Marking

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Marking
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Barricade, Skywarp, Starscream, Thundercracker
PG-13
innuendo?
written for chibirisuchan  for tf_trading_post 

Starscream stirred, coming slowly out of recharge.  It was still a new luxury to him to allow his systems to online slowly, running through basic systems checks, waiting for ready responses to his servo queries.  He hadn’t had this for ages and he was re-learning the joy of it, of waking up with his Quaterne around him, surrounded by them, supported by them.

Not alone. That was the key difference. Not alone, and safe.

It was almost a game to online and locate each of them, feel a limb across his chassis and try to guess whose it was and how it had gotten there.  The other solar he had somehow woken up with Skywarp’s foot on his face.  He chuckled softly at the memory, his vocalizer humming to warm itself up. He had, of course, taken full advantage. 

This solar, however, the berth seemed conspicuously more open than it should have been.  Starscream pushed a query along the bond, a ping for contact.  Skywarp and Thundercracker, not here and closed down.  He felt a twinge of concern. They had not said anything to him about an early mission.  Still, if it were important, they would have told him.  

He shifted, and felt a weight along his hip. He flicked his optics on—he always brought them online last, nowadays, letting his other senses feed morsels of this new reality, letting it come slowly into focus, savoring each sensation fully, individually.

 Ah! The presence was Barricade, his arms wrapped tightly around Starscream’s thigh, face buried above the bronze hip. Starscream felt a smile build across his face.  It hadn’t been easy on the little grounder, these last few decacycles, but he had put forth a valiant effort.  And the bond-protocol modification was just barely visible—a small lump of silver-bare metal behind the grounder’s left audio receptor. 

Starscream tested the bond—still asleep, the grounder’s bond defaulted to wide open.  He was still learning, projecting everything he thought and felt across all three of his Quaternions.  He had been getting better, practicing with that earnest intensity which flavored everything he did where Skywarp was concerned. The mod allowed the others, at least, to control the bond on their end, closing down what seeped from their systems over the link while Barricade practiced, buffering each other from the reverberations.

And one day, Barricade would have the ability to control it fully himself.  It was just a matter of time and practice.

In a way, Starscream didn’t like it—there should be no secrets among them. He had seen, had known the kind of knowledge that comes through living it, that strange pain that hiding one’s emotions could bring.  It was necessary in the outer world, yes, but here, among themselves?

Still, it was a necessity, but right now he let himself enjoy the soft bliss emanating over the open bond from the grounder. Happiness still had that feeling of rarity—as though Barricade himself recognized how infrequent and rare such emotion was, even in recharge, and was determined not to ever forget. 

Starscream ran a gentle talon over the grounder’s shoulder, along the mounting of his pauldron tire.  The grip around his thigh tightened, Barricade sighing, a burst of yellow-pink swirling across the bond.  The grounder was so desperately pure in his emotions.  Starscream wondered if that was what had attracted Skywarp to Barricade, or if…perhaps all grounders were like this? Free of the needless complications of the weight of history, the expectations of the bonded units of Trine and Quaterne?

It didn’t matter.  This was their grounder.  Some of that spread across the bond, a light wash of possessiveness. Barricade reacted, nuzzling further into the hip for a moment before lifting his head, optics still brightening on. He loosened his grip, sheepishly. “Sorry,” he mumbled scrubbing his talons over his face. 

“There is no need for an apology, Barricade.” Starscream pulled himself up to sit, watching, amused, as the grounder tried to recover from his embarrassment. Needless embarrassment.  But, delicious, all the more so for its needlessness.  They had seen each other at their worst and most exposed.  By contrast, this was nothing.  Starscream could not resist teasing, “It is hardly the first time you have mistaken me for Skywarp.”

The little window-wings behind the grounder’s shoulders drooped.  “Gotta keep bringing that up, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Starscream grinned, poking a tire, playfully.  “It is hardly my fault that your discomfiture is so amusing.”

“Hate you.”

“No, you do not,” Starscream said primly.  “I know exactly how you feel, remember.”

A pinch of irritation, partly at himself for still struggling with the control protocol, which dissolved into a strange affection.  They had spent so much time at odds that it still felt a little awkward to be so intimate, and to realize how quickly their antagonism had evaporated.  Starscream decided not to press it. He gestured around the empty berth. “Where are the others?”

“I have no idea.” A tight green circle over the bond. Hiding something. Deliberately.

“You know something,” Starscream said, mildly. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know anything.”  The silver chrome facial spires quivered in amusement. 

“You do know,”  Starscream lunged forward, startling the still-recharge-slow smaller mech with the suddenness of the movement. Barricade flopped back onto his back, his wings flattening wide against the berth, optics wide.  “Tell me what you know.”  Barricade’s amusement had set his worst worries at ease. Barricade knew, and he was not worried.

He felt Barricade struggle to control the bond, not afraid of him, but not wanting to leak out something that he knew.  “No idea,” the grounder said.  “Left before I reonlined.”  The bleed over the bond squelched to a trickle.

“You can feel them. I know you can.  Tell me.”  Starscream loomed over him, optics boring into Barricade’s.  “Tell me!”

“If I don’t?” Barricade squeaked.  All he knew was that they were together, and flying, and teasing each other.  Not the slightest hint that anything was wrong.

“Or else…,” Starscream considered.  Two could play at this game. Even though it was really himself against the three of them.  No matter. Their combined wiles were no match for him. “Or else I shall make all of you suffer. Terribly.”  He ran one talon down one of the drivetrain tires, spinning it.  Barricade quivered.  Stars of desire burst across his net and the bond.  Starscream leaned lower. “I know you cannot control the bond when you are…excited.”  He nipped the tire, then traced along the mounting armor with his glossa.  Barricade whimpered, trying to hold onto his composure, onto the bond.

“I can!” Barricade blustered.  A lie, and both of them knew it. He twisted, trying to pull his tire away from Starscream’s teasing mouth.

“Indeed? Well then, if you are so confident, you will not mind me testing it, will you?”  Starscream ran a hand over Barricade’s chassis, tickling over the grille’s grating, circling a headlamp, surfing over the contours of the bumper. 

“I—“  Barricade squirmed, his vents picking up.

“You could just…tell me all you know. And spare yourself this horrible, horrible torment.”  The jet glossed a talon over Barricade’s interface hatch. Barricade shuddered, hands that he’d brought up to push Starscream away reflexively clutching on around the bronze armor plates.

Barricade’s face tightened. “You’ll get nothing out of me.”  He knew they’d gone off together to talk about something they wanted to ask.  That was it.  He didn’t want to ruin the surprise. 

“Oh?” Starscream bent lower, dragging his cockpit down over Barricade’s chassis.  “Nothing at all?”  He grinned, feeling resistance and desire battle across the bond, rushing across it.  “Where are they, Barricade?  All you have to do is tell me where.” 

“We’re right here,” Thundercracker’s voice came just as the door whooshed open, and a rush of space-cold air blasted into the room.  Starscream looked up, still crouching over Barricade like a predator with his prey. “And your attempts to torture us through him,” Thundercracker jerked his chin at Barricade, who had merely tilted his head back over the edge of the berth, “are completely ineffective.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Skywarp muttered, irritably.  “Really hard to think when you’re doing that, little spike.”

“Didn’t do anything!” Barricade, suddenly nervous, tried to wriggle out from under the large bronze frame.

Skywarp pushed into the room, optics flared with arousal.  For a klik Barricade felt a stab of something like jealousy, that Skywarp forcefully dissolved, as the black jet took in his bronze Quaternion, teasing and stroking Barricade. 

“He has been,” Starscream admitted, “extremely uncooperative.”  He pushed back on his knees.  “However, I would say my strategy overall was a success.  It got results.” 

Thundercracker frowned.  “And what results are those?”

“You are here. I know where you are now.”  Starscream’s optics narrowed. “I still do not know where you went or why.”  He traced a deliberate, lascivious line up Barricade’s thigh, between armor plates, sending, for good measure, a burst of desire back along the bond.  Barricade’s head tilted back, optic shutters dropping, helpless, a soft moan escaping his vocalizer. Skywarp shivered.

“None of your business,” Thundercracker muttered, sourly.

“Actually,” Skywarp said. “It kind of is.”  He dropped one of his foreknees onto the berth, plucking Starscream’s hand off of Barricade with his, still cold from flight. “Since you simply must ruin every surprise,” he rolled his optics, “We want you to mark us.” 

“Mark you?”

“You know.”  Thundercracker came over, perching one blue hip on the berth.  He trailed a finger down one of the inscribed markings on Starscream’s forearm.  The liquid metal nanites eddied.  “Like this.  You have spares still, right?”

“Yes, but....” 

“And you have to do it,” Skywarp added.

“But…what should it say?”

“Have a few suggestions for Thundercracker,” Barricade muttered.

“Oh I have some for you, too, grounder,” Thundercracker said. “Such as ‘mouthy little grounder who’s going to online one morning in the middle of an asteroid field’.” 

“That’s…kind of long,” Skywarp said, looking at Barricade appraisingly. “Unless Starscream could do it really small.” 

Barricade’s optics blazed outrage up at the black jet. “Whose side are you on?”

“The side that sees how ridiculous you two are?” Skywarp laughed.

“I’ve got your slagging ‘ridiculous’,” Thundercracker muttered.

“Ahem. Getting distracted?” Barricade said, pointedly.  “Thought you were going to ask Starscream a favor.”

“Well,” Skywarp purred, “you are distracting. It’s not my fault.” 

“Oh, seriously,” Thundercracker groaned, as the cascade of warm emotion from the pair of them poured across Barricade’s uncontrolled link. “Not good for my systems to purge after a coldflight.”

Barricade scrubbed his talons over his face again, his optic shutters flicking. “Too early for this. Look,” he turned to Starscream. “You willing to do it?”

Starscream nodded. “I shall have to think of what to do, and where.”  His optics ran appraisingly up Thundercracker’s frame.  Hot, raw thoughts raced over the bond.

“Hey!” Skywarp complained, gasping, his talons clutching around Barricade. “Barricade has an excuse about controlling his bond. You don’t.” 

“Maybe,” Starscream said, grinning, “It was deliberate.”  He let his optics scan over Skywarp, and another hot rush of lust swirled between them.  “Payback for making me worry.”  For good measure, he added a memory—his palms glossing over Thundercracker’s thighs.

“Not,” Barricade whimpered, falling back against Skywarp’s knee,  “the best way to dissuade them, you realize.” 

“For once, I agree with the grounder,” Thundercracker said. His own hands curled over his armor, shivering under the weight of Starscream’s admiration and desire.  He rubbed his palms down his thighs.

Barricade grinned. “That’s what I want my marking to say.”

“You want one, too?” Skywarp asked.  Barricade felt the awkwardness—a sort of hot friction—that he hadn’t even thought of Barricade’s wishes, mixed with concern.  “It’ll hurt.”

“Not afraid of it.” Barricade tilted his face up. “We do everything together.” His optics glinted, pulling the black jet’s mouth down to his, consciously slipping control of the bond so that their twirling eddy of love and desire crossed to the other two. 

“I hate him so much,” Thundercracker muttered, weakly, turning to paw at Starscream.

“No, you do not,” Starscream whispered, his mouth on Thundercracker’s shoulder curling into a satisfied smile. 

Comments

[yukiko-angel.livejournal.com]

Weeeee!! (and awwww)

[thepheonixqueen.livejournal.com]

Another awesome chapter/story! Thundercracker slowly comes to the dark (barricade) side!

(can i make a request? i'd like to see what you think would happen if someone(s) got drunk and tried to force (rape) Barricade like in the past)

[nova-myth.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but all I can think about is what Starscream might possibly write on poor Barricade and the reaction from fellow Decepticons AND AUTOBOTS when they see it. XD -giggles insanely-

[akisawana.livejournal.com]

I <3 YOU
ALSO, I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE WRITES.

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

Aw, so fun to see the way they're all settling into their Quaternion - threats of torture, snark, cuddles and mushy stuff, the works! :D

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

heeeeeeee they're so cute!