and covering Mikaela's lips with his, smiling into the kiss.



"That depends on if you have all night," he chuckled at her smile as she pressed her body close to his.



"We have all the time in the world..."