Thundercracker was having a rather fine afternoon.
He kept a wary optic on Starscream - because, Primus dammit, Thundercracker would rather offline himself than let something else happen to his little brother - until Starscream decided to go into the wash racks. Which Thundercracker obviously could not do, unless he wanted to be known as the incestuous pervert around base.
So, Thundercracker instead decided to relax in his quarters. He leisurely sipped a mid-grade cube, and he read from a data-pad.
That was before Skywarp, without any warning whatsoever, came barging in and ruined it all, of course.
"TC!" Skywarp yelled at the top of his vocalizer, despite being in the same fragging room. "You gotta help me, mech! I'm sorry about the whole fight thing, really, I am! So, help me!"
Thundercracker winced at the loudness of Skywarp's voice before frowning. "What do you want, Skywarp? Can't you see I'm busy?" he asked exasperatedly, shooting the other seeker an icy glare. He gestured to the data-pad he held in his servos.
Skywarp opened his mouth, but then shut it when he noticed the data-pad. His optics grew large.
"W-Why are you reading a data-pad called How to Console Victims of Assault?" Skywarp demanded shakily.
Thundercracker's glare grew even more frigid. "Why do you think?" he spat out. "Couldn't do anything with our brother, could it?"
"I'm sorry!" Skywarp howled. He threw himself on his knees and wriggled over to a baffled Thundercracker, servos clasped together. "I don't know how you found out, but I'm sorry! I didn't know he would use the advice on Star, I swear; I thought he would use it on Ramjet or Dirge! I'm sorry, TC, I'm so sorry!"
"...What?" came Thundercracker's puzzled reply. He raised an optical ridge. Skywarp had officially gone off the deep end.
"Don't act dumb! You know exactly what I'm talking about. Don't make me say it all aloud!" whined Skywarp.
Thundercracker stared.
Skywarp let out a high-pitched moan. "Fine, make me suffer!" he huffed. "Okay, since Thrust came up to me for courtship advice, I thought it would be funny to give him really bad advice. I didn't know he would use it on Starscream, I swear!"
"You what?" bellowed Thundercracker, standing up from his berth in less than an astrosecond. His servos balled into tight fists as he stomped over to Skywarp, who began backtracking furiously.
"I-I - you didn't know?" asked Skywarp weakly, fiddling with his digits.
"No, I didn't," hissed Thundercracker. "And you're going to tell me all about it."
Without hesitation, Skywarp blabbed out the whole tale in a span of two kliks.
"So, what you're telling me," Thundercracker began slowly, right optic twitching, "is that it's your fault Star's been harassed and raped!"
"What? Been? I-It already happened?" Skywarp gaped, optics drowning in horror and guilt. "B-But I didn't tell Thrust to do that before the date!"
Thundercracker froze.
"You...you told - slagging TOLD - Thrust to rape our little brother?" he spat, his spark palpitating violently. Thundercracker's processor pounded so harshly, becoming so over-heated and over-worked, that he wouldn't be surprised if his head started smoking.
"I DIDN'T KNOW!" screamed Skywarp defensively. He then burst into sudden tears. "Oh, Primus, I didn't know! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
Thundercracker's expression softened a bit. When he realized it, he hastily hardened his mien, although he looked more austere than wrathful.
"Skywarp, you have to fix this," he upbraided. "Crying about it won't solve anything."
At that exact moment, Skywarp let out such a hysteric sob that Thundercracker momentarily thought about taking him to the Med Bay.
"B-But I need help! Thrust said that he and Star - oh, Star, my poor Star - were going out on a-a date right now!" Skywarp managed to gasp out.
"What?" Thundercracker spat, rage once more frothing and bubbling to the surface. "You didn't tell me that!"
"I was going to!" Skywarp whined, but then he looked up at his brother desperately. Tears continued to brim in his optics. "Please, TC, you gotta help me. I don't know what to do know! I told Thrust really bad things to do on the date!"
Thundercracker forced himself to stay quiet for a few kliks. He didn't want to say or do something that he would immensely regret at one point.
"...Fine," he conceded. "I'll help you. But don't ever do anything like that ever again! Starscream is my brother, too, and I won't stand for you doing things like that to him. Got it?"
Skywarp nodded, optics wide with honesty. He sniffled.
Thundercracker sighed and continued, "All right, this is probably what we should do..."
Starscream let out a sigh of relief. He managed to have left the base without being stopped or questioned. Thank Primus for miracles.
/Thrust, I have successfully departed and I am currently on the way. Send me your coordinates./ He sent to Thrust over his comm. link.
Starscream rolled his optics, but smirked slightly, when he first received an excited whoop from Thrust. A few moments after that, he obtained the set of coordinates.
/I will be there shortly./ he sent back in response, transforming into his alt-mode.
Starscream was more than right. Since he was just about the fastest thing with two pairs of wings (and maybe, possibly, because the destination was not by any means far away), he arrived within a few kliks. He spotted Thrust enthusiastically waving at him from below on the ground, and Starscream decided to show off a little.
He shifted directions and, without slowing down, began to spiral downward. Just as he was about to introduce himself to the ground, Starscream shifted his nose-cone upward and turned suddenly. At a sharp, continuous angle, he then zoomed over Thrust, narrowly missing his head. Starscream heard a shriek from the other seeker, and, had he been able to, he would've smirked.
To finish off his little performance, Starscream looped once in the air, twirling as he did so, and then transformed into his base mode. His peds landed gracefully on the ground, creating a soft thud on the sand. He then put his servos on his hips and smirked smugly.
Thrust raced over to him immediately. "Primus, that was so cool! I mean, I know you're amazing at flying, but whoa! You gotta teach me how to do that - please?" he begged, sun-like optics bright and pleading.
Starscream's smirk grew prouder. He might just keep Thrust around so he could have someone inflate his own ego for him.
"Of course. I'll teach it to you during training one cycle," he replied coolly.
"Eventually, I bet I'll be better at it than you," boasted Thrust, winking. "You're gonna have some tough competition."
Starscream scoffed. "Tough competition? I don't see any competition, much less a tough one," he teased. "Besides, I'm the fastest thing to ever have been built. You can't beat that."
Thrust pouted, but then he smirked slyly. "Oh yeah? I bet I can beat you to that cliff over there." He pointed at the destination, which was a good distance away. It was barely visible to the optic.
Starscream raised an optical ridge. "Prepare to lose," he said, but when he looked over beside him where Thrust had been, no one was there. He whipped his head around and saw Thrust speeding away. "Cheater!" he shrieked, transforming and blasting away.
When Starscream reached the cliff, Thrust was already there, servos planted on his hips and looking quite the pompous braggart that he was.
"What took you so long?" Thrust asked, optics gleaming mischievously. "I thought you were 'the fastest thing to ever have been built.'"
"You cheated!" shouted Starscream, pointing an accusing digit at him. "I would have won, if you hadn't have cheated. That just tells me that you knew you were going to lose if it had been fair."
Thrust gaped like a fish. Starscream stifled a giggle and mentally noted to tease Thrust more often.
"It's not my fault that you're too slow to catch up!"
"Oh, really? Let's race back to where we started then, shall we?" said Starscream. He then suddenly tensed and turned around. He gasped dramatically. "Autobots!" he yelled, pointing a digit.
Thrust whipped around immediately. "Where?" he demanded, looking around for their enemies.
But Starscream was up in the air, transformed and headed toward their racing destination.
That time, when Thrust finally reached their destination, Starscream was already there, wearing a wry smirk. He yawned.
"What took you so long, Thrust?" he asked innocently.
"You-You tricked me! Cheater!"
"Now, how does it feel like to be on the opposite spectrum?" inquired Starscream, lifting an optical ridge. He cocked a cherry red hip out and crossed his arms over his cockpit.
Thrust said nothing and stared at his hip.
Oh, Primus, thought Starscream. Does he ever not have interface on his processor?
"Let's fly," said Starscream, snapping Thrust's attention from his hips and to his optics instead. "But let's just go leisurely, this time. No racing - just a nice, simple flight."
Thrust nodded. "I'm down with that." He transformed into his alt-mode and hovered over the ground, waiting.
"You're using human expressions now?" Starscream rolled his optics before transforming. He flew up slowly, trying to keep the same pace as Thrust.
"Hey, there ain't nothing wrong with using human expressions. Well, some of them. A lot of them are just plain weird."
"I think all of them are 'just plain weird'."
"Hmm, that's funny," said Thrust.
Starscream could practically hear the frown in Thrust's voice. "What's funny?" he asked.
"You would think something weird would like other weird things. Guess I was proven wrong," Thrust teased, gently rubbing his wing over Starscream's wing in a quick apology.
Starscream grumbled, but otherwise said nothing.
For a considerably long amount of time, the two traveled in silence, just merely enjoying each other's company. Occasionally, they would accidentally-on-purpose bump into each other softly or just lightly graze one another.
Starscream had never had such an enjoyable, yet so simple, moment in his whole life.
Another few kliks in silence passed before Thrust broke it and said, "Hey, do you want to go land over there by that boulder?"
"Fine," Starscream responded, and they both flew down, transforming at roughly about the same time.
"So, why did you desire to come down here?" questioned Starscream, crossing his arms over his cockpit, when he landed on the ground.
Thrust shrugged. "I thought that we could just talk to each other or something like that." He sat down, back leaning against the boulder, and gestured for Starscream to come sit beside him.
Starscream did so, albeit a bit reluctantly. "Hmm," he hummed in thought for a few moments. "I have a question."
Thrust nodded, signaling for him to go on.
"So, how did you manage to follow me around all the time?" Starscream asked suspiciously, narrowing his optics at the red seeker. "And how in all of Cybertron did you get into my locked wash rack?"
Thrust chuckled nervously. He rubbed the back of his neck cables sheepishly. "Oh, well, for the first one, I would just watch the monitor screens to see where you were headed. I'm assigned to watch over them kinda a lot, actually. Especially now..."
It was Starscream's turn to laugh nervously. "Yes, about that... I shouldn't have ever lied and accused you of raping me. Truly, Thrust, I-I - I am sorry." Apologizing tasted strange on Starscream's glossa. He had never really done it before.
Thrust smiled softly, and Starscream was surprised when he felt a warm servo slide into his own.
"It's all right, Starscream," said Thrust, and Starscream gaped slightly; he liked the way Thrust said his designation. "I've done things I'm not proud of. Everyone has."
Starscream nodded absentmindedly. For a few kliks, they were silent, just staring into each other's optics.
Then, Starscream felt a prickle of self-consciousness make its way up to his processor. He suddenly felt awkward, and his blue servo grew hot in Thrust's servo. He averted his gaze rather shyly, and slipped his servo out of Thrust's grasp.
"So, um, how about you getting into my wash rack?" Starscream asked stiffly, a tint of nervousness leaking into his tone. He pretended it was his vocalizer's fault, so he cleared it. "How did you manage to do that one?" he said with more dignity.
"Oh, that." Was it Starscream, or did Thrust sound a little disappointed?
"I, uh, sneaked up on you and watched you enter your pass code," Thrust admitted honestly. "D-Do you want me to erase the pass code from my memory banks?" he added.
Starscream waved a dismissive servo. "No," he said, and then he smirked rather lewdly, his optics suddenly warm. "Besides, who knows? At one point, it might possibly be very, ah, useful to you..."
Starscream was mortified. Oh, Primus, did he just say that aloud?
Thrust raised his optical ridges, his optics growing wide in surprise, before they narrowed slightly. His sun-like optics were dark with lust, and he revved his engine suggestively.
"You know what? I think you might just be right," Thrust responded, and he raked his optics up and down Starscream's body.
The mortification left Starscream when he shivered. "I'm always right," he said confidently. He cupped the other seeker's cheek plate and leaned in closely, feeling Thrust's warmth as his servos tightly gripped Starscream's slim waist.
Starscream offlined his optics and he leaned in even closer, spark pulsing and twirling and doing back flips in its chamber. He waited for the moment when his lips would meet Thrust's...
"Hey, get off my little brother!"