Academy: Broken

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Verse: Bayverse AU
Rating: R, just to be safe
Characters: Skywarp, Starscream
Warnings: sparksex, angst

A/N Right, because this bunny's been biting me for a while now.  Yet ANOTHER Seeker Trine series, with angst.  Set back on Cybertron in the early days of the war, in the Seeker Academy.  Closely after the events of Fire in the Sky .  This part also written for 10_hurt_comfort prompt, 'broken' (because I am so dang clever like that).  Prequel to Sky and Ground. Eventually sticky stuff will ensue, probably. 

Skywarp was keeping a running litany in his processor as he tore up the hallway—deliberately made too small to fly in—of their dormitory eyrie. Stupid, stupid Skywarp.  He’d left his datapad in his recharge station.  Thundercracker had frowned at him as he’d bolted.  Yes, it was important information, and…he didn’t know how he’d forgotten it. He’d done his work, he’d just…somehow left it in their quarters. 

He coded the door with a hasty slap of his palm, but skidded to a halt. 

Starscream hunched in the recharge station they had set aside. That would have been Skyfire’s.  The bronze flightframe crouched on the floor, arms folded over his legs, chin resting on his patellar plating.  He was rocking back and forth, keening softly, a note that ate right into Skywarp’s processor, like a black drill.

“Starscream?” Skywarp asked, the datapad forgotten.  Starscream ignored him, almost as if he somehow hadn’t heard the racket of Skywarp’s frantic entry to their quarters.  Skywarp inched closer.  “Starscream?” he repeated.  He bent, laying an awkward hand on Starscream’s shoulder.  The rocking stopped, abruptly.  But Starscream didn’t move his head, his optics focused almost blankly ahead. 

Skywarp could feel the misery pouring off his Trine like some sort of field.  He dropped to his knees behind Starscream, throwing his arms over the rigid shoulders, pressing his cheekplate against Starscream’s audio.  He felt Starscream slowly relax into his embrace.  His arms tightened.  He struggled, trying to think of the right words to say, not knowing that there were none.  Not knowing that nothing could comfort Starscream.  He did not know; he tried.  He would have tried anyway, even knowing how futile it would have been. 

“I miss him,” Starscream said, his voice thin. 

I do too, Skywarp thought.  He didn’t dare say that out loud, knowing by now that Starscream would view that as some sort of oblique blame. It wasn’t Starscream’s fault Skyfire had died.  But nothing could convince Starscream of that.  Thundercracker and he had flailed helplessly against Starscream’s determination to make himself at fault.  The best they could manage, they’d discovered, was to offer mute sympathy. He rubbed his hands down Starscream’s arms, hoping the comforting gesture did more than any words he could have thought of. 

“Without me…,” Starscream continued.  Skywarp ached. 

“We need you,” he said, quickly.  “We do.”

Starscream fell silent, bowing his head away from Skywarp’s comforting cheek. He curled there for a long moment, a closed in ball of agonized memories, before he lifted his head toward the blank wall.

“I shall begin attending training tomorrow,” Starscream said.  “After my endurance qualifications.”

Skywarp’s arms tightened excitedly around his Trinion for a moment, before he picked up on Starscream’s tone.  That this was…not welcome. 

“I have…not been living up to my responsibilities,” Starscream murmured, parroting back something he must have been told.

“You have,” Skywarp said, fiercely. 

“I have not. The Trine is larger than my petty emotions.”

Definitely parroting back someone.  “Thundercracker say this?” Skywarp’s hands curled.  Thundercracker meant well, but…in his way he could be worse than Skywarp in his ineptness.

“Seeker Trainer Cutdraft,” Starscream said.  “And he is correct.” 

“No,” Skywarp breathed.  “You don’t go back till you’re ready.”

“I need to.  I have been doing nothing here. I have been letting you both down.”  It was too hard for Skywarp to tell if these were his thoughts or Cutdraft’s.  It didn’t matter. 

He pulled Starscream, forcing the Trinion to turn his face, making their eyes meet. “You’re not letting us down.”

“I have not accomplished anything,” Starscream said, quietly.  “I have not even left the recharge. That is not fair for you and Thundercracker. It is my duty. And I owe it to you.”

“You don’t owe us,” Skywarp said. “We love you.”

“And I need to—,” his words were cut short by Skywarp leaning in, brushing his mouth over his.  He stiffened, a vent sucking abruptly in. 

Skywarp pulled back just enough to speak. “We want you to be happy.” He looked around the empty station.  Sitting here…Skyfire had never been here. Never made it to the Eyrie.  But they all felt, somehow, that this small semi-room was filled with his presence.  Hallowed.  Is this what Starscream did all day while they were gone? 

“I have done nothing to earn your esteem.”

“You’re one of us,” Skywarp said, awkwardly rubbing Starscream’s shoulder. He was getting frustrated at his own helplessness.  Any words he could say—because he was clumsy and because Starscream was clever enough when it came to twisting things against himself, were useless, or worse.  “How can I…?” It struck him. 

He pushed forward, closing the distance between their mouths, his lipplates eager and gentle against Starscream’s.  Starscream stiffened again, but Skywarp felt Starscream’s hands come up and carefully, hesitantly, stroke one of Skywarp’s folded wingstruts.  Encouraged, Skywarp pressed further, his glossa gently probing at the mouth against his. Starscream opened his mouth, his own glossa trembling.  Yes: Skyfire had been Starscream’s first kiss. Even this brought back memories.  But one solution, perhaps, was to overlay that painfully beautiful memory with others.  And Starscream was not pulling away. 

Skywarp traced a hand over the spark chamber armor on his bronze Trinion’s chassis.  “Let me show you,” he breathed, his mouth against Starscream’s.  Starscream quivered, on the brink of refusal. 

“I shall…have to do it at some point,” he whispered in pale surrender.  “I cannot let you down so far.”

Skywarp struggled: this was not about letting them down.  This was about…being whole.  Starscream retracted his armor, looking down at it as though bracing for pain. 

Skywarp retracted his own. Only the second time he had done it, and the actuators moved stiffly. He leaned closer, spiraling open his chamber, filling the space between them with flickering purple light. A long moment where he could feel Starscream’s fear—wild, restless, squirming—before the other opened his own chamber.

They were both so new to it that their attempt was probably laughable. They had no control, swept instead on the wild ride of their emotions and thoughts, plunging into each other, feeling the other’s pain, hesitation, fear, and trembling anxious desire to reach out. Skywarp felt his spark’s light swirling around Starscream’s blue, spinning in an intricate dance, trying to draw him out of himself, trying to pull the tight ball of light looser. 

“Oh!” Starscream cried out, on the brink of pain.

Let go, Skywarp wanted to whisper. He felt the message somehow carry through the dancing light between their frames, a soft plea, asking shyly for admittance. His hands felt Starscream’s shoulders tremble beneath them. He felt them both being pulled to an impossible, inexorable surge, a strong rush toward some powerful cataract, the light between them stirring and tossing in an ecstatic storm.

His audio rang as the light between them flared, and he was suddenly both of them, seeing and feeling himself, feeling Starscream’s thoughts and emotions from the inside. Oh, he thought, if I could take that pain away….

Starscream quivered against him, his long arms clutching around Skywarp’s shoulders, pulling him into a clinging embrace. Their armor self-closed. And for a long moment they sat there: Starscream’s arms around Skywarp’s shoulders as he knelt by him, afraid to break the moment. As if any thought too strong or emotion too abrupt would shatter the sudden tremulous release between them.   The emotions and thoughts and feelings they had captured from each other through the link seeped down, slowly processing. Skywarp could feel Starscream’s aching need to be loved, and his terror that he would let the others down, mingled with a bit of disgust—at how he had allowed himself to fall behind, to bury himself in stillness and past and memory while Skywarp and Thundercracker moved ahead toward a future. A future he could not bring himself to imagine. A future he wanted to trust.

“We’ll make it,” Skywarp whispered, finally. 

“I do not know how to start,” Starscream said, the aftereffects of the sparking allowing him to grasp immediately the right interpretation. 

It occurred to Skywarp that Starscream hadn’t left their quarters since he’d been released from repair bay. Not even to fly. And as he thought that thought, he felt a longing response—any airframe’s inborn hunger for the air. 

“We’ll begin by flying.”

“When?” Starscream’s terror bled over the fading link. Skywarp could feel the fear building in him and while he ached, he caught another flash of memory—Cutdraft, earlier today, lecturing Starscream about his torpor. Better, he thought, to do it now, to fly with his Trinion than under the judgmental optic of Cutdraft or Turbine. 

Class was forgotten. He’d get in trouble for it, but this was more important. Gladly, even, if it would bring Starscream back. If it would help.

“Now,” he said, firmly, pushing to his feet and extending a hand. 

Comments

[swordage]

*breaks for them* Mourning is never, ever easy. And it's so hard to look at this now and see the potential for healing, and to know that it went so far awry. Oh, so painful.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

I know. I'm sad too. :CCC

[eerian_sadow]

so, so bittersweet. but also so touching and wonderful.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[albydarned.livejournal.com]

I know that you've said it elsewhere before, but one of the wonderful things about this series (outside of the OMG ANGST YAY!) is how you've really made the Trine a Trine, and not just Starscream with Skywarp + Thundercracker, which is what is most often seen. I really love this part, because in a lot of ways it shows the way in which Skywarp and Starscream interact with one another, and that really sets up for what comes next, when everything becomes confused and dangerous when Thundercracker steps in and Starscream's affinity for pain becomes more obvious.

GAH! I should totally be doing homework right now but you know what? Screw it. I'm just going to reread this several times instead. ;)

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

The Trine as a couple shutting out the outsider can work really well, but invoking my "fandom is big enough for more than one idea" clause, I thought it would be fun to view it as a series of shifting alliances.

I hope you got your homework done!

[wicked3659.livejournal.com]

Ooohh I absolutely adored Fire in the Sky!! One of my favourite stories and I'm really glad you're doing this. It's a great start, so bittersweet my heart aches for starscream. I can't wait for the next part :)

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked, esp since a) Decepticons and b) jets. ^__^ I know you're a Prowl girl at heart!


(check out hot new coptery icon!!)

[wicked3659.livejournal.com]

Oohhh that is hot!! I can see his rotors rawrf!!! ^___^

[anontfwriter.livejournal.com]

An awesome piece, very touching. Can't wait to see what you write next!

P.S. Isn't it Skyfire who died?
"It wasn’t Starscream’s fault Skywarp had died"

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Fixed, thank you.

[silvanna.livejournal.com]

This was brilliant and beautiful. I love how it's Skywarp who tries to help Starscream instead of Thundercracker, these two need so much interaction and you captured the moment so perfectly. :)