Categories > Cartoons > Transformers > Listening to Shadows
Listening to Shadows
2 reviewsDone for a music meme floating around the TF communities on Livejournal. Snippets. Some Megatron/Optimus, a bit of Bee/Sam.
3Moving
AN: I snagged the song meme that's been floating about the TF comms on livejournal. Ratings between PG13 and light R. Slash and hints of slash. Maybe Bee/Sam if you tilt your head and squint.
The Meme: Choose a subject and go - Writing: Put your entire music collection on shuffle, hit play, and write. Write for as long as each song plays and move on to a different writing when the song switches(even if it's mid-sentence). Go for ten songs(or five). If nothing comes, it still counts. If you're listening to a comedian, you can skip it.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Megatron, Optimus
Song: "Memory" - Michael Crawford
Optimus does dream. Perhaps not as humans do; he'll never know that for sure. But deep in his recharge, his processor fits together snippets of information gathered during the day's doings, a conversation held a million years ago stored deep in his archives, images that seem so far away they may have been viewed by someone else: the glimmer of light off a silver chassis, the sheen of optics burning deep red next to him in the shared recharge berth.
He dreams of touches in early years--before temptation, before madness--fingers whispering over his chassis, dipping with infinite care beneath his chest plates to run along the line of his spark chamber. He dreams thousands of years later, of fangs digging deep enough into the wires of his neck to draw energon, while electric shocks pierce his chest and his vocal chords spit static from the strength of his screams.
When he wakes, it's to phantom pains all over his body, components gone dry in his throat, lightning spearing his chest.
Human soldiers who'd lost limbs, he once heard Captain Lennox say, sometimes complained of pain from a limb that was no longer there.
He has not lost a limb, but the other half of his spark.
He doesn't think there's any human parallel for that.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Ratchet, unknown
Song: "Tell Me On a Sunday" - Michael Crawford
It wasn't that he came home--exhausted and still smelling the leaking energon of some of his more critical patients--to a silent apartment.
Or that the recharge chamber was empty of all evidence that another besides himself had ever rested there. Or that only his flannel hung in the washrack. Or that the datapads he'd become used to seeing scattered all over the desk in his office and the lounger in the front room had been removed.
It was the photoscreens that made something deep inside him ache. The photoscreens, hanging on the walls, undisturbed. Not even a hint of crookedness that suggested they'd been removed and considered and replaced. Nothing to suggest that he'd wanted something, some memento of their time together.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Bee, Sam, anonymous girl
Song: "Sunday Bloody Sunday" - U2
Decepticons had hit the area days before. Only the remnants of a few buildings remained.
Bee’s scans had shown evidence of a living human in the area, not far from their patrol.
They’d found her in the burned out husk of an old church.
Sunlight filtering through the stained glass lit the remnants of pulpit and pews in brilliant hues of blood red and bright gold. And there she'd sat, six or seven years old, crouched in the center of what was left of the building, making patterns in the ashes.
Sam approached her slowly, bent down and admired the swirling patterns that might have meant something in a child's language.
"Angels did this," she said, her voice matter of fact behind the throat-frothing sound of unshed tears.
"Angels?" Sam asked, brow furrowed.
"They flew," she said. "They came from the sky.” She looked up at him, green eyes shining, and rubbed her face, smudging ashes across one soft cheek. “…Mama said angels would come from the sky and bring the fire of God with them."
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Bee, Sam
Song: "End of the World" -- Skeeter Davis
Bee wasn't sure when he'd started coming to the beach.
A hundred...two hundred human years ago? Maybe more.
Time wasn't something he actively measured, anymore. There was no need. No need to save certain hours to his archives.
But he did keep track of the sunsets. Remembered the first one he and Sam had watched over the Lookout. Remembered the last one they had seen together over the Pacific; Sam perched on his thigh, leaning back against his body. He had clips of their conversation that night, the discussions of the days, the weeks, and even the years ahead. Sam had finished college, was going east to take a job in Washington, D.C. under Secretary Keller's successor. And Bee couldn't wait to see the water on that side of the continent.
And then it was all gone. Not in a flash of plasmafire, or the collapse of some building beneath the hands of the Decepticons.
But by the blade of a man who thought a corner store could provide the the money he needed to support his drug addiction.
A single moment, when Bee was busy scanning the area for signs of the steadily rising Decepticon activity, and Sam was taken by one of his own...
Bee raised his head, optics onlining to watch the last rays of the burning star dropping behind the deep blue of the sea. Gold at first, then violet, and finally, red as human blood.
The Meme: Choose a subject and go - Writing: Put your entire music collection on shuffle, hit play, and write. Write for as long as each song plays and move on to a different writing when the song switches(even if it's mid-sentence). Go for ten songs(or five). If nothing comes, it still counts. If you're listening to a comedian, you can skip it.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Megatron, Optimus
Song: "Memory" - Michael Crawford
Optimus does dream. Perhaps not as humans do; he'll never know that for sure. But deep in his recharge, his processor fits together snippets of information gathered during the day's doings, a conversation held a million years ago stored deep in his archives, images that seem so far away they may have been viewed by someone else: the glimmer of light off a silver chassis, the sheen of optics burning deep red next to him in the shared recharge berth.
He dreams of touches in early years--before temptation, before madness--fingers whispering over his chassis, dipping with infinite care beneath his chest plates to run along the line of his spark chamber. He dreams thousands of years later, of fangs digging deep enough into the wires of his neck to draw energon, while electric shocks pierce his chest and his vocal chords spit static from the strength of his screams.
When he wakes, it's to phantom pains all over his body, components gone dry in his throat, lightning spearing his chest.
Human soldiers who'd lost limbs, he once heard Captain Lennox say, sometimes complained of pain from a limb that was no longer there.
He has not lost a limb, but the other half of his spark.
He doesn't think there's any human parallel for that.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Ratchet, unknown
Song: "Tell Me On a Sunday" - Michael Crawford
It wasn't that he came home--exhausted and still smelling the leaking energon of some of his more critical patients--to a silent apartment.
Or that the recharge chamber was empty of all evidence that another besides himself had ever rested there. Or that only his flannel hung in the washrack. Or that the datapads he'd become used to seeing scattered all over the desk in his office and the lounger in the front room had been removed.
It was the photoscreens that made something deep inside him ache. The photoscreens, hanging on the walls, undisturbed. Not even a hint of crookedness that suggested they'd been removed and considered and replaced. Nothing to suggest that he'd wanted something, some memento of their time together.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Bee, Sam, anonymous girl
Song: "Sunday Bloody Sunday" - U2
Decepticons had hit the area days before. Only the remnants of a few buildings remained.
Bee’s scans had shown evidence of a living human in the area, not far from their patrol.
They’d found her in the burned out husk of an old church.
Sunlight filtering through the stained glass lit the remnants of pulpit and pews in brilliant hues of blood red and bright gold. And there she'd sat, six or seven years old, crouched in the center of what was left of the building, making patterns in the ashes.
Sam approached her slowly, bent down and admired the swirling patterns that might have meant something in a child's language.
"Angels did this," she said, her voice matter of fact behind the throat-frothing sound of unshed tears.
"Angels?" Sam asked, brow furrowed.
"They flew," she said. "They came from the sky.” She looked up at him, green eyes shining, and rubbed her face, smudging ashes across one soft cheek. “…Mama said angels would come from the sky and bring the fire of God with them."
-o-o-o-o-o-
Characters: Bee, Sam
Song: "End of the World" -- Skeeter Davis
Bee wasn't sure when he'd started coming to the beach.
A hundred...two hundred human years ago? Maybe more.
Time wasn't something he actively measured, anymore. There was no need. No need to save certain hours to his archives.
But he did keep track of the sunsets. Remembered the first one he and Sam had watched over the Lookout. Remembered the last one they had seen together over the Pacific; Sam perched on his thigh, leaning back against his body. He had clips of their conversation that night, the discussions of the days, the weeks, and even the years ahead. Sam had finished college, was going east to take a job in Washington, D.C. under Secretary Keller's successor. And Bee couldn't wait to see the water on that side of the continent.
And then it was all gone. Not in a flash of plasmafire, or the collapse of some building beneath the hands of the Decepticons.
But by the blade of a man who thought a corner store could provide the the money he needed to support his drug addiction.
A single moment, when Bee was busy scanning the area for signs of the steadily rising Decepticon activity, and Sam was taken by one of his own...
Bee raised his head, optics onlining to watch the last rays of the burning star dropping behind the deep blue of the sea. Gold at first, then violet, and finally, red as human blood.
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