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niyazi-a.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
shadow_vector2010-08-22 08:55 am
Scars
Bayverse Defiance 1 ish
Barricade/Starscream
tactile
A/N which will be almost as long as the story!
This story, I'll tell ya, is a failure. It started out as my idea to write a response to a kink meme request for scar worship. I figured we could go early Defiance-ish, where the aerial forces have seen a lot of action, but there's been no ground assault yet. Hence, Starscream, covered in scars, Barricade not. Yeah. pretty flimsy streeeeetch to JAM this pairing into the prompt, right?
Which means a) they don't look like you think: they're their Planetfall/Defiance pre-Earth modes. b) writing characters younger than their usual canon appearance is HAAARD /whine and c) the prompt....didn't work. I STILL want to write that prompt because, well, I'm covered in scars and yeah, that would be totally fantasy wish-fulfillment that someone would look at my scars with something, ya know, other than revulsion/pity.
Suggestions for a pairing that wouldn't suck for this prompt always, always welcome.
ANYWAY, so I'm realizing I'm FLOUNDERING in this prompt, so I started playing with an idea I've had for a while about how robots/electrical systems might interface. I have deluded myself that it's original, simply because I don't really see anyone else writing it. But as y'all know, I'm hardly encyclopedic in fanon matters. SO.
Shoehorning in an at least new-to-me style of interfacing, a variety of tactile. It's actually even more complex than this (as
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wicked3659 and I were poking with in IM yesterday) but hopefully you can get the basic idea. So, failed story, new interface type...eh. I can't feel that I've wasted my time. Hope you find something kind of interesting in this.
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Barricade headed to obey his orders. He nodded at Ratchet, getting a return acknowledgement from the medic, after the optics raked him up and down, mutely saying ‘they sent someone like you?’ The Defense Force didn’t have much power to impress, and grounders, who couldn’t even fight in the space-field attack the Eshems Nebula aliens had made on the planet, were the least impressive. Even to another grounder. Whatever. He had orders. He would follow them.
The Air Commander was struggling to sit up, clawed hands hooked around the edge of the repair frame.
Barricade popped a crisp salute. “Barricade. Escort.”
He felt the bronze jet’s optics on him, taking in his smaller size, his wheels. He could practically hear what the jet was thinking—another pathetic grounder. “I do not require an escort.”
“Protector’s orders.” Yeah. You don’t need an escort—who’s a grounder. Despite the CDF tabs on his arms, he was still…a ground force. Suitable for parades and tunnel crawling.
The jet sighed. “Well. We cannot refuse the Lord Protector, can we?”
Well, Barricade couldn’t.
Starscream levered his legs off the edge of the berth. The limbs were long, red and silver cabling and hoses snaking sinuously in gaps in the armor. Barricade’s optics were captivated by the complicated open systems, stripped light for weight, the light catching in fine scratches like a halo. He watched as Starscream rose to his feet, unsteadily, the light playing over gouges and scars in the armor. Marks of combat, a history of old battles written on his skin. He couldn’t tear his optics away.
“And what, precisely, are you escorting me to do?”
“Quarters,” Barricade said, firmly.
Behind him, Ratchet grunted agreement. “He’s to take you there and keep you there,” Ratchet said, firmly.
Starscream’s optics flared. “The aliens can return at any point. I need to—“
“You need to recover.” Ratchet’s voice was flat. Daring Starscream to defy.
The jet gave a frustrated sigh. “This is ridiculous.” He glared at Barricade. “Demeaning.”
Barricade glared back. “Orders,” he said, jutting his chin, defiantly.
“I suppose I should count myself lucky that I am allowed to leave,” Starscream said over Barricade’s head.
“Something like that.” Ratchet stepped over, handing a datapad over for Barricade to sign off on. Taking charge, officially, of Starscream. Barricade glanced up at the jet—towering nearly twice his height. Yeah. This should be…interesting. “He goes to his quarters and rests. He’s not allowed to work. No data access.”
Oh yeah. Really interesting. Great. Barricade nodded. “Got it.”
Starscream gave a frustrated sigh. “Can we go?”
Barricade stepped back, letting Starscream take lead as they headed to the narrow door leading from the repairbay. Starscream walked slowly, one hip’s actuators whining, the leg itself dragging slightly. Barricade normally had to race to keep pace with the airframes. Something they all delighted in rubbing into grounders' faces in parades and practices. When, of course, they deigned to walk. “The bright side,” Starscream said, thinly, “is that I cannot outpace you.”
Was that…a joke? Barricade grunted. His optics drifted up to the thrusters on the jet’s back. “Pretty sure you could fly.”
“Ah. But that would get you into trouble, Trooper.” Barricade tripped, startled. Starscream looked down, optics tilted, amused. “You did sign for me, after all.”
Barricade blinked. Oh. Barricade followed him in a puzzled silence to the airframe corridor, waiting nervously as they took the elevator, acutely aware that were he not here, the jet would simply fly himself up. Strange courtesy.
Starscream coded open his door, gesturing for him to enter.
“Can stay outside.”
“Ah, but how will you determine that I am not accessing data…or slipping out the back?”
Uhhh, good point. Barricade shot a strange look up at the jet as he crossed the threshold under Starscream’s outstretched arm. Why was the Air Commander doing this?
Starscream followed him in, the door closing with a strangely definitive whoosh. Barricade looked around the room—everything was much bigger than he was used to, done to a jetframe’s scale. He felt dwarfed.
It was a Spartan room, a forced-recharge nook next to a small self-maintenance facility took up the right side. On the left a console, piled with flimsies of maps, a stack of input rods, several readers, and beside that, a mass of shelves, stacked with datatracks, small, exotic souvenirs, and spare weapons mods. And at the very end, under a skylight so that the golden sun of Cybertron would solar charge him while he recharged. One of the perqs, obviously, of rank.
Starscream crossed over to it, and perched himself on the berth, drawing up a chair next to it. “Since I am to have no data access, I supposed I had best simply recharge,” he said. His tone was strangely amused. Again, that strange punctiliousness. And Barricade shifted awkwardly from where he’d drifted over to examine the shelves, fascinated by the bits of stone and metal and crystal that dotted it. Artifacts from alien planets.
He’d never been off-planet.
Starscream moved to settle himself on the berth. He gasped suddenly, hands flying to his leg.
Barricade twitched. “What? What’s wrong? You need me to comm Ratchet?” Barricade set the frequency.
“No!” Starscream said, quickly. “This does not require Ratchet’s attention. It is merely…,” another hiss of pain, “It is merely an inconvenient dent in the armor.” Starscream rolled his weight to the opposite hip, attempting to raise the leg gingerly onto the berth.
Barricade crossed over. One of the thigh plates was bent inward, the metal scorched and bubbled from some recent weaponstrike, cutting into the control cables leading into the jet’s pelvic span. “I can…pull that out?” he offered, hesitantly.
Starscream paused, considering. “Yes.” He tipped forward, offering the damaged hip. Barricade raised his hands, hovering them in the air over the damaged metal, trying to figure out where to touch that wouldn’t hurt. He wrapped his talons around the jut of damaged metal, and with one last, worried glance over at the jet’s face, he tugged at the dented plate. Then harder.
The metal responded with a weary groan. Barricade’s window-wings dipped in a wince. Ow. That must have hurt. But Starscream’s face was still serene. “Thank you, Barricade,” he said, stretching the leg out, the unbent panel no longer blocking the motion. He gestured to the chair. “You may sit, of course. And there are games on that datapad.”
Barricade bridled. “Don’t play games.” Probably some stupid airframe stereotype against grounders.
“Oh. Have I offended you?” The optics were strangely keen on his face.
“N-no.” But the fact that the Air Commander was apologizing to him was kind of weirding him out. What was his deal? Barricade clambered up into the over-sized chair, keenly aware of how ridiculous he must look, his legs not even reaching the floor. He picked up the datapad, nervously, just to have something to do with his hands. His palms still tingled from contact with the jet’s armor. He wished he’d paid better attention, remembered it better. He had actually touched a jet. It didn’t matter—much—that the touch had been to bend out armor. He thought about telling the others in his barracks pod. He had touched a jet. Touched the Air Commander. He felt…magic.
The Air Commander gave him that strange look for a few kliks more, before subsiding back onto the berth.
For a long time, nothing happened beyond the sun gleaming over the long jet’s armor, and Barricade nervously turning the datapad over and over in his talons. He heard the large jet’s systems cycle down into recharge.
Surreptitiously, as quietly as he could move, he pushed himself off the chair, levering himself off carefully, and approaching the berth. The sun limned the Seeker’s long bronze body, almost dancing over it. Barricade took in the large swell of the chassis, tapering down to a narrow waist, the thighs burgeoning out from there, almost delicate compared to the heavy thrusters of the feet. The design was captivating, meant to scoff at gravity, to move with a razor’s precision and a comet’s speed.
More than that, though, his optics lingered on the scars. Marks of battles he couldn’t even fathom how to fight, four-dimensional aerial combat. Black char streaked the armor in places, from the newest skirmish. There was that patch of bubbled, warped metal he had bent out, but even more, pock marks from the impact of rounds, little craters that turned the smooth panels of armor into constellations of old injuries.
He found his talons reaching out, sweeping along one forearm panel, dot-to-dot. Were they all from the same battle? The same gun?
Starscream’s EM field shifted. Barricade snatched his hand back just as the red optics onlined. He hadn’t been caught touching, but he was still…creepily close to the berth, obviously staring. He cringed.
The optics came to rest on him. And then the dreaded question. “Barricade. What are you doing?”
“I..uhhhh…looking.” Just looking. Not touching. Totally, totally not touching.
“Looking at…?” Starscream pushed up onto his elbow.
Barricade curled back. “Nothing,” he squeaked. Starscream leaned over and ran one of his fingers over his forearm, the same panel Barricade had been touching.
“Ugly, are they not?”
“I don’t think so,” Barricade blurted.
“You do not?”
“N-no.”
The Air Commander said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
Unsteadily, he added, “You’re a warrior. Tells a story.” His hand drifted over the plating again.
“You are a warrior as well.”
Barricade shrugged. “Groundfighter. Useless.”
“Not useless. One day they will come and we will need you.” Barricade ducked his head at the blandishment. Starscream stretched out his arm. “I got these at an orbital station above Iacon. Pirates.” He shifted his leg, and showed a poorly patched lubricant hose. “And this was from an ambush that got out of control.”
Barricade nodded. How could he explain the sudden envy that he had nothing like this. His armor was new, unmarked save for the simple abrasions and bumps of daily life. His hands reached to touch the patched cable, wondering what story looked like—what emotions, what sights and sounds? Combat. Real combat, which he knew only from drills and practices and datatracks. It was probably a stupid thing to b jealous of, but there it was.
“They are unattractive but they do not hamper operational efficiency,” Starscream said. “And with our resource controls, we simply cannot afford to repair them fully.” His mouth twisted.
“Not unattractive.” Hadn’t he already said this? It struck him as a bit poignant that the scars bothered the jet so much. And ironic, since…he wished he had some of his own.
The optics tilted. “You touched them. Before.”
“I…yes.” No sense denying it. “Sorry.”
“Why?”
Barricade blinked. Why touch them or why apologize? “…how did you know?”
The cheekflares tightened in a smile. “Airframe. Our design requires us to be sensitive to temperature, pressure, air current and the like. Even when in recharge.”
Oh. “I…didn’t know.” He burned at his own ignorance.
“It is hardly essential information.” Starscream sat up, swinging one leg over the berth’s edge. “You may do it again.”
What? Barricade’s optics flared wide, half torn between curiosity and blank puzzlement.
“There is no harm in satisfying your curiosity, Trooper,” the Air Commander said. “And if you find them…interesting….” His voice trailed off, somehow inviting.
Barricade blinked, even his processor stammering disbelief. But he stretched a hand, slowly, and brushed it gently against the broad armored patellar plate. Starscream smiled encouragingly. He traced the chevron design with one careful talon, before curling his hands around the plate, pressing it against his palm. The armor was warm to the touch, Starscream’s systems running hot from the stress of his injuries, but it slid like silk.
He looked up, anxious.
Starscream tilted his head. “Go on. You are not hurting me.”
No, but…he had no idea what he was doing. Or why. But still, his curiosity, which was strangely starting to verge into some sort of tremulous desire, was getting the better of his reason and sense. He stretched his other hand, tracing the backs of his talons around the jet’s armored chassis—the plating dented and gouged, the bronze enamel worn off to the bare silver beneath. Starscream quivered.
Barricade jerked back, but found his hand caught by the larger bronze claws. “Please?” the jet said, and Barricade saw, suddenly, naked desire written across the broad face. And it reverberated against him like some new energy field, over him, through him, until he found himself trembling with a matching desire. He tried to think of something to say, but words seemed empty—the room was a golden glow of sunlight flaring off the bronze armor, inviting his hands, wanting his touch, his admiration.
And he was only too eager to give it. He leaned forward, one knee resting on the berth, his own ventilation coming faster, more unevenly, as he glossed his hands over the massive frame of the jet. Starscream lay back down on the berth, his actuators releasing with contented sighs.
Emboldened, Barricade clambered the rest of the way on, kneeling beside the larger mech, his hands exploring. The jet was…beautiful. The word seemed stupid, and came with difficulty to Barricade’s processor, but it was the only one that fit. Fascinatingly complex, heavy armor combined with open cabling, contrasts between dark and light, heavy and delicate. And etched over all of them, an intricate tracery of scars—badly welded metal, pocks of solid rounds, scrapes and dings. He read them with his fingers as though they were some beautiful alien language.
Beneath him, Starscream shivered, arching into his touch, optics lidded. Barricade squirmed at the jet’s obvious arousal, even more when he felt the energy field around Starscream shift and pulse, reaching for his, enveloping him. His own field shivered in response. This was…not how you guard someone, he thought, dimly. This has to be against the rules.
It certainly went against the unwritten law that airframes stuck to airframes and looked down on all grounders with vile contempt.
But here he was, hands roaming over the stress- and sun-warmed frame of the Air Commander, the large jet writhing sinuously, hands clutching at air, optics dim with pleasure.
He jolted, mortified, as his vocalizer clicked down, harmonic systems humming quietly online.
The optics flared up, red as desire.
“Sorry,” Barricade said, but the harmonic system altered his voice to the bass reverberation. He clapped a hand over his vocalizer, shaking his head, frantically.
One long bronze hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling it from his vocalizer. “Sing,” Starscream murmured. “Sing to me.” The optics were wild, intense. Barricade’s resistance crumbled, dissolving into desire. He nodded, rocking back onto his knees, sending out a tentative, quiet low note.
Starscream sighed, lying back, the note washing over him, seeking resonant parts of his systems. Barricade modulated the frequency, stretching his hands to the armor, vibrations carrying through his body, transmitting the sound through contact.
He added a secondary harmonic, concentrating keenly on the energy fields, feeling the two notes mesh and swirl together around the jet’s systems. Starscream gave a soundless little sigh, quivering, his energy field surging, like waves around Barricade’s own. Barricade had to concentrate to hold the notes, his own desire, his own need writhing, squirming, seeking release.
No. This isn’t about you.
He added a third note, on top of the other two, a delicate tone that he let dip and slide in a tremulous arpeggio, like his talons, dancing over the jet’s armor. The warm metal seemed to sing back under his touch, carrying the quiet melody through his hands, under the armor and to the systems below.
Barricade’s frame raged with desire, and he threw himself on the jet’s frame, pressing as much of his frame as possible against the jet’s, squeezing his legs around one thigh, his small feet clutching at the thruster, his hands digging around the heavy torso plating, the points of his talons like little antennae, seeking resonance along seams in the armor plates. The song poured out of him, harmonics spiraling out of him, swirling around the jet’s energy field, feeling it twist and writhe like a living thing.
And the jet touched him, long arms winding around him, pulling him against his frame, increasing the contact, their electromagnetic fields blending together in a tingling, swimming caress that ran through Barricade’s charged systems like a wildfire.
Starscream moved on the berth, his limbs, his chassis, his legs all moving at once, long, slow, sweeping movements of drawn-out ecstasy, until his energy field seemed to crest as the rising pitch of Barricade’s harmonics spun him into an overload, his field flashing like dancing blue fire over his armor, lapping at Barricade’s frame. A long, pure note of release tore itself from his throat, wild and whole. The sound seemed to strike Barricade between his window wings, as if echoing between them, before pouring through his sensornet like a colorful cascade.
Not an overload, no. Not a physical release. But a strange, shivering joy pouring through him, different, and deeper.
He collapsed on the jet’s frame, stilling, the song seeming to still echo in the air, as though parts of it were still caught, wound around, Starscream’s energy field. The bronze arms moved gently off him. Barricade pushed up with a languorous regret. Realizing, suddenly, what he’d done.
Starscream smiled up at him, one hand stroking a window wing, idly.
Barricade’s vocalizer flipped back to its usual timbre. “Sorry,” he said. “Sho-shouldn’t have done that.”
Starscream’s engines rumbled, like a purr. “Define ‘shouldn’t.’”
“I…uh…taking advantage?”
Starscream laughed, the hands tightening around his shoulders, the white pauldrons over his dark armor. “Do you think I could not have fended you off?”
Good point. Still, Barricade scrambled backwards and off the berth. He looked, dismayed, at a dent under his grille, the enamel scored off down to bare metal. He brushed it with nervous talons, seeing the hard projection of the jet’s own armor that had made it.
Starscream laughed, his own hand ghosting over the new damage. “And now, you have your first scar.”
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second, this was great! i loved the contrasts in their personalities between what we know now and the time period you've placed them in here. nervous young Barricade is win!
<3
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I like this new method! Thinking up new ways for robots to get it on is fun. :3
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The singing thing is something I hadn't seen done before, and I found it fascinating. That's a beautiful idea. As is Barricade's intrigue over the scars. They really do tell a story, marking your body with a sign of life, or triumph, or just a piece of the past. They make our skin interesting and our own.
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Very sexy fic! <3
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HNGGGGGGGGGG
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Also, flyer/grounder porn is always ++++.
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It was very sweet and poignant. And what a way to earn your first scar, Barricade! Now that's an interesting story to tell in the barracks pod... XD