Howdy!
Me and my old Housemate Boom set up a joint journal mostly to keep in touch with each other, but it seems that what we’ve actually been doing is using it so that we can beta each other’s tf fics. We’ve both been deriving a lot of pleasure from this comm since Boom’s man-minion got us into Transformers at the beginning of this year and thought that you good folks may be interested in having a look. (I think that if the man-minion had known that we would then get obsessed with giant robo-loving he would never have given us the cartoons.)
Hopefully we’ll stop lurking now and be productive members of this strange little society.
Hope you're all having a great holiday.
Blogger: Clankclank
Fandom: Transformers [2007 movieverse]
Title: When in Rome...
Characters: Bumblebee, Ironhide, Ratchet, Sam
Rating: probably PG-13. I don't even think it's got any strong language.
Sam stared up in disbelief at the Autobot, who seemed to be patiently waiting for an answer. “You want me to tell you about what?”
“About exchanging oral fluid with Mikaela.” Ratchet repeated. “Why do you do it?”
“It’s kissing. It’s what you do with your girlfriend. It gets you ...” Sam struggled to find a word which wasn’t ‘off’, “closer.”
“So it’s some kind of bonding ritual.” Ratchet nodded. “Hummm, bonding makes more sense. I was lead to believe that it is a process associated with mating, which was confusing as Bumblebee assures me that neither of you are currently planning on reproducing.”
Sam had no idea how Bumblebee knew that, though it was probably a good idea to not snuggle on the sentient car in future.
Ratchet was thinking some more. Sam could literally see the cogs in his head turning. “But why do you do it so often? I’d imagine you’d have difficulty breathing. Is that why you pant?”
“Because it’s fun, OK?” Sam stopped trying to pretend to be mature about it. He’d been trying to answer Ratchet’s questions on the more biological aspects about being human for the past seven long minutes and he was just about ready to go against Megatron again to avoid talking about how damned squishy he was to the medic. “‘cause it’s nice. I mean logically it’s wet and disgusting and full of diseases but it feels so damned good and ... oh god, there’s this thing that she does with her tongue that is, well it’s indescribable.”
“Ah, is that where she furls and unfurls it into a cylinder? Your heart rate does seem to accelerate when does that.”
“You can see that?!” Sam squeaked.
“Should I not be watching?”
“No! Don’t look through my skin!” Ratchet looked at him, as sentient beings are wont to do when talking to someone. “Don’t, you’re doing it now! Turn around!” Ratchet turned away as Sam clutched a protective hand over his groin. “I need these for my life to be worth living.” He whispered.
“I’m sorry for prying, though my optics don’t emit harmful radiation. Your gametes are safe from me and from the rest of the Autobots.”
“Oh good. In that case you can turn around then and we can completely change the subject to something that isn’t sex or hygiene or anything else that is human and sticky.”
“Sorry,” Ratchet apologised again, “it’s just that I don’t understand. It is a very alien concept.”
The medic slumped. Sam had gotten real good real quickly at reading robo-body language and this was making Ratchet glum, bordering on depressed. Sam had never seen Ratchet glum, bordering on depressed before. Ratchet was normally easily classified into irritated, interested, annoyed, excited, aggravated, caring, pissy, professional or completely off his face. Ratchet glum, bordering on depressed was quite a sorry mech to behold, and Sam wanted to snap him out of it - more knowledge acquisition usually seemed to cheer him up.
“Wasn’t there anything on Cybertron that you could do with the other robots just because it felt good?”
“Data transfer can certainly be a mutually enjoyable experience.” Ratchet acknowledged. “But nothing that isn’t purposeful. I think there once was. Not for the sake of the continuation of the species but for friendship. Nobody’s done that since your planet was young, I can’t really remember it. War tends to drive that out of you. An imbalance between Thanatos and Eros I’m afraid.”
Sam tried not to smirk. The problem didn’t seem to be that Ratchet was intellectually frustrated but that he was frustrated well, a little bit lower. Do robots even have the - Sam managed to stop that line of thought before his brain fractured into tiny pieces that he would never even want to be fixed. Defiantly no more snuggling on the sentient car.
“Why don’t you try it?” Sam suggested. “Not with me, I mean with another transformer. Another transformer that isn’t Bumblebee. Or you could use your hand.” Sam nodded sagely. “That can work.”
“Humm.” Ratchet pondered. “It might be effective. I mean, we certainly have far more somatic sensors around our maxilla and mandibular regions than humans do.” He started to brighten. “Yes, I think that could be an interesting experiment.”
Sam imagined this was how a proud parent must feel when their inquisitive child finally stops asking and starts doing. “Yes, you go conduct experiments.” For some reason Ratchet picked him up. “Hey, what are you doing? Not with me!”
“Of course not.” That was robo-body-language for disgusted as he started to pad past the trees towards where Mikalea, Bumblebee and Prime appeared to be talking. “But you have to tell me if what I’m doing is correct. It would be void otherwise.”
“Oh yeh. Yeh, that makes perfect sense. You’re not going to - you know - with Optimus are you?”
“No.” Ratchet scoffed. “I’m going to ask Ironhide.”
“Good. ‘cause that would be an immensely strange if you were to do anything with Prime. Not that you and Ironhide wouldn’t be immensely strange also and Optimus would be less likely to blow a hole in you.” They both turned and greeted the group, hardly pausing before continuing to walk past them to the field where Ironhide was blowing some large holes in the shape of a crop circle.
“Tell you what Ratchet, shall we forget this whole stupid idea and go and get some diesel or something?”
“We don’t know it’s stupid yet.” Ratchet replied. “Besides, diesel produces a physiological response akin to vomiting in all but Prime. I’m still working on that too but I believe it may be due to-.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Sam interrupted and nodded quickly in response. He really didn’t want more detail on robo-puke and Ratchet was the Master of TMI. It was almost a relief when they approached the black Autobot.
“If you’ve come to practise you’ll need to take him back.” Ironhide started to climb the hill, bridging the distance when he noticed the two approaching. “Unless you want to use him as target practise.”
“Later.” Ratchet put down Sam and turned back to Ironhide. “I want to conduct a little experiment and I need your help.”
“Why am I always your guinea pig?” He griped, transforming his cannons back into arms.
“It’s the only thing you’re good for. I doubt it’ll hurt much anyway.”
“I was gonna do it Ratch’ you don’t have to convince me. I wasn’t worried.” He paused and pointed at Sam. “What’s he here for?”
“He’s advising me.”
“Oh god I didn’t mean to suggest this.” Sam babbled. “I mean I was only trying to get him to shut up. Have either of you got anything I can bleach my brain with?”
“What are you going on for?” Ironhide growled at him
“Please don’t kill me.”
“He won’t kill you. Will you, Ironhide.” Ratchet confirmed with the black bot who grumbled in response. “I didn’t even get my cannons out did I?” He sighed. “What am I meant to do with this thing anyhow?”
“I’m not sure. That’s partly what this experiment is to ascertain. Do what you think is appropriate.” Ratchet obviously thought about what he’d said and who he was talking to in more detail as he added, “anything appropriate that isn’t shooting me.”
“I think I can -” Ironhide started before being cut off by Ratchet who rapidly closed the distance between their two faces. They stood awkwardly for what seemed to Sam to be a couple of years before Ratchet pulled away.
“Was that correct?” Ratchet asked Sam while Ironhide seemed to be in shock.
“Who knows? I don’t have X-ray vision unlike some people.”
“X-ray vision wouldn’t work.” He snapped before continuing. “There wasn’t any of that kind of tongue motion -”
“-woah! I was not asking!”
“- there wasn’t an opening. How do you get an opening for that?” Sam looked incredulous at Ratchet. “Ironhide, did you experience anything there? If I could have some unbiased input that would be helpful.”
“Well it wasn’t painful.” Ironhide started. “The pressure on my mouth was alright, though it was a bit strange to have you staring at me that close to my optics.”
“Hummm. Yes, that was pretty much my assessment. Somewhat pleasant but altogether awkward and transformer kissing is probably not worth further enquiry.”
“Hang on, that was kissing?” Ironhide asked in disbelief. “You learnt your English from the web and you had to ask the kid? How did you miss the porn?”
Ratchet glared. “I didn’t search for that kind of thing. I limited myself to the more technical areas of the Internet.”
“Ratchet, I couldn’t miss the porn when I googled Birmingham! You knew enough to embarrass the kid about his bodily functions in front of his girlfriend. Porn’s a very bodily bodily function.” Ironhide grinned evilly. “Unless you had safe-search on.”
“You know,” Ratchet scowled, “I really want to shoot something now.”
“Tough. The kid’s too close and I don’t want another lecture from Prime about responsibility around indigenous lifeforms. And anyway, you’re always saying about how stuff’s not valid unless you’ve repeated it enough times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.”
“I believe I would have used the term anomalous there.”
“Whatever. I don’t think you can just disregard an experiment ‘cause it doesn’t work first time. Especially when you don’t let a body know what’s meant to be going on. Just my thoughts anyway.”
Ratchet looked thoughtfully at Ironhide who stared back at him, seemingly all talked out. Sam was very carefully looking at his shoes.
It was too quiet. Maybe they’d decided to just have a staring competition instead. Sam risked a glance to see hands wrapping around backs of heads and torsos, each both trying to pull the other bot in closer. Heads twisted, vying for better positions. A hand glided across a skidplate to firmly pull at and stroke an exposed joint causing a shifting of weight and an intertwining of limbs. It had never been quite so clear that their bodies were not solid as when the metal of the other occluded all light that would normally pass through the gaps.
Sam looked away again and screwed up his eyes. Now that was a mental image that he wouldn’t be able to remove even with the help of some very expensive therapy.
He felt rather than heard the thud. What had seemed like a low level earthquake was probably one of them loosing their balance. He didn’t really want to check. The sirens had been unexpected and had made him jump far more than the horn blasting a couple of seconds later.
He wondered how what they were actually doing could possibly be worse than what he was imagining they were doing.
“Sam?” That was a familiar voice. A safe voice.
“Bumblebee! Hi! Can we go somewhere else?” He risked taking a peak at his perplexed guardian. He was staring down the hill with a confused expression on his face and asked, “Are they fighting again?”
“Yes. No. Oh God Bee, do not ask! Let’s just go back OK?”
“I am curious; I didn’t know Ratchet used his sirens in his primary form.” He peered down and Sam was very glad that he wasn’t tall enough to see down the hill. “Regardless, it is causing you distress to stay here.” He transformed into the Camero and swung open the door. “I’ll get Prime to come over and make sure Ironhide’s not damaging Ratchet too much.”
“That’s not pain. That’s-” Sam started as the sirens changed their sequence. Oh hell, let it happen. It’s would be cool to know exactly how unflappable the unflappable Optimus Prime really was.
“That’s a really good idea.”