milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Autobot ninja in the Bar!

No, not Prowl. Not that it wouldn't be great to see him. But we make do with what we've got, and what we've got right now is Bumblebee. He's a scout, he's good at going unnoticed, and he's capable of holding his own in hand-to-hand combat with mechs a good deal bigger and meaner than him. Add that up with his current spate of activity, which involves skittering from rafter to rafter in an attempt to set some kind of agility trial speed record, and you pretty much have...

... er.

Okay, we may have to revoke the 'ninja' thing, since we're pretty sure most ninjas don't start playing 'Eye of the Tiger' on their internal sound system when they think they're doing well.

BUT STILL.

[tinytag: Barney Calhoun]

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That's okay! Barney's got his guitar (http://www.pulseonline.com/fernandes/bigGravity5DlxGMB.jpg) out, and was just plucking at it idly before. Now, though... that's a song he remembers. He starts trying to follow the baseline, and not entirely succeeding. Bee won't mind, will he?

Not at all! Bumblebee's always glad when humans take an interest in the same music as him. He'll even pause and hold his position on this particular rafter to see if he's hearing the guitar correctly.

He most definitely is, and as the song goes on, the more accurate Barney's bass line gets. It's coming back to him slowly, all the music he's missed. Nice things like that about being stuck in Milliways are almost enough to make him forget what's outside that door sometimes.

Bumblebee raises the volume just a little, not enough to interfere but enough to make sure the human's able to follow along properly. When the song's over, he'll wave to the player, but not before. No sense disrupting the music, after all!

Barney keeps playing along with the song, even adding a little flourish of his own before the very end, and strumming up into a pose. He gives a little salute with his pick as he does so.

"Hey, nice choice in music, there."

"Thank you," says Bumblebee, his voice still crackly and rusty despite a year's worth of repair. "Do you mind if I come down? Conversation from up here is somewhat awkward."

"Not at all! Come on down!" Barney calls, ushering him on. "Just wouldn't wanta interrupt your work up there, you know?"

Workin' for a livin', livin' and workin'
I'm taking what they giving 'cause I'm working for a livin'-

"Sorry," says Bumblebee. "I wasn't working so much as practicing. Just a moment."

The subspace compression field shunts away most of his mass along with his size; it's only two hundred forty pounds of 5'2" robot that hits the unsuspecting table two over from Barney, and then the floor. Bee's careful about that.

"Hi there."

"Hey. So, I'm guessing you're not a typical robot, then," Barney says, setting the pick in the guitar and flipping it around so he could talk easier.

"I'm typical for my home planet," Bumblebee answers. "I'm not sure what typical is for Earth robots. They don't seem to have very many."

"Ah, okay, you're not from Earth. That makes much more sense." He wondered about the talking part. A vocoder'd be hard to come by in most Earths, really. "Nope, we don't have a lot, at least, not human-built. Combine-built tends t'do for more organic-mechanical mix."

"I live on Earth now, but I was built and incepted on Cybertron," Bumblebee says. At the mention of the Combine he tilts his head curiously. "I believe I've heard the word 'Combine' used that way before, here. Do you come from Alyx's world? - oh, and I'm called Bumblebee. I should have said."

"Yeah, Alyx and I're from the same world. 'M Barney Calhoun. Nice to meet you. You've met her?"

Bumblebee nods. "Some time ago. Twice, I think. I hope things are better in your world than when we last spoke; it didn't sound very good then, and I hate to hear about things going poorly for Earth and its people."

"Well, we brought down their base at the center of City 17--the Citadel," adds Barney for clarification. "Dunno what happened after, really, and we've still got quite a ways to go, according to everyone around."

"Good luck," Bumblebee says. "If I can help at all while you're here, let me know. More than that and I have to ask my commander first."

Barney nods. "'Course, thanks. Hey, actually--can you play more than just that song? I'm a little rusty on my music knowledge thanks to 20 years without real music players."

Has Barney ever seen Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? Does he remember the scene where the music-store salesman approaches Ludwig von Beethoven as Beethoven is looking over the electronic keyboards and asks him if he plays? Because Bumblebee's got the robotic equivalent of Beethoven's answering look on his face now. (It's a remarkably good copy given that Bee has, y'know, no actual mouth or anything.)

"Name it."

"Hmm... How about Bad Company's Feel Like Makin' Love (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHcoTkyk7io&feature=related)? It's got a pretty good line."

Bumblebee lives with Sam Witwicky and gets along very, very well with Mikaela Barnes. He's got a whole cache of encouraging songs because of them, so he flashes Barney a thumbs-up as he accesses the sound file and starts the playback:

Baby, when I think about you
I think about love.
Darlin, couldn't live without you
And your love....

Barney joins in with the soft guitars, a little unsure of himself, but following along well enough anyway. It's mostly biding his time until the excellent guitar line later on.

If I had those golden dreams of my yesterday
I would wrap you
In the heavens
And feel it dyin' (dyin', dyin') all the way...

Bee's fine with that! In fact, when they reach the guitar-intensive portion, he switches his volume down considerably; no sense not letting the real star shine, right?

Barney wouldn't say he's the real star, but he's having an awfully fun time, and he cranks up the volume a wee bit on his mini-amp before ripping out the main guitar solo; it's a little different than what's in the song, but that's only because his guitar is a 5 string bass, when the solo was written for a 6 string regular.

Hey, even a sentient machine can appreciate variations on a theme. Although Bumblebee's going to save his clapping for after the song's over, thanks. Human applause is one thing, but Bee's clapping involves a lot of tinka tinka clang noises, and that distracts people sometimes.

Barney wouldn't notice--he's completely going at the guitar, whammying and vibrating the notes flying off his guitar like nobody's business, when finally the song starts winding down. One final chord of protest, and the song's over.