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Skyfire had seen snow before. Not on Cybertron, his beautiful broken home, no they didn’t have an atmosphere. But on other planets shielded by gases from their respective suns.
Earth was beautiful too, but in a way that felt too tender and too good to be true. Well, that was until Skyfire’s optics zoomed onto a large rodent consuming smaller members of its bonding unit. He knew a lot of fellow Cybertronians would find this act revolting, to consume the energon of one you’re bonded to? You’d feel less pain if you cannibalized your own servo. But he always thought that when their sparks returned to the AllSpark, weren’t they being consumed? Of course he kept this thought to himself, people would get the wrong impression if he went around comparing Cybertronians to Organics.
Thump thump thump! Skyfire! Skyfire let me out you useless, patronizing slagger! I’ll rip a hole through you if I have to. Skyfire!!
So this was it. Him, Starscream, trapped on the planet that held such promise. Starscream was supposed to get published and try gunning for that diversity spot at the Academy. They were supposed to bring the news of an abundant source of energon, hope, for Cybertron. But it was too late, the snow storm came as they tried to leave Earth’s atmosphere. Skyfire’s navigation system suddenly went haywire; he went down taking Starscream along.
When he came around, only Starscream’s wingtip was visible and the truth howled past him with the storm: this planet was going to bury them alive. He ran an internal diagnostic, if he could find out what went wrong he’d be able to bring them both back…home.
Oh.
How stupid could he be?
It was that priest that came to visit their Academy after Perceptor was taken. That slight squeezing of optics, that knowing smile - Skyfire just took it as the default expression of those priest-class mechs. Now the Church’s sigil sneered down at him from the error window that showed the virus clear as day. He was a dead-mech-walking, they didn’t need to hide anymore. Skyfire didn’t know if Cybertronians were capable of feeling cold, but he shivered.
A slight wiggle of Starscream’s wingtip paused his spiral. At least one of them needed to get out of here. Skyfire decided right then and there, he would shield Starscream with his frame, his life, his spark.
He fought his way to Starscream, a slight touch of the other’s frame showed dangerously low temperatures for a seeker. He blasted his engines and fans to warm himself up one last time, just until the storm passes, just until Starscream survives his mistake.
His mind was slipping, just a moment ago, he could still feel Starscream’s small blue servos pounding on his inner walls. But now, now, even that bit of pain had been taken from him. His emergency stasis protocols were booting up, Oh Primus, save the mech that didn’t trespass against you, save Stascream.
Skyfire woke up in his berth but couldn’t move.
Even now, in the Ark, he hated recharging because waking up always felt like coming out of that ice again. But he’s learned by now to not fight it, he tries to adjust the focus, the aperture, the light filters in his optics one by one. He did this in front of Starscream once, accidentally, they’d pulled an all-nighter for an experiment that couldn’t run unsupervised. He startled awake after feeling Starscream’s light taps to his helm and was then promptly blinded by Hadeen when he threw his helm up from his arms. To adjust to the new lighting, his optics ran through the motions.
Starscream later told him that the room was showered in the golden-blue light refracted from his optics. It was quite a lightshow, he’d commented, trying to appear casual about it. Skyfire knew then and there that he’d acquired a new habit.
When dreams like glaciers melted out of him and unto his recharge slab, he could finally bring his hand up to feel his windshield. unbroken. It didn’t matter though. Starscream was gone regardless. So maybe he’d rather have it broken. A mark Starscream left behind, a trail that could lead Skyfire to him.
Of course, when he’d woken from the ice the other mech was already there, looking down with hidden concern. But that didn’t matter, he came back for Skyfire, he saved Skyfire and if it took him clawing out of Skyfire’s alt-mode, well, that just made the reunion that much sweeter.
It didn’t matter that their grey leader could only see worth in things he could use whether it was Earth for energon or Starscream for air-cover. It didn’t matter that Starscream laughed in his face when he asked if being a soldier was better than being a scientist. It didn’t matter that humans cowered in fear from the purple emblem on his chassis. None of it mattered until Starscream ripped a hole in his windshield again, with a blaster this time. Skyfire had only thoughts of regret when he collapsed.
His servos went to his mid-section again. Think back in time, think about Cybertron. That was all he could do to try and stop the phantom pain, it usually worked.
He remembered the cycle before they left for Earth. They went to their favourite energon dispensary knowing they won’t be having their usuals for a while. When Skyfire’s plain energon infused with xenon, neon and zinc and Starscream’s clear energon with added cinnabar, lithium and copper flakes finally swirled lazily in front of each other, Starscream started speaking.
“We’re really leaving next cycle huh.”
Skyfire had started sipping on his favourite and Starscream usually would be as well, but he seemed absent-minded, looking out the dispensary windows, stirring his energon.
“Yep, nice and early at 0600. We’ll be flying with Hadeen.” Skyfire smiled, oh I should try telling a joke! Try to get him to smile. “No time for second thoughts now. You’re trapped with me on this mission.”
Starscream huffed from his intake, but whether it was at the joke or at Skyfire… well it didn’t matter either way. His tone was more present but not much lighter when he spoke again, “I should be asking you that, no second thoughts on this fool’s errand?” Starscream smiled wider at Skyfire’s anxious look, “Oh stop stressing you big oaf, I’m not talking about the data and energon signals from this exoplanet, we’ve done too much calculation to be mistaken. No, it’s…actually nevermind, forget it.”
Starscream stops stirring his energon but doesn't drink it. Instead, he just rests his face on the servo. Well, if he wants to drop it, they’ll drop it.
“To be honest Starscream, this field study is so important to me that I won’t accept failure as a result.” Skyfire lets out a vent and reaches for the blue servo on the table, “You’ll finally get the chance to show them all how brilliant you truly are. It’s not right what was done to you, how they keep you from your true potential. But it’s alright, I’m here now and we’ll make it right, together.”
Before Skyfire’s large white servos could reach the other, Starscream had quietly slid it back to interlock with his own. His optics pointed down but looked around, like those of a trapped mechanimal that’s learned its place in the cage. “You keep wanting to fix things, “make it right”, “the way it’s supposed to be” but are you fixing what’s been done to me or are you fixing me?” Starscream’s red optics pierces Skyfire, “Am I not a sum of what’s been done to me?”
Skyfire tries to put on a smile, something to placate the other, “Starscream, you know that’s not true, I mean at least I don’t see it that way. You are the sum of what you’ve done to overcome all the barriers placed in front of you, that’s how I see it.”
“But I’m beginning to feel that it’s a fool’s errand. A Vosian military semi-drone reject for a place in the academy? We all know those spots are for a senator’s dumb sparkling with a science dream-—
“Don’t say that.” Skyfire looked stricken and in his sadness reached across the table to hold Starscream’s clasped servos. It made sense, with his long arms he could reach over whenever he chose. “What do I have to do to make you see what I see? Sometimes, when my aperture isn’t set right, I look at you and see Ulchtar, the brilliant-—
-—brave and ambitious seeker who makes a name for himself by rediscovering the Omega Sentinels and saving Cybetron from alien invasion, yes Skyfire, I know.” Starscream’s intake is set into a line and he falls silent. He looks down at his own servos in Skyfire’s large white ones. The size difference was so ridiculous that they had separate sets of equipment before Skyfire gave up on wet lab. Turns out he paid for his own set with a stellar-cycle’s worth of wage he’d saved up just so Starscream didn’t feel like he’s doing all the grunt work in the lab.
Starscream didn’t know if that melted his spark somewhat or just made it burn brighter with distaste. Skyfire told him stories, told everyone who’d listen stories in fact, it was like he couldn’t process the world without them. But Starscream was different. He had no patience for illusions and could not afford them anyway. Reality marched forward, material and uncaring and if Starscream even dared imagine anything else he’d be left behind as a pile of trodden scrap.
So why did he waste his time with the illusionist that sat across the table?
Sure, Skyfire helped him without holding back anything, that was the nature of the mech. He never held back any help he could give, whether it was a particularly dull student in office hour, a nest of flying organics toppled out of their fibrous structures or failing projects that inevitably found their way to his desk. Starscream belonged in the latter category and hung onto Skyfire like a lifeline.
But there was something else, something worse than he could’ve ever imagined. Sometimes, when he looked into Skyfire’s crystal-blue optics he could make out a distorted reflection of himself–no–of Ulchtar and he loved this feeling. He’s been fooled by Skyfire’s lies even when the heavy trodding of reality announced itself, he’d die as “Ulchtar” and be happy.
“Sometimes I can’t tell if I like you more, or the person I am when I’m with you.”
In the gloom of the Ark’s hangar, Skyfire’s chassis started hurting more.