Fic - Space Romance
Title: Space Romance
Continuity: G1 cartoon, Dysfunction AU
Rating: M
Warnings: plug’n’play interfacing, slash, melancholic in tone
Disclaimer: just playing in the sandbox
Beta: naboru_narluin
Characters and/or pairings: Vortex/Blast Off
Summary: Set between scenes during ‘The Five Faces of Darkness’. Starving to death on Charr, Blast Off tries to find some peace and quiet, but Vortex is determined to give him something else.
All he wanted was some space.
Space away from his team. Space away from the dregs of the Decepticon army and its ceaseless bickering.
Dead End’s fatalistic whining clashed with Motormaster’s horrific attempts at boosting morale. The troops, so quick to factionalise at the best of times, had begun to take sides. And those sides had fragmented, even faster than usual, until even the Constructicons were warring amongst themselves.
Blast Off loathed it. He hated the quarrelling, he hated the constant clamour of argument grating over his comms. He hated being dragged into other peoples’ petty disputes.
But there was nowhere to hide in this slag-forsaken wasteland.
Nowhere that Vortex wouldn’t find him. Or the rest of his team, once they noticed he was gone.
That, however, was no reason not to try. It had to be worth the fuel to find even half a joor of peace.
After a few breems of searching, Blast Off found a suitable basement under one of the larger ruins.
It had been easy to get away. In an inversion of the usual laws, the Combaticons weren’t in-fighting. Swindle and Brawl were playing some idiotic game of chance, Onslaught was attempting to beat the kinks out of his cannon barrels, and Vortex was… somewhere. Blast Off didn’t know, and quite frankly didn’t care.
Blast Off disabled his comms. The silence was instant and gratifying. He lay down under a hole in the ceiling, through which he could see the stars. He wasn’t concerned about structural integrity; if the remains of the building collapsed, the end result would be the same as if it held.
The low fuel warning pinged again, and he shut it down, along with a scattering of other systems warnings. He was low on everything; hydraulic fluid, internal lubricants, coolant. Not that he needed those here. He didn’t plan on moving. He would conserve his strength, use his last reserves to enjoy a long moment of peace and quiet.
It wasn’t as though he could fly.
“There you are.”
The words were quiet; spoken aloud, the thin air hardly carried them. Blast Off raised one finger, an acknowledgement, but otherwise remained still.
There was a puff of dust as Vortex sat down beside him, disturbing fragments of cement and metal and stone.
“I’ve got something for you.”
Blast Off would have shrugged if he’d had the energy.
“You’ll like it.”
“There’s no point,” Blast Off said. He tugged his arm away, pre-empting the first quick stroke of his shields that seemed to presage Vortex’s attempts to seduce him nowadays. But instead, his view of the stars was blocked by a dull crimson visor and the pale dinted metal of Vortex’s mask.
“Seriously,” Vortex said. “I mean it.” The mask withdrew; he was grinning. “Unless you want to turn into Dead End…”
“I’m not proselytising,” Blast Off protested, then stopped; hadn’t he come here to get away from arguments? “How the slag do you have so much energy anyway?”
Vortex traced the insignia on Blast Off’s chest, his fingertip barely touching the ceramic. “I don’t,” he said. “No more than the rest of us, anyway. So, do you want to know what I’ve got for you?”
“If it’s energon, you can keep it.” Slag, he couldn’t see the stars for that visor, and that finger had made its way to his waist. He squirmed. “There’s… there’s no point to it,” he said. “It’s just delaying the inevitable.”
“No,” Vortex said. “Not energon.” He swung a leg over Blast Off, straddling him, and began to stroke the sensitive undersides of his arm shields.
“Really,” Blast Off said. “I don’t have the charge for this…”
“You won’t need it. Trust me.”
Trust him? With his fingers flicking over sensor clusters, awakening little lights in Blast Off’s HUD… sending tiny, delicate trills through his sensor net. All of that drained charge, it depleted his core. Vortex was a liar.
The copter lowered his head - revealing the stars glimmering as dynamic and marvellous and taunting as before - and trailed his glossa along the edge of Blast Off’s interface panel. He whispered, “Do you trust me?”
Blast Off’s intakes hitched, his ailerons twitching against Vortex’s feet. His fingers scrabbled at the floor.
I’m not insane, he thought, but said, “Why not.”
Vortex laughed softly. “Open up then.”
“Subtle,” Blast Off commented, but he gave the command for the cover to slide back.
Vortex was quick to establish the connection, his optics flickering as the first ripple of data fed through the interface. Blast Off sighed, and tried to ignore the insistent, sinking feeling that he really didn’t have the fuel for this, let alone the charge. That it would compromise the functionality of his processor, that it would interfere with his enjoyment of even that small view of the stars.
Then Vortex pinged for access to his sensor net.
“Huh?” Through the thrilling tingle of data exchange, Blast Off couldn’t quite articulate his confusion. Nor his concern. That was far too intimate for his tastes. What was the copter up to?
Vortex sent another request, impatience evident in the press of his fingers, the flow of the data stream.
“Ugh… Why not,” Blast Off said for the second time. They were going offline soon anyway, and wasn’t it better to slip into stasis lock connected, his last view that of the sky, than to die in some asinine fight over half an energon cube?
He granted access, and Vortex grinned. Then vanished, as Blast Off’s optics ceased to register light on any spectrum. Blast Off tensed as his other sensory systems also failed - he could no longer feel the floor beneath him. He couldn’t taste the desiccated bitterness of Charr’s dead atmosphere, or smell the tang of old joint lubricant.
Instead, there was nothing.
No, not nothing; there was cold, a fluctuating chill that settled just above absolute zero. Then warmed, slowly, deliberately, as an hallucination came into view, a distant sun getting incrementally closer. He was in alt mode, weightless, with no sensation of movement other than that suggested by his visual sensors. There was no sound but the background hiss and crackle of the universe. No signals butting for attention from his comms. No scent.
“You miss flying, don’t you?” Vortex’s words appeared as text on his HUD. Blast Off relaxed; he felt like laughing.
The star vanished momentarily, other more distant stars streaming across his vision as his alt mode spun a slow, lazy roll.
“You miss being out there?”
It wasn’t perfect, there were tiny flaws, things that Vortex didn’t - couldn’t - understand about space flight. But it took him away from Charr; it was illusion enough.
“Not right now,” he replied.
Continuity: G1 cartoon, Dysfunction AU
Rating: M
Warnings: plug’n’play interfacing, slash, melancholic in tone
Disclaimer: just playing in the sandbox
Beta: naboru_narluin
Characters and/or pairings: Vortex/Blast Off
Summary: Set between scenes during ‘The Five Faces of Darkness’. Starving to death on Charr, Blast Off tries to find some peace and quiet, but Vortex is determined to give him something else.
All he wanted was some space.
Space away from his team. Space away from the dregs of the Decepticon army and its ceaseless bickering.
Dead End’s fatalistic whining clashed with Motormaster’s horrific attempts at boosting morale. The troops, so quick to factionalise at the best of times, had begun to take sides. And those sides had fragmented, even faster than usual, until even the Constructicons were warring amongst themselves.
Blast Off loathed it. He hated the quarrelling, he hated the constant clamour of argument grating over his comms. He hated being dragged into other peoples’ petty disputes.
But there was nowhere to hide in this slag-forsaken wasteland.
Nowhere that Vortex wouldn’t find him. Or the rest of his team, once they noticed he was gone.
That, however, was no reason not to try. It had to be worth the fuel to find even half a joor of peace.
After a few breems of searching, Blast Off found a suitable basement under one of the larger ruins.
It had been easy to get away. In an inversion of the usual laws, the Combaticons weren’t in-fighting. Swindle and Brawl were playing some idiotic game of chance, Onslaught was attempting to beat the kinks out of his cannon barrels, and Vortex was… somewhere. Blast Off didn’t know, and quite frankly didn’t care.
Blast Off disabled his comms. The silence was instant and gratifying. He lay down under a hole in the ceiling, through which he could see the stars. He wasn’t concerned about structural integrity; if the remains of the building collapsed, the end result would be the same as if it held.
The low fuel warning pinged again, and he shut it down, along with a scattering of other systems warnings. He was low on everything; hydraulic fluid, internal lubricants, coolant. Not that he needed those here. He didn’t plan on moving. He would conserve his strength, use his last reserves to enjoy a long moment of peace and quiet.
It wasn’t as though he could fly.
“There you are.”
The words were quiet; spoken aloud, the thin air hardly carried them. Blast Off raised one finger, an acknowledgement, but otherwise remained still.
There was a puff of dust as Vortex sat down beside him, disturbing fragments of cement and metal and stone.
“I’ve got something for you.”
Blast Off would have shrugged if he’d had the energy.
“You’ll like it.”
“There’s no point,” Blast Off said. He tugged his arm away, pre-empting the first quick stroke of his shields that seemed to presage Vortex’s attempts to seduce him nowadays. But instead, his view of the stars was blocked by a dull crimson visor and the pale dinted metal of Vortex’s mask.
“Seriously,” Vortex said. “I mean it.” The mask withdrew; he was grinning. “Unless you want to turn into Dead End…”
“I’m not proselytising,” Blast Off protested, then stopped; hadn’t he come here to get away from arguments? “How the slag do you have so much energy anyway?”
Vortex traced the insignia on Blast Off’s chest, his fingertip barely touching the ceramic. “I don’t,” he said. “No more than the rest of us, anyway. So, do you want to know what I’ve got for you?”
“If it’s energon, you can keep it.” Slag, he couldn’t see the stars for that visor, and that finger had made its way to his waist. He squirmed. “There’s… there’s no point to it,” he said. “It’s just delaying the inevitable.”
“No,” Vortex said. “Not energon.” He swung a leg over Blast Off, straddling him, and began to stroke the sensitive undersides of his arm shields.
“Really,” Blast Off said. “I don’t have the charge for this…”
“You won’t need it. Trust me.”
Trust him? With his fingers flicking over sensor clusters, awakening little lights in Blast Off’s HUD… sending tiny, delicate trills through his sensor net. All of that drained charge, it depleted his core. Vortex was a liar.
The copter lowered his head - revealing the stars glimmering as dynamic and marvellous and taunting as before - and trailed his glossa along the edge of Blast Off’s interface panel. He whispered, “Do you trust me?”
Blast Off’s intakes hitched, his ailerons twitching against Vortex’s feet. His fingers scrabbled at the floor.
I’m not insane, he thought, but said, “Why not.”
Vortex laughed softly. “Open up then.”
“Subtle,” Blast Off commented, but he gave the command for the cover to slide back.
Vortex was quick to establish the connection, his optics flickering as the first ripple of data fed through the interface. Blast Off sighed, and tried to ignore the insistent, sinking feeling that he really didn’t have the fuel for this, let alone the charge. That it would compromise the functionality of his processor, that it would interfere with his enjoyment of even that small view of the stars.
Then Vortex pinged for access to his sensor net.
“Huh?” Through the thrilling tingle of data exchange, Blast Off couldn’t quite articulate his confusion. Nor his concern. That was far too intimate for his tastes. What was the copter up to?
Vortex sent another request, impatience evident in the press of his fingers, the flow of the data stream.
“Ugh… Why not,” Blast Off said for the second time. They were going offline soon anyway, and wasn’t it better to slip into stasis lock connected, his last view that of the sky, than to die in some asinine fight over half an energon cube?
He granted access, and Vortex grinned. Then vanished, as Blast Off’s optics ceased to register light on any spectrum. Blast Off tensed as his other sensory systems also failed - he could no longer feel the floor beneath him. He couldn’t taste the desiccated bitterness of Charr’s dead atmosphere, or smell the tang of old joint lubricant.
Instead, there was nothing.
No, not nothing; there was cold, a fluctuating chill that settled just above absolute zero. Then warmed, slowly, deliberately, as an hallucination came into view, a distant sun getting incrementally closer. He was in alt mode, weightless, with no sensation of movement other than that suggested by his visual sensors. There was no sound but the background hiss and crackle of the universe. No signals butting for attention from his comms. No scent.
“You miss flying, don’t you?” Vortex’s words appeared as text on his HUD. Blast Off relaxed; he felt like laughing.
The star vanished momentarily, other more distant stars streaming across his vision as his alt mode spun a slow, lazy roll.
“You miss being out there?”
It wasn’t perfect, there were tiny flaws, things that Vortex didn’t - couldn’t - understand about space flight. But it took him away from Charr; it was illusion enough.
“Not right now,” he replied.