You're a drifter, shape shifter; let me hear you sing.

Jack doesn’t know if they can fix this. There’s no saying for sure what can happen around here, only that crazy continues to happen. So he focuses on the small hand rubbing circles against his, and he leans down so that they’re almost touching foreheads.

“…Yeah,” he says, something rumbling in his chest as he thinks about her, as he appreciates that she is here and she is upset for him and he doesn’t have to act like he has any answers. She can take the lead, and it’s a relief. “We can figure this out. Besides, this is- it’s just another normal tuesday around here.”

His engine is purring.

“This just means that I’m the superhero, this time,” He jokes, eyes fond. “Think you can handle being outshined?”

“Is it too much to ask for a boring Tuesday?” she asks, the hint of a smile coming to her eyes- she knows what a happy Cybertronian looks like, has heard that same happy rumble from Prowl and Soundwave when Jazz walked in the room with a grin and a joke. So she keeps rubbing her hand against his, tries to calm her racing heart and mind long enough to actually think of a solution. 

Her own purr rumbles in her chest, more cat than car, and she stretches up the little bit so her forehead rests against Jack’s. “And you can’t outshine me! I don’t have to worry about hiding-- well, Mimic doesn’t- hiding from humans. I can kick ass in broad daylight.” 

She’s still thinking, going over her list- a few gods, some she hasn’t made contact with in a long time, old friends who, if unable to work magic, might be able to manipulate science in their favor- but she shakes her head, snaps herself out of it. 

She’s so small.

He can feel the flutter of her pulse, like a bird, and it’s wrong. Her heart pounds, speeds, and she’s larger than life. Confident. Big.

But here Jack could hold her in his arms, and she’d barely weigh anything. And she’s still so careful, like nothing’s changed. Like he hasn’t changed-

His hand curls around her, and the shaking stops- but his vision blurs, just around the edges. Jack won’t cry over this. He said he was done being upset.

“I did,” he admits, and his voice rasps. He sounds… tired. “But I didn’t get out fast enough. So maybe I didn’t want it bad enough.”

It wasn’t the first time she had been held like this, and she presses into the hand- too large, now, closer to Prowl’s than Jack’s. It feels off, in the way holding onto Prowl feels off- a hand too smooth and metallic, too big- she can’t even weave her fingers between his to hold him close, hold him safe. 

So instead, she holds onto his hand, looks up at his face, fighting off her own tears. This is wrong, this is not her Jack, and a small tremor runs through her. 

“You- you weren’t- it wasn’t your fault.” It wasn’t. Jack was some normal kid; he had never asked to be dragged into the nonsense that the Autobots- and, eventually, she herself- would drag him into. Some distant part of her is pissed, would be dragging Optimus and Arcee and Smokescreen and every single Autobot who had allowed ordinary human children to be dragged into their war off a cliff, but here, now, Jack needed her, needed to know that she was here. 

That sure is one way to get Jack’s new processor to fritz and stall out. It’s a really, really obvious reminder that he is not human anymore, because this is a girl. Who he’s kissed. He pushes that back.

“Sorry, it’s the style,” he jokes, kneeling. “You know how much fashion matters to me, right?”

He extends a large hand, and it’s only shaking a little. That’s a win.

This is wrong. 

He’s meant to be the human one, all fragile skin and callouses from holding tight onto Arcee and maybe sometimes bloodied up- but Kayla looks at him, looks at that shaking hand, glinting with the brightness of the light, and it’s wrong, like those pieces of magic that tend to find him. 

She’s still so gentle when she takes his hand, feeling it shake- and instead of hopping into his arms, like she had initially intended, she lowers herself down to his level, crouching and tucking closer to him. 

Kayla shudders, and shapeshifts a layer of fur under her clothes. 

throws him into a mountain. 

Vulgrim watched the human standing a distance from his summoning space, debating whether or not to be a smartass about his response. It wasn’t often someone stumbled upon this particular plinth, the concrete carved with a jagged spiral that marked it as one of his Serpent Hole portals. The abandoned subway tunnel would have been pitch black except for the cold glow coming from the runes below the tattered, drifting ends of his robes.

“Indeed. I’ve heard things haven’t been easy for the Kingdom of Man with all of you at eachother’s throats. How tragic.”

Not that demons were any better.

“Did you come upon me by chance, or have you sought me out for a reason?”

“Chance, I think.” 

Kayla blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness- just a moment, before she shook her head, and shapeshifted just a little- her face, now, inhuman- not that it mattered here, probably. 

She’d claw her way out if she ran into trouble, anyway. 

Not straining to see was a welcome reprieve, and she stepped closer- just a little, before pausing and stopping where she was. What was the proper way to address a demon? 

“ I… ” Oh, those are a lot of words he does not understand. He stares down at her for a moment, blankly trying to figure it out. He puts on a smile again and simply nods; the best way to deal with humans. “ We shall ask him when he returns, Kayla. ”