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Shark Torque
Shark has been walking for awhile now, just mindlessly.. or maybe just not mindfully. Absorbed in his thoughts. He's almost surprised as he nearly face plants into the Finishing Touch Parlor's east facing wall. Rubbing at his face a moment, he moves around to the front to see if Torque might be around.
The femme is definitely there, as always. You'd swear she lives there or something. But currently she sit at her workbench, the sound of power tools whining as she works on what looks like a leg. Oddly enough, her hat is actually off this time and set aside so her hair cords are in full view as antennae/headphone ears twitch idly.
Shark walks in, not purposefully silent at all. He takes a table opposite her and observes what she is working on, waiting for her to notice him. The mech does have a new face, and the addition of pink tinting to his cheeks hasn't been alerted to him.. yet.
Torque doesn't hear him come in, but does catch some movement out of the corner of her optics, stopping a moment to turn her head to him and smile softly, "Hey there, handsome. I see someone got to your face before me, hm?" She playfully reaches a grease speckled hand out to thumb the side of his face while head tilts curious, "And they added some color! Or are you just happy to see me?" She grins.
Shark smiles a bit to the handsome, not quite used to such compliments. A nod given to the face, though the declaration earns you a confused look, "Color?" he asks, "I don't recall asking for any. But it was Lifeline that put it on there, maybe she added something to embarrass me with.. wouldn't put it past her considering what I put her through." he sighs, a little tilt of his head into the hand. "Though I am happy to see you."
Torque pulls a small mirror from her subspace, sliding it to the mech so he can get a look at himself. "I'm happy to see you too." The femme's lips curl in a sincere smile, moving back to grab a tool to tighten up the insides. "Sorry, just finishing up a customer's piece. Poor mech got robbed of his own limb. Desperate folks, huh?" She shakes her head in disappointment at her home city.
Shark frowns at the mirror, but takes it anyway. Mostly curiosity to see what Lifeline did than anything else. There's a stunned sort of silence, then a little chuckle. "Great... she made me up like a femme." he puts the mirror down and shakes his head. "This is what I get for trusting her to do my face.. tinted cheeks.. great.. just great." then a nod. "Yeah... " to the question.
Torque just smirks at his reaction to the reflection, grabbing a cloth from a drawer next to her and tossing it to him. "Here. Can't have yah lookin' like some of the mechs in downtown Cubi, can we?" She chuckles softly, finishing up the last few tightening to the inside of the leg before closing it and tossing the tool in one of the nearby boxes. "There we go. All done."
Shark catches the cloth and checks to see if it happens to have something that will remove the tint from his cheeks before he actually applies it. "Yeah.. thanks." he murmurs, wiping at his cheeks as firmly as he dares. The face is still new after all, he didn't wish to do too much damage to it. "Good. Bet that mech will be happy."
Torque nods, leaning forward on crossed arms as she watches him, optics studying him a moment, "Yeah, I bet. ...But what about you? How're you doing? Yah seem a little.. off." Torque moves the leg to the side of the table so it isn't between them.
Shark works on the opposite cheek as you scrupulously read him like a book. "I've been better." he replies, a frown tugging at the edges of his lips. "I finally got to apologize to Lifeline in person. Yet she pulls this tinting dreka on me. Sometimes I wonder if my judgment has been messed with.." he finishes his cheek cleaning. "Then I've just been thinking... too much.. about what I'm going to do concerning Starfire."
Torque's expression softens at that last comment, moving a hand out to gently grab his and lightly squeeze it. "Well.. Whatever you do decide, I'll be happy with it." What a straight-faced lie. Of course that decision would make her unhappy, but how much is anyones' guess. It was inevitable for her to be sad or angry if he didn't choose her. But that problem would have to be dealt with once that crossroad was reached.
Shark looks at the hand that squeezes is, but those words don't ring right to him. He may be young, but he is not stupid. "We need to talk Torque, alone. No disruptions from that Con friend of your or anyone else." his tone is firm, determined.
Torque pulls her lips thin. So he knew he was a 'con. Slag. Hopefully that wouldn't ruin Shark's view of her. But she nods anyway, standing from her seat and grabbing her hat along with other things so she can close up shop. "Let's go to my place then. It's not far from here."
Shark nods, slipping off the table, leaving the pink tinted cloth behind upon it. "All right." he says, moving to exit the shop and waiting for you outside.
Torque finishes up putting things away and placing personal things in her subspace before closing and locking up the garage. She turns to him with a small smile, her hat under one arm. "C'mon then." With a wave of the hand to follow the femme strolls off down the road towards Cubicron and its suburbs.
Shark follows her, just off to her side. Not exactly sure where she is taking him, but it really didn't matter. His silence an indication that he's drifting into his thoughts. He may not even realize their arrival until she tells him or interrupts his thoughts.
The trip isn't long at all, actually. Moving past a few places under the surface of Cybertron before Cubicron is reached, the femme looking a little more wary as the two make their way past the old shopping area. More bad folks tend to hang out there. But luckily the time there is short and they eventually reach a roughed up apartment building, though it seems structurally sound. "Here we are. Home sweet home." Torque tries to lighten the mood a bit in this dismal place as she leads him inside, up the rickety elevator, and finally to her pad, which isn't all that bad looking compared to the outside of the building.
Shark of course had taken a good precaution, smearing a good amount of dirt on his emblem to throw off the locals. Torque didn't need an grief from them bringing an Autobot down here. This wasn't his home, after all, it was theirs. He doesn't say one word until they are safely inside, out of visual or audio range. "I need to know something Torque." he says, straight to point as he sits down on a chair. "And you got to be deadly honest with me."
Torque hangs her hat on a little wall hook as she moves past the door, letting him get comfortable while she grabs two small energon cubes from a cabinet in the adjacent, open room. "Sure.. What'd you need to know..?" The femme eyes him at his words, wondering what this is about. Handing him a cube she'd sit on the couch across from him and sip her own gingerly.
Shark takes a moment to gather himself, accepting the cube and holding it in his hands. His green optics take on this intensity that is beyond his physical years. "If Starfire had never happened, if I didn't feel a kinship with Lifeline... what would we be?" he asks. Speaking the words that he had kept to himself for so very long. No one really knew he had feelings for more than one femme.
Torque pauses mid drink at the question, lowering the cube from her lips and holding in her lap. Fingers fiddled at the edges of the cube while optics are cast to the floor in thought. It'd take her a few moments before she can finally speak, "Maybe what you have with Starfire, maybe more. ....I don't know. But what I do know is that I don't want to force you to like me, love me. I just want you to do what you feel if right for you, yah know?" Her optics lift back up to him, dim and not as bright and spunky as they usually are.
Shark had suspected. But only when she came to see him in Iacon, his face and optics destroyed, did he really know for sure. His voice quavers a little, "What I have with Starfire... is a spark merge that seems to not have taken hold... I gave it to her willingly. Yet I don't feel her. Lifeline was furious at me for it too." he frowns a bit, as if this was a realization of more momentous proportions than he realized. The color leaves his face suddenly. "Dreka." he cusses. "That's got to be it. She attacked me for that nibble to the neck, not just because I invaded her personal space.. she didn't want me to get close. She even said she didn't get close to patients." he says, voice oddly soft. He sighs, rubbing at his face with a hand. "Primus I'm so messed up..." then dropping his hand from his face, looking a bit pained, "I don't know what I want anymore.. I don't even know why you'd want me."
Torque can't help a light smile tug at the corners of her lips from his last words, placing her drink down and standing to move over to him. "I ask myself the same question." She takes the seat beside him, a hand outstretched to cut the side of his face, her expression calm and gentle now. "I asked myself why an upstanding, well-to-do Autobot would have any interest in a greased up Cubicronian nobody like myself. Sure mechs were interested, but they never truly showed it.... Not with beautiful things like this.." She pulls the handcrafted metal flower from her subspace, looking at it thoughtfully before moving her gaze back to him, "Why? What made you decide it to be me to get this?"
Shark doesn’t' move as you cup his face, but his voice still quavers slightly. "You are not the only one to receive one, Torque. I give those to only that have truly touched me.. not in a physical sort of sense, or even mental, but deeper." he explains. A little smile dawning, "Probably would have given one to that cyber eel of mine if she had a place to keep it.. she touched me like that too. I never thought an transorganic had any sense of emotion to them, she showed me otherwise. She trusted me in those first few moments when I crouched down to pick up her up when she was obviously in so much pain from a electrogator tooth. I still don't know why she did trust me, but she did. Maybe she saw something in me that even I'm not aware of... maybe you see it too." he admits, then looking you in the optics he says, "My interest in you Torque has nothing to do with me being upstanding, since I sure the dreka am not that. Nor am I that well to do either. In some ways, I'm more like you than you think." a bit more of a smile, "You are at least trying to understand me.."
Torque smiles as well, lowering her hand to rest on the arm of his chair. "I don't know why I wouldn't. I like you, Shark. You're sweet. That's hard to come by around here. But.. Like I said. I'm not trying to force you into anything..."
Shark nods to those words, then finally sips on the energon that was offered to him. Taking that moment to think those words over. When he lowers it from his lips he says succinctly, "I doubt you would force anyone into anything Torque. Even if you aren't quite being truthful with yourself." he points out. "I should know, I've been not entirely truthful with myself either. Been avoiding the fact that I care for those that have touched me like you have.. like Lifeline... " he sighs, "That's why I'm a mess, why I'm not even sure what I want anymore... my spark wants so much, it’s a little scary. I wanted so much for Starfire to be it for me.. but the lack of connection makes it clear she isn't."
"Hm... Maybe you should take some time off, then. Try to clear your processors and think things through. Though I'm not sure what your vacation type would be. Slag, mine's just going to the surface." Torque chuckles softly, her mood finally lifting a bit more now that this stuff was off their chassis.
Shark notes softly, "I have been thinking about it, a lot. Vacation is out of the question. There's a war going on. Besides how would I even convince Prime to let me go. That's just a weird discussion right there." he relates, "No, it’s better I figure this out for once and for all. I need to fess up to Starfire.. if I ever bump into her again. If not, I guess it just wasn't meant to be and I'll always wonder how she would have reacted knowing that I didn't have the connection I had expected." he sighs, looking vaguely older all the sudden. "I sure cannot have such with Lifeline, she made that abundantly clear. It makes me feel sad. She won't let anyone get close to her."
Torque places a hand on his shoulder, gripping tight, "Hey, listen here you. Just 'cause you can't be close to Lifeline doesn't mean you can't be good friends with her. Or Starfire, or even me. We're all here for yah. I hope you know that. And.. maybe some more so than others." She smiles softly, leaning forward to give him a kiss on the cheek.
Shark nods to your words, he had known this for awhile now, just having it affirmed was good to hear. "I know. Thanks." he murmurs softly, though he turns his head a bit so the kiss lands a bit more on the corner of lips. "You saying you are more so Torque?"
Torque smirks, lifting a hand to brush the cord strands from her optic, though they just fall back into it again, "I think you know the answer to that by now, yeah?" She quickly scoots over to take a seat in his lap, a large grin now upon her face. Yup, back to her playful happy self.
Shark considers that question, even as you sit on his lap. She can read him too well. He cannot resist to just hug her around the middle and draw her against him. "I need to hear you say it." he tells her, "So I don't question myself."
Torque wraps her arms around his neck in turn, leaning forward to let their foreheads touch and bring them optic to optic, that same happy smile dancing upon her lips, "I'll always be here for you." She bites her bottom lip for a moment in thought before finally deciding to lean in more and let their lips connect, the sensation making her inner engines purr.
Shark's optics look into her own as she speaks those words, the truth of it a comfort to him. He had been doubting himself, over thinking his emotions. That time in the church with Prime and the stranger had exposed that vulnerable side of himself he hadn't come to grips with.. whatever lingering bits of doubt seem to melt away once you get bold enough to actually kiss him. His own lips move against hers, softly.
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