Winter Break

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

R
Bayverse
Starscream/OC (Jennifer)
spark, xeno
A/N Had this on my harddrive for about a month.  Someone on IM asked if I had written any lately and, yeah, why not post it, right?
 

 

“Yes,” Starscream was saying. “I recall this irritating ‘holiday’ from last orbital cycle, Jennifer. And I did not approve of it then, either.” 

“Look, it’s only for a few days. You go on your—mission thingies—all the time.  Just like that.”  Jennifer crossed out of his line of sight from the open door.  He was leaning over the balcony, feet planted in the dorm’s Winter-Break abandoned courtyard.

Starscream’s optics narrowed, tracking her.  “You did not inform me you were in peril during this ‘family visit’,” he said, coldly.  “And I do not see any armaments in your belongings. You are insufficiently equipped.” 

“I’m not in peril, for heaven’s sake,” Jennifer muttered, reaching for the sock drawer.  Though that’s sure what it felt like sometimes. From mom’s constant guilt trips to what she knew was her father’s still-simmering disappointment that she’d blown such a great opportunity at Diego Garcia…yeah, this wasn’t going to be much more fun than last year. Even worse because in a year, she’d managed to do…almost nothing.  TA classes, take some classes, but that was just spinning her wheels in the same academic rut. And she wasn’t an academic. She was a researcher.  She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life grading terrible papers written under the influence of stress and Red Bull.  She was unhappy enough about it—she really didn’t need any more grief. 

“Then what is the purpose of this mission?”

Okay, she kind of deserved that for having intro’d the whole analogy. “Not that kind of mission. Don’t you ever just get together with your, well, others like you?”

“There are no others like me,” he said, almost, almost pulling off the cheeky tone of voice, but underneath she could hear a sadder note.  Probably why he got stuck with someone like her—failure at everything. 

“Well, with people you care about, then. And who care about you.”

“Then you should spend it with me and not these ‘parents’.”

Well, true. But that’s not how it worked and right now, already running late, she did not have it in her to explain.  “Look.  Can we talk about this later? I’ve got to catch a cab soon if I’m going to manage to not miss my flight.” Which would be just perfect, of course. Great start on the list of things Jennifer had fucked up this year.  ‘Ruining Christmas’ her mother would say.  Some sort of juvenile passive aggression.  Right. Because everything was passive aggressive to her mother, except doing exactly what mom wanted…and smiling about it. 

“That is another…highly unsatisfactory thing, Jennifer-human. I do not approve of this ‘flight’.” 

“I really don’t have time for this!”  She grabbed the bag in which she’d carefully placed the presents she was bringing, laying it carefully on top of the stuff she’d crammed in her backpack.  “You can comm me about it, though?”  She stepped out of the room, swinging her blue backpack over her shoulder, turning to lock the door.  Bye-bye, pseudo-adulthood of a dorm room, she thought, turning the key.

Her backpack was suddenly, forcefully, snatched off her shoulder. “No, Jennifer. You do have time for this.  Now.”

“No, I don’t! If I get to the airport late, I’ll be stuck in security forever and miss my flight and they might break all my stuff anyway and they have these new security checks like they’re going to pat me down and already I’ll be there forever and—“ She cut herself off at the hysterical edge in her own voice.  She didn’t hate flying. She just hated…the whole holiday forced-nice.  The whole ‘you’re still twelve, missy’ attitude. Everything. 

“I,” Starscream said, in that absolutely determined, solid way he had, as though he were in charge, “am flying you. I am faster, and I will not submit you to objectionable searches and I will not ‘break your stuff’.” 

“But—“

“No.  Consider this, Jennifer-human.  Which is greater autonomy? Subjecting yourself to that delay and violation, or to someone who,” he let his optics widen a bit into a contented droop, “wants to assist you.”  He moved one hand—the one that wasn’t clutching her backpack—to stroke down her side.  “Am I,” he wheedled, “that objectionable?”

Dammit. He always could disarm her with these questions. And he knew it, too, which only made it worse.  But right now the thought of the airport and the crowds and the noise and everything compared with him…?  “Shit,” she muttered. And she could tell by the flare in his red optics that he knew he’d won.

[***]

The trip was fast. On purpose. Starscream had his own plans.  Her bags were tucked behind her seat, and the harness fitted snugly over her.  And he talked, flew some gentle maneuvers—a slow barrel roll, a high stalling turn—just for the squealing thrill in her voice, the way her hands clutched at the armrests.  He loved exciting her, he loved doing things with her no one else could show her. 

And one of those was a waypoint he and Blackout had set up, several hundred miles away, with a supply of energon and basic repair facilities, in an old, ramshackle airfield, dusted with the newly falling snow like some fine powder.

He coasted in for a landing, dropping velocity as gently as he could, careful of his human burden and her much more fragile systems. He could feel her respiration hitch, her fingers clutching at the chair.  At half his usual speed and she was afraid. No human male could match him, and he took a certain, preening pride at the thought.

“Are—are we here?”

“Not yet at your destination, but we are, in a sense ‘here’,” he said, popping his canopy as he rolled into the darkened hangar. “I shall assist you.”  He slowly unfolded, keeping his cockpit as level and steady as he could—something he’d be embarrassed to admit he had practiced but was pleased with the results.  He raised a hand to help her out, pinching her backpack with fastidious care, laying it beside her on the ground just as she turned to say, “Where are we?”

“We have several Earth-hours before your scheduled arrival time, Jennifer. I was hoping we could make…some use of them?”  His voice was unmistakably sly as he rolled to his side, curling his hand around her. 

“You planned this?”

“No,” he said, honestly. “But a good warrior can improvise and has made preparations for numerous contingencies.”  He flicked the tip of his glossa from his mouth in coy invitation. 

She looked around. “But…where are we?”

He grinned, his cheek chevrons pulling tight, optics whirring.  “I cannot disclose the secret location’s secret location.”  He saw the quick flash of anger cross her face, before it melted into a laugh. 

“You’re really terrible at that role, you know?”

“What role is that, Jennifer-human?”  He returned to his false innocence. He slipped one talon between the panels of her coat, tugging at it in obvious invitation.  Heat from his thrusters warmed the small hangar easily. 

She took the hint—about time, he rather thought—and shed the coat.  Better yet, she reached out her hands to brush his collar armor. He purred openly, tilting his head to open his throat.  She seemed suddenly hesitant.  “I’m, uh, really sorry.” 

“Sorry?” Ah, apology. This human concept.  He didn’t mind apologies, since they meant he could request some redress. “I am sure,” he said, “we can come to some accommodation.”  One optic shutter winked. 

She frowned. Yes, he thought. He had not let her apologize properly first.

He faked a frown. “For what are you apologizing?” he asked, sternly. 

She tilted her head, her braid swinging against his hand. “For earlier. Snapping at you. I really shouldn’t, and you were only trying to be nice.” 

“Apology is unnecessary, Jennifer-human, as much as I would like to enforce some ‘amends’ from you.”  He tilted his head again, in a blatant hint, letting one of his talons stroke down her neck, gently. “Let me show you,” he said, huskily.

Her eyes glittered with tears, but he’d learned by now that there were ways to deal with these…emotions she had. And her irritation earlier was not worth an apology.  If he could be driven off so easily, but truculent words, by frowns, his affection would not be worth much, would it?  But he couldn’t find a way to tell her that, or at least, a better way to tell her that than this—as he pulled her closer, rolling onto his back, hauling her on top of him even as he opened the armor over his spark chamber. 

She looked down at the armor separating beneath her, fascinated by the movement of the plates.  He could feel the tremor in her body through her heavy coat.  So fragile, these humans, and yet…such little tempests of emotion.  He shuttered his optics briefly, lowering her against the exposed substructure and frame work of his systems, still warmed from flight.  She lay for a moment against him, pressing her cheek on the swell of the seal of his spark chamber.

This was what mattered, he thought, briefly, this short respite from our lives—her problems I cannot hope to understand, my war that I would not wish her to.  We’re neither of those beings here, now.  We’re something else, something, perhaps, closer than who we could have been. 

He waited for her to move before retracting the cover, letting the golden light spill between them, lighting up the darkness of the hangar, bathing Jennifer’s face, picking out some warm depths from the deep brown of her eyes as she looked up at his face, over the mass of his chassis. 

Starscream shivered, feeling her hands move, pushing through the remotest edges of the spark’s energy field.  It felt…exquisite.  As though she were reaching inside his very essence and caressing it, touching him in ways that defied logic, as if her hands could touch his memory core, pluck at his emotions and sensations like musical strings. 

It was entirely selfish, and he knew it, to want to be touched like this. A rare and precious moment of pleasure, of being entirely within the moment, within his own frame.  Here and nowhere else. Now and not thinking of the future, or running over previous raids.  Just…here. For himself.

His frame heaved, stimulated by the gentle brushes of her fingers through the field of his spark, barely feeling her light weight shift as she rode the movement, peering into the spark’s glow as if scrying.  Was there anything to see? Starscream didn’t know.  He’d only ever seen…Skyfire’s spark.  And they were so young back then that there was possibly, possibly nothing there to see, unlike the history of pain and humiliation and the thousand petty shocks and failures that had dotted his life since then.

But still, it was something that he could still feel pleasure at all, much less at this almost agonizing intensity. 

He felt the spark’s pressure build, the field expanding, swelling against the sides of the chamber, and heard his systems vent excess heat abruptly. 

A shapeless sound tore from his vocalizer as he succumbed to the rush of sensation, the spark flaring white and blinding and warm,  like a blade of pure release stabbing through him.

He sagged down, feeling Jennifer’s small body fold against him, feeling that strange cross-connection as his spark field overlapped the electricity of her nervous system.  He could feel her emotions and her thoughts like quick animal pulses, and he could feel her washing through him like a mist, like a bright cloud of stellar gas as he faded slowly out, giving into that last, sensual gift—that of oblivion.

He felt the hot sting of her tears on the dark metal.  She lifted up her face, wiping the tear away, stroking the metal cover almost reverently.  “This was his?” she asked, and he could tell by the timbre of her voice that she knew who he was and what he meant and found him beautiful.

“Yes.”

There was nothing more to be said.  Words, big clumsy things, would only ruin the strange communion, so they lay, letting time stretch before them like a carpet, letting the snow fall in hushed whispers on the roof of the hangar, letting others whip past them with their busy lives and petty worries.

And for that long, measureless moment, they just…were.

 

 

Comments

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not sure that could have been any more beautiful. *rolls around in happy Jennifer/Starscream fluffy loveliness.*

This made me grin: At half his usual speed and she was afraid. No human male could match him, and he took a certain, preening pride at the thought.

The end, however, got me all teary, and that is a lovely thing. Such a bittersweet happiness. Transitory, but perfect in the moment.

I'm so happy you wrote this pairing again. It will get me through until the next one XD

[sp4z01d.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when I'm feeling down, I go back to read this little number here.. I love it, it's just so touching and beautifully written. You have an incredible imagination, and you do amazing things with it. Your Xeno never ceases to awe me and make me feel happy.