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shadow_vector2010-05-25 08:06 am
All Roads Lead
Bayverse
Barricade, Bonecrusher, OC (hands over barfbag)
no warning. No real hardcore content, either.
So, I get old this week. And to 'celebrate', I'm writing 'stupid crap I want to read and I don't care if it's canon or lame or cheezy or not'. Hence, diving in the deep end of lame AND cheezy.... this.
Barricade didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, that he was worried. So, he opted for ‘honked off’ instead. Fraggin’ June. Or more precisely, NOT-fragging June. Which was the slaggin’ problem. He’d been gone on a (stupid—like there was any other kind) mission, and it had coincided with the end of another semester for her. And last ‘semester’ had ended with the tires on her car mysteriously being spiked (oh was Barricade furious about that? He’d like to see that fraggin’ disgruntled student try that with him. Seriously. He’d hand over an optic for that chance.) which made him…not so happy when he’d called her last night and...no answer. Not on her cell phone, not on her landline. Not even that slaggin’ archaic email she used.
So. Not worried. Torqued off. He was already practicing the lecture he was going to give her when he found her. Make her slaggin’ ears bleed. And he was definitely going to get her a locator beacon, fraggit. Just had to find a way to bolt it to her squishy construction. And to make it not seem so…like he was tagging her. Hrm. This would require delicacy and tact. Two of Barricade’s…non-fortes. Frag.
Still, first things first, find the squishy vixen and scour her ears with that lecture. Then, make-up interfacing. His systems thrummed at the thought. What? It had been like…five whole days. He’d thought about her—miserably—every recharge. Wishing his mission parameters had allowed him at least radio contact. But he wasn’t that bad a soldier.
Gravel sprayed from under his tires as he took the last corner onto the street where she lived. He slowed as he rolled up to her house, giving it the once over. Still standing. Intact. Didn’t look like it had been like…bombed or anything. So, not going to buy any excuse about her not being able to answer the slaggin’ land line.
Still…where was she? Her beat up grey Honda (with the new tires, which he’d sheepishly paid for after, you know, that one time) hunched under the maple tree, birds chirping around it in the clear morning light. So…she wasn’t gone. This? He did not like. He inched to the driveway’s end, blurting a command in the primitive freq to the garage door, which groaned open. Not in there. Though, that was fraggin’ stupid, Barricade. Why would she hang out in her garage? While you’re gone she probably actually sleeps in that whole warm squooshy bed thing, not splayed out over your chassis with a sleeping bag bunched around her.
He was…unsettled. Everything looked perfectly normal. Minus June. Which was…pretty fraggin’ AB-normal and un-fraggin-acceptable. He edged closer to the garage, figuring he could roll in and strategize his next move, maybe call up local police incident reports, when he caught a flash of yellow from her back yard. What. The. ?
Frag subtlety. He shoved back to his alt mode, storming into the green expanse of June’s back yard. “Seriously?” he barked.
A click and a buzz and Bonecrusher’s glum bass rumbled, “Well, you weren’t using her.”
Using...June? His temper flared when he saw her bright red hair pop up behind the steering wheel. This he did not like. At. All. “June, get out of the fraggin’ idiot.” So I can kill him.
He watched June run her fingers through her rumpled hair, trying to set it right. Yeah, too little, too late, baby, he thought. June had an inordinate amount of explaining to do. AFTER he gives her the lecture of her slaggin’ life. And interfacing. Somewhere. Frag. He’d have to redo his timeline now.
She popped the door open, moving slowly, languorously. As if still half-asleep. Barricade felt hot murder behind his optics. “You’re back,” she said, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“You sound surprised,” he sneered.
“Fantastic,” Bonecrusher muttered. “My first lover’s quarrel. A front row seat.”
“You shut up,” Barricade snapped, his talons hooking into claws.
Bonecrusher sighed. “You really going to fight me? Seriously?”
Yeah, Barricade was having second thoughts about that himself. You know, what with Bonecrusher being like…twice his size and all. But he had to do something. “You touched June!”
“She sat in me. We were talking.”
“A likely story.”
“The neighbor came out to check,” June said, stepping between the two of them. Bonecrusher was still in his vehicle mode, but his clearing fork was twitching agitatedly. “We thought it would be quieter that way.”
Barricade glared at her. “At least you’re wearing clothes,” he snapped.
“What is your problem?” she said, glaring back.
“I don’t have a problem,” Barricade snapped. “Perfectly normal to roll up on you sleeping with another mech.”
“More like sleeping ‘in’,” Bonecrusher said. “Seems like a significant difference, that preposition.”
“Seems, TO YOU.”
“Jesus, seriously?” June’s gray-green eyes blazed, her hands firmly on her hips. Which Barricade really wanted to be squeezing right now. He ached. Frag. Just apologize, June.
“Stay out of this, June.” He glowered at Bonecrusher, who stayed in his vehicle mode, rolling back a few feet. “Yeah,” Barricade muttered, menacing. “You’d better.”
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?” Her head was level with his pelvic armor, her face an angry white oval tilted up at him.
Barricade snarled, stung. Ridiculous? Seriously? That he was upset that she was with…Bonecrusher? “What? So that’s how it is, right? I leave for a mission and come back and you’re like…with another mech?”
She made an exasperated sound. “Guess you don’t have any idea how ridiculous you sound. We were talking!”
“We talk too, after we interface.” His mouth quivered. This was not the reunion he was hoping for. At all. He wanted to lecture her, and then have makeup interfacing. With her doing the making up/apologizing. For making him worry. And he had no idea how to get back to that. Story of your fraggin’ life, Barricade. Mouth and attitude pulling you away from what you want. Again.
Shut up, he told himself. Shut up shut up. He looked at June, her face closed and white and angry, and at Bonecrusher. Yeah. He’d…intruded. Frag. He was making things worse.
He spun on his heel, throwing himself petulantly into his vehicle mode and roaring off. Fleeing. Coward. But he couldn’t stay and finish ruining the only thing he’d been looking forward to having.
****
Bonecrusher sighed. “I’m sorry, Joom. I knew this would happen. The kind of luck that’s been stalking me like…forever.”
“It’s not your fault, Bonecrusher,” she sighed. Then paused. Whoa. When did saying strange names like that become second nature?
“You…want me to go after him? I might be able to catch him.” They heard the sounds of tires screeching, and two angry horns. Bonecrusher’s clearing fork drooped. Yeah, probably not at that speed.
“Don’t worry about it,” June said, tightly. “He’s an idiot.”
“Well, no argument there,” Bonecrusher said. “Don’t know what he’s got his diodes sparked for, though.”
“The idiot is jealous.”
Bonecrusher’s headlamps blinked. “He…what? Why?”
“Because he’s an idiot.”
Bonecrusher flicked his clearing fork. “That seems sufficiently circular to be Barricade.”
June nodded, grimly, before worry softened her face. “I…will he be okay?”
Bonecrusher gave a sound like hydraulic brakes hissing. “Barricade? Will be fine. Always is. Don’t worry, Joom.”
June looked down at her white knuckled fists, forcing them to release. “I hope you’re right.”
****
//What the frag is wrong with you?// Bonecrusher’s voice was hard on his freq. Barricade winced. Yeah, well, that should be obvious.
//Nothing!// he snapped. He didn’t need this right now. Not when a blue light of an Autobot in pursuit blipping on his 360 array.
//You’ve upset Joom, you fraggin’ moron.//
//Yeah? She upset me.// He whipped through traffic, growling at the battered Hyundai tottering along at a pathetic ten miles over the speed limit. Seriously. Fraggin’ crawling.
//How?//
//You two. Together.// He veered across two lanes of traffic, heading for an exit ramp. Going…? He had no idea where. Just…away. And fast. Away from her, from himself, and his pursuer. Ident popped up: Sideswipe. Slag. Fast. No outrunning him.
//If you abandon her, I will fraggin’ murder you.//
//Why do you care? Have her all to yourself then, wouldn’t you?// He cursed as he had to slam on his brakes: top of the offramp was blocked by a traffic light.
A long pause. Impatiently.//Barricade? You’re a moron. I don’t know what she slaggin’ sees in you.//
Yeah, neither do I. //Yeah well? Maybe you can do a better job than me.//
//Self-pity, Barricade? Kind of an amateur at it.//
Barricade snarled, roaring his engine. Drivers of other cars glanced over nervously. //Shut it.//
//Snap at me long distance all you want, Barricade. Only yourself to blame if you frag this up.//
Yeah. Know that. Just don’t know how to fix it. He said nothing. He fixed his targeting reticle on the pursuer. Not that far behind. Frag. The light turned green. He gunned it.
//Go back. And apologize.// Bonecrusher could be pretty fraggin’ intimidating when he wanted to. And apparently, right now? He wanted to.
//Go frag yourse--// CRASH.
*****
Barricade’s day had gone from awesome to fantastic. That is, if awesome meant ‘finding your squishy sleeping with another mech’ and fantastic ‘getting nearly offlined by Sideswipe.’ He was kind of hoping his days would just go back to alternating between ‘boring’ and ‘suck’. He winced as he turned onto the maple-lined street up to June’s house. He wasn’t sure why he’d come back. Other than everything hurt. He argued, trying to be logical, that he needed a place to stay that was safe while his autorepair did its work, but…he could have found a pull off on the highway somewhere or the back of a supermarket parking lot or something.
No, he’d limped back here. Scene of the crime. Or scene where he could at least torture himself more with some happy memories. He killed his headlamps, turning into her driveway, her half-overgrown gravel crunching under his tires familiarly. He didn’t look to see if Bonecrusher and June were in the back again. Didn’t want to know.
Wearily, he blipped at the garage door opener. It rattled open as he rolled slowly into the garage and then back down behind him. He hunched in the dark for a long time, inventorying his injuries, not bothering to consider himself ‘lucky’ for surviving or not. All he wanted was June. All he had was her garage—three walls of pegboard, a box with an old artificial pine tree in it, a roll of plastic bags, some gardening stuff, and the blue and black sleeping bag. Pathetic that these meant so much to him.
He groaned, shifting into his bipedal mode, rolling to take pressure off his injured axle. He flopped onto his side, awkwardly. He stared and then grabbed for the sleeping bag, knowing it was stupid, feeling every micron of how pathetic it was to take comfort in a slaggin’ inanimate object, but…frag. He needed something right now, and this wasn’t nearly what he wanted, but it was…as good as he could get. And better than he deserved.
Her scent clung to the yellow lining fabric, warm and human and healthy, sweet and salty at the same time. He held it to his olfactory sensors, his armor plating registering the slick nylon of the outershell, the pilly yellow of the lining. The slightly stiff spots of his energon, dried, and the sweet/oily metallic smell of interfacing. Missing only one thing: June herself.
His autorepair queried: external sensor shutdown for autorepair? Y/N.
Y, he responded, with one last sensor pull at the sleeping bag. Nothing here for him. Nothing. Wrap yourself in one last pleasant delusion.
****
//….
Reboot external sensors initiate.
Mobility 73%
Retained Charge 54% remaining
…//
Barricade groaned. His physical sensornet onlined first, and he could feel the cold spread of concrete beneath his left hip, his arm, the vague itch of dried energon across his armor. His neck servos released with a hiss. He felt a strange warmth against his front moving against him. His optics rebooted.
“June?” he croaked.
She stirred, curled around the bulge of his grille, head pillowed against the inner cabling of his arm. She opened her eyes, shifting to look up at him. “Hey,” she said, quietly. As she turned her head, her red hair tickled his cabling. Soft, feathery. Like nothing he’d ever felt.
“What are you doing here?”
Her mouth quirked into a smile. “My garage.”
“Sorry. I’ll go.” He moved, winced as his sensornet blazed pain at him. Mobility 73-fraggin’-percent? Apparently the other twenty seven percent was ‘stiff agony’.
“Shut up. You’re staying,” June said, pushing herself to sit up. Dim light filtered through the one window, and he saw her taking in the signs of damage—his dented plates, long deep gouges on his armor. Her brows knitted together. He pulled back, strangely ashamed. “You got hurt,” she said, softly, running one hand over his mangled fender.
“Be fine,” he said. “Been through worse.” He ached at her touch. Frag. He’d missed her. Everything had a weird floaty feeling…as though for the last time. Already done.
“I know,” she said. “I just…worry.”
Yeah. She probably had better reason to worry than he did about her.
“I heard you roll in last night,” she said. “I just wanted to be with you.”
Yeah, I wanted that too, more than anything, Barricade thought.
“We just talked,” she said, quietly. “Bonecrusher and I. He gets lonely and, well…doesn’t really have anyone to talk to apparently.”
Uhhh, yeah? Because he’s a sadistic bully? Frag, he couldn’t say that. From what she saw of the bastard, he probably seemed like a misunderstood teddy bear. “He, uh, has a few deficiencies in the friends-making department,” Barricade said, stiffly neutral. Anything negative he said, he knew, would be taken as jealousy. Yeah, so? He was jealous. She should be miserable and lonely without him, the same way he was without her.
“So do you.”
“Not helping,” he muttered. He rolled onto his back, his doorwings grating across the floor, his shoulder tire bumping the pegboard of the far wall. Look, he told himself. Just apologize. But…that would be doing what Bonecrusher wanted him to do. And…he sucked at apologies. And he’d already apologized—for hurting her—and maybe you only got one shot at those things? He scrubbed his talons over his face. His hands were gritty with road dirt. “June,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “What I’m trying to say is….” What was he trying to say? That he wanted to be special to her? With her? That it wasn’t enough that he’d talked with her MORE or interfaced with her more times than Bonecrusher? That simple mathematical superiority wasn’t enough?
Well then, Barricade? What do you want?
I want her to know this without having to tell her.
The thought sent a hot sparking echo through his sensornet. And he thought of Starscream and what he’d done with his xeno and his spark flared within his chamber and….
“June,” he said, softly, his rough voice still sounding like tearing fabric, no matter how hard he tried, and he still didn’t dare to look at her, “can I show you something?”

***
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Also; Happy Birthday.
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IM SORRY I FORGOT!
I'll make you something as SOON as im finished with my assignments *kicks RL*
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This...is epic win.
Barricade is so possessive and jealous and...finally trusting.
More please?
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It's ok, Barricade, you're cuter than BC. >3
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I love that lonely Bonecrusher goes to June, of all people, to have someone to talk to. I would pay good money to hear the conversation!
I also love seeing these guys again!
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Also, I would love to see more of your pairings;D
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Ah, just when I say that LJ works again. Here's her comm: [Bad username or site: http://optimusxmikaela.livejournal.com/ @ livejournal.com]
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