Title: Flames 1: Flint and Steel
Pairing BeexSam, Barricade/ProwlxJazz, RatchetxIronhide, TwinsxMiles,
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. Hasbro does and some others, but that's not the point. All characters are 18 or older with the exception of Annabelle. Comments and Critiques welcome
Here we go the sequel of Sparks after so long. Please enjoy! and thanks for reading.
Flames: 1 Flint and Steel
Sam Witwicky slipped forward on the wooden porch, cool lemonade sloshing over the edge of his glass.
He coughed again as his mother chided him gently.
"Well, don't spit everywhere. We raised you better than that. Didn't we, Ron?"
The man in question made a noncommittal sound and thumped the lawnmower with the wrench in his hand.
"See right there, what you're doing? Stop it. It's not cool. It's not funny. Just stop."
Sam's protests were ignored in favor of the magazine in his mother's hand.
Bright forms stood out over the glossy cover, svelte shapes of grace and power.
Sam saw the thing once or twice already this afternoon. His father laughed into his drink when his mom had finally passed a stack of them to the youngest Witwicky, bold and brilliantly colored, each a produced by a different group.
He could not have been more embarrassed than if she'd handed him a box of tissues and a bottle of lotion to go with it.
On the table between Sam and his mother, was a stack of car magazines.
To add insult to injury, at least three bore the familiar design of a Camaro.
Sam glance at the pile again and took swig from the glass in his hand, trying not to flush at the idea.
Couldn't his parents be supportive without being that supportive?
Something tinged his senses and Samuel perked up at once, setting the glass back on the small round table.
His mother was still smiling and he couldn't help but return the expression lamely.
"Well. This has been fun," he stressed pushing back his chair.
"You have to go so soon?" Judy sounded concerned but Sam interjected, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
"Yeah, we still have some tests to run and then I can actually try and sleep."
"We could drop you off?"
With a gentler smile, Sam hugged his mom and staunchly avoided looking at the booklets on the table.
"You could, but then dad would get to talking with Prime or Will and then you'd never leave. 'Sides my ride's already here."
As he turned to watch, an Autobot in disguise pulled up to the curb, his engine purring softly.
Sam blinked and released his mother to stare at the car in the street.
"Well, that's not Bee." Judy announced, glancing back to her son.
Sam snagged the lemonade from the table and drained the glass in lieu of an answer.
As Sam and Judy watched the driver's side door swung open.
It admitted a tall humanoid form, who stepped through the front of the vehicle instead of just walking around.
Ron finally looked up as the man approached, his black boots sinking into lawn.
"Would ya use the path?" he snapped at the newcomer, brandishing the wrench.
The man's eyebrows rose slightly, and he tipped his head in reply.
"My apologies." He admitted, his halfhearted tone indicated that he didn't really mean it.
He stepped onto the path anyway and advanced towards the house, eyes half hidden behind a pair of ridiculous sunglasses.
Sam watched and waited, taking in everything about the holoform marching towards him.
He knew who it was, but there was no harm in being careful.
The humanoid representation stopped at the porch, and tugged the sunglasses down from the pale glowing optics.
"Come with me if you want to live," the tall form hissed, offering a hand to the teen.
Sam almost snorted at the incredulous look from his mother, but he clasped the hand to his own, his firewalls responding to the spoken code.
"Nice to see you too, Cade," Sam joked pulling away, his systems already beginning to respond to Cybertronian before him.
He pushed the hand into his pocket, suddenly aware of much more than the Interceptor's physical condition.
He hid the flush and turned to bid his mother farewell.
"Where the heck is Bee?" Judy inquired.
Barricade looked back at the human female and the holoform shifted his stance.
"They have clearance." Sam reminded him, "Besides I was wondering that too."
"Priority mission." Barricade announced in a cold flat tone.
Sam knew the cause and he filed the poignant silence by shoving the stack of automobile magazines into his companion's hands.
"We'll just have to amuse ourselves, then."
He pressed another kiss to his mom's cheek and stepped down off the porch to go meet his father.
Barricade turned to follow, after inclining his head to Judy.
Ron rose from his work, smiling weakly. His expression matched his son's but for a very different reason.
"See you around sport, and uh, try not to get yourself killed, ok?"
"Twice is enough." Sam nodded in return, his smile barely reaching his eyes.
The Autobot's interjection was more than encouraging as he steered Samuel toward his alt form.
"I will do everything in my power to ensure his death does not occur in the immediate future."
"You do that." Ronald charged him, slipping an arm around his wife.
Judy followed them to the sidewalk and she waved enthusiastically."Bye honey! Be safe!"
Sam slipped into the passenger side of the Police Cruiser and reached for his seatbelt as Barricade pulled away.
The holoform faded and the magazines flopped into a heap on the floor.
As they performed no less than six moving violations easing out of the neighborhood, Sam was grateful that the mech's tinted windows obscured the fact that there was no one in the driver's seat.
Barricade bypassed most of Tranquility, easing about the outskirts of town until he reached the freeway.
Sam retrieved one of the booklets from the floor and was flipping through it, distractedly.
He hadn't spoken since the departure from his family, a fact which the mech appreciated.
"Priority?"
Barricade snorted noncommittally and swung into the far lane.
He didn't bother to reply, but Sam kept the conversation moving as he traced the lines of a car on page under his hands.
"There was recent Decepticon activity wasn't there? And you're playing nursemaid?" Sam asked, already sure of the reply
"With the increase of Autobot forces, it was deemed unacceptable to assign bonded pairs to the same patrols." The mech growled back.
"Optimus said that?" Sam was surprised.
"Prowl." Barricade corrected, practically hissing.
Sam shivered and smacked the dashboard in retaliation.
"And he got Ratchet to agree with him?" The incredulous tone was obvious, and only served to underscore how preposterous Sam found the turn of events.
The mech made a disgruntled sound and sped up, pushing Sam back into his seat.
"What do you expect? You've been avoiding Ratchet for a month!
He sees both Jazz and Prowl just about every day and here you are, behaving like a sparkling."
"I've seen a medic," The Autobot growled, "And don't presume to address me this way. I am-"
"An Autobot and it's about time you acted like it!"
The air conditioning cut off and Sam choked on the rest of his words, surprised at the sudden oppressive heat.
"Miles is a damn good medic, but he knows nothing about sparks and you need yours looked at.
Ratchet is not a Decepticon, he cares about his patients. "
"Who are you to judge me?"
"I'm the All Spark and I was hoping to be your friend."
Snarling angrily, the car swerved across traffic and shot over a ditch and skidded to a stop just short of an oversized cactus. They sat there in the settling dust cloud and heat, Sam fanning himself with the mag featuring a bright Camaro.
Sam was half dazed by the silence and rising heat when Barricade finally spoke.
"I should have never-"
"Defected? Bonded? But you did. I don't know why and I don't think you know either, but the choice has been made and you are going to have to live with it."
Autobot Barricade snorted and started his engine again.
"And Ratchet isn't the only one curious; I mean a trine bond without seekers. You're not-?"
"No." he replied in clipped tones, turning back towards the freeway. "Now be quiet."
"Just checking."
"Can you be silent?"
"Can you turn the air conditioning back on?"
A blast of cooling air assaulted the teen and Sam slumped in the seat, reaching for another magazine.
He sensed the mech turning his scans outward, his engine idling. He pressed Cade for conversation, letting the glossy booklet slip from his hands.
"It's an odd situation." Sam mused, attempting to prod the former Decepticon to continue the conversation.
This time the mech's reply was a halfhearted grunt.
"I don't think it's all that weird though. Humans also do pretty strange things for love." Sam reasoned.
"Hush." Barricade hissed, cutting off his passenger as his engine went silent.
"If you want to spend time with them, say so. I mean they're your bondmates after all."
"Shut-"
The sound of the rough voice was suddenly gone as Sam found himself falling.
Down, down, the pressure was growing. The heat was too much.
The trajectory was all wrong and there were a hundred other inconsequential things plaguing his descent.
And then he hit, once, twice and there he skidded over hard particulates and odd topographical features and he was cold, cold, freezing.
Light assaulted his senses and Barricade was saying something to him, a few things actually and none of them sounded pleasant.
The mech broke off the litany of Cybertronian swears and Sam laughed despite his shivering, the air conditioning was painful on his still glowing skin.
"What did you pick up?"
"Felt. I felt someone. They've made earth-fall alive." Sam wheezed and struggled to stay upright.
Barricade pulled back and made for the road, the air in his cabin growing hot and stale.
The teen shut his eyes and lay still trying to remember all the tips and tricks in his arsenal.
After such a disassociation, Sam had to ground and regaining himself, the longer he waited, the more he risked losing himself to the All Spark.
As embarrassing as it was, Sam still was still unaccustomed to experiencing Cybertronian minds so intimately.
His practice with Bumblebee never seemed to be very conductive to the experience, as they always seemed to get distracted.
Flushing at the memory, Sam managed a smile, before his eyes snapped open in surprise. Something wasn't right.
"We aren't going back to base?" he demanded of his ride.
"Any Decepticon in range is going to home in on that signal like a Cybercat on Glitch mice.
I've appraised our superiors of the situation." Barricade hummed back, as he switched lanes and sped up.
"As it happens, I am the closest bot in range. I have been granted authorization to intercept."
The mech seemed almost smug. Sam was suspicious at once.
"They don't know I'm with you, do they?"
"I might have neglected to mention that trivial detail." The Saleen hissed in reply.
Sam sighed and weighted his options.
He could call the Tyger Pax base, and have them rerouted. An unsavory option, Sam didn't want to suffer more of the defector's mercurial mood.
He could get out and wait for a safer ride, but the midday heat was making that option rather less likely.
The last and most irresponsible involved him going along for the ride and improvising if something went wrong.
Barricade confirmed his trail of thought, projecting a holographic schematic of the surrounding area and supposed location of their bogey.
Sam rotated the map and widened the area, trusting the mech's sensors to tell him what his eyes could not.
"No point in telling them now, let's make this quick."
Barricade's sirens wailed overhead and Sam hung on to the seat beneath him, steeling himself for the report he'd be giving to Prowl later.
Provided he and the mech's bonded survived the encounter.
"What if the newcomer is a Decepticon?"
"Then we'll just have to amuse ourselves" Purred the Saleen with anticipation, leaving Sam to worry just what he'd incited.