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keaaluTitle: How Long
Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU
Rating: PG-13 I guess? (They're consenting adults and they're only talking about it. Warp is just... petulant. And as usual it's Starscream's fault.)
Notes: There are some people you should just be able to trust, right? So what do you do when you realise you shoulda perhaps been a little more... circumspect? (Whatever that means…)
Skywarp finds out that the relationship between his femme and his bro may not have been quite as exclusively platonic as he’d thought.
(Follows on from “Different Kinds of Heat”)
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It had started out as a normal evening, so far as Thundercracker could remember.
Vocalisers lubricated with excess energon, his wingbros had got into an animated discussion about something inconsequential – the sort of discussion that usually ended with loud voices, profanity, and projectiles – so he’d left them to it, letting his awareness slip mostly into idle. Not paying attention meant his input couldn’t be weaponised by either of them, and the joy of so-called “independent adjudication” fell to an unfortunate Pulsar, when the femme walked through the door and immediately was pounced upon.
Thundercracker kept a tiny percentage of his attention on the conversation, in case a life-threatening emergency should come calling, but otherwise cued up the latest music Jazz had forwarded to him and relaxed into his favourite chair. Say what you like about biologicals: they definitely had a way with sound, and this pleasantly chilled mix was just what he needed after a long day.
It was when an absolute deathly silence unexpectedly fell that Thundercracker sensed things were not quite progressing as normal, and hastily brought his attention back online.
And-
Skywarp was staring at him.
And it wasn’t his usual silent plea for help understanding a tricky concept that Starscream had intentionally obfuscated to score points.
It looked rather more like the bottom had just fallen out of his world.
Thundercracker hastily sat up straight. “What-…” He glanced at Starscream, who looked suspiciously innocent and clueless, then Pulsar, who just sort of… stammered for a second without making a lot of sense. “Guys?”
Before Thundercracker could catch his wits, Skywarp stood up, and walked out without another word.
Even the sound of his departing engines as he flew away had a lower note than normal. Flat. Dispirited. Hurt.
Slag.
What in Pit had just happened.
Thundercracker hastily replayed the last half a breem of his auditory memory, and… ah.
Yes, that would probably explain it.
In a lull in the arguing, Starscream’s voice had cut through like a laser scalpel. “Oh come on. It’s not like your two’s affair is particularly secret, any more.”
A painful instant of silence took hold.
Skywarp audibly rebooted his vocaliser. “What-… what did you just say? Aff-…” Another little khuff. “…affair?”
Pulsar scrambled to fill the gap. “Wait, wait. It-it wasn’t like that-”
“But… y-you… and… TC? That-that’s what he means, isn’t it. You and TC.”
“Let me explain-”
Another little repetition, fainter than the last. “You and TC.”
Thundercracker wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard Skywarp sound so completely flattened, before. Small wonder he’d just… got up and flown away.
Comfortable chairs did not make for graceful or particularly speedy departures. Thundercracker flailed with difficulty out of the enveloping cushions. -warp, wait up-
He got a reply, of a sort, but it felt rather reminiscent of an out-of-office, like… please-leave-a-message-and-I’ll-get-back-to-you-maybe-sometime-next-vorn.
“Thanks, Starscream. That was really helpful.”
Starscream threw up his hands in despair. “He’s been back for nearly four vorns! How was I to know you still hadn’t fragging told him?!”
“You didn’t have to use it as ammunition, either-!”
Starscream’s subsequent Sorry? didn’t sound particularly genuine, but he did sound somewhat chastised, for a change.
Thundercracker stooped next to Pulsar and opened his arms for her. “Come on. Let’s go find him.”
Pulsar backed off a step. “He’s not going to want to see me.”
The blue jet snorted. “You don’t seriously think he’s going to want to see me, either?” He vented a sigh, and beckoned with a curt little flick of the fingers on both hands. “That doesn’t matter. We’ve gotta fix this, quick as possible. Primus knows what he’s thinking right now. If we find him we might straighten this out before he broods his way into imagining a world-ending conspiracy.”
Reluctantly, Pulsar climbed up into his arms, stepping up off his knee and latching her fingers into the usual convenient vents on his torso. Barely waiting to check she was secure, Thundercracker stepped out through the door and launched upwards into a cloudless sunset.
In the few seconds it had taken them to get up, take flight, and clear the roofline, Skywarp had almost disappeared into the darkening sky – two distant pinpoints of light, fast dwindling towards the horizon. Thundercracker chased the evening breeze higher over the district, soaring into pursuit, hoping for a better view.
“Where is he going?” The air from Pulsar’s vents was increasingly warm, but evidently her concern for their friend overrode her fear of heights, because she was watching the tiny black dot just as closely as Thundercracker.
“Primus knows. He’s not answering me.”
She made a little glum noise. “Me either.”
It wasn’t that hostile, aggressive sort of silence that Starscream did so well, where he somehow managed to make it crystal clear he was using not talking to you as a weapon.
This was just… nothing. Empty. Like Skywarp just didn’t have the spare mental energy to work out how to talk and fly and process the news all at the same time. He was just… flying.
They chased him for a little while, only barely keeping him in view, never quite narrowing his lead but never losing him, either, until the sky had deepened to cobalt and the first bright pinpricks of stars began to emerge.
“He’s not turned off his beacon. Maybe we should wait until he stops running,” Pulsar suggested.
Perhaps that was a good sign; buried deep, a subconscious need to talk in spite of the actions which all said otherwise.
Thundercracker pulled up his heels and drew into a hover. “Yeah. Good idea.” He drifted down towards the closest building, and carefully alighted, before letting his shaky passenger step gratefully down to the dusty rooftop. “That’s assuming he does stop. He’s put away enough fuel tonight to fly for orns.”
Pulsar stared in the direction they’d last seen Skywarp’s departing thrusters, and recognised they’d disappeared completely from view. “Why did we never tell him?”
Thundercracker let his hand rest on her shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess… there was never a good time, really. And how do you broach a subject like that?” He drew in a long, deep sigh of cold night-time air, but didn’t feel much better for it. “You’ve been gone for hundreds of solar orbits, so it’s great to finally have you back. By the way, while you were gone, Pulse and I interfaced a few times. You don’t mind, do you.”
She covered his fingers with her own.
“I guess I also wasn’t expecting it to be Starscream that finally told him, either.” He tightened his jaw and swallowed the snarl. “Shouldn’t blame Star. It’s not his fault Primus blessed him with a vocaliser ten times bigger than it needed to be, and zero ability to keep it on a leash.” A snort. “Still gonna smack him next time he comes into range.”
Pulsar squeezed his fingers. Skywarp’s signal had made it almost all the way into the next district over. “What should we do now.”
“I don’t know.” Thundercracker shook his head, grimly. “I’m hoping if we can talk to him, something will come to me.”
They stood quietly together on the roof for a very long time, watching and waiting. Was it too much to hope he’d make his own way back in his own time? When two of the very few people the teleport usually trusted enough to have gone to for advice were now the two people responsible for his current state of distress.
Skywarp flew until the last traces of orange had finally bled from the sky, and the stars overhead were forced into competition with neon adverts. His signal occasionally wobbled, occasionally hesitated, occasionally paused, but every time they thought he’d finally stopped, it’d make a little hop and start moving again.
He’d done a complete wobbly orbit of the planet when his signal finally came to a halt, and stayed put.
“Come on.” Thundercracker scooped Pulsar bodily off the roof and vaulted skyward, ignoring her startled protests. “This might be our one and only chance.”
Skywarp could have made himself impossible to find; turned off his beacon and vanished, hiding away somewhere distant in a ruined state on the far side of the planet. Instead, they finally tracked him down to a derelict rooftop in Rustig, not actually all that far from home – sitting with his back to Deixar, his hands tucked down in his lap, wings mantling subtly forwards.
Bits of dirt and detritus clung around his chassis so at least one of those pauses had been a crash. Thundercracker couldn’t help wondering how unintentional it might have been.
The teleport didn’t acknowledge either of them, as the blue jet glided in to land, not even to tell them to go away, but he didn’t get straight back up and leave again, either.
As optimistic signs went, this one barely twitched the needle on the meter, but Thundercracker was happy to take whatever tiny signals fate provided. He hoped it all added up to a subtle plea for an explanation. He let Pulsar climb down, and settled on his wingmate’s left even as she tucked into her usual corner by his wing on the right.
“Hey, Warp. Is everything, uh…” He swallowed the sentence and revised it. “We’re, uh. Just going to sit here with you for a while. All right?”
“Do what you like,” Skywarp replied, at last. His words were brittle. Unusually quiet. “You usually do.”
That stung. Thundercracker opened his mouth but bit back the protest before it could escape, and took an instant to revise his thoughts. “What can we do to make this right with you?”
“Go away?”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good long-term solution.”
“You’re right. You all have lives and responsibilities and slag. Guess it’s me that should go away, huh.”
“How about I just stand still, so you can punch me.”
Skywarp actually snorted at that. “What good would that even do? Except add yet another way you’re better than me.”
This… didn’t feel like it was going the direction Thundercracker wanted it to, but he pressed on anyway. “…how’d you figure that one?”
“That’s a new one on you, huh? Brainless Skywarp, who can’t solve a problem if it doesn’t involve his fists? Sure.” Skywarp hunched his shoulders, defensively. “Whatever. It’s done now, isn’t it. So. Who even cares, right?” He propped his elbow against his knee, and let his helm sag into his palm. He still hadn’t actually looked at either of them. “Who cares.”
“We care-”
“Yeah, you made that super clear already, thanks.”
Thundercracker just about managed to sit on the urge to sigh. “We just want to try and straighten this out, Warp. If you decide never to forgive us, then-…” He hastily revised the unpalatable sentence. “Will you at least listen if we try and explain?”
“What is there to talk about? You two are fragging, end of. Don’t make excuses for it.” Skywarp gestured aimlessly with one hand. “Whatever. I’ll… come home later, I guess. Talk later. I just-… I don't know.” His words went watery for an instant. “What does that even mean, any more, huh. ‘Home’.”
“Warp-…”
“Haven’t you guys got better things to be doing? Like, I don’t know, each other?” Skywarp glanced sidelong, for all of an astrosecond. “I’d rather be alone.”
This time Thundercracker did sigh. “Yeah. I know. We’ll go shortly.”
The silence stretched out between them. Thundercracker began to think they were going to have to make good on the promise and actually leave, after all, when Skywarp finally broke it.
“Just-… How long?”
“How long… uh, what?” Thundercracker prompted, gently.
At last, Skywarp turned his head to meet his wingmate’s gaze. He was trying very hard to scowl, but a weird sort of tension had crept in at the corner of his optics. “How long have you two been fooling around behind my back, laughing at me?” But he couldn’t maintain the halfhearted glare. Shaking his head, he let his gaze drop back to the ruined ground below. “Am I the only one who was too stupid to realise?”
The betrayal in his voice hurt to listen to. Thundercracker leaned in towards him, making sure their wings touched.
Skywarp flinched and drew back, the frown knitting itself a little deeper into his brows. “And how long was it before you got to swapping cables? Didja get straight to it, when I got stuck in limbo? Couldn’t wait to see the back of me, right? Or was it before then, even?” Before Thundercracker could protest, he swooped in with the coup de grace; “And how long were you both gonna wait before you actually admitted it? Would you have even said anything at all if Screamer hadn’t blurted it out, full volume? Bet that put a slagging nix on things, huh.”
“You don’t think we’re still-”
“-I don’t even know, any more! I mean, frag! You two could be doing anything and it’s not like I’d even notice-” Skywarp strangled the words off with a noise that could have meant anything; a snarl of anger, a choke of pain. He flexed his hand into fists, squeezing his emotions under tightened fingers. “You both coulda gone and screwed around with anybody at all,” he despaired. “And it wouldn’t even have mattered. But you had to make it each other.” He wiped his face with one hand. “And I-… I just… How can I possibly compare to you?”
The words leapt into Thundercracker’s mouth before he completely realised he was speaking. “What do you mean-?”
“What do I-…” Skywarp snorted a painful laugh. “You’re Thundercracker. Everyone loves you, mech. You’re well-adjusted, emotionally-mature, and you don’t think your fists are the answer to all of life’s problems. You coulda had literally anyone, on the entire planet.” He let his hands flop into his lap, wings drooping. “I’m just… garbage. Why would anyone choose to be with me, huh. S’all just… duty and circumstance. Stuck together because of accidental scraplets, not ’cause of choice.”
“You know that’s not-”
“Used to think I knew. Turns out I don’t know slag, do I, really.” The teleport shook his head, staring resolutely at the ground. “Well don’t bother. Whatever. I know when I’m not wanted. I won’t get in your way. Guess I can find some decent rock to go hide under. Figures that she’d see sense and pick someone better for her in the end. Someone who won’t get her in trouble and make her angry and just… basically be a slaghead on purpose.”
“Hey.” Pulsar claimed his hand. “I don’t want anyone else, Warp. I know you’re an infuriating, incorrigible fraghead at times.” She tried for a small smile. “You were one when we first met, and you still somehow worked your way under my armour. I’ve never quite figured out if it’s in spite of it or because of it that I love you.”
He offered the briefest of glances, trying (but without much effort) to slip his fingers free of her grasp. “Right.”
“Right.” She tightened her grip, anyway, anchoring his hand with both of her own.
Thundercracker stared out over the broken rooftops, listening to them talk. It figured that sitting in the dark would bring back memories that he’d successfully kept quiet, until now. Of when Skywarp had vanished and they were all struggling to work out what to do; of talking quietly with Pulsar, helping lighten each other’s burdens; and of one thing leading to another in his office in the dead of night, when it felt like they were the last two sparks left alive.
And even now, with all those vorns in between… he still hadn’t actually ever thought about what he’d say about it.
“We didn’t plan it,” the blue jet managed, at last. “And we definitely weren’t waiting for you to disappear.”
Skywarp gave him a challenging stare. “You telling me you wouldn’t have fragged if I hadn’t got stuck in limbo?”
Thundercracker winced and studied his fingers. “No. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t vanished,” he confirmed, quietly. “But not because we were waiting for you to get out of the way. I guess… it happened because you vanished-”
“-so it’s still something that’s my fault. Gotcha.”
“No. No, Primus! That’s not what-…” The blue mech took a second to try and straighten his thoughts. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling everything just… sag. “I don’t even know where to start. I’m not trying to make excuses, or, or… I don’t know. It was… not a good time for any of us, back then.”
He could feel his wingmate’s gaze upon him – intensely suspicious but not interrupting just yet. Somehow it made him feel worse.
“Losing you was never gonna be easy, but going through it three times, it was just-… the third time almost broke us for good. I was on the point of a needle and whichever way I turned, one more step and I was going to drop into the abyss. Star was the worst I’d seen him in a very long time. We spent our whole lives arguing, over the stupidest most inconsequential… garbage. And if he was losing, he’d nullray me, and vanish off the registry for… orns. I never really could work out if he was still functioning until he came back.”
He could feel the question hanging in the air over them – what’s any of this got to do with you two betraying me like that – but ignored it for now, pushing on.
“Worst was thinking we’d killed you. We were barely holding it together. I was keeping my grip so tight on my emotions, trying to maintain control and not to let on how broken Screamer and I both were, that I was crushing myself. And while everyone else around us was carefully avoiding the subject, trying not to make things worse, pretending none of it existed, I had no outlet for any of it.” He glanced across to meet the blue optics watching him. “Pulse figured it out and came along at the right time to stop me breaking into pieces.”
“I just stopped him going off to Vos, really,” she protested, quietly.
“No, no. There was more to it than that. We survived all the slag Siphon put us through in Egypt, and you still somehow forgave me, so I figured… I could talk, and you wouldn’t judge. Even when I felt… stupid, and incoherent, and couldn’t put the hurt into words, it was a comfort just to be able to vent it all.”
Skywarp gave him a sullen glance. “You can comfort someone without fragging them.” But his field had softened, ever so slightly. And he wasn’t spending most of the time resolutely glaring at the dirt, any more.
“Yeah. I know.” Thundercracker found his hand, and just held it. On the other side, he could see Pulsar had interlaced her small fingers with Skywarp’s, and he’d stopped trying to pull free. “I guess, at the time, it was the right thing to do. We were both lost and alone and needed closeness from someone who understood, and it just… happened.”
Skywarp snorted, quietly. “Just like that, huh.”
“More or less,” Pulsar agreed. She studied their interlaced fingers, to avoid meeting Skywarp’s gaze and losing her confidence. “I was scared he was about to run away to Vos and I was never going to see him again. So… sure, maybe it was selfish, but I’d already lost you, and I couldn’t bear the idea of another bit of my family breaking off.” She managed a sheepish smile. “I wanted him to know he was loved. I hadn’t been expecting it to run away with us quite like it did.”
Skywarp squeezed her fingers, then gave her a nudge with his elbow and almost bumped her clean off the roof. She gave a squeak of alarm and scooted hastily backwards into his wings.
“There was a lot of emotion trying to get out and it definitely boiled over – and in a good way, I’d like to think? Compared to what could have happened.” Thundercracker nodded along with his own words. “It gave me some thinking space. Knowing people needed me, having someone else to dedicate a bit of energy to, it… gave me a different focus that wasn’t just inward, not just my own pain and all the things I couldn’t fix.” A faint lopsided smile pulled on one side of his face. “Gave me an anchor when the rest of the world was threatening to sweep me away. I never figured I’d ever want one of them, but when you’re in the grip of a hurricane, sometimes you need something to hang onto.”
Skywarp’s optics had tightened into suspicious little slots. “So you’re telling me you don’t love each other.”
Both hesitated for what felt like a very long time.
Finally Pulsar broke the silence. “…I can’t say that.”
Skywarp bristled, none too subtly, wings tightening.
“But it’s a different sort of love, now. I guess maybe… it’s a bit like trine, if… if a grounder really understood it, which I figure I probably don’t, but… maybe close? We’ve kept each other stable, at least.”
“Maybe even kept Screamer stable, once he remembered we could disagree and he could vent all his stress without needing to nullray me as well.” Thundercracker lifted a finger. “And no, before you ask. We didn’t invite him to join in.”
Whatever he’d been about to say, Skywarp promptly choked on it.
“And don’t let what Starscream said mislead you,” Pulsar said, quietly, while the teleport struggled to reboot his vocaliser. “What he called an affair was… just a fling, really. It wasn’t really a secret.” She freed a hand, and placed it on top of Thundercracker’s, turning the two hands into a little pile of three. “We needed it. Needed an outlet. Needed each other. And it was the right thing to do, at the time, absolutely. But it was a pressure release valve. It lasted… maybe thirty orns, altogether? Before we decided it didn’t quite feel right, any more.”
“It just felt…” Thundercracker wafted his hands, struggling to find the right words. “I guess we made better friends than lovers.”
Skywarp straightened, just a tiny fraction, and gave both a long, suspicious look in turn. “That was it? You’re making a whole big deal out of thirty orns? You coulda told me that at the start.”
Thundercracker elbowed him, affectionate but exasperated. “Primus, mech. We just spilled our sparks and that’s what you focus on?”
Skywarp made a long pssssh noise, like a deflating balloon. “I thought you were still at it, guys, gimme a break.” At last, his expression had eased – still vaguely accusatory and hurt, but no longer so completely hostile. “And that is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Thundercracker found a laugh – or at least hoped that was what it sounded like, and not just a small audible explosion of relief.
Skywarp sighed. “I guess mostly it hurts that you guys didn’t tell me, and I had to find out accidentally from Winglord Tactful.” Pulsar took the opportunity to slide into his lap, and let him casually drape his arms down around her shoulders.
Thundercracker let their fields begin to sync; Skywarp still felt prickly and uncomfortable, but less prickly as his guard came down. “We weren’t keeping it from you on purpose, Warp. I never really found a time when it would have been relevant to mention, and I didn’t think it was appropriate to launch into it out of nowhere. Then it... slipped off everyone’s radar, I guess. Well, everyone except Starscream’s.”
Skywarp considered it, for a moment. “Yeah. I figure you just… announcing it… probably woulda been weird,” he accepted, quietly. “Not that Screamer blurting it out to score points wasn’t weird.”
Thundercracker coughed politely. “Yeah, well. Guess we shall be having words about that, later.”
Skywarp let himself sag backwards. For several seconds, he was silent, although both his friends could sense the cogs going round. At last, he spoke:
“Well, it’s only sex, you guys.” He folded his arms more comfortably around his femme and relaxed closer to his wingmate. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it.”
I guess you’re forgiven. Thundercracker smiled, and leaned his helm against his wingmate’s. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”
They sat quietly together on their roof for a while, until a somewhat apologetic voice brushed lightly at their attention.
-room for one more?-
All three glanced up to find the missing third of the trine approaching, lit only by his running lights and the glow of his optics – and the faint, eerie rainbow-pink of the flask of high-grade he carried in one hand. The scarlet jet gave it a little wiggle, sending electric fireflies spiralling through it. -peace offering?-
Skywarp immediately stretched out an arm for it.
I guess that means he’s forgiven as well? Or getting there, at least, Thundercracker mused, watching as Starscream delicately alighted, and settled on Skywarp’s free side. “Haven’t you two had quite enough energon already tonight?”
Skywarp snorted, and took a very long deep swig from the insulated bottle. “Speak for yourself, mech; I flew right around the world. My tanks are empty.”
Starscream fidgeted in place. “You know, we haven’t checked if this roof is load-bearing, and the four of us have quite a lot of mass between us.”
“You say that every single time and we’ve never gone through a roof yet.” Skywarp elbowed him, and shoved the flask back into his hands. “This is good. Have some, quit worrying.”
Night stretched out in a comfortable, companionable silence. It slipped unobtrusively past midnight, with no-one really caring or wanting to move. Starscream had long since gone dormant, canting subtly to the left against his wingmate. Pulsar was peacefully offline, as well, sprawled sideways across Skywarp’s lap, her legs stretching out so she could cheekily rest her feet in Thundercracker’s.
Even Thundercracker was bordering strongly on dormancy when he heard Skywarp speak. The mech’s voice was low and Thundercracker was fairly certain he hadn’t intended for anyone to hear.
“You guys are such total fragheads, I can’t even believe it.” A small pause and a subtle snort of amusement. “But I’m glad you’re my fragheads. I love you guys.”
It suddenly didn’t feel quite so dark as Thundercracker remembered.
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(I’m sure at some point Warp will want to know who was better, but he’s too busy being relieved to think about that right now.)
Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU
Rating: PG-13 I guess? (They're consenting adults and they're only talking about it. Warp is just... petulant. And as usual it's Starscream's fault.)
Notes: There are some people you should just be able to trust, right? So what do you do when you realise you shoulda perhaps been a little more... circumspect? (Whatever that means…)
Skywarp finds out that the relationship between his femme and his bro may not have been quite as exclusively platonic as he’d thought.
(Follows on from “Different Kinds of Heat”)
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It had started out as a normal evening, so far as Thundercracker could remember.
Vocalisers lubricated with excess energon, his wingbros had got into an animated discussion about something inconsequential – the sort of discussion that usually ended with loud voices, profanity, and projectiles – so he’d left them to it, letting his awareness slip mostly into idle. Not paying attention meant his input couldn’t be weaponised by either of them, and the joy of so-called “independent adjudication” fell to an unfortunate Pulsar, when the femme walked through the door and immediately was pounced upon.
Thundercracker kept a tiny percentage of his attention on the conversation, in case a life-threatening emergency should come calling, but otherwise cued up the latest music Jazz had forwarded to him and relaxed into his favourite chair. Say what you like about biologicals: they definitely had a way with sound, and this pleasantly chilled mix was just what he needed after a long day.
It was when an absolute deathly silence unexpectedly fell that Thundercracker sensed things were not quite progressing as normal, and hastily brought his attention back online.
And-
Skywarp was staring at him.
And it wasn’t his usual silent plea for help understanding a tricky concept that Starscream had intentionally obfuscated to score points.
It looked rather more like the bottom had just fallen out of his world.
Thundercracker hastily sat up straight. “What-…” He glanced at Starscream, who looked suspiciously innocent and clueless, then Pulsar, who just sort of… stammered for a second without making a lot of sense. “Guys?”
Before Thundercracker could catch his wits, Skywarp stood up, and walked out without another word.
Even the sound of his departing engines as he flew away had a lower note than normal. Flat. Dispirited. Hurt.
Slag.
What in Pit had just happened.
Thundercracker hastily replayed the last half a breem of his auditory memory, and… ah.
Yes, that would probably explain it.
In a lull in the arguing, Starscream’s voice had cut through like a laser scalpel. “Oh come on. It’s not like your two’s affair is particularly secret, any more.”
A painful instant of silence took hold.
Skywarp audibly rebooted his vocaliser. “What-… what did you just say? Aff-…” Another little khuff. “…affair?”
Pulsar scrambled to fill the gap. “Wait, wait. It-it wasn’t like that-”
“But… y-you… and… TC? That-that’s what he means, isn’t it. You and TC.”
“Let me explain-”
Another little repetition, fainter than the last. “You and TC.”
Thundercracker wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard Skywarp sound so completely flattened, before. Small wonder he’d just… got up and flown away.
Comfortable chairs did not make for graceful or particularly speedy departures. Thundercracker flailed with difficulty out of the enveloping cushions. -warp, wait up-
He got a reply, of a sort, but it felt rather reminiscent of an out-of-office, like… please-leave-a-message-and-I’ll-get-back-to-you-maybe-sometime-next-vorn.
“Thanks, Starscream. That was really helpful.”
Starscream threw up his hands in despair. “He’s been back for nearly four vorns! How was I to know you still hadn’t fragging told him?!”
“You didn’t have to use it as ammunition, either-!”
Starscream’s subsequent Sorry? didn’t sound particularly genuine, but he did sound somewhat chastised, for a change.
Thundercracker stooped next to Pulsar and opened his arms for her. “Come on. Let’s go find him.”
Pulsar backed off a step. “He’s not going to want to see me.”
The blue jet snorted. “You don’t seriously think he’s going to want to see me, either?” He vented a sigh, and beckoned with a curt little flick of the fingers on both hands. “That doesn’t matter. We’ve gotta fix this, quick as possible. Primus knows what he’s thinking right now. If we find him we might straighten this out before he broods his way into imagining a world-ending conspiracy.”
Reluctantly, Pulsar climbed up into his arms, stepping up off his knee and latching her fingers into the usual convenient vents on his torso. Barely waiting to check she was secure, Thundercracker stepped out through the door and launched upwards into a cloudless sunset.
In the few seconds it had taken them to get up, take flight, and clear the roofline, Skywarp had almost disappeared into the darkening sky – two distant pinpoints of light, fast dwindling towards the horizon. Thundercracker chased the evening breeze higher over the district, soaring into pursuit, hoping for a better view.
“Where is he going?” The air from Pulsar’s vents was increasingly warm, but evidently her concern for their friend overrode her fear of heights, because she was watching the tiny black dot just as closely as Thundercracker.
“Primus knows. He’s not answering me.”
She made a little glum noise. “Me either.”
It wasn’t that hostile, aggressive sort of silence that Starscream did so well, where he somehow managed to make it crystal clear he was using not talking to you as a weapon.
This was just… nothing. Empty. Like Skywarp just didn’t have the spare mental energy to work out how to talk and fly and process the news all at the same time. He was just… flying.
They chased him for a little while, only barely keeping him in view, never quite narrowing his lead but never losing him, either, until the sky had deepened to cobalt and the first bright pinpricks of stars began to emerge.
“He’s not turned off his beacon. Maybe we should wait until he stops running,” Pulsar suggested.
Perhaps that was a good sign; buried deep, a subconscious need to talk in spite of the actions which all said otherwise.
Thundercracker pulled up his heels and drew into a hover. “Yeah. Good idea.” He drifted down towards the closest building, and carefully alighted, before letting his shaky passenger step gratefully down to the dusty rooftop. “That’s assuming he does stop. He’s put away enough fuel tonight to fly for orns.”
Pulsar stared in the direction they’d last seen Skywarp’s departing thrusters, and recognised they’d disappeared completely from view. “Why did we never tell him?”
Thundercracker let his hand rest on her shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess… there was never a good time, really. And how do you broach a subject like that?” He drew in a long, deep sigh of cold night-time air, but didn’t feel much better for it. “You’ve been gone for hundreds of solar orbits, so it’s great to finally have you back. By the way, while you were gone, Pulse and I interfaced a few times. You don’t mind, do you.”
She covered his fingers with her own.
“I guess I also wasn’t expecting it to be Starscream that finally told him, either.” He tightened his jaw and swallowed the snarl. “Shouldn’t blame Star. It’s not his fault Primus blessed him with a vocaliser ten times bigger than it needed to be, and zero ability to keep it on a leash.” A snort. “Still gonna smack him next time he comes into range.”
Pulsar squeezed his fingers. Skywarp’s signal had made it almost all the way into the next district over. “What should we do now.”
“I don’t know.” Thundercracker shook his head, grimly. “I’m hoping if we can talk to him, something will come to me.”
They stood quietly together on the roof for a very long time, watching and waiting. Was it too much to hope he’d make his own way back in his own time? When two of the very few people the teleport usually trusted enough to have gone to for advice were now the two people responsible for his current state of distress.
Skywarp flew until the last traces of orange had finally bled from the sky, and the stars overhead were forced into competition with neon adverts. His signal occasionally wobbled, occasionally hesitated, occasionally paused, but every time they thought he’d finally stopped, it’d make a little hop and start moving again.
He’d done a complete wobbly orbit of the planet when his signal finally came to a halt, and stayed put.
“Come on.” Thundercracker scooped Pulsar bodily off the roof and vaulted skyward, ignoring her startled protests. “This might be our one and only chance.”
Skywarp could have made himself impossible to find; turned off his beacon and vanished, hiding away somewhere distant in a ruined state on the far side of the planet. Instead, they finally tracked him down to a derelict rooftop in Rustig, not actually all that far from home – sitting with his back to Deixar, his hands tucked down in his lap, wings mantling subtly forwards.
Bits of dirt and detritus clung around his chassis so at least one of those pauses had been a crash. Thundercracker couldn’t help wondering how unintentional it might have been.
The teleport didn’t acknowledge either of them, as the blue jet glided in to land, not even to tell them to go away, but he didn’t get straight back up and leave again, either.
As optimistic signs went, this one barely twitched the needle on the meter, but Thundercracker was happy to take whatever tiny signals fate provided. He hoped it all added up to a subtle plea for an explanation. He let Pulsar climb down, and settled on his wingmate’s left even as she tucked into her usual corner by his wing on the right.
“Hey, Warp. Is everything, uh…” He swallowed the sentence and revised it. “We’re, uh. Just going to sit here with you for a while. All right?”
“Do what you like,” Skywarp replied, at last. His words were brittle. Unusually quiet. “You usually do.”
That stung. Thundercracker opened his mouth but bit back the protest before it could escape, and took an instant to revise his thoughts. “What can we do to make this right with you?”
“Go away?”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good long-term solution.”
“You’re right. You all have lives and responsibilities and slag. Guess it’s me that should go away, huh.”
“How about I just stand still, so you can punch me.”
Skywarp actually snorted at that. “What good would that even do? Except add yet another way you’re better than me.”
This… didn’t feel like it was going the direction Thundercracker wanted it to, but he pressed on anyway. “…how’d you figure that one?”
“That’s a new one on you, huh? Brainless Skywarp, who can’t solve a problem if it doesn’t involve his fists? Sure.” Skywarp hunched his shoulders, defensively. “Whatever. It’s done now, isn’t it. So. Who even cares, right?” He propped his elbow against his knee, and let his helm sag into his palm. He still hadn’t actually looked at either of them. “Who cares.”
“We care-”
“Yeah, you made that super clear already, thanks.”
Thundercracker just about managed to sit on the urge to sigh. “We just want to try and straighten this out, Warp. If you decide never to forgive us, then-…” He hastily revised the unpalatable sentence. “Will you at least listen if we try and explain?”
“What is there to talk about? You two are fragging, end of. Don’t make excuses for it.” Skywarp gestured aimlessly with one hand. “Whatever. I’ll… come home later, I guess. Talk later. I just-… I don't know.” His words went watery for an instant. “What does that even mean, any more, huh. ‘Home’.”
“Warp-…”
“Haven’t you guys got better things to be doing? Like, I don’t know, each other?” Skywarp glanced sidelong, for all of an astrosecond. “I’d rather be alone.”
This time Thundercracker did sigh. “Yeah. I know. We’ll go shortly.”
The silence stretched out between them. Thundercracker began to think they were going to have to make good on the promise and actually leave, after all, when Skywarp finally broke it.
“Just-… How long?”
“How long… uh, what?” Thundercracker prompted, gently.
At last, Skywarp turned his head to meet his wingmate’s gaze. He was trying very hard to scowl, but a weird sort of tension had crept in at the corner of his optics. “How long have you two been fooling around behind my back, laughing at me?” But he couldn’t maintain the halfhearted glare. Shaking his head, he let his gaze drop back to the ruined ground below. “Am I the only one who was too stupid to realise?”
The betrayal in his voice hurt to listen to. Thundercracker leaned in towards him, making sure their wings touched.
Skywarp flinched and drew back, the frown knitting itself a little deeper into his brows. “And how long was it before you got to swapping cables? Didja get straight to it, when I got stuck in limbo? Couldn’t wait to see the back of me, right? Or was it before then, even?” Before Thundercracker could protest, he swooped in with the coup de grace; “And how long were you both gonna wait before you actually admitted it? Would you have even said anything at all if Screamer hadn’t blurted it out, full volume? Bet that put a slagging nix on things, huh.”
“You don’t think we’re still-”
“-I don’t even know, any more! I mean, frag! You two could be doing anything and it’s not like I’d even notice-” Skywarp strangled the words off with a noise that could have meant anything; a snarl of anger, a choke of pain. He flexed his hand into fists, squeezing his emotions under tightened fingers. “You both coulda gone and screwed around with anybody at all,” he despaired. “And it wouldn’t even have mattered. But you had to make it each other.” He wiped his face with one hand. “And I-… I just… How can I possibly compare to you?”
The words leapt into Thundercracker’s mouth before he completely realised he was speaking. “What do you mean-?”
“What do I-…” Skywarp snorted a painful laugh. “You’re Thundercracker. Everyone loves you, mech. You’re well-adjusted, emotionally-mature, and you don’t think your fists are the answer to all of life’s problems. You coulda had literally anyone, on the entire planet.” He let his hands flop into his lap, wings drooping. “I’m just… garbage. Why would anyone choose to be with me, huh. S’all just… duty and circumstance. Stuck together because of accidental scraplets, not ’cause of choice.”
“You know that’s not-”
“Used to think I knew. Turns out I don’t know slag, do I, really.” The teleport shook his head, staring resolutely at the ground. “Well don’t bother. Whatever. I know when I’m not wanted. I won’t get in your way. Guess I can find some decent rock to go hide under. Figures that she’d see sense and pick someone better for her in the end. Someone who won’t get her in trouble and make her angry and just… basically be a slaghead on purpose.”
“Hey.” Pulsar claimed his hand. “I don’t want anyone else, Warp. I know you’re an infuriating, incorrigible fraghead at times.” She tried for a small smile. “You were one when we first met, and you still somehow worked your way under my armour. I’ve never quite figured out if it’s in spite of it or because of it that I love you.”
He offered the briefest of glances, trying (but without much effort) to slip his fingers free of her grasp. “Right.”
“Right.” She tightened her grip, anyway, anchoring his hand with both of her own.
Thundercracker stared out over the broken rooftops, listening to them talk. It figured that sitting in the dark would bring back memories that he’d successfully kept quiet, until now. Of when Skywarp had vanished and they were all struggling to work out what to do; of talking quietly with Pulsar, helping lighten each other’s burdens; and of one thing leading to another in his office in the dead of night, when it felt like they were the last two sparks left alive.
And even now, with all those vorns in between… he still hadn’t actually ever thought about what he’d say about it.
“We didn’t plan it,” the blue jet managed, at last. “And we definitely weren’t waiting for you to disappear.”
Skywarp gave him a challenging stare. “You telling me you wouldn’t have fragged if I hadn’t got stuck in limbo?”
Thundercracker winced and studied his fingers. “No. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t vanished,” he confirmed, quietly. “But not because we were waiting for you to get out of the way. I guess… it happened because you vanished-”
“-so it’s still something that’s my fault. Gotcha.”
“No. No, Primus! That’s not what-…” The blue mech took a second to try and straighten his thoughts. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling everything just… sag. “I don’t even know where to start. I’m not trying to make excuses, or, or… I don’t know. It was… not a good time for any of us, back then.”
He could feel his wingmate’s gaze upon him – intensely suspicious but not interrupting just yet. Somehow it made him feel worse.
“Losing you was never gonna be easy, but going through it three times, it was just-… the third time almost broke us for good. I was on the point of a needle and whichever way I turned, one more step and I was going to drop into the abyss. Star was the worst I’d seen him in a very long time. We spent our whole lives arguing, over the stupidest most inconsequential… garbage. And if he was losing, he’d nullray me, and vanish off the registry for… orns. I never really could work out if he was still functioning until he came back.”
He could feel the question hanging in the air over them – what’s any of this got to do with you two betraying me like that – but ignored it for now, pushing on.
“Worst was thinking we’d killed you. We were barely holding it together. I was keeping my grip so tight on my emotions, trying to maintain control and not to let on how broken Screamer and I both were, that I was crushing myself. And while everyone else around us was carefully avoiding the subject, trying not to make things worse, pretending none of it existed, I had no outlet for any of it.” He glanced across to meet the blue optics watching him. “Pulse figured it out and came along at the right time to stop me breaking into pieces.”
“I just stopped him going off to Vos, really,” she protested, quietly.
“No, no. There was more to it than that. We survived all the slag Siphon put us through in Egypt, and you still somehow forgave me, so I figured… I could talk, and you wouldn’t judge. Even when I felt… stupid, and incoherent, and couldn’t put the hurt into words, it was a comfort just to be able to vent it all.”
Skywarp gave him a sullen glance. “You can comfort someone without fragging them.” But his field had softened, ever so slightly. And he wasn’t spending most of the time resolutely glaring at the dirt, any more.
“Yeah. I know.” Thundercracker found his hand, and just held it. On the other side, he could see Pulsar had interlaced her small fingers with Skywarp’s, and he’d stopped trying to pull free. “I guess, at the time, it was the right thing to do. We were both lost and alone and needed closeness from someone who understood, and it just… happened.”
Skywarp snorted, quietly. “Just like that, huh.”
“More or less,” Pulsar agreed. She studied their interlaced fingers, to avoid meeting Skywarp’s gaze and losing her confidence. “I was scared he was about to run away to Vos and I was never going to see him again. So… sure, maybe it was selfish, but I’d already lost you, and I couldn’t bear the idea of another bit of my family breaking off.” She managed a sheepish smile. “I wanted him to know he was loved. I hadn’t been expecting it to run away with us quite like it did.”
Skywarp squeezed her fingers, then gave her a nudge with his elbow and almost bumped her clean off the roof. She gave a squeak of alarm and scooted hastily backwards into his wings.
“There was a lot of emotion trying to get out and it definitely boiled over – and in a good way, I’d like to think? Compared to what could have happened.” Thundercracker nodded along with his own words. “It gave me some thinking space. Knowing people needed me, having someone else to dedicate a bit of energy to, it… gave me a different focus that wasn’t just inward, not just my own pain and all the things I couldn’t fix.” A faint lopsided smile pulled on one side of his face. “Gave me an anchor when the rest of the world was threatening to sweep me away. I never figured I’d ever want one of them, but when you’re in the grip of a hurricane, sometimes you need something to hang onto.”
Skywarp’s optics had tightened into suspicious little slots. “So you’re telling me you don’t love each other.”
Both hesitated for what felt like a very long time.
Finally Pulsar broke the silence. “…I can’t say that.”
Skywarp bristled, none too subtly, wings tightening.
“But it’s a different sort of love, now. I guess maybe… it’s a bit like trine, if… if a grounder really understood it, which I figure I probably don’t, but… maybe close? We’ve kept each other stable, at least.”
“Maybe even kept Screamer stable, once he remembered we could disagree and he could vent all his stress without needing to nullray me as well.” Thundercracker lifted a finger. “And no, before you ask. We didn’t invite him to join in.”
Whatever he’d been about to say, Skywarp promptly choked on it.
“And don’t let what Starscream said mislead you,” Pulsar said, quietly, while the teleport struggled to reboot his vocaliser. “What he called an affair was… just a fling, really. It wasn’t really a secret.” She freed a hand, and placed it on top of Thundercracker’s, turning the two hands into a little pile of three. “We needed it. Needed an outlet. Needed each other. And it was the right thing to do, at the time, absolutely. But it was a pressure release valve. It lasted… maybe thirty orns, altogether? Before we decided it didn’t quite feel right, any more.”
“It just felt…” Thundercracker wafted his hands, struggling to find the right words. “I guess we made better friends than lovers.”
Skywarp straightened, just a tiny fraction, and gave both a long, suspicious look in turn. “That was it? You’re making a whole big deal out of thirty orns? You coulda told me that at the start.”
Thundercracker elbowed him, affectionate but exasperated. “Primus, mech. We just spilled our sparks and that’s what you focus on?”
Skywarp made a long pssssh noise, like a deflating balloon. “I thought you were still at it, guys, gimme a break.” At last, his expression had eased – still vaguely accusatory and hurt, but no longer so completely hostile. “And that is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Thundercracker found a laugh – or at least hoped that was what it sounded like, and not just a small audible explosion of relief.
Skywarp sighed. “I guess mostly it hurts that you guys didn’t tell me, and I had to find out accidentally from Winglord Tactful.” Pulsar took the opportunity to slide into his lap, and let him casually drape his arms down around her shoulders.
Thundercracker let their fields begin to sync; Skywarp still felt prickly and uncomfortable, but less prickly as his guard came down. “We weren’t keeping it from you on purpose, Warp. I never really found a time when it would have been relevant to mention, and I didn’t think it was appropriate to launch into it out of nowhere. Then it... slipped off everyone’s radar, I guess. Well, everyone except Starscream’s.”
Skywarp considered it, for a moment. “Yeah. I figure you just… announcing it… probably woulda been weird,” he accepted, quietly. “Not that Screamer blurting it out to score points wasn’t weird.”
Thundercracker coughed politely. “Yeah, well. Guess we shall be having words about that, later.”
Skywarp let himself sag backwards. For several seconds, he was silent, although both his friends could sense the cogs going round. At last, he spoke:
“Well, it’s only sex, you guys.” He folded his arms more comfortably around his femme and relaxed closer to his wingmate. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it.”
I guess you’re forgiven. Thundercracker smiled, and leaned his helm against his wingmate’s. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”
They sat quietly together on their roof for a while, until a somewhat apologetic voice brushed lightly at their attention.
-room for one more?-
All three glanced up to find the missing third of the trine approaching, lit only by his running lights and the glow of his optics – and the faint, eerie rainbow-pink of the flask of high-grade he carried in one hand. The scarlet jet gave it a little wiggle, sending electric fireflies spiralling through it. -peace offering?-
Skywarp immediately stretched out an arm for it.
I guess that means he’s forgiven as well? Or getting there, at least, Thundercracker mused, watching as Starscream delicately alighted, and settled on Skywarp’s free side. “Haven’t you two had quite enough energon already tonight?”
Skywarp snorted, and took a very long deep swig from the insulated bottle. “Speak for yourself, mech; I flew right around the world. My tanks are empty.”
Starscream fidgeted in place. “You know, we haven’t checked if this roof is load-bearing, and the four of us have quite a lot of mass between us.”
“You say that every single time and we’ve never gone through a roof yet.” Skywarp elbowed him, and shoved the flask back into his hands. “This is good. Have some, quit worrying.”
Night stretched out in a comfortable, companionable silence. It slipped unobtrusively past midnight, with no-one really caring or wanting to move. Starscream had long since gone dormant, canting subtly to the left against his wingmate. Pulsar was peacefully offline, as well, sprawled sideways across Skywarp’s lap, her legs stretching out so she could cheekily rest her feet in Thundercracker’s.
Even Thundercracker was bordering strongly on dormancy when he heard Skywarp speak. The mech’s voice was low and Thundercracker was fairly certain he hadn’t intended for anyone to hear.
“You guys are such total fragheads, I can’t even believe it.” A small pause and a subtle snort of amusement. “But I’m glad you’re my fragheads. I love you guys.”
It suddenly didn’t feel quite so dark as Thundercracker remembered.
---------------
(I’m sure at some point Warp will want to know who was better, but he’s too busy being relieved to think about that right now.)