In the spirit of my other Dinotrap (so glad the pairing has a name now!) drabble set "Harmonious Discord", I have 19 more drabbles in response to the music meme. The basic idea is that you put your music player on shuffle and write drabbles inspired by the songs as they play. You only have the duration of that song to write your drabble. I did take the liberty of cleaning up a bit of grammar and spelling, otherwise I followed the prompts rules. For posting I ordered them alphabetically... Enjoy!
"Back at One" 00:04:22 -Brian McKnight
Dinobot had never required 'mood music' for interfacing, but for some reason Rattrap seemed to think it helped. Dinobot only agreed to the annoying distraction upon the rodent's reasoning that the music would cover up any sounds they may inadvertently make, giving their actions away to the other Maximals… Dinobot lay on Rattrap's berth, growing ever impatient as the Maximal searched through his sound files, looking for something appropriate. Their relationship didn't lend itself well to slow romantic crooning, but at the same time, any music that might begin to describe their chaotic interactions would likely only serve to kill the mood… When the rat finally did settle on something, Dinobot couldn't care less what it was so long as the Maximal got his skid-plate over to the bed. The one line in the sickeningly sweet song he could agree with "Just wanna be with you."
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"Creep" 00:03:57 -Radiohead
Much as he liked to project an air of overconfidence and superiority, Dinobot could be riddled with insecurities. A need to be the best, to dominate, to lead stemming from an inner feeling of unworthiness. Of not living up to the code of honor he wished always to keep… He'd never felt so deeply ashamed as when Rattrap had pushed him away in anger, against the wall of the Axalon. The rat was so disgusted with him, he couldn't even bring himself to joke or add snark to his cruel, biting comments to Dinobot.
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"Destiny" 00:04:38 -Vanessa Mae
Somehow, Dinobot had known deep in his spark, all along, that his destiny was linked with Megatron's. He'd thought, once, that his destiny was to help lead Megatron to a great victory for Predacon-kind. How ironic, that his destiny was the exact opposite. To stop Megatron from taking an action that would ensure Decepticon victory and rule... His destiny, after all of his struggles, innerturmoil and spark-searching was to help the Maximals. Destiny was a cruel mistress. Dinobot could accept the change of allegiance, of letting go of everything he thought he knew about himself and learning anew... but why did destiny have to throw Rattrap in? He'd made peace with the idea that he'd die for his cause, whatever fate made it be, long ago. He had never feared death. So why did destiny lead him by the hand to his death, only to give him a reason to live along the way?
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"Donne Moi Le Temps" 00:04:13 -Jenifer
He had lived a long time. Not as long as many ancient Cybertronians who were relics of the Great War, but he'd lived long enough to know a thing or two about himself and the world around him. He'd done all of the growing that one could do, he was not at all like the childish spotted furball, still maturing and learning about himself... but if that was so, then why did he still feel unprepared to face the feelings the rat stirred within him? His time was running short on this dirtball, he somehow intrinsically knew, and yet he still needed more time. Time to understand these complicated feelings. Time to accept said feelings. Time to make something of them... Looking over at the aggravating subtle smirk upon Rattrap's face, he knew the Maximal would wait for him to catch up.
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"Don'tcha" 00:03:48 -Pussycat Dolls
He caught the way Rattrap looked at him. Stellar cycles later, reformatted, technoorganic... it didn't matter, he still looked at him with that same lust. Of course it was returned, even if it took him a while to adjust to the rat's new look. It was... cute.
The look that wasn't cute, however, was the icy glare he'd found himself on the wrong end of increasinly often. Botanica was an intelligent femme, a scientist, and not much got past her. She saw her mate look at Dinobot, and she didn't like it.
Perhaps to gloat was not an honorable trait, but Dinobot couldn't help but grin and shrug at the femme when his gaze met her angry one.
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"Eden" 00:03:36 -Hooverphonic
The last sight he had on that little, lonely planet far from home (both in time and distance) was the bright red optics belonging to Rattrap. As much comfort as having closure with all of his Maximal comrades brought him as he felt his consciousness slipping away, he wished for a moment alone with the rat. But no moment would be long enough to say or do what he should have said and done long ago.
Looking into those eyes, he tried to ferret out the answers to the thousands of stubbornly unasked questions that lay between them. Was I your enemy, or your best friend? Which were you to me? The hands holding his own answered the first, and his own returning squeeze answered the second.
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"I Would Have Loved You Anyway" 00:03:44 -Trisha Yearwood
The ability to control the future through altering the past? To change your fate? Rattrap supposed he couldn't begrudge a bot for trying, even if said bot were a maniacal tyrant like Megatron... He couldn't help but wonder, with transwarp technology, if he could change his own past, would he?
The pain that consumed his spark at the loss of Dinobot, and all that the two had shared in their short time together. To be free of that burden. If he could change the past so that they'd never ended up in the Beast Wars at all.. So many Maximal lives would be spared. He'd be on Cybertron, living life the way he used to.
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"Kein Zurük" 00:03:51 -Wolfsheim
Not every farewell will one day lead to a new hello. Sometimes, goodbye is forever. He had not been prepared, had not had the words to say, not known what to do to properly send off that saurian's spark. What do you say to someone, when you know you will never, ever see them again? Never to insult them again. Never to fight or poke fun again. Never to serve beside again. Never to feel them close to you again. To know that the last squeeze they give your hands before their own goes slack in yours… would be the very last time they ever touched you. A sensation you would never feel again….
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"Love Game" 00:03:29 -Lady Gaga
He'd often heard both femmes and bots assert that they weren't 'into playing games' romantically. Something straightforward had never been his schtick though. Dangerous liasons, subtle flirtations and complex mind games kept things fresh and new, so long as one had a partner to play with. Whether Dinobot had wanted play to or not, his piece had been placed on the board and he was in the game now. Rolls of the die, flipping the cards of chance, back and forth they played.
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"Love Stoned" 00:07:24 -Justin Timberlake
The air on Cybertron had been warm that night, calling him out somehow. He didn't usually go to mixed clubs, but something about the air that night made him feel more adventurous somehow. He didn't know what he was doing there, he knew better than to take a Pred back to his place, and he certainly wasn't prepared to follow one home. He'd heard about Maximals dumb enough to do so, never to be heard from again… but when he saw the larger mech at the far end of the bar, alone, crimson eyes glowing alluringly in the dark… he couldn't resist.
"You look like ya could use another shot of high-grade."
"Is that so?"
The other mech's voice was rough and abrasive, yet somehow all the sexier for it.
"Hotter 'n the Inferno out there! Slaggin' solar flares. Nothin' better to cool your circuitry." With that he flagged down the barbot and got two drinks.
"So what are we drinking to?" The Predacon raised his glass and held it expectantly before the small bot. He wasn't used to something so formal as a toast in a hook-up-hole-in-the-wall.
He couldn't help the sarcastic smirk that played across his bucktoothed mouth. "How's about destiny?…. Or interfacing, your preference."
"Well, if those are my options…" a small snarl, "then destiny it is."
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"Low" 00:03:53 -T-pain
He'd never been much of an, to coin a human expression, ass man. The shiny golden orbs that comprised the small Maximal's perfectly sculpted little bubble-butt of a skid plate were too perfect to resist, however. It was with humiliation that he admitted to himself how often he found his optics starring at that particular part of Rattrap.
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"Not Me, Not I" 00:04:26 -Delta Goodrem
He couldn't stand the way the others looked at him now. The pure unhidden pity pouring from their optics... Like a slaggin' widow on her walk. Rattrap didn't need their pity because there was no reason to feel sorry for him. Sure, they were down a teammember. And he'd lost an easy-interface partner... And a good friend, he would admit at least to himself... but they were in a war. Casualties were a part of war. They were lucky they hadn't suffered more! As he always said, we're all gonna die. It was only a matter of time.
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"Poison" 00:03:08 -Groove Coverage
He'd made a habit of wanting what he shouldn't. The more locks you put on the jar, the more he wanted the cookies inside. For all his whining, when it came to his desires, Rattrap could not resist a challenge. The harder to get, the more work required, the better. And what better forbidden fruit than the poisoned apple placed before him in the form of a former Predacon. He knew better. He always knew better, but just couldn't seem to help himself. His desire for the mech ran through his body, deep in the processor, down in the core of his spark.
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"Rehab" 00:03:35 -Amy Winehouse
Booze, interfacing, re-engineered energon? Bring it all on! Sin was in in Cybertron and Rattrap was all about the hedonistic pleasures that life could bring a bot... Unfortunately, if a bot was slagged six ways from Sunday on some energon cut with a bad bug, he could get caught by the police-bots being belligerent and engaging in disorderly conduct in public. And he could then be sent to the brig and sentenced to rehab. Thank god for Rhinox getting him off easy! A short mission on an exploration ship would be far better!
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"Somewhere Only We Know" 00:03:55 -Keane
Rattrap didn't know what sort of a wild-goose-chase Dinobot was taking him on, but he didn't like it. If the Predacon was leading him into a trap, Primus help him he'd slag his skidplate so quick...
"Where in the Pit are we going anyway."
"It's not much further... so silence your chatter mouse. You will be most appreciative of this, I assure you."
"Eh, I'd better be!"
Soon they came upon a part of the forest that was very densely wooded. Rattrap had no idea how Dinobot knew where he was going, but he did. Soon, he pulled back a section of branches to reveal a very well-hidden contraption.
"Is that?... Holy Matrix it is!" Rattrap's bucktoothed mouth burst into a wide grin. "It's an energon still! I haven't heard of those being around since the Autobot Decepticon days!"
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"Stay" 00:03:02 -Lisa Loeb
Both their tech specs were returning to normal functioning levels. Their bodies cooling back down from another intense interface. These stolen moments had become more and more frequent, to the point of being a nearly nightly ritual. Yet, they always ended with the same parting of one sneakily slinking back to their quarters. It got harder and harder for both to leave. They'd stay longer and longer. Learning to actual talk to, rather than argue with, each other. Of course they still insulted and bickered, and yet they'd also learned to laugh... genuinely laugh, wholeheartedly and unabashedly, with one another... so why the pretense of separate sleeping.
As Rattrap was getting up to leave, the sun already rising in the small window, Dinobot reached out a clawed hand to pull his back. One word was all he said. "Stay."
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"That's All" 00:04:26 -Genesis
It was a shame that Rattrap had been born as a Maximal, Dinobot thought to himself. The Maximal had many traits that lent themselves well to the Predacon lifestyle- stealthy, snarky, unafraid to get his hands dirty and unwilling to kowtow mindlessly to authority. He did not share the sickeningly noble mindset of most Maximals. For all the small bot's words against Predacons, out of the all the Maximals in Optimus's crew, he most closely fit the bill. When Rattrap had, in a scheme unbeknownst to Dinobot, joined the Preds temporarily, it had actually stirred something deep inside the raptor.
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"You Belong With Me" 00:03:52 -Taylor Swift
Dinobot knew he shouldn't be jealous. He'd been dead and gone a very long time before Rattrap had moved on to the botanical-femmebot. Rattrap had no way of knowing that one day, thanks to the reformatting of Cybertron, they'd one day be reunited in corporeal form... and yet, it still hurt that he had moved on. And moved on from what, exactly? Sure they'd interfaced now-and-again, they'd been good friends (no matter how it pained either to admit it) but they hadn't been spark-bonded. They had not defined the thing, the chemistry, the attraction between them. Had not made any commitments, no promises... So why, when he saw the reformatted-rat snuggle up to her, could he not help but think the rat belonged with him?
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? (I forgot to jot down the song title, and for the life of me I can't remember what I was listening to when I wrote it!)
Born a killer. Nothingness and then life. Sudden and immediate life. Life with half a borrowed spark and a programming of violent, yet loyal protocol... He didn't have any memories and didn't need them. He didn't need free will, free thought, freedom. He did as Megatron said, for it was Megatron who had created him. Megatron said kill, he would reply "how many?" There was no questioning...
When the Maximal had tried to infiltrate his circuitry. To implant some unfamiliar datatracks, some other bot's life... It was incredibly surreal. He felt as though he were waking from a dream, waking up to some unfamiliar reality. He'd almost become someone else. Someone with thoughts, emotions, experiences... fortunately, Megatron had fixed all of that once again.
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