dracoqueen22 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dracoqueen22) wrote2018-12-31 06:22 am
dracoqueen22) wrote2018-12-31 06:22 am
Entry tags:
[IDW] Lost and Lonely Space 10/12
a/n: Commission fic for Cosmicdanger!
Happy New Year!
Title: Lost and Lonely Space
Universe: IDW, Pre-Death of Optimus Prime
Characters: Ratchet, Deadlock, Alien Original Character(s)
Rating: M
Enticements: Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Canon Divergence
Description: While on a sabbatical from the war, Ratchet runs into a spot of trouble that lands him in close company with a familiar face, the famed Decepticon Deadlock.
chapter ten
A clearer air settles between them.
Deadlock isn’t sure if he can call it peace or trust or friendship, but it’s some satisfactory combination resulting in a truce. One where they spend equal amounts of time in the berth or on the floor or against the console or crammed in the tiny washracks, fragging each other senseless.
Conversation slides to the background, if they bother with it at all. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Deadlock’s certainly not complaining. He’s tired of fighting.
It’s like they’ve become their own little world, where the war doesn’t exist, all the way out here in this lost and lonely space. All they have is each other, dwindling supplies, and a fruitless attempt to make an emergency beacon. They keep trying, of course they do, because they both want to go back home.
But they are neither of them fools.
There’s no hope for rescue, no hope for communication, no hope for anything but blind luck, and frankly, it seems the universe is out of offering it.
They’ve stopped fighting. Or at least, they’ve quietly agreed to disagree. They don’t talk about the war, about their badges. They don’t discuss who’s wrong or right or what better choices could have been made, or how things could’ve been different.
Sometimes, they don’t talk much at all. They sit, back to back, Deadlock poking and prodding at the emergency beacon he’s trying to build from a distant memory, while Ratchet attempts to get the ancient solar generator into functioning condition.
“How do you know to do that anyway?” Ratchet asks as he picks and picks at a thick layer of rust choking the seams of the generator.
Deadlock rolls his shoulders. “There’s an old archive in Rodion. In the underlevels. Think it burned down or was replaced or something, I dunno. But we used to squat there. No one bothered us much.” He strips a few wires and braids them together with twists of his fingers. “Anyway, they left a mess behind. Piles of datapads and crates of stuff. Probably considered it trash.” He grins, a fond memory forcing Drift to the surface. “We thought it was treasure.”
“We?” Ratchet echoes.
Deadlock stills, realizing the slip of the glossa. “My friends,” he says cautiously, as grief from Drift makes his hand shake before he can push it down. “My gang, if you ask the law.” He pauses and cycles a ventilation. “Closest thing to family probably. Doesn’t matter now. They’re all dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Ratchet murmurs. He leans a bit harder against Deadlock’s back, his field reaching out in tentative offer of comfort.
Drift would have accepted it immediately. Deadlock hesitates before grudgingly allowing the brush of warmth.
“A lot of mechs are dead,” Deadlock says, gruff. “No point in crying about it.” He tucks the braided wire back into the small control panel and grabs a soldering iron. “Anyway, even leakers have downtime. So when we did, I’d plug into whatever datapads still functioned and just… read. We all did.”
Ratchet grunts as he flicks away a huge piece of rust and at once, the seam is free, allowing him to swivel out one of the tripods. “Basic engineering was one of the datapads then?”
“Yeah. It was all kinds of things, some more interesting than others.”
Drift had loved the fanciful tales, the fictional sprawls of love and loss and redemption and heroes and villains. Simple stories, most meant for the newly sparked or the dim of processor.
Deadlock doesn’t have time for such things.
“What about you?” Deadlock asks, desperate to change the subject.
“Me?”
“Yeah.” Deadlock starts to attach the end of the wire, ever so carefully. “What did Medic Ratchet do in his free time?”
Ratchet snorts, amusement trickling into his field. “I worked.”
“Seriously?”
“I worked full time for a prestigious medical center treating the elite for their various aches and pains,” Ratchet says with a long sigh. “I worked part time at the clinic in Rodion. I taught two classes once a week and when I wasn’t recharging, I was drunk.”
His answer is perfunctory, almost practiced, resigned. Like his life had been that, and he’s not emotional about it one way or another, it’s an explanation he’s given again and again, and he doesn’t care anymore.
Deadlock twists his jaw as the stench of solder floats through the air in little curls of smoke.
“I’m not saying it for sympathy or anything,” Ratchet continues, his back pressing a little harder to Deadlock’s. “I liked being busy. I liked having work. I especially liked not having to think about the conjunx I didn’t have because he left.”
“Because you worked too much?” Deadlock asks, trying to inject levity into a situation that probably has none.
Ratchet snorts again, and he audibly scuffs the floor with a foot. “If you ask me, we both worked too much, but for entirely different reasons.” He cycles a ventilation. “We weren’t good for each other anyway. Toxic, I think, is a better word.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Far as I know.”
Deadlock sets the soldering iron aside and vents a puff of air over his work. It’s crude and inelegant, but if it functions, that’s all that matters to him. “He a medic, too?”
“A better one, to hear him tell it.”
“And what do you think?”
Ratchet’s field wavers, and beneath the bluster, there’s a flicker of self-doubt. “He’s probably right.” There’s a moment, a hesitation, and then his voice drops in volume. “We’re both Forged but Pharma is… gifted in a way few are.”
Deadlock makes a noncommittal noise and flicks the panel on the motherboard closed. “Maybe, maybe not.” He pats the small transmitter he’s tried to repurpose into an emergency beacon. “But can he fix one of these?”
“And get his hands dirty? Perish the thought?” Ratchet grunts a laugh and twists to peer over Deadlock’s shoulder. “Any luck?”
Deadlock turns the transmitter over, the domed light on the top dark. “Let’s find out,” he says, and holds a finger on the switch. “If you’ve got a direct line to Primus, I suggest giving it a tap.”
“Hah. He hasn’t cared in centuries.”
“Good to know.” Deadlock cycles a ventilation, and flicks the switch.
For a moment, nothing happens. He tries to think of any number of reasons why, but it’s impossible to guess given his substandard materials, substitutions, and bare knowledge. It could have been anything.
The domed light flickers a dull yellow. Deadlock holds a vent, willing it to function. Flick-flick, and then it flares the pale green of readiness. Relief floods his spark. It’s impossible to tell if the beacon is actually functioning, because they’d need a receptive system, but it seems to be.
“I think it’s working,” Deadlock says as he gingerly slides the transmitter a few inches across the table, out of reach in case the slightest disturbance breaks it all over again.
“Thank the gods,” Ratchet says with a sigh of relief. He shoves his own project aside, the generator clattering to the floor. “I think I’m breaking this more than I’m fixing it. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Deadlock laughs and swings around on the bench, bracketing Ratchet from behind, his hands sliding along Ratchet’s sides until they meet over Ratchet’s abdomen. “You get points for effort,” he says, pressing a kiss behind Ratchet’s nearest audial, ex-venting hot and wet over it.
Ratchet shivers in his hold, a light flush of heat reflected in his field. “Do we, uh, need to mount that or anything?”
“Later.” Deadlock drags his mouth to the back of Ratchet’s neck, letting his denta explore the sensitive cables in front of him. “I think it’s time to celebrate a little.”
Ratchet’s engine rumbles against his chest. “That so?” Fingers wrap around one of Deadlock’s wrists, tugging his hand down and down until it rests over Ratchet’s array. “Consider yourself invited.”
Deadlock chuckles, his fingers rubbing circles over the closed panel. “Are you sure? This doesn’t seem very inviting to me.”
“Work harder then,” Ratchet grunts, but his frame belies his nonchalance, because he pushes back into Deadlock, his hips rocking against Deadlock’s fingers.
Deadlock’s hot vents tease the back of Ratchet’s audials. His free hand wraps around Ratchet, palming his belly, fingers tracking up and down, tracing seams. “What do I have to do to be convincing?” he murmurs.
Ratchet shivers in his arms. His field unfurls, stroking over Deadlock’s with obvious need. “Well, you could finally show me this mod you’re being so damn coy about.”
Deadlock laughs again, stroking his fingers hard over Ratchet’s panel. “You’re very persistent, aren’t you?”
“I don’t like unsolved mysteries.” Ratchet bucks into his fingers, and the strain of holding himself back is painted in the tremble of his armor.
Deadlock nibbles on the curve of Ratchet’s jaw, ex-venting warm and wet. “It’s not that special.”
“Then why don’t you show me?” Ratchet demands, clearly a challenge.
Deadlock rests his forehead on the nape of Ratchet’s neck and just laughs. Because this should be awkward and tense, but it’s absolutely not, and he can’t remember the last time he felt like this.
“That’s not funny,” Ratchet says, indignant.
“Didn’t say it was.” Deadlock presses against Ratchet’s back before he pushes himself to his feet, sliding his hands up Ratchet’s chassis as he does so. “If you want this mod, we need a berth.”
“Getting boring in your old age,” Ratchet teases, but he pushes off the bench, and slips out of reach. He turns, arousal glittering in his optics. “Or maybe you’re just shy.”
Deadlock growls.
A smirk curves Ratchet’s lips.
The chase is remarkably short, as there’s nowhere for Ratchet to go, and only one destination either of them particularly care for. Deadlock leaps over the bench and races after Ratchet anyway, because the best part of any chase is cornering and catching one’s quarry, and crowding Ratchet against the wall of the berthroom, slanting their mouths together, and hungrily claiming Ratchet’s mouth with his…
Well, it sends arousal surging through his system like a bolt of lightning.
He threads his fingers through Ratchet’s, pinning Ratchet’s hands above his head. Deadlock loves that they are of similar heights, though he knows Ratchet has him beat when it comes to mass. He loves that he notches his knee between Ratchet’s legs, and Ratchet moans as he rocks down against the pressure of it, need peppering in little starbursts of color in his field.
Most of all, he loves Ratchet trusts him enough to be so playful.
Ratchet rolls up against him, spike leaving a smear on Deadlock’s belly, his valve now bared and dripping hot-wet over Deadlock’s thigh. He returns the kiss with equal hunger, glossa plunging into Deadlock’s mouth as though this is a battle he’s determined to fight to the last breath.
Deadlock growls and bites at Ratchet’s intake, the medic’s head tipping back, baring himself to Deadlock’s denta. “Do you want me to take you here, or do you want to see the mod?” he demands.
Ratchet gasps, breathless. “Can’t it be both?”
Oh, has a restraint kink does he?
Deadlock’s engine revs. Fantasies unspool through his processor. Tying Ratchet down. Pinning him down. Binding his limbs. Keeping him forever, teasing him with the cusp of pleasure, until Ratchet writhes and begs for release. Him agreeing to it, handing his trust to Deadlock so eagerly, so openly.
Primus.
Need yaws inside of Deadlock, and he jolts, internals cycling into a higher rhythm of desire.
“Later,” Deadlock says.
He yanks Ratchet from the wall, spins him toward the too small berth. Ratchet goes willingly, his field sticky-hot against Deadlock’s, clinging to it, demanding pleasure.
“It’s a knot,” Deadlock says as Ratchet’s knees hit the berth, and he stalls, fans spinning fast enough to vibrate his armor. Deadlock leaves biting kisses against Ratchet’s intake and collar, his hands wandering over every inch of red and white armor he can find.
“I don’t think I need to explain to you how that works,” Deadlock adds.
“No,” Ratchet says, and he shudders, and if Deadlock had felt even an inkling of disgust or fright in his field, he’d have stopped immediately.
Instead, he nearly drowns in the wave of lust sweeping Ratchet’s field and pulsing liquid charge into Deadlock’s.
“Have you ever taken a knot?” Deadlock slips a hand between Ratchet’s thighs, curling two fingers into a valve dripping lubricant, sticky-hot into his joints.
Ratchet’s intake bobs under his lips. “Once.” He clutches at Deadlock’s shoulders, venting rapidly, and there’s a raw need to his voice.
Deadlock growls. In that moment, he loathes whoever it was had treated Ratchet to the mod. It doesn’t matter though. Because he’s going to ruin Ratchet for that experience.
He swears it.
“Turn around,” Deadlock says.
And Primus, Ratchet obeys. He shudders, head to foot, and turns in Deadlock’s arms. He leans over the berth, hands pressed to the surface, all without being told. His knees brace against the edge, legs inching apart, lubricant streaking the inside of his thighs.
Deadlock’s intake bobs. He licks his lips. He can’t resist tasting.
He drops to his knees, cradles Ratchet’s thighs, pulls them apart, and dives in. He licks a long, wet line up Ratchet’s valve, hears Ratchet whine and cant toward him. Ratchet drops to his elbows, tilting his aft further, opening himself up.
He’s so wet, so swollen with desire. Deadlock hums and licks and sucks, fondling Ratchet’s anterior node with his lips, his glossa laving wet stripes over the plump rim. Ratchet’s lubricant is sticky sweet and the berth creaks where Ratchet rocks against it, his spike leaving streaks of lubricant over the covers.
They’ll have to wash those again.
Ratchet’s thighs quiver in Deadlock’s grip. “Please,” he moans, and his voice crackles. He sounds desperate.
For Deadlock.
Drift tugs at him, the need a craving deep in the pit of his spark. Deadlock gives Ratchet a lingering lick, savoring the taste, before he stands. He cradles Ratchet’s hips, bumps the head of his spike against his swollen rim.
“You’ll tell me if it’s too much,” Deadlock says as he circles his hips, grinding again and again over Ratchet’s rim, lust peppering through his lines until he’s dizzy from it.
“You’d have to start for that to happen!” Ratchet snaps, a bit of his old fire breaking from the haze of need.
Well then.
Deadlock licks his lips. “And I will. Tell me anyway,” he says, and rolls forward, not slamming into Ratchet as he suspects the Autobot expects, but pushing into him. Slow, so slow, gliding over every internal sensor and lighting them up one by one, bringing the swirl of charge around his spike to the tip, so when he finally bottoms out, it buzzes and nips at Ratchet’s ceiling node.
Ratchet trembles beneath him. His backstrut arches. He moans, long and low.
“Last chance to back out,” Deadlock says as he starts a series of slow, deep thrusts, metaphorical finger hovering over the activation key. “Once I start, I can’t stop. Not won’t. Can’t. We’ll both be stuck.”
“I know how the fragging mod works,” Ratchet says, and Deadlock swears he hears the berth covers rip as Ratchet’s valve cycles down on him, rippling in a milking wave. “Do it.”
Deadlock smooths a hand down Ratchet’s back, over his spinal strut. “Yes, Ratchet,” he purrs, and lets the mod initiate, his knot immediately beginning to swell.
He thrusts harder now. Deeper. Grinding against Ratchet’s ceiling node as the knob at the base of his spike starts to pressurize and fill with fluid, engorging the knob. He feels it start to catch and tug at Ratchet’s rim, grinding against that inner ring of nodes, and Ratchet cries out, trembling beneath Deadlock’s touch.
“Too much?” Deadlock asks, half-challenge, half-concern.
Ratchet moans, and his elbows knock out from beneath him. He’s flat on his belly on the berth, knees falling over the edge, legs splayed wide. His hands twist in the covers, face tucked into the elbow of one arm. His voice is almost inaudible.
Deadlock leans over him, blanketing Ratchet’s back with his front, changing the angle until he slides deep, and Ratchet’s rim contracts around his knot.
“More,” he hears as he wraps his arms around Ratchet’s frame and mouths the back of Ratchet’s shoulders.
Deadlock groans, arousal swimming through his circuits, his own knees wobbling as he thrusts again, and locks inside of Ratchet, his knot swelling almost to maximum. He can only rock his hips, grind over Ratchet’s ceiling node, and that’s when Ratchet shatters in his arms, overloading, hips grinding against the berth, valve spasming around Deadlock’s spike.
A surge of possessiveness overtakes Deadlock’s reason. He bites at Ratchet’s audial, another growl spilling out of his intake.
“You’re going to be mine,” he says, and Drift is chanting “yes, yes, yes” inside of him, or maybe that’s Ratchet, and he honestly can’t tell anymore. The secret fantasies and the current realities are clashing together.
He overloads, again and again, a dozen tiny bursts of pleasure as his spike spills spurt after spurt of transfluid into Ratchet. His knot swells with each spurt, until it stretches the limits of Ratchet’s rim, until it grinds against the inner ring of nodes, as much as Deadlock’s spikehead notches over his ceiling node.
Another overload makes Ratchet quake in his arms. Ratchet’s field is a liquid spill of charge, heat and hunger and something else, something in the depths Deadlock wants to cling to and keep forever: surrender.
He braces his forehead against the back of Ratchet’s neck. He pants, ex-venting hot and wet over Ratchet’s upper shoulders, pleasure making him shake. His spark spins faster and hotter and tighter in his chassis.
Deadlock overloads again. And again. And again. Until his transfluid tank empties and his hips jerk with dry spasms of his spike, and thick knob of his knot becomes impossible to remove. Ratchet whimpers beneath him, trembling, condensation gathering on his armor. His spark hammers in his chassis, Deadlock can feel it against the dermal metal of his fingertips, pressed as they are to Ratchet’s chest.
“You alright?” Deadlock manages through the stutter in his vocalizer, coherency difficult with the pleasure swamping his processor.
Ratchet moans, and his valve ripples, squeezing around Deadlock’s spike. “F-f-fine,” he slurs, his field wrapping around Deadlock’s, pulsing a mixture of pleasure and need and a demand for more.
“Good.” Deadlock rolls his hips, unable to budge his knot from Ratchet’s valve, but able to stir a minor bit of motion, enough to reignite the sensors within Ratchet.
The medic keens, his vents roaring.
Primus, he’s the sexiest thing. Deadlock wants to keep him forever. Wants to keep this forever. Wants to just stay here, on this stupid asteroid, in this stupid crashed shuttle, with no one else around. No war. No moral quandaries. No questioning. Just the two of them, making it work, surviving.
Together.
He wants it to much it hurts.
Deadlock pants against the back of Ratchet’s neck, optics squeezing shut on a sudden surge of want that has nothing to do with carnal desire, and everything to do with Drift surging to the forefront. Drift wanting things that can’t survive in the Decepticons. Drift wanting to be loved and held and treasured, wanting to do so in return.
Wanting this. Wanting him. Ratchet.
And it’s raw, so raw Deadlock can’t fight against it. He gives in to the urge to paint the back of Ratchet’s neck and head in soft kisses. To ex-vent hot and soft over Ratchet’s shoulders, to stroke the medic’s armor gently as his knot gradually deflates. Ratchet quivers beneath him, frame caught up in waves of pleasure, and it’s Deadlock-Drift-Deadlock who strokes him softly, who eases out of him rather than yanking free the moment he can.
He chokes on words of triumph and claiming and pride. It’s only last minute scrambling for control that keeps him from whispering a confession.
Deadlock slides his sated frame free of Ratchet’s. He stands there on wobbling knees, his hands smoothing over Ratchet’s aft, and his fingers stroking gentle patterns over the swollen, transfluid-wet rim of Ratchet’s valve.
“One more?” Deadlock murmurs as he carefully strokes and pets, one finger rubbing light circles around a dimly flashing anterior node.
Ratchet groans, rolls over with great effort, optics bright and hazy from pleasure. “You’re insatiable,” he says.
“That’s not a ‘no’,” Deadlock says, and he can’t resist Ratchet’s lips, not as raw and swollen as they are from Ratchet gnawing on them.
He leans over Ratchet, steals his mouth for a sweet, savoring kiss. His fingers keep up their gentle stroking, Ratchet so slick and hot beneath his derma, so yielding. Thighs clamp around Deadlock’s wrist, Ratchet moving in little rocks to grind his valve against Deadlock’s hand.
“One more time,” Deadlock says against Ratchet’s lips. “Overload for me one more time,” he urges, and his fingers slide deep, and his thumb presses a soft circle around Ratchet’s nub, and Ratchet clutches at him and obeys.
A shudder rattles over Ratchet’s frame. He rocks up, head tilting back, charge licking over his armor in blue curls of flame as he overloads again, slick spilling from his valve and his field slamming over Deadlock’s, the edges knitting together.
Deadlock touches him gently, extending the pleasure, until Ratchet sags into the berth, vents whirring. The kiss softens, less claim and more savor, and Deadlock rests his hand on Ratchet’s thigh.
He wants to keep this, Deadlock thinks.
Tell him, Drift whispers, like the optimistic idiot he is. Before it’s too late.
“I take it back,” Ratchet says, vocals rough and thick with exhaustion. “I don’t think you’re the least bit shy.”
A laugh spills out of Deadlock before he can stop it, and he’s at once grateful for Ratchet’s dry humor, because it keeps him from making a terrible mistake.
“I’ll get you a cloth,” he says, patting Ratchet’s thigh and moving to slide off the berth.
“Good.” The medic groans and makes vague effort to pull himself further onto the berth before giving up. “You made a mess of me.”
“It was your idea,” Deadlock reminds him as he tucks himself away. He’ll worry about an actual wash and a rinse later. “I take no responsibility for any regrets in the aftermath. Or if you’re ruined for any other lovers,” he adds as he pauses in the doorway, casting Ratchet a wink.
Ratchet rolls his optics and offers a rather rude gesture in return.
Deadlock laughs and slips out of the door, taking the moment to cycle a ventilation and re-center himself. It’s just interfacing, he says as he wipes himself down and dampens a cloth to bring back for Ratchet. It’s just boredom. It’s a foolish notion.
It doesn’t mean anything, no matter how loudly Drift wails.
It can’t mean anything.
And he already knows, it never will.
~
a/n: Feedback, as always, is welcome and appreciated!
Happy New Year!
Title: Lost and Lonely Space
Universe: IDW, Pre-Death of Optimus Prime
Characters: Ratchet, Deadlock, Alien Original Character(s)
Rating: M
Enticements: Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Canon Divergence
Description: While on a sabbatical from the war, Ratchet runs into a spot of trouble that lands him in close company with a familiar face, the famed Decepticon Deadlock.
A clearer air settles between them.
Deadlock isn’t sure if he can call it peace or trust or friendship, but it’s some satisfactory combination resulting in a truce. One where they spend equal amounts of time in the berth or on the floor or against the console or crammed in the tiny washracks, fragging each other senseless.
Conversation slides to the background, if they bother with it at all. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Deadlock’s certainly not complaining. He’s tired of fighting.
It’s like they’ve become their own little world, where the war doesn’t exist, all the way out here in this lost and lonely space. All they have is each other, dwindling supplies, and a fruitless attempt to make an emergency beacon. They keep trying, of course they do, because they both want to go back home.
But they are neither of them fools.
There’s no hope for rescue, no hope for communication, no hope for anything but blind luck, and frankly, it seems the universe is out of offering it.
They’ve stopped fighting. Or at least, they’ve quietly agreed to disagree. They don’t talk about the war, about their badges. They don’t discuss who’s wrong or right or what better choices could have been made, or how things could’ve been different.
Sometimes, they don’t talk much at all. They sit, back to back, Deadlock poking and prodding at the emergency beacon he’s trying to build from a distant memory, while Ratchet attempts to get the ancient solar generator into functioning condition.
“How do you know to do that anyway?” Ratchet asks as he picks and picks at a thick layer of rust choking the seams of the generator.
Deadlock rolls his shoulders. “There’s an old archive in Rodion. In the underlevels. Think it burned down or was replaced or something, I dunno. But we used to squat there. No one bothered us much.” He strips a few wires and braids them together with twists of his fingers. “Anyway, they left a mess behind. Piles of datapads and crates of stuff. Probably considered it trash.” He grins, a fond memory forcing Drift to the surface. “We thought it was treasure.”
“We?” Ratchet echoes.
Deadlock stills, realizing the slip of the glossa. “My friends,” he says cautiously, as grief from Drift makes his hand shake before he can push it down. “My gang, if you ask the law.” He pauses and cycles a ventilation. “Closest thing to family probably. Doesn’t matter now. They’re all dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Ratchet murmurs. He leans a bit harder against Deadlock’s back, his field reaching out in tentative offer of comfort.
Drift would have accepted it immediately. Deadlock hesitates before grudgingly allowing the brush of warmth.
“A lot of mechs are dead,” Deadlock says, gruff. “No point in crying about it.” He tucks the braided wire back into the small control panel and grabs a soldering iron. “Anyway, even leakers have downtime. So when we did, I’d plug into whatever datapads still functioned and just… read. We all did.”
Ratchet grunts as he flicks away a huge piece of rust and at once, the seam is free, allowing him to swivel out one of the tripods. “Basic engineering was one of the datapads then?”
“Yeah. It was all kinds of things, some more interesting than others.”
Drift had loved the fanciful tales, the fictional sprawls of love and loss and redemption and heroes and villains. Simple stories, most meant for the newly sparked or the dim of processor.
Deadlock doesn’t have time for such things.
“What about you?” Deadlock asks, desperate to change the subject.
“Me?”
“Yeah.” Deadlock starts to attach the end of the wire, ever so carefully. “What did Medic Ratchet do in his free time?”
Ratchet snorts, amusement trickling into his field. “I worked.”
“Seriously?”
“I worked full time for a prestigious medical center treating the elite for their various aches and pains,” Ratchet says with a long sigh. “I worked part time at the clinic in Rodion. I taught two classes once a week and when I wasn’t recharging, I was drunk.”
His answer is perfunctory, almost practiced, resigned. Like his life had been that, and he’s not emotional about it one way or another, it’s an explanation he’s given again and again, and he doesn’t care anymore.
Deadlock twists his jaw as the stench of solder floats through the air in little curls of smoke.
“I’m not saying it for sympathy or anything,” Ratchet continues, his back pressing a little harder to Deadlock’s. “I liked being busy. I liked having work. I especially liked not having to think about the conjunx I didn’t have because he left.”
“Because you worked too much?” Deadlock asks, trying to inject levity into a situation that probably has none.
Ratchet snorts again, and he audibly scuffs the floor with a foot. “If you ask me, we both worked too much, but for entirely different reasons.” He cycles a ventilation. “We weren’t good for each other anyway. Toxic, I think, is a better word.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Far as I know.”
Deadlock sets the soldering iron aside and vents a puff of air over his work. It’s crude and inelegant, but if it functions, that’s all that matters to him. “He a medic, too?”
“A better one, to hear him tell it.”
“And what do you think?”
Ratchet’s field wavers, and beneath the bluster, there’s a flicker of self-doubt. “He’s probably right.” There’s a moment, a hesitation, and then his voice drops in volume. “We’re both Forged but Pharma is… gifted in a way few are.”
Deadlock makes a noncommittal noise and flicks the panel on the motherboard closed. “Maybe, maybe not.” He pats the small transmitter he’s tried to repurpose into an emergency beacon. “But can he fix one of these?”
“And get his hands dirty? Perish the thought?” Ratchet grunts a laugh and twists to peer over Deadlock’s shoulder. “Any luck?”
Deadlock turns the transmitter over, the domed light on the top dark. “Let’s find out,” he says, and holds a finger on the switch. “If you’ve got a direct line to Primus, I suggest giving it a tap.”
“Hah. He hasn’t cared in centuries.”
“Good to know.” Deadlock cycles a ventilation, and flicks the switch.
For a moment, nothing happens. He tries to think of any number of reasons why, but it’s impossible to guess given his substandard materials, substitutions, and bare knowledge. It could have been anything.
The domed light flickers a dull yellow. Deadlock holds a vent, willing it to function. Flick-flick, and then it flares the pale green of readiness. Relief floods his spark. It’s impossible to tell if the beacon is actually functioning, because they’d need a receptive system, but it seems to be.
“I think it’s working,” Deadlock says as he gingerly slides the transmitter a few inches across the table, out of reach in case the slightest disturbance breaks it all over again.
“Thank the gods,” Ratchet says with a sigh of relief. He shoves his own project aside, the generator clattering to the floor. “I think I’m breaking this more than I’m fixing it. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Deadlock laughs and swings around on the bench, bracketing Ratchet from behind, his hands sliding along Ratchet’s sides until they meet over Ratchet’s abdomen. “You get points for effort,” he says, pressing a kiss behind Ratchet’s nearest audial, ex-venting hot and wet over it.
Ratchet shivers in his hold, a light flush of heat reflected in his field. “Do we, uh, need to mount that or anything?”
“Later.” Deadlock drags his mouth to the back of Ratchet’s neck, letting his denta explore the sensitive cables in front of him. “I think it’s time to celebrate a little.”
Ratchet’s engine rumbles against his chest. “That so?” Fingers wrap around one of Deadlock’s wrists, tugging his hand down and down until it rests over Ratchet’s array. “Consider yourself invited.”
Deadlock chuckles, his fingers rubbing circles over the closed panel. “Are you sure? This doesn’t seem very inviting to me.”
“Work harder then,” Ratchet grunts, but his frame belies his nonchalance, because he pushes back into Deadlock, his hips rocking against Deadlock’s fingers.
Deadlock’s hot vents tease the back of Ratchet’s audials. His free hand wraps around Ratchet, palming his belly, fingers tracking up and down, tracing seams. “What do I have to do to be convincing?” he murmurs.
Ratchet shivers in his arms. His field unfurls, stroking over Deadlock’s with obvious need. “Well, you could finally show me this mod you’re being so damn coy about.”
Deadlock laughs again, stroking his fingers hard over Ratchet’s panel. “You’re very persistent, aren’t you?”
“I don’t like unsolved mysteries.” Ratchet bucks into his fingers, and the strain of holding himself back is painted in the tremble of his armor.
Deadlock nibbles on the curve of Ratchet’s jaw, ex-venting warm and wet. “It’s not that special.”
“Then why don’t you show me?” Ratchet demands, clearly a challenge.
Deadlock rests his forehead on the nape of Ratchet’s neck and just laughs. Because this should be awkward and tense, but it’s absolutely not, and he can’t remember the last time he felt like this.
“That’s not funny,” Ratchet says, indignant.
“Didn’t say it was.” Deadlock presses against Ratchet’s back before he pushes himself to his feet, sliding his hands up Ratchet’s chassis as he does so. “If you want this mod, we need a berth.”
“Getting boring in your old age,” Ratchet teases, but he pushes off the bench, and slips out of reach. He turns, arousal glittering in his optics. “Or maybe you’re just shy.”
Deadlock growls.
A smirk curves Ratchet’s lips.
The chase is remarkably short, as there’s nowhere for Ratchet to go, and only one destination either of them particularly care for. Deadlock leaps over the bench and races after Ratchet anyway, because the best part of any chase is cornering and catching one’s quarry, and crowding Ratchet against the wall of the berthroom, slanting their mouths together, and hungrily claiming Ratchet’s mouth with his…
Well, it sends arousal surging through his system like a bolt of lightning.
He threads his fingers through Ratchet’s, pinning Ratchet’s hands above his head. Deadlock loves that they are of similar heights, though he knows Ratchet has him beat when it comes to mass. He loves that he notches his knee between Ratchet’s legs, and Ratchet moans as he rocks down against the pressure of it, need peppering in little starbursts of color in his field.
Most of all, he loves Ratchet trusts him enough to be so playful.
Ratchet rolls up against him, spike leaving a smear on Deadlock’s belly, his valve now bared and dripping hot-wet over Deadlock’s thigh. He returns the kiss with equal hunger, glossa plunging into Deadlock’s mouth as though this is a battle he’s determined to fight to the last breath.
Deadlock growls and bites at Ratchet’s intake, the medic’s head tipping back, baring himself to Deadlock’s denta. “Do you want me to take you here, or do you want to see the mod?” he demands.
Ratchet gasps, breathless. “Can’t it be both?”
Oh, has a restraint kink does he?
Deadlock’s engine revs. Fantasies unspool through his processor. Tying Ratchet down. Pinning him down. Binding his limbs. Keeping him forever, teasing him with the cusp of pleasure, until Ratchet writhes and begs for release. Him agreeing to it, handing his trust to Deadlock so eagerly, so openly.
Primus.
Need yaws inside of Deadlock, and he jolts, internals cycling into a higher rhythm of desire.
“Later,” Deadlock says.
He yanks Ratchet from the wall, spins him toward the too small berth. Ratchet goes willingly, his field sticky-hot against Deadlock’s, clinging to it, demanding pleasure.
“It’s a knot,” Deadlock says as Ratchet’s knees hit the berth, and he stalls, fans spinning fast enough to vibrate his armor. Deadlock leaves biting kisses against Ratchet’s intake and collar, his hands wandering over every inch of red and white armor he can find.
“I don’t think I need to explain to you how that works,” Deadlock adds.
“No,” Ratchet says, and he shudders, and if Deadlock had felt even an inkling of disgust or fright in his field, he’d have stopped immediately.
Instead, he nearly drowns in the wave of lust sweeping Ratchet’s field and pulsing liquid charge into Deadlock’s.
“Have you ever taken a knot?” Deadlock slips a hand between Ratchet’s thighs, curling two fingers into a valve dripping lubricant, sticky-hot into his joints.
Ratchet’s intake bobs under his lips. “Once.” He clutches at Deadlock’s shoulders, venting rapidly, and there’s a raw need to his voice.
Deadlock growls. In that moment, he loathes whoever it was had treated Ratchet to the mod. It doesn’t matter though. Because he’s going to ruin Ratchet for that experience.
He swears it.
“Turn around,” Deadlock says.
And Primus, Ratchet obeys. He shudders, head to foot, and turns in Deadlock’s arms. He leans over the berth, hands pressed to the surface, all without being told. His knees brace against the edge, legs inching apart, lubricant streaking the inside of his thighs.
Deadlock’s intake bobs. He licks his lips. He can’t resist tasting.
He drops to his knees, cradles Ratchet’s thighs, pulls them apart, and dives in. He licks a long, wet line up Ratchet’s valve, hears Ratchet whine and cant toward him. Ratchet drops to his elbows, tilting his aft further, opening himself up.
He’s so wet, so swollen with desire. Deadlock hums and licks and sucks, fondling Ratchet’s anterior node with his lips, his glossa laving wet stripes over the plump rim. Ratchet’s lubricant is sticky sweet and the berth creaks where Ratchet rocks against it, his spike leaving streaks of lubricant over the covers.
They’ll have to wash those again.
Ratchet’s thighs quiver in Deadlock’s grip. “Please,” he moans, and his voice crackles. He sounds desperate.
For Deadlock.
Drift tugs at him, the need a craving deep in the pit of his spark. Deadlock gives Ratchet a lingering lick, savoring the taste, before he stands. He cradles Ratchet’s hips, bumps the head of his spike against his swollen rim.
“You’ll tell me if it’s too much,” Deadlock says as he circles his hips, grinding again and again over Ratchet’s rim, lust peppering through his lines until he’s dizzy from it.
“You’d have to start for that to happen!” Ratchet snaps, a bit of his old fire breaking from the haze of need.
Well then.
Deadlock licks his lips. “And I will. Tell me anyway,” he says, and rolls forward, not slamming into Ratchet as he suspects the Autobot expects, but pushing into him. Slow, so slow, gliding over every internal sensor and lighting them up one by one, bringing the swirl of charge around his spike to the tip, so when he finally bottoms out, it buzzes and nips at Ratchet’s ceiling node.
Ratchet trembles beneath him. His backstrut arches. He moans, long and low.
“Last chance to back out,” Deadlock says as he starts a series of slow, deep thrusts, metaphorical finger hovering over the activation key. “Once I start, I can’t stop. Not won’t. Can’t. We’ll both be stuck.”
“I know how the fragging mod works,” Ratchet says, and Deadlock swears he hears the berth covers rip as Ratchet’s valve cycles down on him, rippling in a milking wave. “Do it.”
Deadlock smooths a hand down Ratchet’s back, over his spinal strut. “Yes, Ratchet,” he purrs, and lets the mod initiate, his knot immediately beginning to swell.
He thrusts harder now. Deeper. Grinding against Ratchet’s ceiling node as the knob at the base of his spike starts to pressurize and fill with fluid, engorging the knob. He feels it start to catch and tug at Ratchet’s rim, grinding against that inner ring of nodes, and Ratchet cries out, trembling beneath Deadlock’s touch.
“Too much?” Deadlock asks, half-challenge, half-concern.
Ratchet moans, and his elbows knock out from beneath him. He’s flat on his belly on the berth, knees falling over the edge, legs splayed wide. His hands twist in the covers, face tucked into the elbow of one arm. His voice is almost inaudible.
Deadlock leans over him, blanketing Ratchet’s back with his front, changing the angle until he slides deep, and Ratchet’s rim contracts around his knot.
“More,” he hears as he wraps his arms around Ratchet’s frame and mouths the back of Ratchet’s shoulders.
Deadlock groans, arousal swimming through his circuits, his own knees wobbling as he thrusts again, and locks inside of Ratchet, his knot swelling almost to maximum. He can only rock his hips, grind over Ratchet’s ceiling node, and that’s when Ratchet shatters in his arms, overloading, hips grinding against the berth, valve spasming around Deadlock’s spike.
A surge of possessiveness overtakes Deadlock’s reason. He bites at Ratchet’s audial, another growl spilling out of his intake.
“You’re going to be mine,” he says, and Drift is chanting “yes, yes, yes” inside of him, or maybe that’s Ratchet, and he honestly can’t tell anymore. The secret fantasies and the current realities are clashing together.
He overloads, again and again, a dozen tiny bursts of pleasure as his spike spills spurt after spurt of transfluid into Ratchet. His knot swells with each spurt, until it stretches the limits of Ratchet’s rim, until it grinds against the inner ring of nodes, as much as Deadlock’s spikehead notches over his ceiling node.
Another overload makes Ratchet quake in his arms. Ratchet’s field is a liquid spill of charge, heat and hunger and something else, something in the depths Deadlock wants to cling to and keep forever: surrender.
He braces his forehead against the back of Ratchet’s neck. He pants, ex-venting hot and wet over Ratchet’s upper shoulders, pleasure making him shake. His spark spins faster and hotter and tighter in his chassis.
Deadlock overloads again. And again. And again. Until his transfluid tank empties and his hips jerk with dry spasms of his spike, and thick knob of his knot becomes impossible to remove. Ratchet whimpers beneath him, trembling, condensation gathering on his armor. His spark hammers in his chassis, Deadlock can feel it against the dermal metal of his fingertips, pressed as they are to Ratchet’s chest.
“You alright?” Deadlock manages through the stutter in his vocalizer, coherency difficult with the pleasure swamping his processor.
Ratchet moans, and his valve ripples, squeezing around Deadlock’s spike. “F-f-fine,” he slurs, his field wrapping around Deadlock’s, pulsing a mixture of pleasure and need and a demand for more.
“Good.” Deadlock rolls his hips, unable to budge his knot from Ratchet’s valve, but able to stir a minor bit of motion, enough to reignite the sensors within Ratchet.
The medic keens, his vents roaring.
Primus, he’s the sexiest thing. Deadlock wants to keep him forever. Wants to keep this forever. Wants to just stay here, on this stupid asteroid, in this stupid crashed shuttle, with no one else around. No war. No moral quandaries. No questioning. Just the two of them, making it work, surviving.
Together.
He wants it to much it hurts.
Deadlock pants against the back of Ratchet’s neck, optics squeezing shut on a sudden surge of want that has nothing to do with carnal desire, and everything to do with Drift surging to the forefront. Drift wanting things that can’t survive in the Decepticons. Drift wanting to be loved and held and treasured, wanting to do so in return.
Wanting this. Wanting him. Ratchet.
And it’s raw, so raw Deadlock can’t fight against it. He gives in to the urge to paint the back of Ratchet’s neck and head in soft kisses. To ex-vent hot and soft over Ratchet’s shoulders, to stroke the medic’s armor gently as his knot gradually deflates. Ratchet quivers beneath him, frame caught up in waves of pleasure, and it’s Deadlock-Drift-Deadlock who strokes him softly, who eases out of him rather than yanking free the moment he can.
He chokes on words of triumph and claiming and pride. It’s only last minute scrambling for control that keeps him from whispering a confession.
Deadlock slides his sated frame free of Ratchet’s. He stands there on wobbling knees, his hands smoothing over Ratchet’s aft, and his fingers stroking gentle patterns over the swollen, transfluid-wet rim of Ratchet’s valve.
“One more?” Deadlock murmurs as he carefully strokes and pets, one finger rubbing light circles around a dimly flashing anterior node.
Ratchet groans, rolls over with great effort, optics bright and hazy from pleasure. “You’re insatiable,” he says.
“That’s not a ‘no’,” Deadlock says, and he can’t resist Ratchet’s lips, not as raw and swollen as they are from Ratchet gnawing on them.
He leans over Ratchet, steals his mouth for a sweet, savoring kiss. His fingers keep up their gentle stroking, Ratchet so slick and hot beneath his derma, so yielding. Thighs clamp around Deadlock’s wrist, Ratchet moving in little rocks to grind his valve against Deadlock’s hand.
“One more time,” Deadlock says against Ratchet’s lips. “Overload for me one more time,” he urges, and his fingers slide deep, and his thumb presses a soft circle around Ratchet’s nub, and Ratchet clutches at him and obeys.
A shudder rattles over Ratchet’s frame. He rocks up, head tilting back, charge licking over his armor in blue curls of flame as he overloads again, slick spilling from his valve and his field slamming over Deadlock’s, the edges knitting together.
Deadlock touches him gently, extending the pleasure, until Ratchet sags into the berth, vents whirring. The kiss softens, less claim and more savor, and Deadlock rests his hand on Ratchet’s thigh.
He wants to keep this, Deadlock thinks.
Tell him, Drift whispers, like the optimistic idiot he is. Before it’s too late.
“I take it back,” Ratchet says, vocals rough and thick with exhaustion. “I don’t think you’re the least bit shy.”
A laugh spills out of Deadlock before he can stop it, and he’s at once grateful for Ratchet’s dry humor, because it keeps him from making a terrible mistake.
“I’ll get you a cloth,” he says, patting Ratchet’s thigh and moving to slide off the berth.
“Good.” The medic groans and makes vague effort to pull himself further onto the berth before giving up. “You made a mess of me.”
“It was your idea,” Deadlock reminds him as he tucks himself away. He’ll worry about an actual wash and a rinse later. “I take no responsibility for any regrets in the aftermath. Or if you’re ruined for any other lovers,” he adds as he pauses in the doorway, casting Ratchet a wink.
Ratchet rolls his optics and offers a rather rude gesture in return.
Deadlock laughs and slips out of the door, taking the moment to cycle a ventilation and re-center himself. It’s just interfacing, he says as he wipes himself down and dampens a cloth to bring back for Ratchet. It’s just boredom. It’s a foolish notion.
It doesn’t mean anything, no matter how loudly Drift wails.
It can’t mean anything.
And he already knows, it never will.
a/n: Feedback, as always, is welcome and appreciated!