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red-n-ded · 1 year ago

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Little Red Corvette (Ft. The Beatles) Part One

Benjamin O’Brien lives in Brighton Falls, California, trying to escape the trauma from a protest that caused him to lose his voice.

When an old friend visits and signs him up for a street race for his 18th birthday, he buys a beautiful Chevrolet Corvette unaware that under all its pain lies a stubborn but gentle Autobot from outer space with no memory and shared love for 80’s music.

Reverse Roles of AU of Bee and Charlie meeting and giving each other their named through the magic of music and insect posters.

(And yes, Bee is a fan of the Beatles bc I said so)

Next (Coming Soon)

Ao3 Sneak Peek and Link Below

Benjamin O’Brien has a normal life, or at least tries to.

Every morning he wakes up, eats his breakfast, takes painkillers for his damaged vocal cords, goes to community college for his auto shop classes, and goes to work at the beach boardwalk. It gets boring after a few months doing the same thing over and over again but it’s not the worst. He’s finally getting a proper education and now lives near the beaches of California, something younger Ben could only dream of doing.

It’s not the racing life but better than dying on the frontlines.

Tomorrow is his birthday and Ben wanted to treat himself. Days and weeks of a domestic life, he deserved for a bit of an adventure. A while back, he saw posters for a movie marathon at the local drive-in and Ben is a sucker for 80’s movies (His copy of the Breakfast Club is worn out from his 50th rewatch). He would go but the poor guy doesn’t have a car except a yellow Volkswagen Beetle that doesn’t even work. Who in their right mind goes to drive in without a car? Only the insane in his opinion.

Not too far from his host home is the local junkyard. Ben sometimes works there for extra cash or when he just wants to get his hands dirty working on cars again. For the past few days, he has been getting parts to repair the Beetle, using half of his wages to buy the parts he needed but so far his work has been in vain. Maybe on the day before his birthday, he’ll get some luck.

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

His head buried under pillows and blankets, the tired 17-year-old slams his fist onto his alarm clock, silently cursing in annoyance at the dreaded box yet forces himself to sit up, blinking his blurry vision to adjust to the sunlight. Hoping to wake himself up, Ben leans over to his bedside table, puts on his black bluetooth headphones and presses play on his phone.

“Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace, Molly is the singer in a band. Desmond says to Molly, “Girl, I like your face” and Molly says this as she takes him by the hand Ob-la-di, ob-la-da! Life goes on, brah! La-la, how their life goes on. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da! Life goes on, brah! La-la, how their life goes on! Ob-la-di, ob-la-da! Life goes on, brah! La-la, how their life goes on!”

Ben mouths the upbeat lyrics as he changes out of his pajamas, slipping on a white tank top and slightly-used navy jeans from the carpet. He goes to brush his teeth and his head naturally begins to beat, the tiredness and annoyance from before already fading away. The teen cleans himself up and goes to the kitchen to eat breakfast, turning up the music on his headphones to dance on his way to the cabinets. Thank god no one is home. He opens the cabinet door to grab the last box of cereal but a knock in the door interrupts.

Ben slides his phones down to his neck. Who could possibly be up this early? The teen turns off his music and makes his way to the door, putting down the cereal box to turn the handle. The door swings open and his eyes immediately catch the hot pink color of hair.

“Hey, I-“

OH HELL NO!

SLAM!

The house nearly shakes at how fast Bee slammed the door on his old friend. Ben doesn’t let her answer, grumbling angrily at his visitor and ignoring the desperate knocks from the other side.

It’s too fucking early for this.

“Bee, please.” She begs between her knocks, “I just want to talk!”

The blonde teen freezes. Bee? Geez, I haven't heard that nickname in years.

Arcee, the hot-pink-haired biker outside his door, keeps knocking, her requests to let her inside fading into white noise in Ben’s ears. Hearing her voice again, just as panicked as he last heard her, hurts more than he thought it would.

Ben stays silent, which is all he can ever do. His hand trails up to his neck where a faded scar across his Adam's apple, his fingertips tracing the indents of the jagged shape. He wanted to put his old life in New York behind him, a life of fighting and protesting against a corrupt system. It wasn't supposed to be violent. Optimus promised that they wouldn't try to resort to force but the Decepticon mafia attacked first and that protest became a riot, one that cost him his voice.

Don't do it Ben. Don’t do it. It’s been almost a year. You can’t get hurt anymore.

Arcee was there at the protest but wasn’t there when Sergent Blitzwing ripped out his vocal cords. She doesn’t know his pain and the trauma that riot caused. Yet, his heart longed for a friend. Living alone has taken a toll that Ben isn’t willing to accept.

Maybe for a moment, just a moment. Then she can leave and never come back.

Ben shaking hands goes to unlock the door. The wooden barrier swings open and he stares blue to brown eyes at Arcee, who’s relieved at the open door. She smiles awkwardly but tries to put up a comforting face.

“Hey Bee,” she mumbles. A beat passes and the two just stand there. Bee looks at the clock and sees the minute hand inching closer to the 9.

Gah! I’m late!

The teen quickly types into his phone, “Do. You. Know. Sign. Language. ”

The biker perks up, surprised by his form of communication but doesn’t make a show of it. “Yes, I do.”

Bee tucks his phone into his pocket and steps aside, giving Arcee the permission to enter his home before he rushes to the kitchen to eat his unmade breakfast. Arcee nodded in appreciation and walked in, shuffling her feet onto the black floor mat before taking off her boots. She looks around, in awe of where his old crewmate has been staying for the past year. It’s surprisingly big for a teenager living alone and not to mention so close to the beach.

“A nice place you got here,” Arcee compliments, earning a humble buzz as Bee pours out his breakfast, briskly walking back and forth from his bowl and the fridge, “How’d you get it?”

“Host family.” Ben signed after putting away his milk, “Currently on vacation.”

As far as Bee remembers, the raceway in New York has always been his family. He was homeschooled in the pits and learned to drive before he could hit puberty. His origins are a complete mystery and for a while, he didn’t mind until he left. It was at that moment that Bee realized that he had no one. No one on the team was biologically related to him and there are no records of his birth. Bee might as well be non-existent.

The O’Briens are nice. Their son Dylan warmed up to him very quickly and his parents treated him like any other decent person would, even indulging in his odd taste for 80’s pop culture and music. Staying with them was a great idea but Ben knows he’ll never be part of their family and that’s okay. He wasn’t even offended when the family didn’t bring him along to their pre-paid vacation. He’s only living with them and that’s a fact that Ben is willing to accept.

Seeing his true family again and standing under the same roof as someone he considered as an older sister is odd. Arcee looked different since he last saw her. Her hair is shaved and cut up to her chin, her outfit consists of way more leather and black, and her wedding ring is missing.

Did something happen to her and Cliffjumper? Hopefully they didn’t end on bad terms.

Arcee remains quiet, looking around the O’Brien’s house with curiosity. It has only been a year but Bee has changed a lot. Bee has definitely taken the time to relax and act like an actual teen. He looks a bit more round and chubby, especially around the face, but his muscles remained firm, emphasized by his tank top while not too obvious. The biker laughs to herself remembering how much a skinny stick Bee was. The headphones are a new addition and so is his attire. Arcee realized that he had never seen Bee in jeans before, always found running around without the restriction of the denim.

Bee grows annoyed at the silence and stops eating to knock on the table, grabbing Arcee’s attention. “What are you doing here?” He signs as milk and crumbs drip from the corners of his lips.

Arcee leans back on her seat and smiles warmly, “Is it bad for an old friend to visit?” She joked, walking towards the dinner table where Bee is sitting. Bee frowns, an annoyed buzz escaping his throat which annoyed him even further.

I hate it when it does that.

Her grin fades into concern, curious and worried about the lack of the upbeat voice she once remembered, “What happened to your voice?”

“None of your business.” Bee gulps down the last of his cereal and dumps his empty bowl into the sink. Bee walks in long strides, speeding his pace to get out of the house as quickly as possible but Arcee isn’t so keen to see her old friend leave so soon, not when she just got him back.

“Bee, can we just talk?” Arcee sighs, exasperated by her old friend’s stubbornness but there’s a hint of begging in her voice.

There’s no denying that the base hasn’t been the same since Bee disappeared. They all thought he died but Orion knew he wasn’t. The biker didn’t know how he knew or why her leader never pushed to find his surrogate son but Arcee isn’t the type to let go of someone close to her so quickly. Not after…

Cliff.

With a red and yellow plaid button-up in his hand, Bee pauses at the soft desperation. It hurts to hear but before he could open his mouth, any and all words that could comfort her, reassure his friend that he misses her just as much, die from his lips, even if he can talk. He doesn’t look at her and taps on the doorway in morse code, “I have to go to work.”

The pink-haired biker remained frozen in her seat as the door slammed shut.

The rest of the day went by like a blur filled with crowds on the boardwalk and bullies from his classes dumping lemonade or making his job not worth the $20 an hour. It’s almost pathetic. The blonde knows any and every way possible he could run star wrestler, Shelby “Shatter” Bassett, into the ground without breaking a sweat. Maybe a punch in the face or a scratch on her boyfriend’s (admittedly stunning) royal blue AMC Javelin could also get him to shut up.

But he’s not B-127 the Freedom Racer anymore.

He’s just Benjamin the Hot Dog on a Stick cashier.

After a thorough wash to get all the lemon pulp out of his hair, Bee made a pit stop at the junkyard. With his birthday coming up in a few hours, the young teen hoped that he could get the Beetle up and running. He grabs his red toolkit from the back of the motorized bike he rides on, voicelessly greets the owner and rushes into the piles of the cars in the lot, taking apart the pieces he wants. Grime and oil gets on his button-up and skin and the metallic stench of rust seeps into his nostrils but the blonde doesn’t mind, remembering the similar smell back in New York except missing the sound of race cars zooming in the background.

“Can’t catch me, Bee!”

“Fat chance!”

“Go faster, papa! Faster!”

“If you say so, little one!”

“Tell me where your friends are hiding!”

Wait.

“I’ll never talk!”

Stop.

“Is that right?”

Stop it!

SHING!

“Then let’s make it official.”