Drabble Two: Wheelie & Sam
(Requested by Sonic Serendipity.)

.o.

For two weeks, Wheelie hid under the bed in his shared dorm with Leo. Sam didn't make him come out, or even try to make him leave. Instead, Wheelie would online to his misery, only to find a series of tough woolen blankets easily at hand. Then, after Sam had gotten a care package from his home, a small bag had been pushed under the edge of the bed. Cautiously opening it, Wheelie found a well-used but almost-newest-generation of the Nintendo DS and several game cartridges. The battery needed to be charged, but that wasn't terrible.

He peeked out over the top of the gaming case, seeing Sam's hand brushing over where the bag had been . . . wait. Was it not meant for him? Of course it wasn't. Wheelie wasn't good enough for that.

He began to zip it up, but the worn, cracked voice of his Prime paused his actions. "Good. I was hoping you were awake. Let me know when you're ready to come out, Wheelie." He crouched, then lay on his stomach to look under the bed, sliding a piece of paper towards the little red-opticked mechling. "This is my schedule for this semester. Jack into the wi-fi here, okay? You know my email."

Wheelie nodded hesitantly, looking down at the DS, then back up at Sam. The college kid smiled sadly, but didn't reach under the bed, into the territory that was clearly now Wheelie's. "The DS . . . I get to use it?"

"That's why I asked home for it. I figured that you might need something to do that wasn't educational."

"But . . ."

"The plugstrip's at the foot of the bed. I need to get dinner, I'll be back in about an hour."

The same phrase. Sam was going to leave, but then he was going to come back. He always came back.

Only this time, the human added something new.

"Wheelie . . . are you going to be okay here while I go get dinner?"

Afraid to show his feelings, but even more afraid to be alone, the mechling shook his head violently, unwilling to look up at Sam.

"Okay. I'll order Chinese food for the guys and have them bring my dinner up to me. I won't leave, okay? You don't want to be alone, right?"

"R-right."

"Then I'm staying right here. Up on top of the bed, 'cause the floor's a bit unforgiving. I've got reading to do for tomorrow's quiz anyway."

Wheelie watched Sam's feet carefully, watching to see if he would leave him anyway. And yet he was reassured as the boy walked around the room, ordering dinner before collapsing on the bed with a textbook and a groan.

He was listened to. And it warmed a bit of his Spark to know this.

.o.

Wheelie was exploring under Sam's desk when he and Leo entered, debating the Astronomy professor's Mental Illness of the Week. This week: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder versus Multiple Personality Disorder. The boys were being crass, knew it, didn't care, and overall were enjoying the insult-war that the conversation had long since devolved into. It was because of this that neither made a big thing out of Wheelie not hiding under the bed for the first time since he arrived in their dormitory room.

But he was not ignored. Sam tossed his bag onto the bed after an expletive-laden reference to Leo's geneology, getting a heated Spanglish reponse that he brushed off while he leaned over, rubbed the top of Wheelie's helm in greeting, and turned on his desktop computer (kudos to Bumblebee for ordering it) in one smooth movement. Settling into the desk chair, he swiveled and watched Leo throw his hands up into the air in what seemed to be defeat. "Did I win?"

"Only becuase you didn't understand what I was saying to you, papí."

"Four years of high school Spanish from a dude who also ran our health class 'sex ed' for the guys. I know what you were saying. And you're off the mark. My great-grandmother wasn't a donkey. She was a cold bitch."

"Ooooh. Big difference."

"Yeah, one will kick you in the face without warning, the other will chew your face off with a lot of smack-talking. You should hear Dad's stories of the old bag."

Snickering, Leo settled into his own work station to edit his History paper, leaving Sam to look back down at Wheelie. "Hey. Woah. When's . . . nevermind." Reaching down, he scruffed Wheelie amid shrill protests and pulled open a desk drawer to reveal Cybertronian cleansers and polishes in one of the ubiquitous shower baskets that seemed to appear in college dorm rooms. He was intensely thankful for semi-private bathrooms, glad that he only had to share it with Leo and his minions. "You're coming with me. You're getting scrubbed down. And then I'm helping polish you. No Sparkling of mine is gonna look shabby and ill-cared for."

Wheelie was too startled to protest as he was carried to the tiled room, where Sam set him down, turned the water on warm, and then left to get swimming trunks on and begin scrubbing the little frame down with careful hands.

He was Sam's. Sam wanted him. Sam cared for him. Sam, the human Prime, had done more for him in three weeks (even though he was heartbroken and Wheelie could feel the bed shake with silent weeping some nights), than Mikayla had done for him in a whole year.

Sam claimed him as his own Sparkling.

He curled into the touch after a few minutes of processing this bit of information, blissfully enjoying the undivided attention of the human who was wooing him into trusting again. Who was petitioning for him to become his Caretaker. And Wheelie . . . was starting to believe that he deserved a Caretaker like Sam. Maybe just a little bit.

.o.

He couldn't take it anymore.

Uncurling from his nest under the head of Sam's bed, he crawled out, scaled the side, and scrambled over the lump of startled human to curl up in the hollow of the young man's fetal pose. A hand reached out and pushed a tear off of Sam's face. One pale arm snaked out and curled the mechling closer to his side, still trembling with the pain of a broken heart.

A deep sigh echoed from Leo's bed.

"About friggin' time, kid. I was getting tired of listening to a brother cry himself to sleep."

"Shaddup!" two voices snarled defensively back at the Latino, who simply chuckled and rolled over to