Work Text:
Posted - To Finish (it’s cute)
New Year Fic
Bumblebee had spent all day driving around with Sari, going to various stores and having to carry the colorful explosives Sari called ‘fireworks’. At least he didn’t have to decorate the base for the event. “So, when your star goes down, we will set off these explosives and then drink ‘champagne’ until it’s 0 hundred hours where we will then cheer, press our derma against someone else’s ‘if we really like them’ and then go recharge?” Bumblebee asked, recalling all of the information Sari told him before.
“No,” Sari laughed leaning against the passenger door and looking out the window, “Well, kind of. When it gets dark we will set off the fireworks, so will other people so it will be very bright out all night! I can’t drink alcohol, and I don’t know if you can drink human alcohol either… but we can drink juice! Or uh, oil!” Sari elaborated joyfully, “But I can’t stay up until midnight.” Sari’s expression turned sour as she pouted, “Optimus says it’s ‘unhealthy to stay up that late’ and now I have to go to bed at 10!” she sounded exasperated, her tone unintentionally comical and Bumblebee laughed at her expense
“You shouldn’t have told Boss-Bot that your father never let you before!” He said in an annoyingly teasing tone and Sari could feel his mocking smile he probably wore wherever his stupid helm hid in his alt mode.
“Can’t you talk to Optimus? C’mon do me a solid convince him I can stay awake!” Sari pleaded, clasping her hands together and pouting, giving what Bumblebee learned was called ‘puppy dog eyes’ (even though her eyes still looked human).
“I would Sari, but I don’t want to have a ‘bedtime’ too! Knowing Ratchet, the second I complain about your recharge he will convince Optimus that I should recharge early too” Bumblebee asserted, and he was most likely right. The second Team Prime learned about New Years, ‘Buzzkill’ Ratchet complained about staying up so late talking about how ‘we don’t need another reason for Bumblebee to be driving around late at night’. Which was stupid, and we definitely need more reasons for Bumblebee to drive around late at night. Sari returned to staring out the window mumbling a dejected ‘whatever’ as she huffed, breathing fog onto the window knowing full well that it bothered Bumblebee.
“Ew! Sari, yuck!” Bumblebee complained, causing Sari to laugh, accidentally breathing more condensation onto Bumblebee’s side door window. The cycle of laughter and disgust lasted for the whole minute it took to get back to base.
As Sari climbed out, Bumblebee gracelessly flung open his doors and ejected the boxes of fireworks, ignoring the ‘be careful!’ he heard from Sari as he did so. Sari grabbed a box of fireworks, obviously struggling to carry it as Bumblebee transformed to his root mode and grabbed several boxes of fireworks before following Sari inside the base and dumbly placing the fireworks on the floor, not knowing where else to put it.
The base was indeed decorated, though not very well. Bumblebee thought it looked fine but judging from Sari’s confused expression it wasn’t quite right. “I never seen anyone use sheets of metal as a banner..” Sari said pointing to the painted sheets of metal welded together and half bolted to the roof.
“Well, the picture you sent us was… not very visible… so we improvised.” Prowl explained, though he didn’t look so impressed either. Bulkhead was furiously painting away at some scraps of metal, a concentrated look dawned his face. Optimus was in the corner the picture sari sent was blown up on the big monitor, looking like a blurry mess. Optimus was leaned forward, about a centimeter away from the screen, optics zoomed in to its max capacity and squinting trying to make out every detail. ‘Must have uploaded the picture wrong.’ Bumblebee thought looking at the blurry colorful mess of a picture. Optimus was muttering something, and ever curious Bumblebee turned up the sensitivity to his audials catching little phrases like “triangle things” and “sparks on a stick” which made no sense.
“Are those explosives?!” Ratchet yelled, causing Bumblebee’s audios to ring and provide a loop of feedback. In a panic he hurriedly shut them off and reset them, a benefit to that was being able to ignore whatever Ratchet was saying to him. ‘Man does he look agitated.’ Bumblebee thought, certain that if he were human he would have the infamous ‘vein’ on the ‘forehead’ with how upset he looked.
“-ou even listening? Bumblebee!” apparently his audials finished their reset, much to Bumblebee’s dismay
“Yeah, yeah, explosives whatever. Sari said they were safe.” He shrugged and walked over to the couch to sit down.
“And you trusted her?!” Ratchet said exasperated, knowing full well that Sari often muddies the truth a little to get her way. He used to take offense but he quickly realized it was a human child thing, part of growing up according to the booklets.
“Of course I trust Sari. Why wouldn’t I?” Bumblebee said defensively, his optics narrowed. He did not like Ratchet talking about his friends like that, least of all Sari. “If she says they are safe, then they are safe.”
“Yeah! They are perfectly safe, as long as you don’t fling them around! And you use them outside anyway!” Sari said, hands on her hips, obviously upset at Ratchets dig at her character.
“There, see!” Bumblebee added on, sticking his tongue out at Ratchet, just because it made Sari giggle.
“Whatever, i’m surrounded by younglings.” Ratchet complained, muttering under his breath talking about how Bumblebee acts as though he is only in his first frame and something about undeveloped processors. Bumblebee turned to the television and powered it on.
‘Well at least mine can still develop, what can yours do? deteriorate. Yeah, that’s what I shoulda told him!” Bumblebee thought to himself as he absentmindedly surfed through channels.
“Here Optimus, I found a better picture.” Sari said sending Optimus something, and watching as he opened it. Bumblebee chuckled when he heard Optimus loudly say “Oh!” before sending it to the whole team. He laughed out loud when the rest of the team subsequently sighed and face palmed, though he felt bad when Bulkhead looked at his painted sheets of metal, no doubt comparing it to the picture and not being happy with he results, “Aw, Bulkhead, I think they still work!” Bumblebee reassured,
“You think so?” Bulkhead said, his voice seeping with dejection and sadness.
“Yeah! It’s like our own twist on things, a, um. Artist’s Interpretation!” Bumblebee said, mentally patting himself on the back for his awesome comforting skills.
“Yeah! Artist’s Interpretation! Thanks Bee!” Bulkhead got back to painting, looking jovial as he painted. No doubt he was going to go the extra mile to make things as unique as he can. Bumblebee just hoped they were still recognizable to Sari.
Two more trips to the store with Sari and an hour or so later (plus an extra hour of just arguing with his team about what things are and where they go) and the decor was finished. “So how long do we leave these up?” Bee asked, remembering how long the Christmas decor was in the house, some of it still remained. Partially because Sari wanted to remain festive but mostly because taking them down felt like work no one wanted to do.
“Just a day.” Sari replied simply
“Really?!” Bee exclaimed, “We are doing all this work for just one day?” huffing he threw his arms in the air,
“This is going to take like a week to put away, Sari!” Bee exclaimed, displeased with the idea that all this hard work is extremely temporary.
Eventually, Bumblebee got over it and became enthralled with the decorating. There’s something relaxing about a monotonous task like decor.