"Rodimus Prime? Hot Rod? ... He sounds like a porn star." - My Baby Sister
Title: The Nine Rings of Vos
A Transformers G1 Fanfic
Author: Sanjuno Shori Niko
Summary: Magical solutions to your problems don't always appear, and sometimes... well, sometimes slag happens.
Timeline: Everything else is here!
=/=
(In which things are upsetting.)
Life was good - not perfect, it is hard to have a perfect life even when you are not on the wrong side of a planet-wide prejudice - but things were going well. The scout and energy collection teams had been successfully smuggled off of Cybertron and, armed with coordinates and notes provided by Starscream, had already begun sending small, easily overlooked shipments of energon back to Vos. As a result, although they took care to present the same appearance of short rations as the rest of the planet, Vos was probably the only city-state in no danger of total starvation. The Seekers were careful to keep this fact hidden, the last thing they needed was for the Council to stir themselves out of their Iacon bolthole and cause problems for Vos.
“What are you thinking about?” Skywarp asked, draping himself over Starscream’s lap, “You’re making such a serious face!”
“Ah.” Starscream’s optics flickered as he turned his attentions to his wingmate, “Just contemplating our situation. We’re lucky that the collection teams have started sending back energon.”
“Mm.” Thundercracker muttered in agreement, lifting Skywarp’s legs out of the way so he could take a seat beside Starscream, allowing Skywarp’s lower half to flop back over Thundercracker’s thighs, “With energon coming in regularly we don’t have to worry about providing for the sparkling when it’s ready for protoform.”
“Exactly.” Starscream said with a nod, fingers brushing lightly over his canopy, “We have enough troubles as it is. Our population count is at the lowest it's ever been, mirror and clone coding is becoming a major problem, and dangerous glitches are showing up more frequently. We don’t have time to deal with starvation as well.”
“But all of that is fixable.” Skywarp soothed, nuzzling his face into Starscream’s pelvic seam, “Don’t brood about it so much. With the fractal you made we can fix most of that, and I’ve yet to meet a single Seeker who isn’t glitched somehow anyway. It’s just the way we are.”
“First off, the fractal isn’t done yet - even if the trial runs did work for us and others - it still isn’t ready for mass production yet. Even if we did have the materials necessary to supply everyone who wants a sparkling - which we don’t - the fractal is still in the testing phases.” Starscream sighed through his vents, rubbing absently at his canopy then switching to stroking Skywarp’s helm, “On top of that, we need to somehow keep the Council from noticing that we aren’t starving and keep them from hearing about the sparklings. It was an act of Primus keeping Runabout and Runamuck from their attention. The last thing we need is more kidnappings.”
Known, but rarely - if ever - spoken of was the direct threat the government posed to any Seeker who got with spark. The regulations placed on the inhabitants of Vos were strict outside their home city-state, dictating when and where they could fly in addition to controlling where they could go, forbidding them access to certain buildings, and monitoring traffic into and out of the state. (It was this last action that caused the most stress for the energy collection teams, making them very strict about coordinating with their ground teams when leaving and returning to the planet.) Sparklings were kept hidden from outsiders, no matter how trusted, unless they were bonded to a Seeker - in those cases however they were no longer Outsider but mate - for fear of word getting back to the Council. Many a sparkling had been removed from its parents care by Council order, with repetitions of ‘war-builds cannot be expected to care properly for a sparkling. You are not programmed for it. This is for the sparklings own good.’
Every time it happened - far more common in the early days that few remembered, before Vos closed ranks against the rest of Cybertron - Vos as a whole seethed in impotent fury. They would fight the entire planet for the sake of a single sparkling, but dared not, for the sake of the young ones still hidden. Trines who lost a sparkling this way would take vorns to attempt another, if they ever did. Seekers lived by threes, and old superstitions held that a newspark that self extinguished did so because its trinemates were missing. Supported by the fact that trinemates were often of an age or nearly so, the loss of one meant the loss of three to many Seekers. Since the Council had cracked down on Vos and other war-build states, there had been less sparklings created, but a larger percentage of spontaneous destabilization. It may very well be that the old legends held some truth after all.
In Starscream’s age bracket were his own trinemates plus a few dozen or so others. Of them, nearly half had been taken by Council authorization during an unannounced state visit. It was only because of Glitterblind - the Crèche Matron had only been a youngling then, but she had felt the distress of the first victims and acted on the warning - and her quick response to the threat was the main reason that any of the sparklings, hatchlings and younglings had managed to hide. All of those lost and taken had been mourned by the Seeker nation as a whole, at least one parent trine going mad with grief when the creation bond shattered.
The Seekers knew what happened to their stolen children; death, or worse, things that made death a longed for mercy. It was no wonder the Seeker-kin had closed ranks. In recent vorns the insular nature of their culture had only made it simpler for them to bypass Council edicts to provide for themselves. With the downsizing of the military and the attentions of the Government focused on quelling the riots, Vos was free to be more proactive about things.
The one thing they could not provide for themselves was a steady influx of fresh code-strings. Seekers loved space - the more the better - but the entire Seeker nation could fit quite comfortably into the main city with room to spare. Fear kept them from reproducing in the numbers that would fill their home state, and the need for secrecy meant that at most the new generations provided just enough Seekers to replace those of the previous generations who had passed on. This meant that to bring in new codes, the Seekers needed to look outside of Vos or risk producing clones. For the wildly unique and fiercely proud Seekers, this could become a problem. Too many with the same codes and no one would be able to identify their trinemates by that first meeting surge of the windbond alone. So, every trine that ventured out of Vos was encouraged to take Outsider lovers in hopes of a sparkling that would be Seeker, but with new codes.
Of course, that meant that in addition to being arrogant, self centred, crazy, and violent Seekers were also seen as shameless circuit-jumpers that would spark off anyone who held still long enough. Not the most flattering of reputations. Still, any Seeker worth his wings knew how to take advantage of certain misconceptions.
“You’re brooding again.” Skywarp sounded annoyed, flicking his wings out of the way as he scowled up at his mates, “Both of you stop that right now.”
“Stop what, oh master of my thoughts?” Thundercracker asked in calm amusement, “Are we doing something wrong?”
“It seems we’re thinking too much, and that is making him feel inadequate.” Starscream said, smoothly ignoring Skywarp’s indignant squawk, “Perhaps we ought to choose something less… challenging to keep the poor thing amused.”
“Oh, ha ha. Very funny.” Skywarp pushed himself upright, still seated on his wingmates, “You can both stop mocking me now.”
“But it’s so much fun!” Thundercracker teased, laughing in amusement as Skywarp slapped his arm, “Aw, did I hurt your feelings, sweetspark?”
“I’ll ‘sweetspark’ you!” Skywarp retorted hotly, lunging forward to mock battle with a chortling Thundercracker.
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it now?” Starscream said with an exaggerated look of contemplation, hiding a wince as his spark fluxed in its casing by laughing at his wingmates actions. The twinges were not unusual, just the natural result of the newspark’s individual field gaining strength as it developed and pushing against Starscream’s. The strength and frequency of the surges were another matter entirely. Starscream had been warned to take things easy, his sparkling had an unusually strong field for a newspark its age and they still had to be cautious of any side effects from the fractal.
However, no one ever said that being Winglord was a low-stress occupation, and the current energy crisis on top of the issues of war-build discrimination was no better now than before he had gotten with sparkling. The issues of the real world had not magically disappeared or resolved themselves. That much was evidenced by the constant petitions for an audience being sent by a gladiator from Kaon. Despite being put off numerous times and being given the run-around by the protective forces of the Winglord’s aides and secretaries, the mech had left behind a small delegation who were reportedly forbidden to leave Vos until the Emirate of Vos granted the gladiator his audience. But for all of the problems of the times, all of Vos was eagerly awaiting this sparkling with excitement. If things went well it meant the end of their problem with clone coding, and any sparkling was a cause for the Seeker nation to celebrate. So his people were being overprotective to a ridiculous, if flattering, degree, his mates pandered to his every whim and the twin Flightless they had taken in only a few vorns ago were on their best behaviour.
His chest twinged again, but Starscream ignored it in favour of standing, stepping over his wrestling mates and looking in on Runabout and Runamuck. The twins were deep in recharge. They were just barely now into the hatchling stage, the first tiny armour plates taking the place of a sparklings fragile vulnerability. Surprisingly well adjusted despite their traumatic entry into the world, the twins were constantly asking Starscream when the newspark would be ready to come out. Their caregivers were just happy that the twins were not feeling replaced by the new addition. Starscream smiled, watching as Runabout flopped over his brother without stirring from recharge.
“Looking forward to having a sparkling around again?” Thundercracker asked, peeking in on the two identical little forms curled together on the berth.
“Yes.” Starscream admitted, the flutter in his spark chamber picking up the pace as it was talked about, “But it will be a task, keeping up with two hatchlings and a new sparkling.”
“Aw, we can handle it.” Skywarp said confidently, leaning in to look fondly at the monochromatic black and white hatchlings. Seeing Runamuck shift, the black and purple Seeker hummed until the hatchling stilled then keyed the door shut. Tugging his mates in the direction of their own recharge berth, Skywarp whispered, “C’mon, the bitlets have the right idea. It’s time for us to be resting.”
“You want to get recharge early?” Starscream asked, lifting his wings as he allowed Skywarp to pull him along, “You? The mech who once told me that recharge cycles were better spent getting overcharged and partying?”
“That was before I had you to take care of.” Skywarp said primly, “Raising winglets is hard work! And you’ve been closing off the bond and rubbin’ at your canopy since I got home. The sparkling’s acting up again, yeah? But you don’t want to bother us, but it should help if we settle down now.”
“You noticed?” Starscream asked, making a face as he dropped the telltale hand, “I thought I’d managed to hide it.”
“Of course I noticed!” Skywarp exclaimed as they entered their own chamber, looking at Starscream with a frown, “I’m your mate! Wings and bond, how could I not notice when our sparkling gives you a hard time?”
“You need to stop hiding it when you aren’t feeling well.” Thundercracker said patiently when Starscream shifted uncomfortably and looked away from them, “It isn’t a weakness to let us help you in this - or anything else. We’re trine and we love you. Let us help instead of making us guess. Otherwise we might miss something important, or you’re going to put up with us hovering over you for the rest of your life looking for hints.”
“Fine.” Starscream ceded petulantly, “I’ll try to remember to tell you. But…”
“Hey, no biggie.” Skywarp rubbed wings with Starscream, giving him an understanding look, “You were lookin’ out for yourself while TC and I had each other. We ain’t asking you to break that habit, just bend it a little to allow for the situation. You know that you’d be worse than us on the hovering bit if me or TC had ended up carrying.”
“True.” Starscream admitted, smiling ruefully, “You have a point.”
“Will wonders never cease?” Thundercracker said in a dry tone as Skywarp preened.
“Hear that Cracker?” Skywarp said with exaggerated pride, “Screamer praised me and not you.”
Starscream laughed as Thundercracker gave Skywarp a look of mock disgust, to which Skywarp retaliated by sticking out his glossa in a childish taunt. The playful mood continued into their berth, leading to caresses meant to tickle as much as arouse.
“Well now.” Skywarp leered down at Thundercracker, who he had pinned flat on his back, “There’s no escape for you now, my pretty!”
“Oh no.” Thundercracker deadpanned, “Whatever shall I do. Help. Help. Someone save me.”
“You suck at this game.” Skywarp told Thundercracker solemnly.
“I’m sure I’ll survive the disappointment somehow.” Thundercracker replied, sliding his hands up Skywarp’s thighs.
“No breaking character.” Starscream scolded playfully as he pressed up against Skywarp’s back, adding to the weight holding Thundercracker down and wrapping his arms around Skywarp’s waist, “It won’t let you get away with this!”
“Oh?” Skywarp wiggled his aft against Starscream’s pelvis, flaring out his energy field to coil with his trinemates and digging his digits into the sensitive joins of Thundercracker’s wings, just to make the blue Seeker arch and moan as Skywarp challenged Starscream, “But he’s enjoying it! You gonna fight me for him?”
“Don’t be rude.” Starscream directed a heavy, slow surge of energy over Skywarp’s gyros, making the darker Seeker gasp and melt against his mates, “Share and share alike.”
Thundercracker chuckled, setting up a low vibration from his engines that made his wingmates squirm together atop him, giving him the room he needed to open their interface panels. Agreeing with his action Starscream slid his fingers into Skywarp’s now bared ports, playing with the energy fields until Skywarp was whining, fans working overtime.
“You’re not playing nice, Screamer.” Thundercracker said with a dark chuckle, pressing his thumb alongside Starscream’s fingers and rubbing, enjoying the heat and the intense sparks of the ambient energy transfers.
“I’m not a very nice mech.” Starscream purred with a smirk, shifting with a pleased hiss to allow Thundercracker to make the hard-line connections between them. Starscream laughed richly, making Skywarp whimper, when the black Seeker jerked helplessly between his mates as they teasingly, slowly slid cables into ports.
When the last connection slid into place, Skywarp threw open the bond between them, eliciting gasps from his trinemates. Love and pleasure merged into completion as their bared spark energies lit up the room, casting brilliant shadows of their wings on the walls. The bright flare of Skywarp’s overload sent cascades of light through the other two Seekers. Thundercracker threw his head back with a low, drawn out groan as overload overtook his systems. Thundercracker’s surge was the last straw, Starscream lived up to his name, justifying the expense of sound proofing their quarters as his overload roared through his circuitry. The backlash yanked his wingmates into another overload each, wings shaking and engines screaming as their pleasure prolonged Starscream’s, drawing out the shocks of overload until they crashed back to reality as one.
Eventually the whirr of over clocked fans faded and one by one they came to enough to shut down their thrusters. Thundercracker groaned as he wiggled enough to displace his wingmates to either side of him instead of having both collapsed on top of him in post overload bliss. The lethargy that accompanied satiation weighed down their limbs and slowed their processors, pulling them relentlessly towards a well-deserved recharge.
Starscream sighed happily, curled close to his wingmates in a comfortable tangle, his spark calm enough that recharge would be easy. It had been an orn since he had been able to rest without the distracting flutter of the sparkling's energy against his own. Shuttering his optics, Starscream brushed a soft sweep of energy over the newspark in a gentle status check, a habit developed to calm the energetic winglet-to-be.
But this time the answering pulse was far weaker than usual.
“Wake up!” Starscream shouted, bolting upright in a panic, shocking his wingmates into full awareness.
“Screamer?” Starscream met his mate’s optics, not even registering which of them was speaking to him as he clutched his canopy in futile protection, “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s wrong with the sparkling!” Starscream gasped, reaching out for his trinemates, needing their comfort, seeing horror etch itself onto their faces, hating that he was the cause of their pain but unable to remain silent as he wailed, “It’s weak, too weak its fading! I don’t know what to do!”
Thundercracker and Skywarp reached out, enfolding Starscream between them as they flung the bond wide open, trying desperately to calm their stricken mate and keep him from hurting himself or the sparkling in his panic - and in a flash of purple light, they were gone.
(Word Count: 2954)
=/=
And that's the end of the pre-written stuff. From this point on, I'll be typing things up as I write them down. So... what do you want to read next? a) The part directly following this one. b) The courtship of Starscream. c) Soundwave knocking himself up. d) Meeting Megatron. e) Moar future stuff. f) Sommat else.
... I kid. I'm working on all of the above, but none are quite done yet. However, should you feel the need to offer support, encouragement, promts or otherwise motivate me, I'm always open to comments. XP
I spent all of yesterday square bailing. For those of you who don't know what that means, it involves over a thousand (1000+) bails of hay, and me hauling them into place. Me and several other people filled up two whole barns. Haylofts are dusty, dry, stifling places. But we got all the hay in before the rain came in today, so yay! Go us. XD
And now for dragons!
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A Transformers G1 Fanfic
Author: Sanjuno Shori Niko
Summary: Magical solutions to your problems don't always appear, and sometimes... well, sometimes slag happens.
Timeline: Everything else is here!
=/=
(In which things are upsetting.)
Life was good - not perfect, it is hard to have a perfect life even when you are not on the wrong side of a planet-wide prejudice - but things were going well. The scout and energy collection teams had been successfully smuggled off of Cybertron and, armed with coordinates and notes provided by Starscream, had already begun sending small, easily overlooked shipments of energon back to Vos. As a result, although they took care to present the same appearance of short rations as the rest of the planet, Vos was probably the only city-state in no danger of total starvation. The Seekers were careful to keep this fact hidden, the last thing they needed was for the Council to stir themselves out of their Iacon bolthole and cause problems for Vos.
“What are you thinking about?” Skywarp asked, draping himself over Starscream’s lap, “You’re making such a serious face!”
“Ah.” Starscream’s optics flickered as he turned his attentions to his wingmate, “Just contemplating our situation. We’re lucky that the collection teams have started sending back energon.”
“Mm.” Thundercracker muttered in agreement, lifting Skywarp’s legs out of the way so he could take a seat beside Starscream, allowing Skywarp’s lower half to flop back over Thundercracker’s thighs, “With energon coming in regularly we don’t have to worry about providing for the sparkling when it’s ready for protoform.”
“Exactly.” Starscream said with a nod, fingers brushing lightly over his canopy, “We have enough troubles as it is. Our population count is at the lowest it's ever been, mirror and clone coding is becoming a major problem, and dangerous glitches are showing up more frequently. We don’t have time to deal with starvation as well.”
“But all of that is fixable.” Skywarp soothed, nuzzling his face into Starscream’s pelvic seam, “Don’t brood about it so much. With the fractal you made we can fix most of that, and I’ve yet to meet a single Seeker who isn’t glitched somehow anyway. It’s just the way we are.”
“First off, the fractal isn’t done yet - even if the trial runs did work for us and others - it still isn’t ready for mass production yet. Even if we did have the materials necessary to supply everyone who wants a sparkling - which we don’t - the fractal is still in the testing phases.” Starscream sighed through his vents, rubbing absently at his canopy then switching to stroking Skywarp’s helm, “On top of that, we need to somehow keep the Council from noticing that we aren’t starving and keep them from hearing about the sparklings. It was an act of Primus keeping Runabout and Runamuck from their attention. The last thing we need is more kidnappings.”
Known, but rarely - if ever - spoken of was the direct threat the government posed to any Seeker who got with spark. The regulations placed on the inhabitants of Vos were strict outside their home city-state, dictating when and where they could fly in addition to controlling where they could go, forbidding them access to certain buildings, and monitoring traffic into and out of the state. (It was this last action that caused the most stress for the energy collection teams, making them very strict about coordinating with their ground teams when leaving and returning to the planet.) Sparklings were kept hidden from outsiders, no matter how trusted, unless they were bonded to a Seeker - in those cases however they were no longer Outsider but mate - for fear of word getting back to the Council. Many a sparkling had been removed from its parents care by Council order, with repetitions of ‘war-builds cannot be expected to care properly for a sparkling. You are not programmed for it. This is for the sparklings own good.’
Every time it happened - far more common in the early days that few remembered, before Vos closed ranks against the rest of Cybertron - Vos as a whole seethed in impotent fury. They would fight the entire planet for the sake of a single sparkling, but dared not, for the sake of the young ones still hidden. Trines who lost a sparkling this way would take vorns to attempt another, if they ever did. Seekers lived by threes, and old superstitions held that a newspark that self extinguished did so because its trinemates were missing. Supported by the fact that trinemates were often of an age or nearly so, the loss of one meant the loss of three to many Seekers. Since the Council had cracked down on Vos and other war-build states, there had been less sparklings created, but a larger percentage of spontaneous destabilization. It may very well be that the old legends held some truth after all.
In Starscream’s age bracket were his own trinemates plus a few dozen or so others. Of them, nearly half had been taken by Council authorization during an unannounced state visit. It was only because of Glitterblind - the Crèche Matron had only been a youngling then, but she had felt the distress of the first victims and acted on the warning - and her quick response to the threat was the main reason that any of the sparklings, hatchlings and younglings had managed to hide. All of those lost and taken had been mourned by the Seeker nation as a whole, at least one parent trine going mad with grief when the creation bond shattered.
The Seekers knew what happened to their stolen children; death, or worse, things that made death a longed for mercy. It was no wonder the Seeker-kin had closed ranks. In recent vorns the insular nature of their culture had only made it simpler for them to bypass Council edicts to provide for themselves. With the downsizing of the military and the attentions of the Government focused on quelling the riots, Vos was free to be more proactive about things.
The one thing they could not provide for themselves was a steady influx of fresh code-strings. Seekers loved space - the more the better - but the entire Seeker nation could fit quite comfortably into the main city with room to spare. Fear kept them from reproducing in the numbers that would fill their home state, and the need for secrecy meant that at most the new generations provided just enough Seekers to replace those of the previous generations who had passed on. This meant that to bring in new codes, the Seekers needed to look outside of Vos or risk producing clones. For the wildly unique and fiercely proud Seekers, this could become a problem. Too many with the same codes and no one would be able to identify their trinemates by that first meeting surge of the windbond alone. So, every trine that ventured out of Vos was encouraged to take Outsider lovers in hopes of a sparkling that would be Seeker, but with new codes.
Of course, that meant that in addition to being arrogant, self centred, crazy, and violent Seekers were also seen as shameless circuit-jumpers that would spark off anyone who held still long enough. Not the most flattering of reputations. Still, any Seeker worth his wings knew how to take advantage of certain misconceptions.
“You’re brooding again.” Skywarp sounded annoyed, flicking his wings out of the way as he scowled up at his mates, “Both of you stop that right now.”
“Stop what, oh master of my thoughts?” Thundercracker asked in calm amusement, “Are we doing something wrong?”
“It seems we’re thinking too much, and that is making him feel inadequate.” Starscream said, smoothly ignoring Skywarp’s indignant squawk, “Perhaps we ought to choose something less… challenging to keep the poor thing amused.”
“Oh, ha ha. Very funny.” Skywarp pushed himself upright, still seated on his wingmates, “You can both stop mocking me now.”
“But it’s so much fun!” Thundercracker teased, laughing in amusement as Skywarp slapped his arm, “Aw, did I hurt your feelings, sweetspark?”
“I’ll ‘sweetspark’ you!” Skywarp retorted hotly, lunging forward to mock battle with a chortling Thundercracker.
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it now?” Starscream said with an exaggerated look of contemplation, hiding a wince as his spark fluxed in its casing by laughing at his wingmates actions. The twinges were not unusual, just the natural result of the newspark’s individual field gaining strength as it developed and pushing against Starscream’s. The strength and frequency of the surges were another matter entirely. Starscream had been warned to take things easy, his sparkling had an unusually strong field for a newspark its age and they still had to be cautious of any side effects from the fractal.
However, no one ever said that being Winglord was a low-stress occupation, and the current energy crisis on top of the issues of war-build discrimination was no better now than before he had gotten with sparkling. The issues of the real world had not magically disappeared or resolved themselves. That much was evidenced by the constant petitions for an audience being sent by a gladiator from Kaon. Despite being put off numerous times and being given the run-around by the protective forces of the Winglord’s aides and secretaries, the mech had left behind a small delegation who were reportedly forbidden to leave Vos until the Emirate of Vos granted the gladiator his audience. But for all of the problems of the times, all of Vos was eagerly awaiting this sparkling with excitement. If things went well it meant the end of their problem with clone coding, and any sparkling was a cause for the Seeker nation to celebrate. So his people were being overprotective to a ridiculous, if flattering, degree, his mates pandered to his every whim and the twin Flightless they had taken in only a few vorns ago were on their best behaviour.
His chest twinged again, but Starscream ignored it in favour of standing, stepping over his wrestling mates and looking in on Runabout and Runamuck. The twins were deep in recharge. They were just barely now into the hatchling stage, the first tiny armour plates taking the place of a sparklings fragile vulnerability. Surprisingly well adjusted despite their traumatic entry into the world, the twins were constantly asking Starscream when the newspark would be ready to come out. Their caregivers were just happy that the twins were not feeling replaced by the new addition. Starscream smiled, watching as Runabout flopped over his brother without stirring from recharge.
“Looking forward to having a sparkling around again?” Thundercracker asked, peeking in on the two identical little forms curled together on the berth.
“Yes.” Starscream admitted, the flutter in his spark chamber picking up the pace as it was talked about, “But it will be a task, keeping up with two hatchlings and a new sparkling.”
“Aw, we can handle it.” Skywarp said confidently, leaning in to look fondly at the monochromatic black and white hatchlings. Seeing Runamuck shift, the black and purple Seeker hummed until the hatchling stilled then keyed the door shut. Tugging his mates in the direction of their own recharge berth, Skywarp whispered, “C’mon, the bitlets have the right idea. It’s time for us to be resting.”
“You want to get recharge early?” Starscream asked, lifting his wings as he allowed Skywarp to pull him along, “You? The mech who once told me that recharge cycles were better spent getting overcharged and partying?”
“That was before I had you to take care of.” Skywarp said primly, “Raising winglets is hard work! And you’ve been closing off the bond and rubbin’ at your canopy since I got home. The sparkling’s acting up again, yeah? But you don’t want to bother us, but it should help if we settle down now.”
“You noticed?” Starscream asked, making a face as he dropped the telltale hand, “I thought I’d managed to hide it.”
“Of course I noticed!” Skywarp exclaimed as they entered their own chamber, looking at Starscream with a frown, “I’m your mate! Wings and bond, how could I not notice when our sparkling gives you a hard time?”
“You need to stop hiding it when you aren’t feeling well.” Thundercracker said patiently when Starscream shifted uncomfortably and looked away from them, “It isn’t a weakness to let us help you in this - or anything else. We’re trine and we love you. Let us help instead of making us guess. Otherwise we might miss something important, or you’re going to put up with us hovering over you for the rest of your life looking for hints.”
“Fine.” Starscream ceded petulantly, “I’ll try to remember to tell you. But…”
“Hey, no biggie.” Skywarp rubbed wings with Starscream, giving him an understanding look, “You were lookin’ out for yourself while TC and I had each other. We ain’t asking you to break that habit, just bend it a little to allow for the situation. You know that you’d be worse than us on the hovering bit if me or TC had ended up carrying.”
“True.” Starscream admitted, smiling ruefully, “You have a point.”
“Will wonders never cease?” Thundercracker said in a dry tone as Skywarp preened.
“Hear that Cracker?” Skywarp said with exaggerated pride, “Screamer praised me and not you.”
Starscream laughed as Thundercracker gave Skywarp a look of mock disgust, to which Skywarp retaliated by sticking out his glossa in a childish taunt. The playful mood continued into their berth, leading to caresses meant to tickle as much as arouse.
“Well now.” Skywarp leered down at Thundercracker, who he had pinned flat on his back, “There’s no escape for you now, my pretty!”
“Oh no.” Thundercracker deadpanned, “Whatever shall I do. Help. Help. Someone save me.”
“You suck at this game.” Skywarp told Thundercracker solemnly.
“I’m sure I’ll survive the disappointment somehow.” Thundercracker replied, sliding his hands up Skywarp’s thighs.
“No breaking character.” Starscream scolded playfully as he pressed up against Skywarp’s back, adding to the weight holding Thundercracker down and wrapping his arms around Skywarp’s waist, “It won’t let you get away with this!”
“Oh?” Skywarp wiggled his aft against Starscream’s pelvis, flaring out his energy field to coil with his trinemates and digging his digits into the sensitive joins of Thundercracker’s wings, just to make the blue Seeker arch and moan as Skywarp challenged Starscream, “But he’s enjoying it! You gonna fight me for him?”
“Don’t be rude.” Starscream directed a heavy, slow surge of energy over Skywarp’s gyros, making the darker Seeker gasp and melt against his mates, “Share and share alike.”
Thundercracker chuckled, setting up a low vibration from his engines that made his wingmates squirm together atop him, giving him the room he needed to open their interface panels. Agreeing with his action Starscream slid his fingers into Skywarp’s now bared ports, playing with the energy fields until Skywarp was whining, fans working overtime.
“You’re not playing nice, Screamer.” Thundercracker said with a dark chuckle, pressing his thumb alongside Starscream’s fingers and rubbing, enjoying the heat and the intense sparks of the ambient energy transfers.
“I’m not a very nice mech.” Starscream purred with a smirk, shifting with a pleased hiss to allow Thundercracker to make the hard-line connections between them. Starscream laughed richly, making Skywarp whimper, when the black Seeker jerked helplessly between his mates as they teasingly, slowly slid cables into ports.
When the last connection slid into place, Skywarp threw open the bond between them, eliciting gasps from his trinemates. Love and pleasure merged into completion as their bared spark energies lit up the room, casting brilliant shadows of their wings on the walls. The bright flare of Skywarp’s overload sent cascades of light through the other two Seekers. Thundercracker threw his head back with a low, drawn out groan as overload overtook his systems. Thundercracker’s surge was the last straw, Starscream lived up to his name, justifying the expense of sound proofing their quarters as his overload roared through his circuitry. The backlash yanked his wingmates into another overload each, wings shaking and engines screaming as their pleasure prolonged Starscream’s, drawing out the shocks of overload until they crashed back to reality as one.
Eventually the whirr of over clocked fans faded and one by one they came to enough to shut down their thrusters. Thundercracker groaned as he wiggled enough to displace his wingmates to either side of him instead of having both collapsed on top of him in post overload bliss. The lethargy that accompanied satiation weighed down their limbs and slowed their processors, pulling them relentlessly towards a well-deserved recharge.
Starscream sighed happily, curled close to his wingmates in a comfortable tangle, his spark calm enough that recharge would be easy. It had been an orn since he had been able to rest without the distracting flutter of the sparkling's energy against his own. Shuttering his optics, Starscream brushed a soft sweep of energy over the newspark in a gentle status check, a habit developed to calm the energetic winglet-to-be.
But this time the answering pulse was far weaker than usual.
“Wake up!” Starscream shouted, bolting upright in a panic, shocking his wingmates into full awareness.
“Screamer?” Starscream met his mate’s optics, not even registering which of them was speaking to him as he clutched his canopy in futile protection, “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s wrong with the sparkling!” Starscream gasped, reaching out for his trinemates, needing their comfort, seeing horror etch itself onto their faces, hating that he was the cause of their pain but unable to remain silent as he wailed, “It’s weak, too weak its fading! I don’t know what to do!”
Thundercracker and Skywarp reached out, enfolding Starscream between them as they flung the bond wide open, trying desperately to calm their stricken mate and keep him from hurting himself or the sparkling in his panic - and in a flash of purple light, they were gone.
(Word Count: 2954)
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And that's the end of the pre-written stuff. From this point on, I'll be typing things up as I write them down. So... what do you want to read next? a) The part directly following this one. b) The courtship of Starscream. c) Soundwave knocking himself up. d) Meeting Megatron. e) Moar future stuff. f) Sommat else.
... I kid. I'm working on all of the above, but none are quite done yet. However, should you feel the need to offer support, encouragement, promts or otherwise motivate me, I'm always open to comments. XP
I spent all of yesterday square bailing. For those of you who don't know what that means, it involves over a thousand (1000+) bails of hay, and me hauling them into place. Me and several other people filled up two whole barns. Haylofts are dusty, dry, stifling places. But we got all the hay in before the rain came in today, so yay! Go us. XD
And now for dragons!
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