Title: Layover
Verse: G1, before the war.
Pairing: Starscream/Orion Pax
Rating: somewhere around mild R for pnp, sparkplay (no bonding)
Notes: From a prompt of the September challenge on the primescream comm over at Livejournal. I wrote half of it back then, and only recently decided to finish it. My bad! I love Orion Pax, in just about any continuity. Dweeb dock-worker Orion has to be one of my faves, though. (...apparently, there is no Character tag for him! So Optimus Prime it is.)
Prompt: "G1 pre-war – Orion has the misfortune to become involved in one of Starscream's weekly bar fights. He's forced to run away and hide with the seeker for the time being to avoid the authorities looking for them."
The evening had been eminently dull for Orion Pax, as it always turned out to be when Dion convinced him to tag along to the refueling joint near the docks, overcrowded and smoky and terrifyingly lacking in intelligent company, although the young worker avoided mentioning it in case it hurt someone's feelings.
A couple of joors spent drinking in his corner, trying to look inconspicuous and reading some datapad he'd snuck to work in his subspace, and he might be able to make some excuse to leave early; all things considered, a forgettable evening like many others.
Until the flier entered.
It was just one, despite it being common knowledge that they moved in threes, but his presence was striking enough to draw every eye for a tense moment. A seeker, Orion decided, staring despite himself. It wasn't that much of a rare sight – seekers popped up in Iacon every now and then, often enough for people to dread the chaos they brought; it was apparently common knowledge that wherever they went, fights broke out.
Orion had never had a chance to witness it for himself, but he was slightly wary - word of mouth wasn't enough to label a mech or his whole model type. He had no reason to doubt what was believed by so many, but even so... he wished he could find the chance - and the guts - to exchange just a few words with the seeker, to see where the danger and the war-mongering associated with them came from.
From where he was sitting, he couldn't hear much of what the seeker was saying, but it was obvious that as soon as he sat down he'd already angered two or more of the surrounding patrons by swatting the closest mech with a wing, once as he passed and once again as he turned to respond to the mech's complaint.
"Troublesome glitches," someone next to Orion slurred, waving disapprovingly towards the flier amidst murmurs of agreement. "Don't even look where they're walking with those exaggerate mods."
"I don't think he can help his wingspan," Orion objected, but only received a glare for his comment.
"You know nothing of seekers, kid." The nearby mech, a rugged wagon type, shook a finger at him menacingly. "They enjoy picking fights above anything else."
Orion didn't argue, but he had a somewhat doubtful expression on his face, staring after the seeker who'd apparently managed to retrieve a cube – and not by buying it. Perhaps there was some truth in the warnings, he thought, observing the stranger subtly kick out the seat from under the aft of the mech who'd yelled at him previously.
The flier walked off as if nothing had happened, flicking a perfectly white, red-striped wing. There was such confident beauty in his movements; one was so deliberate that Orion couldn't tell if he was showing off or if he just normally acted as if he were the ruler of any place he stepped in. It wasn't exactly illegal to be smug – but he could tell the workers who crowded the bar would be upset by a foreigner's arrogance rather than admiring his confidence.
Orion himself was too busy imprinting the geometrical harmony of wings in his memory banks, failing to be inconspicuous. He'd never seen a seeker up close, so he'd have to make the best of this chance, peeking from behind his datapad with unblinking, attentive optics.
"You're being creepy," Dion yawned, waving his cube for a refill. "With your flier fetish."
"I don't have anything of the sort," Orion replied automatically, observing the seeker flick an empty cube at an annoying patron who'd apparently tried to hit on him.
"I just think people exaggerate when they talk about seekers being so dangerous," Orion shrugged, absently rubbing the edge of his datapad. "They are just mechs who happen to have wings and a different social structure than we do. I'm sure a flier society has necessarily different customs-"
Just as he said that, a couple more mechs rounded around the flier, who after a brief exchange stood, screeched something, proceeded to dodge a punch and hit the biggest offender with a well-placed kick to knee joint, making him crumble under his own considerable weight.
Orion gaped. "Not dangerous," Dion snorted, "just misunderstood." He seemed happy to dismiss the brewing brawl on the other side of the pub as a common occurrence, just as uncaring as he'd been while Orion had been reading excerpts of his datapads to him. He only shook himself when Orion rose surreptitiously from his seat, determinedly making his way towards the newcomer's table.
Surely the seeker must have known, Orion frantically thought. Was he suicidal, or just that blissfully reckless? He couldn't tell, but he found himself fearing for the mech's perfect paint, his unwavering smirk and effortless, confident stride. That was a recipe for disaster in such a place, where your best bet not to have trouble was to either be bulky enough that nobody would mess with you, or as unassuming as possible so nobody would notice you. He should, at the very least, try to warn the stranger before he got hurt.
"Orion, what are you- no buddy, that's a terrible idea..." Dion weakly complained, but the energon was slowing him down and he didn't feel like bodily tackling his companion to stop him. He'd get up if Orion was punched, he decided. Which would probably happen in 7.5 nanokliks, but hopefully that'd be enough time for him to haul his aft off the comfortable seat and wobble over there to help.
Orion didn't feel as confident as he wanted to appear heading towards the veritable eye of the storm – however, the potential fight was delayed for a klik when he poked his head in, directing his attention to the seeker. From up close he looked more aggressive and more dangerous, all sharp lines and dark, scowling face, but Orion started talking anyway, before he lost his momentum.
"If these mechs are importuning you," he started, trying to appear cold and polite and menacing at the same time, despite all of the workers in front of them being a couple of heads taller than him. "You should join my friend and I at our table. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea about Iaconian hospitality."
Amongst angry yells about the seeker being the one actually importuning them, the workers moved closer like a single menacing entity, and Orion tried his best to stand his ground despite his already little confidence fleeing more quickly than he wanted it to.
The seeker stared him down, appearing unimpressed – Dion always said he didn't appear manly or imposing enough, and perhaps a faceplate would make him look more intimidating – but a klik later the flier's face sported an indulgent smirk.
"If it smells better than this side of the room, I will take you up on it. I cannot stand the stench of rusting carcasses without a cube or two to dull my olfactory sensors." He wrinkled his nose component at the three big mechs nearby in obvious derision. In a matter of moments five more workers had become involved and the table had been all but flipped, while the seeker hopped on another table to avoid being cornered, feet clanging on its surface like a gunshot and making everyone who still had been minding their own business turn that way.
Orion instinctively ducked the first hit aimed his way, torn between diving under the closest table and just running towards the door. Against any common sense, his optics searched frantically for the seeker, fearing he would be trampled or mangled by the superior numbers around him.
In the ruckus that followed, he only managed to catch glimpses of the flier bouncing left and right amongst the raging patrons, firing his thrusters to give himself a boost whenever he was cornered. He seemed mostly unscathed, even amused.
When a large mech noticed Orion sneaking about trying to appease people in vain, he apparently decided that the smaller worker was the one who had caused the fight to break out in the first place and stamped him against the wall with a punch that nearly made his head spin on his neck.
He slid down against the wall and sat in a pile, his pride aching significantly more than his jaw, but didn't have time to collect his thoughts because the commotion inside the bar got even worse all of a sudden.
Amidst cries of 'police, get out', a group of armed security mechs broke into the small place, kicking down doors and causing much more panic than the brawl itself had roused. Orion crouched and pushed himself towards the back, on his hands and knees, thinking of hiding somewhere for as long as he could - he didn't want to get into trouble; it was unlikely, but there had been cases of innocent mechs having their working license revoked or, worse, spending a few orns in jail if caught at the wrong place and the wrong time.
To his utter shock, the seeker himself was crouching behind a few crates in the back, eyeing the chaos inside with piercing red optics. Orion opened his mouth to say something, on all fours as he was on the floor, but the seeker's sharp glare silenced him like a petro-rabbit in danger, and an instant later he found himself forcibly pulled behind the crates and held down by a surprisingly strong grip on his arm.
"Is there a back door?" The seeker demanded, in a low and urgent hiss. Orion found himself mute, his spark beating too fast in panic and confusion to put words together. The flier looked up at the ceiling, as if considering an exit from there, but he quickly lowered his gaze again, surely knowing he'd draw too much attention to himself if he burst through the roof.
He shook Orion harshly, his gaze fleeting quickly in the direction of the voices outside then back to Orion's dumbstruck expression. "Well, is there?"
The young worker thought he'd heard a hint of actual agitation - fear? - in the shrill demand, and that alone made him finally spring into action better than any threat.
He grabbed the seeker's wrist, which he thought a somehow safer hand-hold than his clawed fingers, and forcibly pushed himself on his feet, dragging him along towards the tiny entrance - little more than a trapdoor - where he knew the energon shipments came from. It was just lucky enough that the crowd had flooded the main doors trying to get out, because no matter how much Orion hunched not to be seen, the seeker's proud wings were as easy to spot as a bright white flag.
Orion had barely left the seeker a few steps behind to look around for something - a wrench, anything to break the lock with - when the flier himself did short work of it, although his back was to Orion so he couldn't see how. Before he could ask, he was summarily grabbed and pulled down and into the exit; he wondered if the seeker had wanted to take him along or just send him ahead to clear the way - most likely the latter, he suspected, but he walked cautiously ahead without complaint and soon enough they emerged in the back alley behind the bar, thankfully near empty.
They hid behind a scaffold, and during that brief reprieve Orion realized his own vents had been whirring fast, his engine rumbling in both fright and unexpected, irrational excitement.
"Stop that," the seeker hissed, without looking at him, his optics fixed on the alley just outside. "You'll draw attention on us. Why are you still here?"
Orion looked down self-consciously and tried to calm his frame, not wanting too appear too worked up by the experience, but it was pretty obvious he wasn't exactly a mech of action. He was afraid the seeker would kick him out though, so he forced his vents to slow to their normal pace even though that risked overclocking his processor.
Instead of leaving as he probably should have, he decided to right some wrongs.
"I'm Orion Pax," he introduced himself, without being prompted. The flier didn't acknowledge it, but Orion went on determinedly. "I want to apologize on behalf of my … colleagues. Workers around here aren't the most open-minded, they'll react like that to any provocation."
The seeker's lips curved in a bitter smirk, but he still didn't deign Orion of a glance. "I wasn't expecting any different."
"Then why..."
The other only snorted, trying to keep his obviously grating voice down. "Are you never restless?"
Orion gave the question some thought, rhetorical or not. "Sometimes." He would hardly dispel the stress by stirring brawls, though. Maybe word of mouth wasn't entirely wrong about seekers...The fastidious flick of a wing seemed to hint that the flier wasn't even listening to him, too busy fuming about how, apparently, the 'slagging police had ruined his fun'.
The little truck suddenly wondered if Dion had been caught in the sweep - he'd have to apologize to his friend the next day. Actually, he thought with a minor wince, he might also have to bail him out if the police had dragged him off. It was hardly the first time and he wasn't overly concerned, but he felt a definite sting of guilt. Still, Dion owed him from that time Orion had covered him for a serious mistake in the shipment logs…
"I hope my friend didn't end up in jail because of this," he muttered, mostly to himself.
"Serves you both well," the seeker sneered, "You should have minded your business."
"I wanted to help you!" Orion frowned, feeling resentment for the first time that evening. How ungrateful could this mech be?
"Oh yes, you did such a good job of it," the seeker laughed at him, though he sounded less irritated now. Perhaps even genuinely amused. The cut of his smile, softer than the previous smirk, made Orion lose his train of thought.
Some noise at the back of the alley snapped both the fugitives to attention, the flier's wings hiking in obvious alarm; Orion observed the reaction with all too apparent interest. "Do you think they are looking for us?"
"For me," the seeker snapped, sounding outraged at Orion's inclusion. "I'm sure your 'colleagues' were fast to point fingers."
"Can't you… can't you fly away then?" Orion timidly suggested, suddenly wondering whether the seeker had been injured in the fight.
The other laughed without humor, shooting him an aggravated glare. "Idiot. They are probably waiting for a jet to take off from here, I'd be shot."
The worker shrugged, unconvinced. Would the police really shoot him just for causing a bar fight? He knew the seeker's kind was mistrusted at best, but that seemed a little extreme.
His gaze drifted towards those foreign wings again, hiked high and angled upwards, and the tension he saw there seemed real enough. Paranoia or not, he felt bad - and somewhere behind his good intentions, there was a wish to spend a little longer in a seeker's company.
"I live nearby," he offered, not believing his own words. "We can hide there, if… if you'd like."
The seeker seemed to consider the offer for a while, scowling as if Orion's suggestion had been much more complicated than what it was. His skeptical gaze swept from Orion's head to feet then back again, multiple times.
"It'll do," he finally said, with the air of someone who's done a great concession. "I want to dispel this charge sooner than later." At Orion's consequent facial expression - beyond dumbfounded - he cackled. "A good brawl is great stress relief, but in this case I'll settle for something less."
"I'm not sure I understand…" For the first time, Orion thought that maybe the tension in the seeker's frame wasn't quite fear. If one were to look at it from that angle, the electric charge accumulated through his circuits during the fight would explain the subtle trembling of his wings.
"Shut up. Go ahead, show me this Iaconian hospitality you like to babble about."
Orion found himself swatted out of their hiding place and towards the other end of the alley. He automatically started heading home, with the seeker's stark-white and red frame in toe making it hard to be inconspicuous.
"So why do they hate you?" Orion asked, in a forced casual voice, as they made their way through a run-down area of the docks.
The flier chuckled haughtily. "I should be asking you that."
"... Politics?" As an ice-breaker, this topic wasn't exactly the best he could have come up with.
"Stupidity, rather. And fear." The seeker seemed mildly bored, but his annoyance was genuine. "You see any immigrants as freaks. I bet my frame makes your ground based alts itch. Predators and misfits, that's all you see through your obtuse processors."
"I think you are beautiful," Orion said, disarmingly sincere. "Your... model type, I mean," he quickly amended, faceplates burning in embarrassment.
"Heh. There's always someone with an exotic fetish." Even as he laughed at him, Starscream's optics seemed to glint proudly at the flattery.
In front of the unassuming barracks where the workers lived, Orion stopped and looked around awkwardly, slightly self-conscious about how barren the area looked. He had no idea about seeker standards, but his naive processor generally imagined Vos being made of no less than solid gold. Even so, the seeker walked ahead unfazed, urging him on with his graceless voice and an impatient hand gesture. Orion pointed towards the door of the place he shared, barely having the time to open it before the flier shoved him aside and walked in, mindless of manners.
"Wait, wait a klik-"Orion stammered; in his hurry to walk in and slam the door behind them, he didn't think much of grabbing the lower edge of the seeker's wing to halt him, trying to warn him about the mess the small lodgings had probably been left in.
The seeker stiffened when he was grabbed and turned sharply on him, one fist lifted to hit him square in the face, if Orion's raised hands and fearful expression hadn't stopped him in his tracks.
"Don't surprise me," he grunted, looking somewhat embarrassed by his exaggerate reaction.
Orion blinked in alarm, trying to appear as harmless as he could – not too hard, in his situation.
"I'm sorry. Did I hurt... are you wounded?"
"No," the seeker curtly dismissed the concern, sneering. "You should worry about yourself."
Before Orion could dodge, a clawed hand reached out and gripped his chin, pulling him closer as claret optics examined his face. He had almost forgotten about the punch that had flattened him against the wall earlier, but it came back to him painfully when the seeker traced the dent it had left in his cheek with a forceful thumb. Orion flinched, but he didn't say much because the seeker's gaze was fixed on him, for once, intensely focused on him, and that was a first.
"You're a weird one," the flier said, and it sounded so oddly indulgent that Orion felt flattered, despite himself. For a moment it looked like the other's bleak expression had shifted imperceptibly, but the hint of appreciation was gone just as quickly, replaced by his usual hard look. "You'd expect thicker plating in a ground model," he snapped, his hand leaving Orion's face in order to cross his arms expectantly.
"Well then," he shrugged, "what are you standing around for?"
Orion thought about it for a moment. It seemed like they weren't on the same page, the seeker expecting him to do something he had no real clue about.
"Can I... ask for your designation?" He awkwardly said, looking pointedly at the shelf behind the seeker's shoulder and tweaking his hands.
The other made a face and laughed with gusto at what he clearly thought to be a very quaint request, but acquiesced, pursing his lips in a most condescending expression. "I'm Starscream."
Orion's tense smile returned, excited now that he'd somehow breached into personal level. Starscream was impassive, seemed to be waiting for him to make a move, but Orion didn't know how - or where - to begin, and Starscream was evidently not loaded with patience, especially not when his wings were brimming with unresolved tension.
"Well, are we going to hook up or do you need an instruction manual?"
The dock worker gaped, in between scandalized and awe-struck. "Hook up?"
The seeker seemed offended by his hesitation. "Weren't you trying to chat me up? Rather lamely, I have to say."
"I-I wasn't..."
"Sure you were."
In front of so much confidence, even Orion had to admit that he probably had been, without really realizing it himself.
"But…" The other's optics narrowed dangerously, and Orion realized his window of opportunity was closing as quickly as it had dropped on him in the first place.
"One klik," he said, lifting one finger and quickly heading for the door. He took his ID card from subspace and shoved it halfway under the door – that was Dion's conventional signal to find somewhere else to recharge when he had company. Finally a chance for payback, Orion thought with shaky satisfaction, before reprimanding himself for the mean thought.
Starscream was glaring impatiently when he turned back, his wings positively vibrating. "Taking too long," he snapped, moving to push him down on his small berth. Orion barely managed to swat a few datapads off its surface before Starscream straddled him, impeding any further movement.
The seeker was more or less as tall as him, but his bulk was distributed differently on his frame, making it foreign and deceptive to the groundling's eye. His weight pressing down on Orion's chassis was more than he'd expected from such a slender figure, but he was far from bothered. The creak of his plating under it was the definitive evidence that this was really happening; he stifled a deeper intake of air, working up his courage to take a hold of narrow red hips.
"Wing tips," Starscream ordered; he unceremoniously dug rapacious fingers in Orion's side seams, poking sensitive connector cables under his armor. He seemed to need no direction to swiftly figure out what would undo the young worker's chest plating.
Orion did not squirm much, but his optics were very wide under the assault and he was certain the seeker had noticed; even so, he reached for Starscream's wings as he'd been told, clumsily scraping the edges to grope at the tips, eager to finally touch them without triggering a defensive reaction.
His touches were less than skillful, but it seemed that the seeker hadn't been expecting more than that. He still retained that cruel glint of amusement that made Orion avoid his optics when he could, but his body was warm enough against his plating to spur him on.
"Wingflaps," Starscream directed again, forcing Orion to sit up to properly reach them, using the new position to rake his fingers across the other's chassis, studiously feeling for tender spots.
The seeker's movements were precise, aimed to find and stimulate sensor clusters in a way that was more shocking than pleasurable, but thorough enough to achieve his aim to rouse the worker's frame and build a charge that he would deem satisfactory. Orion wasn't sure he liked how clinical the touching was, pushing and prodding as if he were a lab rat to garner the most response from him, but he consoled himself that at least his awkward petting of the seeker's wings had managed to affect him, judging from his harsh ventilations right in Orion's face. That enough filled him with shy pride and a far more obvious arousal, making his engine rev under the seeker's fuselage.
He thought he'd try to kiss him, before Starscream managed to completely undo his plating. That was the proper order of things, as far as he knew.
When the seeker realized why he was drawing close to his face he retracted a little, apparently troubled. Orion wondered if he'd accidentally violated a cultural taboo he didn't know of - maybe seekers did not kiss. After a moment in which the groundling stared wide-eyed and apologetic, though, Starscream snorted and went to kiss back, maybe just to prove that he could. It was definitely rougher and deeper than Orion had attempted, the seeker's digits finally sneaking their way inside the mech's chestplates to pull his interface cabling out in a nearly painful tug.
Laying frazzled in the aftermath of the uplink, Orion tried to think about what was appropriate to say after an overload - or two - and came up with nothing that wouldn't be awkwardly out of place.
Starscream was propped on his elbow, his expression vaguely condescending. "Tired already? You groundlings are hardly energy-efficient models."
Orion tried to grunt his denial, but the sound produced wasn't very convincing. "Not tired. I just thought I'd offline there, for a klik."
Starscream's optics narrowed in a glare. "What do you mean with that?" he snapped. "Are you saying I went too easy on you?"
"No! T-that's not what I-"
"Shut up!"
Before Orion could explain it had been a backwards praise, the seeker had rolled over to pin him down with his full weight, slapping his hands aside with a determined scowl. Apparently Orion's throwaway comment had stung his pride; with a hissed 'I'll show you', Starscream aimed for the groundling's torso, attacking the seams and circuitry with precise strokes.
"W-what are you doing?" Orion's interfacing cables were still unspooled and draped across his chest, but Starscream didn't spare them a second glance, leaning in to trace the lining of his chest cavity. The young mech nearly squeaked, trying to wiggle out from under him before his traitorous body opened more than he was ready for. It was to no avail, because the seeker apparently knew exactly where and how to press to coax his inner circuitry into opening further, exposing his spark chamber to the insistent blue digits.
Before Orion could figure out exactly what the other was doing, Starscream dug intrepid fingers in the gap between his chamber-plates and stroked something deep within his chest, something that made his whole body arch like a bow before flopping back against the berth in the semblance of a full-body sigh. The catches of his chamber released on their own when his body went lax, to Orion's utter embarrassment. He gasped in surprise and a hint of fear, trying to read the seeker's intentions on the dark face way close to his, illuminated by Orion's own sparklight.
"S-Slow down," he sputtered, trying to cover his spark with his hands. Whatever Starscream had in mind, even if harmless, was too intimate for a casual encounter – he could count the times he'd opened up on just one hand, and it had nearly always been for a medical check.
"I thought you hadn't had enough just earlier," Starscream mocked, shifting lower and straddling Orion's legs, preventing him from thrashing or moving much at all.
The tip of a single digit dipping into the crown of his spark made Orion buck in surprise, the shock of sensation running through his whole body from the single point of contact. He garbled something incoherent, already overwhelmed by the jolts of pleasure that overcharged his sensor net with every teasing little rub.
Starscream stroked the edge of the spark with two fingers, his smirk growing with its every frantic ripple, before leaning in to trace the same pattern with his lips.
If Orion had so far retained some semblance of dignity, it was gone with his shriek as soon as he felt the teasing glossa tracing his core, sending his energy field flaring in both alarm and powerful pleasure.
Even through the overwhelming stimulation, he couldn't stop his frenzied processor from wondering why that was happening at all. Starscream did not seem the generous type, so... it had to be either an exercise in pushing boundaries, or a twisted manner of showing off.
Orion's involuntary cries were so undignified that he was almost grateful when the seeker summarily clamped a hand on his mouth, silencing his ashamed noises as he went about his business. The last thing Orion remembered was the smug expression on Starscream's faceplates as he lifted his head from the flaring, overcharged spark on the brink of overload.
That time, he went out like a light.
-o-
When he onlined again, dizzy and incapable of lifting a servo, he could see the shadow of the seeker nearby, the glow of a datapad indicating his position near the small window.
Orion was somewhat surprised he'd stayed, but he figured he'd been keeping an eye on the street outside and the surroundings probably weren't safe yet. Besides, he had no clue how long he'd been out. He felt somewhat awkward for the way he'd been swiftly offlined, but there was little he could do to salvage his pride at that point. He lazily felt around to tuck his cables back in their housings and slid his chest closed, waiting for his full mental capacities to boot up properly.
An insistent thought buzzed in his tired processors, ruining the afterglow. He feared asking would ruin it, but the words slipped out anyway. "Will I see you again?"
Starscream turned to look at him and only scoffed, making Orion's spark shrink in mortification.
An unpleasant silence followed, in which Orion childishly contemplated turning on his side to face the wall. He decided against it, but crossed his arms tightly against his chest in a defensive position.
"You know," Starscream started conversationally, "I considered taking your credits, but you have none. Besides, it would be no fun." It was impossible to tell if he was joking to break the impasse, or completely matter of fact.
"Sorry," Orion said, bleakly. He wasn't too concerned about the potential robbery, as he had nothing of value. It was everything else that stung. "So do you pick up groundlings for fun, or am I an exception?" he muttered, bitter in his badly concealed hurt.
"I don't make a habit of it," Starscream replied, shrugging dismissively. His tone was flippant, but his claret optics arched in a hint of appreciation. Again, Orion thought it was an optical illusion.
"Why me then?" he muttered, looking at the wall on the side of the berth.
"The way you look at me, mostly," Starscream smirked cheekily, wings canted in a show of vanity. "It's nice."
Orion's miserable silence stretched on.
"You are nice," Starscream added eventually, in a tone that could be mocking, pitying, or neither. "Unusual, around these parts," he laughed quietly, reaching over to pat the worker's grille in a way that made Orion wriggle. "However, I am leaving this city early tomorrow. A great future awaits me."
Orion didn't see him off. Only when Starscream had disappeared in the distance did he walk out of the barracks and stared up to the sky for a long time, longingly.