What's with the accent?
Author: Thalanee
Verse: AU Bayverse (not long after Sparkles)
Word Count: 2400 words
Rating: pg-13
Characters: Will Lennox, Bobby Epps, Jazz, Prowl, various other bots.
Warnings: crack.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I only wish I did. They belong to Hasbro not to me.
Summary: If you're living with a mechanical alien race, countless mysteries present themselves every day. One of them is about to be explored. After all there has to be a reason why even Prowl speaks with an accent…In other words, just another day at NEST.
Author's Notes: Not much of a plot, I know, but it wouldn't leave me alone, and since it's the first bunny to bite in more than a month I'm not complaining.
XXXXX
"I was kind of wondering… What's with all those accents?"
Hearing the question, Major Will Lennox looked up from the paperwork he was supposed to be doing to face Tech Sergeant Bobby Epps. "Excuse me?" He cocked his head in confusion.
"You know, man," Epps answered, "why do the bots talk with those accents of theirs?" He looked at his superior and friend expectantly. When no reply was forthcoming, he decided to elaborate. "I mean, we know they can speak perfect English without the slightest trace of any accent. Hell, their English is better than our own! So why do they all speak with an accent?"
Frowning the Major replied, "They don't all have accents. Prime doesn't. Neither does Ratchet."
"Ok," Epps conceded, "but you have to admit, that most of them do and it's strange."
Absentmindedly tapping his pen against the paper of the neglected file, Will thought about what his friend had just mentioned, drawn into the argument before he even noticed. Now that he stopped to think about it, he realized that Epps was right. He'd never actively paid attention to it before, but more than half of the bots spoke with accents, even though they were perfectly capable of doing so without.
Jazz's street drawl came to mind, so aggressively different from the precise way he spoke when they first met, as did Ironhide's Texan English. Wheeljack sounded almost exactly like Scotty from the new Star Trek movie and Mirage spoke with an accent so very British, he might as well be an envoy from the Queen's palace. The nature loving Hound had been quick to pick up Australian English after a field trip down under.
Even the Autobots' infamously rule-loving, by the book Second In Command was among them. Prowl, as well as his triadmates Smokescreen and Bluestreak, had adopted a more or less heavy Russian accent right from the start. To many peoples' amusement it irritated the government liaisons to no end.
Written reports however were rendered in perfect English.
Damn. It had happened again.
The major looked at his best friend in exasperation. Once again Bobby Epps had managed to distract him so thoroughly that he would never be able to concentrate on his paperwork anytime in the foreseeable future. Not when his head was filled with the images and sounds of the various bots and the colourful range of accents. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as he admitted in the privacy of his own thoughts and sometimes even out loud) the Autobots provided a great number of interesting distractions, intentionally or not.
"Did it ever occur to you to ask them?" Will inquired.
Epps gaped at him in astonishment. "Where would be the fun in that?" he chastised his friend incredulously. A broad grin spread on his face. He was eerily reminiscent of a little child in a candy shop trying to decide which treat was the tastiest. "Let's spin theories!"
Intrigued and annoyed at the same time, Lennox simply grunted, which the ever enthusiastic Epps took as an encouragement. Suffice to say that Will didn't get any work done for the rest of the shift.
XXXXX
Major William Lennox had decided to kill his best friend and subordinate Bobby Epps. And nothing would stop him this time.
Ever since the sergeant had brought it up, Will couldn't stop to think about the bot's accents. Whenever one of them spoke he caught himself not listening to what they were saying, but how they were saying it, especially since the two friends hadn't come to any sort of conclusion in their discussion a few days ago. Oh, they had had several ideas, but each one had been stranger than its predecessor, ranging from misguided attempts to understand human behavior, to social experiments, purposefully irritating government officials and each other and a strange sort of code to surreptitiously pass on information to each other (how Epps had come up with that one Will didn't even want to know, but he suspected the pile of red bull cans in the sergeant's office had something to with that).
He just couldn't get those ideas out of his head.
There had to be a reason for those accents.
Now if he could just figure out…
"…nnox! WILL!"
Jumping at the shout he looked up guiltily and realized that everyone in the meeting room was looking at him. Great, he had spaced out in the middle of the weekly NEST officer meeting… and just when Prowl had decided to ask for his input on something. Optimus was obviously worried and Ratchet was already scanning him, the major could feel the slightly tingly sensation of the medic's scanners passing over and through him. Ironhide was already hovering over his adopted human, cannons whirring.
"Is there something wrong?" The cultured Russian voice drew his attention to the one who had called out before. Prowl's golden optics were narrowed in his direction, regal doorwings perfectly still despite Jazz's best efforts getting them to flutter by petting them. Earlier the saboteur had snagged Prowl's chair during the tactician's presentation and then maneuvered, so that when the black and white attempted to sit back down, he ended up sitting in Jazz's lap. Idly Will wondered when it had become normal to him to see two giant mechanical beings being lovey-dovey.
"No, I'm fine," he hastened to ensure the Autobot tactician, "my mind just wandered, that's all. Sorry, you were saying?"
"You're not getting away that easily," Ironhide growled, already deep in what Epps had once termed overprotective mother hen- mode. "You never spaced out in meetings before, so whatever it is has to be bothering you badly."
"Physically there is nothing wrong," Ratchet spoke up, going through the data collected by his scanners, "so it has to be psychological."
"That liaison guy botherin' ya again?" Jazz drawled. He had still been in stasis back then, but he had heard enough tales about the infamous Galloway. "Ya know, tha one ya chucked out o' that plane."
That theory earned Jazz a snicker from Epps. Which reminded Will of the source of his predicament. "It's nothing really, just a comment someone made about something interesting that kind of stuck with me. It's not important."
As soon as those last three words left his mouth he knew he shouldn't have said that. Now Ironhide wouldn't stop until he found out what "bothered" his human charge so much. And there was another reason…
"Gotta be interesting, if it kept gnawing at ya. Share, man!" Jazz demanded, his thirst for the new and unknown piqued. Honestly that mech had the curiosity of a little child. Which once again made him wonder why Jazz and Prowl… no, bad Will, don't go there.
"He's right about tha'." Wheeljack piped up in his rolling Scottish accent. That mech was even worse than Jazz in the curiosity department. And the engineer really sounded exactly like his Star Trek equivalent…
It had to stop. Shaking his head to clear it from the treacherous thoughts he sneaked a look at all the expectant faces of the bots.
Throwing the tech sergeant, who was by now desperately trying to smother his laughter, a filthy look, Will decided to just get it over with and save himself the aggravation of trying to keep the bots' curiosity about all things human at bay. Oddly hesitant at first, because he wasn't quite sure if the Autobots would be offended by the question (even though he didn't think so), he finally blurted out. "What's with the accents?"
Stumped silence greeted his enquiry. Then…
"…Come again?" It was Prowl who had spoken, his wings now twitching slightly in an irregular manner, a sure sign that the mech's battle computer was in overdrive.
"I know you are all perfectly capable of speaking flawless English, hell, when we first met you spoke it more precisely and better than any of us, and none of you had the barest trace of an accent. And now big guy here," he gestured in Ironhide's direction, "sounds like a native Texan, Jazz like some New York street kid and even you talk with a Russian accent."
"So?" Jazz asked, scratching his head in a human gesture of confusion, one of the many he had adopted.
"There's gotta be a reason for that, man," Epps declared. "And we were wondering what that reason is." Now that it was obvious that the bots didn't mind the question many decided to take part in the discussion.
"It's an experiment, isn't it?" One of the other human officers asked.
"I bet you had accents on Cybertron too and picked one that reminded you of it right?" One of the scientific officers threw in.
The bots shared looks and then there was that tiny moment of silence the humans had come to recognize as the Autobots communicating in high speed over their comms. They seemed slightly confused, or in Jazz's case vastly amused. Only a couple of seconds later Optimus nodded to Prowl who stepped forward.
Or at least tried to, but he didn't get very far thanks to the silver Solstice wrapped around him. Prowl tired to wriggle out of the other's grasp futilely, then sighed and obviously decided to let his mate have his way.
"That is easily explained."
None of the bots could have failed to notice every human in the room leaning slightly in Prowl's direction, waiting for his explanation. It was strangely endearing (maybe because it was so sparkling-like).
"We like it."
That stopped everyone short, every human that is. Will blinked once, then again, wondering if he had heard correctly. "I guess it's my turn to say, come again?"
"Those of us who chose to adopt an Earth accent, did so because we like their rhythm, their cadence, or simply because they are most fitting for our personality."
Will had to fight the urge to bang his head against the surface of the table, which looked really appealing right now. In all the little discussions and theory spinning sessions, not even once had it entered their minds that it was all a matter of personal idiosyncrasies.
"Well, that settles who won the bet," Epps mused aloud.
"Bet?" Will's head snapped around to look at his friend. "What bet?"
"It seemed like a shame to waste an opportunity like that, so everyone laid down bets on the right answer."
"Who won?" Jazz asked.
"Mikaela." Epps consulted his notes and grinned. "And Sarah."
The human commander knew better than to comment. He was just glad he'd finally got an answer. Maybe now he could get back to working without a distraction, he mused, as Prowl called them all to order and proceeded with the meeting.
Then a little yellow post it-note was slid in front of him, filled with Epps messy handwriting. It said: "I was kind of wondering…" Reading no further, Will just sighed.
The End
Bonus Scene
Just another battle between Autobots and Decepticons. As usual Optimus Prime and Megatron almost exclusively fought each other, exchanging insults and taunts that sounded as if they originated from characters of badly written second rate movie.
For both Prowl and Starscream it was almost painful to watch how their usually highly intelligent leaders, while locked in a stalemate, would resort to name-calling like a couple of sparklings over a toy. Usually the SICs would fight each other too, but sometimes they just stood by and watched their respective leader in a mixture of mild (or in Starscream's case not so mild) disgust and sheer wonder. Sometimes they even talked to each other in an almost civil manner…
Today was one of those rare days.
"How much do you want to bet that the insults will get even worse before the battle is over?" Starscream asked, his screechy voice full of contempt for the leader he so affectionally called the "Rustbucket" when talking to Prowl.
"Betting would imply that there is a slight chance this unseemly display will cease." Even with the Russian monotone it was easy to recognize that Prowl had resigned himself to the fact that his revered Prime sometimes acted like he had left his processors behind on Cybertron.
"Touché," the Decepticon Aerial Commander frowned, "so you feel like fighting?"
The black and white's golden optics narrowed. "No, this battle is a farce already without our adding to it." He pointedly looked at the other parts of the battlefield, where Hook and Ratchet were trading insults (admittedly of a much higher quality than their superiors), his lover Jazz was running in circles around Soundwave, who was unwittingly tripping himself ever so often over his own tentacles. Meanwhile Sideswipe, Ironhide and a couple of Cons had themselves what the humans called a Mexican standoff and none of them looked like he was going to give way. Barricade and Bumblebee seemed to be of a similar opinion to Prowl and Starscream and simply watched the battle, commenting on it from time to time. The Praxian didn't even want to know what the others were up to. He was just grateful there were no humans around to see…
Starscream took one look at the so called battle and snorted in disgust. "Yeah, pathetic. You wanna play chess instead?"
Prowl nodded. "That would be an acceptable alternative. You may start."
"Damn right I will, I'm Starscream!" the jet screeched. Prowl simply ignored the outburst. He'd had practice over the vorns.
After a while of playing, the tactician noticed the jet staring at him like he was a specimen under observation in the scientist's lab. First he put it down to Starscream trying to unnerve him like he usually would (the jet had no compunctions when it came to trying to cheat), but soon he realized that the seeker was getting more and more distracted, until he finally blurted out the one question he had been itching to ask about since their first battle on Earth.
"So what's with the accent?"
Prowl sighed.
Really The End Now