Keep calm and carry on

[always_alert]

WHO: Red Alert, Skyfire, Vector Prime, and possibly other former-robots.
WHERE: Somewhere a few blocks away from the Porter. Red honestly has no idea where he is.
WHEN: Friday, 9/21.
WARNINGS: Gratuitous amounts of robot-turned-human issues.
SUMMARY: Red Alert is not taking his abduction from his reality well.
FORMAT: Paragraph to begin, whatever the other taggers want afterward.

Nearly three days ago, Red Alert had been suffering from brain-damage so severe that it lead him to believe everyone in the universe (and the universe itself) was actively seeking to do him harm. Now, he's beginning to wonder whether or not those delusions were entirely without basis, because his current situation highly suggests that the universe does---in fact---hate him.

For the second time in less than a week, he's found himself lost, disoriented, lacking a great deal of his mental faculties, and suffering an unreasonable amount of head-pain. To make matters worse, he's also been kidnapped from his reality, forced into a tiny, fragile alien body, and dropped into an entirely new universe, which also seems to hate him, since it welcomed him into the City with what was quite possibly the worst bout of sensory-overload he has ever experienced in his extremely long life.

He would really be more off-put by these events if he could actually comprehend them, but alas, the dreadful combination of shock and sensory-overload has made it all but impossible for him to form or recognize any thought more complex than “keep breathing” and “find someplace quiet.” Which is, in a way, a small blessing. If he could actually consciously recognize what had just happened to him, he would probably have a nervous-breakdown, or a panic-attack, or some other highly unpleasant (but completely justified) acute-stress reaction. However, since he's numb from shock and mentally-indisposed thanks to the sensory-overload, he won't have to suffer though that world-shattering revelation for some time yet.

For now, his most pressing concern is to find someplace quiet so that he can actually hear himself think, and to not wander into traffic as he does so. Both tasks are surprisingly difficult, and more than once he has to stop in the middle of his trek to get his breathing back under-control, or to allow his over-burdened mind time to adjust to his slight change in location. Unfortunately, once such interruption occurs as he's crossing the street, and he stops dead in his tracks, his dilated, blood-shot eyes staring sightlessly into space as his mind struggles to process and make sense of all the data it's being bombarded with.

Comments

[notyourchauffeur]

So everything, for all he'd been through recently, had turned out at least not quite as awful as it had seemed. And Skyfire actually felt it was reward enough that he head down to the local coffee shop and get a fancy mocha to treat himself with. He does have a permanent limp now, the doctors said he'd have to go through a lot of physical therapy to lessen it. He wouldn't have minded so much had he not been made to walk more places.

People don't like imPorts flying around, fancy that? He'll deal, though. Right now? He has a caramel mocha with whipped cream and Starscream hasn't done anything drastic lately and it's actually a fairly normal relationship this far-

So he's happy. Because the bright-side is always there, no matter how small it may be.

He pauses, turning as he sips on his drink, attention caught by what appeared to be a traffic jam and-

Oh no. It must be a new imPort...

he scampers over, out to the odd man, cautious. He keeps his voice calm, low. His usual easy canter.

"Hello... hey. I'm not going to hurt you. But you need to come here and get out of the street."

[always_alert]

If Skyfire had expected an immediate answer, or any answer at all, really, then he's going to be sorely disappointed. Not only does the red-haired man he's addressing not respond, he doesn't even seem to realize that he's there. He simply stands there, staring blankly ahead despite the loud honking and occasional angry shout from on of the many exasperated drivers he's unintentionally holding up.

Then, after a few moments of empty staring he finally blinks, waking from his trance-like state only to be startled out of what few wits he has about him. As far as he knows, he had only closed his eyes for a second, and now all of the sudden a strange man is standing in-front of him, saying something he can barely hear, let alone understand.

Immediately, he takes a step backwards, his dilated eyes darting from Skyfire to the increasingly agitated drivers, as if he's not sure which he should be more worried about.

[notyourchauffeur]

Instinctively, he holds both hands up in a hopefully disarming manner.

"Come on now, you're alright. We'll get this sorted out now, but we need you out of the street."

He pauses, trying to think of a good motivator.

"If we don't, people may get hurt, and I don't think you want that, right?"

Slowly, carefully, making sure his every gesture is easily predicted, he takes off his coat and holds it out at arm's length, leaving enough room for Red Alert to approach him.

"Why don't you take my jacket, you look cold."

Well, I finally made Red some human-icons. He is the king of all redheads.

[always_alert]

Focusing on a single sound while the world is roaring in his ears is an incomprehensibly difficult task, but Red Alert tries his best to single out Skyfire's voice amidst the chaos. He manages to catch a few words, with which he is able to string together a couple of broken, disjointed sentences. They don't make much sense to him (though, right now, nothing does) but after taking a moment to fill in some of the blanks, he gets a basic idea of what Skyfire tried to tell him.

He shakes his head minutely, to show that, no, he doesn't want anyone to get hurt, before stealing a quick glance at the surrounding cars once again. Most of the drivers have given up honking in favor of just driving around the two, something for which Red Alert is grateful, as the decreased noise-level has made it a bit easier for him to focus in on Skyfire's voice.

When the jacket is offered to him he simply stares at for a moment, as if he's unsure what Skyfire wants him to do with it, before he glances back down at himself and notices for the first time that his hands are shaking. His eyebrows knit together in a mix of worry and confusion, as he doesn't feel cold, so he can't see why his hands would be trembling the way they are. He curls his fingers slowly, in an effort to still them, before glancing back up at Skyfire with a painfully conflicted expression. Torn between accepting the other man's help and following his instincts, he shakes his head, his mouth parting slightly in an effort to speak.

Words, he realizes, are almost as difficult for him to say as they are to hear, but he manages to mumble out a few, short syllables...in his native language.

"No, I---" He falters, his voice catching along with a hitch in his breath. "---I'm fine."

He is most certainly not fine, but the response has become instinctive for him, so true or not, it's the first thing to stumble past his lips.