Five Times Barricade Got Drunk

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse
Barricade/Starscream
Some kissing
written for 5_times  table 9.3 "Gluttony" 

Why yes, I am a prompt whore.  I've seen a bunch of people do these five-times stories and they looked like fun. This is my first time and I think I went a little...long, but I'd heard they were supposed to all work together to tell a larger story and...goddammit I ship Barricade with just about anyone so....

One

“Get out!” the voice blasted Barricade’s audio, crackling into static, as he felt his frame sail through the air. Oh, so this is what it feels like to fly, huh? He thought, blearily.  Maybe he shouldn’t have drunk so much high grade?

“’M out! I’m out!” he mumbled, after hitting the ground hard, feeling gravel scrape and gouge his armor.  He struggled to get his limbs under him.  Frag. Seriously, can’t a mech drink a little high-grade?  Not his fault the stupid civilian mech had an attitude against soldiers.  Just tryin’ to cut loose a little.  Worked hard for those creds, slaggit.  If he wanted to pour every cred he earned down his intake, that was no one’s business but his own. 

He wobbled to his feet, one hand reaching out for a wall to balance against, and missed it. He lurched sideways, stumbling.  He stopped when his face slammed into a broad piece of bronze armor that…was most definitely not a wall. 

He looked up, his four optics struggling to focus.  They managed to pick out the contours of jets and then, oh frag, a CDF insignia.  He could feel the red optics, all that way above him, pick out his own.  He cringed, dropping his optics to the broad, splayed feet.  Waiting for the dressing down.

“Trooper,” came the voice. “Are you overcharged on duty?”

“Not on duty,” he mumbled.  “Got in a fight,” he admitted. “But they were slamming the CDF and…,” he blurted, as if this was some kind of mitigation. He knew if nothing else there was going to be a report in the morning on his CO’s desk.  He winced at the thought.

“Ah,” the jet said. “You were defending our honor.”  The jet’s head tilted. “I advise you, trooper, that the CDF’s reputation is strong enough that it can abide a few petty swipes by those who know nothing.” 

Barricade hung his head.  “Yeah,” he muttered. “Got, you know, carried away.”

“I imagine. Now.  What is your name?”  The bronze in front of Barricade’s face shifted, the larger mech folding himself to rest on one knee, his optics closer in level to Barricade’s. 

Barricade knew better than lie: the jet’s rank insignia glowed from his collar armor.  “Barricade.”  He drooped low enough that he lost balance, finding himself steadied by the jet’s hand. “Should I just report to the brig?”

“Go back to barracks, Barricade.  You have been counseled by a superior officer not to let this happen again.” One optic winked at him. 

Barricade blinked back, stunned. Air frames did not wink. Not at grounders.  “But…punishment?” 

The beaked face broke into a grin. “Oh, trust me, Trooper Barricade. Your punishment will begin tomorrow when the hangover hits you.”  There was a heavy movement, a pat to Barricade’s head by the large bronze hand, and the jet moved on, pushing through the crowd, leaving Barricade agape,  stunned, unsteady.

Two

It was another one of the Lord Protector’s little demonstrations for the masses. A way of blowing a lot of money, Barricade thought, in hopes that the populace would move to open up the CDF’s budget.  It takes money to make money, he’d heard. Seemed stupid. Yeah, what did he know?

The airframes tore through the crystal-bright sky so fast it seemed to slice open the heavens.  Barricade had gotten off his shift a cycle and a half ago, and had been hitting the festival’s energon tents, more than a little crabbed that the airframes got so much attention. Like no one even noticed the grounders.  No one had watched their parade.  Only a few had come to their weapons demonstration or their obstacle course runs.   Oh but the flashy fliers come out and…everyone’s staring at the sky, slack-jawed.

Well. Fine. It meant shorter lines for the high grade, and all on the citizens’ credits.  He’d drink himself stupid on their cash any day.  He was almost at the front of the line for his third share when a large clump moved past him, tall and reeking of burnt fuel and ionized sky.

Fraggin’ airframes. Cutting in line. Not enough they were the stars of the show. Not bad enough they stole all the attention from the grounders. Now they were stealing his energon as well. It was hard not to take it personally. 

“Hey!” he blurted, the energon he’d already drunk making him bold. “Fraggin’ line. Wouldn’t kill you jets to stand on it like the rest of us.”

Several heads swiveled to look at him.  “Barricade.” His name floated out of the mass of jets, and, oh frag, that bronze one did seem kind of familiar. 

Part of him quailed under their gaze, but he stood firm, balling his hands into fists.  Useless fists if it came right down to it, not even considering the whole assault charge.  And the bronze one wouldn’t let him off so easy this time. “Yeah,” he barked back. 

The bronze jet said something he couldn’t hear to the other jets.  The others cast maybe one look back at the grounder, before turning back to the mech waiting to serve them.  Barricade seethed. Fraggin’ jets! Thought they were so superior! Turning their backs on him! He burned with humiliation.

The jets moved away.  Probably loaded down with the high grade—all of it, Barricade thought sourly.  He turned to watch them go, hoping his glare soured the pink stuff in their cubes.  Yeah, he wished! 

“Barricade.” That voice again. Barricade whirled, and the bronze jet stood in front of him, holding out an unopened cube.  “Now you do not have to stand on line either.” 

Three

“Eeeuurgh,” Barricade moaned.  Perhaps he had overdone it a bit last night. Right. No ‘perhaps’ about it.  Misery. His processor felt like it had been dropped to a meg of RAM, thoughts cottony and slow. And his entire sensornet prickled—and not in a good way—from the excess charge.  He winced as he moved, gingerly, toward the guard shack. 

At this point, he didn’t even remember if the party had been worth it.  Frag. He didn’t even remember what the party was about.  Just….owwww. 

Barricade managed to drape himself over the guard shack’s console, mostly to stop the world from spinning.  He set his audio to the command channel, reporting in blearily.  Stupid guard duty. Guard from what? Microbes?  This was…so unnecessary and all Barricade really wanted to do was crawl back in his bunk. And maybe die. Dying was definitely an option he would consider. 

Bleuuuurgh.  He stared out the grimy window, setting his vid feed to alert if it detected any motion.  Which he almost would have appreciated as, you know, a distraction from his misery. He’d wallowed in his own hangover for…ever it seemed like, when his vid alerted him. He jerked upright, wincing as the motion made his cortex spin and his tank roil.

“Trooper First Class Barricade,” he said, crisply. At least, he hoped it sounded crisp.

“Yes, Barricade, I do remember you from the comm check.”  A huge bronze shape filled the shack’s small doorway. “We have met before, but I am afraid I have never introduced myself.” 

Oh frag. It was the jet. THE jet.  The one who…wow, really had a track record of catching Barricade at his worst moments, didn’t he? “Uh, yeah?”  Brilliant, Barricade. Brilliant.  And what kind of fraggin’ awful luck that he would be the duty officer? Seriously? If Primus existed, he sure had it in for Barricade.

The jet grinned down at him. “My designation is Starscream.”

“Yeah, read the duty roster,” Barricade muttered. Just hadn’t made the connection. 

Starscream tilted his head. “Are you unwell, Trooper Barricade?”

Oh frag.  Barricade wasn’t…technically…drunk on duty, but yeah. Wasn’t exactly up to his alpha level combat readiness. “Fine!” he said, too fast. He winced as his own voice—too loud as though volume would help—echoed around the tiny shack. “’M fine!” 

“You…do not look like you have done your daily maintenance, Trooper,” the jet admonished.

Barricade’s doorwings drooped. “Kinda…overslept. Mission’s more important.”  True enough—no matter how stupid or pointless the duty itself was, Barricade knew that doing his job was his first priority. But, frag, his daily maintenance would have helped. Would have reduced some of the charge in his actuators, at least.   

Starscream stepped back, unblocking the doorway.  “I shall watch your post for half a cycle,” he said. “You shall go and do your maintenance.”

Barricade made some incoherent protest.

“Must I make that an order, Trooper Barricade?”

“No, sir,” Barricade said, glumly, edging off the stool.  He inched past the jet, his optics level with the flyer’s hip frame.

“Good,” the jet said, at his retreating back. “I have read your files and you are too good a soldier to waste.” 

Barricade stumbled, his doorwings twitching.  He turned. “I…what?”

The jet admonished him with a shake of his head. “Half a cycle only, Trooper.  You had best hurry.” 

Four

 Barricade wobbled back to the table, two cubes of airframe grade energon carefully balanced against his chassis.  He had a more than sneaking suspicion that Starscream was trying to butter him up for something, probably pump him for information.  He’d file that away for later analysis. Later analysis being, you know, when Barricade could stand up without wobbling on his stabilizing gyros.  But right now? The energon was airframe grade, on the jet’s tab, and…Barricade found himself willing to be buttered up. And most definitely to be used.

Starscream grinned at him as he placed the cubes on the table between them, nudging one cube toward Barricade with an elegant talon in a gesture of open invitation. Needless, but still, nice.  Barricade took his cube, tilting it up to Starscream with a cheeky wink.   

“So,” the jet said, conversationally. “Are you enjoying your new posting?”

Yeah, that wasn’t a loaded question. “It’s a job,” he said, neutrally.  He took a sip from his cube, his optics drifting shut to savor the sweet fizz of the airframe grade.  Part of him wished he could drink this every day, while another hated the idea that he’d ever get…used to it.  Starscream drank it as if it were water.  Without the particular joy or pleasure. 

“Surely there are…less pleasant jobs?”  Openly fishing.  Yeah, yeah, Starscream had been behind the new job for Barricade. He supposed he could sound appreciative to the jet.  Who was, after all, still paying to get him drunk. 

“Yeah.” Okay, Barricade. Maybe you could try a little harder.  “See some interesting things, at any rate.”

“Oh?”  Starscream’s tone was just a trifle too eager.  Barricade masked a grin behind his cube again. Starscream waited, but when no juicy revelations were forthcoming, he added, slyly, “Are you not enjoying your energon?”

Trick question. Say no and it’s the last you ever see, Barricade. “Yeah,” he said.  “Don’t get Seeker grade often.”

Starscream’s grin widened. “Of course not.”

“Suspicious as to your motives,” Barricade said. Blinked. Ummm, put the high grade down, you.  Starting to lose control of your vocalizer.

Starscream tilted his head, the rec room’s lights glossing over his armor. “Naturally. You would not be you otherwise.”  He took a slow sip.  “Is it so suspicious that I would want to make sure that someone working under me is content?”

“Yes,” Barricade blurted.

Starscream laughed. “You know me altogether too well, Barricade.” He took another drink. “So tell me.  Seen anything particularly ‘interesting’?”

Barricade shrugged.  “Haven’t started on the personnel files yet. Sure there’s some juicy stuff in there.” That he was dying to know.  And use against others. Especially, he had to admit, Starscream’s file.

Starscream sighed. “So, just surveillance today, then?” He seemed disappointed.

“Orienting myself thoroughly to the capabilities of the system,” Barricade said, pointedly. Fine tuning it for future spying, of course.  And he knew Starscream knew that.  He took another sip, feeling the pink stuff fuzz all the way around his cortex.  Frag, that felt good.  Warm and tingling.  He leaned back, just letting the glow wash over him. 

“I see,” Starscream said. “And will you let me know what you discover with this system?”

“Not sure you have the security clearance,” Barricade snorted.  He congratulated himself on his own wit.

“Not even about me?” Starscream flicked one optic shutter, coyly. 

Barricade twitched, feeling as if all the high grade he’d just consumed vaporized in his lines.  All of his confidence seemed to drain out of him with his former wit.  He would not have been surprised to se a puddle of confidence and wit leaking out of him. Starscream leaned back in his own chair, optics narrowed, amused.  Barricade’s optics darted in four different directions simultaneously, as though they were each trying to make a break from  his face.  He took a deep gulp from his cube.  The clear container shook in his talons. He placed it on the table, carefully. “I, uh, don’t think that would be appropriate,” he said, finally.

Starscream moued, a puff of air from his vents teasing across Barricade’s nervous talons. “Of course. And one must always do what is…appropriate.”  He pushed up, his bronze hands on the table, one talon almost brushing Barricade’s, and with a little wink, turned and left. 

Five

Barricade was drunk. Alone. And he did not care.  He was…miserable and the last thing he wanted was a witness to it. Someone to laugh at him. It had been a long time since he’d gotten this drunk. A long time since he’d had this much of an overcharge at all—when the war had heated up, time for that sort of nonsense had…disappeared. Barricade had a mission. A real mission. An important one. And he wasn’t going to mess that up. 

But now…he sat on the floor of his recharge cube—climbing into his berth was already an effort beyond his abilities.  Next to him, a stack of cubes, opened, unopened.  He hated his life.  And today, the pieces had all clicked into place.

All because he had decided to do a full maintenance strip down. Today of all days.  And seen…Starscream.  With Blackout.  They hadn’t seen him—focused entirely on each other, mouths and hands scrambling over the other’s frame.  And it had struck him like a blow right below the spark chamber.

He was jealous. 

Ridiculous. Fraggin’ airframes. You never had a chance.  Ever. You know better, knew better all along.  Which was why you never even let yourself think it, you fraggin’ idiot.

Frag.  He threw an empty cube across the room. It thunked against the back of the door.  Stupid, stupid Barricade. 

The door whooshed open.  Barricade froze.  Him. Starscream. Here? NOW?

“What are you doing here?” he snapped.

“I might ask the same question of you,” Starscream said, tartly, picking his way across the cube-littered floor before lowering himself into a crouch.  “You requisitioned a considerable amount of energon. Is this all for you?”

Barricade nudged an unopened cube with one foot. “Can have some. I guess.”

“Well, thank you, Barricade.” Starscream picked up the cube.  “Is something troubling you?” 

“Yes. No!” Barricade grabbed for another cube—the jet reached over and nimbly snatched it from his fingers. Barricade found himself shaking with mortification. “You! Okay! It’s you!”

“Me?”  Starscream held the cube out of Barricade’s reach.  He wrapped his other hand around Barricade’s wrist as the smaller mech gave up and just reached for another cube.  He turned Barricade to face him by that trapped wrist.  “Me? I am troubling you?”

“You!” Barricade blurted, miserably, his voice tight and raw. “With Blackout!”

“With…ohhhhh! Oh!” Barricade winced as Starscream’s optics flickered brighter.  The jet asked, quietly, “Are you jealous, Barricade?”

“Not funny!”

Starscream tilted his head, optics wide and curious. “I did not say that it was.”  He placed the cubes behind him, moving one hand to the ground next to Barricade’s hip. His face hovered less than a hand’s span away.  Barricade felt himself tremble, the jet’s EM field shimmering against his own. “For how long, Barricade?” Starscream whispered. 

“For…forever, I guess.” He couldn’t place when it had started, or where. Had it been that first night, ages and ages ago? Had he walked, literally, right into it?  He stared at his hands, feeling stupider than he had ever felt before. 

“That is a very long time,” Starscream answered, but there was no malice, no mockery, in his voice. 

“It is,” Barricade started to say, but found his mouth stopped by the smooth plates of Starscream’s wedged lip plates against his.  And the long, too long, time was over. Just like that.

Comments

[anontfwriter.livejournal.com]

Brilliantly writen! I love your Baricade!

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

He is! Glad you liked!

[sneere.livejournal.com]

Cute...But what does CDF stand for?

[katsuko]

I may be mistaken, but I think it's short for Cybertron Defense Corps.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Yes, Katsuko was right. CDF I think I made up because they're just generally know as the Cybertron defense forces and I figured they'd be as alphabet happy as we are, and...bingo. I mean, they had to call themselves *something* before the rift between Autobot and Decepticon, right?

[sneere.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok then, that makes sense. I figured it was something along those lines. Thank you!

[katsuko]

Oh god, I love it! Just the flow and everything was so perfect, even Barricade's little jealous snit at the end.

Don't worry, Cade; there's plenty of jet to share with Blackout, and you get bonus copter as well!

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

I wrote this so out of order (I think part four is the part I wrote first) I'm surprised it has any flow at all! I'm glad it works!

[yukiko-angel.livejournal.com]

Just adorable! Just nice sweet evolution in there :D

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Thanks, glad you liked!!!!

/drools at your icon...

[eerian_sadow]

despite the shitty i'm feeling today, you did manage to get a smile out of me at the end there. *thumbs up*

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's really sometimes the best compliment an author can hear--that they made someone's day a little less sucky. *hug*

[eerian_sadow]

don't i know how that goes. i've had my share of those comments. *hug back*

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

AWwwwwwww - the fluff! I love how Barricade is always expecting the worst, only to be bamboozled by Starscream's sideways kindness ^^

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

(I think Starscream did that just to mess with his head!)

[kyra-neko-rei.livejournal.com]

D'AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! So adorable!

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked! These fivetimes fics are haaaaard! ^__^

[catraven.livejournal.com]

*stands* BRAVA! Awesome fic, tied together very well, and full of Barricade/Starscream goodness. :)
This pairing has so grown on me that I look every day for something from you. :)

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

tee hee! Cute!