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2024-12-19
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2024-12-30
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3/?
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hands, sullied with hope

Summary:

Skyfire did not make it out of the arctic. But neither does Starscream.

-

“Skyfire!” He is barely even able to hear himself over the howling gales. “Skyfire!” His vents begin to quiver in the freezing cold of the blizzard. But he must press on.

Skyfire is half-buried when he finds him. His digits are dug into the ice, the substance crumbling in his servos. Starscream drops to his knees, clawing at the slush. He bites his tongue as it gets in his joints, causing them to stiffen and shake. His systems warn him that a shutdown is imminent if they stay in here any longer.

Notes:

howdy folks, this fic was inspired by Star in the Sky by CrocoMom (linked above) and by this piece of artwork and I have been able to think about NOTHING else for WEEKS. The basic premise of this fic is pretty much exactly what you see in the summary - I'm loosely basing it off of Starscream's and Skyfire's backstory from G1. That's about where the similarities end, though. The prologue is going to be posted in tandem with the first full chapter, so you're not just getting 500 measly words to read over and over again until my brain rots out of my head.

I've officially lost my goddamn mind. But this is not the first time I've lost it, and it most certainly will not be the last!

The title of this fic comes from a translated lyric from "heat abnormal" by iyowa, and the title of this chapter comes from "hello my old heart" by the oh hellos.

I won't be leaving any end notes on this first chapter, for reasons of "I don't want my end notes to show up on every single chapter because that will actually drive me crazy". So, in advance, kudos and comments are appreciated! I would appreciate comments more than kudos, though.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 1: prologue - don't leave me here alone

Chapter Text

The storm should not have taken them by surprise.

 

There were a few indicators for it - indicators that Starscream should have seen - a drop in temperature and pressure in the air, sudden increase in wind speeds. But hindsight was, famously, much better than foresight. 

 

It should not have been a shock when Skyfire began to drop. 

 

It should not have been a shock when it took more than a few joors to circle the globe. 

 

And then - 

 

There, in the snow and ice. His - Skyfires’ distress signal. Starscream dives down against the wind. Hearing it - faint and desperate over his comms - does nothing to quell the rising terror in his throat. 

 

“Skyfire!” He is barely even able to hear himself over the howling gales. “ Skyfire!” His vents begin to quiver in the freezing cold of the blizzard. But he must press on. 

 

Skyfire is half-buried when he finds him. His digits are dug into the ice, the substance crumbling in his servos. Starscream drops to his knees, clawing at the slush. He bites his tongue as it gets in his joints, causing them to stiffen and shake. His systems warn him that a shutdown is imminent if they stay in here any longer. 

 

We’re going to die here, he thinks for a second. Coolant starts dripping from his optics and freezes where it lands in the snow. After everything they’ve been through, this is how it ends? Frozen in a freak storm on a foreign planet. He chokes back a sob as pain, both freezing and firey, begins streaming up his arms. He thinks, I thought we had more time. He thinks, this isn't fair. We were supposed to do great things - I had so much planned for our future, my future! He wants to wail into the open air, but it's meaningless.

 

A servo that is not his own falls onto his shoulder. There’s an apologetic look on the shuttles face - come here, he mouths, and Starscream obliges. The hole he dug is just large enough for him to fit, and he thinks it's convenient. A series of terrible, cruel jokes the universe has decided to play on them, stranding them here. He crawls onto Skyfire, his vents shuddering underneath the frost.

 

Skyfire cradles him, and Starscream’s vision begins to fade. He looks up at the sky once more, and it is ablaze with color. 

 

At least this shoddy world was good for something. At least it gave them something nice before they were gone. 

 

His vision goes dark, and Starscream can only dream of a future that will never come. 

Chapter 2: 1 - too late to start (got your heart in a headlock)

Summary:

Everything that was once lost shall be found yet again.

Notes:

This chapter took me WAY too long to write. The entire time I wanted to bash my head through a wall until something clicked and I got 1.1k words out.

I also didn't put this on the last chapter - this is my first time writing anything for Transformers. The hyperfixation is so strong, it's terrifying. I saw Transformers: ONE in theaters and then I got dragged into the fandom by my ankles. This has been nothing short of insane.

I can't guarantee I'm going to update all that frequently, because life gets in the way, but I'm gonna do my best. At the very least, I wanted to get these two chapters out and into the world before I lost the motivation to write them forever. Maybe this fic will be completed, maybe it won't. We'll certainly see, won't we? Either way, thanks for reading! title of this chapter is taken from "headlock" by Imogen heap :3

CW just for general high anxiety, about the last 300 or so words of this chapter.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Tap, tap, tap. 

 

Tap, tap, tap.

 

Sideswipe groaned, leaning forward on his hands. “This is so boring, ” He whined, letting his head thump onto the desk in front of him. It had been the greater part of three or four joors, and so far, nothing. No Decepticon activity, nothing suddenly going kaboom in the middle of nowhere - or in the base, thankfully. There was just… nothing. And when nothing was happening, it got boring fast. 

 

His grumbling only earned him a stern glare from Ironhide. “Boring as it might be, it’s necessary work,” He chided. “There’s only another joor until the shift swaps.” Sideswipe sighed. A joor wasn’t all that long, in the grand scheme of things, but it felt longer when the universe decided to take a day off from the constant chaos. Time flies when you’re having fun, or whatever the human phrase was.

 

There was a beeping noise coming from the console. Sideswipe’s head shot up, a grin on his face that quickly fell, eyebrow ridge creasing. Ironhide was suddenly peering over his shoulder, wearing an equally tense expression. Four beeps, short and swift, followed by a klik of static-ladened silence. The signal repeated. And it was quiet. Distant. 

 

“Find out where that’s coming from,” Ironhide muttered, hand resting on Sideswipe’s shoulder. A few buttons pressed here, a knob turned left and right until the signal came in clearer. 

 

“The arctic?” Sideswipe blinked. He couldn’t get it down any further than a four-acre radius - but that was the arctic circle, for sure. It was freezing cold there - he was sure there were plenty of reasons why they’d never gone on any expeditions there, one of them being that extensive exposure to the cold led to some pretty bad things happening. He looked up at Ironhide hesitantly. “You don’t think there’s anything alive there, do you?”

 

Ironhide sighed,  “Only one way to find out.”

 

-

 

He was very quickly regretting wishing for something to happen today. Because this sucked. 

 

The mission itself was simple - find out whatever was causing that signal. He’d made the stupid mistake of asking what the signal even was - the meeting room had gone deathly quiet at that. Then, Optimus fragging Prime spoke up, soft as he always was, and said, “ That’s an old Cybertronian distress signal.”

 

He should’ve just kept his big mouth shut. But he didn’t, and now he was here. Dragging his pedes in the cold. Well, at least he wasn’t alone - Sunstreaker was by his side, equally miserable. He almost regret bringing him into this, but it would be even worse alone. 

 

They searched for what felt like forever - the signal was faint, like it had been buried a hundred meters in the ice, and it sounded like it was coming from every direction. They’d gotten turned around so many times, it was hard to know where they were. Sideswipe shivered - maybe the cold was getting to them, and that’s why it sounded like it was moving. 

 

And then it was right in front of them. Buried at least twenty feet in a giant block of ice, it looked like something - someone massive. He could hear Sunstreaker calling back to the Ark, saying that this was way too big for just two people to unearth, but he could barely register his brother’s voice. If he squinted hard enough, it looked like a Cybertronian. Maybe two, although he wasn’t quite as sure on the second blob of color.

 

Were they digging up a corpse? Two corpses? He didn’t know, but thankfully, more Autobots came to help. There were enough of them that they could start chipping into the ice - and Sunstreaker was right about this being too much for just two people to unearth. 

 

He thought this situation could not get any weirder - he was dreadfully wrong about that. The closer they got to the figure encased in ice, the clearer it was to see the actual scale of this guy. And he wasn’t hallucinating earlier - there really were two Cybertronians in the ice. One was about average size - well, for a seeker, anyways. A seeker, all the way out here in the ice! As if that wasn’t strange enough - the larger of the two was easily double the Prime’s height, which meant it took five people just to haul him out of the ice.

 

He didn’t know when Jazz or Prowl had gotten there. But as the two Cybertronians were there, laid out on the ground. It was quiet for a moment. Jazz had kneeled down next to them, examining them. He’d pressed a hand against the larger one’s shoulder for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line. His face twitched, and - 

 

Jazz had jolted back, a startled gasp leaving him. “Prowler, tell me I’m not going crazy right now,” He had called, and Prowl slide to his side, pressing his hand in the same area that Jazz had, and -

 

“Comm Ratchet, now!” He hollered, several of the others jerking to attention. “The medical bay needs to be prepped and ready to go - We’re taking them back to the Ark!”

 

“What?! Why?” Sideswipe had asked loudly, immediately regretting everything that had led up to this point. 

 

“They’re alive!” Jazz had answered before running off. 

 

He really should’ve just kept his big mouth shut. 

 

-

 

Starscream’s systems began to boot up slowly. Agonizingly slow.

 

It had - they were - 

 

He and Skyfire had just been… they were in the snow and ice. They’d been caught in a storm. And then - then what? He was - his processor was slow, and it felt like he was physically straining himself to think. Ow.  

 

It was quiet, and then it was very loud. He winced, turning his head - he was laying on something. That was new. Somebody was shouting something, and he was - was he moving? He was moving. There was so much happening. 

 

He opened  his eyes to very bright lights, groaning. His systems began to flood with errors and deficiencies and all sorts of things going wrong. There was more shouting, and then somebody yelled, “One of them is awake!” And there was a - well, he could assume it was a medic, and they’d stopped moving. 

 

“Wh- er- e-” His vocalizer glitched, starting to spit static with just a single word. Where’s Skyfire? Where am I? Who are you? He wanted to ask so many questions, but the medic just shushed him, hooking something up to a port in his elbow. 

 

“I need three - no, four IVs of energon, on the double!” He’d shouted over his shoulder, earning something incomprehensible in response. He looked back down to Starscream, something akin to concern etched on his face. (It wasn’t like he could tell, every one of his systems seemed to be glitching out.) “Don’t speak, you’ve been in emergency stasis for a very long time,” He’d reassured (or tried to be reassuring). It did not stop anxiety from rising in his throat. 

 

The medic had turned away, barking orders again, and Starscream had managed to get a stubborn hand to latch onto his arm. “Ple- ase-” 

 

Engaging low power mode, his systems warned. He’d dismissed - probably too many warnings, but he had to get this out - 

 

“Do- n’t- hur- t- us-ss,” He begged, and then everything went dark again.

Notes:

I'm not confident in my writing at all. But everybody I've shown this to before posting has loved it. It's baffling. Anyways, off I go to bash my head into the wall again.

Kudos and comments are always appreciated, but please comment if you find the time!

Chapter 3: 2 - all we are is talking over each other

Summary:

Time still passes, even when you are not there to experience it.

Notes:

Okay, couple of things.

First off - I don't know what I was expecting when I posted those first two chapters, but it most certainly was not the insane outpouring of excitement for this fic! It's a little overwhelming, to be entirely honest - these past couple of years, I've gotten more used to posting in smaller fandoms, and it's really nice to be back in a fandom that's actually active. Thank you to everybody that's commented on this fic, or even if you've just left some kudos. Genuinely, it has inspired me to keep chipping away at this fic.

Second off - this is not my greatest work. But, it exists and I don't utterly despise it, and I think that's good enough for me. I'm gonna be taking the plot fairly slowly - there's a lot of ideas I got floating around, and I'm not too sure which ones I'm going to implement yet. I've got this fic outline up to an eighth chapter, but nothing beyond that. End goal is Autobot Starscream, but that might change. I'm still giving these two a happy ending, though! Also, yes, I have plans to include Starscream's trine in this. But you'll just have to wait and see what that entails, won'tcha?

In terms of holidays - I hope you all had a very merry Christmas, or a Happy Hanukkah, or maybe just a good week in general! And a happy New Year to all who choose to celebrate!

I went and saw the new Sonic The Hedgehog movie in theaters on Thursday, so I've been... less than normal about that.

Enjoy the chapter! Title for this one is taken from Linkin Park's song, "Over Each Other"!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Starscream woke up to bright lights. Again.

 

Feeling returned to his limbs slowly, spreading from his spark outwards. He blinked rapidly, faintly remembering the last time he’d woken up. It had been painful, to say the least. His systems didn’t pop up with an incredible amount of errors this time around, which was an improvement from the last time he had woken up.

 

He made an attempt to sit up, but pain sparked up his back and he quickly gave up on that endeavor. He could turn his head though, and what he saw wasn’t exactly all that eye-catching. It was a medical bay, painted most in sterile white. There was a privacy curtain around his berth - which wasn’t actually necessary, but it was a polite gesture. He ran a surface level scan of his frame, and nothing seemed out of place. Which meant that, either they were skilled enough to put everything back in its proper place, or they hadn’t actually touched anything. Either way, he was relatively unharmed. 

 

If he strained his audials hard enough, he could hear a hurried conversation taking place not far beyond the curtain. It was terribly quiet - all hushed wishes and mumbled words. Even if he were a little bit closer, he probably wouldn’t have been able to understand it. 

 

He huffed, turning his head towards the ceiling. Apparently, his subtle movement was enough to rouse suspicion of his consciousness, and one of the voices suddenly increased in volume. 

 

“Alright, both of you - out!” He could hear the donk of something metal hitting something else. “I will not have you disturbing my patients! Out! ” 

 

It was almost funny, the fact that this mystery medic was that quick to kick out their unwanted guests. It was less funny when the privacy curtain was thrown open, and he was greeted with the sight of a frowning white and orange mech. Well, it was nice while it lasted, he thought. 

 

The medic didn’t seem interested in opening him up at all, though. He followed his gaze to the spark monitor beside his bed. He sighed, and ran a servo over his face before looking back down at Starscream. It was silent for a moment, then the medic spoke up.

 

“Confused?” He started, earning a nod from Starscream, “I’ll keep it simple. I’m Ratchet, Chief Medical Officer for the Autobots.” Starscream wanted to ask - The hell is an Autobot? - But Ratchet kept speaking. “You’ve been in stasis for about 3 million years, and-”

 

“I’ve been in stasis for how long?! ” Starscream shrieked, trying to push himself upwards and regretting that as pain surged up his body again. Irritation flashed across the medic’s - Ratchet’s face, before it settled into something more neutral. 

 

“Don’t try to sit up, your spinal strut was severely damaged. You’ll be able to walk again, but not for a while,” He chided, one hand pushing down on Starscream’s shoulder. “As I was saying, you were in stasis for a very long time. Luckily, most of your damage seemed to be superficial - your wings were nearly intact, but I wasn’t able to do much for your joints. Your self-repair should be able to take care of most of it, but I’ll need to take some more scans in a couple of cycles here.” 

 

Starscream hesitated. Well, it was good that most of his frame was intact - though he seriously felt like the exact opposite. He felt like he’d been bowled over by Skyfire, twice. Speaking of Skyfire.

 

“My… my partner,” He began, “He’s- he’s a shuttle, he and I were together-”

 

The medic interrupted him, “He’s stable. But he hasn’t woken up yet. The damage on him was similar to yours, actually - mostly coalesced near the joints, specifically his elbows” He glanced down at Starscream, then turned away, picking up a data pad, muttering to himself, “Honestly, the fact the two of you weren’t more damaged is a miracle…”

 

Well, he would take what he could get. The fact he didn’t wake up in the middle of his own vivisection was more than enough of a miracle - now that he thought about it, though, there was something off. 

 

“We’re not on Cybertron, are we?” He asked, watching as Ratchet tensed almost imperceptibly. Damn, and here I thought we were home, he thought bitterly. 

 

“No,” The medic started slowly, “Apologies. Most of us would love nothing more than to be back there now. It’s a long story, and not one I have the time to explain.” He dragged a servo over his face, sighing tiredly before continuing. “We’re on Earth - that’s the local name for this planet.” 

 

It was fascinating. But Starscream could only think about Skyfire. 

 

And then, there was a noise that made Ratchet freeze in place. It took half a klik before Ratchet was - somewhere else in the medbay. He was shouting something and it was loud, just like the first time he’d woken up. The noise didn’t last, though - it quickly faded, and he heard Skyfire speak up.

 

“Wh…?” Relief flooded Starscream’s processor in an instant. 

 

“Skyfire-” Starscream’s voice rose before he devolved into a coughing fit. There was the sound of a curtain moving before his own (well, just the one that’s surrounding his berth) is thrown to the side. Skyfire is there, awake and radiating confusion, lying on an ill-suited berth for his size.

 

It is the most wonderful thing Starscream has remembered seeing since before the two of them were frozen. He cannot help but stare. Skyfire does the same before breaking into a wide grin. 

 

Skyfire breathed out a laugh. “ Star ,” His voice is barely above a whisper, reverent in a way that makes Starscream struggle to breathe for a moment. “We’re -”

 

“Alive,” He finishes his sentence. “We’re alive.”

 

Ratchet cleared his throat, and two pairs of eyes quickly flashed to the medic. Starscream felt irritation creep into his mind. Primus, couldn’t he have one moment where he could enjoy his partner’s presence?

 

“I know you’re both happy to see each other, and I’ll give you some time alone, but,” Ratchet moved over and grabbed something that he could only assume was a medical scanner, “I need to make sure you’re not going to up and offline in my medbay when I leave you alone.” 

 

When. Not if - Starscream huffed. At least he recognized when to leave well enough alone.

 

Ratchet quickly explained what he was going to do - a basic medical scan, just to make sure there were no energon leaks, and that nothing was misaligned or going to become misaligned if they so much as moved. It was quick. It was painless. It was nothing like he’d heard described from the horror stories of other seekers who’d gone through terribly invasive medical experiments. It was nothing like anything he’d heard. (Then again, those had been people who had proclaimed themselves scientists. Not medics.) 

 

Just as quickly as he’d given Skyfire a brief rundown of their situation - in which Skyfire had also gasped just as soon as he’d heard how long they’d been in stasis for - he told them, “I’ll give you two a few moments. But don’t leave your berths. I haven’t a clue on how well you’ll be able to walk right now, if at all.” And with that, the door opened and closed behind the medic with a hiss.

 

Skyfire looks at Starscream. Starscream frowns, and keeps his voice low. “There’s something he’s not telling us.” They both know this is true - but it had been eating away at Starscream. “Why are we here, and not on Cybertron?”

 

Skyfire sighs. “I don’t know, Star,” He responds, sounding just as unsure as Starscream felt. 

 

“Do they think we’re sparklings? That we can’t handle the truth?” Starscream hisses, moving his head just a bit too fast, sending sparks of pain down his neck. “It’s offensive.”

 

“We’ve been away from Cybertron for millions of years,” Skyfire points out calmly. “We both know how much can happen in a single cycle. I’m sure they don’t want to keep us in the dark.”

 

Starscream… couldn’t really disagree with that. “What if they want to hurt us? I won’t be a part of their experiments.” Some small part of him thinks this is terribly childish, but this is how he has survived this far. He could never afford to assume the best of people - not back then. He had no idea if this medic - if anybody here would even dare to look at him and think that he is more than just a warframe. He had fought against those kinds of people for far too long. 

 

“If they wanted to experiment on us, we wouldn’t be awake in their medbay.” Skyfire, as always, was the one with his feet planted firmly on the ground. Damn him. 

 

He groaned, the edges of his mouth twitching up. “Why must you always be so level-headed? Can I not indulge in my misery, just once?” He glanced over to Skyfire, who had started chuckling. 

 

“Well, somebody has to make sure you don’t get lost up in the stratosphere.” He smiled. Starscream’s spark twisted strangely in his chassis. He yawned after that, blinking rapidly. Starscream knew the shuttle was trying to keep himself awake.

 

“Rest, Skyfire,” He whispered. With any luck, they’d still both be in the medbay when they woke up. “I will still be here when you wake up.”

 

Skyfire gave a shaky smile to him. “Thank you, Star.”

Notes:

Hey, if you made it this far - thank you for reading. Leave a comment on your way out, if you've got time, even if it's just a simple keysmash. Kudos are also appreciated.