Sky and Ground 50 Epilogue

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Barricade, Skywarp, Starscream, Thundercracker
FLUFF

Yeah, I hate epilogues too.  And alas, there's probably more coming in this AU, though I doubt anything as massive and interconnected and dark. Think...pronzy or fluffy oneshots.  Because I can't bear to say goodbye! 

Epilogue:

Barricade dropped the last box of his belongings on the floor inside their new quarters. Their. All four of them.  This was going to be…weird.  He squatted down, starting to stack the datatracks on a low shelf.

“Well, at least there is that,” Thundercracker sniped. “He gets the low shelves.”

“I told you that he had his advantages,” Starscream said. He was draped, idly, on the berth, one foot  propped over his knee, swinging back and forth in the air. Relaxed. Happy.  “He is also quite handy when it comes to greasing for an intrasystem flight.”

“No,” Barricade and Thundercracker spoke in unison, froze, glared at each other.

Skywarp burst out laughing, dropping his own box of input rods from his investigation on the desk console.  He’d already contacted IG, altered his orders. After this investigation, he was transferred to combat.  Barricade could feel the dark thrill in Skywarp at the thought of combat, mixed with anxiety.  Barricade had seen him. Barricade did not fear. “Primus, you’re more alike than you want to own.”

“Shut up,” Thundercracker snapped, alone only because Barricade wouldn’t dream of saying that to Skywarp.  He dropped onto the berth next to Starscream, eyeballing Barricade warily. “Must he recharge with us?” 

“Seeker law,” Skywarp snickered. 

“Ha ha.” Thundercracker’s optics narrowed. “You’re only gleeful because you get to have your way.” 

“For once.”

“For once?” Thundercracker stiffened.  Starscream’s foot stopped swinging up and down, the leg wrapping around the blue waist, pulling Thundercracker down on top of him, arms reaching around the blue frame.

“As gracious in defeat as in victory,” Starscream teased.  Thundercracker tensed, and Barricade could feel the tension through the bond, but then loosened. Not giving in, just…not wanting to fight any more.  Barricade could understand that.  Thundercracker shifted onto his side, pulling Starscream against him.

Barricade felt uncomfortable.  Well, he also felt a ripple of desire, mutual, echoing, resonating through his systems. Only it wasn’t his desire. It was Starscream’s and Thundercracker’s and he was just a conduit. A small, suffering, aroused conduit.  And looking away didn’t help, because he could still feel them, still feel everything: Starscream’s long talons tracing light lines over Thundercracker’s folded wing, Thundercracker’s mouth cool and longing, pressing to drink a kiss from Starscream. 

“Welcome to my world,” Skywarp said, folding his arms around Barricade from behind, his ex-vents warm brushes of air across Barricade’s upper tires. 

“Didn’t help much,” Barricade said, softly.  Regret and amazement mixed. How had this happened?  How had he gotten this, this thing he could never even have imagined wanting because he was too limited to imagine it even existed?

“You kept us together,” Skywarp said, the voice rumbling through Barricade’s frame.  “You’re the only way we could feel each other.”  He stood up, carrying Barricade to the berth, the smaller mech squirming a protest. He hadn’t finished putting his stuff away. He’d been a slob in his old quarters, and he wanted to make a fresh start. Skywarp laid him down on the berth, draping himself over Barricade.  Starscream peeked over Thundercracker’s shoulder. 

“I do not understand how he does not feel…compressed.”

“Like it,” Barricade said, his voice muffled under the armor.  Starscream laughed, reaching over to stroke at Skywarp’s shoulder armor.  Thundercracker rolled onto his back, pushed by his bronze quaternion.

“It does,” Starscream observed, “leave this entire back unprotected, does it not, Thundercracker?”

Thundercracker smirked.  Barricade couldn’t see either of them—their bodies blocked by the beloved black mass of Skywarp’s chassis—but he could feel them, hear them, sense them as they turned their desire onto Skywarp, feel Skywarp’s arousal flare in return. He groaned, swimming in a sea of desire, helpless.  Skywarp lifted himself off, lowering down to a hungry kiss that sent the arousal spinning like wildfire across Barricade’s sensor net, their combined desires teetering him on the brink of overload.

“We shall have to, at some point, get him a modification and protocol to control the links,” Starscream said. 

“We could do other mods as well,” Thundercracker speculated, “Air frame. He could adapt.” Barricade could faintly figure Thundercracker’s thoughts: It would be less embarrassing, invite fewer questions, if they were all, at least, flyers. And he would be able to fly. 

“No,” Skywarp said. “I like him like this.” He nipped one of the tires as proof. 

“Skywarp, when will you learn to stop making his decisions for him? He is fully competent to decide on his own.” 

“And your decisions are notoriously poor,” Thundercracker added, darkly. 

Skywarp frowned.  It had the advantage of damping the lust that was crashing like a wild torrent across Barricade’s systems, but…Barricade didn’t want Skywarp unhappy. He’d give everything for the black jet’s happiness. “Don’t want to. This is who I am.”  How Skywarp loves me.  What he wants. Good enough.  That’s all I want to be.  He felt a hot surge of love from Skywarp, that spilled through his link over to the other two. 

Thundercracker winced. “But yes, at the very least he needs control protocols.” 

“I kind of like it,” Skywarp growled, softly.  “Can’t lie to each other. Can’t hide anything.”  There’d been too much of that, for too long. 

“All I’m saying,” Thundercracker said, “is that I wish it didn’t have to be through…him.”  Barricade grinned.  Wow, Thundercracker wasn’t kidding. He’d never like Barricade.  Barricade let some of his amusement seep through the link.  The blue jet narrowed his optics in mute retort. 

“Once again,” Starscream sighed, aggrieved, “it becomes up to me to have the solution.” 

Barricade felt Skywarp struggle with a protest, but caught some of Barricade’s amusement and backed down, ducking down to kiss him.  “Let’s hear this masterful plan,” Skywarp goaded.

“Reopen our own bonds.  Rebond if necessary. Start over.”  He stroked his hands down Thundercracker’s chassis, circling the armor over the spark chamber. 

Thundercracker hesitated, a frisson of shy fear running cold through the bond.  “Yes?” he breathed.  Knowing he could not erase the past, undo it, but wanting so desperately to move beyond what it had done, what he had done, what had been done to all of them.  Moving beyond their loss.

And Barricade was no Skyfire: he’d never measure up. Not all the modifications in the world would ever make him fill that gaping need in them. But he was Barricade, and he was with them, and…it was enough.

 

 

 

Comments

[evvj.livejournal.com]

Derp de derp. Lookit me, reading all this in one weekend. Me, I'm a sucker for angst. I'm addicted to it. So all the times this fic made me cry or almost cry or not be able to breathe from emotion (and then all the smiles and laughs mixed in) made this perfect for me. (I have to admit, after reading the comment from you that said "one more bad thing will happen and then lots and lots of Seekersex", I was terrified Barricade was going to die. This was a much nicer ending.)

Well, off to bed now, and I'll read the rest of this AU tomorrow I think.