you say your heart ain’t ever been broken

[redshitlord]

Who: Sideswipe & OPEN
When: In the days after this. 12th-15th of June.
Where: Cargo Bay then Aft Observation
What: Sideswipe is basically sulking after getting into an argument with Riptide. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Warnings: None ATM


This ship... was awful.

Don't get him wrong, it'd been great for a while. He'd honestly been enjoying himself. And then? Suddenly, it was like every bad thing that could happen, happened. All at once. And, unlike being on Earth, there wasn't much of anything he could do about it. He'd run when he'd found out about Riptide and Tarn, panicked over Luke... All he could do was yell at Megatron and the captains.

Low blows, for someone who thought he was capable of handling Decepticons on a regular basis -- someone who had been handling them on a regular basis.

"Not like they let me do it here," he mutters to himself.

His face is buried in his knees. His back pressed to a wall. He's sulking and he knows it. But the cargo bay is empty, it's mostly quiet, and ... for once, the young bot just wants to be alone. Because that way, no one will have any ammunition about how "immature" he's being. What else is he supposed to feel? He'd had no idea he'd been doing anything wrong enough to warrant Riptide of all bots yelling at him. And over some idiot he'd barely met, too...

Maybe that's why it stings so much. Maybe he's jealous, on top of all the other feelings.

I'm disappointed--

He kicks his foot, and it CLANGS hard into a nearby crate.

~

Later, he finds his way back to the observation deck. He's not curled up in a tight little ball anymore, but he's still as sullen as before. Arms folded, shoulders hunched and staring out at space like it's going to help something.

Occasionally letting his head thunk against a metal support.

He wants to help. Just... wants to make things right, but apparently he has to read minds on top of everything. If they'd just said something...

Almost angrily, he jams his headphones on, with the volume cranked up. Ignoring the outside world and how the music can be heard from as far as ten feet away.



((ooc: Action spam or prose is fine! Feel free to interrupt his sulk in either location!))

Comments

the last possible hour of the last possible day for this in the cargo bay

[knaval]

It's been a couple days. Riptide has a lot on his mind, but Sideswipe is definitely at the forefront; he knows he did something wrong. He knows he did a lot wrong, but is too exhausted to properly figure out how to deal with it in the mature way he had originally tried. Good job, idiot, he'd told himself. How many times had he opened up the MID chat function to try and contact Sideswipe again? He lost count.

Eventually, he gives up. The ship is small, sure, and it probably wouldn't be hard for Riptide to find Sideswipe if he tried, but the red noodle manages to evade him regardless. Part of Riptide wonders if Sideswipe is actively using his scanner to stay as far away as possible. Not that he could blame him.

While he hasn't come to the cargo bay to sulk - rather, just to get a cube, the sound of the clang makes him jump. Being jumpy is a new thing, apparently.

"Hey!" he calls out, trying not to sound frightened. "Did something just fall over?"

yeaaaaaaa

[redshitlord]

His shoulders jerk when he hears that voice. That is... exactly who he wanted to avoid. Because what is he even supposed to say at this point? He's let it go on so long, maybe there's no salvaging it. Maybe Riptide hates him for real and there's no going back to how things were.

Maybe he's here to yell at him again and --

And his brain is off and running in one direction while, as usual, his mouth goes in another.

"No!"

Oh, wait.

Scrap. He probably shouldn't have said anything at all.

[knaval]

"...Sideswipe?" comes the reply, a lot gentler.

You blew it, red bot. You blew it hard. Riptide gently sets the cube he had down, cautiously creeping towards the source of the yell.

[redshitlord]

"No! Just your imagination!"

He knows it's not going to work even as he says it, attempting to hunch up into a less visible, albeit bright red ball.

He did blow it, in more ways than one, but he's not sure if he can fix either of them.

[knaval]

"Sideswipe..."

Riptide gingerly gets closer to Sideswipe's hiding spot.

"Come out."

[redshitlord]

"So you can yell at me about stuff I didn't know again?"

He means for it to sound harsh. He really tries to make it angry. Instead it's just... strained. Too much hurt in it.

[knaval]

"I..."

The tone gets him. If Sideswipe is looking, he'll see Riptide wince and pretty much recoil.

"No. I'm not going to do that. I was worried about you."

[redshitlord]

He doesn't look up until that last bit. I'm not going to do that sounds too much like a lecture incoming. But the worried part...

It's not the first time he's made Riptide worry about him, is it?

"Worried? I didn't do anything."

[knaval]

"I couldn't find you. I was worried maybe you'd run into--"

Tarn, yeah. Worried that had happened, because Riptide knows what Tarn is like.

"And it would've been my fault for yelling at you like a jerkboat."

Observationnnnn

[squadgoals]

"Hey!"

Nothing. Boy, that music was really going. Shep takes a few more steps forward, trying to catch Sideswipe's eye with a wave. She'd seen him happy, happier, happiest, and other enthusiastic emotions, but downright morose was not one she'd pictured. Did Cybertronians have teen angst?

Wave accomplishing little to nothing, she takes a few more steps forward, standing almost directly in front of the him, waving both hands this time.

"Sideswipe! Hey!"

Her voice is loud, carrying in the kind of way a teacher's does when they're talking to you.

[redshitlord]

He jumps a bit, when she calls out the second time, flailing his arms around until he can take off his headphones. He almost drops them in his haste -- once he sees who it is calling him.

"What! What's wrong?"

Because of course, the reason she'd be yelling for him means something's gone horribly wrong again.

[squadgoals]

"Nothing's wrong, and you're not in trouble," she answers over the music, reaching out and patting his troubled arm down.

"Just saw you sitting here, and thought I'd say hi. Think you could hit pause on that for a second to chat?"

[redshitlord]

"Oh, wow, that's a bonus."

Because he could use someone he likes not being angry with him right now. He absently pats at his player, until the song cuts out mid-note.

"Sorry. Got kinda caught up in it."

[squadgoals]

"I noticed. What's up? You're looking even longer in the face than usual."

As she speaks, she leans against the same metal support he was previously banging his head on, and gives him a playful (and ineffectual) punch. Another thought occurs, and her expression crinkles into bemusement.

"And why would you think you'd be in trouble?"

[redshitlord]

"It's... kind of a long story."

He gives her a token "ow" for the punch. Absently rubbing the spot even if it didn't actually hurt or anything. If she really wants to know, he'll blab, but... there's enough robot drama lately, isn't there?

"Oh, not me, just like. What happened now kind of thing. Y'know?"

[squadgoals]

"I know." Boy, she knows. The Moira's atmosphere, for lack of a better word, was tense. She cracks her neck, rolling her shoulders as she talks.

"You want to talk about it? Or forget about it?"

[redshitlord]

He doesn't want to talk about it, honestly. What's there to talk about? He's still upset, and thinking circles around everything and --

"He hates me, and didn't even give me a chance," he blurts out. "Lecturing me like everyone else does-! And... I thought -- I never thought he'd treat me like that!"

SULKING TEENS, observation deck

[heelys]

Staying out of the way has been something that Bumblebee has been trying his best to do. He's not been in the best spirits these past few stellar cycles with everything that's happened and has had a lot to think about. And being a bot where thinking isn't exactly part of his vocabulary, he's struggling with trying to make sense of everything. The worlds everyone was from seemed to be so different that he's feeling even more alone than before. Even with a few of the bots trying to make him feel welcome, he can't ignore the other Bumblebee--the one people want--walking in the hallways. He can't ignore Ratchet being totally different, and the Starscream he's spoken to actually making sense. He can't ignore how dangerous some of the bots are, how a lot of them have fought in the Great War for millions of years and how that must've screwed with their processors. He can't ignore how lucky he is to have avoided it.

Bumblebee decides that he needs to stop comparing everything to home. He needs to roll with the punches and make the best of the situation, even if that meant changing the way he thinks about things. Autobots could have flight frames. Decepticons can be good. Megatron can be good. That one is going to take some getting used to.

He's heading up to the observation deck to watch the star systems as they pass them, something that he's been doing a lot lately to try and clear his processor., when he hears the music. Curiosity gets the better of him and Bumblebee ends up following it to the source, blinking at Sideswipe and his headphones. Instinct says that he should probably just leave Sideswipe to it--their last conversation hadn't gone very well--but the music is too distracting.

Bumblebee stands there for a moment, trying to listen to the music as it blares over Sideswipe's headphones.

"What is that?"

[redshitlord]

He just so happens to be glancing in the direction of the yellow guy when he approaches. Otherwise, he might not have heard. That was the point of blasting the music, after all. Just shut the world out.

... which is what he'd love to do to this Bee right now. Shut him out and ignore him.

What he does do, is hunch his shoulders in a shrug, fingers drumming against the player until they pause the song.

"Music," he says, flatly. It'd be grounds for more stupid bickering if there were any real heat to it. "Never heard it before?"

[heelys]

Well, he's not shouting at him, so that's a good start. Bumblebee seems disappointed when the music gets shut off, peering at the player in Sideswipe's servos with child-like curiosity.

"No, I know what music is, I just never heard any like that before," he says before adding: "A lot of what me and Sari listened to back home was really different. I think she called it metal? And electric?"

[redshitlord]

He doesn't have it in him to yell right now. Part of him wonders if he'd just shouted everything out while arguing with Riptide, and he still hadn't completely recovered. So he shrugs, looking down at his player.

"Oh. Yeah, I know that stuff. It's not really my jam though, sorry."

He sort of skims through the music, before switching up to something different. His other hand pulls off the headphones, allowing the music to actually be heard without being muffled.

[heelys]

"I mean, it was okay. Just loud! Not like that..." he says, trailing off as Sideswipe changes the music. He has to pause to listen, his head bopping a little.

After a moment Bumblebee looks like he wants to sit next to Sideswipe, but isn't sure if it's okay or not. "I like this. It's good. What else do you have?"

[redshitlord]

"No, dude, 'not my jam' means I don't have any of it, 'cause it's not my thing."

He waves his free hand idly, like that's supposed to explain everything. Part of him is amazed they're actually having a normal talk instead of pushing each other over and dangling one another out into space or something.

"A lot?" he says, with another shrug. "I kinda downloaded a bunch as soon as we got computers working in the scrapyard."

So here comes another.

[heelys]

"Man, I shoulda done that! We just listened to the stuff that was on the music channels on the TV," he says, scratching his neck. "Or the radio in my cab. But I think we're out of range here."

Bumblebee decides that standing in front of Sideswipe is too awkward and ends up sitting down next to him, trying to get a better look at the player.

"But I like this. It's different, but it's good."

[redshitlord]

"Just jump on a planet's network the next time we're there, dude," he says, like it should be obvious at this point. "Or ask around -- somebody's gotta have a decent playlist."

He wants to scoot away. This is a really weird conversation to be having with someone Riptide yelled at him about. But... at least it's a decent conversation. He can't get yelled at for this, can he?

"Most of my stuff's like this," he says. "Like. Dance tunes. Stuff you can sing to."

The music changes again.

"Or stuff that makes fun of Drift's stupid butt."