Sky and Ground 43b? Release

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG 13
Bayverse Sky and Ground AU
Skywarp/Barricade
ref to noncon, angst, sap

Bit of non-plot-advancing fluff for tf_rare_pairing prompt Skywarp/Barricade," thank you for being there with us." 

Skywarp shifted position, his systems cycling slowly online.  This, he thought, his spinal cabling crackling as he moved slowly to his side, is why I don’t recharge on my back. Don’t know how Starscream does it, honestly.   I’m not really sure how I ended up this way.  Not how I recharge at all. It’s how…oh. 

He rolled to his side, catching sight of Barricade curled into a tight ball, doorwings limp, a protective hunch around his sparkchamber.  Skywarp could feel a taut, unfamiliar presence in his cortex, also tight, as if trying not to take up too much space. 

Skywarp risked a touch with one talon gently down the white armor of Barricade’s upper arm.  He could feel the sensation ripple through the new bond, feel echoes in Barricade’s systems stirring up response.  Soothing.  Skywarp’s hand trailed down Barricade’s side, sweeping along his thigh.  The little ball in his brain shot out prickles of fear.  Skywarp probed, delicately, flashes of memory strobing at him.  He could feel the tight ball darken, Barricade’s recharging processor summoning a bad purge of memory. No.  Skywarp wouldn’t allow that.  He pushed in, gently, clumsily, acutely aware that he used to do this better, more skillfully, that he used to trust his knowing to know what to do. 

Skywarp sent a tentative push of calm along the bond, feeling his way into Barricade’s processor, pushing the calmness in front of him like a wave.  He heard a whimper start, and then fade, from the smaller mech’s vocalizer.  He reached in to the bad memories, pulling them like weeds out of Barricade’s processing code.  He felt Barricade relax, release, both physically and internally, the tight ball beginning to lose its sharper edges, blur and blend and seep, hesitantly, into Skywarp’s own. 

He sent a pulse of warm encouragement.  A sudden constriction of fear, another burst of bad memories—brutal laughing faces, physical violence, a stabbing agony that lanced through Skywarp’s interface systems, a sickly yellow-green burst of humiliations suffered. 

Skywarp quailed, momentarily. This.  This is what you forced.  You took him, in your wrath and fear, and you inflicted this upon him, gouging deeper into a cut others had made, tearing apart scars Barricade had tried to trust you with.  His systems shivered. He withdrew.  This was a mistake. This whole thing. The bonding…everything. How could he have asked Barricade to open himself up like this…to him? 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.  He couldn’t say he hadn’t meant to hurt Barricade: he had. He had meant to hurt him, enough to drive him away.  Not enough to…ruin him.  Once again—he could almost hear Thundercracker’s voice—you didn’t think things through.  No foresight. Always your failing.

Face what you’ve done, Skywarp. Not just to him. To all of them. Violator.  Stripping, ripping into their bodies, tearing at their sparks.  Awful. Vile.  There are no words for you.  His hand, which had been stroking soothingly along Barricade’s frame, withdrew. Self-hate felt like a bar across his throat. Unworthy to touch. Unwanted.

Wanted. He felt a small, nervous push from the presence in his cortex.  Wanted and needed and loved.  The ball’s borders fuzzed, trying to reach out, or at least allow in.  And it occurred to Skywarp that he was also holding back, holding himself in, letting the ball isolate itself for fear of what it might see: his thoughts, his memories, his feelings.  Oh…if Barricade knew the fierce and terrible joy he had felt…!

A slide of knowing.  And the boundaries fuzzed even more, the ball changing color, changing shape, stretching and iridescent.

Could do it again, he thought, hating to give even that much coherence, that much thought to his darkest fear. 

Won’t.  Can’t.  The thought came back, foreign and yet familiar, tinged with everything he had come to associate with the grounder: slightly truculent and still trusting.  Open, yet hard-edged and jagged.  Love you.

Skywarp sighed. Love doesn’t solve everything. Doesn’t fix anything. Skywarp was still—Skywarp—violent and vicious and callous and damaged. Just makes it hurt more when you fall.

Be there when it hurts.  Can hurt together.  Bitter and sweet in equal measure.  The presence in his cortex opened a bit more, unfolding, like a dark, unsteady flower. He stiffened, feeling it spread, sending vines and runners through him, but each contact brought no fear or rejection, only the earnest desire to soothe.  He released his tension, his worry, for Barricade’s sake.  Let it go.  Let it fall away into the other darkness, a thing for another time.  Right now there was…this: the tentative, awkward steps of Barricade feeling his way along a bond he’d never dreamed he’d have, giving his entire effort over to doing something he didn’t even know how to do, right.  He is trying; you are not.  That was the ultimate realization.  You want to be in charge, be the one comforting him. Stiff and tight and withholding when it comes to yourself. It doesn’t work like that.

Doesn’t, the presence echoed in his cortex, radiating nothing but warmth and openness.  Be comforted, please?  A high thin wire of a request.  Don’t know how else to thank you.

Thank him.  Skywarp’s optics cycled down, his arm coming to pull the smaller mech, whose frame was still heavy in recharge, against him.  I should thank you.  For being there for us. With us. For doing…this. 

The last wall of resistance broke, a thin membrane ruptured with a flick of pain/panic.  Impossible to say whose. And they were one, feeling entirely each other’s systems, thoughts, memories, even the things that thoughts were before they were thoughts—that formless glob of unformed half-translated emotion.  Secret? Barricade’s voice, distinct even when not run through Skywarp’s audio.  It had the flavor of the smaller mech, his essence. Secret?  Did it for you.  Not the others, not for any noble rescue.  Selfish. Me.

I’m selfish, too, Skywarp thought back, burying his face in the armor between Barricade’s doorwings. 



Comments

[anontfwriter.livejournal.com]

Beautiful & awesome!

[flamekaat.livejournal.com]

ahhhh!!!! *huddles in the shadow of the epic adorableness* There is lurv yes there is! Niow I am done at this precious PC of mine. Snack then nap time!

[katsuko]

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! I'm seriously melting from the adorable factor on this one ♥

(And yay! You wrote the only prompt that might have been of any interest to me to see written from tf_rare_pairing this week! I need to submit some Decepticon prompts or something, the list is getting thin IMO...)

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

He is trying; you are not.

All you can do is try, bbs *snuggles 'em both* <3

I really like how you describe Barricade's presence in the bond - the little ball with edges that reach out in different ways, with sensations of color and emotion and "unfolding like a dark, unsteady flower" - it feels like a solid and real thing. I always feel a bit handwavey when I'm trying to write gestalt bond interactions: "Just...take my word for it, there's this bond thing, ok?" *handwavey*

[riventiana.livejournal.com]

I've been so effin' busy lately but this fic makes me unreasonably happy. Love these two, and still can't wait to see what Thundercracker thinks about all this in the end. Can't help wishing that Barricade could extend a little of his love to Starscream as well. Eventually. They're good together too <3<3

[nightwind69.livejournal.com]

I feel so wonderfully fuzzy now! :D And it's conflicting with my current dark and sorta-gothic bent, but that's OK because too much dark is...well, scary. ;) Now I feel a need to go write something mushy...and I do have something that I could finish that would fill the bill, but...

But anyway, I've fallen behind on reading this story arc due to Stuff, but it's a slow day at work, and what better way to pass the time than by reading robosmex/mush? So I just read the last...oh, six chapters of this, I think. And it was quite the rollercoaster, going from uncomfortable (in a good way) "Oh, ouch!" to total, fuzzy "Awwwwwwwwww!" in the space of an hour or so, off and on. I'm really glad I finished on a fuzzy chapter because now I have a happy.

In all, I think it's brilliant the way you've developed these characters, all four of the main ones, throughout this entire arc. They have real pathos to them, real emotion behind them. They are vibrant, and I dig it, and I can't understand how anyone -- ANYONE! -- could be unhappy with what you've written, at all, in any particular. (Well, unless they don't like slash/smex, of course. ;) ) Each character seems to have his own inherent yin-yang, and I love it when writers imbue characters with that sort of thing. Too often, the characters seem so...one-sided and unbalanced to me. They're often a reflection of only one facet of a real, full personality because the writer gloms on to one characteristic and just can't seem to pull away from it enough to see the complete picture, can seem to understand that a real person is usually a creature of many facets, and some of the facets, at least on the surface, conflict with each other.

But you've written a Skywarp who has a very believable mix of light and dark, "good" and "evil." (With the bonus of the "good" angsting about the "evil." :) ) You've written a Starscream who is a very intriguing mix of strength and deep, shrouded, clawing vulnerability. A Barricade who is a mix of timid uncertainty and lacerated self-esteem, yet who also has a determined, insistent stubbornness about him when the need for it arises. And then there's a Thundercracker who...Well, I don't know too much about him yet, but I'm hoping to learn a lot more. They all seem to have vulnerability in common, it seems, but in different ways. Complementary ways, in fact, such that they can shore each other up, now.

In short, I just love what you're doing here. Love this story arc to death. It's one of the best TF things I've ever read, and I can only hope that it keeps going because I'm greedy, and I want more. Tons more. Kudos to you, my friend. Major kudos.

[library-drone01.livejournal.com]

AWWWWWWWWW....

Is adorable!

[nova-myth.livejournal.com]

-purrs-

[kyra-neko-rei.livejournal.com]

*purrs at*

Beautiful. A symphony of emotions, exquisite and delicious and so wonderfully satisfying.

And I really love "like a dark, unsteady flower."

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

*snuggles with them* gorgeous