Fic - Unaccustomed feeling
Title: Unaccustomed feeling
Continuity: G1 cartoon, Dysfunction AU
Rating: PG-13
Content advice: mention of slash, mention of interfacing
Disclaimer: characters are not mine, I just enjoy playing with them
Characters and/or pairings: Vortex/Blast Off
Summary: Blast Off wakes up in an inconvenient position, and things get worse from there. Explores an aspect of Blast Off’s relationship with Vortex, set a few months after Taking one for the Team (only the brig smut incident is directly relevant), and follows on directly from Attention. Cracky, shippy, angsty fic.
Notes: Written for the tf_rare_pairing prompt ‘Vortex/Blast Off, rotors and dust’.
“Vortex,” Blast Off groaned. “Get your foot out of my face.”
There was no response. Blast Off sighed; Vortex was probably enjoying himself, the hum of his fans hidden by the roaring winds. It was disgusting. Even worse than this horrific organic planet with its filthy, arid plains, and it’s mutable surfaces. It messed with everything; his instruments, his comms, his vision. Blast Off rebooted his optics, but no, the air was still grainy. Wonderful. And even more wonderful was his unparalleled view of one half of Vortex’s cockpit, to the exclusion of everything else.
They’d crashed, that much was obvious, although he couldn’t remember why. It would come to him, eventually. And in the meantime, he had the copter to deal with.
“I’m warning you,” he snarled. “Get your pit-spawned foot out of my face!”
Again, no response. Blast Off huffed, then winced as a gust of hot air carried a myriad of minute grating particles up through his vents.
“Oh for frag SAKE!” He yelled. He closed them off, writhing to tip the soil and dust and Sigma knew what else away from his more complex internal parts. “VORTEX, GET YOUR SLAGGING FOOT OUT OF MY FACE, YOU STUPID, NO-GOOD RECKLESS, PSYCHOTIC GLITCH!”
He shut down his vocaliser. Oh frag, had he really just said that? And so loud too? That wasn’t like him. Not that he wouldn’t say it in private, but in public? Even if ‘public’ in this case meant a field in the Southern states of America in the middle of a dust storm.
It wasn’t appropriate. But neither was being tangled up with his team mate simply because a certain psychotic glitch’s tail rotors seemed to have a magical attraction to his fuselage.
Onslaught should have known better than to send them out flying together; it never went well.
“Vortex,” he said, keeping his tone level only by dint of a serious force of will. “This is your last warning.”
But the storm chose that moment to abate, a slash of blue appearing in the fractured sky, and Blast Off suddenly understood why Vortex hadn’t responded.
“Oh slag.” He glanced around, frantic, unable for one long moment to work out exactly how he was going to get them untangled, let alone how he was going to stop Vortex leaking fluids all over the place. And that was without the issue of the head wound.
He sent an emergency signal to HQ, then forced himself to pause. This was nothing new. Vortex got himself into ridiculous, damaging situations all the time. At least he used to, before they got put in the Detention Centre, and there was no reason to expect that he was going to stop now they were out.
But something was new, and it wasn’t the injuries.
It’s just your reactions that have changed, Blast Off told himself. He’s in stasis, he’ll be fine.
He unwrapped himself from the copter, unbending rotors from his ailerons, untwisting Vortex’s partially transformed tail boom from around his throat. It was the gestalt programming, it must be. He’d never had this kind of reaction before, so visceral, so… worried. He couldn’t find a better word for it. He was concerned, not for the sake of the mission, or for his own sake should someone catch him with an armful of broken interrogator, but for Vortex’s sake.
He didn’t like it.
Sure, they’d interfaced. Sure, they had an understanding. But it was one born of sensible things like personal gratification and self-serving pleasure seeking. It was no reason whatsoever to get all psychologically touchy feely.
Not that they’d interfaced much lately. Since Starscream had given them new bodies, there’d been that incident in the brig, and that was it. Getting his cable half burned through on the energon bars had put a real crimp in Blast Off’s libido, and Vortex had only tried to convince him otherwise once before getting distracted by a grounder of all things. Seriously, a grounder. Blast Off snarled at the indignity, and tugged the last of Vortex’s tail rotors free from a tear in his neck.
It wasn’t like Vortex to be put off by getting shot. And Blast Off had only shot him a little bit for pushing his luck. Stupid copter.
At least Blast Off’s own wounds weren’t seeping. Just the copter’s. And there it was again, that rush of worry. Blast Off shuddered, and attempted to isolate his own thought processes from the emotions brought about by the combiner programming.
It was a curse, he decided, a punishment from Starscream. Perhaps it wasn’t in the combiner programming after all, perhaps it was in the loyalty programming implanted after that incident with Bruticus’s off switch. It certainly seemed designed to make them weaker.
Blast Off lay Vortex gently on the dusty ground. He fought to remain dispassionate, and for a good long moment it looked as though he would win. He needed to treat the chest wound first, stop the fuel and fluid loss. He took out a field repair kit and clipped the severed lines. It wasn’t the best of jobs, but it would do. What wouldn’t do was his hands. They kept shaking, even wrist-deep in Vortex’s abdomen they quivered. The thought of losing him… Blast Off shook his head and recalibrated his optics; this wasn’t time to give in to unaccustomed emotion.
There was nothing he could do about the rotors. Judging by past experience, they would have to be replaced. Slag, what was it with copters? Too fraggin’ delicate. He re-opened his vents, spitting out the dirt, and began to cycle clean, fresh air. He needed to be calm. He should ignore the blades, they weren’t a priority. The priority was the helm.
Blast Off didn’t want to look at it, let alone touch it. Something - he had no idea what - had cracked open one of the flanges, revealing the glittering array of circuitry beneath. Glittering and covered all over with grit, the dust from the storm clogged in a patina of energon and oil.
It was horrific, and Blast Off knew even as he thought it that he’d seen worse, he’d caused worse. Sure, it was disgusting and distasteful, but it was only terrible because of this newfound empathy. He wondered if Vortex had the same; if that was why he’d backed off when Blast Off got tired of the constant touching and shot him. His engine rumbled a growl; stupid programming. He’d only wanted the copter to back off for a cycle or two, not for good.
A ping arrived from HQ; help was on its way. Brawl, probably, with a couple of med-bots. Blast Off’s engine whined. Vortex didn’t need drones, and he certainly didn’t need Brawl. He needed Hook and Scavenger, and why the frag weren’t they coming?
Blast Off decided that he’d had enough. Frag the programming and frag the wait. Grimacing at the pain in his own torn plating, he transformed around Vortex, enfolding the copter’s inert form in the intricate mosaic of his unfurling alt mode. It was tricky, and he scooped up a good deal of the hated organic dirt at the same time, but eventually he got his damaged team mate in his cargo hold.
He took off, minding his speed and his angle of ascent, careful not to throw Vortex around. He didn’t comm. Brawl. There was no point; it wouldn’t get Vortex to a competent medic any quicker.
Instead, he plotted a flight path to the Nemesis and prepared to hail Soundwave.
Continuity: G1 cartoon, Dysfunction AU
Rating: PG-13
Content advice: mention of slash, mention of interfacing
Disclaimer: characters are not mine, I just enjoy playing with them
Characters and/or pairings: Vortex/Blast Off
Summary: Blast Off wakes up in an inconvenient position, and things get worse from there. Explores an aspect of Blast Off’s relationship with Vortex, set a few months after Taking one for the Team (only the brig smut incident is directly relevant), and follows on directly from Attention. Cracky, shippy, angsty fic.
Notes: Written for the tf_rare_pairing prompt ‘Vortex/Blast Off, rotors and dust’.
“Vortex,” Blast Off groaned. “Get your foot out of my face.”
There was no response. Blast Off sighed; Vortex was probably enjoying himself, the hum of his fans hidden by the roaring winds. It was disgusting. Even worse than this horrific organic planet with its filthy, arid plains, and it’s mutable surfaces. It messed with everything; his instruments, his comms, his vision. Blast Off rebooted his optics, but no, the air was still grainy. Wonderful. And even more wonderful was his unparalleled view of one half of Vortex’s cockpit, to the exclusion of everything else.
They’d crashed, that much was obvious, although he couldn’t remember why. It would come to him, eventually. And in the meantime, he had the copter to deal with.
“I’m warning you,” he snarled. “Get your pit-spawned foot out of my face!”
Again, no response. Blast Off huffed, then winced as a gust of hot air carried a myriad of minute grating particles up through his vents.
“Oh for frag SAKE!” He yelled. He closed them off, writhing to tip the soil and dust and Sigma knew what else away from his more complex internal parts. “VORTEX, GET YOUR SLAGGING FOOT OUT OF MY FACE, YOU STUPID, NO-GOOD RECKLESS, PSYCHOTIC GLITCH!”
He shut down his vocaliser. Oh frag, had he really just said that? And so loud too? That wasn’t like him. Not that he wouldn’t say it in private, but in public? Even if ‘public’ in this case meant a field in the Southern states of America in the middle of a dust storm.
It wasn’t appropriate. But neither was being tangled up with his team mate simply because a certain psychotic glitch’s tail rotors seemed to have a magical attraction to his fuselage.
Onslaught should have known better than to send them out flying together; it never went well.
“Vortex,” he said, keeping his tone level only by dint of a serious force of will. “This is your last warning.”
But the storm chose that moment to abate, a slash of blue appearing in the fractured sky, and Blast Off suddenly understood why Vortex hadn’t responded.
“Oh slag.” He glanced around, frantic, unable for one long moment to work out exactly how he was going to get them untangled, let alone how he was going to stop Vortex leaking fluids all over the place. And that was without the issue of the head wound.
He sent an emergency signal to HQ, then forced himself to pause. This was nothing new. Vortex got himself into ridiculous, damaging situations all the time. At least he used to, before they got put in the Detention Centre, and there was no reason to expect that he was going to stop now they were out.
But something was new, and it wasn’t the injuries.
It’s just your reactions that have changed, Blast Off told himself. He’s in stasis, he’ll be fine.
He unwrapped himself from the copter, unbending rotors from his ailerons, untwisting Vortex’s partially transformed tail boom from around his throat. It was the gestalt programming, it must be. He’d never had this kind of reaction before, so visceral, so… worried. He couldn’t find a better word for it. He was concerned, not for the sake of the mission, or for his own sake should someone catch him with an armful of broken interrogator, but for Vortex’s sake.
He didn’t like it.
Sure, they’d interfaced. Sure, they had an understanding. But it was one born of sensible things like personal gratification and self-serving pleasure seeking. It was no reason whatsoever to get all psychologically touchy feely.
Not that they’d interfaced much lately. Since Starscream had given them new bodies, there’d been that incident in the brig, and that was it. Getting his cable half burned through on the energon bars had put a real crimp in Blast Off’s libido, and Vortex had only tried to convince him otherwise once before getting distracted by a grounder of all things. Seriously, a grounder. Blast Off snarled at the indignity, and tugged the last of Vortex’s tail rotors free from a tear in his neck.
It wasn’t like Vortex to be put off by getting shot. And Blast Off had only shot him a little bit for pushing his luck. Stupid copter.
At least Blast Off’s own wounds weren’t seeping. Just the copter’s. And there it was again, that rush of worry. Blast Off shuddered, and attempted to isolate his own thought processes from the emotions brought about by the combiner programming.
It was a curse, he decided, a punishment from Starscream. Perhaps it wasn’t in the combiner programming after all, perhaps it was in the loyalty programming implanted after that incident with Bruticus’s off switch. It certainly seemed designed to make them weaker.
Blast Off lay Vortex gently on the dusty ground. He fought to remain dispassionate, and for a good long moment it looked as though he would win. He needed to treat the chest wound first, stop the fuel and fluid loss. He took out a field repair kit and clipped the severed lines. It wasn’t the best of jobs, but it would do. What wouldn’t do was his hands. They kept shaking, even wrist-deep in Vortex’s abdomen they quivered. The thought of losing him… Blast Off shook his head and recalibrated his optics; this wasn’t time to give in to unaccustomed emotion.
There was nothing he could do about the rotors. Judging by past experience, they would have to be replaced. Slag, what was it with copters? Too fraggin’ delicate. He re-opened his vents, spitting out the dirt, and began to cycle clean, fresh air. He needed to be calm. He should ignore the blades, they weren’t a priority. The priority was the helm.
Blast Off didn’t want to look at it, let alone touch it. Something - he had no idea what - had cracked open one of the flanges, revealing the glittering array of circuitry beneath. Glittering and covered all over with grit, the dust from the storm clogged in a patina of energon and oil.
It was horrific, and Blast Off knew even as he thought it that he’d seen worse, he’d caused worse. Sure, it was disgusting and distasteful, but it was only terrible because of this newfound empathy. He wondered if Vortex had the same; if that was why he’d backed off when Blast Off got tired of the constant touching and shot him. His engine rumbled a growl; stupid programming. He’d only wanted the copter to back off for a cycle or two, not for good.
A ping arrived from HQ; help was on its way. Brawl, probably, with a couple of med-bots. Blast Off’s engine whined. Vortex didn’t need drones, and he certainly didn’t need Brawl. He needed Hook and Scavenger, and why the frag weren’t they coming?
Blast Off decided that he’d had enough. Frag the programming and frag the wait. Grimacing at the pain in his own torn plating, he transformed around Vortex, enfolding the copter’s inert form in the intricate mosaic of his unfurling alt mode. It was tricky, and he scooped up a good deal of the hated organic dirt at the same time, but eventually he got his damaged team mate in his cargo hold.
He took off, minding his speed and his angle of ascent, careful not to throw Vortex around. He didn’t comm. Brawl. There was no point; it wouldn’t get Vortex to a competent medic any quicker.
Instead, he plotted a flight path to the Nemesis and prepared to hail Soundwave.