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WHO: Thundercracker and Arcee
WHERE: A bar far from the MAC.
WHEN: Some days after this and after the drunk talk with Blackarachnia
WARNINGS: Alcohol
SUMMARY: Conversation between Autobot and Decepticon
FORMAT: Paragraph

Being in a research position is helpful when trying to learn the landscape of an alien city. Particularly when one wants to set up a remote rendezvous with one's sworn enemy for a completely neutral meeting. Thundercracker has no idea if Arcee will actually show up, much less what their conversation will actually entail. Slag, it might even be an Autobot trap.

But he'll take the risk of trusting an Autobot - especially after that talk with Blackarachnia where she seemed completely misguided on her vengeance kick because of one mistake after untold centuries of loyalty and... friendship. She said she preferred Decepticons because they don't even foster the illusion of friendship. That was a bit unsettling.

He's sent an encrypted message to Arcee with these unfamiliar coordinates, far away from any optics interested in prying. After millions of years of savage conflict... it might be nice to actually just sit and talk with an enemy. And drink, which is fast becoming Thundercracker's preferred method of dealing with being stuck in this weird human shell...

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"You expected growling and posturing and threats of violence. Or having to stop me from going on some kind of killspree," he says, nodding.

"I'm glad I can exceed expectations as low as that."

For his part, he's not drinking appletinis. He's got a small glass of something that smells somewhat pungent, of which he takes only small sips.

"Is it just the lack of mindless thug tactics that made you curious?"

"No... like I said, I didn't know what to expect." Her lips tightened at the assumption, but she relaxed after a moment. Sounded like he was used to getting the short end of the stick here.

"No. Before the war, I worked in the science sector. The... what would become the 'cons were all soldiers, and all... brusque, at best. At least, the ones I encountered. After the aggressions started, things were even worse." She looked over as the drink was finally placed within reach, and exchanging alcohol for cash, she took it into her hand.

"Okay, I didn't really get to know many of them, but... they all had a similar air to them, if you get my meaning. You... don't." She looked at the drink, then back at him. "Guess I'm not very good at explanations."

Lifting the glass to her lips, she took a cautious sip, blinking at the very slight burn the alcohol left on her tongue. After a swallow and a bit of a curious look, she tilted her head, giving him a smile. "Not bad."

"I told you," he grins. "Just monitor it. The sensation is similar to certain 'altered energon' experiences." Mixmaster really knew how to throw a party when it came down to it.

That blue optic glow is... hard to look away from.

"Soldiers are trained to be 'brusque.' Clipped and efficient, especially back then. Programming was tailored for that. If you were smart, you'd act the part so they wouldn't start twitching things in your cranial circuitry."

He shrugs and sips his drink.

"A lot of the mechs I know... or knew, I suppose... they're just what you think they are, and they're happy about it. But not all of us."

"...hmm," she examined the glass for a moment, remembering. "Monitor... it's something I'm good at." She took another sip, returning her eyes to his. The red gleam, dim as it was at the time, was still catching her attention every time she looked up. Unlike Starscream, or the Decepticons she'd fought in her own universe, they weren't stirring fear or malice. For once, they were just... optics.

"I know. My teacher was one of them. Part of the defense force before the war." She smiled a little wistfully; if anyone ever asked, she'd deny it, but she had a bit of hero worship for Ironhide. "He could be warm, but for the most part he was, like you said, clipped and efficient."

"What about you?" She leaned over the table a bit, curiosity once again overtaking her. "You've already proven you're different from the 'norm,' so to speak. Are you happy where you are?" She looked away briefly, then returned her eyes with a tilt of her head. "I don't mean here, of course."

That gets a bit of a groan. His hand runs over his face at the question.

"Can anybody really be happy in a war that lasts so many millions of years?" he finally says with a sigh, hiding those optics a little bit more behind the brim of his hat. But he thinks he knows the sad answer to his own question - he's seen some of the cackling freaks that get off on the brutality. Some mechs can be happy with eternal war.

He shakes his head, not sure he wants to harp on this subject much, although he's sure she'll keep trying to drag something out of him. "Who was your teacher?" he asks. "Maybe I know him. Or knew him. Or knew a comparable mech."

"I wish I could say no," she responds, her own gaze falling to the drink in her hand. "But... we both know the answer." Closing her eyes, she suddenly wished she hadn't asked. The unspoken response was enough to make her annoyed with herself, and maybe a little depressed at the state of affairs that seemed to be true, no matter which Cybertron you were on.

Her expression brightens a little when asked about her teacher. "Maybe. His name's Ironhide, and he's our weapons specialist. Used to work with the security division before things went south." Was that... yes.

She was looking wistful.

"He taught me how to use my size and speed to my advantage in combat... I never fared well in prolonged conflicts, so he instructed me how to strike quickly and decisively, and leave just as fast." She gave a shrug as she took another drink. "He's half the reason I'm alive any more."

Thunder's face contorts a little as he hears the name Ironhide, but not from any instant recognition. Moreso because he's still instinctively thinking in memory recall protocols, and thus getting frustrated when he can't pull up any instant, thorough data files instead of sludging through the murky memory capacity of the human brain.

"I think I knew an Ironhide. Old and belligerent. Right hand man for Optimus Prime. There was a period of time when a small number of us were stranded on Earth, and the intelligence gathering from that time was about the most I'd ever learned about any specific Autobots." A shrug. "I guess we did our fair share of generalizing, too."

His eyes finally lift up to hers again. "You said you were a hunter, didn't you? Fastest one ever, something like that?"

Her eyebrows raised at the look on his face, but she followed up with a laugh at his description. "I guess generalizations come with being on one side or the other... wow, belligerent. I wouldn't go that far... at least, not to his face."

Leaning back, Arcee actually smirked. "You got it. Hunted turbofoxes in my off-cycles, sometimes. Outpaced every one of the scouts when we'd compete." She ran a hand over her hair, obviously pleased with herself. "Made a habit of beating Mirage and his crew, cocky glitches that they are. Needed to be taken down a few pegs."

He just nods to that, his face not quite sharing her mirth as he looks deep into her optics.

"So, you and your friends ritualistically slaughtered lesser creatures for sport and entertainment," he rephrases, quietly.

"How does that make you Autobots any better than us, when we at least have the goal of bringing order to the galaxy?"

Something in his eyes is challenging, but that's not all that's there. Some part of him desperately wants a real answer to this.

"Hey, wait a minute." She leaned forward a little suddenly. "Just how do you make that connection?!" The glow in her eyes brightened as her lids narrowed a little, feeling like she was on the spot. "For one it's sport, for two Decepticons did it too, and for three it's not like turbofoxes were anywhere close to extinction. If anything, we were population control to make sure they didn't overrun the rest of their habitat!"

"Order. That's a laugh." She finished the rest of her drink, then set the glass aside. "Destroying every organic being in the galaxy, you call that order? Or reformatting everything to a technological state, that's order?" She paused.

"...I don't know what the Decepticons from your experience wanted, but the ones I met had death on their minds. We just wanted the war to be over, Thunder." Her head throbbed a little, and she made a motion to order another drink. She didn't expect to be so full-bore about it, but a nerve had been touched.

"At first, we were just trying to keep the war on-planet; not get anyone else involved. Civil wars aren't supposed to overtake other worlds." She leaned over, resting her forehead on folded hands as she faced the tabletop. "When that proved impossible, we had to keep the AllSpark away from Megatron... and hopefully we could make reparations for any damage the war brought to other worlds." After a pause, she looked up, still supporting her head.

"Why does the galaxy need order, anyway? There's more to it all than just Cybertronians, Decepticon or Autobot.

Thunder listens, somewhat impassively in the face of her indignation. It was expected.

"Population control... interesting justification," he mutters, this time knocking back the rest of his beverage, grimacing at its taste before waving for another.

"That's the Autobot cause in your world. Controlling the Cybertronian population so it doesn't overrun its habitat."

He looks at his hands for a moment. Debating a more argumentative response, hiding his face a little while he deliberates.

He doesn't start a debate, though. Maybe later. Instead, he just asks a question. "What's an AllSpark?"

Arcee looked sullen now, at the mention of the Cybertronian 'habitat.'

"Not any more. Cybertron's dead. The war ripped it apart; too much fighting, too little preserving. We were scientists; we should've seen the signs of an ecological collapse coming, but... I guess war's goals blinds a side to their needs." That sounded like a concession, from someone who didn't give concessions.

When the topic shifted, her mood didn't. As the next drink arrived, she immediately took quite a swig, compared to her smaller sips of earlier.

"The AllSpark... no one ever figured that thing out. All we knew was that it gave life to our planet... to us. It was a source of energy and renewal for our species, and some even worshiped it." She finally lifted herself from the table, sitting straighter. "It's one of the things the war was fought over. Until Megatron came in contact with some... thing, he was content to let it be. But after he renamed the security division, he wanted it for himself. He wanted its power to be his alone. That's why..."

A sigh. "Prime launched it into space to keep it out of his hands, and most of us left Cybertron. We thought we could get to it before him, bring it back, and maybe repair the damage the war did. But it's gone now. Destroyed in the same act that killed Megatron on Earth."

She closed her eyes a moment. "I'm probably wasting your time, telling me your life story." Opening them again, the blue gleamed slightly as she made eye-contact. "So, tell me about your Cybertron. Is it just as bad-off?"

Thunder shakes his head at the thought of his time being wasted. "You're not wasting my time. I asked. I don't ever get to... just... talk to Autobots. I'm curious," he says, accentuating what seems to be both their reasons for being here, crossing faction lines to drink and marvel at each others' optics. Or perhaps that's just him.

"My Cybertron..." he sighs. "It's a hellhole just the same, but the war is all but over now, so it stands a chance of recovering from millions of years of conflict... although the closest we have to some weird and vague life-giving artifact like your AllSpark is something called the Matrix... but since there's pretty much no question that it's an Autobot heirloom off-limits to us, my guess is that Megatron plans to go the conquest and acquisition route to replenish Cybertron's resources now that the Autobots are exiled to Earth and a pair of rickety moon outposts."

Not the most enthusiastic tone in his voice for what is essentially ultimate victory for his side. In fact, his drink is swallowed back with a bit more urgency.

The tone was picked up, too, and Arcee tilted her head to the side. "So, if your Decepticons are winning, why don't you sound sold? When I said I was a hunter, that didn't only mean I killed things on the move, Thunder. I pay attention to my surroundings. I pick up things."

She leaned in just a little closer, one hand coming up to rest on the table. "I've been hearing a bit of that tone for a while now. It's not quite melancholy, not really depressed, but a little... unsure, I want to say. I'm no therapist, but... how do you feel about that? I mean, winning the war, claiming victory over Cybertron and the Autobots?" She lifted the drink to her lips, taking another generous gulp.

"You've already shown me not all Decepticons are the same." A smile came to her. "So, keep going. Just why is that?"

His gaze is unblinking and directly into her eyes as she says most of this. As if the suggestion froze him to the spot. A faint glow to those optics of his that fades after a small flare-up.

The smile, he doesn't know how to read. Part of him thinks it's something cocky, as she's waiting to jab him with an 'a-ha!' moment of victory to exploit. Part of him thinks maybe she's been so hopeless about things for so long that maybe the thought that a mech could change stripes might make her genuinely happy. Making someone happy is nothing he has experience with. It's unsettling. It doesn't seem to fit. So he suspects the former.

Finally, he leans in closer as well. Elbows on the table, hands resting near hers.

"Why would I not be 'sold' on something I've dedicated eight million years of my life to doing?"

Edited 2009-04-08 08:16 (UTC)

She felt the air change for that brief instant, and figured she'd hit a sparkplug. But that didn't deter her reasoning, as she still held her smile, still leaned rather close, still locked her blue optics with his red.

"Because it's not what you thought it would be?" She offered a possible explanation. "Because you're not who you were when you joined? I was a hunter for sport, Thunder; my trade was science. Archaeology. I wanted to know more about our origins, more about where we came from. Because of this war, I'm barely able to hold on to that. It's become a pipe dream. I'm not who I was when the war started."

Taking a deep breath, she moved her hand, resting her fingers on his gently, almost imperceptibly. She was trying desperately to reach a connection with this Deceptico-- this person. He was intriguing her by the minute.

"But if you are sold, then explain why. I..." Another deep breath, followed by a very powerful (at least, from her) concession. "...I won't judge you, either way."

She won't 'judge.' That sounds like an impossible concession to honor, as entrenched as their warring factions are.

That touch, though. Her fingers on his, even as light as they are - these sensitive shells make this particular method of sensory input so much more... affecting. His optics finally drop from hers to look at her hands with his. His thumbs reach up to brush against her little fingers, in curiosity... but also as a distraction while he ponders what she's asking of him.

She wants him to tell her things he has never told anyone. Things that would get him killed.

He starts to speak a couple of times, still looking down at their hands on the table, but the words aren't forming. Then, a thought occurs to him, and he looks up to her eyes again.

"Didn't you find your answer? About your origin - with that AllSpark thing that created everything?"

A stall while he searches himself for the courage to trust a sworn enemy after millions of years of strident warfare, sure, but a valid question.

That touch, being reciprocated... she didn't know why she'd actually done it in the first place; touch receptors weren't an effective means of communication for Cybertronians, but something she'd learned quickly as a human was the importance of tactile sensation. Prime had related an incident involving a heated pan, and it sounded like something she wouldn't want to experience.

This, though... this, she didn't mind. It wasn't bad at all, and... her initial thought was right; she felt closer at that moment.

Felt closer. Being human was strange indeed.

She rolled with his delay, shaking her head. "The one artifact that could have shed some light on our origins was taken to Megatron's private quarters within nanoclicks of being unearthed. We barely got a chance to take a cursory evaluation." She seemed disappointed this time, not angry, when she spoke of the Decepticon leader. "Finally, we'd found something intact, and he took it. And that was right before the fighting broke out, so... we lost track of it. No idea where it went, or who had it at that point."

"Ah. I suppose 'the AllSpark magically made us, and now it's gone' isn't scientific enough," he concedes, with a small grin.

The touch is fascinating, and it's doing an admirable job of melting down his defenses. His longer fingers gently brush back and forth along her wrists, noting different textures of skin in different places on her hands.

"Why I'm sold," he finally says, with a soft sigh. "Megatron. That's the short answer."

"It's enough for some of us," she responds with a smile, "but a few of us are too curious for our own good."

His touch was mildly relaxing, though that might have been the alcohol finally starting to take effect. That didn't stop her from reciprocating, her own fingers moving along his hands, feeling the terrain of bone, muscle, vein, and skin that he had there.

When his answer came, she was admittedly confused. "Megatron? Is he that persuasive a leader where you come from?" Her optics were earnest in their curiosity. "Or do you believe in the cause he's leading towards?"

'Relaxing' isn't quite the word he'd use to describe this touching, although he could certainly attribute it to the alcohol. He's had vaguely similar feelings before, but this is different. It's more intense, especially when combined with this conversation, which is more than he's said to anyone... more than anyone has asked him to say. She seems legitimately interested in him, which is so alien to him that it somehow makes this touch that much... less relaxing.

Humanity is strange.

"Before the war started, the bureaucrats in Iacon were just stunningly ineffectual and motivated entirely by self-interest. It was absolutely pathetic how little could ever be accomplished - even something as simple as infrastructure repair, fixing bridges, for slag's sake... our so-called leaders would find a way to extort favors from the poor groundslave saps who just needed to get to their workstations. It was appalling. Cybertron as a society was directionless and spinning its wheels."

A sigh, as his thumbs gently stroke over her palms. As if the touch helps him draw the courage to keep speaking.

"Megatron offered a different way. His reputation was legend, how he rose up from gladiatorial pits to take over his own territory from the worthless malfos who would force mechs into combat to the death for their amusement. When he was expanding, his philosophy was that anyone who joined him could help the cause of taking power from these greedy glitches and distributing it among us based on merit. Earning it. Bringing purpose to a stagnant world. It sounded like the right thing to do."

Her eyes dipped to the table, the faint blue light flashing as she looked at their hands, listening to his explanation... and not that far from understanding, at least at a barebones level.

"He was a revolutionary, then." She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, spanning her fingers across the breadth of his wrists. "Huh... I think I'd prefer that to a murderous warlord... at least that, I can understand the reason for fighting." Still not looking up, she shook her head. "An idle government is plenty reason to rebel, if it's not looking after it's people."

"I don't think Autobots would condone that kind of bureaucracy... at least, not the ones I'm used to..." She raised her head again. "Or is that why the war started? Were the 'bots in your world defending a failure of a government?"

Her fingers moving over his wrists causes him to suck in a quick breath, and he doesn't know why. A moment, and his breathing is steady again. Steadier, at least.

"As..." Ahem. "As far as I understood it, the Autobots were fighting less for the incompetent leaders as they were for the basic system of government, which they thought was basically sound... although if it could be so dominated by corrupt mechs, I question their certainty of that notion."

His own hands stretch to her wrists as well, longer fingers brushing over her forearms, feather-light. Taking the moment to lift his head while hers is down, so he can look at her face, even for a brief moment.

"Of course, it took them so long to mount an effective resistance to Megatron's revolution that, by that point, they might have just been fighting against Megatron than for anything, like your Autobots seem to be doing. He was a revolutionary, but he was still absolutely ruthless. Some of us who were a bit put off by that wrote it off. It's war, and there are no rules, and there's not much place for concepts like compassion without being hypocritical."

Edited 2009-04-22 17:34 (UTC)

"The fact that it got to the point of war is the worst part of it all." She lifted a hand to her forehead, rubbing gently. "I've heard rumor of a greater force at work, one that brought us to war. I hope it isn't true; finding semi-divine excuses for a conflict is just a way to try and pretend we have no responsibility in the matter."

A moment of silence, and she let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Thunder, what is it about us that invites war? Are Cybertronians destined never to get along? Will there always be something that divides us, no matter what part of the universe or, Allspark-willing, the multiverse that this place proves to exist?" Her hand returned to his, her fingers bracing against his more than before. "Or are we just the unlucky few, so to speak?"

Another sigh. "I'm a soldier, but... I don't like war. I really don't."

That tone in her voice. That quiet desperation and the weight of dreams killed and desires suppressed, when combined with the more urgent touch of her hands shakes something loose in the back of his mind. His fingers curl around hers and tighten into an actual clasp with them. Whether it's meant to comfort her or steady himself is open to interpretation.

"I've heard theories," he starts in a voice much shakier than he wants it to be, prompting him to pause and make an effort to collect himself before continuing. "About our origins that are entirely divine and some that are disturbingly mundane. Suggesting that we may not even be as sentient as we believe ourselves to be. That we started our existence as products to be sold. The Decepticons were modeled for war, the Autobots were modeled for maintenance and protocol. Basic programming differences that render us completely unable to ever be reconciled, even with our renowned abilities to adapt."

He shakes his head, wishing he knew why this touch was so important to him.

"But I've done some research now on human history, and much of it is defined by war. Given their frailty, their wars are much shorter, but they seem to be frequent, usually over land and resource disputes. So I'd bet that the real challenge would be to find any society anywhere that truly values peace over progress. And if you do - search their eyes and see if you can spot the one plotting to overthrow the leaders and take control for themselves."

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GOD WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO REPLY falls to your mercy

Mercy is granted. I am a kind and loving cracker.

Yes, yes you are. bows to you

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GOD WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO REPLY *falls to your mercy*

Mercy is granted. I am a kind and loving cracker.

Yes, yes you are. *bows to you*

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GOD WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO REPLY falls to your mercy

Yes, yes you are. bows to you