tampered | Log; Open

Log; Open

When; Feb. 7, Late Afternoon
Rating; PG-13?
Characters; Mikaela Banes (

justpopthehood) and anyone who responds.
Summary; At the arcade.
Log;

She usually tried to appear somewhat feminine around people. It was always easy to tell which guys were disturbed by women who liked cars and played gory video games and which ones were okay it. Unfortunately for her, the hot ones were usually in the former category. Maybe it was their huge egos. They couldn't stand to be in a relationship with someone who could beat them at Midnight Club.

Not that she cared anymore. She hadn't seen one hot jock walk by and doubted they'd be flooding in any time soon. Even if they did, her mind was set. She was done focusing on how incredibly, undeniably sexy those guys were. They weren't worth the time.

Which is why she felt completely comfortable standing in the center of the arcade using a plastic orange gun to shoot down an impossible number of zombies. Her marksmanship, she had to admit, was exceptional. Those stupid minions never stood a chance. When she finally beat the third level after her seventh attempt, she let out the kind of scream most guys reserved for Superbowl Sunday.

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Thomas started at the shout. The arcade was quiet, which was a little weird for a Saturday, but that just meant he didn't have to wait in line at any of his favorite machines. When he looked toward the source of the noise, he was surprised to see it belonged to one of the hottest girls he'd ever lain eyes on.

Yeah, see, girls like that were never interested in guys like him. He just turned back to his game of Mortal Kombat and pretended not to notice. Usually when girls like that noticed that guys like him had taken an interest in them, they teased mercilessly.

[ooc: Thomas is cursed today to be his 16 year old self. His grownup self is actually much different]

Mikaela laughed to herself, watching the kid playing Mortal Kombat react to her shouting. Without averting her eyes from the screen, she leaned to her right.

"Sorry, I'm being totally obnoxious. I can't control myself sometimes."

Thomas' brain died. She just couldn't control herself sometimes? Really? He turned around.

"It's cool. No biggy." Was he really trying to talk to this girl? Oh well, might as well go for it.

"I'm Tommy."

Mikaela sighed as the fourth level kicked her ass right back to level one. She lowered the plastic weapon and flashed a smile at the Tommy.

"Hey," she said. "I'm Mikaela."

Sam had decided to go take a walk down one of the main areas of the City. The curses of the City had brought him here as an adult for the second time and he wanted to enjoy the place in ways his younger self hadn't.

That was when he heard something that made him do a double take. Ducking inside of an arcade his eyes went wide with surprise.

"Holy shit, Mikaela?"

Mikaela was kicking ass in round four when she heard her name. She ignored it, reluctant to pull her eyes away and risk being sent back to level one. Out of the corner of her eye, she could almost see the guy who'd spoken. She left him waiting for six minutes while she took out a mob of zombies and, finally, turned to him while the levels changed.

"Do I know you?"

Sam knew better than to interrupt Mikaela while she was playing the game, especially since she wouldn't recognize him. Of course he had to switch with his younger self today.

"It's me, Sam," he said. "Sam Witwicky. Look, I know that you don't recognize me, but it's me. I'm just about 20 years older than you probably last saw me. Wow, this is awkward..."

By the time he'd begun to speak, Mikaela had already shifted her attention back to the game. She heard him speak but didn't actually listen. It was only when her character ducked inside an elevator for cover that her mind veered from the zombies and she processed what she'd heard. Slowly, she tilted her head towards the man who claimed to be Sam.

"Are you serious?"

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was pretty sure he sounded crazy. Or creepy. Or both.

"Your name is Mikaela Banes," he said. "We went, we go to high school together. At the lake that one day you left your boyfriend and were walking home. I made my best friend stay at the lake so I could give you a ride home. And Bumblebee, he died so that we were stuck and you took a look under the hood because you knew cars. Then later in the tunnel you were on my lap and you insulted Bumblebee and he changed into the new Camaro."

Mikaela slowly lowered the plastic gun and turned her full attention the Sam impostor. She analyzed him from head to toe, comparing him to the Sam she knew. On the video game screen, her character was being ripped to shreds by gang of zombie dogs.

She narrowed her eyebrows. "You can't be Sam," she whispered, more to herself than to him. She decided to test him.

"That night in the tunnel- we went back to your house. Your parents embarrassed you. How?"

"Oh god, by existing?" he said, thinking back to that night. In the face of everything that was happening at that time he could remember still being horrified by that.

"They came into my room and then thought I was masturbating," he said, finding it much easier to admit as an adult that it was if he had been his right age. "And then you stepped forward and they thought we were going to have sex."

She couldn't help but wince as he reiterated the events of that night. They weren't even her parents but she'd felt more than embarrassed for Sam. She studied his face again, less reluctant to acknowledge the tiny points of resemblance.

Oh my God, was her initial thought. Disbelief, however, was met immediately with lack of understanding.

"But...how?"

"You just suddenly appeared in a strange city and can ask questions like that?" he said, giving her a puzzled look before shaking his head. "No, never mind. Our lives went all crazy with giant, sentient, alien robots that turn into vehicles."

It was weird to see her again like this, after so many years. His younger self would be excited though.

"This place pulls people from different worlds and realities. Then it messes with them with curses that alter reality."

Mikaela blushed. "Honestly? I kind of...thought I was dreaming. Still do, kind of."

She listened to Sam-who-looked-nothing-like-himself tell her about this place, whatever it was, nodding along. Truthfully, she wasn't really taking any of it in.

"A really, really elaborate dream."

"Trust me, a lot of people think it's a dream," he said, reassuring her. He remembered his first few hours here and how he thought it was a dream. And how horribly awkward things had turned once he realized it wasn't.

"It's impressive though. They have dinosaurs in the zoo."

Mikaela rolled her eyes the tiniest bit. Of course Sam would offer her dinosaurs for comfort. Her dream scenario still didn't explain why Sam was, like, forty.

"I still don't get why you're, like, forty." She hoped he wouldn't be staying that way.

"Because it's one of those reality altering curses," he explained, again realizing just how crazy it sounded, although not too much crazier than sentient, alien robots.

"I'm normally just 17 here, but today the City brought my older self here."

She hoped for the first time that this wasn't really a dream. It it was, that would mean some pretty messed up things about her subconscious. Like that fact that it had cursed Sam. She couldn't remember having any desire to curse Sam. She was also starting to appreciate having been dragged into the war between the Autobots and Deceptacons. It felt like her quota on "stuff that's too crazy to even consider believing" was almost full. She was starting to accept the craziest scenarios.

Still, there was a more important matter at hand. "So...when will you be young again?"

"Midnight," he said, giving a small shrug. "If not today then midnight tomorrow. Curses only last 24 hours except in rare occasions. I have a place though, a really big place, actually. It's a converted warehouse with some living spaces. I live there with my best friend right now. You're welcome to live there."

Sam realized that was probably pretty weird sounding, coming from someone about 40 and not 17. He hoped he wasn't setting his younger self up with too many problems to come back to.

"You'd like the place, it's got a couple of really nice cars in it. I'm actually learning to be a mechanic, believe it or not."

Mikaela titled her head. At least he wasn't asking her over a background of "Baby Come Back" or some equally cheesy 80's song. And she was technically homeless. And there were cars and the opportunity of schooling Sam under the hood- not that she wanted to show off or anything.

Still, old Sam was pretty unsettling. He wasn't anywhere near as nervous and awkward as she remembered. Those were some of his most endearing traits.

She sighed, wondering how long until midnight. "You live in a warehouse?"

"Converted warehouse," he explained. "The person who owned it before I did let me live there and taught me to work on cars. When they left, they left me the warehouse and all the cars. It's got a kitchen, living room, and things like that. There are five levels to it."

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair again. How awkward was it seeing your teenage crush as a teenager when you were an adult.

"Look, this is really weird, I know. You can just wait until midnight to look me up if you want."

She didn't want to spend eight hours killing time at the arcade until Sam's curse wore off. And that warehouse sounded pretty cool. The day she'd met Sam, he'd been happy to own a piece of crap Camaro that broke down at the most inconvenient times. Now he owned a five level warehouse.

"No, it's ok. I mean, it's weird, but it's ok. Plus," she grinned, "I've seen weirder."

"That's just because you haven't met Simba and Nala yet," Sam said with a smile. The City really did have the weirdest things in any world that Sam had even read about.

"And here," he said, digging into his pocket and then tossing her a pair of keys. "You can drive the Porsche back."

"The...Porsche?" Her expression shifted from disbelief to complete shock when she caught the keys in her hand. The keys with that luxurious red crest logo. "No way..."

Sam gave her a wider smile. Unlike some ego inflated jock, he had no problem with Mikaela driving his car. When his car was the kind that couldn't drive itself.

"Yeah, the Porsche," he said. "There's also a Jag but... that one doesn't get driven."

"Are you kidding?" She jiggled the Porsche keys in her hands excitedly. Crazy dream or not, she was definitely impressed. "Sam, how do you have a Porsche and a Jag?"

"Someone gave them to me," he said, beaming. "I also have a Vespa and an actual motorcycle. Really, I only ride the Vespa and the Jag never leaves the garage."

"People just give out cars and motorcycles here?" If that were the case, Mikaela would definitely be enjoying this city. Too bad Sam didn't ride the motorcycle, though. She's always thought that Vespas were for wusses.

"Actually, there are very few cars," Sam explained. "And Saya left the City, got pulled back to her home, so she left most of her stuff to me."

And so Sam Witwicky dashed the hopes of poor and undeserving Mikaela Banes. Alright, she was being melodramatic but the cars would have made this city far more worthwhile. She sighed and jingled the car keys at Sam. "Alright, where is she?"

Sam chuckled and nodded his head, heading back the way that he came.

"You act like I'm probably not just going to give you one of the cars," he said with a bit of a smirt.

On the outside, Mikaela forced herself to remain cool. "Please, Sam," she said in the calmest of voices. "You are not giving me a car."

On the inside: omefrwgjekla;dlfsnef jjjjjjj OMFFDS: SAMS DSAM SAMS AMSM AHHHHHHH :DDDDDDDD!!

"What am I going to do with several cars, Mikaela?" he asked as they arrived at the car. The silver, late model car was as clean as possible and gorgeous to look at.

Had Mikaela had any less self control, she would have found herself drooling at the sight of the car. She made mental note to avoid looking under the hood, that might really lead to her embarrassing herself.

"Drive them?" She smirked.

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