Aftermath, Part 2

[nightwritey]

Title: Aftermath
Rating: PG
Warnings: A bit of language from a pissy Starscream
Main Character(s): For this part, Starscream, Skyfire
Genre: Drama
Summary: In the aftermath of "Redemption," the times, they are a-changin'.

Part 1 |  Part 2 |  Part 3



"Careful," Starscream cautioned as Skyfire warily approached him. "You'll get Decepticon cooties all over you."

He had been going for a light tone of voice. Maybe a bit of irony mixed in with the customary snarky sarcasm. The tone that emerged from his mouth, though, was far more bitter than Starscream had intended. Someone who didn't know him well might not have noticed the hurt and the lacerated pride that lay just beneath the thin veneer of carefully-constructed defensive sarcasm, but unfortunately for Starscream, Skyfire knew him very well indeed.

Skyfire finished his approach, folded his arms over his chest, and regarded Starscream with a helpless mixture of disapproval, dismay, and deep empathy. It was, naturally, a look virtually guaranteed to infuriate Starscream.

"What?!" Starscream demanded of Skyfire, true to form, after absorbing Skyfire's expression. "It's true, you know. Ask your dear friend Chromia over there," he finished acidly, jerking his chin contemptuously at the gathering of local Neutral enclave leaders across the way. They were avidly watching his and Skyfire's exchange, making no attempt whatsoever to hide their scrutiny and obvious interest.

Skyfire sighed. This, he concluded, was going to be one of those conversations. Those conversations happened quite often of late, far more often than Skyfire might have liked. On the other hand, he supposed he should have expected it. Starscream, for all of his initial and perhaps overly idealistic enthusiasm about breaking away from the Decepticons, had ultimately had a bit of difficulty making the adjustment in reality. In fact, "a bit of difficulty" was a vast understatement.

They'd had no trouble making contact with the so-called Neutrals. Skyfire found the term to be something of a misnomer, though. It was true that amongst those calling themselves Neutrals, there were many individuals who actually were truly neutral. Like himself, they wanted no part of the war; they just wanted to be left alone to live their lives in peace and to rebuild their homes and their homeworld as best they could even as the warring factions continued to fight and destroy it, intentionally or not. But many of the other "Neutrals" did not share those motivations. There were disaffected Autobots and Decepticons sprinkled within the enclaves as well, individuals who spitefully saw joining the Neutrals as damaging whichever cause that they had abandoned. Starscream, of course, fell into this category. And, of course, there were individuals who were non-aligned but who selfishly sought to profit from the war. Arms dealers who sold their wares to both sides. Information brokers who sniffed out information in the service of the highest bidder, without a thought as to what might be done with the information that they procured and provided. Spies for both of the warring factions peppered the Neutral population, as well. And, of course, there were the refugees, people whose homes and lives had been destroyed by the war. Although they were usually very angry at whichever side had caused the damage, they apparently felt no need to join the side which opposed it. They turned to the Neutrals because they had nowhere else to go, but neutral they themselves were not. Mostly, they were just bitter and angry, yet apathetic and broken at the same time, a very bizarre combination. But war, Skyfire sadly reflected, tended to bring about just such oddities.

It was a colorful group of people, to be certain, and a distressingly disorganized one as well. There were enclaves of various sizes scattered around the planet, each one led by one individual or a small committee of individuals, but there was no real cohesiveness or connection or communication between the leaderships of the enclaves. The fairly recent disaster involved with moving the planet to Earth's solar system had completely disrupted any progress that had been moving in that direction.

None of the Neutral leaders knew Skyfire. He had been out of the loop for too long, long thought dead, and most of the people who had known him when he had previously been on Cybertron were long since dead or aligned with one side or the other, as Starscream had been. Skyfire had no contact with them. So, all things being equal, the enclaves were willing enough to allow Skyfire to join their group. He had valuable skills and a very useful alternate form, if nothing else.

On the other hand, everyone knew Starscream, and he hadn't been welcome anywhere. In enclaves in which the majority were disaffected Decepticons, he was particularly despised; they saw him as a mere pawn of Megatron.

When they'd stumbled upon Chromia's enclave in their travels, Starscream had been shocked to see her. Skyfire, of course, did not know her, but Starscream surely did and had quickly filled him in on the details. That she was Ironhide's bondmate and had been second-in-command of Elita-One's guerilla unit on Cybertron. That according to the Decepticon intelligence to which he had been privy, she and Elita-One had had a rather public and very ugly falling out, after which Chromia had disavowed the Autobots and struck out on her own. That Chromia had promptly fallen off the radar after that, and the Decepticons hadn't cared enough about her to find and track her. And now here she was, leading what was probably the largest Neutral enclave on the planet, one with growing influence and even a modicum of power now that the Decepticon stranglehold on the planet had been weakened first by the disastrous effects of the planet's insertion into Earth's solar system and then by the demise of Megatron and the Decepticons' resulting drawing inward in order to regroup.

Intrigued by Chromia's history and by some of the more colorful characters in her enclave, Skyfire had approached Chromia and, surprisingly, she had allowed him to join her group even after he had confessed that with him he brought Starscream. She was extremely hesitant to do so, had informed Skyfire bluntly that they - meaning Starscream specifically, of course - would be closely watched, but she had allowed them to join the enclave on a trial basis. She was quick to reserve the right to kick their afts across the planet if Starscream so much as blinked in a way she didn't like, though.

So they did not get along very well at all, Starscream and Chromia. There were too many eons of bad blood between them. But she acknowledged that he had valuable knowledge and insight and, after a while, she had even admitted that he possessed a level of tactical brilliance that she hadn't really expected of him. She had admitted privately to Skyfire that Starscream was - or at least was on his way to becoming - a different person than the one that she had known for so long, a miracle for which she gave Skyfire full credit and Starscream no credit at all. Starscream, in turn, couldn't help but respect Chromia's abilities and her survivalist attitude that had made her enclave one of the largest and certainly the most stable, well-organized, well-equipped, and well-supplied one on the planet.

Mutual grudging respect didn't mean that Starscream and Chromia liked each other at all. Most of their conversations were bad ones, Starscream falling easily into his habit of trying to control everything, which in turn rubbed Chromia, who was somewhat of a control freak herself, in all the wrong ways. Planning sessions usually involved a wealth of heated words and mutual suspicions exchanged between them, no matter how much Skyfire sought to keep both sides calm. Even on good days, their exchanges consisted mostly of acrimony and thinly-veiled mutual threats and accusations. Both of them entirely lacked social graces and the ability to be politely tactful where the other was concerned. Skyfire, in more mellow and reflective moods, had often privately observed that they were very much alike and that this was the main reason, aside from their differences as ex-Autobot and ex-Decepticon, that they were often at each other's throats.

The disappearances hadn't helped, either. Over the last nine weeks - roughly coinciding with the moment that Skyfire and Starscream had joined them - Chromia's enclave had lost more than thirty individuals. They had simply disappeared, one or two at a time every once in a while, sometimes at night and sometimes in broad daylight. None of those who had disappeared had been seen or heard from since. Suspicion and blame for the disappearances were naturally being laid at Starscream's feet, and he didn't deal well with that.

So now the mutual dislike and distrust between Starscream and Chromia and the subtly heated words they usually exchanged had devolved into actual physical violence. The veil had come off the accusations of Starscream's responsibility for the disappearances in the middle of a tentative meeting between several leaders of local Neutral enclaves who were willing to ally themselves and work together in an effort to get to the bottom of the disappearances. A brawl had ensued. It had been a confrontation that Starscream, much to his chagrin, had lost. It wasn't surprising since it had been three against one, but that didn't matter to Starscream's wounded pride, so he had stormed away in an offended snit, as usual, leaving Skyfire to do what he could to fix things. All it had taken was a significant glance from Chromia to send him on his way; one of his jobs in the enclave had quickly become that of Official Seeker Tamer.

And now, Skyfire said nothing for a long while, content to merely watch Starscream, trying to assess his state of mind and get a sense of how best to talk to him this time. Starscream was radiating intense waves of "Leave me alone" at the moment, but Skyfire wouldn't do that because he knew that if he left Starscream alone then the wounds he was nursing would simply fester. Then the self-recrimination and the self-hatred would kick in full-force, and they'd be right back to square one quickly enough to make Skyfire's head spin. As it stood, leaving Starscream alone for any longer stretch of time to think and brood was not a good idea in general, and it certainly wasn't a good idea at this specific moment.

Skyfire sighed, not for the first time, as the thought crossed his mind that his "job" would be so much easier if Starscream would allow them to renew their bond. But that, at the moment, was out of the question. Starscream was jumpy in the extreme, and their situation at the moment, the suspicion and tension that were surrounding him and the eyes that were upon him, didn't help matters. He flinched away from even a simple, non-intimate touch unless he had initiated it himself, and those times were exceedingly rare. Skyfire had nigh-infinite patience, though, and he had made a vow to stand by Starscream for as long as it took, to take things at Starscream's speed even if glaciers moved faster than Starscream did. It was a vow that Skyfire took very seriously. Still, in the privacy of his mind, he often wished things would hurry up on that end, if only to have that immediate and intimate connection with Starscream again, to know what Starscream was thinking before he even consciously thought it. Perhaps, Skyfire thought, that was what Starscream, now, feared the most. Nevertheless, it was what Skyfire craved, and he wouldn't deny it. He also wouldn't push it, though; that was the vow that he had made.

It didn't mean that Skyfire couldn't wish for it, though. Now, staring at Starscream, watching him with an ache of empathy flaring deep in his spark, Skyfire wished for it more than anything. He was tired of having to try to guess what was going through Starscream's mind. He wanted to know what was going through his mind, so that he could more effectively help Starscream fight his demons. But Starscream was stubborn and hated being out of control. He insisted on doing things himself, even while on the other hand occasionally admitting, in quieter moments when he wasn't trying desperately to maintain a façade of self-sufficiency, that he needed help. Admitting to the need for help was apparently, for Starscream, an altogether different and much easier thing than actually accepting that help, though. And at the moment, Starscream felt far away from Skyfire, farther away than he'd felt for quite a while now. All that Skyfire could do was to try to get him to talk, on the theory that if he could get Starscream to open his mouth, then maybe, eventually, he'd open his spark as well.

Skyfire lived in hope of that. He knew that Starscream loved him because Starscream told him so often. Skyfire, knowing Starscream well, could tell that he was sincere. But there was still a deep chasm between them, and Skyfire hadn't yet figured out how to bridge it. All that he knew was that the only construction materials he had at hand were words.

"They're afraid, Starscream," Skyfire quietly rumbled at Starscream, without preamble. "They're afraid, they're not warriors, and they're losing people practically every day. They have been ever since we joined them. What do you expect them to think?"

Starscream stared at him. Anger flared in his red eyes, his posture was stiff with offense and humiliation, his chin was raised defiantly, and his arms were folded and locked defensively across his chest. It took him more than a few moments to construct a reply.

"I expect them to use some logic, Skyfire," Starscream growled back, trying to rein in the fury that was eating away at his innards and at his rationality. "Why do they automatically assume that it's the Decepticons that are doing this? Have you seen any Decepticons around lately? I haven't. They're all too busy with that orbital whatever-it-is they're building around Io," he said, distractedly waving in the general direction of the moon next door. "It's a big project, takes lots of time, energy, and labor. So why in Primus's name would they be sneaking around wasting time and energy just to abduct a bunch of worthless, useless Neutrals? The very idea makes no sense whatsoever. And anyone should be able to see that."

"Often," Skyfire calmly pointed out, thankful that Starscream had chosen to talk at all, "people don't have a whole lot of sense when they're frightened out of their wits."

"Well, that's their problem right there, then," Starscream answered, all suddenly self-righteous smugness. "Because if I've learned anything from the past few million years or so, it's that you must do whatever it takes hang on to reason and sanity. Especially when you're frightened out of your wits."

"Maybe so," Skyfire conceded before adding, somewhat more sarcastically, "but these people haven't yet learned that lesson that you, in your infinite wisdom, so obviously grasp."

Starscream snorted at the snarkiness. Skyfire was, he reflected, getting better at it. It was only a marginal improvement, but he was learning. And he would continue to learn, with the proper tutelage, which Starscream was all too happy to provide.

"Three more of them disappeared last night," Skyfire was saying.

"And that's my fault, of course," Starscream unsympathetically sniped.

"No one is saying that, Starscream," Skyfire somewhat testily replied.

Starscream regarded Skyfire askance, incredulously, exasperatedly. He blinked at him repeatedly, even.

"Skyfire, I love you dearly," he said disbelievingly, "but clearly you're living on a completely different plane of existence than everyone else on the planet. Of course that's what they're saying! In fact, they just said it! To my face! Am I just supposed to sit back and take it when I know that it's not true?"

Skyfire sat down before he answered, not wanting to loom over Starscream. He had found that Starscream tended to calm more easily when he sat down to speak to him, when Starscream didn't have to crane his neck up to talk to him, when they could look straight into each other's faces.

"No," he answered calmly. "No, you have every right to defend yourself, of course. But… they believe that you are still a Decepticon, that your presence here has some ulterior motive behind it, and they're afraid of whatever that motive is. And some of them believe that you are, in fact, Decepticon leader."

Starscream just blinked at Skyfire for a long moment after that. And then he exploded into howling, disbelieving laughter that lasted for a good long time. He ended up leaning against the wall of the ruined building behind him for support, when the laughter served to weaken his knees. When he could collect himself after a minute or two, Starscream regarded Skyfire with disbelief.

"Skyfire, I - We! - killed Megatron," he needlessly reminded Skyfire. "That makes me persona non grata in the eyes of those who worshipped him. Which is basically every Decepticon other than maybe Thundercracker. Leader! Hah! It's ridiculous."

"I know that," Skyfire answered, "and you know that." He gestured at the gathering of Neutral leaders across the way. "But they don't know that. Oh, they know you did the deed," he continued, talking over Starscream's attempt to interrupt and protest, "because they've been able to confirm that through other non-biased sources, but they also know you'd been gunning for Megatron's job for…forever. They know nothing of the circumstances surrounding Megatron's demise. So as far as they know, you're now in charge and Skywarp's just doing what you tell him to do, while you're out here doing…whatever it is they think you're doing, posing as a disaffected Decepticon. They think Chromia's crazy for letting you stay here. She says it's better to keep an eye on you than to let you roam around on your own, but they…" Skyfire's voice trailed off when he noticed that Starscream was gaping at him in disbelief. He wryly added, "You have to admit that that sort of plan is something that would have been right up your alley, Starscream."

"Mmmm," Starscream wordlessly agreed. "Except that Skywarp never would have gone along with it. If he had…" Starscream said with a somewhat devious little grin as his voice trailed off, "Well, if Skywarp would've been cooperative, I'd've tried something like that a long time ago."

Skyfire smiled at that.

"My point exactly," he said. "And so to them, the fact that you showed up at about the time that their people started disappearing is by no means a coincidence. If they were thinking logically they'd see that you'd never be so stupid as to be so…coincidental, but they're not thinking logically. And the fact that Chromia continues to harbor you is, in fact, what is keeping this enclave alliance from happening. The other enclave leaderships don't trust you, nor do they trust me enough to accept my vouching for you."

"Well," Starscream griped matter-of-factly, "the feeling is mutual," For good measure, he aimed a challenging glare over at the small gathering of enclave leaders, all of whom were still watching him and Skyfire intently, with fixated curiosity.

Skyfire sighed, knowing that Starscream wasn't going to like hearing what he was going to say next.

"You need to put that aside, Starscream," he said simply.

"Me?!" Starscream responded, jerking his gaze back to Skyfire, immediately outraged. "Them first!"

Skyfire shook his head sadly.

"That's not going to happen, and you know it," he said quietly, sadly, and with cruel honesty. "And the thing is that you - we - don't have any other options here. You are, as you said, persona non grata amongst the Decepticons. Any of them would likely shoot you on sight, given the chance. I could go back to the Autobots, but your reception with them would likely be only slightly less 'warm' than it would be amongst the Decepticons, and I will not leave you. So this," he said, gesturing around the enclave's makeshift encampment, "is all that we have, Starscream. Like it or not, these people are all that we have, unless you want to have enemies literally on all sides of you. So it's we who must appease them, not the other way around."

"'We' meaning 'me,' in this particular case," Starscream wearily added, after thinking about Skyfire's words for a few moments.

"I'm afraid so," Skyfire agreed quietly, sympathetically.

Starscream sighed a long, deep, and weary sigh, his shoulders suddenly slouching. He clenched his fists at his sides and then relaxed them, then clenched them again, over and over as he considered Skyfire's words. His words made sense, as they usually did. Skyfire's logic could sometimes put Shockwave's to shame. And Skyfire was right, too. There were no other alternatives. Still…

"I'm…not very good at this sort of thing, Skyfire," Starscream said uncertainly.

Skyfire hitched a small, sad smile at him.

"I know, love," he said. "But it must be done."

"How?" Starscream plaintively asked. "My pride is much too big to swallow, you know."

It was a good question, and Skyfire wasn't certain how to answer it.

"Maybe if you could be more…more…" he ventured, fumbling for words.

"More what?" Starscream asked, suddenly wary, peering sideways at his mate through eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"I don't know!" Skyfire exasperatedly replied. "More cooperative, maybe."

"Cooperative," Starscream echoed thoughtfully, but in a deeply sarcastic and mocking way. "Cooperative…" After an extended period of mock-musing on the word, he sniped, "Which is a tidy euphemism for 'Just shut up and make nicey-nice with the natives, Starscream.' Sorry, Skyfire. Not my style."

"I don't mean nicey-nice," Skyfire testily shot back. "I mean…I don't know what I mean…Maybe give them those security grid access codes they've been asking you for."

Starscream sighed.

"Why bother?" he asked dispiritedly. "They've all been changed by now. Skywarp may be dumber than your average brick, but Thundercracker most certainly is not. And I know who's really in charge. Sneaky bastard ended up with my job after all."

"I thought Skywarp was the sneaky bas-" Skyfire began, then shook his head as if to clear it of debris. "No. No, I refuse to let you drag me off-topic. So: If you gave Chromia and the others the codes they want, at least it would show them that you're willing to be-"

"No, Skyfire," Starscream interrupted sadly. "No, here's how things would happen, if I did that: I give them my old codes. They merrily go off to raid the Decepticon base where they're so utterly convinced their comrades are being held. Lo and behold, the codes don't work! Massive casualties ensue! The survivors crawl back here in righteous outrage, convinced that I deliberately gave them the wrong codes. Then, they crucify me."

At that, Skyfire scowled and rose to his full and very impressive height and approached Starscream. This time, he intentionally loomed over him for a moment. Protectively so. And then he placed his hands on Starscream's shoulders. Starscream flinched at the contact, but for once he did not pull away. He also found that he couldn't drag his gaze away from Skyfire's.

"I will not let that happen," Skyfire vowed solemnly. "No one will hurt you while I still function. That, I promise you. You simply must do what needs to be done, Starscream, if we are to survive and then let the chips fall where they may. Give them the information that they want, Starscream, whatever they want."

"But-" Starscream attempted to interrupt.

"But nothing!" Skyfire insisted, not budging an inch, literally or figuratively, and not taking his hands off of Starscream's shoulders. "Tell them the truth, Starscream. Tell them anything and everything that they want to know. Tell them, too, that any information you have is likely outdated and no longer accurate and then let them decide what to do with it, if anything. But at least you will have told them something. Because that's where trust begins. You see how far being secretive and aloof has gotten you, don't you?"

And then Skyfire stepped back from Starscream, giving him space to think and to weigh options in his head. Starscream being Starscream, it didn't take him long to arrive at a conclusion.

"All right," he said quietly, defeated. "Fine. I'll tell them whatever they want to know. I'll tell them how much energon Soundwave has for breakfast every morning, if they want to know that. For all the good it will do. They'll still never trust me."

"Not at first, no," Skyfire conceded. "But they will have to trust you, eventually. They'll have no choice but to do so, if you consistently offer them no reason to doubt you. But unfortunately for you, given your past and the decisions that you've made, you're in a position where you must prove yourself trustworthy. They," he finished, waving at the waiting Neutral leaders, "have nothing to prove."

Starscream sighed. Skyfire was right again, of course.

"It's that karma thing, isn't it?" Starscream asked, somewhat rhetorically. "Always biting me on the aft."

"Until you pay it off, yes," Skyfire agreed. "You could consider facing these people and telling them truthfully what they want to know as your first payment. And I'll be right there with you."

And without further ado, Skyfire turned and started to head back to the waiting Neutrals. Starscream, much more slowly and hesitantly, followed him.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Starscream called out as he followed Skyfire into the lion's den. He had to raise his voice because Skyfire had gotten quite a bit ahead of him.

Skyfire turned around then and walked backwards for a few steps so that he could see Starscream's face and Starscream could see his.

"Never!" he answered with a somewhat jaunty and amused little grin. "But I always seem to muddle through somehow, don't I?"

Starscream snorted and laughed humorlessly at that, but what Skyfire had said was true. Starscream could only hope that it would continue to hold true through the imminent confrontation that lay ahead of him.