Come/back

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse
Barricade/Starscream
angst (lolwut?)

Written for tf_speedwriting  prompt!  (Sorry, I've been so fail at writing lately that the fact that I wrote ANYTHING is like a 'break out the confetti cannon' moment).  Follows from the 10_orders  fic Go to Hell I posted yesterday.  Just in case you care or something. ^^

And though I’m down, I’ll be coming back fighting
I may be scared and a little bit frightened
But I’ll be back, I’ll be coming back to life.

I’ll be coming back to life.

 

Barricade sat in his recharge, knees drawn up against his grille. He kept running a systems-scan, trying to find a reason he was shivering.  His temperature readouts read normal but he felt…cold. Like space cold; like he could feel coldness eating into his systems, burning against his wiring.  As if he’d never be warm again.  As if all of his energy, every system, was diverted to the simple act of keeping him online against the face of a brutal, hard cold.

He’d seen what he’d seen.  He’d heard Starscream mocking him, making a joke of everything he’d done.  Each word a bullet of ice slamming into him. Telling Soundwave—Soundwave, of all mechs—painfully intimate details.  Laughing about the way Barricade fawned over his thruster engines, making a joke of the way Barricade dropped into a delighted recharge after interfacing, calling him ‘useful’ and ‘amusing.’  Not insults, but…not  what he wanted.

The words rang like bells of betrayal in Barricade’s cortex.

He was just using you. All this time. He’s been laughing at you.  Sure, he enjoyed himself—at least he didn’t go that far in his mocking chat with Soundwave.  He’d even called Barricade ‘enjoyable’. But he never felt anything for you.  Just a toy, a temporary diversion. Nothing like what he meant…to me.

Barricade blinked. 

This was the worst part.  This was the part he was fighting even more than the betrayal—his right to even call it a betrayal. Because it presupposed, demanded, assumed, that there was something there to be betrayed: trust, alliance…emotion.

He dug his talons into his patellar plates, curling around the bladed shapes of his black armor.  No, he told himself. You felt nothing, nothing beyond physical pleasure. Nothing beyond release. 

Maybe…maybe you felt a bit flattered that he chose you, came back to you.  Maybe you felt a bit heady at being chosen. 

But no more.  He fought within himself. Felt nothing more for the jet. Just…flattered.  Just…dazzled. Honored. Cherished. The words slipped his control, fed by a wellspring of memories, sliding him inexorably into a cold reality: it hadn’t just been ‘flattered’ that he’d felt. It hadn’t just been physical pleasure.  It had been…something he’d never thought he’d have. It had been a quiet partnership, an exciting exchange of secret meanings in coy optics; soft, shared laughs; tender explorations of each others’ bodies, histories.  It had been intimacy. Real and vivid and blazing through his systems, his memory core, turning all his previous days, all his past, into something brittle and grey and dull by comparison.

And now…it was all a lie.  A ruse. A joke he couldn’t possibly get.  An illness he hadn’t realized he’d caught, and he was laid open, defenseless against it. 

No.

This was his hurt. But he would not let it break him.  The brilliant, beautiful memories sludged together, smearing, muddying, until the vividness no longer cut into him. He would put these behind him.  And soon—not soon enough, but soon—he would forget.  Or better, be able to recall the memories and laugh at his own folly, mock himself, when the memories had faded to a harmless, diffuse pastel.

One day, he would stand up to his own weakness. 

No. Now.  He would not let this kill him, anything inside him. Let them laugh. Let them make fun of him.  Humiliation did not kill.  It would hurt. Any injury hurt. He was not afraid of pain. He’d borne his share of pain, of combat damage, sensornet shrieking white and hot.  This was merely a different kind, a new kind of pain.

You didn’t hurt if you didn’t live.  He could let this take him, overwhelm him, wither him entirely, until he was nothing but a black, bitter husk.  Or. He could refuse. He could fight against his own despair, burning up, blazing bright, in pain, but alive. 

 

Comments

[shanfiction73.livejournal.com]

I want to hug Barricade. And I wonder why Starscream was talking to Soundwave at all.

I love the way you describe how his thoughts are progressing through the stages of grief. And the fact that he will not allow himself to be crippled by this event.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Starscream has his reasons. Devious reasons.

I've been...uh...cheated on before so sadly this thought process is a little too real to me. Poor Barricade!

[mpinsky.livejournal.com]

Very nice introspective and insight into Barricade's thoughts on the situation from the previous fic! You've dug a lot deeper into him in this one giving us a reason why and just how it hurts so much. I think it's something all of us can relate to, which of course, just makes me ache for Barricade.

Maybe we can see Starscream's reasoning next? :3

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's a bit biographical, based on a situation I've gone through. :c

Starscream has his reasons. And they're not--surprisingly--all about him.

[yukiko-angel.livejournal.com]

Still makes me wish Starscream would just barge in and comfort our poor Barricade.

Well written as usual.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

It's going to take a bit to get cade to listen!

Glad you liked!

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

*hugs Barricade tight*
your writing just... really gets to me. It's so well done.