Pizza Pit Stop

[Rodimus Prime]

"Ah, probably not related, then," Rodney finishes his piece of pizza and grabs another. "My last name's Pryor."

He grins before he takes a bite, though. "Funny coincidence, though, 'cos my nickname is Roddy." Then he takes that bite.

[Blurr]

"Oh." Jay isn't quite watching the film at this moment; just staring at his food instead, that stitch in his brow deepening. His eyes get that distant look when Haywire thinks he's remembering something, but then he laughs – it's a hollow thing, not terribly convincing – and tries to shrug it off. "That's cool," he says. He chews on his food and mulls it over. It's just a coincidence, right? A really odd coincidence? That his memories seem to ripple like a sonic wake and for a moment he sees a silver face and pale, pale blue eyes and magenta paint and he feels light and sound bending around him, running over his skin like sheets of water while his feet barely touch the track. The stands whipping by slow to a crawl; there are jets and trucks sitting amongst his friends and he can see them all like he's staring at a photograph. Principal Miles is suddenly a stern robot in blues and reds, big blue eyes and tall antennae on his head.

The moment passes like a hazy daydream, but Jay can still feel the photons streaming around him; it doesn't usually happen unless he's out running, and the sensation gives him chills. It gives him a vicious case of goosebumps and his hair turns a brighter colour very briefly. He shakes it off when he realises his drink is slipping from his hand – and he doesn't even remember picking it up. He catches it again without a second thought, confident it's a small and fast enough motion that Rodney will miss it.

[Rodimus Prime]

Of course, Jay's moment of vagueness is more an instant for Rodney - else the human Prime might have realized that more of Blurr is surfacing than it seems, and he'd try to push harder. However, he does still manage to catch one thing rather out of the ordinary, and he blinks. "Did your... hair change color?" he asks before taking another bite of pizza.

[Blurr]

Rodney might hear the small, frustrated noise Wally makes into his drink; Rodney missed that moment, but Wally felt and heard it. Blurr was so close. Jay doesn't hear it, too busy looking embarrassed about his hair, which he smooths down with one hand. He glances aside, grinning uneasily.

"Haha, yeah," he says, going for honesty. It's nearly impossible to deny that his hair turns bright blue from time to time, which is why he usually wears a hat. But it never seems to bother Wally on the few occasions Jay exerts his powers around the apartment so Jay never wears his hat. He hadn't thought to put it on when company arrived, but he also hadn't planned on using his powers with Rodney here. "It's this weird thing that happens sometimes. Used to crack up my friends in school." He takes a drink and sets down his glass. "It isn't as annoying as Magnus asking me to keep it under a thousand words a minute all the time," he says without thinking about the words, "but it gets a whole lot more attention."

[Rodimus Prime]

Well, Wally could have pushed! Rodney wasn't stopping him! However, his next words cause the human Prime to blink. "Magnus?" he asks, then finishes his piece of pizza.

The movie's really going unwatched at this point.

[Blurr]

Wally's on the edge of his seat watching this soap opera, and his player is leery of hogging all the action. Jay, oblivious to his roommate's little moment, carries on, answering Rodney.

"Yeah, Magnus, you know, Ultra Magnus," he says cheerfully in spite of a sudden stutter creeping in on his words, which increasingly slur together as he talks, "big tall bot, really stern and sort of a kinnakilljoy, Hot Rod who's the friend I mentiondid I rember t-tell you 'bout him 'cause if I didn't I shouldsaid I mean Hot Rodhealmost blew our cover–" He breaks off into an unintelligible garble as his mouth can't keep up with the sudden flood of words. He finally stops, frowning and making helpless buh noises until he gets his wayward tongue back under control… only to go off again. "Haywire why isn't my mouth working the way it's supposed to?!"

It takes his human flesh a second or two longer to catch up with the fact that Blurr remembers.

[Rodimus Prime]

Rodney's eyes open wide as Jay begins, even through his surprise, a faint smile touches his lips, one that gets wider and wider as Jay continues, even as he stumbles over his mouth's inability to catch up. When he finally asks his question of Haywire, Rodney's face is broken in a full-out grin. "Blurr!" he exclaims, lunging towards him to grab him up in a hug, most likely knocking over a soda in the process. He'll worry about it later.

[Blurr]

Frustrated with his uncooperative vocal parts, Jay is suprised by Rodney – no, Hot Rod – no, Rodimus Prime suddenly tackling him into a hug. Haywire doesn't help matters by joining in, ignoring that whole Prime, Matrix Bearer thing. Jay squawks inarticulately, his brain again running ahead of his mouth, but somewhere amidst the stammering and spluttering are reassurances that he's fine, really, though he has an extra person in his head besides Haywire for some reason and everybody here is human. He returns that hug all the same, clapping Rodney on the back.

He tries not to think about how aged his friend looks, or wonder if that will stick once they're back to normal (because they'll be back to normal, he's sure of that much; he's seen enough strangeness in his time to not worry on that point).

[Rodimus Prime]

Rodney, still grinning, eventually releases the hug, though he stays on the couch next to Jay instead of returning to his chair. "I'm just glad to hear you remember yourself, Blurr. I was a little worried about what it would take." And would Rodney have to flash him?

He leans back in the couch, "I imagine you've got questions. I'm afraid that most of the answers are going to be, 'I don't know,' but you can go ahead and ask anyway."

[Blurr]

The trouble is that Jay has many, many questions, and they all try to come out at once they way they're supposed to when he's himself. But Blurr is not himself; he's still in Jay's body, and though Jay is blessed with Blurr-like speed, it doesn't extend to his mouth. His words jumble together, syllables slurred and sentences running over one another. Blurr can speak clearly at over a thousand words a minute. The best Jay can do is stammer and start over, looking highly unhappy with himself.

"Do we know how this happened?" he finally blurts out. "Or is that a 'we don't know'? It's a 'we don't know' isn't it?"

"Didn't know the last time I checked in," Haywire says as he gets himself a beer. It isn't really strong enough to do much for him other than a very mild buzz, but it's more of a celebratory gesture than anything else. He looks at Roddy questioningly as he adds, "But I haven't checked in for a bit."

[Rodimus Prime]

"We... think we have a vague idea," Rodney starts. "We don't know know, but that energy source we went to investigate, the one that the human records said Shockwave had headed towards? I think it's like... it's like... I think it's like to the Earth what that egg... well, bird was to Pz-Zazz. Maybe even what the Matrix is to Cybertron." Rodney is not quite accurate here, but he's attempting to explain the situation as best he can through a heavy layer of self-denial. "Anyway, I'm not really sure why it did this, or even how, exactly, but I'm pretty sure that that... that is what did this to us."

[Blurr]

"So… Earth turned us into humans." Jay looks and feels far less nonplussed about this than he probably should be. Rather, Blurr isn't bothered, but the other-him in his head would find all of this incredibly confusing. Then again, Jay finds alien space robots confusing. He frowns and grabs a slice of pizza to gnaw on while sulking, because why is he still hungry after eating all this heavy food?

"I'm not human," Wally says, trying to josh a smile back to Jay's face. He pauses with the beer halfway to his mouth, shrugs, and adds, "Well, not an Earth human."

"How's that fair?" Jay fires back, pizza slice already gone. "And why make me think I'm somebody else?" Unhelpfully, because he doesn't know, Wally shrugs, grinning into his bottle. Jay's more upset at the disparity than at being turned into a human. He turns back to Roddy and wonders, "Any ideas on how to get back to normal?" He's going to get weary quickly of stuttering and stumbling his way through getting his thoughts from brain to mouth.

[Rodimus Prime]

"Because we're less likely to try nd become robots again if we accept this all without questioning?" Rodimus asks when Jay asks why he's been made to think he's something else. "It didn't do a very good job, though. Not all of us were made to think we're someone else, and some of us have backgrounds that are incomplete."

When he asks if they have any ideas, Rodney shrugs, then looks around. "Actually, Blurr.. before I go on, you mind checking your place for bugs, just to be safe? You can get it done a lot faster than I can."

[Blurr]

"Aw, c'mon, I'd know if my place was bugged!" Wally protests, but Jay's already giving the flat a whirlwind search. He no longer leaves afterimages of himself; he leaves a light trail from his hair. By the time Wally finishes his sentence and huffs indignantly, Jay flops on the sofa again and gives Rodney the thumbs-up.

Then he grabs another slice of pizza.

[Rodimus Prime]

Once Jay assures him that there are no bugs in the apartment, Rodney says softly, "Tomorrow, Xaaron and I are meeting with Victoria Raines, or rather, Shockwave, to see if we can't figure out anything. Largely through both sides only saying a fraction of what we actually mean and less of what we actually know and then attempting to fill in the blanks left by those huge gaping holes that we all know that both sides will be leaving in." He takes a sip of his drink.

This is not something he'd mention to most Autobots, but Rodimus trusts Blurr as he trusts few others. Most would assume that Blurr talks too much to be trusted with this sort of sensitive information, and most people would have forgotten that he has been trusted with the delivery of some of the Autobots most sensitive plans, not just the plans themselves, but has been part of the misleading method of delivery; even as most of the Autobots (Hot Rod included) were told that the Kup would be carrying the plans for Autobots City, Blurr was trusted with the truth of the matter, and Blurr did not disappoint.