pullmeoutalive | log > how are these two so darn cute?

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log > how are these two so darn cute?

It had been an admittedly strange situation they had all been in - shopping mall, zombies, black outs - it was like a horror film gone wrong.

No one had any explanation for their sudden appearance in the mall, nor did anyone have an explanation for their sudden disappearance from the mall. Just as no one had an explanation for the blue Chevrolet Volt currently parked outside of B.A.B.E.L. headquarters.

For his own part, Jolt was doing what Autobots did best (aside from kicking Decepticon skidplate), and that was hiding in plain sight. Asphalt and sunshine, he decided, were preferable to zombie-laden carpet and the near-darkness of a mall without power. He just didn't like having to wait while Naomi was inside - no doubt trying to explain where the frag she'd been all this time. Jolt'd had a similar problem relaying his whereabouts to - of all mechs - Ratchet. (No doubt the medic thought he was glitched for insisting he'd been fighting off zombies all this time.) But, after much instance, and pleading for Optimus' permission, Jolt was allowed to stay with Naomi for the time being.

The Autobot sighed inwardly. He was still waiting, and he still hated it.

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There was a brief moment in which nothing happened, and then the light shifted and shimmered and there was the hologram, sitting cross legged on the hood in front of Naomi's hands. One hand cupped her chin, and brought her gaze up to meet his. His face was serious, as was his tone. "I'm a soldier, Naomi. This is what I do. I'll do my very best to be careful, I promise you that, but if you are ever in trouble, I won't hesitate to be there."

To her absolute horror, Naomi felt her eyes starting to sting, and it took a great deal of will to keep from bursting into tears, as she typically did when she'd felt that she'd messed up big time and hurt others in the process. And she had, hadn't she? She'd been so dead-set on protecting Jolt that she hadn't considered his feelings on the matter; the warmth of his hand and the solemnity of his gaze only served to reinforce that he was so much more than any of the robots she'd faced, and she held still, oddly comforted by that fact.

"I'm a soldier, too," she whispered and, despite her best effort, a tear trickled down her face. "An esper. But as Naomi, I'm asking you to stay and fight with me."

Ah, Naomi's face was leaking. Wait, no. She was crying, and he definitely didn't want her to cry. "Hey," he said, brushing the tear from her face. "Of course I'll stay." There was a soft purr from Jolt's engine, part reassuring, part echoing Naomi's apparent sadness, and the hologram slid down the hood and enveloped Naomi in a hug - a little awkward at first, simply because Jolt was unused to the action, but he settled into it eventually. "I'll stay," he said again, confirming it for her as much as for himself.

Naomi was stiff initially, caught off-guard by the sudden display of affection, but gradually, her arms rose, wrapping around him, and she buried her face in his shirt. There was something strange about hugging a hologram that felt this solid, but this was part of Jolt, and she accepted that with very little difficulty. It was a lot harder to hug him when he was more than three times her size, anyway.

"Good," came the muffled voice.

It was a little weird to be this close to her, but not exactly bad. Sure, as a hologram he couldn't feel - not as humans did - but there was still something that went from her to him. He couldn't explain it, really.

He pulled away from her slightly, flashing her that grin. "You look exhausted," he remarked.

"I'm only Level Six," she explained, smiling ruefully as she took a step back to stretch. "It usually requires two high-leveled psychokinetic espers to do something like that, unless it's Kaoru-chan. I... probably went a little past my limits--"

"Naomiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

Naomi automatically flinched, glancing over her shoulder at her approaching supervisor. For some reason, he looked livid. "S-Supervisor...?"

"Did that robot harm you? It was obviously a trap set by that esper, and you should be resting, instead of--" Here Tanizaki's eyes swept over the hologram, and he sniffed distastefully. "Instead of letting yourself be groped by this... garbage. Don't let yourself be taken in!"

HoloJolt raised an eyebrow, managing not to look surprised at the "giant robot" remark, and instead casting a disgusted look at Naomi's supervisor. "Garbage?" he repeated.

It took all of Jolt's willpower to keep his engine quiet. Instead, he focused on not letting his hologram lose its solidity, and staying right where he was. It might be satisfying to just punch this guy in the face, or run him over. Or punch him in the face and then run him over, but he didn't want to run the risk of being separated from Naomi for assaulting her supervisor.

"Garbage," the man repeated firmly, and Naomi tensed, glancing anxiously at her friend to ensure that he wasn't going to do anything idiotic. She could react now, but anyone else was a very different situation. "Trying to take advantage of a sweet young br-- girl, I know how your dirty minds work! Well, her supervisor won't stand for it! Get away from her this instant!"

This really wasn't her day.

The young man shrugged. "Fine, have it your way." He stood up from where he was currently seated on the Volt's hood, and stalked purposefully to the river's edge, pausing just long enough to give Naomi a little smile.

And then he jumped in the river.

Naomi stared, catching herself before she could leap off after him. Tanizaki stared...

Then let out some kind of breathy scream and promptly keeled over.

"Ah-- S-- Jolt-san!" Seeing that the man wouldn't be in any shape for observation for awhile (and not particularly feeling like picking him up off the ground), Naomi propped her hands on her hips and gave the car her best reproachful glare. "He's going to be hysterical for days now!"

Jolt himself was hysterical, but this was a purely different kind of hysterical. "Oh, that was rich. Maybe now he'll think twice before telling people off." He managed to sound proud of himself, despite the hysterics.

It took him a minute to get his giggles under control, but when he did, he regarded Tanizaki's sprawled form for a moment. "Maybe I overdid it," he remarked, somehow not sounding too convinced of the fact.

What kind of autobot had a gigglefit, anyway? Naomi looked from him to her fallen commander, slowly shaking her head at how ridiculous they both were, in their own ways.

"You really shouldn't have done that. You can't expect me to just leave him here!" That translated to having to carry him all the way back to headquarters, a trip that she wasn't sure she could actually do in her current condition. Even now, the slight dizziness from earlier had gotten worse, and she was starting to sway when she stood still for too long.

The kind of Autobot that would pretend to jump in a river just to freak someone out, of course. Juvenile though he was, he could still figure out what Naomi meant - and he could still notice that she was indeed exhausted, and becoming more so by the minute.

There was a sigh from the car, and the back door swung open. Just as suddenly as it had vanished, the hologram was back and hauling the supervisor into the backseat. (Jolt was going to need to recharge for like a week after all this, he just knew it.) Satisfied that Tanizaki wasn't going anywhere, the hologram winked out of existence, and the driver's side door opened in invitation. "Come on, you're driving."

"M-me?" Naomi's voice ended in an incredulous squeak, and she coughed to clear her throat, hands already waving in denial. "I-I can't! I've never driven before, and I might crash you, and I'd never want to do that to you!"

If anyone had doubted she was tired, there was proof right there.

"When I say 'drive'," Jolt explained, calmly so as to stave off another freak-out. "I mean you're going to sit in the seat and put your hands on the wheel and I'm gong to drive. I just don't want what's-his-bucket back here freaking out all over my upholstery if he wakes up and I'm driving myself."

"Oh, don't worry about that!" She spared Tanizaki only a small glance, one that spoke volumes of how used to him she was (and how she hated it). "If he wakes up, I can put him out again."

Still, Jolt's suggestion-- or order-- was a good one, and the girl slowly slipped into the seat and just as tentatively rested her hands on the steering wheel.

"L-like this, right...?"

"You got it," the Autobot's voice came now from the speakers, encouraging. "Maybe one of these days I'll actually teach you how to drive, but for now you can fake it. Just move with me."

The car came to life, backing away from the riverbank and heading out onto the road, making for B.A.B.E.L. headquarters at a far easier pace than it had left.

All right, this wasn't so bad. She could feel the car's movements enough to move the wheel convincingly, reminding herself several times not to panic and jerk it around. Naomi exhaled softly a good ten minutes after he'd been on the road, unable to do much more beyond that, but definitely relieved.

She was doing good, but Jolt wasn't about to let her go crashing into anything - for his own safety as well as hers. After driving in silence for a while the Chevy decided to take a page out of Bumblebee's book and the radio clicked on - soft, but upbeat.

"If you can feel it when it comes down
And you can see it coming around and around
If you believe this is a moment, control it
You feel it getting better, back where we belong ♪"

The words weren't familiar, but the melody was catchy, and Naomi relaxed further-- although she remembered to keep up the driving act for all of their sakes. She did start humming along, though-- very quietly at first, until she was more confident, and then at the same volume level as the radio.

"We keep on playing games and reaching out for something new
I'd rather walk with you than run with the other fools ♪"

Now he knew why Bumblebee had chosen the radio for his preferred mode of communication, rather than the impersonal messages he had been using. Music was fun, not to mention it brought something out in humans - he saw it int he way Naomi relaxed, the way she hummed along.

"It's just a feeling, taking me over
Time after time I'm losing control
You got a lot of things to give
Got a lot of life to live
It takes a little patience, baby
But things are changing, things are going to ♪"

It was a miracle that Tanizaki was still unconscious, but if he stayed that way until she got him inside, maybe they could still chalk up what he'd seen as an after-effect, or too many late nights (fantasizing over his charge cooking his breakfast and calling him little terms of endearment and clad in a wedding gown, no doubt).

Naomi was glad, any way she looked at it. This moment, she could easily forget a fight between espers, the Normals who hated them, Jolt's own situation, everything else except sitting here and letting the music govern her voice. It was almost liberating.

Humans, from what Jolt understood, often sang while they were driving, and he'd never really understood why until now.

"Baby, baby, long before I met you I was
Crazy, crazy to forget you but just
Maybe, what you see is what you get for sure
Can't take this anymore ♪"

It was kind of amazing to see the way Naomi just let the music take her, and Jolt was glad he too was along for the ride. It was incredibly easy to just be in the now- just him an her enjoying themselves. No arguments, no flying cranes. None of that. Jolt was even happy to forget the man lying unconscious in his backseat.

At the instrumental part, Naomi kept her hands fastened on the wheel, but her fingers lightly tapped a harmony, and a bright smile lit up her face. She loved music-- and a part of her still felt horridly guilty over accidentally destroying that piano with one innocuous flick of her finger-- but she hadn't had much of a chance to just sit down and listen to it.

And for that, she'd always be grateful to Jolt.

They would most definitely have to do this kind of thing more often. (Preferably without the dead weight in the back.) Jolt decided he rather liked that smile on Naomi's face, and he liked being the cause of it.

"If you can feel it when it comes down
And you can see it coming around and around
If you believe this is a moment, control it
You feel it getting better, back where we belong ♪"

...But if he wasn't careful he was going to miss his turn. As nice as this was, they had an unconscious supervisor to deliver, and the B.A.B.E.L. headquarters was coming up quickly.

log > how are these two so darn cute?

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