FIC: Lost Tales of the Left Behind (Human Series)
Title: Lost Tales of the Left Behind
Author: Keelywolfe
Fandom: TF: Bayverse
Series: Human Series: Chapter: 53
Pairings: Sam/Bumblebee, Ratchet/Optimus, Mikaela/Prowl
Mikaela knew about staying in motels.
Before her dad ended up doing a nickel out in Kern Valley State Prison for grand theft auto, she’d spent a lot of time in motels. Derelict, squat old buildings with rusted railings leading to the second floor and the open sore of a pool covered in a rotting blue tarp. Night managers with their mini-TVs blaring late night talk shows, their florid faces growing redder as they hacked a smoker’s cough while quoting the rates. Their eyes always lingering uncomfortably on her even before she’d blossomed into the dubious safety of puberty.
This place was just like she remembered. Her room key was sitting on the bedside table, no plastic cards for a place this cheap, only a metal key attached to a diamond of red plastic with the room number in large, white letters so that if you didn’t hold it in your hand to cover it, anyone would know what room to break when they saw you walking out front.
Yeah, she knew motels. She knew breakfast from ancient soup machines with hard noodles and an MSG aftertaste, knew bitter coffee with extra cream and sugar at eight years old. She knew about weekly rates vs nightly and how the cheapest places all seemed to have the same bedspread. The patterns might change but the feel of it didn’t, scratchy polyester in seventies golds and greens that held onto the smell of dust and decaying cigarette smoke. Pulled up over the flat pillows that a thousand unwashed heads slept on before, little humps sitting at the headboard, covered up like the world’s smallest corpses. She remembered curling up beneath them on her bed, springs poking into her back and legs through the too-thin mattress as her father snored quietly next to her in his. Nights spent lying awake listening to cars pulling up outside, doors slamming closed as other sleepers came to join the caravan.
Those ugly bedspreads were what always stuck out in her memory the most. It was the same kind of bedspread she was sitting on now, in front of a staticky TV showing reruns of Jerry Springer.
The old motel days all ended when her dad married her stepmom, Alisha, and Mikaela hadn’t always gotten along with her, more of a roommate than a parent with her dad gone, but at least she hadn’t kicked Mikaela out or let her end up in foster care. She’d actually used the state’s money for its intended purpose, let Mikaela buy her own clothes and makeup, supported her afterschool coffee shop visits with her friends. Something to be grateful for and she had been, at first, until they settled into the monotony of years waiting for her dad’s parole.
She should send her stepmother an email or something, Mikaela thought suddenly. All her scolding Sam about leaving his parents behind and she’d done just about the same thing, left with barely an explanation and if Alisha hadn’t been loving, at least she’d been reasonably kind. Maybe she was worried, wondering what to tell her dad at the next monthly visit, maybe she was afraid for Mikaela and hadn’t been able to say with government goons leading her away, maybe-
She hadn’t thought it through much when Optimus and the suits came to take her away with the explanation that it was too dangerous for her to remain where she was. She hadn’t thought twice about going with them, it was terrifying, yeah, but wasn’t it also too damned exciting? Bad things happened, sure, but at least it was something, and the rush was uncomfortably similar to the one whenever her dad brought her on a job.
The shine was wearing off a little sitting here in this motel room, the same as it had with her dad. All those memories that’d slowly faded came back in full force the moment she opened the door and saw that bedspread. Fifty years from now she wanted to say she’d had the courage to get into the car but tomorrow she wanted to be alive and let her stepmom know she intended to stay that way.
Mikaela sighed and shifted on the mattress. The springs groaned from even that little movement, and trying to sleep on it was a full on serenade. The damn thing was probably older than she was. At least she’d been able to shower and change her clothes, which was a step up from her travel companions. She’d had a packed bag before joining the Witwicky’s in Sam’s quarters/bunker, never quite got out of the habit of having one ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Even Sam hadn’t been ready for the sudden evacuation and the t-shirts Sam’s dad bought for them from the tiny souvenir corner of the buffet restaurant where they’d had breakfast might’ve been ugly, but at least they were cleaner than what they’d slept in the night before.
On the television, Jerry Springer was bringing on another sister for a confrontation that was probably going to end like the last, with plenty of slaps and shouting. Mikaela understood the impulse. If Jerry brought her out on stage with Bumblebee and Sam right now, she’d have a few choice slaps for both of them and once they were all safe, once she knew everyone was fine, she was going to kill them for leaving her behind. Again.
She’d realized their protector and their ride ditched when she came out that afternoon in search of a drink machine, Coca Cola preferred but she’d take bottled water over whatever crap it was that ran from the bathroom taps. That’s when she’d seen the Camaro was gone and she'd run back upstairs and found the Witwickys still there with her, minus their son and not even a note slid under the door to tell them what the hell was going on.
Mikaela had been all for finding the nearest bus station. Her personal wealth consisted of exactly $96.25, after the purchase of a Pepsi. (inferior to Coke but she was neither a beggar or a chooser).
Sam’s dad didn’t agree.
"I think we should stay here,” he said, at last. “The rooms are paid for, we don't have a ready means of transportation, and no way to contact anyone. If you're lost in the woods, you stay put, and wait for rescue."
"If the Decepticons are out there--" Mikaela had protested.
"If they are, I don't think they'd be looking for us, and even if they are, there's not much we can do about it," Ron said, reasonably, but he did not look happy. "Bumblebee and Sam might be leading them away from us and if so, we won't be doing them any favors getting ourselves into more trouble. We stay in the rooms, we stay out of sight, and we wait."
She still wasn’t convinced, but she’d been too tired and too broke to argue much. Less than a hundred bucks wouldn’t get her far and once she got anywhere, she’d be completely on her own.
Next time she was getting her own damn credit card.
So, she’d gone along with it and her only petty defiance was staying in her own room. Aside from trips out to hit the snack machine, she hadn’t left it. Eventually she was going to need better food than snickers bars and stale pop tarts, and then they’d have to regroup, but for now, she was staying here, caught between not wanting to think and thinking too much.
Not that she was angry at Sam’s dad, not really. She wanted to be sympathetic to them, they’d been through a lot, too, but her own fears were already more than she could manage right now. Especially in this stupid, ugly motel room.
She watched a woman snatch the microphone from Jerry and wondered if everyone was okay. If Prowl was okay. They’d been on a mission, too, and there was no way to know if they’d gotten back to base in time or at all. The only information she had was with her inside these four ugly walls and the rattling air conditioner. She’d promised Prowl to listen to Bumblebee, but he hadn’t exactly left a list of clear directions before abandoning her again, now had he.
Prowl.
Thinking of people who’d recently been kind to her, Prowl definitely qualified and yeah, there was sex involved, who cared. Sex was easy and fun, and he learned really damned fast. But there was also the point that he wanted her to be safe, kept telling her that, time and again, whispered it into her ears, against her hair until she’d had no choice but to believe it, how could she not? If anyone understood how it felt to not have a home, to go from one rundown motel to another unwelcoming planet, it would be the Autobots.
What they needed was a kind stepmom who looked after them, someone who was invested in them, made sure they had their lunch money, and that the government wasn’t fucking them over and shortchanging everything they had to offer.
Optimus was a great leader and Prowl was brilliant, but as hot as he was, he wasn’t human, none of them were, and maybe they needed a few more at their side to help make sense of everything, someone who wasn’t in the military or bringing in their own agenda. It was something to consider.
Once she got out of this stupid motel.
With a sigh, she grabbed the remote and changed the channel to the only other one available, the home shopping network and settled in to watch a tidy older woman and a possibly gay man try to hawk costume jewelry. Tried to focus on glittery rhinestones and cubic zirconia and not think about Prowl. Not wishing she was back with him, right now, resting in his arms, warm and sleep....and...
...safe.
It was hours later and she was rethinking her dedication to the vending machines when a knock on the door made her jump. Old memories came back of angry motel managers demanding payment, police officers wanting to know where her father was, and she peered through the peephole warily.
Then she ripped the door open and almost flung herself at Lennox, who caught her mostly by surprise, Ironhide’s holo next to him muttering out a startled curse. She hugged him briefly, hard enough for him to choke, before letting go to babble out, "Guys, it is so good to see you, no joke."
Relief warring with fear, why wasn’t Prowl with them, was he hurt, where were Sam and Bee, what the fuck was going on?
"Good to see you, too,” Lennox’s dark eyes looked her over. “You're all right?"
"Yeah,” she said, fervently, “and really sick of the shopping channel. Is everyone okay, do you-"
“Later, no time for chatter,” Ironhide interrupted tersely and Mikaela wondered what the motel management had thought when she came through their door. There was nothing really suspicious about the holo, aside from the fact she looked like Linda Hamilton’s Terminator 2 phase enough for a few doubletakes and maybe a request for an autograph. No guns blazing, no black sunglasses and suits, she wasn’t even looking suspiciously around. Didn’t mean Ironhide wasn’t completely aware of their surroundings, as a holo and a truck both. She caught Mikaela by the arm, tugging none-too-gently. “Let’s get rolling.”
Understood, loud and clear. “You’ve got it, boss.”
She snatched up her bag, always ready to go at a moment’s notice and it was more than a little satisfying to let the motel room door slam behind her. Next door, she saw the Witwickys getting ushered out of their room by a few other military guys. No sign of Prowl or Bumblebee.
“Is everyone okay?” she demanded as they hurried down the steps. “How did you find us? I’m moving, I’m coming, talking and walking, just tell me what’s going on!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your gears out of joint.” Interesting to hear a woman’s voice still be so recognizably Ironhide. “Bee sent us your coordinates. Prowl is waiting for you back at the city, don’t let the paint job fool ya, he ain’t built to be the search and rescue type, he knows better, and don’t you think he wasn’t still pissy about it.”
Good enough. She climbed into the backseat, the door closing behind her before she was entirely inside, and the wheels squealed as Ironhide sped away, leaving the motel behind her, taking her home. The memories would take longer to leave behind, but that was okay.
Mikaela knew plenty about forgetting motels, too.
TBC
Author: Keelywolfe
Fandom: TF: Bayverse
Series: Human Series: Chapter: 53
Pairings: Sam/Bumblebee, Ratchet/Optimus, Mikaela/Prowl
Mikaela knew about staying in motels.
Before her dad ended up doing a nickel out in Kern Valley State Prison for grand theft auto, she’d spent a lot of time in motels. Derelict, squat old buildings with rusted railings leading to the second floor and the open sore of a pool covered in a rotting blue tarp. Night managers with their mini-TVs blaring late night talk shows, their florid faces growing redder as they hacked a smoker’s cough while quoting the rates. Their eyes always lingering uncomfortably on her even before she’d blossomed into the dubious safety of puberty.
This place was just like she remembered. Her room key was sitting on the bedside table, no plastic cards for a place this cheap, only a metal key attached to a diamond of red plastic with the room number in large, white letters so that if you didn’t hold it in your hand to cover it, anyone would know what room to break when they saw you walking out front.
Yeah, she knew motels. She knew breakfast from ancient soup machines with hard noodles and an MSG aftertaste, knew bitter coffee with extra cream and sugar at eight years old. She knew about weekly rates vs nightly and how the cheapest places all seemed to have the same bedspread. The patterns might change but the feel of it didn’t, scratchy polyester in seventies golds and greens that held onto the smell of dust and decaying cigarette smoke. Pulled up over the flat pillows that a thousand unwashed heads slept on before, little humps sitting at the headboard, covered up like the world’s smallest corpses. She remembered curling up beneath them on her bed, springs poking into her back and legs through the too-thin mattress as her father snored quietly next to her in his. Nights spent lying awake listening to cars pulling up outside, doors slamming closed as other sleepers came to join the caravan.
Those ugly bedspreads were what always stuck out in her memory the most. It was the same kind of bedspread she was sitting on now, in front of a staticky TV showing reruns of Jerry Springer.
The old motel days all ended when her dad married her stepmom, Alisha, and Mikaela hadn’t always gotten along with her, more of a roommate than a parent with her dad gone, but at least she hadn’t kicked Mikaela out or let her end up in foster care. She’d actually used the state’s money for its intended purpose, let Mikaela buy her own clothes and makeup, supported her afterschool coffee shop visits with her friends. Something to be grateful for and she had been, at first, until they settled into the monotony of years waiting for her dad’s parole.
She should send her stepmother an email or something, Mikaela thought suddenly. All her scolding Sam about leaving his parents behind and she’d done just about the same thing, left with barely an explanation and if Alisha hadn’t been loving, at least she’d been reasonably kind. Maybe she was worried, wondering what to tell her dad at the next monthly visit, maybe she was afraid for Mikaela and hadn’t been able to say with government goons leading her away, maybe-
She hadn’t thought it through much when Optimus and the suits came to take her away with the explanation that it was too dangerous for her to remain where she was. She hadn’t thought twice about going with them, it was terrifying, yeah, but wasn’t it also too damned exciting? Bad things happened, sure, but at least it was something, and the rush was uncomfortably similar to the one whenever her dad brought her on a job.
The shine was wearing off a little sitting here in this motel room, the same as it had with her dad. All those memories that’d slowly faded came back in full force the moment she opened the door and saw that bedspread. Fifty years from now she wanted to say she’d had the courage to get into the car but tomorrow she wanted to be alive and let her stepmom know she intended to stay that way.
Mikaela sighed and shifted on the mattress. The springs groaned from even that little movement, and trying to sleep on it was a full on serenade. The damn thing was probably older than she was. At least she’d been able to shower and change her clothes, which was a step up from her travel companions. She’d had a packed bag before joining the Witwicky’s in Sam’s quarters/bunker, never quite got out of the habit of having one ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Even Sam hadn’t been ready for the sudden evacuation and the t-shirts Sam’s dad bought for them from the tiny souvenir corner of the buffet restaurant where they’d had breakfast might’ve been ugly, but at least they were cleaner than what they’d slept in the night before.
On the television, Jerry Springer was bringing on another sister for a confrontation that was probably going to end like the last, with plenty of slaps and shouting. Mikaela understood the impulse. If Jerry brought her out on stage with Bumblebee and Sam right now, she’d have a few choice slaps for both of them and once they were all safe, once she knew everyone was fine, she was going to kill them for leaving her behind. Again.
She’d realized their protector and their ride ditched when she came out that afternoon in search of a drink machine, Coca Cola preferred but she’d take bottled water over whatever crap it was that ran from the bathroom taps. That’s when she’d seen the Camaro was gone and she'd run back upstairs and found the Witwickys still there with her, minus their son and not even a note slid under the door to tell them what the hell was going on.
Mikaela had been all for finding the nearest bus station. Her personal wealth consisted of exactly $96.25, after the purchase of a Pepsi. (inferior to Coke but she was neither a beggar or a chooser).
Sam’s dad didn’t agree.
"I think we should stay here,” he said, at last. “The rooms are paid for, we don't have a ready means of transportation, and no way to contact anyone. If you're lost in the woods, you stay put, and wait for rescue."
"If the Decepticons are out there--" Mikaela had protested.
"If they are, I don't think they'd be looking for us, and even if they are, there's not much we can do about it," Ron said, reasonably, but he did not look happy. "Bumblebee and Sam might be leading them away from us and if so, we won't be doing them any favors getting ourselves into more trouble. We stay in the rooms, we stay out of sight, and we wait."
She still wasn’t convinced, but she’d been too tired and too broke to argue much. Less than a hundred bucks wouldn’t get her far and once she got anywhere, she’d be completely on her own.
Next time she was getting her own damn credit card.
So, she’d gone along with it and her only petty defiance was staying in her own room. Aside from trips out to hit the snack machine, she hadn’t left it. Eventually she was going to need better food than snickers bars and stale pop tarts, and then they’d have to regroup, but for now, she was staying here, caught between not wanting to think and thinking too much.
Not that she was angry at Sam’s dad, not really. She wanted to be sympathetic to them, they’d been through a lot, too, but her own fears were already more than she could manage right now. Especially in this stupid, ugly motel room.
She watched a woman snatch the microphone from Jerry and wondered if everyone was okay. If Prowl was okay. They’d been on a mission, too, and there was no way to know if they’d gotten back to base in time or at all. The only information she had was with her inside these four ugly walls and the rattling air conditioner. She’d promised Prowl to listen to Bumblebee, but he hadn’t exactly left a list of clear directions before abandoning her again, now had he.
Prowl.
Thinking of people who’d recently been kind to her, Prowl definitely qualified and yeah, there was sex involved, who cared. Sex was easy and fun, and he learned really damned fast. But there was also the point that he wanted her to be safe, kept telling her that, time and again, whispered it into her ears, against her hair until she’d had no choice but to believe it, how could she not? If anyone understood how it felt to not have a home, to go from one rundown motel to another unwelcoming planet, it would be the Autobots.
What they needed was a kind stepmom who looked after them, someone who was invested in them, made sure they had their lunch money, and that the government wasn’t fucking them over and shortchanging everything they had to offer.
Optimus was a great leader and Prowl was brilliant, but as hot as he was, he wasn’t human, none of them were, and maybe they needed a few more at their side to help make sense of everything, someone who wasn’t in the military or bringing in their own agenda. It was something to consider.
Once she got out of this stupid motel.
With a sigh, she grabbed the remote and changed the channel to the only other one available, the home shopping network and settled in to watch a tidy older woman and a possibly gay man try to hawk costume jewelry. Tried to focus on glittery rhinestones and cubic zirconia and not think about Prowl. Not wishing she was back with him, right now, resting in his arms, warm and sleep....and...
...safe.
It was hours later and she was rethinking her dedication to the vending machines when a knock on the door made her jump. Old memories came back of angry motel managers demanding payment, police officers wanting to know where her father was, and she peered through the peephole warily.
Then she ripped the door open and almost flung herself at Lennox, who caught her mostly by surprise, Ironhide’s holo next to him muttering out a startled curse. She hugged him briefly, hard enough for him to choke, before letting go to babble out, "Guys, it is so good to see you, no joke."
Relief warring with fear, why wasn’t Prowl with them, was he hurt, where were Sam and Bee, what the fuck was going on?
"Good to see you, too,” Lennox’s dark eyes looked her over. “You're all right?"
"Yeah,” she said, fervently, “and really sick of the shopping channel. Is everyone okay, do you-"
“Later, no time for chatter,” Ironhide interrupted tersely and Mikaela wondered what the motel management had thought when she came through their door. There was nothing really suspicious about the holo, aside from the fact she looked like Linda Hamilton’s Terminator 2 phase enough for a few doubletakes and maybe a request for an autograph. No guns blazing, no black sunglasses and suits, she wasn’t even looking suspiciously around. Didn’t mean Ironhide wasn’t completely aware of their surroundings, as a holo and a truck both. She caught Mikaela by the arm, tugging none-too-gently. “Let’s get rolling.”
Understood, loud and clear. “You’ve got it, boss.”
She snatched up her bag, always ready to go at a moment’s notice and it was more than a little satisfying to let the motel room door slam behind her. Next door, she saw the Witwickys getting ushered out of their room by a few other military guys. No sign of Prowl or Bumblebee.
“Is everyone okay?” she demanded as they hurried down the steps. “How did you find us? I’m moving, I’m coming, talking and walking, just tell me what’s going on!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your gears out of joint.” Interesting to hear a woman’s voice still be so recognizably Ironhide. “Bee sent us your coordinates. Prowl is waiting for you back at the city, don’t let the paint job fool ya, he ain’t built to be the search and rescue type, he knows better, and don’t you think he wasn’t still pissy about it.”
Good enough. She climbed into the backseat, the door closing behind her before she was entirely inside, and the wheels squealed as Ironhide sped away, leaving the motel behind her, taking her home. The memories would take longer to leave behind, but that was okay.
Mikaela knew plenty about forgetting motels, too.
TBC