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Trees whizz by the three Cybertronians who make their way through the winding mountain roads. Hot Rod had secured some well-needed RNR for him, Arcee, and Springer, and figured what better way to relax than to do a tour of the national parks in the Pacific Northwest. An idea received with mixed reactions, but ultimately, his sparkmates agreed and backed their subspaces. After almost a whole month of driving through various terrains, stargazing in remote mountain forests, and annoying the slag out of each other, they come to their final destination. Their last stop - Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon.
“Spriiiiiiinger, why couldn’t you fly us there again? My wheels are starting to ache from the mileage.” Arcee chirps over their connected comm line, lagging a touch after hours of driving.
“Wouldn’t be much of a road trip if we spent half of it flying, ‘Cee. Besides, can’t get these kinds of views topside.” Springer teases, slowing down to coast next to her. An annoyed huff comes through, but Springer can feel through her open field how much she loves the drive.
“Hmpt well, some of us would get a more pleasant driving view if someone’s big green aft wasn’t in their view the entire time.” A growl of engines comes from behind them, their third making his presence known after a long stretch of quiet from him. Hot Rod’s field project tired and hungry as they near hour 13 of nonstop driving from their last pit stop.
“Aww Roddy, you think my aft is big? How sweet of you~” Springer coos that has Arcee barking in laughter. Hot Rod’s fraying temperament gets the better of him at Springer’s teasing. With a flare-up of annoyed emotions coming from his field, Roddy’s engine growls even more as he speeds up to overtake them. Springer lets him, knowing some speed and alone time would cool him down. Meanwhile, he and Arcee talk out plans for the upcoming weeks of driving back to base as they watch the taillights of the speedster quickly disappear. Roughly twenty minutes after Hot Rod had sped away from them, red and blue flashing lights rushed past Arcee and Springer. Arcee tunes in to their radio frequency and holds back her laughter at what she hears. The two cops who rushed past them were chasing a call about a magenta-and-orange race car speeding dangerously through the area.
“Pft, you won’t guess who they’re after.” Her field tweaks his, amusement bleeding through.
“How many guesses do I get?”
“I’ll give you three.” Arcee snickers as they watch the lights disappear around a bend.
“Hmmmm, a station wagon with an overzealous stepfather at the wheel?”
“Nope. Try again.”
“How about an 86-year-old grandma taking her chihuahua to the vet?”
“Not even close. Final guess.”
Springer plays along with Arcee’s little guessing game, taking his time to really mull over just who the cops were after when they both knew. They passed the same bend the cops disappeared behind, and soon got their answer. Further down the road, Hot Rod sat parked while two sheriffs talked to his holo-projection, a fair young man in his mid 20s with shaggy brown hair and a Primus awful fashion sense. They slow as they pass the ticket-giving sheriffs, and Arcee swears she saw his holo-projection frown at them.
“ It wouldn’t happen to be our competent sweetspark, would it?” Springer hums through comms, and Arcee could practically hear the smirk in his tone.
“That’s not fair! You got to see him before the final guess.” Arcee playfully points out and tries to nudge Springer with a front tire. He smoothly avoids her attempt at a playful touch and starts to speed up, realizing they were nearing their destination and wanted to get off his own tires.
“Can’t wait to hear about how we betrayed him this time and left him behind.” Springer muses as they start to pull up to the park ranger’s station marking the entrance of the forest.
“How many shanix you want to bet he’ll cry pity tears?” Arcee asks, a hint of mischievousness coming through to Springer’s own amused field.
“I’ll bet 20 shanix and a kiss that he’ll roll into the campsite with optics leaking.”
“I say give it 20 kliks before he cries.”
“I’ll take that bet then.”
Springer feels the nudges of fields indicating their agreement to the terms, right as he pulls up to the ranger’s window. He activates his holo projection and beams an award-winning smile to the ranger.
“Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you today?” The young ranger asks, name tag flashing in the late in the day sun as he turns towards Springer.
“Afternoon, Jared. My friends and I have a lot reserved for the next couple of days, and we wanted to check in before heading up.” He leans an arm out the window, his ID and reservation paperwork in hand, his umber-brown skin glowing under the warm sunlight. Another easy-going smile has the ranger relaxing more, so at ease with the Autobot that he barely takes the time to look too closely at the wavering refractions of Springer’s icy eyes. After a quick review, the ranger gives a nod of approval before handing the paperwork back.
“Everything looks to be in order, Mr.Sullivan. Enjoy your time in the park and remember to snuff all fires out before going to sleep.”
“Of course. Oh! Before I forget. We have one more friend joining us; he got stuck up the road. Would you be able to wave him through? He’ll be in the magenta and orange car with the bad flame job.” Springer asks, giving one more sweet smile to Jared the park ranger. Springer can practically feel Arcee’s optics rolling at the saccharine sweet performance he was giving to the human, but the harder he seduced one guy, the higher the chance they wouldn’t be bothered during their time here. And he would prefer to be cozy with his loved ones in root mode than in a silly holo projection.
“Oh, absolutely, Mr.Sullivan! I can take care of that for you!” Jared stands up at attention with his own beaming grin, almost seeming honored to help out “Mr.Sullivan” this afternoon.
“Perfect. Thank you so much for your help, Jared. I really appreciate it.” Springer nods in thanks before rolling his window up and driving forward. Arcee follows right behind, and they follow the trail up to their back of the ways campsite.
“Laid the pretty boy act awfully thick there, Springer.” Arcee grumples in slight irritation, a flare-up of jealousy escaping her field for Springer to pick up on.
“You think I’m pretty?” A hard hit to the back of his bumper has him swallowing down the amused laugh in his intake. They roll in silence for a moment while Springer figures out his next words. “I’m sorry Arcee. I should have cooled it sooner with the smiles. I just wanted to make sure the rangers would leave us alone and figured some flirty smiles would keep us off their radar instead of being an aft. I’ll do better.”
“You better afthole. You’re in charge of bonfire duty tonight for flirting with the human.” Arcee nudges his bumper again, but this time with less force, as if she were flicking him in his olfactory sensor for being a dumbaft.
“Yes ma’am.”
The tension eases after his apology, and they eventually make optic contact with their campsite. Springer made sure to pick a site well away from any curious human eyes so they could move around with ease. As they pull up, they swiftly transform and groan in tandem, joy of finally being off their wheels escaping them. While stretching out his back plates, Arcee walks over to him and delivers a hard punch straight to his fuel filtration system. Springer immediately doubles over in pain at the surprise attack and looks up to a satisfied smirk on his girl’s face.
“Once I win this bet, then you’re forgiven.” Arcee’s smirk grows as she turns away to start unloading supplies, leaving Springer. A pained chuckle leaves his intake, helm shaking in disbelief at how he and Hot Rod were able to get so lucky with getting Arcee as their third. He recovers quickly and begins unloading his own equipment as they wait for their missing puzzle piece.
⛐♬⋆.˚
An hour passes before the familiar growl of a speed frame’s engine greets their audials. Everything has been prepped while Hot Rod’s been missing: a giant thermal tarp laid out to cover the majority of the campsite, a cooler full of energon goodies made specially by Wheeljack, and a couple chilled bottles of high-grade they “confiscated” from Huffer and Gears. Springer is just getting back to camp himself with wood to burn later when Hot Rod transforms and sits down on the tarp with a huff. Arcee shoots a look and a shrug to Springer while they wait for Hot Rod to say something.
“....I can’t believe you two.” Hot Rod starts softly, and then they see it. Pools of coolant start to form under Roddy’s optics. A quick check of the chronometers has Springer sighing in defeat; the 20 klik mark ticks right as the first tear falls. One hasty transfer of credits later, and the two descend on their now blubbering sparkmate.
“I-I can’t believe you two j-just drove past me like that! What if something had happened? Not an ounce of care in your two fields. I can’t believe I’m stuck with you two for life!” Hot Rod dramatically sobs as he falls halfway into Springer’s lap, the green triple changer rubbing soothing circles as he listens to Roddy’s beratement. Arcee grabs an energon brownie with titanium frosting and sits next to the mess of frames.
“Roddy baby, you’re probably hungry. Here, I brought your favorite. Need to get some fuel in you, sweet thing.” Arcee temps by hovering the goodie close to his helm. Springer starts peppering the top of Rod’s helm with kisses to persuade the negative emotions to go away. It helps, and Roddy gives Arcee a pathetic, sad look.
“Will you feed it to me?” Springer hums into his next kiss as he tries not giggle at Hot Rod’s attempt at emotionally manipulating them. It’s cute how he thinks a couple of tears and batting his big, pretty, wet eyes at him and Arcee will do whatever he wants. Well, jokes on Hot Rod, they were already planning on showering him with love and attention. Had to make sure their speedster was well taken care of after all.
“Of course, sweetspark. We’re sorry for leaving you to handle the human sheriffs by yourself; that was mean of us.” Arcee soothes as she brings the treat to Hot Rod’s intake. Springer grabs one of Hot Rod’s servos and kisses the digits and joints tenderly, whispering apologies and words of affection into the soft metal. Their fields gradually mesh together, and soon Hot Rod’s tears are replaced with warm smiles and shining fields of pure devotion for his two favorite mechs. He nips at Arcee’s digits as he finishes the brownie and gives them both a cheeky grin.
“Alright, you two have done some pretty good convincing. And you both got the campsite all set up while I was making my way in. You two truly know how to spoil me.”
“Well, you were the one to set us up with the vacation time Roddy. We should be spoiling you for your hard work on getting us some quality time.” Springer praises from atop Rod’s helm, resting his chin on it while a free servo starts to gently pet his spoilers. A satisfied hum, much like an Earth cat, starts to purr from Hot Rod’s engines, his optics fall shut in content. The three of them sit there, surrounded by the quiet chirps of birds and the soft rustling of tree branches by the cool mountain wind. The presence of Mt. Hood in the distance is a steadfast sentinel, a majestic guard for the forest's inhabitants who sit at its feet. As the final spot in their road trip, Springer couldn’t have wished for a more ideal location.
They sit together in comfortable silence until an abrupt snore breaks the peace. Arcee and Springer look, and there Hot Rod was fast into recharge in Springer’s lap, securely in between the two mechs. They make optic contact before falling into quiet laughter at their chaotic partner. The sun had yet to set, so they decided to sit a little bit longer there before moving, soaking in the last rays of the day before the cool moonlight rose to shine over them.
“Hey, Springer?”
“Yeah Arcee?”
“I’m still waiting for that kiss.”
“....Heh. Yes ma’am.”