We Have Come to Terms

[Wreckage]

OOC: Month 3, Week 4, Day 3. Follows on the incident mentioned in the opening of Talespin. Private thread.

---

Wreckage has had time to weigh the consequences of punching an officer. He has had time sitting in the brig and he has had time on his outer hull patrol detail. A great deal of time.

He decides, in the cold and silence of the side of Ship faced away from the sun, that he would punch Slugslinger again, given the opportunity. And not only for this petty assignment, surely something Slugslinger issued as retribution. Wreckage cannot be certain of what it is that he has with Skystrike, but it is his and he will not tolerate anyone, even an officer, infringing upon that. That he feels so strongly about it – about Skystrike – unsettles him at the same time. The long, dull patrol has done very little to soothe his temper, and that too unsettles him.

He waits some minutes after his detail is officially finished before he enters an airlock, giving himself time to find some sort of calm, to find his centre. He will have further such peace while decontaminating – he refuses to chance whatever happened to Rampage – but he still has to walk there, and he feels he might well punch anyone who gets in his way.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Skystrike arrives a few minutes before the end of Wreckage’s punishment detail, coming to a silent stop a several meters away from the airlock. She casts a quick glance around to ensure that they would alone before folding her hands behind her back and patiently waiting, taking the moment to reflect on recent events.

There were decidedly few things more surprising than hearing the stryker had punched an officer. Admittedly, she’d been less surprised upon finding out said officer was Slugslinger, but it was still Wreckage and it was still an officer. The berkut herself wasn’t privy to the delectable details of the incident, but it had sent her commander to the infirmary and she may or may not have been getting some uglier than usual looks from him after the fact. It was more than enough.

The remaining question then was what to do with Wreckage.

[Wreckage]

Wreckage had no expectations of anyone waiting at an airlock, much less the very airlock by which he chose to re-enter the ship. He certainly did not expect Skystrike of all Decepticons, and is fully ready to barge past whoever stands there when he sees feet as the door lifts. He comes up short instead, still scowling, when he realises which Seeker bars his path.

"…Move," he grinds out. Bits of his EVA kit clatter against his armour as he shifts his weight. She confuses him; he does not need to see her when he can hardly settle his mind. She only muddles his thoughts further.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Wreckage’s bemused greeting earns him a slight tilt of her head and quietly contemplative look before Skystrike steps aside. “Wreckage,” she greets with a formal incline of her helm, giving him his space.

She can take a few guesses at how the punishment had been so she doesn’t ask him that. She doesn’t ask him about the incident itself either; the seeker can already work out what had happened from what information she’d gathered. That and- perhaps more importantly- she did not particularly want to aggravate him further seeing how agitated the front-liner already was.

What that left was little else to talk about, which was really just about the normal state of affairs for them anyways.

“Would you like to go for a drink?” Skystrike offers softly instead, testing the ice.

[Wreckage]

"Decon," is Wreckage's only answer to Skystrike's offer. He does not want to – will not – go drinking with her. Not when he is already so on edge. Just brushing past her makes him very aware of the cant of her wings, the low timbre of her voice. Inexorably, his gaze wanders to the part of her that got him into this mess in the first place. Not that he can really tell one set of canards from another, save by colour.

He gives his own thoughts a look of distaste as he deliberately turns away from her, mouth plates rearranging into a silent snarl.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

A dark little smile flits across her face the moment Wreckage’s back is turned. It disappears just as quickly, but her amusement remains even as she settles on a more neutral expression once more. She saw that glance Wreckage, oh yes she did.

“And afterwards?” she asks, turning to follow him. There might very well be the barest hint of a purr in there.

[Wreckage]

"Watch," growls Wreckage, outright lying in the hope that it will discourage further pursuit. She is following him. Her quiet persistence makes it very difficult to stop thinking about her damned canards. This leads to considering the rest of her flight surfaces, like ailerons and tailplanes. He recalls, unbidden, how sensitive his canards had been during the short time he wore them, which Skystrike somehow managed to capitalise on by trying to feel them up. Wreckage then wonders without meaning to if they're as sensitive for her.

He clenches his fists and locks his arms to his sides. He will not allow himself to find out. He will not give in to every base urge that comes up in his processes, most especially not any ideas Skystrike elicits.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

“I can simply take the watch with you. And bring drinks.” Seemingly heedless of Wreckage’s increasingly flustered mannerism, Skystrike continues to calmly walk beside him. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is a rather playful tilt to her canards now. The poor stryker was just having all the luck with officers isn’t he?

[Wreckage]

Skystrike is not cooperating. Has she called his bluff? Or is she flirting? Frustrated, Wreckage growls without fully registering the sound emanating from his power plant and turns on the Seeker. Were she anyone else, he might well throw a punch like the one that almost made Slugslinger's face match itself. He says nothing, but the question is sculpted in every line of his posture, singing in the angry thrum of his chest.

What do you want?

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

It is very probable she’d just done both. Wreckage was a terrible liar and he was terribly attractive while being flustered.

She stops when he turns to face her, the final click of her jet heels lost under the growl of his engine. Really, the stryker should know by now what she wanted. Or perhaps he already understood, but didn’t know what to do?

Skystrike considers the her possible responses for a moment, a look of wry amusement on her dark face. For people who got along so well together for the most part, they certainly didn’t seem to understand each other half the time.

This answer, hopefully at least, should be easy to convey. The seeker reaches up to try and gently grasp Wreckage’s chin and pull him in for a kiss. You.

[Wreckage]

That does it. One little touch, unprompted, unwanted, is all it takes. Wreckage's growl bursts into a full roar as he slaps away Skystrike's hand and pivots, shifting his weight for leverage to slam her into the nearest wall, all in one fluid motion. His optic filaments are bright, almost white-hot, his face twisted into something that could be a snarl or a leer, and his armour shifts almost of its own accord, panels lifting and settling again. Heated air gusts from the vents on his shoulders as cooling systems engage to chip away at his slowly-rising core temperature.

She does this to him. She gets into his head, disrupts all his carefully built self-control with her persistence and her quiet presence and the way she seems to understand him when no-one should. She frustrates him where she should not. He struck an officer because of her – because for some reason he refuses to find the words to explain, even to himself, he hates Slugslinger for looking, for saying something about Skystrike when Wreckage cannot.

"Enough," is all he can say before he tries to kiss her, hard and inelegant, uncaring if or where his tusks might scrape her.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Skystrike isn’t really surprised about being slammed onto things and making out in public places at this point. She will wonder if this was a preference of his later however, distracted as she was at the time being. Wings still ringing from the impact, she grabs handfuls of the white armor, one of her hands eventually raking sparks up the stryker’s back and ending up gripping at the side of his helmet.

“Wreckage,” she snarls inbetween the harsh scrape of his mouth, voice laced with both exasperation and affection.

[Wreckage]

There is a part – a frighteningly small part, drowned out by the want howling through his circuits – of Wreckage's mind that is horrified by the way his control has flown apart like frayed and rusted cable. That part of him reels in shock even as his power plant rumbles, cranking up a gear, at the way Skystrike's fingers catch on his armour. He tries to drag her close with one arm crushing tight around her waist, not caring if his grip is too hard.

"Mine," he says, voice low and rough, leaning his head into her hand so he can hide his face against the side of her neck, work it over hungrily with mouth and tusks. He wants her more than he wants to think about how his control has vanished.

---

OOC: Fade?

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

There is a shrill screech of cockpit glass being ground against metal on the verge of cracking. Skystrike couldn’t care less at this point. All her cares were being muffled by the roar of Werckage’s engine and the high pitched howl of her own spinning to life. All her cares had condensed down to the heat of his armor and the sharp scrape of his tusks.

She surrenders her throat with a low rumble, a dark, hard smile lighting her face at the word Wreckage utters. Hooking a leg over his hip and pressing a warm trail of kisses over the top of his helm, Skystrike accepts it silently. She suspects she already know perfectly well just who Wreckage belonged to.

---

OOC: Fade is okay!