Space

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

NC-17
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Barricade/Skywarp
sticky, mostly PWP with a teensy bit o' angst

I have so many things I should be writing, and I'm still not quite...feeling pervy (seriously? Pervy muse? Where did you go? Will you ever come back?!?!)  but I wanted to write...something and this came out.  

Barricade purred, feeling a familiar warm mouth against his own, the sleek slide of talons over his door wings.  He squirmed in his recharge, feeling the comforting weight of Skywarp’s silky armor over his body. He parted his mouth plates, gently, tipping his chin up into the drowsy kiss, letting his optics online slowly. 

“Hey,” Skywarp murmured, breaking the kiss for a klik. His optics glowed down like twin stars.  “Did I wake you?” 

Barricade grinned. “Gonna apologize if I say yes?”

One optic flickered. “Maybe.”

“Yes, then.”  Barricade lifted his head, rubbing his cheek finials against the broad planes of Skywarp’s face.

“Hmm. I don’t feel like apologizing,” Skywarp said.  His weight shifted over Barricade’s, freeing one hand to trace down the smaller mech’s side. 

“What do you feel like doing?”

“Go flying,” Skywarp said, and some of the lightness left his voice.

Barricade felt his mouth tighten, slowly becoming aware of the tight grip Skywarp had on his end of the bond. “Bad memory purge?” he asked, quietly, bringing up one hand to stroke the jet’s collar.

Skywarp’s face moved, the forced smile collapsing. “Yes.”

“Love you,” Barricade said. He wasn’t sure why. Just that he wanted Skywarp to know it.  He’d thought—he’d hoped—that those bad dreams would disappear. It ached that he had not been able to take that pain away. 

Skywarp tilted into the touch on his collar armor. “I love you, too, little spike.”  He opened his end of the bond, just a bit, letting a push of purple emotion through. 

“You want to go flying,” Barricade prompted. “It’ll help?”

Skywarp tilted his head. “Normally does.”  The jet seemed tense.  Probably, Barricade thought, embarrassed. Bad dreams and all. He hoped.  

Barricade nodded.  “’kay.”  He loosed his grip from the jet’s armor.  Skywarp pulled away, sitting up.  He hesitated, looking over his folded wingflap, worriedly. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be.”  Barricade pushed up to his knees, stroking a soothing hand (he hoped) down the wingflap.  Skywarp’s hand reached over his shoulder, talons stroking for Barricade’s. 

“Do you want to come?” Skywarp asked.  Barricade felt his hesitation. He wanted Barricade to come, and he didn’t. 

“You want me to?”

“It’s…up to you.”  

Barricade felt along the bond, feeling Skywarp pull himself back, aware of his tendency to make all the decisions.  Barricade didn’t mind most of the time. He trusted Skywarp to make the better decisions.  But he knew this was a step for the black jet. “I can just…fly near the ship or something?” It seemed a good compromise. He’d be near Skywarp if something happened.  Not that he imagined he could do much.  Just…be there.   And there was just no way he could manage to fall back into recharge knowing Skywarp was upset.  But he wouldn’t be too near, not, he hoped, crowding the jet.  Skywarp nodded, half-turning to brush his mouth over Barricade’s wrist tire. 

“You don’t mind, do you?” Skywarp asked.

“Never.”

[***]

Barricade puttered around the contours of the ship. He was beginning to feel a bit more confident with the propulsion pack’s controls. He’d never be able to arc and swoop around like Skywarp or the others did, but he was…slowly…beginning to get the hang out of the barrel roll Starscream had showed him ages ago.  He was flying the length of the ship doing a slow helix of rolls, concentrating very hard on keeping his flight path straight.  Skywarp was shut down, carving through the darkness of space with a speed and skill that took Barricade’s breath away. 

Barricade slowed as he reached the nose of the ship. He hadn’t quite figured how to do the turn Starscream had demonstrated, so he cut propulsion and turned in a slow, clumsy circle using erratic bursts of the weak little attitude adjusters.  He paused, looking for Skywarp, finding the two glowing lights of the thrusters spinning against the velvety backdrop.  He worried about the black jet.  What did he dream? What was in those memory purges? And why couldn’t Barricade take them away? Surely he could do…something, at least? 

It hurt to be shut out.  And he hated that it hurt.  It wasn’t his place to force himself in. 

He pushed himself back to draw another line of spiraling barrel turns down the length of the turn, forcibly stifling his emotions.  He understood, at least, why Skywarp wanted to fly—the concentration required that worry, emotion, doubt be shoved aside. 

He spun through a few rolls, concentrating on coming out, as Starscream had told him, level.  He was so focused he didn’t sense Skywarp’s approach until the larger mech scooped his arms around him.  Barricade’s optics flickered, feeling the space-cold of Skywarp’s body against his propack-warmed frame.  Skywarp rubbed his cheek against Barricade’s helm. He released controls, letting Skywarp’s thrusters take over, accelerate them away from the ship, the motions powerful and effortless.  Barricade hated flying, but it was different in Skywarp’s arms. Here it was power and beauty and control and grace.  Here it was…Skywarp’s true nature, the black jet sharing himself with the smaller mech. 

Skywarp slowed: Barricade felt the hum of the thrusters die off, the push of the thin vacuum of space weakening against him.  “I want you,” Skywarp whispered.

“Yes,” Barricade said.  Out loud. And just to be certain he was heard, he pushed a pulse of acceptance, desire, along the bond.  He felt Skywarp’s end of the bond loosen, opening to receive it. 

“I mean…out here.  With me.”  Barricade could sense the hesitation. “I know you don’t…like it out here.” 

“Trust you,” he said.  He felt the bond open against his, a trickle of warmth.  He stroked one hand down the broad black forearm wrapped around him, feeling an echo of delight from the bond.  The grip loosened, just enough for Barricade to wriggle himself around to face Skywarp.  The heavens stretched all around them: he couldn’t even see the ship from here. And he didn’t want to. All he wanted to see, to touch, was right here, the warm red optics glowing down at him, the large hands eager along his back. 

He pulled Skywarp’s face down—or over—towards him, feeling his legs and doorwings beginning to drift in the null-gee.  They hung for a long moment connected only by their mouths and hands, bodies floating gently apart.  Barricade fought a sudden spire of fear at the thought of drifting, floating off, disappearing, helpless, alone. No. It wouldn’t happen. He was safe.

Safe.  The feeling surged back at him across the bond, limned in purple, as the Seeker’s hands cupped around him, pulling him in, pulling him closer.  Barricade felt his systems heat—the heat sharper, warmer for being surrounded by the chill of open space.  His olfactory sensors were clogged with the almost burnt cold scent of the vacuum, but he could feel the fuzz of the EM field reaching to envelope him. 

“You want to spike me?” he asked, his interface systems leaping at the thought of Skywarp’s spike moving inside him, the hands holding him, carefully. 

“Want to bond with you. Again.  The way Seekers do.”  Skywarp ducked his head, abashed. As though he regretted saying that out loud. Too much to push on Barricade. Still too dark. Still not…pure enough.  He raged against himself, and knew he couldn’t share that rage with Barricade.  It wouldn’t be fair.

Oh.  Barricade felt his talons clutch around Skywarp’s armor. It seemed….awfully exposed. His spark chamber? Open? In space?  He nodded, shakily. “O-okay.”  If Skywarp wanted it, he would do it. 

Skywarp ducked down, mouth meeting his. “Not now. Not yet.  But eventually.”  Eventually. I’ll be good enough.  I’ll be worthy. But now, after waking from a tangled vision of violence and desire…I cannot.

“We can do it now.”  Barricade braced himself.  “’M ready.” He prepped the retraction codes.

Skywarp shook his head. “I’m not. Not yet.  I just want to…be with you right now.” 

Barricade nodded, solemnly. “Okay.”  He curled his hands around the jet’s head.  “Just want you to be happy.”

A sly smile. “Who said I’m not?”  The hands slid over Barricade’s hips, curling around the skirting panels.  “Want you, little spike.”  Barricade could sense the forced levity, but also felt it push the darkness away. 

“Want you, too.”  But Barricade was a little perplexed as to how one interfaced in zero gee.  His doubt and confusion must have bled across the link.  Skywarp laughed, and it sounded like the most natural sound in the universe.  Unlike him, Barricade held nothing back, not his confusion, not his pain.  He tried, but Skywarp loved that he failed. He wanted Barricade to have no need for secrets from him.

He wished he could reciprocate. He recognized, acutely, the hypocrisy.

“I’ll show you, little spike.” A long caress down Barricade’s spinal struts, the fingers reaching around to tease at his interface hatch.  Such belovedly familiar contours.  It soothed Skywarp just to touch them.  Barricade kept his optics focused on the jet’s face, Skywarp’s optics flaring wide with desire.  He twitched as Skywarp flicked open the hatch, the cold air striking at his equipment covers.  Skywarp dragged his talons along the covers, first firmly, then lightly.

Barricade squirmed—or tried to—into the touch.  Despite the cold, he felt as though Skywarp’s touch laid trails of fire across the thin plating.  He gasped as the spike cover released, the cold of space freezing the lubricant against him instantly. 

Skywarp grinned.  The openness of Barricade’s reactions were always so…starkly different from everything he’d known.  Open. Expecting nothing, giving everything. He took one of Barricade’s hands by the wrist tire, and lowered it to his rib. 

It suddenly struck Barricade that they were hanging, unpowered, in the void of space, nothing around them, no up, no down, just a net of stars against which they were drifting, together.  A green surge of panic that Barricade could not fight down no matter how hard he battered it with reason. 

Skywarp closed Barricade’s talons around one of his struts. “Hold on there,” he said. “I’m right here.”

Barricade nodded. “Okay.” He tried not to clutch too desperately to the rub strut, and even though Skywarp was drifting just as he was, hanging onto him made it safe, made it better.

Skywarp flipped his own hatch open and then moved against Barricade, pushing their bodies together, armor sliding over armor, until somehow (Barricade wasn’t sure, staring at the broad expanse of Skywarp’s chassis) Barricade’s spike found itself lodged in the thrumming warm heat of Skywarp’s valve. He shuddered, hands clutching into the armor as the heat of Skywarp’s internal systems melted at the ice. It was too intense and powerful. Like Skywarp himself. Skywarp crushed Barricade’s smaller body against his, hands flattening the doorwings, thumbs teasing at the shoulder tires.

“I don’t see how…?” Movement in vacuum was…impossible for Barricade to figure out. Though there had to be a way or Skywarp wouldn’t have suggested it, would he?  Barricade tried to shift his hips.

He felt a deep rumble across the bond, carrying through the armor contact. “I’ll show you.  Well. Not show you….”  Barricade could hear the wink in Skywarp’s voice, but before he could respond he felt the valve cinch down upon his spike and then begin moving.  Rippling up and down, sending frissons of pure sensation through Barricade’s net.  Barricade squeaked.  Skywarp laughed.  “And now you know the truth about the famed Seeker valves.” Barricade’s trust was an honor, the way he threw himself against Skywarp, clinging on…Skywarp couldn’t feel like he deserved it, but he drank it in anyway.  He would earn Barricade’s trust. 

Barricade trembled, feeling the EM field expand, envelope him.  Without a regular atmosphere, without gravity, the EM field expanded, scintillant and silky, seeming to stroke against his armor, under his armor, like a thousand ghostlike caresses.  Skywarp knew…so much more than he did of these things.  He felt so…ignorant at times, unable to reciprocate, only able to respond, react. It felt…selfish.

Skywarp pushed against the bond, feeling Barricade withdraw.  He loved the grounder, loved his inexperience.  He took a selfish pride in the fact that he was the one who would introduce Barricade to these things.  That so much of Barricade’s memories of ecstasy would have him at the bottom. Unworthy and selfish, perhaps, but it was the best he could do. He would do better. And he would never, never hurt Barricade.  Never again.

Barricade had no coherent response, burying his face against the top of the amber swell of the cockpit, his hands clawing at Skywarp’s armor, his bond pouring sensation and emotion through the bond.  The valve teased at his spike.  His spike oozed lubricant, helpless to do anything else than respond to the intricate actions of the valve’s mechanism against his spike.  He heard soft muffled cries—his own voice, desire made audible, pushed into the black armor as Skywarp’s hands ranged over his glossed armor, his larger frame curling around Barricade.  The valve cycled up and down, massaging, teasing against the spike’s nodes.

Barricade howled, body wracking with shudders, as the overload hit him, the heat of his own transfluid almost scalding.  Skywarp groaned, the valve cinching down against him, as if trapping him, arms clutching Barricade against him, reveling in the ecstasy that washed over the bond.  He shivered again, in a sort of echoing aftershock of bliss, before slowly, slowly, unclenching his arms from around Barricade’s frame. 

Skywarp looked down.  Barricade seemed almost limned in gold light, optics wide and dimmed with desire.  “You okay?” he asked. Skywarp couldn’t feel any fear or worry over the bond, but…maybe Barricade had learned to mask that. 

Barricade nodded. “Trust you.”  He moved, paused, quivered again as the motion dislodged his spike, transfluid and lubricant freezing and bursting into glittering powder between them.  He pulled himself up the jet’s body, mouth reaching eagerly for Skywarp’s. He forced his talons loose, his mouth nipping shyly at the jet’s angled mouth plates. 

You shouldn’t, part of Skywarp wanted to say, thinking of the nightmares he was too afraid to share, the weakness he was too cowardly to show.  But he knew, as his mouth yielded to the meek kisses, that Barricade’s trust would be enough. 

 

Comments

[anontfwriter.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! I love this series and it's AU's.

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

Hooray for space!sex! :D
Although brrrr, with the freezing of the bits D: Glad they're built on the durable side!

And poor Skywarp, with the nightmares, and Barricade wanting to make it better but not being able to, and being so careful not to shove his way into Skywarp's headspace.

(spotted a small typo - "rub strut", I think it should be "rib strut"?)

[wingzbot.livejournal.com]

I still can't get over how insanely sexy Sky and Ground is! I absolutely love how you show Barricade and Skywarp!

I hope Skywarp completely opens up to Barricade someday =( I'm still reading through the main story, but these ficlets really add to it!

Beautiful imagery! =D

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

tee hee... the famed Seeker valves. XD

*pets Skywarp* nightmares suck, bad, but at least he has Barricade to help him through the aftermath.