The Diego Diaries: Pubbing (dd8 360)

=0=The City

It was cold outside where folks wandered in the aftermath of a work week and the start of the basketball season. Many were the youths out looking for a hook up and many were the couples out for dinner, a drink and dancing. Cut to the Club Cybertron …

Ratchet did the usual hop and bop that made Cybertronian dancing such a pastime for the humans on world to watch. There was an unspoken agreement between both sides that posting videos on human social media of it was forbidden. Given how uninhibited and joyous bot dancing was, the possibilities for ridicule by the humans who weren't used to the Way Things Were™ among the mechs and femmes was overwhelmingly high.

Sitting in a booth knocking them back, Miler and Prowl also had an unspoken pact. The race was on to see who got slag faced first. Joon and Laslo were joining them as well.

Bron-E watched her ada sipping a drink as he and Madura chatted up the amusing notion of all the 'nice girls' walking along the slippery edge of the road to hell. "I suppose we're the designated drivers, Ravel."

Ravie who was sober as a judge grinned at Bron-E. "I'm not fond of purging my tanks in an alleyway."

Docker snickered, then waved down a waiter. "I am," she said as she ordered more for herself and Ratchet who was staggering back to the table with a giant smile on his face.

Heads turned as bots noticed. He passed them by, then slid into the booth.

"How was the dancing, Sonny?" Docker asked as she set glasses down beside him and herself.

"I was fire," Ratchet said as he slagged back the beer before him. He felt fabulous and even drunk as a brewmeister he was that good of a dancer. He and Ironhide were legendary for their dancing skills together. Fortunately for tonight, going out on the dance floor by yourself was proper Cybertronian etiquette.

Snickers rounded the table.

"Where do we go next?" Joon asked as she grinned at all fifty-five of the dozen mechs sitting around the table. She was so sloshed on her two beers thus far that she didn't even see Bron-E and Docker as femmes. They were just blurs.

"Food," Prowl slurred slightly. "We have to try to pace ourselves here. Food will help with the high grade."

"You drinking high grade? That looks like beer," Ratchet said as he squinted at Prowl's glass.

"I dropped a shot into the beer," Prowl said, then he laughed for a second. It was the kind of laugh a drunk has when something seemed minutely funny, high pitched, slightly hysterical and short.

"I'm proud of you, Prowler," Ratchet said as he drained his glass. "You're almost bearable now."

Huge laughter greeted that as Prowl smirked at Ratchet who smiled back with a dazzler.

"How about we go to the park and get some food from the trucks there?" Docker asked with a smile. She rose, then sat almost immediately given she was sitting somewhere in the middle of the booth. "Oops." Then she cackled, too.

Everyone slid out, Docker included, then weaved their way out into the night.

The City was bright with lights from towers, store fronts, headlights of traffic which honked and buzzed by and the lights of traffic signals. It was cheerful, filled with pedestrians and the restaurants and bars were jumping. They ambled onward toward the kiddy park where the food trucks parked. Lines were winding down between rushes so they joined the one they wanted. Gathering their choices and more beer, they weaved to a table nearby and sat.

"This is good," Docker said as she daintily ate her hot dog.

Prowl on the other hand had gotten one with everything on it. It was giving him a bit of a handful. Literally. The dog slipped out and with Miler's rather unsteady help it was placed back in its bread coffin to be stowed in the mausoleum of Prowler's tanks.

As they sucked down food and beer, police sirens could be heard here and there.

"I think those mini-cons are looking for revenge," Ratchet said with a chuckle. "Slagging mini-cons."

"I'm a mini-con," Docker said.

"I'm a high end one though no one would admit it," Miler said. "I think that was a problem for my genitors."

"Frag your genitors," Prowl said as he downed his beer, good old number four.

"Yeah," Ratchet said as he suddenly stood up. "FRAG HIS GENITORS!" he yelled to no one in particular before sitting again to stuff the calzone he got into his face.

Prowl and the others stared at him a moment, then Prowl misted up. "Thanks, Ratchet."

Ratchet glanced at him. "No problemo, Prowler."

Alie, Delphi, Turbine and Scout grinned. "You two are drunk already."

"You're lagging behind. How about it, PRAXUS SCIENCE!? Tie one on with the rest of us," Ratchet said with a grin. "You know you wanna."

"I think he blasphemed our team," Delphi said to the others. "I think that calls for beer."

"I'll take a beer but Iacon was always my team," Scout said with a chuckle. "Does that mean I have to stay sober?"

"You can get drunk if you promise not to sing in public and make a spectacle of yourselves again," Prowl said. "I think I've taken all the reports of you doing that that I can handle for now."

"I remember that," Miler said. "You were just messed up, Scout. Right, Ratchet?"

Ratchet grinned at Miler who looked terribly, terribly cute to him at the moment. "That's right. The technical term for their form of decompression is bat shit crazy."

Huge laughter, a beer run to the beer truck and everyone was hard at it again.

=0=In an apartment at a big hotel in Central Labor Hall

They entered, parked kids in the designated play room, then got them food. After the kids ate, they were left to goof off. The big kids were at Ammas and Appa's house to play poker with their extended family and to do a stag party for Titan. Sunspot went home with Bos and the little bits were busy having fun in the designated room which was filled with toys and Legos.

"Looks like good eats here, Ironhide," Raptor said as he piled a plate to the ceiling with grub.

"Thanks," Ironhide said as he did the same. "I did it myself."

"No you didn't." -everyone there

Ironhide frowned, then quashed it. All his elders LOVED his 'little faces'.

Everyone sat on couches, chairs and leaned against the walls.

"I wonder how Drift and Springer are doing?" Sunstreaker asked.

"There's a few dozen drunk and pissed off mini-con mechs marauding the town," Sideswipe said as he dialed down his internal police band monitor. "They've broken into about five groups and are making their way around with malice aforethought, or so the radio said."

"I have to get a police monitor installed," Hard Drive said with a chuckle. "Watching those two get buried alive was hysterical. I wonder how those tiny little elders are doing in jail?"

=0=The paddy wagon at the Jailhouse entrance, Cultural Center Road, The City

They came down the steps with canes and attitude. Little antique mechs were guided from the path of suicide by cop toward the door even as they ladled their own rather extensive list of cuss words at the transport mechs. Two vans were needed to take them to the slammer. One for them and one for their adult kids who 'wanted a word with you FRAGGERS' when their parents were being tossed into the van for transport to jail. Their grandchildren were currently tearing up the colony, something none of them seemed to sorry to hear about.

"YOU SLAGGERS! I SERVED IN THE WAR AGAINST THE FUNCTIONALISTS! I SHOWED THEM! I'LL SHOW YOU, TOO!"

"Keep walking D-3. I'll take care of them," a tiny antique femme said. She glanced way up at a slightly grinning transport cop and shook her fabulously hennaed servo at his general direction. "YOU'D BE SORRY, TOO! MY OLD MECH IS A HERO!"

They entered together while their kids were being unloaded from their van.

"YOU FRAGGERS! I'M GOING TO *FUCK* YOU UP! I CAN CUSS IN TEN LANGUAGES AND I CAN KICK YOUR SHINS IN ONE!"

It was at that moment that Mar-VN did just that.

=0=Moments later …

Handy the Watch jail transport officer limped to the intake desk herding a passel of old folks and irate youngers including one cuffed up the wazoo and strung over his shoulder. "HERE'S THE NEW SLAGGERS! DON'T LET THEIR AGE FOOL YOU!"

Moos who was on the desk this evening stared at him a moment, then nodded slightly. "Okay."

HUGE laughter erupted by everyone except Handy. He 'accidentally' dropped the little slagger who kicked him on his helm onto the floor.

D-3's little femme, Tootie glared upward at Handy. "YOU DROPPED MY SON ON PURPOSE!"

"Sure," Handy said sourly just before Tootie proved she could kick really, really, really hard, too.

=0=Still more moments later ...

The hoo-haw had died down as the younger slaggers were tossed into a holding cell so the elders could be processed and caged inside the big lock up a doorway away. The elders were lined up on the line in front of Moos's desk. Seven of them with a younger looking extra made eight.

"Names, etc," Moos said.

The cantankerous mech, D-3 scowled. "D-3 OF VILLAGE 8A! YOU MIGHT OF HEARD OF ME!"

Moos typed it in. "No. Occupation."

"RETIRED FROM A LIFETIME OF HARD SLAG AND NO THANKS EVEN FROM YOU, SCREW!"

Everyone glanced up to stare at D-3. "Screw?" -everyone there including their kids in the holding cells.

D-3 smirked. "You don't know what that means, copper? What kind of fragger are you?"

A pause to scan the internet resulted in clarity.

"I'm the officer who intakes. I'm not a guard," Moos said, then glanced at Handy. "He's a screw."

He certainly was because everyone of the eight little slaggers turned around and kicked Handy in the shins.

=0=On the way to another bar …

They swayed on the Metro which was hopping. Vos who managed to post hole Polyhex 40-5 was being celebrated by a crammed train filled with Seekers heading for Terra and a 'house party at Moe-Lee's house', whoever Moe-Lee was. It was daunting to stand in the midst of such tall and powerful slaggers. They were happy as frag as they passed a bottle around, something that was mucho against the law on the Metros.

No one cared.

That is, no one would until they got off the train and an attendant saw them. Then they would care.

But our squad would be on their way landing at the wrong town, oblivious to the fight that would break out on the platform when they were staggering to stay on an escalator carrying them up to the next level of the train in the system that had just been signed off for general usage again.

That one.

But we're meandering in the story. We will bookmark the Seekers and Metro fight as well as the sixty-six little fraggers running around with a jones for destruction while we check in at the jail ...

"I DON'T INTEND TO TELL YOU! I DON'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS DISCRIMINATION!"

Moos stood up to stare down at a tiny femme with a tricked out bedazzled cane who was giving him slag like no one else. "Amma, you just have to tell me what your name is."

"FRAG YOU, SONNY! I DON'T HAVE A NAME!"

Everyone paused their milling around to stare at the tiny femme. "What?" -everyone there including some of the adult kids fuming in their cages.

"What's your designation, Amma?" Moos asked again.

"NO NAME!"

"But what's your name, Amma? I have to have a name. You have to have a name."

"NO NAME!"

It would go on like that for a while. Then the sordid story would come out. When she was born she was called Noname … Nona May to say it phonetically. Given that it was spelled Noname, she theoretically never had a name because everything addressed to her was listed as No Name.

True story.

=0=TBC 02-05-2022

Actually, that is a true story. A friend of mine had a sister named Noname, or Nona-May. Given the spelling, no one ever got it right and when she got mail it was listed as No Name Burlingame.

True story.