Operation: Cheer Up Barricade

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse
Barricade, Blackout, Starscream, Grindor, Bonecrusher, Brawl
Crack. Lots and lots of crack
for 28s meme 'Silly'. 

Blackout waited until Barricade had stomped off, complaining loudly that he was driven off by Brawl’s smell. Okay, it probably really wasn’t Brawl’s smell that did it, more like Bonecrusher’s slow licking of his lip plating while he stared meaningfully at Barricade’s window-wings.  Barricade had held those wings high and tight, affronted, as he stormed away, trying to turn his body so that Bonecrusher couldn’t stare at his aft.  “Anyone else notice that Barricade’s been a little…um…moody lately?”

“He told me he has only one mood: bad!” Brawl contributed. 

“He has been under considerable pressure, lately,” Starscream said.

“Oh, boo-fraggin’-hoo,” Bonecrusher muttered.  “Tiny  McWhinypants has work stress?  Try being fraggin’ shot at sometimes.”

“Ummm, we’ve all tried that, Bonecrusher,” Blackout said. Seriously. “My point is, he seems kinda…I guess kinda droopy. And snappish.” At the same time, which was what made it really weird.

“It is…possible,” Starscream said. “Do you have some sort of plan or is this simply an observation?”

“Well, I don’t know.  Maybe like do something to cheer him up?”  Blackout shrugged, his shockwave generators banging on his shoulders.

“Cheer him up?”  Bonecrusher looked at Blackout as though he was something normally found between Brawl’s toes. 

Brawl, however, bounced in his seat. “We could throw him a party!”

“I do have to question,” Starscream began, “how well Barricade, in his…current state, would respond to being invited to a party.”

Blackout’s rotors drooped.  It was a pretty cool idea, but Starscream was right. “Probably wouldn’t come.”

“Probably think it was some conspiracy out to get him,” Grindor schussed his cube over to Barricade’s empty seat, moving his own backside on the bench. Strategy? He was there.

“But it would be a surprise when he found out we weren’t out to get him,” Blackout argued the cause.

“Then he’d throw up,” Grindor said.  “On as many of us as he could manage. He’s not…big into sentimentality.” 

“Then I’d throw up,” Bonecrusher said, fists curling, like it was a challenge. 

“Oh, me too!” Brawl burbled. Then his face grew serious.  “How do I practice that?” 

“This ‘party’ sounds…unpleasant,” Starscream said, eyeballing Grindor as the mech who had started it all.  Grindor shrugged, helpless.  He still wasn’t used to the ways Bonecrusher and Brawl could steer a conversation.  “However, since I am the tactical genius here,” another barbed look at Grindor, who bridled, rotors flaring, “if we combine these ideas, it may work.” 

Blackout blinked. “Combine them, how?” And he really hoped the throwing up stuff wasn’t in Starscream’s plan.  Yuck.

“What if we have a surprise party, and it is a conspiracy?”  Starscream grinned, deviously.  “We arrange a party, and drop several hints that we are up to something and that he is indeed being left out of it and….” He opened his hands in a ‘voila’ gesture.

Grindor snorted. “He crashes the party thinking he’s outsmarted us.” 

“He’ll hate it,” Bonecrusher said.  Then, his optics contracting worriedly. “I…kind of like it?” 

“Surprise! Party! Surprise! Party!”  Brawl bounced, clapping his hands, his cannon whirring in and out of target lock on the ceiling.  Blackout shot an apprehensive look upwards, just to see if there was anything he should particularly worry about falling on his head.  Or…Brawl’s.

Blackout lowered his voice. “How do we know someone,” he tilted his crest meaningfully at Brawl, “doesn’t spill the whole thing?”  Brawl wasn’t, um…real bright.

Starscream smirked. “We do not know that. In fact, we count on it, because, Blackout, you are forgetting that Barricade automatically presumes everything Brawl says to be ridiculous.” 

Huh.  Jet really did have some kind of tactical smarts. 

[***]

Barricade ‘ahem’d loudly, approaching the two copters.  “Clogging the corridor,” he snapped.

“We’re not ‘clogging’,” Grindor said. “We can move if we need to.”

“Well move now, why don’t you?” Barricade made a shooing gesture with his talons.  “Stop blockin’ my corridor.” 

“Frag,” Blackout said. “We were just talking.”

Grindor shook his head quickly, making a quick ‘cut-off’ gesture with his hand.

Barricade tilted his head. Oh, really?  “Talking about what?”

“Uhhhh, stuff? Just stuff.”  Blackout shrugged.  “You know.  Nothing special.”

Riiiiiiiight. “I like talking about stuff, too,” Barricade hinted. 

“Uh, not this stuff,” Grindor cut in. “This was, um, copter stuff.”

Barricade’s optics glinted. “I like copter stuff,” he said.  Like rotors, and teeter hinges, and swashplates. 

A very suspicious exchange of copterlooks.  Hrm.  Barricade frowned.

“Ummm, not that kind of copter stuff,” Blackout said. “Seriously. If it were cool, we’d tell you.”

“Why don’t you tell me anyway?” Barricade folded his arms over his chassis, summoning his most Stern Four Opticked Glare.

“Well, because it’s, um, kinda intimate.”  Blackout dropped his head, cheek flanges snapping shut in embarrassment. “You know, personal problems.” 

“Weird smells, strange discharge,” Grindor added.

Um, ew.  Maybe some copter stuff could remain a mystery. “Yeah, okay, keep it to yourself, then, copters,” he said.  Not entirely convinced, but…yeah. He didn’t need to know about mysterious copter discharge. Keep some things better as a mystery.

Blackout and Grindor began drifting down the hallway.  Barricade harrumphed after them, before turning back to his workcube, window-wings rigid.  He didn’t see the copters exchange a high five behind his back.

[***]

Barricade rapped authoritatively on the open doorframe of Aerial Planning, frowning over a datapad.  Someone had reserved Rec Room Beta for three shiftcycles from now, and that was No Fraggin’ Good for a number of reasons. One of which, there was no authorization code on the reserve, and the other was…three shifts from now was when the ship’s entertainment network was going to show the next episode of Seeker Cadets. Sure, Barricade had seen them all already, but that wasn’t the point.  Seeker Cadets looked better on the Beta screen and with surround-sound. It had been his decacycle routine for megacycles now. EVERYONE knew this. 

Starscream looked up. “Barricade,” he said, blandly. “How may I assist you?”

Barricade was instantly suspicious. Well, even more than usual.  Starscream? Helpful?  Right.  He narrowed his optics. The jet knew something and it was time to pump the jet for info. “Nothing special,” Barricade said, lightly. “You wouldn’t happen to know what’s going on in three shift cycles?”

The tilted optics considered. Right. Putting on a show for me, huh, jet?  “Many things, I imagine. Could you help me narrow it down?” The mouth calipers pinched in delight.

Oh it was so ON.  “Narrow it down? Okay,”  Barricade tossed the datapad at Starscream.  At his head, to be precise. “No authorization, no reservation.” Not an awesome rhyme, but whatever. 

Starscream caught the pad nimbly, using reflexes he almost never showed outside of combat.  “Ah,” he said, curling both barbed hands around the pad, “this.”  He studied the datapad intently, and then peered coyly over the top of it at Barricade. “Interesting,” he said. 

Interesting my sexy black-armored aft, Barricade thought.  He frowned. “Spill it, jet.”

“Spill…it? Why, Barricade. What a delightfully vivid turn of phrase.”  He peeked from around the side of the datapad, holding it closer to badly hide a snicker.  “But I have nothing to spill.”

“What,” Barricade said, pitching his voice clear and loud and slow, “is going on in three shifts in Beta?” 

Another stifled snicker.  “Nothing,” Starscream managed, not even daring to peep around the pad. 

“Damn right ‘nothing’,” Barricade snapped.   He lunged forward, having to bounce to his tiptoes to snatch the pad from the long talons. “No authorization code, no reservation. Gonna wipe it.”  Seeker Cadets watching was go. 

“Oh, but there is authorization,” Starscream said.  “Look again.”

Look again, Righ—oh you fraggin’ sneaky jet.  Starscream’s authorization code blinked at him from the bottom of the reservation. Barricade’s optics snapped with fury.  “What is going on!” he barked.

“Would you not like to know?” Starscream smirked. 

Barricade’s hands curled around the datapad, hard enough that the edges of the pad cracked.  Yes, yes he would like to know.  He hissed at Starscream, heaving.

Starscream tilted his head, amused. “Barricade, you sound…unwell?  Shall I summon repairbots?”

Fraggin’ repairbots!?  Barricade’s four optics flared.  “This isn’t over, jet.  I’ll find out what’s going on. And when I do….?”  He shook his fist in open threat.

“I am certain you will,” Starscream said, mildly, clicking with satisfaction. “And I shall prepare a suitable amount of dread.” 

Auuugh! Jets! 

[***]

Right.  Barricade glared at his monitor in his work cube.  This was a conspiracy. As he’d always suspected.  But he would get to the bottom of it.  Every conspiracy had a weak link. All he had to do was figure out who the weak link was.

And the best place to start was…Brawl.  Links didn’t get any weaker than Brawl. 

But approaching Brawl required skill. And patience. And an overabundance of sanity.

Barricade could handle it.  He checked his chrono. Right. Refuel time.  The moron liked to blab while he fueled.  Right.  Time to get to the bottom of this.  The smelly, stupid bottom.

[***]

“Brawl,” Barricade dropped into the seat next to the tank as he fumbled with his autoinjector. “You’re looking…hideous today.”   No sense wasting nice on the idiot.

Brawl bounced. “That’s what Bonecrusher said!”

Eurgh. Was there anything worse than playing nice to Brawl? Inadvertently repeating Bonecrusher was a close second, at least. “Awesome,” Barricade said.

A long moment.

Brawl bobbled his head from side to side as if he was hearing some kind of music, letting the autoinjector do the apparently too-tough job of fueling him.

“Uhhh,” Barricade said, eventually. “So, anything interesting coming up?”

“Interesting?” Brawl blinked. “Ummm, like what?”  He squeezed his ration pouch, as if trying to get the injector to work faster.

He looked nervous.  Huh.  Nervous Brawl was a Brawl who was hiding something. “Like,” Barricade swirled his own sludgy pouch of energon. “Well, you know…anything cool happening in one of the Rec Rooms I should know about?”  His optics zoomed on Brawl’s squashy face. 

Brawl’s forehead plating furrowed, thinking, hard.  And apparently, thinking hard was painful.  “Uhhh, well Bonecrusher tore the place up.  He said it was like prefermanence parts or something.”

“Performance art, you noxious dullard,” Bonecrusher growled, wheeling up on the opposite side of the table, reaching across to whap Brawl on the head. 

Brawl giggled.  Barricade felt vaguely queasy, which he knew wasn’t from the crummy energon. “Yeah, that,” Brawl said, agreeably. “And then that big party coming u—oh.” The optics grew round and large. “Uhhh, I didn’t say that.”

Right.  Barricade was that dumb. “What big party?”

“Oh,” Bonecrusher said. “You know.  The big surprise party we’re planning just for you.” He smirked.  And he did not have a face built for smirking.  The quease ratcheted up another notch.

Barricade glared. “Cram it, Bonekisser.” Seriously. Did they think he was dumb?  No fraggin’ way they’d make a party for him. But, frag.  As long as Bonecrusher was here to run brain-interference for Brawl, there was nothing Barricade was going to pry out of the moron.  Especially not now, as Bonecrusher was—oh eurgh—playing footsie with the fraggin’ tank’s toes under the table. Barricade looked dubiously at his ration pouch. Yeah, no way he was getting this one down. 

“I, uh, gotta go,” he muttered, rising to his feet, clutching a hand over his roiling tanks.  Gross. 

But he’d find out, if he had to crash this stupid thing himself.

[***]

Right.  Barricade had given this whole shindig—to which he hadn’t been invited—plenty of time to get in full swing.  And he’d sat through the Seeker Cadets episode on his own, small, portable viewer.  Nowhere near the same. Fraggit.  So he was in an especially foul mood as he stomped toward the Rec Room, datapad in hand. He was going to get to the bottom of this, and find some nice ‘volunteers’ for some unpleasant upcoming missions. Oh yeah. Revenge…was gonna be awesome.

The door keypad blatted at him. Locked, huh?  He smirked. Nice try, jerks.  But a certain Intel Officer happened to have override codes.  And he could hear them in there. Laughing, joking, having fun.  Hah.  Countdown to ending that in three…two…one…

“WHAT,” he bellowed, stomping over the threshold, “IS GOING ON HERE?!”  He tried to resist the grin of triumph. Okay, he tried to resist it a little bit.  Not very well.

Brawl blinked. “Ummm, we told you?  Surprise party? For you?”

What the…?  Barricade looked around.  Starscream had settled himself on the edge of the table, his long talons toying with a veritable mountain of cubes of Seeker grade energon, while the copters had stopped where playing that silly dance game in the corner.

“Awww,” Grindor said. “You were right, Blackout. He did look really happy busting through that door.”

“Told you so.”  Blackout’s cheek flanges spread, amused.

Bonecrusher wheeled up, axles squeaking. “Heh.  Missed Seeker Cadets, Barricade,” he snickered.

What? His face fell, optics burning. He glared at the jet. “YOU. You’re behind this, aren’t you?”

Starscream tilted his head. “Perhaps.” He held out a cube of Seeker grade.  “Though the original idea was Blackout’s.”

Barricade snatched the cube, turning his glare on the copter. “Your idea?”

Blackout grinned, but he edged behind Grindor. “You seemed…kinda down lately.”

“And…this was supposed to cheer me up?”

“Yeah.  Well, you know…the whole ‘busting us’ thing, right?”

“That,” Barricade seethed, “has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.” He slugged part of his energon, feeling the fizzy pink wash through his systems.  Right.  Tricking Barricade into busting them at a party they were throwing for him.  Completely insane.  Seriously. 

But a smile spread itself over his face, even against his will, and he found himself laughing into his energon cube.  And then it hit him. “You fraggin’ idiots would do all this…for me?”

“Oh Primus,” Bonecrusher muttered. “He’s going to get all sappy now.”

“Is this when we throw up?” Brawl chirped.

What? 

 

Comments

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

AAHAHAHAHAHA! *rolls about* Oh this was excellent fun :D

He still wasn’t used to the ways Bonecrusher and Brawl could steer a conversation.
Poor Grindor, lol - how did this turn into a discussion about throwing up now?

And I adore the Starscream snark:
Why, Barricade. What a delightfully vivid turn of phrase.
I shall prepare a suitable amount of dread.
*chortle*

Hope Barricade enjoys the purging party :P Sure cheered me up anyway ^_^

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

I utterly adore this verse :D This fic had me laughing so loud the neighbours are probably worried there's something wrong.

[aughoti (from livejournal.com)]

“Is this when we throw up?” Brawl chirped.

HA! (...and so glad I'd finished my coffee by the time I got to the end...)

This is hilarious, and clearly Starscream knows far too well how Barricade thinks. Completely, adorably insane, the lot of 'em.

fantastic ^_^

[ex-naggingf.livejournal.com]

That was so cute!! "Tiny McWhinypants"....LOL!

[albinocthulhu.livejournal.com]

awww Barricade you grumpy little sherbat you. X3

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

I'm LOLing at the airport gate.

And this line:
“Weird smells, strange discharge,” Grindor added.

Yeah ... copter stuff. *snickers*

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

LOL! oh man, I think I'm relieved it stops where it does, because I really can't quite put it past Brawl to try the vomiting part just because he thinks it'll impress Bonecrusher. And then, of course, Bonecrusher couldn't let himself get out-disgustinged by anybody. And... yeah, good stopping point. (whew!)

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

"Is this when we throw up?"

Bwahhaahhahahaha is it odd that I find Brawl adorable? I probably wouldn't wanna stand downwind of him or anything, but still. And I giggled like a school girl when Bonecrusher was playing footsie with him.

Ahhh Barricade... when will you accept that you are loved? Even by the ones who "hate" you.

That was awesome. Such a pick-me-up. I needed that. ^_^

[xxsomeoneelsexx.livejournal.com]

I should not search the "crack" tag in public. People keep asking me what's so funny and I don't know what to say to them D: