Trees & Whips

"But Dad-" you were cut off by your dad.

"No if, ands, or buts, missy. The bots need cleaned." Your dad, yes, your dad, was Captian Lennox. And sometimes you felt the urge to strangle him. Right now was one of those sometimes.

So your original plan for the day was to play pranks with Sideswipe on Epps and the newbies, but a certain SOMEONE *hint hint nudge nudge Lennox cough cough* found out and changed your plans. Now the chore-board consisted of giving all of the Autobots' alt modes car washes.

Sighing, you stalked down the hallways of N.E.S.T. Everyone, including Prime and Ratchet, was in their car form waiting patiently.

"Captain Kill-Joy found out?" A voice asked from behind you. You flinched in surprise, but didn't turn around. It didn't take more than a nanosecond to tell that it was Sideswipe who asked the said question. The two of you hung around each other a lot. Too much, as your dad might say.

"Put down the holo, man. You know it'll distract me, and you have seen how he harps down on me." Sideswipe hummed at question.

"Oh really? Can't be half as bad as what he gives us!" Silver hair flew as Sideswipe shook his head as he laughed.

"Yes, REALLY. I enjoy living, thank you very much. Holo down NOW. Or else," you said, pulling out a bucket of bright orange paint as you grabbed some empty buckets for water and soap.

The sound of Sideswipe's holoform fizzling out filled your ears. "Better," you mused, pushing the orange paint back beneath the bench. You uncoiled the hose, and, much to your dismay, found a hole in it. Hissing in annoyance, you stalked over to the 'extra equipment' shack in the back of base to find another hose.

Upon arriving at shack, you found that the back-up hose was missing. You shrieked in rage at the sky. "Gah!" You yelled. "This day just can't get any better, can it?!?!?!" A few drops of water fell from the sky and onto you nose. Looking up, you noticed that it was raining. 'Oh. It can, I guess. Well,' you thought, 'at least I am out of cleaning the 'Bots. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not.'

You had always found it weird when washing and cleaning up the Autobots. I mean, c'mon, right? You are literally sitting on top of them to reach some spots on them, and to clean beneath them, you are literally pulling things out of them. It's just weird in a way that can't be described. Some are too quiet for your liking, such as Optimus. You had your own personal pet peeves with all of them.

Optimus, as stated earlier, was as quiet as a stone. The Arcee sisters complained the entire time, and Ironhide always blasted country music. Sideswipe normally tried to distract you. Ratchet grumbled about taking too long. Jolt was pretty chill, but had a tendency to ask random questions about humans and their culture. He was kinda cute from your perspective. Dino, who was also known as Mirage, had a tendency to ramble on for ages about how Decepticons never stay down or give them some time off from the war. Skids and Mudflap pranked you. They had become Epp's problem over time though.

You pulled your walkie-talkie(everyone at base had to have one) and pulls up Epps. "Yo, man, we got any spare hoses 'round base? I've t' wash 'Bots and that's ain't any hose back 'ere."

He chuckled at your slang, but responded. "I dunno (Y/n), you WERE gonna prank me originally..." He teased.

"Aw c'mon man! I weren't gon' prank ya'lls too 'ard!"

"Hm...lemme think about it...leave you to suffer and set your dad on myself, or help you and live...You know what? Naw, you'll be fine on your own." Your were about to shriek at him, but he cut the line.

"Aw slaggit. Ah'm dead meat." Now you were left with two, wait, three options: you could 1) call Galloway and try to bribe him into helping(unlikely because you and Sides once painted his car pink), 2) call Optimus and see if he knew any whereabouts on a hose, or 3) call dad and see how well he takes to the missing hose.

"Ya know what? Ah'm just'na hide and wait.

Five hours later, you were true to your word. You were hiding in a big tree, way up near the top. Some say that being in a tree during a storm is pretty dang dumb. You say 'it's a gift sent from God when you don't wanna die and you have the military set on you like bloodhounds.'

So, long story short, Epps tattled on you, you hid in the said tree, and all, and I mean ALL, of the Autobots were set on finding you. It was the freakin' zombie apocalypse in real life, and you were the only survivor.

You had watched Jolt, Dino, Ironhide, and some rookie soldiers pass by/beneath while looking for you. You considered yourself very lucky for not being found for this long. And you all know what jappens when you say that stuff- ya jinx it. Suddenly, Jolt walked over the hill to your right. You visibly gulped.

The blue mech, thankfully, was the only one around.

"You're in a lot of trouble
(Y/n)." Jolt said, offering his servo for you to climb onto. You pondered on the action a second. Hop on the servo of the very mech who electrocutes his enemies during a rainstorm, or sit here soaking. Tough decisions...not.

"Ugh, fine." You crawled onto his servo, and, thankfully, we're not shocked in the process of doing so. He put his other servo atop of you to form a shell, kind of like a kid when the find and catch a butterfly to carry it to show people. Oh well. At least you weren't getting soaked anymore.

He walked through the base and towards the Autobot hanger. You could see everyone else was in the hangar, all with concerned looks on their faces(or faceplates).

"Jolt, my friend," Dino spoke, "what is it that you are carrying?"

"I swear to Primus, if he's brought in another animal, Imna shoot it." Ironhide complained.

Ratchet threw a wrench at Ironhide, cracking him upside the helm.

"Ow..."the black weapons specialist complained.

Lennox stood up to Jolt. "Jolt, what did you find?"

The bot holding you knelt down and uncupped his servos, revealing a shivering, drenched, and yet still smiling (Y/n).

Cheers of victory and relief quickly echoed throughout the base. Even Optimus cracked a smile. Lennox ran up to hug you, which resulted in him getting his uniform all wet.

Then his mood did a 360 and you were grabbed by the collar of your shirt. "And where in the name of God were you?!?! You know what? It doesn't matter. You're grounded." You groaned. "No base for 2 weeks."

Your jaw dropped. And then you shut it. Metaphorical steam could be seen flying out of your ears. Other than that, though, you appeared to be calm.

"Get your things. Ironhide, we're heading home." 'Hide grumbled some curses and complaints under his breath, but everyone ignored it.

And so you did as you were told- you gathered up you papers and bags and loaded them into Ironhide's cab.

---------time skip---------

It had been one week since you've been grounded. And one of the longest weeks of your life. Ironhide chewed your head off constantly, so you had resorted to hiding in your room the entire time.

Piles upon piles of books littered the floor, along with colored pencils, papers, and drawings. A sudden tap on the window snapped you out of your thoughts. You looked up towards your window only to see that the one and only Jolt was standing there.

You hiked across your room and towards your window to unlock it. The fresh summer air blew in. "Jolt? What you doin' 'ere?"

"I don't know. I wanted to check up on you, I guess." You could tell it was something else as well, but didn't press it.

"Oh, alright."

Jolt looked at the ground for a moment. "Hey (Y/n), can you come out for a second?"

Your feet bounced with energy. "Alright!" He chuckled at your enthusiasm. He put up a servo for you to climb on, and you took up the generous offer. He set you down on his shoulder plating, from which you crawled over and onto his neck cables.

It was a new point of view, seeing everything up higher. You grasped his neck cables for leverage as he began to walk. "So...where we goin'?" You asked.

"Nowhere in particular, really. I just wanted to 'hang out' as you humans out it." You smiled. Then, you squealed, slightly making the blue mech jump. "Hey Jolt, do you think you could teach me about your whips?" He seemed a little surprised at your request. "Not that you have to if you don't wanna," you quickly added.

"No no, it's fine, just a little surprised by the request, that's all." He took you to the back fields of the property, which was overgrown and untamed land.

He pulled out one of his whips, and began to explain how they used energon to fuel the electricity, and how they were connected to him and him alone. He used his free servo to point to things as he explained. You were rather fascinated by the entire aspect of the electric whips.

"Hey Jolt?" You asked.

"Yes, (Y/n)?"

"Do you...Do you think that maybe I could try to touch the whips?"

"What? Where did that idea even come from? It's dangerous!" Jolt exclaimed.

"Well, you said that they run on energon, right? And you also said that they didn't have any in them right now, right? So it should be safe to touch!" You exclaimed, bouncing on your heels.

Jolt breathed in deeply, and sighed. "There's no stopping you, so go right on ahead," he said, motioning towards the long metal objects running across the land. "But," he added, a cheeky look on his faceplates, "no pity if you get zapped."

You reached you hand out and poked it. The amount of static electricity built up around the whip was intense. Your bare hand soon made contact with the whip. A small shock ran through your body, but nothing more.

The both of you were generally surprised. You because HOLY MACKEREL YOU JUST TOUCHED AN ELECTRIC WHIP, and for Jolt because SOMEONE ELSE TOUCHED HIS WHIP WITHOUT GETTING FATALLY ZAPPED.

"Suw-weet!" You squealed as you ran you hand across the whip, dragging it down all the way to the blade of it. "This. Is. AWESOME!"

"It really is, (Y/n). It really, truly is."

"H-hey Jolt?" You asked.

"Hmm? What is it?" Jolt inquired.

"Can you please bend down?"

He looked confused, but did as you requested.

"Please don't kill me for this!" You squeaked right before planting a kiss on his cheek.

The two of you shot away from each other faster the the speed of light itself.

"Uh...sorry!" You hissed, starring at the ground, not willing to make eye/optic contact. Jolt was still blushing blue, stuttering and tripping over his words. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that!"

'Good goin' (Y/n)! Good goin'! Nice one!' You mentally scolded yourself to for acting in such a way.

"Uh-how? When-what? How long?" Jolt stuttered.

"Sorry! Pretty much since you came here," you said.

"I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel the same way about you..." Jolt said, plucking you up from the grass, causing you to slightly flinch.

He nuzzled his helm against you, just as a cat would do to its owner. You, with your tiny little stubs that are supposedly called arms, hugged his helm to the best of your ability.

Shouting could be heard off in the distance. And lo and behold, Lennox came running up. "J-Jolt? What are you doing here?" Your dad said through heavy breaths. "Have you se-" He cut his sentence in half when he saw you sitting in the crook of Jolt's neck cables.

"You," he snarled, "have some serious explaining to do." His glare was meant to kill. You didn't bother to stick around to find shout was meant for.

"Run?" Jolt asked.

"Run." You agreed.

The both of you shrieked as Lennox pulled a baseball bat out and began to charge the two of you. Who knows where he kept that...

"RUN!" You and Jolt both shrieked at the same time. So, in the end, a very ticked off Lennox was running around the property with a baseball bat and you and Jolt hiding in the edge of the property. In a tree.

*Somewhere at the Autobot base*

"Hey Sideswipe! Sing it again!" Skids and Mudflap yelled. The entire base was howling with laughter.

He was about to sing when Ironhide walked in, singing, "Jolt and (Y/n), sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then come the sparkling in the sparkling carriage."