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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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.

"Ah, if it's all right, please wait a moment. I'll take him inside!" Regretfully, Naomi slid out from her seat once they'd reached their destination a few minutes later, and retrieved her poor excuse for a mentor. Dragging him was tempting, but she'd been raised better than that, and had to settle for levitating him above her head and directing him inside the building in that cheerful fashion.

... Not that her upbringing prevented her from unceremoniously dumping him on the lobby floor, but he deserved no less. If there was anything she felt bad about, it was leaving him there to bother the poor receptionists when he woke up.

Jolt did as he was told, determined to make up for his little stunt earlier. Maybe he could catch a little nap while he was waiting. It had been a long day, and to be honest, he never really utilized his hologram's hard light function enough to be used to the energy (not to mention concentration) that it took. (He was really, really going to have to work on that.)

Indeed, while Naomi busied herself with dumping her supervisor on the floor, the Volt had drifted off to whatever the Cybertronian equivalent to dreamland was.

She eventually headed back outside, half-wary that the car would be long gone and causing chaos in another part of the city but, to her relief, Jolt was still there. And... oddly silent, even when she got closer.

"Is he...?" Naomi tilted her head inquisitively, pressing her fingers to her mouth. She stood there for a moment, mulling something over, and then abruptly floated into the air and took off. In less than five minutes she was back, a large blanket clutched in one hand, and carefully lowered it over the top of the car. It probably didn't help at all, but she seemed satisfied with the result and settled onto the curb to keep an eye on the slumbering Autobot.

It took him a few minutes to register that something was... different. Cozy.

Wait, what?

Jolt was online in a second, and he was disoriented and fighting back the urge to transform for half that. "Wha-?" It was dark. But it hadn't been dark when he went offline, and he couldnt' have been out long, so- He couldn't see. Why couldn't he see.

Waaaait a second.

"Naomi? Why am I under a blanket?"

In most circumstances, Naomi would have been right there with apologies for the confusion and/or inconvenience, as well as armed with multiple explanations as to why the Volt had been graced with a blanket.

Except that in this situation, the guilty party had made the mistake of sitting, and sitting had led to a reminder of how exhausted she was, and that in turn had led to Naomi falling asleep where she sat in the few minutes that she'd been watching him. Therefore the only response Jolt received was-- absolute silence.

Well, this was decidedly awkward. He half wondered if Naomi had wandered off and he'd been talking to himself, but a quick scan of the area proved that she was indeed there. Just... non-responsive.

A whip slid out of the car and coiled around the blanket, pulling it from the car's frame and in through the now open back door. Jolt regarded Naomi for a moment - he was rather impressed with her ability to sleep on concrete, but it probably wasn't the best place for her.

Oh, he was going to regret this, but the hologram kicked back on and scooped up the sleeping girl. He deposited her in the now blanketed backseat before winking out of existence again. Doors shut and windows darkened, the Autobot found a nice shaded spot to park and offline for a couple of hours.

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log > how are these two so darn cute?

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