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There was blood splattered beside him.
Sat at an empty, abandoned bar that had been left hastily before bombs had taken out the upper floors and left the ground floor terribly exposed, Bumblebee continued sipping his drink, wholly unbothered by the thick, gooey substance he could see from the corner of his vision - how it dripped lazily from the counter into the cracks of the marble flooring.
He knew it wasn’t real, was the thing. His mind, playing tricks on him again, as it was always want to do. If he turned his head to get a proper look, the corpse splayed out in the seat next to his own, jabbering on and on about things Bumblebee could barely discern, would no doubt disappear in the span it took to make said turn, leaving nothing but cold empty air and a profound feeling of discomfort in its wake.
This was normal. For as long as he could recall, Bumblebee had always been plagued by disembodied voices and sounds, all talking over one another - some louder than others - in a chorus of radio static and harsh whispering commentary towards his life and surroundings. For the most part, he’d gotten used to living with it. It was just noise, he’d reason with himself, because the ghosts surrounding him had never been able to make physical sen--
No. That wasn’t true. There were a few extremely rare instances when his hallucinations had been so awful he’d been completely unable to separate fact from fiction, in turn leaving him discombobulated; dazed; anxious; afraid to leave his own room, for fear of a thing he couldn’t even prove.
Ironically, that sort of paranoia had made him perfect for reconnaissance duties, since he was far more likely to examine every small thing he saw or found, no matter how inconsequential it seemed at a glance. His work was slow but necessary, and it wasn’t arrogant of him to say the entire army relied on him, so much as simple truth, even though he was still relatively new to their ranks.
Bad days still happened. There were times when his mind would drift without permission, conjuring such realistic events and conversations it left him disoriented when he eventually sidled out of them to discover the things he’d just seen and said and felt had been false the whole time -- that he was still standing in the same place as before, staring out at the middle distance, or somehow conversing as normal with the mech in front of him, even though he had no recollection of that either.
At best, it was an exhausting annoyance. At worst, a truly frightening experience. It was difficult to trust himself, let alone the people around him, yet time and again he found himself willing to push past his fears and do it anyway, with varying results.
While Prime’s division were aware of this illness - this glitch in their hardware - Bumblebee still tried to hide as much of it as possible, for everyone else’s comfort more than his own. The Doc and Jackie had seen through him pretty quickly. He was, in fact, avoiding them currently, unable to stand their boundless empathy and care -- their desire to help a foreign thing that set him on edge more often than he’d care to admit.
The corpse next to him suddenly grew energetic, spasming out and gurgling as it drowned on itself, joints popping loudly, voice glitching through different channels. He sighed, turning away to ignore them, as if that would help. It didn’t. Instead, the noises grew both louder and quieter, seeming to echo around him with no true place of origin.
A siren blared.
He jumped, cursing as his knee hit the counter, setting himself on high alert just in case that siren had been real this time.
“Ah, so this is where ya were.”
Startled, Bumblebee whipped his head ‘round to see Jazz climbing with ease over the broken debris, unperturbed by the mess. Graceful as ever, he sat down in the seat next to Bumblebee’s, erasing the corpse from view. For a few seconds the blood lingered, staining Jazz’s paint, before it too vanished, having never really been there from the start.
Resigned to his company, Bumblebee muttered, “I told you not to bother me, didn’t I?” knowing Jazz wouldn’t listen at all, stubborn as he was. Jazz was the one who’d recruited him to begin with. Anytime Bumblebee attempted to remind him that this was only a temporary arrangement and so forming friendships wasn’t necessary, Jazz would always give the same “oh, is it?” reply before moving onto other things, as if he wasn’t bothered at all.
Bumblebee respected him a lot.
He also found him profoundly annoying.
“It’s a bad day for me,” he warned uselessly, a last bid to drive the insistent mech away. As usual, Jazz waved him off, looking curiously around the broken bar instead. “What, are there cameras hidden around or something?”
“If there were ya woulda found ‘em already. No, just curious why you chose this place to have a drink. It’s kind of exposed isn’t it?”
“That’s exactly why. Nobody would think to look for me here, not even Decepticons. They’re too busy trying to find underground bases. It’s easy to hide right under their wheels like this. Also,” Bumblebee added wryly, “you just sat on a corpse.”
Jazz tilted his helm, amused by this remark. “Did I? Was it someone ya knew?”
Bumblebee shrugged. “Possibly. Couldn’t make out a word it was saying, so it’s hard to tell.”
Jazz barked a laugh. “A talkin’ corpse?” he mused. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen one o’ those before.” I’ve seen plenty, Bumblebee thought to himself, taking another sip of his drink. “Keepin’ yer distance isn’t gonna change anythin’, y’know.”
Ugh. This slagger.
“Haven't I told you before?” Bumblebee grit out sharply. “Our arrangement is temporary. You needed a scout, and I just happened to be in the area. Once I’ve done what you wanted, I’m leaving for something else.”
As usual, Jazz’s reply was a politely disinterested, “Ah, is that so?” He followed it up quickly with, “I’m surprised this place still has anythin’ safe to consume,” which caused the tittering voices around Bumblebee to erupt in laughter. Of course his charisma would even manage to charm things he couldn’t even hear. That’s just who Jazz was, he supposed.
One of the extra limbs he usually kept tucked tight to his chassis reached out to point to a shelf filled with clouded, dusty bottles. If Jazz had ever felt put off by Bumblebee’s insectoid nature, he’d yet to show it, though Bumblebee doubted he’d ever so much as taken a wary glance. Even though he’d only been part of Prime’s division for a measly deca-cycle, Bumblebee had still learned that Jazz was highly adaptable and took everything around him in stride.
This didn’t mean he was without a temper though. With a private shudder, Bumblebee recalled the fight Jazz had gotten into with Brawn in the halls some months earlier before they’d been forcibly wrenched apart and sent in different directions to cool off. He still had no idea what had caused the fight to start with, but they’d since calmed down enough to be able to sit in the same room again, so he wasn’t about to ask.
“Unlike a certain rich bot,” he said sardonically, “I have no issue drinking energon that’s ‘tainted by impurities.’ It’s just a bit of rock dust. Not everyone was lucky enough to only ever get the good stuff.”
“What, izzat why ya ran out then? Cuz o’ that little tiff ya had with Mirage earlier?”
‘Little,’ he said as if they hadn’t been about to shoot one another. Jazz’s concept of normality was heavily skewed. “I wasn’t running,” Bumblebee corrected with clear irritation. “I was putting distance. There’s a difference.”
Jazz’s face turned thoughtful. “It’s true that Mirage ‘s more privileged than most,” he said after a while, “but I don’t think it’s a bad thing fer ‘im to complain ‘bout the lil stuff. We all got things we miss from before the war don’t we? Besides, y’ain’t the only one who butts heads with ‘im. You should see ‘im with Cliffjumper! Now that’s a fight fer the ages!”
“Cliffjumper? Sure he’s hardheaded, but I never took ‘im as the type to fly off the handle or nothin’.”
“Surprisin’, ain’t it? Sumn bout Mirage just sets ‘im right off. Maybe it’s ‘cause he came from hard beginnin’s, so Mirage’s background irks ‘im.” Jazz walked around the bar to pluck one of the drinks for himself; he paused, read a faded label, nodded to himself, and grabbed a second bottle of a completely different shape, shoving that one into his subspace before taking the cap off the one in his hand with his teeth.
It was an unfairly attractive thing to do. Bumblebee looked away from him, willing his internal heater to calm down, gritting his teeth against the onslaught of voices suddenly growing impossibly loud. He felt lost in a crowd, unable to surface, unable to breathe. Optics pinched shut, he buried his head in his arms on the table, drink pushed away, body trembling as the crowd continued to grow.
Jazz’s voice came as a balm. Unusually subdued, unusually serious, he said, “I’m gonna touch ya, izzat aight, mech?” When Bumblebee offered nothing but a pitiful hiver sound in response (//please//hurts//lonely//want it//) Jazz approached with even steps, his music set low on a wordless symphony. His touch was warm. Bumblebee’s breath hitched. His delicate wings trembled. Jazz stroked his back - up and down and up and down - in a gentle, soothing manner that slowly unspooled him.
He couldn’t tell how much time passed that way, only that it was turning dark when he finally managed to uncurl himself, joints so stiff they creaked as he stretched them, but Jazz stayed with him the entire time, humming nonsensically, making one-sided, quiet conversation. His arm must be aching, Bumblebee thought. He hadn’t stopped his ministrations even once.
Too tired to voice his own concern, Bumblebee slowly sat up with a grimace, attempting to shrug Jazz off with only mild success. “They leavin’ ya alone now?”
“Mm.”
Sort of. He didn’t know what ‘being alone’ really meant, but right now he could say it was certainly less oppressive, though his senses were still left fuzzy and a little confused. Had he always been in this dilapidated bar? He’d thought it was a packed street or something…
His exhaustion must’ve shown (or maybe he’d accidentally voiced it) because Jazz kept an arm around his middle as he stood, supporting Bumblebee’s meagre weight with ease. The difference in their height had never felt more apparent and yet Bumblebee found it a comfort.
Playing music on the way back would’ve been too risky, so Jazz contented himself with carrying a low conversation for them both that largely consisted of him talking about what this place used to be like before it was bombed, entirely unconcerned that Bumblebee could only offer lacklustre interjections.
When they got back to base, Bumblebee had to make a point of extricating himself before Jazz would let him go, and when asked about his tiredness and what had kept them so long, Jazz merely replied, “We found a bar,” and took out the bottle he’d whisked away with a flourish.
Immediately, all attention was put on him as everyone wanted to know the year of the grade and whether or not it was tainted, which meant there was nobody to stop Bumblebee from slipping away to his room, a fact which he knew Jazz had planned for, given that he could feel the other mech’s optics following him as he zipped down the corridor and around the corner.
Pressed against his bedroom door, Bumblebee placed a hand right where his heater was kicking up again and sighed.
He really is too easy to fall in love with…