Grounded

[anon_decepticon]

Title: Grounded
Author: anon_decepticon
Rating: M
Pairing or Character(s): Skywarp/Thundercracker
Disclaimer: I don’t own Transformers.
Warning(s): PwP, Seekerfluff, straight-up stickysmut. I make no apologies.
Summary: Thundercracker is having a bad day. Skywarp tries to cheer him up.
Author's Note: My tenth fic for the kink meme. The original prompt is here. Sort of a follow-up to my two previous Skywarp/TC fics, Skywarp Goes Solo and Thunderstruck, but you don’t need to have read them to follow this one (there’s not enough plot for that!)



Skywarp looked up as the door hissed open, admitting his trinemate into the living quarters they shared aboard the Nemesis. He noted with dismay that Thundercracker didn’t look much better than he had when Skywarp had retrieved his scorched and smoking wreckage from the battlefield, his armor battered and dented, his once-magnificent wings bent and twisted almost beyond recognition.

The sight had Skywarp on his feet instantly, blurting out the first thing that popped into his processor, “Primus, TC! You look like slag!”

Narrowed scarlet optics glared balefully at him. “Thanks for the update, ‘Warp.”

“Why aren’t you in repair bay?” he demanded. “I thought you went to get patched up.”

“I did, but they don’t have the parts I need,” Thundercracker explained as he lowered himself slowly – and from the look of it, painfully – to sit on his berth. “So I’m grounded until they can fabricate new ones.”

“Grounded?” Skywarp repeated incredulously. “For how long?”

“As long as it takes,” Thundercracker replied, shrugging and then wincing. “Whenever they get around to it, they said.”

Skywarp stared at him, horrified. Being grounded indefinitely was any Seeker’s worst nightmare, but Thundercracker’s especially. His spark clenched in sympathy – not an emotion he was accustomed to feeling.

He watched uneasily as Thundercracker eased back onto the berth, stretching out full-length on his back. A soft grunt escaped TC’s vocalizer as the mangled remnants of his wings made contact with the hard surface.

Decepticons never showed even the slightest degree of pain in front of others if they could help it. The fact that TC had allowed himself even that small utterance in Skywarp’s presence said a lot about the level of trust that had grown up between them over the vorns. Thundercracker didn’t mind letting Skywarp know he was hurting.

Of course, it had been Skywarp who’d retrieved him, who’d picked Thundercracker up and hauled him home after those Autobot fraggers jumped him and forced him out of the air, so maybe that wasn’t so unreasonable.

It wasn’t like they weren’t close. They’d been trinemates for countless vorns. They’d shared quarters on the Nemesis ever since their departure from Cybertron, and shared a berth for almost as long.

The thought sent a little thrill through his spark, elevating his core temperature a few degrees.

Skywarp rarely passed up an opportunity to interface. He wasn’t choosy about his partners, and enjoyed taking it in the valve – a rarity among Decepticons because it implied submission – so opportunities arose quite frequently. Even though their time on Earth was little more than a brief interlude in an otherwise lengthy lifespan, he’d put the time to good use, gleefully fragging his way through the majority of the Decepticon ranks.

Most of the time, Skywarp was the one on the bottom. Not because he was in any way submissive, or a valve mech like Starscream – to be honest, he didn’t really have a preference one way or the other – but because most ‘Cons wanted to be on top, and being willing to take it in the valve (and not being a treacherous, backstabbing little glitch) made Skywarp the most popular piece of aft on the Nemesis.

Unlike most ‘Cons, Skywarp could get away with it without losing rank or respect. His warping ability granted him the ultimate trump card. Even on the bottom, he still had the advantage. He’d demonstrated that fact quite effectively early on. More than a few ‘Cons had learned the hard way to treat Skywarp with respect if they wanted to share his berth, because if they didn’t, he might choose to vanish at a highly inconvenient moment – like when his partner was on the brink of overload.

He’d never done that to TC, though. He’d never wanted to.

Thundercracker was different.

Skywarp had ‘faced with TC more often than any other ‘Con on the Nemesis, and not just because he was so frequently the closest and most readily available.

TC was the best.

Skywarp wasn’t sure why. He’d originally thought maybe it was because Thundercracker was a Seeker himself, and thus knew exactly what got a Seeker off, but Skywarp had ‘faced with other Seekers before, and even they hadn’t been as good as TC.

Now he gazed mournfully at his trinemate, laid out on a berth and heavily damaged, even as his circuits sparked with lust. There was no way Thundercracker would be able to ‘face him in his present condition.

Rage burned through his spark as he surveyed Thundercracker’s injuries, and he made a mental note to think long and hard about a fitting revenge to inflict on those wretched Autobot twins. He’d make them pay for this.

It almost hurt to look at him, to see Thundercracker so damaged. The painful twinge that shot through his spark at the sight was the most peculiar feeling. Skywarp didn’t really know what to make of it, even as he heard himself asking, “You need anything?”

“Besides a working set of wings?” Thundercracker asked bitterly. “No. I stopped to refuel on the way back from repair bay.”

Without really deciding to, Skywarp found himself edging closer to him, finally dropping to his knees alongside his trinemate’s berth.

Thundercracker turned his helm to regard him suspiciously. “What?”

“Nothin’,” Skywarp murmured, tracing the ragged edge of Thundercracker’s nearer wing with a fingertip.

TC wasn’t buying it; he huffed irritably through his intakes. “I’m not in the mood, ‘Warp,” he stated flatly. “I should think that would be obvious, even to you.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Skywarp protested.

“You didn’t have to,” Thundercracker rumbled back. Pain lent a strained quality to TC's vocalizer, but Skywarp thought he detected a hint of amusement lurking underneath.

Skywarp pouted – no, Decepticons didn’t pout – frowned in disappointment.

“I would if I could, believe me,” Thundercracker told him. Yeah, definitely amused. “You’re just going to have to settle for someone else this time.”

“I don’t want to,” he replied sulkily, slouching against the berth.

Thundercracker’s crimson optics lit briefly in response. “C’mere,” he said huskily.

Skywarp’s own optics lit at his tone. He inched forward, bracing his hands on the berth so he could lean down over his prone trinemate, his processor racing in anticipation of all that that tone promised.

Thundercracker lifted a hand, stroking along the edge of Skywarp's left wing, flicking the aileron as he passed over it.

Skywarp keened eagerly, leaning into the touch.

A second hand joined the first, echoing the motion on the opposite wing.

Skywarp’s internal cooling fans clicked on, and he quickly scrambled onto the berth himself, climbing on top of Thundercracker and straddling his hips.

Thundercracker’s hands abruptly fell away with a restrained grunt of pain.

“Oh, scrap,” Skywarp said, abruptly recalling his partner’s injuries. “Sorry, TC, I forgot –”

“It’s okay, ‘Warp,” Thundercracker replied grumpily. He huffed through his intakes and added, “This sucks slag.”

It was then that Skywarp realized he wasn’t the only mech in the room with an elevated core temperature. The realization itself made his own jump a couple more degrees. Even as damaged as he was, Thundercracker wanted to ‘face, too.

That almost made it worse. They both wanted it, but TC couldn’t.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, it really does.”

He slumped back against the wall, slouching on the berth at Thundercracker’s feet. The soft whir of his cooling fans was the only sound in the quiet room.

Thundercracker had offlined his optics, but Skywarp didn’t think he’d actually slipped into recharge. Still, it afforded him the chance to indulge in a long, unselfconscious look at his trinemate.

Even as battered and dented as he was, TC was gorgeous. Of course being a Seeker, that was a given, but Skywarp knew that was only part of Thundercracker’s undeniable appeal.

No one else got Skywarp the way TC did. No one else even tried. No one else cared if he was angry, happy, or sad. No other ‘Con would go out of his way to accommodate Skywarp the way Thundercracker would. His spark gave an odd little pulse at the thought.

He recalled how TC had responded when he’d complained about always having to take it in the valve. His internal fans, which had been cycling down, kicked back on again at the memory.

He recalled how Thundercracker had finally offered up his own valve when Skywarp had made it clear how much he wanted it, even though he'd previously stated on numerous occasions that he didn’t like taking it that way.

Prior to that, due to personal preference or simply because he lacked Skywarp’s teleporting ability, Thundercracker had defaulted to the ‘Con standard of spike-only ‘facing, never allowing anyone anywhere near his valve.

But Skywarp had wanted it, wanted it like he’d never wanted anything in his entire existence. He’d fantasized about it so often, overloaded himself so many times to vividly-imagined images of Thundercracker writhing beneath him, brought to the heights of ecstasy by his hands, his glossa, his spike...

When TC had finally relented, Skywarp had thought his spark would leap out of its chamber in sheer joy. But it had gone badly. It soon became obvious Thundercracker wasn’t enjoying himself at all, and Skywarp’s fantasy had been shattered into a million pieces.

For that, he’d blamed TC.

Skywarp had suffered no end of frustration during the brief estrangement that followed; not only had Thundercracker failed to live up to his expectations, but he soon discovered that no other mech on the Nemesis got him off as well or as hard as TC.

After cycles of avoidance, the mounting frustration and discontent finally drove Skywarp to visit his trinemate in the brig – TC had been tossed in the klink for belting Screamer in the faceplate, something Skywarp figured Starscream had coming anyway – and the next thing he knew, his fantasy had come fantastically, gloriously to life.

TC had opened up and demanded Skywarp take him right then and there.

It had been incredible. It had been the most intense and passionate interface Skywarp had ever experienced, and it had ended with the most spectacular overload he’d ever had. He’d been so overcome, he’d even–

But afterward, they’d pretty much gone back to their old routine. They interfaced frequently, and it was good, really good, just like it always was...but Thundercracker hadn’t offered up his valve again, and Skywarp hadn’t asked.

As he gazed at down at his trinemate, his internal fans humming away in his chassis in response to his little trip down memory lane, it occurred to Skywarp that he hadn’t really gotten to live out his fantasy that night...at least, not in every detail.

It occurred to him that now might be the perfect opportunity to do so.

He sat up, reached over, and ran a hand slowly up Thundercracker’s leg.

Thundercracker’s optics onlined immediately. “What are you doing, ‘Warp?” he rumbled, in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.

“Wait and see,” Skywarp replied, leaning over him. Their lip components met in a kiss, and for a few kliks the rest of the world fell away.

Decepticons didn’t kiss. They just didn’t. But Thundercracker had kissed him, that night in the brig, and it had spun Skywarp’s turbines in a major way. TC’s mouth tasted of energon and oil, warm and wet, enticingly reminiscent of other, lower things…

His cooling fans kicked into high gear.

Thundercracker broke away then, pulling back to protest, “I can’t, ‘Warp. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Maybe you can’t,” Skywarp replied, “But I can.”

He grinned at Thundercracker’s puzzled expression and kissed him again, this time running his hands over TC’s cockpit and intakes as he did so, smirking against his lover’s lip components when he heard his intakes hitch in response.

Long cycles of past experience combined with a similar build provided Skywarp with an intimate knowledge of Thundercracker’s most receptive sensor nodes. Being careful – very, very careful – to avoid any damaged components, Skywarp proceeded to seek out and stimulate every single one of them.

Just because his hands were busy, caressing shoulder-vents and intakes, fondling sensitive wingtips and teasing ailerons, didn’t mean his mouth was idle. He kissed and licked and nipped and sucked at Thundercracker’s lip components and neck cables and cockpit all the while, as greedy as a sparkling with a sack of energon goodies.

And in between all that, Skywarp talked.

“You look so hot, TC,” he cooed between kisses, running a hand over his lover’s hip-plate, dipping low to stroke his panel. Thundercracker made a scoffing noise, but Skywarp could feel the heat pouring off his chassis, feel the way TC quivered with arousal. “I want you so bad,” he purred. His spike was pressing against his panel so hard it was almost painful. “No one else is as good as you.”

Thundercracker groaned and reached for him, clearly intending to reciprocate, but Skywarp caught his hands and pressed them back down onto the berth. “Ah-ah-ah,” he chided playfully. “You’re damaged, remember? No touchie for you!”

“‘Warp–” Thundercracker rumbled in exasperation, his fans cycling hard, the strain in his vocalizer no longer due to pain. His captive hands clenched, fingers clutching at the berth.

Skywarp silenced his protests with another kiss.

His spark pulsed with equal parts of elation and lust when Thundercracker arched into him, pouring every ounce of his passion into their kiss, using his body to express what his restrained hands couldn’t, grinding against him in fevered desperation. Thundercracker’s panel was still closed, but so hot Skywarp half-expected it to leave scorch marks as it ground against his own.

He wanted that panel open.

Pulling back from the kiss – Thundercracker tried to follow him, half-lifting from the berth before the pain caught up with him, forcing him to slump down again – Skywarp sat back on his heel-turbines and gazed down at his panting lover, crimson optics glinting with lascivious mischief.

He ran his hands down Thundercracker's thighs, urging them apart. Scooting back on the berth, he leaned in close to give that blazing-hot panel a teasing lick of his glossa before raising his helm to meet Thundercracker’s optics with a grin that promised much. “Open up, TC,” he said.

With that look and that tone, was it any wonder that TC's panel clicked open the instant the words left his vocalizer? Thundercracker’s spike began to extend almost immediately, but quick as lightning Skywarp pressed a hand over the housing, forcing it back, denying him.

Thundercracker glared down at him, rumbling threateningly, but Skywarp only grinned wickedly back at him. Optics never leaving his lover’s, he leaned in close and flicked his glossa at Thundercracker’s newly exposed valve, eliciting a startled gasp.

That was all the warning Thundercracker received.

Never one to do things by half-measures, Skywarp threw himself whole-sparked into his task, tracing rapid circles around the rim of his lover’s valve and then plunging in with gleeful abandon, doing with his glossa what he fully intended to do with his spike before the day was out.

Thundercracker’s reaction did not disappoint.

His spark surged in triumph when TC jerked and cried out, threatening to burst from its chamber. Skywarp's panel clicked open in spite of his efforts to override, allowing his spike to extend fully. The easing of pressure was a relief, but he wasn’t finished yet.

He wanted TC to beg for it.

He resumed his sensual assault on his lover’s valve, keening in excitement at the way Thundercracker groaned and shuddered as he worked him over with his relentless glossa. He’d never seen TC like this, overwhelmed by ecstasy, so wet his thighs and even the berth beneath him were streaked with lubricant.

Thundercracker’s hips tried to buck, but Skywarp held him down, striving deeper with his glossa. Thundercracker’s legs drew up, trying to wrap around Skywarp's shoulder-struts – a clumsy effort largely foiled by tall shoulder-vents – and TC gasped out his name again, desperately, “ ‘Warp–!”

The tone was that of a plea, even if the word was not, but Skywarp wanted more.

He knew he’d have to get it soon; his spike was aching with the need for release, and from the way Thundercracker’s valve was flexing, TC had to be close to overloading.

In an uncharacteristic show of mercy, he eased back and straightened, Thundercracker’s right leg slipping back down to the berth with the movement, the left ending up hooked awkwardly over Skywarp’s right wing, and grinned down at his panting trinemate. TC’s spike was no longer pushing insistently against his hand, trying to extend; he’d effectively diverted Thundercracker's attention elsewhere. He chuckled delightedly, and relocated his grip to TC's hips, lifting them as he adjusted their positions so that his quivering spike was poised directly over Thundercracker’s dripping valve.

“Is this what you want, TC?” he asked. A slight shift of his hips made it abundantly clear what “this” was; the ridged underside of his spike scraped against the external sensor node of Thundercracker’s valve, making Thundercracker gasp and twitch in response.

The reaction pleased him so much Skywarp did it again, his lip components quirking into a grin, “You want this?”

He couldn’t quite keep the smugness out of his vocalizer. How many times had Thundercracker reduced him to trembling ball of quaking, desperate need, begging to be taken, to feel his spike inside of him? How many times had Skywarp fantasized about doing the same?

His spark pulsed with triumph and lust, and beneath that, a strangely soft emotion he couldn’t quite identify, one that suffused his entire being with warmth. This was payback for all those times, yes, but it was also payback for all that TC had been and done for him.

“‘Warp, Primus, please, just–”

Skywarp didn’t let him finish; Thundercracker had said the magic word. He entered him hard and fast, burying his spike deep in his lover’s valve.

Thundercracker arched up off the berth, his entire frame going rigid.

Oh, slag! Skywarp cursed inwardly, freezing in midmotion as he belatedly recalled Thundercracker’s injuries. But before he could vocalize an apology, TC shuddered beneath him, his thighs twitching, his valve tightening around Skywarp’s spike, and Skywarp realized it wasn’t pain TC was feeling.

His entry had triggered Thundercracker's impending overload.

Thundercracker slumped back onto the berth, panting heavily through his intakes, optics flickering as he struggled to stay online. The sight of him lying there, debauched and undone, really fired Skywarp’s afterburners. And he still hadn’t achieved his own overload!

“Stay with me, TC,” he exhorted him fervidly. “I’m not through with you yet.”

He drew back slowly, almost withdrawing entirely, and then eased in again, savoring the sensation. He set a slow, unhurried pace, teasing himself while allowing Thundercracker time to recover, moving his hips in little circles with each thrust in order to trip every sensor lining his spike, relishing every ridge and groove in Thundercracker’s valve.

Thundercracker gradually began to stir beneath him, recovering enough to begin to match the rhythm of his movements, to roll his hips in time with Skywarp’s slow, gentle thrusts.

Decepticons didn’t do slow. They didn’t do gentle, either. But with Thundercracker making those deep, resonating groans of pleasure with every stroke, his intakes heaving as he moved beneath him, Skywarp couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You feel so good, TC,” he panted encouragingly. “Your valve feels so good – so tight –” the words trailed off into a quavering moan.

Too spent to offer a verbal reply, Thundercracker simply grinned up at him, reaching to rest a hand atop one of Skywarp’s where it gripped his hip-plate and squeezing it tightly.

That, coupled with the look TC was giving him, set off a peculiar swelling sensation in Skywarp's spark that grew and expanded until he felt certain it was going to overflow and burst free from its chamber. A low, sobbing moan escaped him. Oh, TC –!

He quickened his pace.

Again and again Skywarp plunged into his lover’s valve, and again and again Thundercracker surged up to meet him, emitting those sonorous, rumbling groans that seemed to vibrate to Skywarp’s very core. Pleasure suffused his circuits, washing over him in waves, building inexorably to its inevitable peak, drawing closer with every pump of his hips – any klik now, any astrosecond – he felt TC’s hand tightening around his own, his fingers clenching just as his valve was beginning to clench around Skywarp’s spike – almost there, almost –

Overload took them both at virtually the same moment, so close together Skywarp wasn’t sure which of them toppled over the brink first, only that they had, and they clung to one another as they succumbed, circuits sparking, twitching helplessly in the throes of consummate bliss.

He collapsed forward onto his trinemate with a groan as the last of Thundercracker’s internal spasms drained him dry. He had the nagging sense that he’d forgotten something, something important, but his overloaded systems were already shutting down, the thought skittering away into darkness as he slipped offline.

He onlined again a few kliks later, his systems rebooting in that slow, sluggish way indicative of a particularly intense overload. He raised his helm with some difficulty, and discovered Thundercracker still lying beneath him, his optics darkened and offline. An astrosecond later Skywarp discovered his spike was still sheathed snugly within Thundercracker’s valve, and he couldn’t help but smirk in triumph.

Within a klik or two his processor came fully on-line, bringing with it a cascade of memory files and sensor records. The recollection of their recent encounter engulfed him, making him shudder with remembered sensations.

His smirk faded as another memory rose up unbidden in his CPU, the memory of that night in the brig, of the words that had slipped from his vocalizer in the height of passion, words no Decepticon should ever speak aloud.

I love you, TC.

Thundercracker hadn’t heard him then, or if he had, he’d chosen not to mention it. Skywarp hadn’t said it this time, hadn’t broken that unspoken rule, but he’d done other things, broken other rules for much the same reason. Gazing down at his lover, he tried to feel bad about that.

Thundercracker stirred beneath him, winced and groaned as his processor initiated its boot-up cycle. Scarlet optics onlined, meeting his own. “Hey, ‘Warp,” he said muzzily.

“Hey, TC,” Skywarp greeted him.

To the Pit with it, he thought. Since when had he ever felt bad about anything?

“Primus,” Thundercracker rumbled blearily, “I hurt all over. What the slag did we – oh,” he said, noting for the first time their entangled positions, and no doubt the fact that Skywarp’s spike was still buried to the hilt in his valve. His optics narrowed in suspicion. “Did you–?”

“Yup,” Skywarp replied, amused by TC's reaction, but chagrined that he’d fallen into recharge on top of him, as damaged as he was. Retracting his spike – Thundercracker twitched slightly as he withdrew – Skywarp eased off of him carefully, settling at his side instead.

“Huh,” TC said, sounding bemused. Thundercracker shook his helm, and Skywarp knew he was still in the process of recovering his own memory files. “Did I–?”

“Twice,” Skywarp informed him smugly.

Thundercracker looked startled, then dubious. Skywarp watched with a knowing grin as Thundercracker checked his memory files for confirmation, felt him shiver as he reviewed the sensory record. He knew the precise moment TC discovered his claim was true, just from the way his optics widened in disbelief.

“Told ya,” he declared proudly.

“Yeah, well,” Thundercracker muttered grudgingly, his lip components twitching in an effort to suppress a smile, “Don’t let it go to your head.”

*fin*


A/N: But wait, there's more! I'm pleased to say I've written a follow-up trilogy to this one. If you'd like to read it, you can find Part 1 here.