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sakon76My apologies to my audience, but I'm cheating a bit on my "story a day" trend just for today. I had the day off of work and spent it cutting, sewing, and pinning, finishing off two projects today and getting a start on a third, and simply ended up with no writing time. So, out of my WIP folder I drag the following submission, which I think I've only ever shown to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hoshikage. The first part is a bit odd because it was originally from an AU which posited that Starscream joined the Autobots rather than the Decepticons after losing Skyfire on Earth. The rest of them are all just really "Spike in college" vignettes that I kept tossing in the same file as they were all around that central theme.
For those who are interested in the craftsy side of the stuff I do, I'll take pictures of the two completed projects in the morning and post them after I get home from work. (The in-progress item is a Christmas gift for someone who reads this journal, so it won't be posted until said person receives it. As it is a kind of item they would look at and know in a heartbeat was intended for them.)
To Stand Among Them
by K. Stonham
prereleased 11th December 2007
Normal college was hard enough.
Unfortunately, Spike Witwicky didn't have the luxury of just being a normal student and just attending normal classes. During weekends and on holidays from his courses at Portland U., he studied at home on subjects far more complex and hithertofore known only to an alien race.
"Cybertron 101," he murmured, trying to understand the complex schematics Teletran-1 was displaying on one of the Ark's screens for his benefit. Where Chip, a natural genius currently away studying in Cambridge, England, had been able to grasp the implications and means of Transformer technology readily, there were always gaps in Spike's understanding. Fortunately, he had no shortage of willing and ready instructors, one or another of whom would eventually manage to explain things in a way he could grasp.
Anything and everything was what he studied. Art, architecture, music, culture, jokes--but the hardest subject and definitely the most alien, was the Cybertronian grasp of physics. He had a feeling it all built from the Uncertainty Principle, but just how he hadn't yet figured out.
When they transformed, where did all the extra mass go? Optimus Prime's trailer disappeared. Spike had seen it do so any number of times. Blaster went from a giant robot to a boom box no heavier than any other. And somehow it all worked out. Spike just couldn't grasp how.
"Physics again?" his fellow student of alien cultures asked.
Spike looked to his left where Bumblebee sat at his own terminal, reading his way through Shakespeare--the newest facet of Earth culture to catch Autobot attention. "You got it," Spike said with a sigh. "I'm just not getting it."
Bumblebee paused, then asked "Why don't you ask Starscream to help you? He's good at explaining it even to a chromium-plated numbwit like me."
"Starscream?" Spike asked, a little wary. Of all the Autobots the reclusive scientist was the one he knew the least well, in no small part because of Starscream's seeming reluctance to come out of his labs. In the five years Spike had been living in the Ark he could count on his hands the number of times he'd actually seen Starscream.
"Give him a chance," Bumblebee urged. "He may not come out to play much, but he's intelligent and eloquent."
"Why doesn't he ever come out?" Spike inquired. "I mean, not even when we could use him in a battle."
Bumblebee sighed. "He doesn't believe in fighting. It's a glitch in his programming. He'd rather die than carry a weapon."
"Wow. That's even worse than Mirage's pacifism." Spike was impressed.
"There is never a reason to kill."
Spike whirled at the grating metal sound of the voice behind the two of them. Starscream stood there, looking, as always, vaugely sad. "If you wanted to ask me about our science, young human, I will happily answer you in my lab." He turned and walked away.
"He was just standing there all the time," Spike said quietly.
"Starscream's strange," Bumblebee replied.
*~*~*
Spike Witwicky was both used to and unused to living in a fishbowl. While intellectually he knew that he and his father had a certain amount of fame inherent to being Earth's primary cultural liaisons to the Autobots, living with them in the Ark had limited his social contact with other humans to the point where it was an immense shock once he'd moved into the dorms at Portland University. There had been no hiding who he was, not when his friends had been the ones helping him move. Within half an hour of his arrival, everyone knew.
The first day of classes he'd been self-conscious, aware that he was the only person in the class who'd been to another planet--understood the written language of non-Terran beings--carried a laser blaster on his person 24/7. Campus security had thrown a fit about that last until Spike showed him his special license, granted from as far up the government military chain as it was likely to get. The President acknowledged that the Witwicky father and son were likely to be attacked by Decepticons even in private life and had authorized them to carry concealed weapons of appropriate caliber to self-defense. Spike had met the President and thanked him in person. He'd met a lot of world leaders and knew they were people only trying to do their jobs.
His marksmanship sessions were something he kept at every day, along with a physical regiment that would qualify him for any collegiate sports team he wanted to try.
So sitting in his nine a.m. chemistry class, he tried not to listen to the whispers. They would go away eventually. He wasn't normal, and hadn't been normal since the summer he was fifteen, when sentient giant flying robots from outer space had attacked the oil platform on which he (illegally) and his father had been working. He didn't miss normality.
*
"Spike!" a girl's voice called. The young man in question turned around, his arms loaded with textbooks.
"Hey, Shawna," he replied, shifting his books to a more comfortable position. "What's up?"
"I wanted to know if you were going to come to dorm movie night this week," she replied, moving her own books from left arm to right as she approached. "Griselda put me in charge of head count."
"What's the feature?"
"Frankenstein."
"Sorry, but I'll pass," he replied without even needing to think about it.
She quirked an eyebrow. "All the stuff you've seen and an old horror movie scares you?"
He laughed and started walking towards his next class. Shawna fell in step beside him. "Just bad memories associated with the film, that's all."
"I sense a story." She quirked an eyebrow, inviting him to tell her.
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind." When he bothered to think too closely about his time in a robotic body, Spike knew from experience, he tended to end up shivering in corners, questioning himself.
How could he have ever sided with Megatron? How could he have ever tried to kill his closest friends, his family? What might he have done if seeing his father fall off that cliff hadn't snapped his mind suddenly clear of the cloud of anger and pain?
What if when his mind had been transferred not once, but twice, he'd lost something between the two bodies?
Autobot X's body lay in a storeroom in the Ark. Sometimes Spike went to visit it, standing alone in the dark with his questions and fears. In the dark, in the fearful night, no sense of camaraderie or irony could keep you from yourself.
*~*~*
Age wasn't entirely a meaningless concept among the members of a nigh-immortal robotic race. Ironhide regularly referred to most of the other Autobots as "kid," a habit shared by Kup. But Spike was pretty sure it was a habit they'd picked up since coming to Earth--it didn't seem natural for them. When he asked any of the Autobots how old they were, or even how old they were relative to one another.... Well, Bumblebee, who had a memory to be envied even among Cybertronians, had simply shrugged and admitted he didn't remember. That he couldn't remember back to when he wasn't, or the others weren't.
The Autobots who had been on the Ark had been asleep for four million years, give or take. They were older than the human species. It blew Spike's mind when he thought about it. But what was more incredible was when they'd returned to Cybertron things had been precisely as they'd left them. It was a non-evolving planet. Wind and water hadn't eroded the landscape at all. Even though the air there had been breathable, it had been dry; Cybertron had no such things as seas or ice ages. Wheeljack's lab had been exactly as he'd left it millions of years before. No one had touched a thing.
Sometimes Spike felt very young when he confronted such concepts, such cultural differences. Sometimes he felt very old. He'd lived less than twenty years, but they'd been years of constant physical and mental change, his personal evolution that would continue until the day he died.
In some ways, the Autobots were very alien indeed, and he wondered if he could ever understand that, or them.
*~*~*
Spike seated himself cross-legged in front of the flat stone.
"Hi, Mom," he said. "I know it's been a while since I've been here, but that's no excuse." He sighed. "Things've been pretty busy, even so. College is going okay. I'm getting straight A's. I know you'd like that. Carly's doing pretty well too. I've been boning up on my electronics work with Wheeljack and Starscream. Starscream thinks he can make me a translator device so I can listen in and talk on Autobot frequencies. Make me even more one of them." Spike laughed a little, but it was tight. "Like I'm already not as much as I can be. All I'm missing is the insignia and the ability to transform. Still, I'm human--I can't hear the high frequencies they talk on, and I certainly can't understand the radio transmissions unless they decide to speak low enough for me to hear, and in English. Ratchet's worried I might fry my brain with this thing, though, so he's working on adding in some human-friendly shielding. I tell you, I've got great friends."
Shifting, Spike drew his knees up to his chest. "Dad's not doing too good, though. We finally got him to see a doctor--a HUMAN doctor. Took forever to do it. I know, he hates doctors ever since you and Buster died, but you have to go sometime. Ratchet and First Aid only know so much about human medicine and the way our bodies work. I think this's changing that, though." He sighed, his eyes no longer really seeing the engraved letters that read "Mary Witwicky."
"Dad's got cancer," Spike said aloud, the words as soft as if he'd stolen them from a cloud.
"It's invasive and it's pretty far gone," he continued after a minute, voice slightly thicker. "They were talking maybe radiation or chemotherapy, but I'm not sure if we can talk Dad into it. You know how stubborn he is. I just... I don't want him to die, Mom."
Spike's head bowed forward onto his knees, eyes fiercely shut, holding back the prickles of hot salt. He remained still for long minutes. Finally his head pulled back up, shoulders rolling back in a reflexive attempt to swallow tears. "I think I'll be coming more often for a while, Mom," he said softly. Then he stood, his hand brushing affectionately over the stone next to his mother's, the one which carried the name of his brother.
Spike walked across the hills of green grass, weaving his way between tombstones and the flowers or flags people had placed before them. Waiting at the curb was his best friend.
"You okay, Spike?" Bumblebee asked, getting up, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"No." Spike shook his head.
"Sparkplug'll be all right. You'll see. He has to be."
"Things aren't always that easy, Bumblebee," Spike said, looking up at his friend. "People die all the time. Cancer's... pretty bad. Especially with it so far along."
Wordlessly, Bumblebee transformed into a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and opened his passenger-side door.
Wordlessly, Spike got in and the two left the cemetary.
*~*~*
Spike didn't know how to phrase his request. It wasn't that he was unsure of what he wanted, he knew, or even that he couldn't get it without sanction, but rather that he did want permission. This was no idle teenage rebellion. What he was asking for meant something to him. Something deep to the core. Something in his bones. Something in his soul.
"Optimus," he began, "can I--that is," he caught himself, "would it be all right for me to bear the Autobot insignia?"
Optimus' optics widened, then returned to normal, his only indication of surprise. "I'm not objecting to the idea, Spike," he said calmly. Spike could hear the slight tones of surprise, amusement, and somehow, something that said the request had already been processed and probably approved. That bolstered him as Optimus continued, "but I'd like to know your reasons why."
Reasons marshalled themselves to the front of Spike's mind. He'd been trained, partially by Optimus himself, how to give a clean report, a convincing argument. "I'm not asking just because it's the popular thing right now, Prime," he started. "I see insignia pins and decals all over campus, and I know some people are only wearing them because they're 'cool.' I'm not that kind of person."
Optimus nodded. "Of course not. You never have been."
Spike smiled. "Thanks. The thing is, you guys have always been my friends and my family. Now that Dad's gone, you're my only family. I've always felt like I'm an Autobot, so I'd like your permission to have the symbol."
Prime nodded again, more slowly. "It's been a long time since any of us have thought of you as anything but an Autobot, Spike. If you want to identify yourself with our symbol, I think I speak for all of us when I say we'd be honored." Then curiosity seemed to overtake him, because Optimus' optics narrowed in puzzlement as he asked "It's easy enough for a Transformer to be marked with an insignia, but how do humans do it?"
Spike had to smile. "It's called tattooing. We use needles to inject ink under our skin."
"That sounds painful."
Spike nodded. "A lot of worthwhile things are."
*
Spike ended up deciding to get the mark on his right shoulder, where it remained hidden beneath his shirt sleeve for the three weeks it took to heal. He was religious about cleaning and moisturizing the raw skin. Some day, he knew, he would be less self-conscious, but for the time being it remained constantly present in the back of his mind.
The tattoo was fully healed by the beginning of spring break, but it was some weeks before anyone other than Optimus knew of its existence. It wasn't until Spike was disgustedly stripping out of a purple-splattered shirt (he couldn't believe he'd stepped on that stupid rock and let Blaster nail him with a paintball) that the mark was seen and noticed by his friends.
"Hey," Bumblebee said suddenly, "when did you get that?"
"Hmm?" It actually took Spike a moment to realize what Bumblebee was referring to. "Oh. The tattoo. A couple months ago."
The others took a good long look at it and each other before saying anything. He was starting to get nervous before the silence was broken.
"Well, Spike," Ironhide said, smiling, "I think it suits ya, kid."
*~*~*
Carly called it his sixth sense. Chip believed it was born of spending years not just associating with the Autobots, but living with them. Whatever it was caused Spike to lift his head up and look out the classroom window at the jet streaking by in the distance. He couldn't tell its colors from this distance, but it had to be either Thundercracker or Skywarp.
"Mister Witwicky," his professor broke into his thoughts. "Is there something you wish to share with the class? An interesting view from the window, perhaps?"
Saying what he sensed would only gain him derision from this teacher, and either scare his classmates or make them think him a vainglorious egoist. The Decepticon wasn't heading toward the college, or toward the Ark enclave either. "Nothing, sir," Spike replied evenly. "Sorry for letting my attention drift."
"Let it happen during other classes, not this one," the thin man with the sharp tongue and sharper red pen replied. "Now, everyone, regarding the argument of Ariel as Shakespeare's deus ex machina...."
Spike was getting picked up for the weekend in an hour. He'd tell whoever came to get him about the flyby.
*
"You not getting enough sleep?" Josh joshed Spike. "Daydreaming during Freeberg's class...."
"Saw a jet off in the distance," Spike answered quietly, keeping his voice down as they walked toward the parking lot. "Thought it might be someone I knew."
"Someone you--good or bad?" Sarah demanded. She had an Autobot pin on her backpack. Most of Spike's classmates did.
"Like I could tell," he retorted. A few steps later, "Bad," he admitted. "Not heading toward here, though, and not toward home either. I need to report it in." He couldn't tell who it was, but the same sense that had made him look up and out the window assured him that one of his friends was waiting in the parking lot nearest to his classroom. "See you guys Sunday night?"
"Wish I lived close enough to go home on weekends," Josh grumped, but there was a faint note of worry in his voice.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Spike said, looking at his friend. "Even they get bored and just go out cruising. Really." Josh didn't look convinced. "Look, if they're out to cause a problem," which they almost certainly were, he thought to himself but didn't say out loud, "then we'll deal with it. If I'm not in class next week, that'll be why. Take notes for me if that happens, okay?"
"Sure," Sarah replied. "You go help the giant alien robots to kick the other giant alien robots' asses, and we'll cover your class notes. Sounds like a fair deal to me."
He grinned at her, then spotted the dusty green jeep at the curb. "Looks like my ride's here. You guys have a good weekend."
"You too, Spike," Josh said. "See you Sunday."
"Stay safe," Sarah replied.
With a nod, Spike walked up to the idling vehicle, tossed his backpack in the back and got into the driver's seat, buckling up before placing his hands on the wheel. "Hey, Hound."
"Good week, Spike?" the Autobot asked as they pulled away from the curb.
"Not too bad," Spike answered, only pretending to drive. "Think I spotted one of the Seekers about half an hour ago, heading north-northwest. Any idea what he's up to?"
"Nope... let me radio in to base and see if there's been any other activity reports."
Spike sighed, relaxing, his hands on the warm leather grip of the steering wheel, wind ruffling through his hair. College was okay, and it was interesting interacting with others his age, other humans, but... there was nothing like going home.
hoshikage. The first part is a bit odd because it was originally from an AU which posited that Starscream joined the Autobots rather than the Decepticons after losing Skyfire on Earth. The rest of them are all just really "Spike in college" vignettes that I kept tossing in the same file as they were all around that central theme.For those who are interested in the craftsy side of the stuff I do, I'll take pictures of the two completed projects in the morning and post them after I get home from work. (The in-progress item is a Christmas gift for someone who reads this journal, so it won't be posted until said person receives it. As it is a kind of item they would look at and know in a heartbeat was intended for them.)
To Stand Among Them
by K. Stonham
prereleased 11th December 2007
Normal college was hard enough.
Unfortunately, Spike Witwicky didn't have the luxury of just being a normal student and just attending normal classes. During weekends and on holidays from his courses at Portland U., he studied at home on subjects far more complex and hithertofore known only to an alien race.
"Cybertron 101," he murmured, trying to understand the complex schematics Teletran-1 was displaying on one of the Ark's screens for his benefit. Where Chip, a natural genius currently away studying in Cambridge, England, had been able to grasp the implications and means of Transformer technology readily, there were always gaps in Spike's understanding. Fortunately, he had no shortage of willing and ready instructors, one or another of whom would eventually manage to explain things in a way he could grasp.
Anything and everything was what he studied. Art, architecture, music, culture, jokes--but the hardest subject and definitely the most alien, was the Cybertronian grasp of physics. He had a feeling it all built from the Uncertainty Principle, but just how he hadn't yet figured out.
When they transformed, where did all the extra mass go? Optimus Prime's trailer disappeared. Spike had seen it do so any number of times. Blaster went from a giant robot to a boom box no heavier than any other. And somehow it all worked out. Spike just couldn't grasp how.
"Physics again?" his fellow student of alien cultures asked.
Spike looked to his left where Bumblebee sat at his own terminal, reading his way through Shakespeare--the newest facet of Earth culture to catch Autobot attention. "You got it," Spike said with a sigh. "I'm just not getting it."
Bumblebee paused, then asked "Why don't you ask Starscream to help you? He's good at explaining it even to a chromium-plated numbwit like me."
"Starscream?" Spike asked, a little wary. Of all the Autobots the reclusive scientist was the one he knew the least well, in no small part because of Starscream's seeming reluctance to come out of his labs. In the five years Spike had been living in the Ark he could count on his hands the number of times he'd actually seen Starscream.
"Give him a chance," Bumblebee urged. "He may not come out to play much, but he's intelligent and eloquent."
"Why doesn't he ever come out?" Spike inquired. "I mean, not even when we could use him in a battle."
Bumblebee sighed. "He doesn't believe in fighting. It's a glitch in his programming. He'd rather die than carry a weapon."
"Wow. That's even worse than Mirage's pacifism." Spike was impressed.
"There is never a reason to kill."
Spike whirled at the grating metal sound of the voice behind the two of them. Starscream stood there, looking, as always, vaugely sad. "If you wanted to ask me about our science, young human, I will happily answer you in my lab." He turned and walked away.
"He was just standing there all the time," Spike said quietly.
"Starscream's strange," Bumblebee replied.
Spike Witwicky was both used to and unused to living in a fishbowl. While intellectually he knew that he and his father had a certain amount of fame inherent to being Earth's primary cultural liaisons to the Autobots, living with them in the Ark had limited his social contact with other humans to the point where it was an immense shock once he'd moved into the dorms at Portland University. There had been no hiding who he was, not when his friends had been the ones helping him move. Within half an hour of his arrival, everyone knew.
The first day of classes he'd been self-conscious, aware that he was the only person in the class who'd been to another planet--understood the written language of non-Terran beings--carried a laser blaster on his person 24/7. Campus security had thrown a fit about that last until Spike showed him his special license, granted from as far up the government military chain as it was likely to get. The President acknowledged that the Witwicky father and son were likely to be attacked by Decepticons even in private life and had authorized them to carry concealed weapons of appropriate caliber to self-defense. Spike had met the President and thanked him in person. He'd met a lot of world leaders and knew they were people only trying to do their jobs.
His marksmanship sessions were something he kept at every day, along with a physical regiment that would qualify him for any collegiate sports team he wanted to try.
So sitting in his nine a.m. chemistry class, he tried not to listen to the whispers. They would go away eventually. He wasn't normal, and hadn't been normal since the summer he was fifteen, when sentient giant flying robots from outer space had attacked the oil platform on which he (illegally) and his father had been working. He didn't miss normality.
"Spike!" a girl's voice called. The young man in question turned around, his arms loaded with textbooks.
"Hey, Shawna," he replied, shifting his books to a more comfortable position. "What's up?"
"I wanted to know if you were going to come to dorm movie night this week," she replied, moving her own books from left arm to right as she approached. "Griselda put me in charge of head count."
"What's the feature?"
"Frankenstein."
"Sorry, but I'll pass," he replied without even needing to think about it.
She quirked an eyebrow. "All the stuff you've seen and an old horror movie scares you?"
He laughed and started walking towards his next class. Shawna fell in step beside him. "Just bad memories associated with the film, that's all."
"I sense a story." She quirked an eyebrow, inviting him to tell her.
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind." When he bothered to think too closely about his time in a robotic body, Spike knew from experience, he tended to end up shivering in corners, questioning himself.
How could he have ever sided with Megatron? How could he have ever tried to kill his closest friends, his family? What might he have done if seeing his father fall off that cliff hadn't snapped his mind suddenly clear of the cloud of anger and pain?
What if when his mind had been transferred not once, but twice, he'd lost something between the two bodies?
Autobot X's body lay in a storeroom in the Ark. Sometimes Spike went to visit it, standing alone in the dark with his questions and fears. In the dark, in the fearful night, no sense of camaraderie or irony could keep you from yourself.
Age wasn't entirely a meaningless concept among the members of a nigh-immortal robotic race. Ironhide regularly referred to most of the other Autobots as "kid," a habit shared by Kup. But Spike was pretty sure it was a habit they'd picked up since coming to Earth--it didn't seem natural for them. When he asked any of the Autobots how old they were, or even how old they were relative to one another.... Well, Bumblebee, who had a memory to be envied even among Cybertronians, had simply shrugged and admitted he didn't remember. That he couldn't remember back to when he wasn't, or the others weren't.
The Autobots who had been on the Ark had been asleep for four million years, give or take. They were older than the human species. It blew Spike's mind when he thought about it. But what was more incredible was when they'd returned to Cybertron things had been precisely as they'd left them. It was a non-evolving planet. Wind and water hadn't eroded the landscape at all. Even though the air there had been breathable, it had been dry; Cybertron had no such things as seas or ice ages. Wheeljack's lab had been exactly as he'd left it millions of years before. No one had touched a thing.
Sometimes Spike felt very young when he confronted such concepts, such cultural differences. Sometimes he felt very old. He'd lived less than twenty years, but they'd been years of constant physical and mental change, his personal evolution that would continue until the day he died.
In some ways, the Autobots were very alien indeed, and he wondered if he could ever understand that, or them.
Spike seated himself cross-legged in front of the flat stone.
"Hi, Mom," he said. "I know it's been a while since I've been here, but that's no excuse." He sighed. "Things've been pretty busy, even so. College is going okay. I'm getting straight A's. I know you'd like that. Carly's doing pretty well too. I've been boning up on my electronics work with Wheeljack and Starscream. Starscream thinks he can make me a translator device so I can listen in and talk on Autobot frequencies. Make me even more one of them." Spike laughed a little, but it was tight. "Like I'm already not as much as I can be. All I'm missing is the insignia and the ability to transform. Still, I'm human--I can't hear the high frequencies they talk on, and I certainly can't understand the radio transmissions unless they decide to speak low enough for me to hear, and in English. Ratchet's worried I might fry my brain with this thing, though, so he's working on adding in some human-friendly shielding. I tell you, I've got great friends."
Shifting, Spike drew his knees up to his chest. "Dad's not doing too good, though. We finally got him to see a doctor--a HUMAN doctor. Took forever to do it. I know, he hates doctors ever since you and Buster died, but you have to go sometime. Ratchet and First Aid only know so much about human medicine and the way our bodies work. I think this's changing that, though." He sighed, his eyes no longer really seeing the engraved letters that read "Mary Witwicky."
"Dad's got cancer," Spike said aloud, the words as soft as if he'd stolen them from a cloud.
"It's invasive and it's pretty far gone," he continued after a minute, voice slightly thicker. "They were talking maybe radiation or chemotherapy, but I'm not sure if we can talk Dad into it. You know how stubborn he is. I just... I don't want him to die, Mom."
Spike's head bowed forward onto his knees, eyes fiercely shut, holding back the prickles of hot salt. He remained still for long minutes. Finally his head pulled back up, shoulders rolling back in a reflexive attempt to swallow tears. "I think I'll be coming more often for a while, Mom," he said softly. Then he stood, his hand brushing affectionately over the stone next to his mother's, the one which carried the name of his brother.
Spike walked across the hills of green grass, weaving his way between tombstones and the flowers or flags people had placed before them. Waiting at the curb was his best friend.
"You okay, Spike?" Bumblebee asked, getting up, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"No." Spike shook his head.
"Sparkplug'll be all right. You'll see. He has to be."
"Things aren't always that easy, Bumblebee," Spike said, looking up at his friend. "People die all the time. Cancer's... pretty bad. Especially with it so far along."
Wordlessly, Bumblebee transformed into a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and opened his passenger-side door.
Wordlessly, Spike got in and the two left the cemetary.
Spike didn't know how to phrase his request. It wasn't that he was unsure of what he wanted, he knew, or even that he couldn't get it without sanction, but rather that he did want permission. This was no idle teenage rebellion. What he was asking for meant something to him. Something deep to the core. Something in his bones. Something in his soul.
"Optimus," he began, "can I--that is," he caught himself, "would it be all right for me to bear the Autobot insignia?"
Optimus' optics widened, then returned to normal, his only indication of surprise. "I'm not objecting to the idea, Spike," he said calmly. Spike could hear the slight tones of surprise, amusement, and somehow, something that said the request had already been processed and probably approved. That bolstered him as Optimus continued, "but I'd like to know your reasons why."
Reasons marshalled themselves to the front of Spike's mind. He'd been trained, partially by Optimus himself, how to give a clean report, a convincing argument. "I'm not asking just because it's the popular thing right now, Prime," he started. "I see insignia pins and decals all over campus, and I know some people are only wearing them because they're 'cool.' I'm not that kind of person."
Optimus nodded. "Of course not. You never have been."
Spike smiled. "Thanks. The thing is, you guys have always been my friends and my family. Now that Dad's gone, you're my only family. I've always felt like I'm an Autobot, so I'd like your permission to have the symbol."
Prime nodded again, more slowly. "It's been a long time since any of us have thought of you as anything but an Autobot, Spike. If you want to identify yourself with our symbol, I think I speak for all of us when I say we'd be honored." Then curiosity seemed to overtake him, because Optimus' optics narrowed in puzzlement as he asked "It's easy enough for a Transformer to be marked with an insignia, but how do humans do it?"
Spike had to smile. "It's called tattooing. We use needles to inject ink under our skin."
"That sounds painful."
Spike nodded. "A lot of worthwhile things are."
Spike ended up deciding to get the mark on his right shoulder, where it remained hidden beneath his shirt sleeve for the three weeks it took to heal. He was religious about cleaning and moisturizing the raw skin. Some day, he knew, he would be less self-conscious, but for the time being it remained constantly present in the back of his mind.
The tattoo was fully healed by the beginning of spring break, but it was some weeks before anyone other than Optimus knew of its existence. It wasn't until Spike was disgustedly stripping out of a purple-splattered shirt (he couldn't believe he'd stepped on that stupid rock and let Blaster nail him with a paintball) that the mark was seen and noticed by his friends.
"Hey," Bumblebee said suddenly, "when did you get that?"
"Hmm?" It actually took Spike a moment to realize what Bumblebee was referring to. "Oh. The tattoo. A couple months ago."
The others took a good long look at it and each other before saying anything. He was starting to get nervous before the silence was broken.
"Well, Spike," Ironhide said, smiling, "I think it suits ya, kid."
Carly called it his sixth sense. Chip believed it was born of spending years not just associating with the Autobots, but living with them. Whatever it was caused Spike to lift his head up and look out the classroom window at the jet streaking by in the distance. He couldn't tell its colors from this distance, but it had to be either Thundercracker or Skywarp.
"Mister Witwicky," his professor broke into his thoughts. "Is there something you wish to share with the class? An interesting view from the window, perhaps?"
Saying what he sensed would only gain him derision from this teacher, and either scare his classmates or make them think him a vainglorious egoist. The Decepticon wasn't heading toward the college, or toward the Ark enclave either. "Nothing, sir," Spike replied evenly. "Sorry for letting my attention drift."
"Let it happen during other classes, not this one," the thin man with the sharp tongue and sharper red pen replied. "Now, everyone, regarding the argument of Ariel as Shakespeare's deus ex machina...."
Spike was getting picked up for the weekend in an hour. He'd tell whoever came to get him about the flyby.
"You not getting enough sleep?" Josh joshed Spike. "Daydreaming during Freeberg's class...."
"Saw a jet off in the distance," Spike answered quietly, keeping his voice down as they walked toward the parking lot. "Thought it might be someone I knew."
"Someone you--good or bad?" Sarah demanded. She had an Autobot pin on her backpack. Most of Spike's classmates did.
"Like I could tell," he retorted. A few steps later, "Bad," he admitted. "Not heading toward here, though, and not toward home either. I need to report it in." He couldn't tell who it was, but the same sense that had made him look up and out the window assured him that one of his friends was waiting in the parking lot nearest to his classroom. "See you guys Sunday night?"
"Wish I lived close enough to go home on weekends," Josh grumped, but there was a faint note of worry in his voice.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Spike said, looking at his friend. "Even they get bored and just go out cruising. Really." Josh didn't look convinced. "Look, if they're out to cause a problem," which they almost certainly were, he thought to himself but didn't say out loud, "then we'll deal with it. If I'm not in class next week, that'll be why. Take notes for me if that happens, okay?"
"Sure," Sarah replied. "You go help the giant alien robots to kick the other giant alien robots' asses, and we'll cover your class notes. Sounds like a fair deal to me."
He grinned at her, then spotted the dusty green jeep at the curb. "Looks like my ride's here. You guys have a good weekend."
"You too, Spike," Josh said. "See you Sunday."
"Stay safe," Sarah replied.
With a nod, Spike walked up to the idling vehicle, tossed his backpack in the back and got into the driver's seat, buckling up before placing his hands on the wheel. "Hey, Hound."
"Good week, Spike?" the Autobot asked as they pulled away from the curb.
"Not too bad," Spike answered, only pretending to drive. "Think I spotted one of the Seekers about half an hour ago, heading north-northwest. Any idea what he's up to?"
"Nope... let me radio in to base and see if there's been any other activity reports."
Spike sighed, relaxing, his hands on the warm leather grip of the steering wheel, wind ruffling through his hair. College was okay, and it was interesting interacting with others his age, other humans, but... there was nothing like going home.
