Author's Note: Thank you all very much for being so patient with me and for all the kind comments. I know it's been about a year since I last updated this. I was going through an odd time which I don't care to elaborate on and I'm sure that none of you care to hear about, so the real news is that I'm back into writing, back into this story and will most definitely be continuing it. The slash is not dead! I promise!

I have a hard time maintaining balance between the plot (which is really not important to the story at all, it's only a means to get my boys together), all of the cast, and the budding slash. The story, as a whole, is supposed to be about 2/3rds Rattrap and Dinobot and a 3rd other stuff and other characters. Please let me know at any point of the story starts to become too unbalanced either way for you!... Also, I require myself to write at least 2,000 words per chapter that I do, so if I'm slow that is why!

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Fingers that had been curled around his smug chin moved to cover his grin, attempting to stifle laughter before any of his minions could hear. Idiots, he thought as he watched the monitor with amused boredom.

The whoosh of mechanical limbs approached his makeshift throne, alerting him to the ant's presence. "Your majesty," the wonderfully loyal psychobot began, "what is it that troubles you so? Say the word and they shall burn for eternity."

"Troubles me?" Megatron questioned, the laugh that had been trying to escape for the past half hour finally receded, conceding defeat for the moment. "Dear Inferno, what makes you think that something is troubling me?"

"Oh your fortitude is inspiring, my queen! Yet I saw you but a moment ago, and you were displeased. First covering your optics and shaking your head. If something is so awful that you, royalty, are too disgusted to watch, then lowly I cannot even imagine how awful it must be. I--"

The rubber waterfowl that collided with the dense drone's head effectively shut him up. "Fools. . . I am surrounded by them. . ." Megatron sighed to himself, lacking the energy to chastise Inferno further.

"Inferno, I will let you in on a little secret. Come here."

In what could almost be called shy reluctance, Inferno approached Megatron's seat cautiously. When he came to stand at the tyrannosaurus' side, the purple bot gestured to the video playing out on screen via one of the spy cameras that was mounted upon one of Megatron's many jamming stations. There, in all of its pixilated glory, were the nails in two traitors' coffins-- footage of Waspinator and Terrosaur at their newly found alien artifact.

"What are those drones doing?"

"It does not matter what they are doing, just what they think they're doing."

"That does not compute, your majesty."

Megatron sighed heavily before continuing. "Never mind. They are staying occupied and out of my way, that's all that matters."

Sadness passed over the red and silver bot's odd features. "Royalty, please never consider me burden enough to send me away on busy work. I want to do important tasks for you, to help the colony!"

"Of course not Inferno," he replied reassuringly. "Of course not. Now, the walls of the Darkside have become rather dull, I want the ship polished top to bottom. I want to be able to see my face shining in it by morning."

At the new orders, Inferno lit up with glee. "As you wish my queen," (1) he said prostrating himself before the Predacon leader. "I will not disappoint you." With that, Inferno hurried off to get started on his crucial quest.

As the fire ant made his determined way down the hall to find the custodial compartment upon the ship, he was stopped by the nervous clicking of claws. "Hey, where are you going ant? Did Megatron have any orders?"

Inferno curtly replied, "The royalty wishes the colony to shine with a radiance that befits such excellence."

Slowly the information moved through Scorpinok's processor. "So. . . He made you a maintenance bot?. . . .No wait, a maintenant bot!" Heartily the scorpion bot laughed at his own word play.

In turn, Inferno scowled. "The royalty needs soldiers, not jesters." With that, he turned and continued upon his way; no one would stand between him and the completion of his mission.

Pinchers clacked and chattered a moment before the dim bot called after the ant, "hey wait up!" Hmph, he thought to himself, I'll have the Darkside looking ten times cleaner than Inferno will, that will show Megatron who is truly the most loyal.

When the Predecon elders were distributing processors, not all bots were given equal gigs. Megatron's loyal followers had about a floppy disk between them.

oOoOoOoOo

It was not only the Predacon leader who was appreciating the silence of a less filled base, Optimus delighted in having a pair of his soldiers out of his hard drive for a while as well.

Finally, he could read, write reports, study the still unknown planet they were on, try to find out more information on the aliens that seemed to have seeded said planet. . . The possibilities of uninterrupted activities available to him were endless! And yet. . .

Letting out a sigh, he laid the e-book upon his gorilla chest, giving up on reading for the time being. He was concerned for his teammates, in more than one respect. Trying not to think about the dysfunctional pair only kept them closer to his mind. Was it wrong of him to force them out on such an odd mission together? What if all of his hunches had been wrong and they truly did despise one another? If that were so then the mission was even doubly cruel.

Besides, regardless of how the two felt, what would one day change? They'd been able to keep their bickering up for nearly a stellar cycle now. It was foolish of him to assume that a little time alone would do anything. Isn't this just prime?. . .

Thoughts temporarily abandoned him, as saw the yellow spotted cat approaching in his peripheral vision. "Yes Cheetor?" He asked.

"Eh, nothing Big Bot, I'm just bored." Plopping down on his haunches, Cheetor sat by the captain's chair, hoping for an assignment or some form of entertainment. "Rattface and Dinobreath get to have all the fun today."

Optimus chuckled, "I really don't think that they're having much fun."

"I-I don't get it! What is up with those two? Always fighting, they're not that different."

No, they're really more alike than either would ever admit, they'd probably be thoroughly disgusted if it ever even occurred to them. "I don't have the answers to everything Cheetor."

"You don't?" Something small in the adolescent's voice sounded genuinely surprised.

Glancing down at the younger bot, it occurred to Optimus for the first time that the newer generation of Maximals, as human-culture influenced as they often tended to be, might have adopted the ethical aversion to same sex pairings.

Transformers were a race of beings that required no sexual reproduction and therefore had no argument for it being unnatural. Male bots had always outnumbered femmes. Moreover, if memory served him, the Maximal leader recalled hearing of a time when there were no female Transformers at all. So it had never made sense to Optimus why the gender traits of two bots should matter in the first place. All the wiring for certain activities was the same either way.

"Ya know. . ." Cheetor sighed. "I used to think it was funny how they were grinding each other's gears all the time, but. . . It doesn't seem the same anymore."

Optimus did recall that Cheetor, on one occasion, had said that's he wouldn't want the pair any other way. Everyone got sick of the tension, he guessed, even the easily amused adolescent bot. The pair had made the Axalon, as he'd heard it put before, a hostile work environment.

"Why don't they just get it over with and interface already?!" (2)

Optimus' processor nearly fell victim to the blue screen of death hearing such words come from his protégé. "Cheetor!"

oOoOoOoOo

The sun was beginning its slow decent in the sky, a typically pretty event but all the naturally beauty in the world could be damned as far as Dinobot was concerned. As it was, the accursed flaming ball was at precisely the right angle in relation to the earth to send a laser like glare, just at level with his raptor eyes. Initially, he had fought the glare, refusing to surrender, then slowly he caved in by squinting, ever so slightly at first, then increasingly. The sun proved a far more resilient competitor than the bot had hoped and eventually he conceded defeat and turned his gaze to the ground.

Normally Dinobot did not pick petty fights with stars, ones with a set orbiting planets or otherwise, and normally having to look down while walking was not too far an inconvenience either. Yet this day was not normal, for normally there was no rat astride beside him. Looking down to his right for too long made him dizzy, for one reason or another, and thus he was forced to stare down to the left, directly at Rattrap, the entire time. The very last bot that he cared to be staring at, if he lied to himself.

For his part, Rattrap was below the glare, and in the shadow of the taller Maximal so his optics were having no problems functioning. However, looking to his right made Rattrap uncomfortable as well, for an entirely different reason. He'd glance up periodically and find the raptor as he had left him, staring at him, silhouetted in bright sunlight that created a ridiculous haloing effect. To find anything at all about the ex-Predacon even remotely angelic was surely an act of sacrilege against Primus himself.

Having to concentrate so much on where to look and who was looking at him made focusing on the terrain a far more difficult task than it should have been. This was getting ridiculous, he'd been putting up with Dinobot's gaze boring holes into his hide for the past half a cycle. Finally, Rattrap had had enough.

"Take a screenshot, it'll last longer!" He spat, glaring directly up at Dinobot.

Dinobot's snapped explanation was far less defensive and drawn out than the type of reply that Rattrap had been expecting. "It was either go blind by the infernal sun or by looking at your grotesque form, and I chose the faster route, Rodent," he snarled lowly.

Glancing upwards Rattrap did take notice of the fact that the setting sun did cast a slice of blinding yellow sky across the horizon.

He felt a faint wave of what someone more innocent might have labeled at sheepishness as he muttered, "oh."

Studying the road up ahead, a dirt walkway that wrapped around a rocky mountainside, he noticed a small, shaded alcove in the cliff's side. As it was fast approaching, the rat glanced back up at Dinobot, who was once again back in the ring, going at round two with the glare and obviously weakening if his tight squint was any indication.

With a small nod to himself, Rattrap steeled his resolve and as they came to the niche, he stepped into its shaded shelter and plopped his fuzzy behind down. "Eh, I need a break."

He knew his plan would meet resistance, he more than expected it and he was determined not to be deterred by any of Dinobot's whining about moving forward or the dishonor in sloth. This was for his own good.

Dinobot stood awkwardly for a moment, glancing around himself, appearing to be a little lost. The little Maximal on his shoulder told him to listen to the rat, to rest for a while and not submit himself to such torture as walking into the sun. On the other shoulder, the little Predacon told him to move his sorry skid plate, to leave any weakness behind and continue on, regardless of Optimus' orders to stay with the rat and his own optic's ache which bid him to stay.

The two sides of himself had been fighting far more often with one another, and Dinobot was getting rather tired of it. The Maximal side said to set aside the differences he had with the rat, to admit his feelings, be friends, and to skip through a field of bunnies or whatever it was that Maximals did when their circuitry caught the incurable virus most often diagnosed as love.

His Predacon half told him to kill the rat, to slowly torture him in retaliation for inflicting the myriad of terrible, consuming emotions that he had never wanted to feel for anyone much less the pushy rodent. But it was also his Predacon half from which the aching lust stemmed.

Friendship, peace, love, hatred, violence, lust. The whole created by the halves wondered why he couldn't have all of those things… except perhaps the damned skipping rabbits, Rattrap was rodent enough for Dinobot.

"Just sit already, will ya Bronto-brain?"

Extracted from his daze, the raptor made sure to snarl at the rat before awkwardly lowering himself to the ground. The velociraptor, he concluded, was not anatomically designed for the action of sitting. As his skid plate made contact with the earth, Dinobot realized that standing would be far more problematic than the initial sitting had been. In the meantime, however, he would enjoy the rest, and the clear view of the blazing orange and coral sky.

Looking over at the relieved raptor, Rattrap smiled to himself. Once and a while doing a good thing wasn't so bad, so long as he made sure not to make a habit out of it. Being nice to the raptor had the possibility of becoming addictive and that would most definitely be harmful to his health.

Flexing his sore pink toes, he sighed. Muscles were a new thing, one that took a lot of getting used too. Transformers definitely felt physical pain, Rattrap knew that all too well, but the ache of a foot was far worse than that of a blown tire somehow. "Man, I miss having wheels," he muttered to himself. "Never in a million years would I expect my alternate mode to be a stinkin' animal."

"And such a stinking one it is."

"Ey!" He was prepared to protest further, but out of the corner of his eye, Rattrap noticed the slightest of upward inclinations to the overgrown lizard's mouth. This was one of those rare occasions when the jesting was definitely in a joking manner.

"There are certainly more retched forms to have, Rodent," Dinobot continued, "though I am at a loss as to what they are. Your form at least regulates its own internal thermostat."

"I guess," Rattrap shrugged, not knowing what to say and not feeling that anything particularly needed to be said. In a silence that wasn't as awkward as Dinobot's sitting or as natural as the sun's glare, the two stayed.

Slothfully the colors of the sky changed, little by little. Orange turned to a deep, blood red that spilled onto the white clouds and stained them pink. Blood red like optics and two sparks energizing together in the dead silence of night. The sun's late afternoon anger was settling into dusk and the glare moved lower on the land till it was elsewhere on the earth. Neither bot moved.

As the sun lowered, the winds heightened, bringing a slight chill along with them. Rattrap noticed his traveling companion suppressing a small shiver. Drunk on the sky and the silence, Rattrap abandoned rationality and made his way to the raptor's side, sitting close enough that their flanks touched, fur pressing into scales.

"What in the Inferno are you doing, Vermin?" The quiet way in which the words were spoken betrayed their literal meaning.

Rattrap smiled the smile that he had yet to use since his arrival on this dirtball, the one saved for the femmes at sleazy little hole-in-the-wall joints, only a more sincere variation. "Regulating your thermostat."

If there was one thing about Primal that wasn't prime, it was his sense of timing. Before Dinobot had even had an opportunity to process, much less react to Rattrap's actions and words, the Maximal leader shattered the moment with his static filled communication.

"Are you two still alive?"

"All extremities are present and accounted for," Dinobot muttered, after transforming to stand. "We have nearly reached the edge of the Gamma sector." To his side he heard the small noise of Rattrap transforming as well.

"Yeah yeah, we're alive, thanks for your concern." Sarcasm iced the words and dripped to their sides.

"Rattrap, when you get back to base tomorrow we need to have a serious discussion about the language you've been teaching Cheetor lately, I don't approve."

"Hey! He came out with the slaggin Freud thing all on his own! Sheesh!"

"That's not what I'm talking about" both bots heard him sigh through the intercom. Poor Optimus was a very stressed bot indeed. "I'll see you later, good luck."

Transforming back into their beast modes the two Maximals looked to one another, whatever mood that had been struggling for life just moments ago had been extinguished.

"To the Pit, Primal," Dinobot muttered at which rattrap let out a short laugh of surprise.

"Ditto, Dinobutt."

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(1) Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. I'd written the plot to have Inferno go polish the ship, then it reminded me of the Princess Bride exchange between Wesley and Buttercup, so I changed the quotes to be almost directly from that movie. Just paying a little homage.

(2) Raisedbymoogles wrote on the LJ mechaerotica community a great Dinobot x Rattrap PWP called Give Me All You Got. In it everyone, both Maximal and Predacon, was completely aware of the sexual tension between Dinobot and Rattrap except for poor little Cheetor. So some sick part of my brain thought it'd be funny to make him be the first to come out and say "why don't they just f-- already!" Because children saying ridiculously inappropriate things is hilarious.