Landmark

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Thundercracker, Barricade
no warnings.  Snark.

The last of the prompts from my meme ficlet thingie. "Thundercracker, Barricade 'dysfunctional teamwork'"

And yeah, I RE-HE-HEAAALLLY need to put these together into a coherent story at some point. THAR'S PLOT TO BE ADVANCINATED!!!

“I cannot believe I’m asking you this.” Thundercracker frowned.  He’d woken Barricade up from where he’d collapsed after a late shift, prodding Barricade with one long blue toe.  Not the best way to wake someone up when you are asking them a favor, but…this was Thundercracker.  Barricade should probably consider himself lucky that the blue jet hadn’t woken him up by throwing him on the floor.

“I can’t believe you are either.” Barricade sat up, crosslegged on the berth, stretching his arms over his head. Oh, he was going to enjoy this.  Thundercracker, asking him for a favor?  He fought a grin.  That would be…a little ungracious. 

Thundercracker paused, growling.  Probably at himself as much as Barricade. “Look,” he said, finally, with an aggrieved tone. “It’s the date of our Tempering in a few solar cycles.”  He paused. “You do know what that is, don’t you?” 

Frag. He sounded like a martyr. Oh, I’ll explain our obscure Seeker traditions…IF I MUST.  “Read about it.”  Starscream had given him all those files and even in the worst times, when he’d thought Skywarp was lost to him forever, he’d clung to those files, poring over them, tormenting himself with what he’d lost, what he’d never even appreciated while he had it.

Thundercracker nodded. “Well, at least you do your research.”  Grudgingly. 

A moment.

“You…gonna ask me something?” Okay, he let a bit of amusement creep into his voice.  He couldn’t help it.  The footrest did not forget. 

Another grumble.  “I’m still kind of new here.  We need…facilities.” 

Barricade waited.  That wasn’t a request.  He’d make Thundercracker ask. 

“You’re…not going to make this easy on me, are you?” 

Barricade gave his sweetest smile. 

“Fine.”  Thundercracker dropped onto the berth in a gesture of defeat, keeping himself—of course—away from Barricade. Primus forbid their armor touch. He might get…groundercooties or something.  Barricade fought the urge to stretch out, bump the Seeker’s hip with his foot. “I thought it would be, you know, an auspicious time to re-open our bonds.” The way he stressed the pronoun made it clear that ‘our’ did not include Barricade. 

“Yeah,” Barricade said, neutrally, fighting a clutch of possessiveness at his spark.  No. Skywarp would still be his. He’d still be special to Skywarp. It didn’t change anything. It wouldn’t.  Yeah, keep telling yourself that.  He squelched it before any of it could leak over the bond. He hoped. 

He fixed his gaze on Thundercracker, scouring for a reaction.

Thundercracker relaxed, as if Barricade’s discomfort soothed him.  Well, win and lose, Barricade. He didn’t feel your worry, but, he’s enjoying your unhappiness.  “We will need an oil bath facility at our disposal, for one thing.  And a hangar.” He frowned, optics flicking to Barricade as though this were all, obviously, his fault. “Ideally we wouldn’t be doing this in space.  We need a stable landmark to fly.”

“The ship?”  Hello, Thundercracker, he thought smugly.  Landmark the size of a landmass? 

Thundercracker tilted his head, considering. “No. It needs to…we do formation flying. We need two fixed points and the ship can be one, but…not both.”  His optics narrowed, turning to Barricade. “You’d do nicely.”

Oh no. Barricade shook his head. “Not a landmark!”

“Why not? You always seem to want to participate.”  The blue mouth curled into a smile. “You’re not…afraid are you? Of a little flying?  You’d just be, you know.  Hanging there.  Helpless.”  The drawl was unmistakable.

It was Barricade’s turn to frown.  Thundercracker knew about his abandonment thing. His fear of space thing.   He knew how this would go. “You’d leave me out there.” 

Thundercracker snorted. “Would we? You afraid, little grounder?”  A hint of challenge. “And just think.  We’d be bonding and you’d…,” he reached over, prodding Barricade in the chassis with one long blue talon, “feel,” poke, “everything.” 

“You really hate me, don’t you?”

“Do I?”  A smirk.  He slipped a little control of his end of the bond, and Barricade could feel a cool, blue green presence, like little tumbling things. No. Not hatred. 

“Not going to leave me out there,” Barricade repeated. Needing confirmation.

“Of course not,” Thundercracker said, flicking one supraorbital ridge, leaning back to catch his weight on his elbows, looking down the length of his chassis at Barricade. “We’re going to need you to dry us off after the oil bath.”  He laughed as he felt a ripple of anticipation against the bond.

Barricade tried really hard to hate himself, but the image was…pretty awesome.  All that warm oil. All that black armor.  He couldn’t help it.  “Ha, ha. Very funny,” he muttered. 

“Funny. And reliable.  We can just lead you around by your desires, grounder.”  Thundercracker stretched out his legs, smirking as Barricade’s lower optics tracked the movement.  Amusement bubbled across the bond. 

“Really regretting saving your life, you know.” Slag this.  Barricade scooted to the edge of the berth. See? Completely disinterested.  Not getting to me at all, Thundercracker, he thought. Not. At. All.

“Do you?”  Thundercracker rolled over, posing languorously on his side, head propped on his hand. “Skywarp would be sooooo unhappy.” 

Barricade’s lip plates ground together.  Fraggin’ low blow.   “Don’t have to help you,” he said, baldly.  He stomped to the maintenance facility, busying himself digging in a bin for a cleansing rag.

Thundercracker tilted his head.  “No. You don’t have to.  Don’t you…want to?” 

The word ‘no’ boiled on Barricade’s vocalizer, his hands stilling in the bin.  But he thought of Skywarp, and…what would make Skywarp happy.  “Yes,” he said, softly.  “But not for your sake.”

A wry laugh that somehow sounded sad.  “Figured not.”  But Barricade could feel something like envy and longing color across the bond. 

 

Comments

[anontfwriter.livejournal.com]

I loved it!

[eerian_sadow]

oh gods, the way they hate at each other. it's amazing and kind of sad. i absolutely loved it.

[flamekaat.livejournal.com]

*adore* zzzZZZzzz

[thepheonixqueen.livejournal.com]

oh, they just ooze distaste at one another! now i want to see what happens after this and see the fallout of what happened between barricade and soundwave when his quarterne finds out.

[riventiana.livejournal.com]

Ah your Thundercracker is such a jerk, but he's fascinating and I love him. Nice read!

And by all means do feel free to advancinate the plot ;)

[shanfiction73.livejournal.com]

I love that Thundercracker loves any opportunity to needle Barricade. And yet they are still careful to maintain the actual relationship(s) of the Quaterne. Now that you have me thinking about the tempering again... was "suppress" Barricade's tempering event?

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

The footrest did not forget.
XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Aw, and TC needs to go find a Barricade of his very own to love him <3 :D

Thundercracker: Perish the thought! D:

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

The footrest did not forget.

*SNORT* bwahhahahah!! and the groundercooties remark. *snicker*

but aww, I'm feeling slightly bad for TC at the end there...