Lemonade, Sherbet (explicit) (driftrod) (xeno)

15 June 2016

She’s been making money off shitty donations, pawning off her stuff, and selling pics of her tits, and quite frankly, it’s not making ends meet. She’s in that sort of place where she’s wondering why did they ever let me go off on my own? God, I’ve always been like this, haven’t I? Didn’t somebody figure this would happen? And then she remembers that somebody did, and she went and tried to prove them wrong, and here she is now.

When she was younger, Rodimus got this sense that everybody expected she would just stay in her dinky little end-of-the-road town and work at the gas station or the garage or for tips at the one local diner and god, no, the closed-off dead-endedness of it all made her skin itch. She thought about a future that spanned only a handful of miles and it choked her. So she’d wriggled her way into college, got her dad to back her up on that and left, and the first couple semesters it was great. It was fantastic.

By the time she realized she was crashing and burning, it was a little too late to turn back and say, well, just kidding. She didn’t exactly want to go back home anyway, not just to know that she was wrong the whole time. She had her car, after all, and that’s kind of all she needed.

It’s about all she has, now. Her car, the rush of air through the open window, long stretches of empty road. She drives because it’s easier than sitting still, even if she’s barely got the money for gas, and at least then she’s doing something. And when she gets tired of it, she can pull off to the side and sit on the hood and smoke, take pictures of the sunset and of herself like things are a-ok. She always makes some quick cash off the the shots she takes where she’s topless out by the side of the road. Risque, or something. Feels better doing all that than sitting cramped somewhere and crying.

Rodimus pulls off the road into the gravel just as the sun’s starting to dip down, casting pink over the horizon, spilling orange sherbet through the sky. When she parks and gets out, she has to squint from the light streaming right into her eyes. She’s propping herself up onto the hood, shoes halfway kicked off, and then she sees the other car.

First thought is this spot’s taken, I see. But the car’s empty, and there’s no one else around that she can see when she peers out over the flat land. It’s just the car, sleek and low to the ground like a cat that’s seen prey. No license plates. Paint scuffed a little, but only like regular wear; dirt spatters over the white of it, the red decals on the doors. Rodimus slides back down to the ground and shoves her feet back in her shoes, the backs of them folding down under her heels.

“Hello?” she calls out, risking it. She scuffles toward the car, cautious like it’ll start up and take off on her if she moves too fast. “Hey, is someone out here?” But there’s still no one, just the echo of her voice sounding tired and thin, and the car is still empty and it’s still just … there. Like it’s waiting for her.

Rodimus closes the distance and tests it with a hand on the hood. It’s not even warm. When she looks in through the windows, the doors aren’t locked. There isn’t even anything in the cup holders or on the seats. Which means she can see those clear, and they’re not exactly familiar – they’ve got this almost futuristic style, strange and smooth curves and shapes she’s pretty sure wouldn’t even fit a person. Some kind of custom, then, maybe, or a prototype or something, except why would it just be out here?

Instinct takes her around the front of it, has her latch her fingers under the hood of it, find the release and squeeze. When she eases it up her knees go weak. It’s not that it’s something super impressive and expensive – Rodimus knows cars, she’s kind of in love with them, she used to mess around at that garage back home during her free time and she had a lot of free time, so she knows what can hide under a hood and what can translate to power and speed. She’d read up on people’s builds like some people’d look at porn. But what’s here, god, she doesn’t even know what it is. And not in the oh fuck that must be expensive way, more in the is this some kind of prank way, because it looks – it looks alien or something, like this car’s been dropped out of a sci-fi movie. Parts of it glow. Parts of it pulse.

Rodimus wants to know how this thing runs more than anything she’s ever wanted in the world. And nobody’s around to claim it.

She eases the hood back down and leans against it, palms splayed over the smooth top. Her knees kind of give, and she lowers down until she’s crouched on the gravel with her forehead against the car’s hood and all she can think is maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe this could do something for her. Maybe this is, like, a sign. Maybe she could take this – sell the old one (sorry, Hot Rod) – get on her feet again –

“Ok, look,” she murmurs. “I know I don’t do this a lot, and we haven’t exactly spoken for a long time, but God, if you’re listening, I really, really need this. Be a pal. Just this one time, I’ll pay you back.”

The wind rustles in the grass and the sun sinks lower. Rodimus picks herself up and steps around the car, opens the passenger door. Pulls the handle for the glove box.

It’s empty too.

—-

One of the only things her stint at college left her with is Minnie Ambus, this girl who barely comes up to Rodimus’ shoulder but could probably lift Rodimus three times over. She’s tiny and fancies herself a bit of a casual policeman and gives Rodimus the sternest of looks, but most importantly in this moment she’s Rodimus’ friend, and she is in possession of her very own car. A truck, in fact, though as soon as Rodimus calls her up with the idea of it she assures Rodimus that she will not be towing any strange cars anywhere.

“No no no,” Rodimus promises her, waving a hand like she’s flicking the concept out of the air. “I’ll drive the car. I just need you to drive me down there so I can drive it back and not leave Hot Rod behind. I have this all planned out, trust me.”

They’ve met, at Minnie’s insistence, over brunch, which Rodimus is pretty sure is a meal reserved specifically for rich people and people who love things like posture and using the right forks. She’s not sure if Minnie’s the first category, but she’s definitely the second one, even if she tries to hide it. Minnie fidgets with her salad fork now. (Seems weird, Rodimus thinks. Who eats salad at brunch. Minnie, probably.)

“This whole thing is nonsense, you realize,” Minnie says, glancing up from her food, something with mangos and rice. “I’m not about to help you steal a car in any way, whether it involves my truck or not.”

“It won’t be stealing because it doesn’t belong to anyone.” Rodimus picks up her straw and tears the paper off it, then blows the end of the wrapper right into Minnie’s face. Minnie doesn’t barely flinch. She’s spent too many hours with Rodimus to even be surprised; she just picks the paper out of her rice and sets it to the side. “I checked, Minnie. No license plate, no insurance, no proof of ownership – there wasn’t even a manual in there, which is kind of weird. The thing’s empty. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It doesn’t make any sense, I know, but I swear.”

Minnie clicks her tongue and goes quiet a minute as she takes a bite of her food and seems to roll the thought through her head. Rodimus crosses her fingers under the table. Getting Minnie to agree to any of her over-the-top ideas has always been a specialty of hers, but this is a bit beyond watching every episode of Blue’s Clues together or making cookies from scratch at 2 am. She fixes Minnie with her best puppy dog stare, which, she’ll admit, isn’t all that great. Minnie’s told her before that she has a ‘permanent lecherous grin.’

Minnie finishes chewing and she gestures at Rodimus with her fork. “You ought to report this car to the police.”

“Oh, aw, Minnie, what!” Rodimus groans, slumping back in her chair. She lets her head loll back over it. “No, that’s the last thing I should do!”

“What if it’s already stolen? What if someone’s reported it missing, and that’s the reason it doesn’t have anything inside it?”

“Nooo, don’t say these things, c’monnnn.” Rodimus lets the word trail long with a whine and shifts her weight forward, forehead thunking down against the edge of the table. “Stop it with your – logic words, don’t make me think of this. It doesn’t even have a license plate, how am I supposed to…”

“Provide a description? Give its location? It’s really quite simple.” How someone so small can look so strict while holding a fruit smoothie, Rodimus will never know. When she takes a sip of it, the straw makes a slurping noise. She’s still a little frightening despite it. “If you won’t do it, I will. You can hold me to that.”

Rodimus groans long and low, aware of the frown creeping over Minnie’s face. “You can’t,” she insists. “What if it’s really stolen and the cops take it?”

“Then you will have avoided being implicit in grand theft auto, Rodimus,” Minnie says, voice pitched incredulous. “I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”

Rodimus throws her hands into the air. “Fine. Fine! We’ll call it in. Whatever you want,Hermione.”

Minnie’s eyebrows raise high. She looks genuinely flattered. “Thank you.”

Rodimus considers telling her that it was intended to be an insult, but she figures she’ll let her have this one.

—

In the end, Minnie calls it in, because Rodimus is too busy pacing and bouncing on the balls of her feet with nerves to do it. She solemnly reports to Rodimus that the police have no reports matching that description. It takes Rodimus a few moments to process it, to put that together with the car is mine but when she does she whoops and leaps up, almost throws herself at Minnie before she remembers that Minnie’s not too big on hugging and stops herself short. She settles instead for finger pistols and an over-wide grin, then turns and starts off towards Minnie’s truck.

“We have to do this now,” she insists. “I’ll never forgive myself – or you – if someone else takes him.”

“Him,” Minnie repeats, unimpressed as ever, but she starts the truck and sets them down the road.

Rodimus really is prepared for this. She brought a can of gas, in case the thing’s empty; a small set of tools for if there’s minor issues; a pack of gum to keep herself distracted from chattering the whole way down. She talks nonstop nonetheless, and she knows Minnie isn’t that thrilled but she can catch just the slightest hint of a smile in the rearview mirror. When they get close to the road, Rodimus holds tight onto the edge of the seat, breath freezing in her lungs. If the car isn’t there – but it is, it is, and she peels her seat belt off and kicks the door open before Minnie’s even rolled to a full stop. She runs full tilt to it, stopping with hands against the door.

“Here he is,” she crows when Minnie parks and joins her by the car’s side. Minnie peers in, surveying, seeing that the interior is really as bare as Rodimus had said, and one of her eyebrows quirks up at the strange layout of it. She walks along the length of it and frowns.

“What kind of car is this, anyway?” she asks, and Rodimus shrugs.

“No clue. Doesn’t seem like anything I know. Looks like it was expensive, though, right? Look, it’s got one of those screens and the electronic displays…”

Rodimus pulls the door open and slides in, settling on the driver’s seat, hands fanning across the steering wheel. Yeah. Definitely a sign. Her fingers curl down around it and she sighs out a breath. She lets her eyes close a moment, taking in the shape of the seat, the wheel, the feel of the car around her.

“How do you plan to start this thing, exactly?” Minnie asks, voice distant in Rodimus’ head. “Actually, nevermind. I’ve come to the decision that I don’t want to know.”

“Yeah,” Rodimus agrees in a murmur, “probably not.” She runs her fingers down across the place where keys would go anyway, like there’s any part of her that hopes a key will still be there.

There isn’t, but – there isn’t a keyhole either, but – when her fingers touch the spot where there should be something, the car growls into life, lighting up inside and out, rumbling warm under Rodimus. She cackles triumphantly, grinning sharp. “Thank you, big guy!” she calls up to the roof, to the sky above it, tinting pink like it had the evening before. She looks down again, stroking over the thin console between the front seats, the dark plastic of it. “And thank you,” she adds, quieter, and she could swear the car revs in response.

This is it, she thinks, this is where things start fresh. It’s a strange and rushing feeling in her chest, like her heart is reaching up and out. When Minnie comes around to the open front door and asks very seriously if Rodimus “hacked the car,” Rodimus laughs, then reaches out and tousles Minnie’s hair. It gets her a scowl but it’s worth it. Totally worth it.

—

It’son the way back that things start going a little weird.

The car rides so smooth, it’s almost a little frightening – like she’s slipping on ice, like she’s floating, just inches over the road. But once she gets used to it, it’s the sweetest thing she’s ever done, like holding chocolate on her tongue until it melts, the softest touches turning the car just like she wants. She can’t keep from stroking her hand over the dashboard, the empty seat, the strange uninterrupted curves of it. The engine runs with a definite growl when it’s idling, but once the car’s in motion it’s silent, a predator in its territory. It’s amazing.

It’s also a little too quiet, so she shoves a hand into her pocket and tugs out her phone. It’s a little difficult and a little dangerous to pull the cable to hook it up to the car’s speaker system out after it, then try and find the jack one-handed while she’s still driving, but she manages with a little ha! of victory. The speakers crackle like in acknowledgement.

And then the brakes stutter, screeching on the pavement, and the cable jolts out of the jack like it was spit out by an angry child.

She figures, at first, that she just fucked up the driving. It’s a new car, it rides way different than Hot Rod, she just has to get used to it, but she moves to plug her phone in again and the tires skid and the speakers pop and the cable pops out onto the console, twisting and rolling halfway between that and the seat next to it. Rodimus glances down at the screen that’s set up over the stereo controls. Nothing looks off, but…

On the third try, the car jerks hard enough that the cable and her phone get tossed all the way into the back of the car, and she gives in, raising one hand in surrender and saying, “ok, all right, I get it, no music. Yeesh. Pushy.”

The engine rumbles in what feels like contentment, and yeah. A little weird.

She gets it home, if it can be called home. She lives in this hole-in-the-wall apartment that she’s pretty sure she’s due to be evicted out of and that butts up onto this ugly empty lot, half-filled with construction crap and people’s trash. Not a great view, which is part of why the rent is so cheap. Rodimus uses it as an impromptu parking lot, since nobody ever checks the place, and she pulls up into it with the new car until it’s settled neatly next to Hot Rod. Shining white next to searing red. It’s a good look.

This is about the point that Rodimus realizes she has no idea how to turn the car off. After all, she didn’t start it; it sort of… started on its own. By divine intervention, or something. She hesitates, still sitting in the driver’s seat, frowning.

“Okay,” she says, “aaaand… off. Stop. Shut down?”

It does, predictably, nothing. She trails her fingers where she had earlier, past the steering wheel where a keyhole should be; no result. She is not losing this car to a dead battery because she couldn’t turn it off, dammit.

“Right,” she murmurs, “either you need to take over for me and turn off, or we’re gonna have to do this the hard way. Some hard way. I have never had this problem before.”

Not that she expects the car to answer her. Not really, anyway. Rodimus sighs, scrubbing the heel of her hand against her forehead. Ok. Well, maybe this sign wasn’t perfect, but – better than nothing. Better than nothing at all. She leans over in the seat, feeling along the dash until she finds a hitch in the material and fits her fingernails under it.

“Let it be known,” she says, tugging at the panel,  “that I did not want to have to resort to this.”

She’s almost got the fuse box open when the car goes and shouts. Yelps, actually. An indignant, maybe almost afraid set of syllables, not English but definitely, definitely not a sound that a car should be making. Rodimus freezes, staring at the stereo, but it’s still not on. And it did not come from the speakers.

She doesn’t get out a full “what the fuck” before the seat tips, dumping her out of the car and onto the ground, and the car… she doesn’t know how to describe it. She doesn’t know how to begin to describe it. Nothing in her life has prepared her with the words for this: her car, rearing back and shifting, twisting in on itself, all the metal and fiberglass and plastic moving and taking new shapes together until it doesn’t even really resemble a car anymore. It kind of … honestly, it kind of looks like a person. Yeah, two legs, two arms, a head, eyes, kneeling where the car had been parked and staring down at her with this look of betrayal, mouth (mouth) quirked down in a frown.

The giant metal person adjusts their posture and repeats what they’d said in a murmur.Yah-meh-tay. Rodimus gapes up at them, blinking hard. It’s a lot to take in. When she finally does speak, it’s to gasp out, “Is – is my new car a robot?”

The robot (definitely a robot) shifts again and leans down a little closer to her, and each little motion makes this whir and click of mechanical movement that shocks through her. For all that they’re huge and, well, a robot, they seem like they’re lost, out of place.

“Holy shit,” Rodimus breathes. “This is way better than just a car.”

—

She spends an inordinate amount of time sitting there, trying to figure out what this giant car robot said to her. It’s a futile thing, she knows, because for all she knows it might be a special car robot language, specifically reserved for car robots, and she’ll never be able to find it by googling. She googles anyway, every possible way to spell the word that she can imagine. The only thing keeping her from calling up Minnie about it is the fact that at this point, it’s 1 in the morning, and there’s nothing Minnie takes more seriously than sleeping along a proper schedule. There’s also the thing where she’d have to explain why she was looking up a potentially made-up word in the middle of the night, and… yeah. She can handle this on her own.

Yamaytay. No. Yamatay. No. Yahmatay – no, that looks fake, even to her. The problem is she was never good at this, spelling and words and all that, she was always _always_getting her ass kicked by teachers for not proofreading before she turned stuff in. She used to joke that she could barely speak English, let alone learn a new language. Yamitay. Yamatei. Yamete –

Wait, that last one. That’s an actual thing. That’s a real word. Rodimus pulls it up on her cell phone’s screen, the characters spelling it out, and then turns her phone to face the robot. “Yah-may-tay?” she says, surely mangling it, pointing at her screen as the robot leans down and squints at it.

They make some affirmative hum, nod, and repeat, “yamete,” all sweetly confused. They must have no idea what Rodimus is doing here. But Rodimus hisses a yes! under her breath and dances a little in place.

It fizzles out when she realizes that the giant car robot she’s talking to only speaks Japanese. She takes her phone back and stares at it, frowning, brow furrowed. And then she does what any new owner of a giant, Japanese-speaking robotic car would do: she buys one of those learn Japanese sets on iTunes.

And a set of speakers for her cell phone on Amazon. After all, the car didn’t really appreciate their stereo being used.

—

It only occurs to her after a couple of weeks that she didn’t really spend any time at all freaking out about the fact that giant shape-changing robots are a reality in her world. By then, she’s so involved in learning basic Japanese in order to sort of talk to the robot that is the car she found on the side of the road that it doesn’t feel like it’s worthwhile at all, putting any energy into panicking.

The robot seems content to turn back into a car, sometimes, and they’ll open their door for her to sit inside, set up the speakers on her phone and listen to the language lessons while they drive. She thinks they’re learning just as much as she is, only in reverse; sometimes she can hear them murmur the English in turn, so quiet she can barely catch it, and the thought of a sheepish robot is too much for her to handle. At least they listen to her: her pronunciation is atrocious and they interrupt to guide her on proper sounds, proper words, laughing sometimes when she’s gone and said a word so wrong it doesn’t even resemble itself anymore. They like repeating her more over-the-top mistakes, saying them more drawn out and more ridiculous each time until she can’t even be mad at them for it.

It’s exciting when she gets to the point where she can stumble over an introduction. “Watashi wa Rodimus desu,” she says, slowly as she goes, brow furrowed with concentration. It’s kind of funny, because the robot gasps then. She knows they don’t need to breath or anything, but they make the sound of it nonetheless. It’s completely delightful.

She learns that the robot is called Drift. When they say it, the accent isn’t Japanese, but it’s not English, either; it’s something else entirely. And even that much tells her that she has so, so much to learn, here.

—

Drift picks up on the language thing a lot faster than she does, and that’s probably a good thing, because she’s doing a really awful job of it. They tell her so one day when she sits with them, them in their robot form and her sitting up on their thigh, phone set out in front of her.

“Remember when you fell asleep out here a few nights ago?” they ask her, their tone drawn tight and unsure. She looks up at them, far enough that her head is tipped all the way back, mouth pulled open.

“Uh-huh? Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to do it, it just kinda happened.” It had been in a field they’d driven out to, a middle-of-nowhere place, and they’d stretched out on the grass with her laying on their back. She’d wandered into sleep on the low buzz of their motors.

“It was fine. I just wanted to tell you, I borrowed your phone, then.”

Rodimus frowns, dropping her head forward again. She twists, turning until she’s facing them properly, legs draped on either side of theirs.  “Wait, what? How? Your hands are so big. Can it even, like, register your fingers? It’s not even scratched.”

“Yes, I didn’t touch its screen.” Sometimes Drift does that, says yes and then clarifies their negative. A leftover from Japanese, probably. It’s endearing. “I transferred some of the data over. Only the sound files for this language class, I promise! I just think… Well, it’s nothing.” They wave a hand then, trying to dismiss it, and Rodimus reaches up with both of hers until she can latch onto their smallest finger.

“Wouldn’t have brought it up if it was nothing,” she counters, “so tell me.”

“I’m just… a faster learner than you, and I thought it’d be easier for me to pick up on the rest of the English than it would be for you to try and figure out Japanese, not because you’re not smart or anything but because you’re – well, human?” They bite their lip. Bite their lip, because they’re nervous that they’re saying something rude – Rodimus could about die, or else take a picture, but she doesn’t do either. She leans back on her hands to stare up at Drift, trying to school her face into something solemn, a look something like Minnie would give her.

“Drift,” she says all seriously. “Are you telling me that you cheated?”

She doesn’t expect Drift to meet her quite suddenly with the same sort of expression, tipped sorrowful and apologetic. “I did,” they say. “I’m so sorry, Rodimus.”

She only manages to hold the look for a few moments before she falls apart into laughter, and they follow suit.

It’s better, this, that they absorb English like a sponge, take it in from the language lessons and from casual conversation and everything surrounding them, because they have so much to tell her. Or to almost tell her; they say a lot of things that edge on revelations, but then catch them and reel them back in. There’s already too much going on in this universe, they tell her once when she tries to pry; if I can keep you from getting roped into it, it’ll be a blessing.

They have gods where Drift’s from. And they have doctors, scientists, artists; a government, corrupt like the one she knows; friends, families of sorts. There are the undesirable things, too, but they don’t like talking about that. She doesn’t really blame them. There are planets and planets and planets and it’s a little bit world-shaking, to learn all this, to know that you’re the only person on Earth who has this knowledge aside from a mechanical person, stranded away from their people.

“How did you get here?” she asks them more than once. It seems far and unfair, them being alone here. Every time, they shake their head.

“For once, it’s not the journey, but the destination,” they insist. And she figures that’s fancy Drift talk for not this, don’t ask about this.

—

One day instead, she asks, “Why did you let me take you?”

It’s late; the sky’s watercolored with warm tones. They’ve driven far tonight, somewhere Rodimus doesn’t even recognize, but she trusts Drift to know the way back like they always do. Drift has settled against a sturdy tree, legs folded under them, and she’s sprawled herself out over their lap.

“Is that how it happened?” Drift says in a hum, and she tsks and smacks a hand against their leg.

“You know what I mean,” she insists. “That first night – second, actually, when I came back with Minnie –”

“I do wish I could meet her properly some day.”

“–you let me drive home with you, even though you could have just tossed me out or refused to start up or something. You had, like, a million different options. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you didn’t, but… I don’t know. Why?”

Drift peers down at her and their focus is so intense for a moment that she feels – she’s not sure. She doesn’t know how to describe this. Nothing in life has prepared her with the words for this. They stare down at her and their gaze isn’t sharp, it’s soft, it’s enveloping, cotton, cushiony clouds on sunshine blue-sky days. They look at her and she loses sense of the ground, the air, the world that moves around them. Rodimus stares back.

“I felt like you were kind,” Drift says. “And trustworthy. And maybe a little lonely. And that more than anything, you needed someone to give you a chance. I thought your spark – your heart was in the right place.”

They settle one finger, so broad compared to her, against the center of her chest. She can feel her heart beating against the weight of it. Drift stares down at her; Rodimus stares back.

“I think I was right,” they say, and she’s not sure she has anything to say to that. She rests her hands against their finger, almost holding it close. The rest of their hand rests lightly over her. She was never, ever prepared for this, and she still hasn’t got the words for it, but they don’t make her answer, and that’s nice enough, too.

—

They tell her about the Dead End. They tell her about the Decepticons, and about war, and about only finding yourself through murder and cruelty and the most horrible things anyone could imagine. They tell her about losing all that again and crumbling to pieces and being built back together by a stranger with a kind heart. They tell her about switching sides when really, both sides are the same, both sides are stained with the same blood, held together with the same violence.

They tell her about nightmares and the evil thoughts that still crawl into their head and the thousands of prayers they’ve said to try and make up for things and she may be so small, next to them, but she holds them, she holds them.

—

She gets busy sometimes because somehow, in the middle of staying up late to talk to a robot that turns into a car, she finds a job. A shitty one, part time, working at a sandwich shop with the worst customers that the city has to offer, but it pays enough for rent and food. And she sees Minnie sometimes, too, even though she still hasn’t figured out a way to introduce her to Drift. Rodimus might not have freaked out, but Minnie makes freaking out both organized and professional, and that’s not a risk Rodimus is about to take. There are other things, too, sometimes; days where she’s sick, or just wants to sleep, or looks out through the window of her apartment and thinks this is just Earth, and there is a whole universe out there, and they’ll want them back sometime and turns her back against the wall and tries to breathe.

It’s only sometimes. Most of the time, at least three quarters of it, she spends that with Drift, with her weight against their plating and her skin against their metal. She doesn’t take them to work – it feels strange, driving a car that’s living and expecting it to sit dormant the whole day through – so when she parks Hot Rod she can hop out of that and right up to Drift, grin and wave and talk about her day.

She finishes the first two steps today, grinning, waving, and they interrupt her by saying, “I don’t think I’m going to leave if anyone comes for me.”

It knocks her completely off balance. This isn’t part of the formula, their formula, the way they work and move together, only speaking important things in hush tones under lemonade skies. Rodimus stumbles, almost, heel of her foot skimming the ground instead of making contact and stuttering before it finds a solid surface.

“What?” she says in a half-gasp, and Drift looks down at her all so seriously. They’re kneeling again, weight resting back on their heels. Seiza, they told her once, and of course she never remembered it except for now.

“I’ve thought about it,” they say, “and I want to stay here with you.”

Rodimus can’t find her breath. She’s pretty sure she’s misplaced her lungs entirely. She blinks up at Drift and swears that she sways.

“Hey,” she finally tells them, “why don’t you go down on four wheels and drive us somewhere? Somewhere kinda nice.”

Usually Rodimus at the very least makes an effort of looking like she’s the one driving, even when it’s Drift doing all the work. She wraps her hands around their steering wheel, keeps her eyes on the road, makes sure they remember to use their turn signals most of the time. Now, she barely taps her fingers around the edge of the wheel, eyes cast mostly down toward her knees. It’s not like they’re going to attract any attention. Drift drives impeccably, save for the turn signal thing.

“I don’t want you leaving, either,” she says while they move, the city dissolving into fields and trees around them. “Haven’t for – ok, ever. I figure I was just selfish, though, because that’s kind of what I do, I want stuff for me and forget about what other people want and get all mad when it doesn’t go my way. I didn’t wanna say it because I didn’t want to sit through that talk of, like, well, Rodimus, you don’t always get what you want. And I figured it went without saying, a little.”

Drift turns them down a country road. Rodimus isn’t even sure how long they’ve been driving anymore, distracted as she’s been. The afternoon’s stretching long and low. They end up at this distant stretch of grass and weeds all whispering in the breeze, some of it reaching up to tickle Rodimus’ knees when she gets out and walks through it. She can hear Drift shift back to robot mode behind her. They join her out in the center of the meadow, standing out in the grass, the still-shining spots of their white paint tinting savory pinks, yellows, oranges from the sky.

Absurdly, she thinks they look like they belong in a movie. Not a sci-fi one; a romance one, some long camera shot with the grass waving around their ankles.

“I’m not sure what the problem is, then,” they say, almost tilting it into a question. When they’re standing like this, she barely comes up to their knee. Their hand, resting loose by their thigh, could span more than shoulder to shoulder on her.

“There isn’t one,” she says quickly. Rodimus rubs her palms against her own thighs, trying to make sense of the jumble of words in her head now. She shifts her weight, restless, one foot to the other, until Drift makes half a gesture and sits. She sits next to them, close to their hip. “I mean, I don’t know. I mean…”

The way they look at her could pull her in for orbit, a satellite, a moon, binary stars without any planets to distract them. Rodimus touches a hand to the back of Drift’s, palm over a knuckle. She can feel the joints of metal.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Drift,” she finally says, and she punctuates it by leaning down to kiss the back of their hand. It can’t possibly mean much to them. She’s so small – so frail next to their entirety. Even when she kisses down to where her own hand is settled, it’s hard to say if they can even feel it.

Drift does that little gasp of a sound again. It’s still strange, but it answers one question, at least. Drift’s hand moves under her, flexing carefully. When Rodimus glances up again, their mouth is open just so. Their eyes are widened and bright. “Rodimus,” they say, warning, wanting.

Rodimus thinks, yeah, ok. Yeah. This is a sign. So she climbs up onto their their leg, balances on their thigh, standing and stretching as tall as she can. It’s still hardly enough to get her up close and able to kiss their slack mouth, her mouth only wide enough to touch their lower lip.

Drift jolts, and shudders, and something in them whirs to life, and then they move.

Their hand curls behind her, broad and stable, and she steadies herself with a hand on one of their fingers. Drift tips their head down until there’s the slightest point of contact between their forehead and her hair, their eyes glowing so bright this close. Their thumb brushes feather-light over her side.

“I don’t even know if you guys do anything,” Rodimus mumbles vaguely, leaning against their hand, leaning against their head. Drift huffs a short laugh and she can hear all the electronic sounds of it.

“We definitely ‘do things,’” they assure her, and their voice is low and liquidy and slides down Rodimus’ spine with a searing heat. Her eyebrows shoot up so high she thinks they might be disappearing into her hair. Drift’s mouth spreads into this devious kind of smirk, sharp at the corners, and Rodimus breathes a swear.

They can’t kiss like she might want, and there’s no pretending that she’s anywhere near Drift’s size, but they’re both determined to make it work. Drift’s other hand comes up to trail fingers down over Rodimus’ front and she leans back against the palm supporting her, eyes following the fingertips that wander from her collar to her sternum to her stomach. They’re not really built that differently, if you look at them; Drift knows her shape like they know their own, and they use that knowledge to rub their fingers against her hips and thighs. Rodimus breathes in deep, gripping at their hand to keep her knees from buckling.

“I think you should know,” they say in a murmur, “that you’re really beautiful. And you have to understand that I’ve met so many people in my life – mechanical, organic – you’re so beautiful.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Rodimus promises, though her voice wavers. Drift laughs and tilts their head and they kiss her stomach, pull her breath right out of her. She settles a hand against their head, one of the pointed flares that comes off their temple, and they hum, content. They kiss down when she arches, the pressure warm but not wet, thrumming alive like heartbeats and motors combined. When they open their mouth and scrape teeth against her she doesn’t even know what sound to make, how to process it.

Their teeth catch on her shirt, so she tugs it up until it’s all crumpled together under her armpits. Metal on her skin, smooth and strange. She leans back further into Drift’s hand and their other goes behind her, too, to support her and then to lift her. Rodimus yelps at the sense of the ground falling away under her but Drift has her, smiles warm at her. There’s a sound coming from them like computer fans. Nothing’s ever been cuter.

Drift’s mouth opens and their tongue slides up between her legs, against the crotch of her shorts, and nevermind, nevermind, oh. It’s dry but not, it’s smooth and metallic and warm, Rodimus gasps and jerks halfway up to look down at it and how it’s huge between her thighs, dark and silvery and flexible. Drift does it again and she chokes on a groan and falls back.

“Is this ok?” Drift asks. Rodimus kicks at their hand and pushes their hips up. They laugh again, kiss at her stomach, across her hips.

It’s so much. There’s so much of them, so little of her, and she doesn’t know at all how she’s going to reciprocate because she’s going to if it kills her. What a way to go, if it does. Drift’s tongue pushes between her legs and up over her hips and Rodimus can only whine incoherent noises for it. It’s so much and it could be even more. When they pull back next, she pushes at the hem of her shorts without so much as unbuttoning them, shoving them down off her hips; they catch on her shoes because she forgot to take those off and she groans with frustration. Off, off; her shoes tumble down to the ground and her shorts follow. Now it’s just her with her skin bared and her underwear feeling too tight and her shirt bunched up over her tits.

If she took a picture of herself right now, she’d make so much money. Too bad. This is all hers. And Drift’s, too, she remembers, as they make an awed and appreciative sound. They stare at her like they’ve never seen anything like her and her hips cant up under it, her cock twitching. Drift slides a thumb over her cock and Rodimus can’t keep back a moan.

“You look a lot like I do,” they say to her before they lean back in to put their mouth on her. Rodimus chokes on a curse and clings to the crest surrounding their face, as though her grip will have any influence on what they do. It’s a measured helplessness that she adores.

A field, sunset, with Drift holding her up to their mouth so they can lap at her cock and Rodimus is so fucking pleased with this.

After just minutes of it, she’s sure she’s harder than she’s ever been before. Then again, she’s never gotten a blowjob from a robot before – she whimpers noises up at Drift, pushes at them with her palms and knees, and they finally pull back enough that she can wriggle out of the clothes she still has on. If she spends more time than she needs to with her hands at her chest, well. Drift seems to enjoy the show.

“What about you,” she finally asks, panting, and Drift licks their lips and shifts.

“It’s a little easier for someone of my size to take care of someone of your size,” they say. As though Rodimus can’t tell that they’re getting off on this, their fans spinning audibly.

“Here’s a secret about me,” she tells them. “I’m, like, the biggest size queen on this planet, so there’s literally no way you can scare me off. Unless you actually don’t want me to do anything. Then, uh, just say it, and I’ll drop it. But otherwise, otherwise, I really, _really_wanna see what you’re packing.”

If she was with another human, she’d nudge a thigh or a hand between their legs about now. But it’s Drift, who’s holding her up off their lap, so all she can do is glance down and then back up and hope that they let her have this.

Something between their legs clicks, then shifts, then moves aside with a mechanical hum and oh, fuck, they’ve got a cock that’s like halfway the size of Rodimus herself and she’s leaning so far off the edge of their hand that she nearly falls. Drift has to pull her back, lower her down a little.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Rodimus says bluntly, “if I could figure out a way to do it I would be working on getting that thing in me right now.”

“It would literally tear you in half.”

“Minor setback. I’d be fine.” She grins, then, and scrambles off their palm because she needs to get her hands on them right away.

Half her size was an exaggeration, maybe, but it’s still enormous in her hands. She can only barely fit them both around it if she stretches her thumbs and pinkies. Drift gives a shaky noise when Rodimus strokes her hands up over them, getting a sense of how long they are. They’re longer than – god, they’re longer than her arm from wrist to elbow, which is honestly a blessing. Rodimus feels out the strange lines of plating, the glow of lighting that curves around their cock, beautiful and enticing, and of course she can’t resist leaning down and dragging her tongue over that light. Drift’s hands drop to their thighs. Rodimus grins devilishly up at them, that expression that Minnie’s accused her of always having, and mouths at the head of their cock.

Drift squirms and whimpers soft and she can see, out the corner of her eye, a tremor in their hands. Rodimus presses her tongue to the very tip of them and wiggles her hips.

She’s so focused, for a while, on mouthing over Drift’s cock that she doesn’t even realize that there’s more. It’s only when one of her hands slips where it’s braced against Drift and slides over something slick that she figures it out. She pulls back and looks down and spouts, “Wait, do you have two options? Who the hell decided that was fair?” Drift only groans, which she supposes is an acceptable answer.

She doesn’t even know what to do with it. She traces the shape of it with her palms and Drift groans, but it’s hard for her to even get a sense of scale and possibility. At the very least, she can keep one hand on their cock, one down below, petting idly while she acts as though she’s trying to fit the whole of them into her mouth. That’s impossible, of course, but she’ll sure try. She kisses their cock and fits her fingers against the seams of the metal on it.

“Hey, by the way,” she asks while she works, “do you come? I mean, at the end of all this, will there be some kinda goop that comes out of your cock, or…”

“You’re beautiful,” Drift says, voice drawn thin, “but please, please work on your dirty talk.”

“Aw, you haven’t even heard me talk dirty.” Rodimus laughs, turning to climb up onto Drift’s leg. She straddles it to halfway support herself against Drift’s hip, open up both hands to use on their cock. Like this, she can grind down on their thigh, too, slow and luxuriating. “You didn’t answer the question, anyway.”

“Yes, some,” they say, putting a hand up behind Rodimus as a point of contact, a gentle push to encourage the rocking rhythm of her hips. “Don’t ask why. I really don’t want to talk about Cybertronian anatomy right now.”

“You’re no fun at all,” Rodimus insists, and bends her head back down to lave her tongue over their cock.

They’re a back and forth motion, a clean cycle, a system that has Drift tilt their hips in tiny movements between her hands and Rodimus shove her hips down over the curve of their thigh. Her shin and foot push up between their legs and feel it get wetter, slippery with some kind of lubricant. Rodimus huffs out moans and sweat trickles down her back and Drift’s thumb moves across her front, rubbing over her chest and it tugs a cry out of her, makes her jerk. She ends up with one arm crooked around Drift’s cock, panting against it.

“Oh, Primus,” Drift hisses, and she can feel them push her leg out of the way so they can – she looks down, and yeah, they’re getting fingers into themselves, two of them pressing in and Rodimus groans just seeing it. She rolls down against their thigh, up against their cock, murmurs encouragement to them while they both move. The wet sounds of their fingers and rushing noise of their fans all mixed with moans, theirs and hers. She keeps her mouth open against their cock long enough that she drools a little, her spit running down over them.

Her thighs squeeze tight around Drift’s when she reaches down with one hand to fist her own cock, rolling her hips hard into her grip until all this building heat coils tight and sharp and releases in a burst. She comes across her fingers and across Drift’s leg and groans long and wanton, shuddering, shaking. Drift makes this low and sympathetic noise, fingers shoving in deep. Rodimus kisses thhem lazily a few more times.

“You should come on me,” she says, voice rough from moaning, and Drift shivers under her. “You should. I wanna lay out on your lap and I want you to come on me, c’mon.”

“You’ll – be a mess,” Drift argues, but they don’t sound like they’re too against the idea.

“Yeah,” she says. “So what, you can lick it off or something, Driiift…”

They try to laugh but it twists into a choked sound when she sets her teeth against their cock, and they nod frantically. Rodimus grins and shimmies down off their leg, stretching out on the ground. Grass tickles at her thighs and her ass and the backs of her knees. She drapes her arms up over her head and looks up at Drift with a masterfully seductive gaze.

“Lemme have it,”  Rodimus tells them. “Lemme feel you.”

Drift wraps a hand around themselves and gets a third finger in and makes a shocked kind of sound, mouth dropping open, hips jerking forward. It’s barely half a minute before they’re coming messily over Rodimus’ stomach and chest, this softly-glowing stuff that drips down the side of her ribs. Rodimus moans for it, arching under it, mostly just to show off the sight of it on her but partly because she does love it, the wet slide of it. Drift curls over her and plants a hand on the ground far past her head, supporting themselves, blocking the sky from her.

She breathes; their fans turn. Rodimus drags her hand over her cock a few lingering times just for the too-much burn of feeling. Drift leans down and rests their forearm on the ground, their forehead to hers, nuzzling; their eyes dim down.

Rodimus swipes her fingers through the come that’s on her and examines it. She’s about to bring it to her mouth (a natural response; Minnie asked her in horror once if she was a dog, testing everything with her mouth, and then Rodimus had put a weird rock in her mouth and swallowed it on accident) when Drift interrupts her.

“I don’t want to stop the course of science or anything,” they say, “but maybe putting alien fluids in your mouth isn’t a good idea. I don’t really want to have to explain to anyone that I killed a human with my come.”

Rodimus slowly lowers her hand. “What have I told you,” she says, “about being smart and logical.”

“Don’t do it?”

“Don’t you ever frickin’ do it.”

She grins, then, and reaches up so her hands can stroke over their face, and she laughs when they push their head against it like a massively oversized cat. There’s a while where she loses herself doing that, laying naked in the grass with her giant robot held close. Then, like she’s continuing this long-forgone conversation, she goes, “yeah, I really want you to stay. I don’t want you to ever leave. Can you work on that for me?”

Drift hums a fond “mhm” and shifts their head against her. Rodimus breathes a laugh, pats their crest, and sighs, resting in the shade of them.

She realizes they’re in the field past where she first saw Drift and her heart swells and lurches.

—

She still isn’t exactly making ends meet, but they’re a little bit closer than they were. Donations, titty shots, and a crappy job, they pay the rent and give her nearly enough to eat on a regular basis. Not to mention she has the most fulfilling secret anyone could ever have, ever. It’s just she hates secrets, she’s awful at keeping them, and she wants to share them with everyone always.

“I distinctly remember being pressured into helping you collect a stray car,” Minnie says when Rodimus picks her up in Hot Rod, carefully moving things out of the passenger seat and into the back so that she can sit. “Whatever happened to that?”

“Huh? Oh, I still have ‘em.” Rodimus is a bit of a reckless driver, but she tries not to push too many laws when Minnie’s with her. The faster she drives even under the speed limit, the stiffer Minnie sits, after all. “It’s actually funny you should ask. I have someone I want you to meet who’s kind of related to that.”

“It had an owner after all, didn’t it,” Minnie says flatly. “It had an owner and now you’re involved with them.”

“Ssssort of kind of,” Rodimus says, and refuses to speak more on it until they get to her apartment, only grinning wider and wider with each insistent question.

She parks them in that empty lot and ushers Minnie out of her car. She situates Minnie a little bit away and then knocks gently on the sleek white sports car parked next to Hot Rod.

“You must be Minnie,” Drift says when they’re all transformed, and Minnie’s face is absolutely worth the picture Rodimus snaps of it.