Sky and Ground 12: Hangover
Apr. 3rd, 2010 06:10 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
niyazi-a.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
shadow_vectorPG-13
Starscream, Barricade, Skywarp
May need tissues.
Barricade rolled onto his side, blinking as his equilibrium slued hard to that side with such force he had to slap out a hand to brace himself. The pink fuzz from earlier had faded, pastel and threadbare and hot. His processor ached, unpleasantly, compared to the pleasant ache from his interface equipment. He would have to refill lubricant. Later. Right now, he just wanted to get his bearings. And maybe move.
Just a little. Just enough to get back in Skywarp’s EM field. He missed the fuzzy static of contact.
He saw a familiar assemblage of shapes in front of him: Skywarp’s foot. He didn’t remember exactly what they’d done before he’d fallen into recharge, so it was entirely possible he’d ended up this way, the black jet sprawled over the bulk of the berth. He grinned, some of the wooziness receding. He’d show Skywarp.
He pounced, pinning the foot to the berth’s surface, sinking his glossa into the complicated platework of the Seeker’s instep, laughing softly.
“I believe you are mistaken,” Starscream’s cool voice floated down to him. He went rigid. His optics traveled up the double jointed leg to…the bronze jet, leaning against the wall, a datapad in one hand. “Though I appreciate the experience.”
Barricade pulled his arm away. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his systems overheating from embarrassment.
“There is no need to apologize, Barricade.”
“What are you doing here? Where’s Skywarp?” He felt a strange hard weight in his tank as he spoke the question aloud. Like he shouldn’t ask.
“You were seriously overcharged offshift. I am here to make sure you recover. Skywarp, himself overcharged, has gone to fly off the excess energy.” Starscream put the datapad aside. “He will be back, Barricade,” he said, answering some question Barricade hadn’t been brave enough to ask.
“Know that,” he said, but the hollow feeling in his tanks continued.
His tanks roiled at the sight. “Uhhh, no, thanks.”
“Trust us, Barricade. We have done this before. It will clear your head.” He cocked his head. “Or shall I make it an order?”
Barricade frowned, but took a swallow from the cube. The bleary ache in his processor receded, a bit. Not much. He tried to hand the cube back to the bronzy jet, but Starscream had turned and lifted a basin onto the berth.
“Your system,” the jet explained, “is trying to expel its excess energy through heat. Your heat sinks, if you check your core logs, have been operating at the high end of their acceptable parameters. That is what woke you.”
Barricade checked—the jet was right. “So?”
“We cool you manually. Please recline. AFTER you finish the dilute energon.” He frowned. Barricade drank obediently, and lay back. Starscream bent over him, laying soaked cleansing rags over his limbs. The ones right over his external heat sinks steamed, the sudden contact of cold against his overheated frame causing him to gasp. It felt…uncomfortable. Just for a klik, before subsiding into a delicious shiver. But he saw his external temp dropping out of redline, and the sticky muzzy feeling seemed to clear up. He sighed.
Starscream smiled, turning to switch out rags. “I did try to inform you this is not an unpleasant experience.”
Barricade said nothing. Starscream pulled him over, lifting Barricade’s head onto his thigh, forcing another sip of the dilute energon on him. The jet smiled down at him, indulgently, his wicked talons light and cool and gentle, stroking his overheated frame.
“I fragged up, didn’t I?” Barricade said, finally, as if the jet’s indulgent gaze broke him.
“How?”
“Opened my fraggin’ mouth. That’s why he’s gone, isn’t it?”
“Hush, Barricade. You overthink such things.”
“Really.” He turned his face away from another sip of the energon. Pettishly, childishly, but all he could do. He really didn’t feel all that well. He tried to blame the sparkache on the overcharge, but it rang false.
Starscream sighed. “It is true that Skywarp is…uncomfortable with speaking such sentiments. However, saying it did not make it any more obvious, or true.”
“I ruined everything.” His mouth twisted, bitterly. Stupid Barricade. Always, always overreaching. Always want more, just a little bit more, than you have. Will you never learn to accept your portion?
He hated his portion. He wanted…..
Starscream laid a cool rag over his upper crest. “You have ruined nothing, Barricade. Melodrama does not suit you.”
“Not melodrama.”
“Ah yes, stating what was obvious to anyone who has spent ten kliks with the two of you is certainly ruinous. And fretting over three little words is most definitely not melodrama.”
“Fraggin’ pathetic, aren’t I?” Barricade tried to push himself off the jet’s thigh. Starscream’s large hand pinned him down. Pathetic. Can’t even fight off one hand of a Seeker. “First mech who treats me as something other than a transfluid receptacle and just fraggin’ look at me. Like a damn clingy drone.” He shuttered his eyes. The processor ache came back, and brought company, aching in his vocalizer. “He probably laughs at me.”
Starscream replaced the cleansing cloth on his brow. Barricade was churlishly grateful—he could blame the overflow of hot lens lubricant on the rag's dribbling. “Barricade, I suggest you are doing a disservice to Skywarp. He would not do that. And if he would, he would not, I imagine, be worthy of your sentiment.”
Barricade quelled. Starscream was right. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Another unnecessary apology, Barricade. Your emotions are merely closer to the surface because of the overcharge.
“Don’t like how it feels.”
“Never be afraid of your feelings, Barricade.” Pontificating. Barricade felt a stir of dull anger.
“Most of my feelings are pretty fraggin’ ugly and small.” He struggled to sit up: Starscream didn’t stop him this time. He just couldn’t bear being laid like a sparkling across the jet’s lap, the Seeker grinning down in a way that now seemed condescending.
“Ah, but this one is not. This is big and pure and strong.” Starscream laid a cooling rag over his wing fairings. He felt the cold fluid drip down under the plates. “Perhaps that is why you fear it.”
“What the frag you know?” He twitched his wing fairings in irritation, sending cold liquid splattering down his back.
“Ah.” Something in the jet’s voice made Barricade want to turn and look. He resisted, fiercely. “I have felt as you do. Once. A long time ago.”
“Can see that worked out well,” Barricade snapped, and then bit back regret. Petty and small and mean, he was. Certainly not deserving of Skywarp. He was suddenly glad he wasn’t looking to see the barb strike home.
“He died.”
“Oh.” Barricade ground his talons together, miserably.
“It probably would never have worked out, however, had he not. I certainly felt then I did not deserve him. I would have let that ruin things.” He said that as a hint, a lesson.
“’M sorry.”
A gentle touch on his upper tires. “You should stop apologizing. It becomes tedious to hear.”
“Pretty fraggin’ tedious to say.”
“Indeed.”
A long pause. Starscream ran an appraising hand over Barricade’s external heat sinks.
“So? What happened? I mean, to you.”
“Ah.” A long pause. This time Barricade tried to turn, aware that something horrible and fascinating was crossing the jet’s face, but Starscream held him firmly away by one shoulder. “So. It was worth it. Worth all the pain I have suffered since. It is only a handful of memories, but they are worth…everything.”
Barricade hunched, feeling smaller and pettier than ever. He had his own small store of precious memories. Which he'd probably manage to ruin.
The jet continued. “I live…every day with that loss. And I ask myself ‘would he find me worthy, now?’”
The talons clutched Barricade’s tire enough to send a red-line alarm to his sensornet.
“’M already not.”
“If you were, he would not have wasted his time with you.” A flat statement, against which Barricade could not defend. It was all the more credible to him for not being a compliment. “I suggest to you, Barricade, that those memories I prize? They would not have come about, had we not opened up to each other. If we had stayed quietly in our unworthiness and our insecurities, he would still—most likely—have died, but we would never have had that. WE. Do you understand? I like to think,” the jet’s voice crackled. “I like to think that I gave him that experience, that without me he would have died never having felt it.”
Barricade tore his arm out of the jet’s grip, but Starscream had turned and was noisily, too-busily sloshing cleansing rags in the basin. He felt helpless: not knowing what to say; not knowing what he wanted, even; not knowing how to make the ache near his core subside. Another apology bubbled in his vocalizer, but it seemed irrelevant and flimsy. “Not Skywarp’s first.” Not that special. Your situation doesn't apply. Not to me. I'm just one...of many. And that's what kills me.
The door coded open, and Skywarp entered. His black plating was mazed with crystalline frost. Barricade felt very small and stupid looking, draped with damp rags in a puddle of liquid. And caught out, talking about Skywarp when he wasn’t here. He lowered his head.
“How is he?”
“Still overheated,” Starscream said. “And a little fragile.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Starscream nodded and pushed himself off the berth. Barricade heard the soft hum of subvoc, as the bronze jet left.
Next: Overhead
Starscream, Barricade, Skywarp
May need tissues.
Barricade rolled onto his side, blinking as his equilibrium slued hard to that side with such force he had to slap out a hand to brace himself. The pink fuzz from earlier had faded, pastel and threadbare and hot. His processor ached, unpleasantly, compared to the pleasant ache from his interface equipment. He would have to refill lubricant. Later. Right now, he just wanted to get his bearings. And maybe move.
Just a little. Just enough to get back in Skywarp’s EM field. He missed the fuzzy static of contact.
He saw a familiar assemblage of shapes in front of him: Skywarp’s foot. He didn’t remember exactly what they’d done before he’d fallen into recharge, so it was entirely possible he’d ended up this way, the black jet sprawled over the bulk of the berth. He grinned, some of the wooziness receding. He’d show Skywarp.
He pounced, pinning the foot to the berth’s surface, sinking his glossa into the complicated platework of the Seeker’s instep, laughing softly.
“I believe you are mistaken,” Starscream’s cool voice floated down to him. He went rigid. His optics traveled up the double jointed leg to…the bronze jet, leaning against the wall, a datapad in one hand. “Though I appreciate the experience.”
Barricade pulled his arm away. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his systems overheating from embarrassment.
“There is no need to apologize, Barricade.”
“What are you doing here? Where’s Skywarp?” He felt a strange hard weight in his tank as he spoke the question aloud. Like he shouldn’t ask.
“You were seriously overcharged offshift. I am here to make sure you recover. Skywarp, himself overcharged, has gone to fly off the excess energy.” Starscream put the datapad aside. “He will be back, Barricade,” he said, answering some question Barricade hadn’t been brave enough to ask.
“Know that,” he said, but the hollow feeling in his tanks continued.
“Now that you are cycled on, we can begin treatment.”
“Treatment?”
His tanks roiled at the sight. “Uhhh, no, thanks.”
“Trust us, Barricade. We have done this before. It will clear your head.” He cocked his head. “Or shall I make it an order?”
Barricade frowned, but took a swallow from the cube. The bleary ache in his processor receded, a bit. Not much. He tried to hand the cube back to the bronzy jet, but Starscream had turned and lifted a basin onto the berth.
“Your system,” the jet explained, “is trying to expel its excess energy through heat. Your heat sinks, if you check your core logs, have been operating at the high end of their acceptable parameters. That is what woke you.”
Barricade checked—the jet was right. “So?”
“We cool you manually. Please recline. AFTER you finish the dilute energon.” He frowned. Barricade drank obediently, and lay back. Starscream bent over him, laying soaked cleansing rags over his limbs. The ones right over his external heat sinks steamed, the sudden contact of cold against his overheated frame causing him to gasp. It felt…uncomfortable. Just for a klik, before subsiding into a delicious shiver. But he saw his external temp dropping out of redline, and the sticky muzzy feeling seemed to clear up. He sighed.
Starscream smiled, turning to switch out rags. “I did try to inform you this is not an unpleasant experience.”
Barricade said nothing. Starscream pulled him over, lifting Barricade’s head onto his thigh, forcing another sip of the dilute energon on him. The jet smiled down at him, indulgently, his wicked talons light and cool and gentle, stroking his overheated frame.
“I fragged up, didn’t I?” Barricade said, finally, as if the jet’s indulgent gaze broke him.
“How?”
“Opened my fraggin’ mouth. That’s why he’s gone, isn’t it?”
“Hush, Barricade. You overthink such things.”
“Really.” He turned his face away from another sip of the energon. Pettishly, childishly, but all he could do. He really didn’t feel all that well. He tried to blame the sparkache on the overcharge, but it rang false.
Starscream sighed. “It is true that Skywarp is…uncomfortable with speaking such sentiments. However, saying it did not make it any more obvious, or true.”
“I ruined everything.” His mouth twisted, bitterly. Stupid Barricade. Always, always overreaching. Always want more, just a little bit more, than you have. Will you never learn to accept your portion?
He hated his portion. He wanted…..
Starscream laid a cool rag over his upper crest. “You have ruined nothing, Barricade. Melodrama does not suit you.”
“Not melodrama.”
“Ah yes, stating what was obvious to anyone who has spent ten kliks with the two of you is certainly ruinous. And fretting over three little words is most definitely not melodrama.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Starscream.”
“Fraggin’ pathetic, aren’t I?” Barricade tried to push himself off the jet’s thigh. Starscream’s large hand pinned him down. Pathetic. Can’t even fight off one hand of a Seeker. “First mech who treats me as something other than a transfluid receptacle and just fraggin’ look at me. Like a damn clingy drone.” He shuttered his eyes. The processor ache came back, and brought company, aching in his vocalizer. “He probably laughs at me.”
Starscream replaced the cleansing cloth on his brow. Barricade was churlishly grateful—he could blame the overflow of hot lens lubricant on the rag's dribbling. “Barricade, I suggest you are doing a disservice to Skywarp. He would not do that. And if he would, he would not, I imagine, be worthy of your sentiment.”
Barricade quelled. Starscream was right. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Another unnecessary apology, Barricade. Your emotions are merely closer to the surface because of the overcharge.
“Don’t like how it feels.”
“Never be afraid of your feelings, Barricade.” Pontificating. Barricade felt a stir of dull anger.
“Most of my feelings are pretty fraggin’ ugly and small.” He struggled to sit up: Starscream didn’t stop him this time. He just couldn’t bear being laid like a sparkling across the jet’s lap, the Seeker grinning down in a way that now seemed condescending.
“Ah, but this one is not. This is big and pure and strong.” Starscream laid a cooling rag over his wing fairings. He felt the cold fluid drip down under the plates. “Perhaps that is why you fear it.”
“What the frag you know?” He twitched his wing fairings in irritation, sending cold liquid splattering down his back.
“Ah.” Something in the jet’s voice made Barricade want to turn and look. He resisted, fiercely. “I have felt as you do. Once. A long time ago.”
“Can see that worked out well,” Barricade snapped, and then bit back regret. Petty and small and mean, he was. Certainly not deserving of Skywarp. He was suddenly glad he wasn’t looking to see the barb strike home.
“He died.”
“Oh.” Barricade ground his talons together, miserably.
“It probably would never have worked out, however, had he not. I certainly felt then I did not deserve him. I would have let that ruin things.” He said that as a hint, a lesson.
“’M sorry.”
A gentle touch on his upper tires. “You should stop apologizing. It becomes tedious to hear.”
“Pretty fraggin’ tedious to say.”
“Indeed.”
A long pause. Starscream ran an appraising hand over Barricade’s external heat sinks.
“So? What happened? I mean, to you.”
“Ah.” A long pause. This time Barricade tried to turn, aware that something horrible and fascinating was crossing the jet’s face, but Starscream held him firmly away by one shoulder. “So. It was worth it. Worth all the pain I have suffered since. It is only a handful of memories, but they are worth…everything.”
Barricade hunched, feeling smaller and pettier than ever. He had his own small store of precious memories. Which he'd probably manage to ruin.
The jet continued. “I live…every day with that loss. And I ask myself ‘would he find me worthy, now?’”
The talons clutched Barricade’s tire enough to send a red-line alarm to his sensornet.
“’M already not.”
“If you were, he would not have wasted his time with you.” A flat statement, against which Barricade could not defend. It was all the more credible to him for not being a compliment. “I suggest to you, Barricade, that those memories I prize? They would not have come about, had we not opened up to each other. If we had stayed quietly in our unworthiness and our insecurities, he would still—most likely—have died, but we would never have had that. WE. Do you understand? I like to think,” the jet’s voice crackled. “I like to think that I gave him that experience, that without me he would have died never having felt it.”
Barricade tore his arm out of the jet’s grip, but Starscream had turned and was noisily, too-busily sloshing cleansing rags in the basin. He felt helpless: not knowing what to say; not knowing what he wanted, even; not knowing how to make the ache near his core subside. Another apology bubbled in his vocalizer, but it seemed irrelevant and flimsy. “Not Skywarp’s first.” Not that special. Your situation doesn't apply. Not to me. I'm just one...of many. And that's what kills me.
The door coded open, and Skywarp entered. His black plating was mazed with crystalline frost. Barricade felt very small and stupid looking, draped with damp rags in a puddle of liquid. And caught out, talking about Skywarp when he wasn’t here. He lowered his head.
“How is he?”
“Still overheated,” Starscream said. “And a little fragile.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Starscream nodded and pushed himself off the berth. Barricade heard the soft hum of subvoc, as the bronze jet left.
Skywarp grinned, plucking the cleansing rags off him. “I have a better way to cool you down,” he said, scooping Barricade up into his arms. His armor was frigid from his space flight. They both gasped at the contact, the contrast. The cold almost burned against Barricade’s heat sinks; his own overheated frame causing Skywarp to hiss as if scalded, then pull him closer with a sound like a groan.
One of many, Barricade told himself. Replaceable. Discardable. Even so, his arms wrapped tightly around Skywarp's neck. To hold on, for as long as he was able.
Next: Overhead
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-29 08:35 am (UTC)yeah. thanks for the tissue warning at the beginning. It was warranted.
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Date: 2011-09-26 10:01 pm (UTC)Barricade makes me sadface.