Not Furniture

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

G
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Barricade, Skywarp, Starscream, Thundercracker
Fluff

Yeah...uhhh, I did say something about 'fluffy oneshots'?  Have one! *scurries off to hide*

Written for tf_rare_pairing  prompt: Barricade/Thundercracker "why are you growling at me?"

Three of the newly formed Quaterne took their positions on the raised seats around the central dais.  Barricade plonked himself down, self-consciously, a level below where Skywarp had seated himself, not wanting to start some sort of turf war with Thundercracker, who ranged himself possessively next to his black Quaternion. 

He heard an amused chuckle, and felt his door wing squashed down by the intruding presence of the jet’s long ankle, the foot wrapping around his shoulder, toes hooking his fender.  Skywarp tugged him back against him with his foot, the other leg wrapping around his ribstruts.  Barricade grinned, one hand coming up to stroke the delicate toe-plates idly.  Skywarp’s way of not letting him feel left out, a playful, possessive embrace.  He wasn’t about to complain. 

“Hey little spike,” Skywarp said. “Seen Starscream?” He waggled his toes.  Barricade teetered on the brink of a laugh. 

“Saw him in TacDat. He’ll be along.”  He melted under the feathery brushes of a talon over one of his shoulder tires.  Over the link, he felt a delicious gold fizz from Skywarp. 

“I don’t mind keeping them waiting,” Thundercracker muttered, making some gesture Barricade couldn’t see at Bombshock and Onslaught, waiting to begin the mission briefing. “But I don’t like to be kept waiting.” 

“Yeah, cause it’s all about you,” Barricade snapped.  The fizz flattened, souring Barricade’s mood.

Silence.  Then. Thunk.  A blue foot dropped itself onto Barricade’s head, the ankle servo resting neatly between the forehead spires.  “Ah, finally, Barricade,” Thundercracker said, dryly. “I have discovered a use for you.”

“Not a footrest.”

“Why not? You’re doing it for Skywarp. We are all equal, right?” He wiggled his own foot, heel spikes waggling in the top of Barricade’s field of vision.

Barricade growled.

“Why are you growling at me, footrest?” Thundercracker said, lightly.

“Ah!” Starscream said, trotting along the row to meet them. “I was unaware that it was ‘Barricade = furniture’ day.” 

“Because it’s not!” Barricade snarled.

Starscream jumped down two ranks, his doubled-jointed legs bending easily to accept the weight before he dropped down onto the bench row, leaning his back against Barricade’s legs.  “Really? Let us submit this to a Trin—oh, that is correct, a Quaterne vote.”

“I say it is,” Thundercracker said, smugly.

“Yes also from me,” Starscream purred, wiggling his shoulders, his engines rubbing against Barricade’s legs. 

“NO it is not!” Barricade said, forced to hold his hands out of his lap, which was suddenly filled with the bronze helm of the jet. 

“That leaves…Skywarp?” Starscream said, idly rolling his head over Barricade’s thigh toward Skywarp.

A pause, and Barricade felt a dangerous ripple of amusement along the bond an instant before Skywarp said, “I…abstain.”

“…the…frag?!”  Irate, Barricade tried to turn his head, but was stopped by downward pressure from Thundercracker’s leg, still laid atop his head. 

“Furniture,” Thundercracker said, “Does not talk back.”

This was…beyond ridiculous.  Anyone looking at them would see a pile of jet limbs, blue, bronze, and black, and in the middle, Barricade’s very outraged and mortified face.  Barricade felt himself shaking with rage. It flared through the bond—he felt Thundercracker’s open amusement, Skywarp’s light teasing, and…something he couldn’t place from Starscream.

A long bronze talon came up and began prodding at his grille. After the third poke, he asked, sourly, “What are you doing?”

In his lap, the bronze upside-down face moued.  “The massage function on this chair appears broken.”

“Not. Furniture,” Barricade hissed.  “No massage function.”

Starscream tilted his head, the helm gliding silkily over Barricade’s thighs in a way that was…really not unpleasant.  “Are you certain?  I have been unable to fly recently and my wings have built up excess charge and it is rather unpleasant and truly, just a simple stroking would do a world of wonder,” he rattled, breathlessly, shamelessly.  

Barricade rolled his optics.  There was no way to fight them. Not…three of them.  “This is ridiculous,” he protested, but his talons reached for one of Starscream’s broad folded wing flaps. 

“The best thing to do when confronted with absurdity,” Starscream said, sighing contentedly as Barricade began stroking the armor, “Is to immerse yourself in it.  Else you become what it is about instead of part of it.” 

Barricade tried to hold onto the frown, but it crumbled. His hard hostility collapsed under the warmth pushing across his bond, even from Thundercracker.  Not love, not from him, but an amused tolerance.  But most importantly, Skywarp’s bubbling happiness, like laughter made fluid, everything pure and decent and good in the world, shining on Barricade like sunlight.

 And anyone looking at them then would have seen a pile of jet limbs, twining to embrace a giddy little grounder. 

 

Comments

[thepheonixqueen.livejournal.com]

squee! fluff so soon? you spoil us like barricade after a four-day pass with skywarp!

(if not insulting would it be possible to make a request?)