Monk didn't budge as she fought against him, scowling down at her. Of course she was being stubborn. This was Nova Storm, and from what he had seen she could never see when she was digging her own grave, even now. Literally in this case, seeing as a fully charged blast would do much more than injure her back.
"That's not what I said," he flatly replied, echoing his own words from when she had last hounded him on the network. The noise began to die down, but he winced as he moved back, holding his arm tight to his chest as he did. He had definitely forgotten this feeling. He was too distracted to notice how far back he was standing.
BAAAM
As Monk stepped against the wall between the two rooms, the energy still built up rang through the structure. He'd suppressed the sound as much as he could and so it didn't bring the wall down, but several of the weakened panels around the door came loose and fell to the floor. He took a deep breath as he stoop up straight and stared her down, his body still trembling.
"Still think I'm so perfect now?" That spiteful grin crossed his face again, looking both wholly out of place and precisely right for a ruthless seeker. "I said stop using me in order to feel worse about yourself. I won't give you the satisfaction of playing into your hand."
It didn't last long though as he continued to breath deep, trying to calm himself down, fading fast into a pitying frown. Nova Storm was struggling from someone leaving her, and here he was throwing aside everything he had just preached was his job. So much for consoling the suffering. The regret sank in hard, his grip on his arm tightening.
"Isn't it exhausting to live like this, lashing out at everything? at yourself?"
For long moment, Nova Storm wasn't answering, couldn't answer. Until that last part. She froze, optics going if possible even wider and more colorless. Then all of those moments ended.
This, far more than even the threat, made Nova Storm sag and fall out of the tense resistance to anything and everything being said to her. She dug her fingers into the floor and reached out desperately through the bond for reassurance, but Skywarp wasn't just far away, she'd muted her end the same way Nova Storm had her own. Skywarp wasn't going to --couldn't-- send back warmth through the bond in response to Nova's own stubbornness and guilt and hate dragging things up as proof that her own inadequacies justified it all, to all of these things being told to her in the one place that was supposed to always be safe to hide from them in.
There was nowhere left to run from what he'd said, what the prime had said, too, and something brittle cracked in her head with an almost audible sound. She always had needed physical fights with Skywarp to ever admit she'd been wrong.
Nova pressed her helm into the floor and she shuddered and croaked out, "...Yes. Yes, it's exhausting."
no subject
Date: 2025-01-20 04:47 am (UTC)"That's not what I said," he flatly replied, echoing his own words from when she had last hounded him on the network. The noise began to die down, but he winced as he moved back, holding his arm tight to his chest as he did. He had definitely forgotten this feeling. He was too distracted to notice how far back he was standing.
BAAAM
As Monk stepped against the wall between the two rooms, the energy still built up rang through the structure. He'd suppressed the sound as much as he could and so it didn't bring the wall down, but several of the weakened panels around the door came loose and fell to the floor. He took a deep breath as he stoop up straight and stared her down, his body still trembling.
"Still think I'm so perfect now?"
That spiteful grin crossed his face again, looking both wholly out of place and precisely right for a ruthless seeker. "I said stop using me in order to feel worse about yourself. I won't give you the satisfaction of playing into your hand."
It didn't last long though as he continued to breath deep, trying to calm himself down, fading fast into a pitying frown. Nova Storm was struggling from someone leaving her, and here he was throwing aside everything he had just preached was his job. So much for consoling the suffering. The regret sank in hard, his grip on his arm tightening.
"Isn't it exhausting to live like this, lashing out at everything? at yourself?"
no subject
Date: 2025-01-20 02:26 pm (UTC)This, far more than even the threat, made Nova Storm sag and fall out of the tense resistance to anything and everything being said to her. She dug her fingers into the floor and reached out desperately through the bond for reassurance, but Skywarp wasn't just far away, she'd muted her end the same way Nova Storm had her own. Skywarp wasn't going to --couldn't-- send back warmth through the bond in response to Nova's own stubbornness and guilt and hate dragging things up as proof that her own inadequacies justified it all, to all of these things being told to her in the one place that was supposed to always be safe to hide from them in.
There was nowhere left to run from what he'd said, what the prime had said, too, and something brittle cracked in her head with an almost audible sound. She always had needed physical fights with Skywarp to ever admit she'd been wrong.
Nova pressed her helm into the floor and she shuddered and croaked out, "...Yes. Yes, it's exhausting."