Sky and Ground

BOLT



Barricade ran, without any idea of where he was going. He had no place to go. His recharge? No. Skywarp’s recharge briefly crossed his mind, but right now anything that reminded him of Skywarp—what used to be—he was not sure he could handle. Which left out his work cube, as well. Was there anywhere on the ship not marked with a memory of Skywarp?



He was exhausted—this, on top of the long shiftcycle after…the previous night. And he was leaking energon down his torso from where Skywarp’s barb had caught him. Unintentional, he told himself. An accident. Not his fault.



He stopped, doubling over from the pain. He couldn’t run aimlessly through the ship all night. And he had security codes to any room on the ship. One of them, ONE of them, had to be free of memories of Skywarp.



Passive Sat. Barricade almost never went into the satellite monitoring, and he’d never seen Skywarp there. That was safe…wasn’t it?



He forced himself upright, to the door, his talons trembling as he coded the override. He just…needed…a place where things would stop. Where he could get himself together. Where he could think.



The room was dark and quiet, the only sound the soft hum of the satellite captures. They’d be scoured in the morning for any changes and anomalies, most simply just stored in case there was a need for them. Everyone’s least favorite job: no one stuck around here after shift.



Barricade settled himself on one of the monitoring chairs, his hands splinting his injured side. Here, no memories. Here, just the slow, tedious splay of ground and space pointed satellites. Here, with the skies and the planet above and below him, spooling their images across the screens, caught between, here, maybe he could find some center. Find balance. Find himself.



Skywarp. He had lost him. Somehow, even doing everything he could, he had lost Skywarp. He had never seen a look of icy fury like that before. He had done…something to deserve it. Held on too tightly? Tried too hard? Been too open? He couldn’t tell.



He wasn’t, he finally admitted, up to thinking right now. Maybe later, but right now all he seemed capable of doing was feeling. Physical: His side hurt—his armor dented and a line nicked, pink energon slicking his fingers. His shoulder and head hurt from when Thundercracker had thrown him against the shelf. But…those were nothing compared to the terrible pain in his spark. Oh, Skywarp. All the pain he could ever feel, a core-deep agony, a ripping, burning, terrible pain, summed up in those two words.



He bowed his head, drawing his knees up to press against his wound, to give him a place to hide his face, hide his failure. Even when you try you are not good enough. Love? What power did you think it had? Now you see how powerless it truly is. You have…less than you started with. Beautiful memories, which you have ruined by trying too hard. Not even a place to stay. When he did go back, when he could go back, he’d have a mess to clean—broken things to sort through. But what were broken datatracks compared to this?



He struggled to breathe, squeezing his arms tighter around his knees, as if trying to make himself disappear, a singularity, sucking into him all of the misery and failure. If he could take away Skywarp’s unhappiness and pain, he would gladly die. But he didn’t think that would help anything at all. Nothing he could think of could help. He felt himself shivering—checked his core temp. No. His core was running high, not cold. He forced himself to vent slowly and evenly, bringing more air to cool his systems, but even his vents were thin and forced, as though his airway was constricted.



What do you want? I want…impossible things. To go back in time. To know what I did wrong. To know how to fix it. How to fix them. To save Skywarp. Impossible things for someone as pathetic as Barricade. He’d never felt his helplessness as keenly as now.



He was so wrapped in his own despair that he didn’t hear the door open. Didn’t hear the approaching footsteps, or the rustle of panels. Heard nothing until the icy voice spoke from over his shoulder.



“Well, now,” Soundwave said, “What have we here?”



**



Skywarp knelt amid the wreckage of Barricade’s recharge. Everything: ruined. Barricade’s datatracks. A few probably irreplaceable mementos. The berth was dented, and long scratches scarred the walls. A testimony to everything that was wrong with Skywarp. Written large, scrawled everywhere. All his damage, visited upon Barricade. Even the spark chamber cover, which had come to rest between Skywarp’s knees, bore new damage, the magnets pried off one side, the metal disk dented out of shape. Nothing had escaped.



He could replace it—most of it. He could get the walls repaired and a new berth installed. He could replace all the datatracks. But it wouldn’t…fix what was really broken. Just more cosmetic fixes, surface patches. It wouldn’t repair what was actually broken.



Which was…Skywarp.



Thundercracker had left him shortly after Barricade had run from the room. No need to continue, really. Thundercracker had proved his point. Just a few murmured words about how worried Starscream must be getting and…Skywarp had deflated. Promised to follow. And he would. He had no choice, not really. Stay behind for Barricade? For what? Apologize? Look how well this last attempt went. What does he have left you can break? You want to stay around and try for that? He could do nothing here. And…Barricade deserved his room back, his privacy. He deserved to feel safe. Skywarp couldn’t promise that tonight—the room was a wreck—but he could at least remove himself, and make it peaceful. Not make Barricade even more unhappy.



He looked around for a datapad to leave a note. Just something telling Barricade he wouldn’t bother him anymore and he’d see to repairing the damaged stuff and that he was so…unutterably sorry. The two pads he’d found were broken—one’s screen shattered, the other had its input panel dented beyond use. Which left…vocal. No. He couldn’t. Barricade didn’t want to hear from him.



He pulled himself to his knees, heavily, bracing one hand against the battered berth. The spark chamber cover clung desperately by its magnets onto one of his fingers, a symbol refusing to be ignored. Oh, this. He imagined, suddenly, what Barricade must have thought, must have felt, stumbling across it in the dark. Rejection. Pain. No explanation, no hint, no chance to brace himself for it.



Bitter, the irony, when Skywarp considered why he’d taken the cover off.



He would not make that mistake again. He knew now why Starscream really prized Skyfire’s chamber cover. As a reminder not only of what he had had, but what he had lost.



**



Starscream trembled as he felt a weight settle in behind him.



“He’s fine,” Thundercracker’s voice was husky near his audio, a long blue arm wrapping over his chassis, a familiar bulge of a cockpit between his engines.



“You…spoke to him?” Starscream’s fingers twined into Thundercracker’s.



“Yes. Don’t worry.” A slight hesitation. “We had a little argument, and…he just needs some time to cool down. That’s why he’s not here. It’s,” a pause, and a slow trail of hot breath down Starscream’s folded wing, “it’s not you, Starscream.”



“I don’t want him to be angry at all,” Starscream murmured. “We’re a Trine.” We’re all we have.



“I know,” Thundercracker said, his voice soft, vibrating against the thrusters. “I don’t want him to be angry, either.” He pulled his hand from Starscream’s grasp, stroking down the front of the bronze body. A drip of coolant fell on the bronze hand.



“You are injured?” A question. An invitation to fear.



A hollow laugh. “I told you—he needs some time too cool. And I don’t want to see you upset, either. We all have our weaknesses, Starscream. We all have our strengths. Skywarp is just…he needs us right now. Needs us to help him.” The hand teased gently between the thighs, feathering against the panel’s seams.



“You are not upset with him?” Another question, hiding a deeper need.



“No. Of course not.” Thundercracker leaned over, inviting Starscream to drop back into his cradling arm, reaching for a kiss. He smirked around Starscream’s responding mouth. “But he needs us to do his thinking for him right now, all right?” His hand slicked possessively down Starscream’s side, feeling the satiny smoothness of the bare metal, so unlike the slick shine of his own enamel.



“But…Barricade makes him happy.” Starscream shifted, uncomfortable, reaching into Thundercracker’s touch.



“Then,” Thundercracker murmured, his mouth tracing the arc of Starscream’s collar armor, “we shall make him happier.”



The door coded open, a shadow falling among shadows over them. Skywarp’s figure, shoulders hunched, wings drooping. New scratches caught in the dim light from the corridor, winking out as the door closed, quietly, behind him. He threw himself onto the berth. Starscream pulled away from Thundercracker, sharing an anxious glance, as he risked a gentle touch to Skywarp’s engine.



Skywarp flinched. “Don’t want to talk,” he mumbled into the berth.



Starscream folded himself on top of Skywarp, brushing his cheekflares against the back of the black helm. “Then do not talk,” Starscream murmured into his audio, his hands stroking gently at his Trine mate’s rigid frame. “You need never explain yourself to us, Skywarp,” he whispered, “to me.”