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For the most part, postwar life was bliss.
The return to Cybertron was slow, as was the rebuilding, but Skyfire was content with their lives. He knew Starscream would never admit it, but Starscream practically threw himself into Skyfire’s the moment peace was declared.
They embraced for a moment that was both an eternity, and far too short.
Skyfire occupied much of his time working partially as a freighter and partially as a researcher on rebuilding efforts for Cybertron. Though he was reunited with Starsccream, it meant they had to treasure every moment together.
They spent the nights in close proximity to one another, drawn close together. Skyfire wrapped his arms around Starscream, basking in the sound of their shared engines idling. Many nights, Starscream’s armor was still warm from the heat of his thrusters, slowly cooling against Skyfire’s larger size. His warmth would slowly fade over the course of the night, returning to their usual temperature.
There was something beautiful about Starscream finding peace.
Not peace in the war itself, but that Starscream was always turbulent fire. He was filled with a quietly burning rage, that seethed and bubbled beneath the surface of his plating, always hiding just beneath his words, giving them a thin film of poison. He was a living tempest on wings, swirling about his spark in protection of something bitter and sad, and Skyfire found a tragedy in it.
Tragedy was always beautiful in stories, but truly painful in reality. There was nothing happy about seeing Starscream in pain, and he knew there was little he could do to actually heal the millennia of mourning. Still, there was a peace that he found in Skyfire’s arms, always pulling himself closer, widening his reach, trying to wrap them around Skyfire.
Holding onto him as if he might melt away and cease to be real at any moment.
One night, they lay in an embrace, and Skyfire was slowly drifting away to recharge, his hand around Starscream’s back, when the seeker’s wings twitched in irritation.
“What is it, Star?”
Skyfire asked, the only light in the room was the lights of his optics, casting a soft light over their frames.
“Grm… holding you… rmrgh… not enough… large.” Starscream’s muffled grumble was nearly incomprehensible.
Skyfire shifted, prying himself away, lifting his hand. “What was that, my starlight?”
Red optics flicked on, red light concentrated in pinpricks against Skyfire’s chassis. “I said, it’s annoying holding you. There’s not enough space, you’re too large.”
“What do you mean? I’m holding you right now.”
“That’s the problem,” Starscream grumbled, pulling himself upright. He stretched his wings, moving Skyfire’s hand to the side as though he was discarding a thermal blanket.
“Do you not want me to lay with you to recharge? I know the slab is a bit small for the two of us,” Skyfire admitted. He had one of the largest ones available, but most of the mecha larger than he, like Fortress Maximus and Omega Supreme, recharged via large cables, rather than warm recharging slabs. Still, Skyfire preferred recharging alongside Starscream.
“No! I do! I want to be closer!” Starscream grumbled. “It’s not enough.”
Skyfire paused, noticing the way Starscream’s hand was trembling. He took his hand in his own, rubbing his thumb over the back of Starscream’s palm. “What do you mean?”
Starscream’s wings hiked up, and he pouted, making a few irritable noises with his engines, like he was shifting up on the thrust, but not actually taking off. He shoved his helm against Skyfire’s side, making a few incoherent sounds of frustration like he was rattling his turbines.
Skyfire waited for him to finish.
Perhaps some would consider Starscream childish for these frustrations, but Skyfire knew better. It ran much deeper than that. Starscream was a bot who always wanted to be outgoing, always wanted to declare exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it, to be demanding and powerful, even, but at the same time, he also ignored his own needs. He would focus on what he wanted, denying himself whatever he needed, and was horribly unused to articulating his needs, lest he be seen as weak, or lesser somehow.
It was just one of many new habits Starscream had developed in their eons apart, and Skyfire was happy to learn about the new Starscream.
Even if some of Starscream’s changes were clearly wounds to the spark.
“My Starlight, use your glyphs. How can I help you?”
Starscream sat there for another prolonged moment, the rhythm of their systems synchronizing once more.
“I’d rather be the hauler, not the cargo.”
Oh.
Their positions.
Skyfire always lay there with his arms around Starscream, embracing Starscream from either the front or behind, holding him close.
They never shared the slab where Starscream was the one behind Skyfire, holding him close.
“I don’t mind, but—” Skyfire sat up, looking down at how as they sat together atop the slab, Starscream’s helm barely came up to the top of his cockpit. “Our difference in size? To a mech like me, you are quite small…”
“I’m not small!” Starscream huffed. “I’m the standard size for my flight class.”
Skyfire stifled a laugh.
Starscream’s optics flicked from Skyfire’s chassis, up to his face, and then crossed his arms indignantly. “Excuse you!”
“Apologies, my Starlight. I know.” He didn’t say anything else, but pulled a thermal blanket from his subspace, unfolding it by throwing the edges outwards from the recharge slab.
He pulled it up onto the recharge slab, and tucked his wings down, turning his back to Starscream.
There was no way for Skyfire to see Starscream’s expression, but there was something about his frown that was nearly audible.
Skyfire raised the edge of the thermal, offering a space for Starscream to slip in behind him.
A moment of hesitation, another flick of the wings, but Starscream climbed in behind him, his arm reaching up over Skyfire’s backpack, pulling the thermal tight around them both.
The I wish I could grab you and hold you tightly in my arms, maybe tuck you away in my subspace, and ensure that you never vanished from my life again went unspoken between them, but Skyfire understood.
There was a slow twisting of digits, pulling the thermal close to Skyfire, though Starscream’s arms didn’t reach all the way around him, he was caught up in his embrace.
He listened to the sound of Starscream’s engines, offlining his own optics.
Their proximity was enough for Skyfire, no matter what, but he knew Starscream wanted more. Not more physically, or even in reality, but that to Starscream, Skyfire could become a ghost at any time. That their lives had been apart, not together. Entropy itself pulled them apart, and yet here they were, their sparks in close proximity, humming together.
Perhaps one day soon, Skyfire would ask for a sparkbond, but the more he thought of it, that gesture belonged to Starscream.
That they could exist together, two balls of energy orbiting one another, against the grand scheme of the universe, against the millions of cycles that separated them once, their reunion was Starscream’s alone.
He deserved it.
It didn’t matter that Starscream’s arms didn’t reach all the way around his backpack.
It mattered that they were together once more.
And that was enough.