Sky and Ground 21 Memory Games

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

NC-17
Bayverse AU
Skywarp, Thundercracker
Dom/sub, pain play, dubcon, sticky

 

Skywarp hit the distal perimeter markers right on his calculated schedule. Why did he still feel, then, a twinge in his capacitor? He’s your Trine mate, he told himself. He is not the enemy. You’ve plenty of actual enemies, political and personal. You can trust your Trine. He’ll be upset at first, yes, but he’ll get over it. He’ll come around. 

But Skywarp knew he wouldn’t. He knew it for a hopeful lie he clung onto with more desperation than sense because his fragile desires bruised so easily against the hard truth. Thundercracker believed that air frames should be with air frames. Thundercracker also believed in nice clean black and white lines, order and neatness. Clean. Straight.

Sterile. 

The chaos and mess that had pretty much…always been Skywarp he had tolerated. Within limits. And Skywarp was flying headlong into those limits right now. So perhaps it was right to feel a shiver of concern. But why did it feel, suddenly, like he was being crammed into a box much too small for him?

He shifted forms, throwing off velocity as he entered the open hangar door of the aerial base. Part of Thundercracker’s obsession with order: aerial bases were airframe only, beyond a handful of support mechs. A true mixed-forces base he’d never experienced. 

Skywarp’s feet hit the deck more heavily than he’d calculated. His energon reserves were lower than he’d thought. He felt his stabilizers shake from the lack. And managed, from somewhere, to find a smile for Thundercracker. 

“Good flight,” Thundercracker said. It was a traditional greeting, but normally it was a question. Not now: it was a good flight, or Thundercracker didn’t want to hear or know about it. Didn’t want to mar his clean lines. 

So Skywarp merely nodded, adding, noncommittally, “Long.” 

“It is a distant sector, the Nemesis.” Dancing around each other, already. This, Skywarp thought, did not bode well. 

“Yes.” The moment stretched. Skywarp could feel his Trine mate’s optics on him, searching for…something. 

“You are undercharged.”

“Yes,” Skywarp kept his voice neutral. He was too tired for this. Not right now. And he missed Barricade so fiercely it felt like a hole burning its way through his chassis. Thundercracker laid an arm over his shoulders. It should have felt warm and welcoming. Instead it merely felt like dead weight.

“Come,” Thundercracker said. “Let’s get you some energon before we…discuss matters.”

*****

Skywarp closed his optics for a long moment, letting the energon wash through his primary systems like rosy fire. His secondary systems ached for it, but he knew, from long experience, to take it slowly, let the energon cycle through before he took more. Still, it was always a little alarming to see his hands shake, holding the ration. 

He flinched, as Thundercracker began scrubbing his seams with a wire brush. In flight, the protective grease had gone dry and cakey, and part of the post-flight process involved sloughing it away. Skywarp thought of Barricade’s small talons, reaching into those seams in his plates, his brow crest furrowing in concentration, determined to do a good job. He ran a hand absently over the leg Barricade had greased, the smaller mech’s touches like ghosts in his circuits. He could still barely admit it to himself, but he did love him. How else could you respond to someone who so willingly opened himself up to you, time and again?

“Too rough?” Thundercracker asked.

“No. Just somewhere else with my head, I guess,” Skywarp said. 

Thundercracker sighed. “Always scattered, aren’t you, Skywarp?” He bent lower, the brush scraping into one of Skywarp’s hip plates. “You know lack of focus is one of your big problems.”

“I know,” Skywarp said, meekly. He hated this. Hated how easily he turned into…this. Starscream he could argue with, joke with, throw around, wrestle with. Interface his brains out—as if Starscream had any brains to begin with. Thundercracker, no. With Thundercracker he always turned into this limp, sodden, meek little thing. Afraid of speaking his own mind. Afraid of tearing apart the Trine by daring to disagree. Afraid of, most of all, his own reactions. 

“You’re unhappy,” Thundercracker murmured, over the brisk whsk-whsk of the wire brush. “I can tell.” There was no sense in arguing. “Is the Nemesis assignment that bad?”

No, in fact it was wonderful. A long investigation, trying to solve the problem of the poor performance record coming from the ship and rippling across the sector. He had at least a megacycle of work to do there, which in his mind meant—a megacycle before he had to think of any sort of future. A delirious megacycle with the little grounder. Maybe they’d be sick of each other by then, hate each other even, but at least they’d have a megacycle to find out, rather than being torn away with all those questions unanswered. There was nothing more depressing, Skywarp thought, than possibilities cut short. 

“It’s fine. I can handle it,” he replied.

“Nonsense.” Thundercracker put down the brush, his arms curving around Skywarp’s neck. “You can tell me.”

“Nothing to tell.” Skywarp shifted uncomfortably on the berth. Thundercracker ducked his head down, nuzzling against Skywarp’s audio. 

“I miss you so much when you’re gone,” Thundercracker murmured. “You and Starscream both.” His hands trailed down Skywarp’s front, talons skimming over the armor plates. Skywarp brought a hand up, curving over his Trine mate’s blue forearm.

“Missed you, too,” he said, numbly. Knowing what was coming. Powerless—already—to resist. Not if he wanted to keep his secret. Not if he wanted to keep Barricade safe. At least for a little while. He had no delusion he could keep the secret forever. It offended his sensibility of what a Trine should be to have to keep anything secret. But it was too precious, too fragile right now. Or so he told himself.

“Kiss me? Please?” Thundercracker asked, his voice like silk. 

Skywarp turned his head, his mouth meeting Thundercracker as the blue jet rose up further on his knees, pushing Skywarp down onto the berth. Thundercracker’s mouth moved on his, his labial plating catching at Skywarp’s in needy little pinches. The blue jet whimpered, crawling over Skywarp’s body, hands pressing into his shoulders. Skywarp stroked his Trine mate’s back, long talons gentle on the engines and the broad metal of the mount. Thundercracker pushed against him, hands coming up to cup his helm as the kiss slowly got more aggressive, his glossa dipping first hesitantly between Skywarp’s lips, then more confidently, forcefully, until Skywarp found himself moaning, his body shifting under his Trine mate’s weight. 

“It’s so lonely out here,” Thundercracker said, softly, stroking the sides of Skywarp’s face. “I have no one.”

“You can,” Skywarp said, his optics lowered, stroking his Trine mate’s shoulders. “You could have anyone you wanted.”

Thundercracker shook his head. “You know that’s not appropriate,” he said. “Seekers belong with Seekers.” He stroked his hand down Skywarp’s side, either not feeling Skywarp tense underneath him or attributing it positively to his touch. “Have you been keeping Starscream out of trouble while you’re there?”

“As much as I can,” he responded, carefully. “As much as anyone can.” 

Thundercracker purred. “Good. He needs someone to keep him in line, doesn’t he?” Skywarp thought Starscream managed fine on his own. He really didn’t want to get drawn into this gambit of Thundercracker’s—either start an argument now, or agree and have it thrown in his—and Starscream’s—face later. Skywarp shrugged noncommittally, trying to distract his Trine mate by teasing his talons along his audio. 

Thundercracker tilted his chin, tilting his head to expose the cables of his throat. Skywarp lifted himself up, his mouth to the gap in the armor, glossa probing against the cables. Thundercracker whimpered against him, talons squeezing into his arms. “Need you,” Thundercracker pleaded.

Skywarp responded by reaching one hand toward Thundercracker’s interface panel. The blue jet jerked at the touch, as if startled, but relaxed back down, letting Skywarp open it. His spike extended, the cover whisking itself aside in a hurry to get out of the way. Skywarp wrapped his long talons around the spike. 

“Yes,” Thundercracker breathed. He lifted his hips, his spike sliding in Skywarp’s space-cold grip, lubricant coating the black jet’s fingers. “Please,” he said, “Oh Primus, Skywarp.” 

Skywarp knew what he wanted, and opened his own interface panel, releasing his valve cover. Thundercracker slid his spike into him with a sigh. Skywarp shuttered his optics, praying Thundercracker wouldn’t come for another kiss. This was…too much. More than he could handle. It felt like a betrayal, to have someone else’s spike inside him. Which was, he knew, ridiculous. Thundercracker was his Trine mate and he’d had Starscream more than enough times back on the Nemesis. But those had been fun and this was something earnest and verging towards the darkness that Skywarp desperately wanted to push away. 

He shifted his thighs further apart, letting his Trine mate sink his spike deeper into him, giving in without really knowing why. Simply that he had to. Thundercracker’s hands curled around his shoulders, his vents hot against Skywarp’s chassis, his eyes probing into Skywarp’s. “Beautiful,” Thundercracker murmured. “So beautiful, Skywarp.” His hips picked up their pace against Skywarp’s, the hands tightening, talons digging into Skywarp’s armor. Whatever else he might have wanted to say got lost in a rising moan, ending with a shudder as he overloaded into Skywarp’s valve. 

Skywarp felt…nothing. 

He forced himself to kiss Thundercracker, the way he knew the blue mech liked. He cared that much—didn’t he?—to want to please his Trine mate. And it wasn’t Thundercracker’s fault, after all. Thundercracker kissed him, eagerly, his glossa warm and earnest. Thundercracker pulled away, gently, ducking back in for another shy kiss. “So good to me,” he murmured. “So good, Skywarp.”

Skywarp managed a smile. “Anything for you, Thundercracker.” He heard the mistake as soon as the words left his vocalizer. Thundercracker smiled down at him.

“Anything.” He hooked his talons under Skywarp’s clavicular struts, heaving him over as he rolled onto his back, wrapping his long legs around Skywarp’s waist. “You know what I want.” 

Skywarp hiccupped. Yes, he knew what Thundercracker wanted, just as he knew he had no choice. Thundercracker bumped his pelvic plating, and Skywarp obediently shifted his hips, sinking his spike into Thundercracker’s valve. “Only you,” Thundercracker said, his hands coming up to stroke Skywarp’s face. “Only you.”

Skywarp squeezed his optics shut, grinding the plates together as he started moving, slowly, rocking his spike in Thundercracker’s valve. He couldn’t feign his way through this one. Even if he’d wanted to. His spike, his sensornet, both flared with a conditioned response. He heard a growl start back in his intake, rippling through his vocalizer as his talons sank into Thundercracker’s wing.  

The blue jet moaned. “Yes. Don’t you wish it were Starscream, here? Don’t you, Skywarp?” He paused, wincing, as Skywarp raked his talons across his chassis. Shut up, Skywarp thought. Shut up shut up shut up I don’t want this I don’t want  to think I just want to get through this get it done get it finished get it over. Skywarp pushed his spike harder into the valve, rising up on one knee for leverage. He felt his mouth curl into a snarl of contempt. At himself.

“Remember?” Thundercracker murmured, tracing his hands down the outer contours of Skywarp’s bracing arms. “Remember the games we used to play?”

“Weren’t…games,” Skywarp mumbled. Yes, he remembered. Too well. Every circuit of his frame remembered those ‘games.’ Thundercracker ordering he and Starscream into little scenarios, innocent at first, slowly growing darker, edgier, more…damaging. Starscream begging him to stop, begging Thundercracker to stop; then, just begging. Oh he’d ruined Starscream. He’d helped. For megacycles he’d told himself he was not to blame, it was really Thundercracker, but…he’d seen beyond that. Impossible not to.  Impossible to deny, as well, the long, well-orchestrated conditioning of his own body. To where he couldn’t spike…anyone without it taking over.   The hot rages, the desire—no, the NEED—to inflict pain. To see sparks of fear in the optics of his partner. 

“Come on,” Thundercracker coaxed. “You haven’t forgotten. Starscream hasn’t.”

“Shut up,” Skywarp snapped. He backhanded Thundercracker, his barbs ringing off his Trine mate’s audio. He stopped himself, mid thrust, hanging over the blue jet. “Shut up,” he repeated, but his tone was pleading now. 

“Yes,” Thundercracker said, rubbing his injured jaw, pausing to show Skywarp the leaking fluid, before he licked it off his own talon, optics half-lidded in desire. “Exactly like that. More.” 

Skywarp growled in frustration. “No.” Not this time. Not any more. He would fall if he played this game. The only choice, the only chance he had was to refuse to play.  He tried to pull his spike from the valve, but Thundercracker had locked his double-jointed legs around his hips. 

“Yes,” Thundercracker said, blandly. “You know you want it.”

“I do not.” Skywarp struggled, bracing one arm on Thundercracker’s shoulder, pushing in vain to dislodge his spike. 

“You do, and you need it like this. And I need you.” Thundercracker’s deep voice was seductive. “Come now. Be good.” 

“I don’t want to ‘be good’.” Skywarp pushed harder. “Let me go.” He hadn’t had nearly enough energon: his power systems were barely above nominal functionality. He was weak—physically as well as emotionally right now, and Thundercracker was taking full—and knowing—advantage.

Thundercracker’s hands clamped on his wrists. “No.” His voice was mild, but there was no denying the force in his grip. Skywarp reared back, but Thundercracker jerked him off-balance, his cockpit banging against his Trine mate’s. Thundercracker snarled and the two began fighting in earnest. This wasn’t like with Starscream, playful wrestling, as many licks and caresses as blows. This was a contest held in dead silence, with a burning intensity. Skywarp struggled, but Thundercracker’s grip on his wrists prevented any of his blows from having real force. The blue jet laughed at him, tumbling with him onto the floor, his legs still locked around Skywarp’s hips.

“So good to me,” Thundercracker said, nuzzling against him even while his hands sank into Skywarp’s forearms. “Giving me exactly what I need.” He ground his hips against Skywarp’s, and the black jet gave a sound like a sob as, in spite of himself, his spike’s nodes crackled with a rising charge, a slide of lubricant—conditioned, he told himself, pitifully. Conditioned, but undeniable. 

He twisted his wrists, spinning his hands to grab at Thundercracker’s forearms, digging his talons in under the armor, gritting his teeth in a black grin as Thundercracker flinched from the pain. He drove his hips against Thundercracker’s hard enough to feel the enamel chip. “You want this?” he hissed, through his teeth. “You want this? Is this how you want it?” 

His spike pounded into Thundercracker, lubricant oozing out from around the rim of the valve, heated with friction. He lifted Thundercracker’s pelvic frame bodily with every thrust, lying on his back, his talons sunk into his Trine mate’s forearms, his eyes spiraled small and furious. 

Thundercracker arched above him, making a little ‘eh’ with every thrust against him, looking down his chin at Skywarp, his eyes lidded and intent. He trembled, his thighs quivering around Skywarp’s surging waist, his own grip slipping against the black jet’s wrists. He bucked, with force that nearly unseated the spike from Skywarp’s mounting brace, as he overloaded, his clutching valve forcing Skywarp’s own rush. 

Skywarp yowled, half in pain from the sudden shock of Thundercracker’s buck. The transfluid raced up his spike, a wash of heat that burned like some kind of shame as his Trine mate’s valve rolled its mechanisms against the spike, coaxing the fluid out eagerly. 

Thundercracker collapsed on top of him, nuzzling in his neck. “Yes,” he murmured into Skywarp’s throat. “You’re mine. Always. You and Starscream, mine forever.” 

Skywarp turned his face to one side, trying to summon an image of Barricade. And failing.



Next: Desire Betrayal

Comments

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

^oA^o

Thundercracker is scaring me. *super-duper hugs for Skywarp*