Fanfic -- Adolescence
Jul. 26th, 2007 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dunmurderinTitle: Adolescence
Originally Posted: September 14, 2006
Author: Dunmurderin
Character/Pairing: Tailgate/Pipes
Word count: 799 (approximately)
Rating/Warning: PG; slashy references -- very mild. Shameless ganking of Romantic Poetry for Fannish Purposes.
Disclaimer/Author's Note: I do not own Transformers; story takes place on Cybertron roughly 1 million years ago, shortly after "Infancy" and "Childhood" -- probably within about the first one to two hundred years' of Tailgate's creation.
The quoted poem here wasn't actually written by Scansion or me. It's a quote that was provided by beckyh2112 as a prompt for this piece and that I shamelessly filed the serial numbers from and credited to my made-up Cybertronian poet. I blame parallel evolution -- if it was good enough for Gene Roddenberry, it's good enough for me!
In actuality, the lines were originally written in 1821 by Percy Bysshe Shelley (husband of Mary Shelly, author of "Frankenstein") and is part of a larger work called "Epipsychidion". The quoted section appears near the bottom of the poem.
This story was written to give Tailgate a lighter moment than he's had up until now, poor little crazy guy.
Group/Theme: 7 Ages of Man
Adolescence
"'I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire'," Tailgate said, sinking to the ground with a dramatic flick of his hand to his forehead.
"Huh?" Pipes's voice echoed slightly in the tunnel. "What're you talkin' about, 'Gate?"
"It's a poem," Tailgate said, optics brightening with amusement. "By Scansion. It's from the Golden Age. "'Woe is me! The winged words on which my soul would pierce Into the heights of love's rare universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire-- I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire.'"
Pipes stared at his fellow Minibot. "Who told you that?"
"I don't know." Tailgate shrugged his shoulders as he turned to pull an emergency resupply crate from where it had been concealed inside a ventilation shaft. "Maybe Kup said it or something."
"Kup doesn't talk like that." Pipes walked over and hunkered down next to Tailgate as he levered the crate open. His fuel gauge jumped happily at the sight of the energon flasks inside. "Hot Rod did once, but Arcee laughed at him until he quit."
Tailgate snickered and handed Pipes an energon flask. "I remember," he said. "He sulked around about it until Springer dragged him off to go drone-hunting."
Pipes poured part of his flask into his fuel tank, optics dimming as his fuel gauge registered the intake. "Don't think that's what they were doing," he said, cautiously. "I mean, that's what they said they were doing but, uhm, they were doing something else."
Tailgate knocked Pipes in the arm. "I knew that!" he said, scoffing. "They were off snogging."
"Huh? How d'you know that?" Pipes asked, more curious than anything.
"I'm a scout, Pipes. It's my job to be able to find stuff out!" Tailgate said, mock-indignantly. "Besides, they were doing it near the Tower of Pion, I saw them when I was on the way back from visiting my friends."
"Oh," Pipes said. "They get mad?"
"About what? They didn't see me." Tailgate sounded smug, then giggled. "They were too busy with each other."
"That's not good," Pipes said, engine rumbling. "They coulda got caught -- I mean, y'know, by Shockwave or something."
Tailgate sighed. "Pipes, you worry too much," he said, reaching over to pat the side of Pipes's head. "They're okay now so it doesn't matter if they weren't being okay then, does it?"
"Guess not." Pipes looked pensively down at his energon flask. "But, I mean…why were they doing it?"
"Because it feels good, I guess," Tailgate said. "I asked Magnus about it once and he got really quiet and told me to go talk to Kup. And Kup just said that sometimes people do it because it's necessary for their mental health."
"Huh?" Pipes said. "Why?"
Tailgate sighed again. "Pipes, people can't always be worried about stuff," he said, his voice taking on an instructing tone. "Sometimes, they have to have a release -- whether that's a fight or an argument or a good, hard snog up against a wall. The snog is probably the best way though, since it's pleasure instead of anger or unhappiness, y'know?"
"Uhm…no," Pipes said. "Never done it before."
"Right, but you've heard the others sometimes when they're resting up, right?" Tailgate gave Pipes a look. "I mean, you know those privacy screens Arcee made aren't just for decoration, right?"
Pipes shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah," he said, more defensively than he'd meant to. "I've heard 'em, I just y'know…"
"Didn't know what it meant?" Tailgate teased. "It's okay! I didn't know when I first came online either. I don't think anybody does, except maybe Kup, but he knows everything anyway."
Pipes reached into the resupply crate, pulling out another flask. "You ever done it?" he asked.
"No. I think the others don't want to because I'm weird." Tailgate said it as a matter of fact. "Or because I'm short. Maybe both. I think it might be something that you both have to be the same size to do."
Pipes waited until he had the entire second flask poured into his fuel tank before replying. "We're the same size. I mean, y'know, mostly."
Tailgate's optics brightened as if this fact had never occurred to him before. "You're right! You want to?"
Pipes glanced around the tunnel. "You think this place is secure enough?" he asked.
"Sure," Tailgate said. "Shockwave's drones are too big to come down those tunnels and even if they send an autoscout after us, the motion detectors are set low enough to catch them before they catch us."
"Okay," Pipes said. "Uhm…d'you know how t'do it?"
Tailgate shrugged. "Not a clue, but we can figure that out as we go, right?" He reached out for Pipes, running a hand over the other Minibot's faceplate. "I'm a scout, half the fun's in finding the right way."
Originally Posted: September 14, 2006
Author: Dunmurderin
Character/Pairing: Tailgate/Pipes
Word count: 799 (approximately)
Rating/Warning: PG; slashy references -- very mild. Shameless ganking of Romantic Poetry for Fannish Purposes.
Disclaimer/Author's Note: I do not own Transformers; story takes place on Cybertron roughly 1 million years ago, shortly after "Infancy" and "Childhood" -- probably within about the first one to two hundred years' of Tailgate's creation.
The quoted poem here wasn't actually written by Scansion or me. It's a quote that was provided by beckyh2112 as a prompt for this piece and that I shamelessly filed the serial numbers from and credited to my made-up Cybertronian poet. I blame parallel evolution -- if it was good enough for Gene Roddenberry, it's good enough for me!
In actuality, the lines were originally written in 1821 by Percy Bysshe Shelley (husband of Mary Shelly, author of "Frankenstein") and is part of a larger work called "Epipsychidion". The quoted section appears near the bottom of the poem.
This story was written to give Tailgate a lighter moment than he's had up until now, poor little crazy guy.
Group/Theme: 7 Ages of Man
"'I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire'," Tailgate said, sinking to the ground with a dramatic flick of his hand to his forehead.
"Huh?" Pipes's voice echoed slightly in the tunnel. "What're you talkin' about, 'Gate?"
"It's a poem," Tailgate said, optics brightening with amusement. "By Scansion. It's from the Golden Age. "'Woe is me! The winged words on which my soul would pierce Into the heights of love's rare universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire-- I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire.'"
Pipes stared at his fellow Minibot. "Who told you that?"
"I don't know." Tailgate shrugged his shoulders as he turned to pull an emergency resupply crate from where it had been concealed inside a ventilation shaft. "Maybe Kup said it or something."
"Kup doesn't talk like that." Pipes walked over and hunkered down next to Tailgate as he levered the crate open. His fuel gauge jumped happily at the sight of the energon flasks inside. "Hot Rod did once, but Arcee laughed at him until he quit."
Tailgate snickered and handed Pipes an energon flask. "I remember," he said. "He sulked around about it until Springer dragged him off to go drone-hunting."
Pipes poured part of his flask into his fuel tank, optics dimming as his fuel gauge registered the intake. "Don't think that's what they were doing," he said, cautiously. "I mean, that's what they said they were doing but, uhm, they were doing something else."
Tailgate knocked Pipes in the arm. "I knew that!" he said, scoffing. "They were off snogging."
"Huh? How d'you know that?" Pipes asked, more curious than anything.
"I'm a scout, Pipes. It's my job to be able to find stuff out!" Tailgate said, mock-indignantly. "Besides, they were doing it near the Tower of Pion, I saw them when I was on the way back from visiting my friends."
"Oh," Pipes said. "They get mad?"
"About what? They didn't see me." Tailgate sounded smug, then giggled. "They were too busy with each other."
"That's not good," Pipes said, engine rumbling. "They coulda got caught -- I mean, y'know, by Shockwave or something."
Tailgate sighed. "Pipes, you worry too much," he said, reaching over to pat the side of Pipes's head. "They're okay now so it doesn't matter if they weren't being okay then, does it?"
"Guess not." Pipes looked pensively down at his energon flask. "But, I mean…why were they doing it?"
"Because it feels good, I guess," Tailgate said. "I asked Magnus about it once and he got really quiet and told me to go talk to Kup. And Kup just said that sometimes people do it because it's necessary for their mental health."
"Huh?" Pipes said. "Why?"
Tailgate sighed again. "Pipes, people can't always be worried about stuff," he said, his voice taking on an instructing tone. "Sometimes, they have to have a release -- whether that's a fight or an argument or a good, hard snog up against a wall. The snog is probably the best way though, since it's pleasure instead of anger or unhappiness, y'know?"
"Uhm…no," Pipes said. "Never done it before."
"Right, but you've heard the others sometimes when they're resting up, right?" Tailgate gave Pipes a look. "I mean, you know those privacy screens Arcee made aren't just for decoration, right?"
Pipes shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah," he said, more defensively than he'd meant to. "I've heard 'em, I just y'know…"
"Didn't know what it meant?" Tailgate teased. "It's okay! I didn't know when I first came online either. I don't think anybody does, except maybe Kup, but he knows everything anyway."
Pipes reached into the resupply crate, pulling out another flask. "You ever done it?" he asked.
"No. I think the others don't want to because I'm weird." Tailgate said it as a matter of fact. "Or because I'm short. Maybe both. I think it might be something that you both have to be the same size to do."
Pipes waited until he had the entire second flask poured into his fuel tank before replying. "We're the same size. I mean, y'know, mostly."
Tailgate's optics brightened as if this fact had never occurred to him before. "You're right! You want to?"
Pipes glanced around the tunnel. "You think this place is secure enough?" he asked.
"Sure," Tailgate said. "Shockwave's drones are too big to come down those tunnels and even if they send an autoscout after us, the motion detectors are set low enough to catch them before they catch us."
"Okay," Pipes said. "Uhm…d'you know how t'do it?"
Tailgate shrugged. "Not a clue, but we can figure that out as we go, right?" He reached out for Pipes, running a hand over the other Minibot's faceplate. "I'm a scout, half the fun's in finding the right way."
