Regrets

 

Hollow footsteps echoed dully down the amber corridors of the Arc. Dismal tributes to the bleak weather in the dank air and the oozing puddles followed Skyfire down, down, always down as he trudged towards the brig. The chill down there had nothing to do with the driving rain outside - a weight of resentment and bitterness ages old rolled out from the heavy doors like a tide, a thick smog of  hatred that could only add to the burden the scientist already carried.

Nodding to Ironhide at the brig entrance station, Skyfire moved to open the door - but halted abruptly as the senior Autobot spoke.

“Y’know who’s in there?”

It wasn’t really a question. Skyfire wouldn’t have come down here if it had been anyone else.

“Then y’know wah ah’m wurried. Yuh said yuh knew him, an’ yuh were a Decepticawn before - don’t make me regret lettin’ yuh in thar.”

He caught the brief flare of hurt in Skyfire’s optics as the scientist turned to leave and caught his arm. “Ah know yuh changed sides, but that Starcreep’s got a silver tongue in his head. Don’t let him talk yuh inter somethin’ yuh’ll regret.”

Skyfire managed a weak smile as Ironhide let him go with a decisive nod. He was right of course - the Starscream Skyfire had known was lost, long gone by what he’d already heard, replaced by a vicious, cruel, spiteful...seeker. He had to know what had happened to bring them both to this; if there was anything left of the eager student, the vibrant scientist...his dazzling silver soulmate.

As Ironhide opened the doors to the brig with a careful, unnoticed glance at the scientist, Skyfire sighed and braced himself for what was coming.

 

Lights were dim in there. The brig was seldom opened, the Autobots rarely having the need to use it, and the musty smell of shuttered rooms and dusty spaces pervaded the chilly air. In the cells lining the tawny walls dimly glowing optics shone red in the dark; shadowy faces turning towards the intruder as Skyfire moved, hesitant after he had come this far, along the line.

He stopped just before the last cell, resolve faltering, before steeling himself and stepping swiftly to face into the cell.

Starscream was waiting.

Skyfire started - the seeker was so close to the energy bars he could almost reach out and touch his face... His hand twitched of its own accord, reaching for his partner as he unconsciously reached out through the link that shimmered between them, faint but still there after countless years... He reached out, and his ken was slapped viciously away with a mental snarl hard and brutal as Starscream glared and turned away.

“How...dare you.”

Low and hissing, so quiet, and harsh enough to cut into Skyfire’s armour and leave his spark bare, open and bleeding.

          “Starscream...”

Accusing fire-blood-red the optics bore into him, silencing him; twin fires as judge, jury and executioner. The flames dipped and died, the seeker shutting them off as he stalked to the cell’s centre and leaving Skyfire, bereft of his partner’s hell-red stare, standing before him muted and alone.

          “Get out.” Flat, emotionless, dead on the surface, but seething with everything ever left unsaid if you knew how to listen. And Skyfire knew it - oh, how he knew...

          “Starscream, I just want to talk to you -”

          “A little late, don’t you think?” the seeker sneered, still not bothering to turn. “The last time I talked you didn’t listen anyway, so what’s the point?”

Skyfire found himself praying for one glance from those blood-red, hell-red inferno pits, even if they scorched his soul to the core, if it meant he could only talk to the flier and try to understand...

          “That isn’t fair...” The scientist tried to keep his head. Too much had changed; he couldn’t fathom out the flier’s mind like he used to, but if Starscream would only let him in, let him explain... “Starscream, what happened to you? I don’t under-”

          “Me?!” the seeker shrieked, finally turning and pinning Skyfire with wellsprings of balefire, burning holes of pain and fury bursting from his spark to batter the scientist, powerless to stop himself. “What happened to me! I found you again, dug you out, brought you back - and you betrayed me! You left me again, and you swore...”

          Starscream pulled back his temper with a hiss and an effort, the deafening silence from his wingmates’ listening, recording audios echoing around the room like a thunderclap. Dragging his voice down with him into the hopeless mire he snarled “You swore an oath, Skyfire, and you betrayed me. I trusted you and you betrayed me. I...” He halted, the blind fury and grief sputtering out, and for one moment the bewildered face of an abandoned child looked out through pain-red optics. “I...I searched half the world for you. I waited so long...”

          He stopped in the raucous silence; his dark face grew hard, scarred and unassailable, and he pulled back from the glowing bars to cloak his form in shadow. Skyfire was stunned, unable to move as though paralysed and stricken by so many incarnations of the one being he thought he truly understood. His one link from the past, their past - Starscream, shattered and broken, kicking him aside and blaming him.

          “You... you saved me, and then you shot me” he mumbled in shock, voice slurring as he reeled like a ship in a storm, unable to sight land or a familiar face. “You were going to harm the xenos - you shot me, left me for dead...”

          “You shot me back. You didn’t listen, Skyfire” the flier said coldly, his face unreadable and hidden in the gloom. “We are Decepticons. We don’t play nicely with inferior species, and when you left m- left us, you joined their ranks. You spurn us, we shoot you.”

          “Is this it?” the scientist murmured, numb and hazy with pain felt and pain renewed. “Is this the end, for you?”

          “It ended when you broke your word” came the icy reply, a chilling reminder of ice and death, fire and rescue - shock and betrayal.

          “I couldn’t be a Decepticon - you know that. Not even for you.”

          “That wasn’t the oath I meant.” Skyfire’s mind ran cold, even as his mistake crystallised in Starscream’s spark like a knife in the heart. That wasn’t what I meant... You said you would always be there for me. Always.

          You lied.

Everyone lies. I lie. I lie alone.

I’m better off alone.       

And now I’m always alone.     

 

Skyfire! You promised!

The seeker’s broken wail was never heard - he buried it under the ice and ashes of his battered heart and smothered the betrayal with anger, never listening to a thing that might disturb the pain - or tell him the truth; that he hadn’t listened to Skyfire, that the scientist was in as much pain as he - as confused, as hurt, his heart breaking into just as many matching pieces.

          In the gloom of the corridor, Skyfire turned and walked away, his spark crying out in despair for his cold, shattered bondmate.

          Starscream, I don’t understand...I’m sorry...  I’m hurt, I’m lost - help me, I love you and I don’t understand!

          In the darkness of the cell the soul of a flier cried in out agony, and the heart of a bondmate was broken into a mirror of its twin.

          Don’t leave me again!

          Don’t trust again. I can’t bear it.

Don’t care again. I loved you - still love you

          Don’t be hurt again. It hurts so much...

         

          Don’t leave me!

 

And in the rain, two souls cried.