Sparkeater!Reader/Bluestreak AU
A little more of Creature!Reader that has been turned into a Cybertronian Sparkeater.
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“-and this one’s Iaconian oil cake. It’s a specialty of Mirage’s. Actually he’s really good with recreating high-end desserts of the nobility since he was part of their ranks and simple treats that could’ve been bought from a streetcart from the lower levers. He said it’s because his caretakers used to bribe him with treats from the kitchens but the chefs would transfer and treats wouldn’t taste the same, so wanted to learn how to make them-”
You keep an ear on Bluestreak’s rapid explanation on the desserts between you and him. Gelled energon with iron shavings. Magnesium pudding with cobalt powder. Edible crystals cultivated from his miniature closet-garden. Mirage's oil cake with delicate shapes of gold and silver for decoration.
With your miraculous return to, well, mechanical living and the lack of a sunlight allergy, there was a hope, maybe a naive one, that you could have fully subsided on Cybertronian edibles. Out of habit, you swirl the cube of solar-derived energon and take another sip.
Sweet, clean, and lacking substance.
You keep quiet about it.
Around the other Autobots, you sip the energon cubes provided, nibble on the strange mineral supplements, and let Bluestreak spoonfeed you more Cybertronian treats. You put extra attention to make sure that your footsteps are loud in the Ark, echoing down the orange halls and clicking on the floor than the usual silence. Your smiles are careful things -gentle, small ones that don’t show teeth or how widely it could stretch.
(Look at me. Look how harmless I can be, the Wolf says with his teeth shaven and tail low.)
Bluestreak says nothing about it because the Autobots are… not quite relaxing, nor warming towards your continued presence, but they’re willing to leave you to your own devices. Ratchet still demands that you receive basic maintenance and you graciously go inside the very alien, very orange ship. There are frontliners that linger around the medbay whenever you’re inside and you politely overlook the fact that Hoist’s servos still faintly shake around you.
But there’s no doubt if he said anything about your hunger pangs that they’ll hunt you down.
(You are no less of your nature, regardless of your circumstances, says the Shepherd as he guards his flock.)
“Hold on,” you say, reaching over to tilt his head towards you and Bluestreak smiles, optics glow with warmth. You lean in, careful with the data transfer cable between you and him.
Sharp teeth catches his bottom lip, scraping it open and those little drops of energon sends a delicious warmth into your mouth. It's teasing and fleeting and there's the terrible urge to just drag Bluestreak into your arms.
[Cybertronians have energon in their frames and consume energon themselves.
How funny! How terrible! How convenient!
Or it should have been...
There's a spark missing in their food.
And you eat sparks now.]
And he’ll let you. Bluestreak will go willingly into your hands and mouth with no need of compulsion or charm. You could drink from his fuel lines start from his neck, wrists, or wherever wished.
You could. But you won’t.
You’re too fond of the Praxian sniper and Bluestreak hasn’t done anything to put himself as prey.
(You told Bluestreak a long time ago with bloodstained hands and hunger sated: You’re a monster, but a monster that eats other monsters.)
Your HUD then blinks from a status completion: Bluestreaks’s transfer of known patrols with Decepticon action flares to life in your vision as the multiple colored routes spring over a digital map of the continental United States.
"You had something on your face." You smile, not too wide but teeth showing, thinking of which Decepticons you’ll find. Hunger clawing deeply.
Bluestreak doesn’t flinch at your face. At the sight of serrated rows. He meets your mouth with his, the cable disengaging and slithering back into his forearm, and you love him a little more for that, tasting the sweetness of solar-derived engeron on his tongue.
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Bad Things Happen Bingo: Unwilling Suspension
Word Count: 3k
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Characters: Lance, Hunk, Ezor
Full prompt under the cut, or on AO3.
This jumps off from season 7 episode 3, where I snatched up that interrogation premise and ran cackling stage left.
“Hunk, buddy, please.”
Lance is upset. Why? …oh, maybe because Hunk’s head feels like a watermelon with too many rubber bands around it. Had they been daring each other to raid Coran’s nunvil stash again? He thought they swore never again last time, but hey. You never know what Lance might get bored enough to try. Again.
“Hunk,” Lance’s voice cracks, fear leaking through. Hm, maybe not nunvil then. What had they been doing?
The avalanche of memory crashes over him, and Hunk jerks, flailing desperately to the rushing flood of get away get away and fight flee run fly and oh, god, Lance-
“Hunk, buddy, please.”
Lance is upset. Why? …oh, maybe because Hunk’s head feels like a watermelon with too many rubber bands around it. Had they been daring each other to raid Coran’s nunvil stash again? He thought they swore never again last time, but hey. You never know what Lance might get bored enough to try. Again.
“Hunk,” Lance’s voice cracks, fear leaking through. Hm, maybe not nunvil then. What had they been doing?
The avalanche of memory crashes over him, and Hunk jerks, flailing desperately to the rushing flood of get away get away and fight flee run fly and oh, god, Lance-
“Hunk- Hun- ng-stop – asere, calm dow-nng – you gotta hold – haaa – still, buddy, basta, por favor, just -mmng-”
He’s not sure how, but he wrestles his adrenaline under control, breathe in-hold-breathe out and stills his body. His mind may still be whirring in circles like Rover after Pidge fed him some whacked-out code, but Lance stops making those awful, awful gagging noises.
Okay, take inventory.
First off, he can’t see. There’s something tight and sticky stretched across his eyes. The galran equivalent of duct-tape, maybe?
Second: he can’t move much; probably some sort of restraints, given the fragmented violence of his last waking moments. His arms are hoisted up above his head, not so much that he’s hanging by them, but definitely held up against some sort of pole. He’s standing, his back pressed to the same pole and secured by a band across his chest, and his earlier flailing established that his feet are locked down by some sort of fetters around his ankles, most likely attached to the pole also.
Third: he hurts. Mostly in his head, which is reasonable. The galra guard who knocked him out after he and Lance jumped to Pidge’s defense was way too enthusiastic.
Fourth: Lance is here – oh god, Lance. Okay, time to get to the bottom of their situation right-freaking-now, because he doesn’t want to hear Lance make those noises ever again, and he has a sneaking, horrible suspicion that if he moves he will cause exactly that.
“You with me, asere?” Lance asks softly, a gentle rasp to his voice that has Hunk’s chest twisting guilt and fear up into his throat.
He wrestles it down. “I’m with you, man. What’s going on? Are you okay? Where are we?”
“We’re still on Zethrid and Ezor’s battlecruiser,” Lance says. “En una - in a different cell. They’ve- we’re kind of… atado? Um. Tied up.”
Hunk listens to the way Lance can’t quite keep his voice steady, hears the stress in the way his English is slipping.
“Okay, okay, we’re okay,” Hunk nods a little to himself. “We are okay, right Lance? Are you hurt?” He didn’t miss the way Lance avoided the question the first time he asked.
“All good over here, buddy,” Lance says tightly. “Just hanging out in a galra cell, no biggie.”
“Lance.” But Hunk doesn’t get the chance to pry further because the door bangs open and both he and Lance yelp a little into the cacophony of metal and booted footsteps entering their cell.
“Hi, paladins!” says someone much too pleased with themselves. “I’m so glad you both finally woke up! How do you like your new cell?”
“Oh, it’s peachy, Ezor,” Lance snarks. “But I’m disappointed with the level of service; I mean, who doesn’t leave a mint on the torture device? I give it two stars, max.”
They need to get out of here, like, yesterday. He wiggles a little bit, confirming that yes, their armor has been removed and he’s just in the undersuit. So much for accessing his bayard. But Coran’s still out there somewhere (hopefully). He’ll get the others free, and then they can all come charging to the rescue. He and Lance just have to hold out until then. Right? Right. Oh, god.
“Let’s play a game,” Ezor chirps, oblivious to Hunk’s inner monologue. “I’ll ask you questions, and if you answer nicely, I’ll loosen your restraints. If you don’t answer, or if you’re rude, I’ll tighten them. Ready?”
Hunk can’t see if Lance answers without words, but his best friend has gone suspiciously silent. Unsure if this is a cue to pick up the slack but figuring it’s probably best to have Lance’s back by following along, he holds his tongue too.
Fortunately, Ezor doesn’t seem to take their silence as breaking the rules of the game yet, because Hunk doesn’t feel any movement from his restraints, and Lance’s breathing hasn’t changed pitch or pace.
“Alright,” Ezor says after a moment. “Question one for you, Red Paladin. Where is Lotor?”
Usually this would be where Lance snarks something at their captor, but he has been suspiciously silent since Ezor explained the rules of whatever twisted game this is, and he continues to keep silent now, ratcheting Hunk’s anxiety up another notch or two. What does he see, that is succeeding in keeping his usual bravado at bay?
After a long moment, Ezor sighs. “I thought you were the annoying one,” she says disappointedly. “I was looking forward to some proper banter for once. Your concern for your friend is so boring, and so useless.”
Something clanks, then clanks again, and Lance grunts softly. Is Hunk imagining it, or is his breathing a little strained? He holds very still, feeling fear crawl sick and clinging up his spine.
“Your turn, Yellow Paladin!” Ezor announces right next to his ear, and Hunk jumps a little, flinching away from the too-bright voice. Ezor snickers.
“How did you get out of the quintessence field, hm?”
Hunk shakes his head mutely, following Lance’s lead for now.
“Aww,” Ezor pouts. “No fun either.”
Another, slightly different clank, and the floor drops about an inch or so under Hunk’s feet. He lurches down the pole, which yanks his arms a little higher over his head.
Lance gags, and Hunk knows.
“You bitch,” Hunk hisses, turning his head blindly towards the last place he heard Ezor. “You psychopath, cut him down!”
“Ooh, he’s clever!” Ezor squeals. “Just for that, I’ll give you a reward.”
The sticky strip is ripped abruptly off of his face, taking with it several eyelashes and a good portion of one eyebrow. Hunk squints past the reflexive tears, desperate to see, confirm that it’s not as bad as he thinks-
It is. It’s worse.
Just like he thought, his wrists are tethered to a rope that reaches up, through some tackle, and down again to the other side of the cell, ending around Lance’s neck. Every time the floor under Hunk’s feet drops, or Hunk pulls his arms down, Lance will be pulled a little higher by the noose around his neck. He’s already on his tiptoes.
But Lance – Hunk can’t hold back the groan of distress. His best friend has his back to a pole, just like Hunk, but his arms are spread to either side of him, attached at the wrists and elbows to slim boards rigged up to yet more tackle so that they can tilt down if Lance lowers his arms. From the end of the boards dangle two lead weights. The boards keep Lance’s arms straight, but he’s holding them up, and it takes Hunk a minute of following complicated ropes and weights and counterweights to figure it out, but when he does the sick churning in his gut intensifies even further. They are so screwed. Lance’s arms are connected to a frankly huge spear, and if he lowers them, it’ll stab Hunk right through the ribs.
“What do you think?” Ezor coos, rocking back and forth from her tiptoes to the backs of her heels. “Zethrid set this up just for you two! She’s so smart, isn’t she?”
Hunk runs his gaze across the setup one more time, and can’t help nodding miserably. “Yep. Yep, pretty smart,” he agrees morosely. This setup would have taken some seriously advanced spatial reasoning to even envision, and then engineering chops to rival his own to execute properly. If they weren’t, you know, evil and bent on torturing and killing all of them, he’d be tempted to ask Lotor’s former generals to join their team.
Ezor cackles. “You’re cute! Too bad we’re going to break you in itty bitty pieces.” She abruptly prances across the room to flit around behind Lance. “So, Red Paladin, ready to tell me how your team got out of the quintessence field? Or where Lotor is? I bet your arms are getting tired.”
“Nope, I could do this all day,” Lance shoots back immediately, despite the way his breath rasps against the noose around his neck. His gaze doesn’t leave the spear, even as Ezor dances in and out of his peripherals. If she keeps going with this, and Hunk ends up skewered, he can tell Lance will never forgive himself, even if blaming him would never, never cross Hunk’s mind.
Ezor giggles, leaning over on one foot to reach another pair of weights. “Me too, honey. Me too.” She slips the weights onto the ropes around Lance’s arms. The clank as they drop to the bottom of the setup mirrors the lead settling in Hunk’s gut. Lance sucks in a labored breath, his eyes finding Hunk’s in terrified, silent apology. Hunk can see his arms shaking from across the room.
“It’s okay, Lance,” he manages, and it’s taking everything he has not to look at the spear, to keep his focus on Lance, but he does it for his friend. His brother. “We’re gonna be okay, man. I promise.”
“You two are so sweet,” Ezor interrupts. She leans on the lever, sending Hunk ratcheting down another notch. “It makes me wanna barf. Where is Lotor?”
Hunk’s starting to feel the stretch in his shoulders, now. He’s up on tiptoes, almost dangling, and he’s watching Lance choke and struggle not to drop the weights on his arms, and Hunk is starting to get angry.
“We told you already!” he snarls at Ezor. “We don’t know how we got out! Lotor is stuck in the quintessence field. He’s probably dead! That’s all, that’s it, now cut him down!”
“That’s not good enough!” Ezor screeches, darting forward to grab him by the throat. Up close, Hunk can see the fear lurking in her eyes. She’s terrified, he realizes. Terrified that if they got out, Lotor will too. That he’ll come for her and Zethrid. “You have to know! Is there a hole? A portal? A door? How did you get out?”
Behind her, there’s a new clank, followed by a broken sound from Lance. Ezor whirls around. The spear lurches closer as Lance tries to yank his arms back up, but the setup is rigged so that once he lets his arms drop even a little, he can’t bring them back up again. Lance’s sob, dry and choked, and the clank of machinery are the only sounds in the cell for an interminable span of ticks until the spear slowly, finally, halts its forward journey. The tip brushes up against Hunk’s chest; he takes an experimental breath and feels cold metal poke through the fabric of his shirt.
“Ezor,” Lance whispers. “Ezor, we don’t know how we got out, please, let Hunk go,”
“You know! You do! You got out somehow, tell me how!” Ezor interrupts. Her cheerful, cutesy facade has crumbled, leaving something desperate and feral in its aftermath. She slams the lever by Hunk, and the floor drops out from under him. He plummets to the end of his restraints, snapping taut with a jerk that yanks his shoulder out of its socket. It hurts, and he screams, throwing his head back against the pole, but against the pain, against the fire in his ligaments and tendons, he wrenches his eyes open, needing to see, to know-
Lance dangles, suspended by the cruel noose digging into his neck. His feet twitch spasmodically, in terrible, disjointed counterpoint to his desperate, ineffective wheezing for air which will not come. The spear inches closer as his arms, starved of the oxygen necessary for their operation, drag downwards. Its trajectory is unchanged despite Hunk’s new position, and instead of his heart the tip digs into the space where his shoulder is dislocated, slow and cold but then hot, too hot. Hunk’s nerves scream - no, that’s his voice, he’s screaming again - and Lance is watching it all, helpless, unable to keep his arms aloft anymore even as he hangs. Somewhere, Ezor is yelling, still trying to wring information from them. Hunk wishes he could reassure his friend, tell Lance that none of this is his fault, but the pain and the screaming - oh, that’s why his throat is rough, he’s still screaming - kind of make speaking an impossibility.
There’s a sudden lurch, and the tip of the spear pierces the other side of his shoulder to lodge in the wood behind his back. He can feel the wide edges grating against the bone of his shoulder socket and the ball of the joint, sending screeling tines of fire up his arm and into his neck and down his spine. He blinks the tears away, looking for Lance - he’s gone still, dangling passively by his neck, a limp and boneless ornament upon Zethrid’s macabre device.
Stillness and quiet have never become Lance.
Beyond the torture, beyond the pain, it’s this, somehow, that drives Hunk over the edge. He grabs the pole behind his wrists, taking the pressure off the ropes binding him, and tears the thick strands apart. He yanks the spear out of his shoulder with his good arm as he drops to the floor, zeroing in on Ezor. She stumbles back, her jaw dropping even as she reaches for the daggers in her boots. Hunk doesn’t give her a chance to find her footing. He charges, bellowing wordlessly in rage and in pain, and bats aside her first attack. She flips around, dodging and ducking, but Hunk is relentless and fueled by an anger which is all the more potent for how rarely it takes him over. The heavy haft of the spear cracks across her forearm, numbing the limb and sending one of her daggers skating across the floor. Ezor kicks out at him, driving him back a step and gaining the space to run up the wall and flip over his head to land behind him. Hunk is already whirled around to face him by the time she lands, waiting with the spear braced firmly. Ezor twists midair and manages a graceless landing, clutching the deep gash in her side that almost disemboweled her. Hunk growls, readjusting his grip on the spear. So close. He’s never been taken over by anger, by bloodlust, like this, but it’s empowering. He could do anything, he thinks. Anything that he wants is within his grasp, and all he wants is Ezor’s death.
Ezor sees it. Without another word she flees, trailing blood and fear. The door slams behind her, just in time to block the spear Hunk hurls after her. It clatters to the floor, leaving silence in its wake.
Hunk shudders as he stumbles, caught in the receding tide of adrenaline. He follows it, uses it to get across the room to Lance. With half the device no longer functional, it’s the work of moments to get Lance down, but that’s just the beginning. The noose has dug into his neck, still strangling him even after the pressure of Lance’s weight is removed. Hunk grabs Ezor’s abandoned dagger and cuts it loose, wincing in sympathy as he peels the coarse fibers out of the bleeding grooves they’ve cut into Lance’s flesh.
“Lance,” he croaks. “Lance, my man, wake up. C’mon, open your eyes for me.” He leans over Lance’s head in his lap, listening for any hint of breathing. For a long moment, stretched thin by despair and hope in equal measure, Lance is utterly unmoving.
“Lance,” Hunk’s voice cracks. “Lance, please, man, you gotta wake up!”
He rubs Lance’s sternum vigorously with the knuckles of his good hand, wishing he could manage CPR. But his shoulder is still out of its socket, hanging limp and leaking blood sluggishly from the hole the spear left in him, and he has never felt more useless.
Lance breathes.
And chokes, coughing and gagging against his damaged throat. Hunk sobs and eases him onto his side, shifting to rub Lance’s back.
“Oh, man, Lance,” he cries. “Oh, man, you had me really scared there for a minute. Never do that again, okay? No more dying on me!”
Lance shudders. “Hnnk…” His hand creeps upward, fingers scrabbling toward Hunk’s shoulder. “Yr… rrm…”
“I’m okay,” Hunk says. He’s really not, but that’s not what Lance needs to hear. “We’ve got the pod in Black. We’re both gonna be okay, man.”
“’m srry,” Lance whispers.
“Stop it,” Hunk squashes that right away. “Stop it, Lance, it wasn’t your fault. It was Ezor and Zethrid.” He tangles Lance’s seeking hand in his own, bringing them down to rest on Lance’s chest. “Just breathe, man. We’re gonna be fine.”
“Kay,” Lance rasps.
After a few minutes, he shifts, gathering his legs under him, and Hunk eases him up. Lance squinches his eyes shut against what’s probably a fierce headache, but stands up, leaning on the wall. Hunk pushes himself to his feet and cracks a smile for Lance.
“Ready to get out of here?” he asks.
Lance nods, then winces.
There’s a clatter in the corridor, and the rest of the paladins spill into the room in a rush of sound and frenzy. The rest of their escape is a blur, but Hunk remembers the bright, soundless flares of the explosions across Zethrid and Ezor’s ship as they flee, and he remembers the hot satisfaction that comes with the sight. It warms him through his cold stint in the cryopod, and through the wait as Lance takes his turn. And later, when he sleeps and the dreams come to torment him with what if, it's enough to bolster his waking, until he can open a channel to Lance's lion and drive out the memories and the dreams with the steady, even rhythm of Lance, alive.
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