liesdontfindyou | Open Post

It's one of those increasingly common nights where Connie can't quite get herself comfortably off to sleep. She's taken to walking the halls to pass the time and wear herself out, though where she ends up is a dice roll at best. She's gone to parts of the ship she didn't even know existed before, just by wandering.

Tonight, though, she finds herself heading down to the hangar.

The brightly coloured fighter had become sort of part of the scenery down there; a curiosity, but one that many people had stopped thinking about unless they were staring it in the face.

It's... literal face, apparently.

She has to do a double take when she reaches the hangar entrance. The Sabre being out of place isn't a total surprise, but the fact it appeared to no longer exactly be a Sabre at all and was... drinking fuel? Certainly was.

"What the fuck?"

It's a minor miracle Starscream doesn't jump enough to whack his head or wings on the ceiling. He wheels around, null rays instinctively powering up, looking for the threat- Only for optics to land on one of the smallest humans he'd ever seen.

"...Slag."

His weapons power down, their whine ebbing to nothing. Ugh. If he left one of them a smear on the floor, more would investigate, and then he'd be without shelter or fuel. But he can't let it leave! If it outed him to the rest of the ship... Ugh! He's going to have to think fast. The exalted Decepticon Air Commander, reduced to this!

He hikes his wings up higher, a threat display in Seeker-speak, trying to look more aggressive than ridiculous despite the fact he's hunched over with his knees up to his cockpit.

"I could ask you the same!" He snaps. "How dare you interrupt my refueling!"

Connie isn't entirely sure that she isn't dreaming. She even pinches herself, just in case, but that hurts, so she figures that this is actually real.

Which doesn't make it make any more sense.

Blinking, she says, dumbly, "...so that's where all the fuel's been going," as if there isn't anything weirder about this situation than that, as if there aren't a thousand more questions and only a single answer.

There's a sharp roll of the optics that nearly moves Starscream's entire head with it. "Yes, fine, I am partaking in this sorry excuse for fuel. Not like your kind is giving me much of a choice! Do you have a problem with that, human?"

A pause, and then he snaps, "And stop staring! You would think your kind has never met Cybertronians before!"

"Met... what before?" Connie says, not entirely sure why she's still stood there and not running to tell someone that something is very strange. "I... don't think we have? We only recently met... fleshy... aliens...?"

Every new word of the sentence feels more absurd. Right, that's why she's not running to tell anyone. This is ridiculous. No one would believe her.

"Cybertronians! Ugh." Another roll of the optics. "Are you ignorant? How can you not know? We Decepticons were on your world in- Sometime in the past!" He's not sure he can remember the way humans figure out their 'years', but he's not going to admit that.

He leans forward a little, towards her, and narrows his optics. "And you are not going to tell anyone I am here."

"Like anyone would believe me if I tried."

She tries to wrack her brain for anything resembling the clearly living being in front of her, but the only things she comes back with are old cartoons that have a vague resemblance, but are more than likely nothing to do with what she's seeing. She's read a lot of old human history, and a lot of old documents she should never have had access to.

Whatever he's talking about, it pre-dates it all.

"Not as far as I know, you weren't. Whatever you are we... you are not common knowledge." Which isn't entirely surprising, even if he is telling the truth somehow.

His first instinct is to hike up his wings again in anger, to snap in response to this blatant ignorance. How dare they forget all the Decepticons had done to their kind? Surely something about their stay on Earth had persisted in their laughably short memories, even if only the Autobots' presence!

But as he opens his mouth to shoot back a snarky, cutting remark, her words click in his processor. The Transformers, forgotten... And this little human can't say a thing. The scowl that had settled on his faceplates slowly morphs into a smirk. "I suppose you will just have to leave me here then, hmm? If no one will believe you..."

"I guess so. I mean, you're huge, it's not like I could personally do anything about... whatever you're doing. Other than stealing our fuel, that is."

She's not sure if her relative nonchalance is her lack of sleep or chronic lack of fucks to give, lately. There's a thousand questions swirling in her head and trying to pluck a single one from the whirlwhind is easier said than done when every time she looks at this... 'Cybertronian', another one is added.

"What I am doing is none of your concern!" He flicks his wings almost dismissively, back to scowling again. Starscream's not having a good day, but at least he's too currently self-absorbed to notice Connie still being so baffled down there. "Besides, this fuel is subpar! Who ordered this slag? I'm worth more than this scrap!"

"I don't know who orders that stuff; the Director, I guess? Or... whoever oversees the pilots?" Her nose scrunches slightly in thought, but she shakes her head. "And anyway, it wasn't exactly ordered with someone drinking it in mind. It's just for the ships and in my experience, ships aren't usually picky."

"If I was calling the shots here-" He bites off the rest of the sentence, shaking his head with a snarl. He draws himself up to his full height - well, as much as he can without banging his head or wings on the ceiling - and sneers down at her. "I can be as 'picky' as I want. After all- You are addressing Starscream, Air Commander, Second in Command, and eventual leader of the Decepticons!"

"I'm sure that would be very impressive if I actually knew what that meant," Connie says, not even intending to be snarky.

Watch him puff up with fury like an angry bird. "Well- It's very impressive, organic! Our kind is split into two factions, and one day I will be in charge of one of them!" Ah, so he is kinda answering questions, even if Connie hasn't actually properly voiced any yet.

"And when that happens, we'll be able to drive out those blasted Autobots and take back our home!"

Ah, infighting. Connie's seen enough of that for a lifetime.

"Well, as long as that stays far away from us... good luck, I suppose? Though I guess you being 'in charge' is pretty far away itself if you're stuck in our hangar."

"How can I tell you if we are or not with this mess?" He snaps, gesturing widely at the hangar. "Last time I was online and on Earth, you had barely invented your personal 'mobile phones'! Now you're running around in fragging starships!"

He bristles at her. "It will happen. Just you wait, human. I'll oust that bucket-of-bolts Megatron, and when I do, I'll win this Primus-damned war far quicker than our 'glorious leader' has ever done anything!"

Every new word she hears him say gets filed away into the 'figure out what that means later' pile in her mind. It's quickly growing.

"I mean, the ship has logs of our coordinates, the nearest population centers and more in our databanks, with how long you've been here I'm surprised you haven't figured that out already," Connie says, cocking her head. "I know I'm a... particularly nosy, person, but I think anyone stuck in a strange starship's hangar would try to figure out where they were."

"Don't you think I've tried!? Your - ugh - artificial intelligence has proven quite a thorn in my side! I will make progress, but its presence makes it infuriatingly slow." He sounds so insulted that a mere AI is beating him.

Of course, the fact is he's trying to brute force it more than anything, and yet still trying not to get caught. The 'Con has no subtlety sometimes.

Edited 2020-08-19 21:36 (UTC)

Connie blinks.

"Our..." Artificial Intelligence? "Do you mean F.I.L.S.S.? She's not usually any good at blocking intrusions, I can get past her in my sleep."

"Yes, whatever that pile of scrap is called!" He grits his dentae. Oh, how he hates to be shown up by a mere bag of flesh and bones! "It is in my way, and the usual methods I use on your pitiful Earth computers aren't working! Unless..."

He smirks briefly, and drops his voice to a purr, "You perhaps could assist this poor, lost Seeker?"

Connie narrows her eyes at him. "Oh, I could, very easily. But you'd have to give me a reason I should."

"Ah, well, that's simple, isn't it?" The Seeker smirks. "You have a lot of questions. I have a lot of answers. A small little trade, and you get those answers. Call it an exchange of information." He doesn't mind refreshing human memory of the glory of his kind, after all.

"How am I supposed to know that you're actually giving me accurate information and not spinning me a line?"

Really, she shouldn't be entertaining giving another alien species access to any of their navigational data at all, but... whatever this guy is, he's certainly not Covenant, or anything close, or he'd just have blown the ship to high hell already. Probably.

"You wound me, human." Starscream, you're laying it on a bit thick. "After all, how am I to know you'll be feeding me accurate information either?"

He leans back a bit. "Perhaps there is some information I can confirm... Holos of my home, perhaps?" It might be a bit of a gamble, but it's not like these humans will be able to find it. Besides, Shockwave would just blast any intruders - Autobot or otherwise - out of the skies. He didn't have to tell her that.

"That'd be better than nothing."

She's still not sure why she's entertaining this, the entire situation is ridiculous, but it's the ridiculousness that's keeping her there, she supposes.

"And literally anything I give you about humanity could be verified by other sources."

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