Title: Poetry Lesson (with most sincere apologies to Dickenson.)
Author: akisawana
Genre: Beast Wars, Dinobot+Rattrap pre-slash
Disclaimer: Do you see a half-bird, half-whatever-the-heck Silverbolt is flying around in the background? No. If it was mine, I totally would have inflicted Silverbolt on Dinobot.
Warnings: Zilch.
Notes: Alternate title: "Five Minutes in Dinobot's Head." Again, my most sincere apologies to Dickenson.

"Heya, Choppa-face." Dinobot looked around –he hadn't realized Rattrap was approaching behind him until the rat had spoken. Anyone else, and he would have died of embarrassment to be caught unawares. Anyone else, out of the sentient life-forms on the planet, and he had a pretty good chance of dying, period, if caught unawares.

Point to the spy, he acknowledged with a nod. Sneaking around was Rattrap's field of expertise, after all, and unlike some others, he wasn't about to put a bullet in the back of Dinobot's head.

Not that Rattrap was shy about that. He just liked Dinobot. And Dinobot…did not eat Rattrap.

"What do you want, rodent?" The Maximals almost never called each other by designation; it seemed to be a sign of…something positive…to call another by the wrong name –and have that name answered to.

"Our Fearless Leader had us –me an' Rhinox- put together a packet – what with everyone being confused coming out of the stasis pods and all. Sorta a "Welcome to Organa-World" thing, with a dash of "and by the way, you are a highly advanced piece of technology that comes from another planet." Rattrap grinned smugly. "That last part was my idea. Seems the longer a 'bot's in a pod, the more screwed their head gets. One o' these days, we're gonna get someone come out in beast mode and not know it's beast mode. Kinda like Tigatron, only…not."

The use of a proper designation, did Rattrap not like Tigatron? Dinobot didn't much care for the tiger himself; Tigatron romanticized nature while conveniently ignoring anything he didn't like. If Tigatron truly lived by the laws of nature, instead of holding himself above them…but such lies, such self-deception, Dinobot simply could not respect.

"The point, vermin? Or did the rhino simply grow tired of your…aroma?" Such insults would be answered with weapons among the Predacons, but Dinobot was learning –slowly- that Rattrap's odor was "fair game." Primal's current level of Wanting To Strangle Rattrap, in fact, could be measured by how many times he referenced it in a day; if he hadn't mentioned it at least five times by the end of the first shift, Rattrap would quietly disappear. And if Primal didn't mention it at all, Rattrap usually came back with some intelligence obtained at high-risk.

Not that Primal knew. Rattrap was a 'bot of many talents, self-repair being one of them. Dinobot himself had been recruited to help the rat more than once; he even volunteered, on the occasions when he had contributed to the leader's displeasure.

Dinobot's musings were interrupted by Rattrap actually getting to the point. "An' I came across something that I thought you'd dig."

Dinobot waited.

Dinobot waited patiently.

Dinobot waited very patiently.

Dinobot continued to wait very patiently, and reminded himself that eating Rattrap would probably make him vomit, and then he'd have to explain what happened to the rat, and then Cheetor would make that face of his with the big eyes, and Rhinox would probably punch him, and it would just really be more aggravation.

And he'd never get to find out what it was that Rattrap thought he would like.

"It's, okay, it's a poem. An' I don't really get it. But it just sounds like you."

"A poem?"

Rattrap puffed himself up. "Yeah, y'know, a poem. Roses are red, violets are blue, all your base are belong to us, that kinda thing."

"I know what a poem is, rat," Dinobot snapped. "Better than you, if that's what you call poetry." Rattrap shrugged apologetically. "I'm just wondering what you could have found in such a search that could possibly remind you of me."

Rattrap transformed, and put his hands behind his back, and recited:

"I like a look of agony,
'Cause I know it's true
Men do not sham convulsions,
Or simulate a throe
Th'eyes glaze once and that's death
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung."

He went back to beastmode as soon as he had finished, and didn't quite look Dinobot in the eye.

Just as well; Dinobot may have been looking at Rattrap, but he wasn't seeing him. The warrior's focus was turned inwards, rolling the lines of the poem through his mind and savoring the truth of them, the simple explanation of something he had never really been able to justify, not even to himself.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

AND THEN THEY MADE MAD SCREAMING ANIMAL LOVE. OR SOMETHING.

Yes, I know Rattrap ran that poem through a cheese grater. It's Rattrap. What did you expect?

Also, any world in which Dinobot calls Rattrap cheese-breath has Dickenson somewhere, as well as "all your base are belong to us."