Title: And Then Nothing

Rating: T

Verse: G1-ish

Genre: drama, angst

Characters: Skywarp, Ratchet, Optimus Prime, twins

Warnings: kinda dark but nothing is explicit. Mentioned character death, dub-con and mpreg.

Summary: The idea came from a long talk with Starfire/Skywinder about the rarity of fics in which Skywarp survives the death of his trine-mates, as opposed to the survivor being Starscream or Thundercracker. As a result, it is not nice, it is dark and angsty - but nothing I warned for is explicit, so it should be fairly safe to read.

One

Skywarp dragged his heavy pedes to the balcony door, hurting all over. He more or less fallen into a heap at the transparent steel window, claws scratching on it with a squeal as he slid down to the floor. His dirty plates that he wouldn't call either black or purple any more shook with exhaustion and pain. Scratched, dented wings twitched behind him drooping and the once proud Seeker didn't even have the strength to hitch them up.

Why would he care? He was neither proud nor even a Seeker any more. The dark sky outside stared back uncaring of him, the night cycle nearly pitch black all around the tower. Even the so-called day cycle was dark, broken only by the smallish headlights of the grounders moving about on their affairs, far below on the ground. The skies remained dark forever, after the plans to steer the planet around a new sun remained nothing but a dream.

No light would rise however long he stared the outside. He was fortunate to survive, he was told, but Skywarp couldn't see the luck in it. Not that he tried. No more fliers… it was something Thundercracker might brood about or Starscream might gripe; not a topic that Skywarp ever thought that he'd have to contemplate. But seeing the dark sky orn after orn, silently victorious over their attempt to conquer it made him think strange things.

He had plenty of time to think. The twins were out far more than in and they preferred each other's company anyway. After fragging him, that is. He had his own berth, his own room and was expected to drag his chassis back to it to recharge after they were done with him. He had a good place with them, he told himself. Better be ignored than abused. A few dents from their strong grip was nothing and they never forced him to interface… he'd complied first.

It was all nothing compared to the never healing wound on his spark. A servo rose instinctly, the broken claws curling over his dirty cockpit the dark helm thudding onto the glassteel. It hurt. It burned like Pitfire and nothing he could do eased it. Nothing Ratchet could do healed it and the medic had left shaking his helm, murmuring to Sideswipe something that the former teleporter couldn't hear.

Skywarp wasn't the brightest processor around but he felt what that was about. A wound that never heals means it'd consume him sooner than later. He never really expected to survive them. He never expected to be the last. That Starscream might one orn was deactivated by either Megatron or a lucky Autobot… yeah, that was in the cards. He and TC could've managed that, because they'd have had each other. But for him to be the survivor of the trine?

He couldn't even see what happened, only saw the already gray frames in the ring of the Autobots looking down on them, while pain attempted to consume his spark from inside out. It was winning and Skywarp had only hazy memories what happened afterwards. Ratchet was among them, so the medic probably saved him… for what or why, Skywarp had no idea. When he came to, there was only a terrible emptiness in his spark, but he couldn't even scream any more.

Ohh, but it broke him. Pranks were forgotten. Just to think of one brought Thundercracker's stern, exasperated expression out and Skywarp would cry like a lost sparkling for joors. For awhile he planned to revenge them and it sustained his will to live. But he wasn't Starscream, he never planned anything but a prank and even that was before the slave codes.

No, they weren't called that. Behavioral coding, the Autobots said. He wasn't a slave, no. Just couldn't fly, teleport, or even walk anywhere freely. He was free to think, hurt and frag the twins. The apartment wasn't a prison, it even had windows… Skywarp couldn't decide really if the Autobots thought it a favour or had any idea how much it hurt to look out and unable to fly.

Maybe they did think he'd appreciate it. They weren't cruel - well, at least most of them weren't – but they were all grounders. Even those young fliers were gone in that last battle, some of them deactivated, the others following them shortly. The Con fliers too, except for the three of them. Skywarp heard later that Astrotrain survived and escaped and he was seen much later, falling into a star, unable to pull out of the gravity well, due to his lack of energon.

Energon was in short supply on Cybertron too. He wasn't exactly starving… but that was only because without flying or teleporting he actually needed less than a grounder of his size. The twins always gave him his rations fairly and it was almost as much as they used to have on the Nemesis. Better quality even. And he knew that in this, even the bots weren't hypocrites – they had the same rations, only adjusted to size, barely enough for any mech not only the former remaining Cons.

The distraught Seeker leaned heavily on the glassteel door and when it swung out, he nearly fell on his faceplates. They always left it locked, but Sideswipe must have forgotten it this time. He shuffled forward on dirty knees, not caring to stand up even, pushing the door outward, the dark sky calling him like an elusive lover. The air was biting cold outside and heavy with fumes… a fitting environment for his misery, Skywarp thought, a bitter scowl twisting his lipplates.

He saw the smoke twist into shapes in the dark, shapes that were… was he hallucinating? Skywarp thought that he saw winged shapes among the mist and fog but knew it to be impossible. He was the fragging last one on the planet with wings, for Primus's sake… he almost said functional wings, but then, his weren't functional either. They were no more wings than those on the Praxians' backs…

Hot tears escaped again from dim red optics, rolling down on his dirty faceplates, making the blackness around him even blurrier. Out here, at the balcony's edge, even the apartment door could hardly be seen, as he didn't turn on the lights inside. It was like floating in the darkness, in the pain and misery that ate him up like a living thing. It was like nothing existed only himself and the pain.

Skywarp hugged his cold, trembling chassis and rocked on his knees like a sparkling, well past caring about the tears and his posture. He was hurting far too much this cycle. Not even the lingering charge from his overload could fight the encroaching pain that ate him from the inside and the cold that gripped him from the outside.

He wasn't sure how or why he got to the balcony railing. Looking down the city was just as dark as the skies, no cars driving about, no headlights breaking the blackness this cycle. He knew that the apartment was high up in the tower, he saw the ground sometimes when the streets were lit for a festival or such. Not for a while now, as the energon crisis started to grow serious again.

Skywarp stared down into the pitch blackness, not even realizing how he stood up and grabbed the railing, hunching forward as the pain in his spark made him curl over. His servos tightened on the railing, strong enough to leave dents on the cold, dead metal. Tears fell into the abyss, hot drops of misery lamenting the loss. He leaned into the darkness and it caressed his hot fever with a cool touch.

"Sky!" - Sideswipe's voice was nearly nervous behind him – "Come in please…"

He didn't react, only hunched forward a bit more. It hurt. Skywarp wanted the hurt to end. Sideswipe wanted him to live. But he saw no point in it any more. There was nothing in the apartment to go back to. The darkness at least promised the pain to end.

"Don't do that, Sky…"

Skywarp felt a rare bout of anger. Rare for him these orns anyway. Who was this grounder to tell him what to do? Caretaker, they said, but why did he need one? What did he understood anyway?

"Would you stay if Sunstreaker was gone?"

Silence answered him. It took Sideswipe breem before he found his voice again.

"But… you stayed."

"No. You made me stay. Saved me, Ratchet said. Did I ask to be saved?" – Skywarp felt his wings flare angrily behind him, the light from the inside showing just how unkempt and dirty they were. He hardly ever remembered the last time he visited the washracks. It didn't matter.

"We thought…"

"I didn't ask this. None of this… prison that you call charity. It is not life."

"But… you lack nothing…? You didn't say you need anything when we ask."

Skywarp snorted bitterly. No, he never asked. Freedom wasn't what they could bring him, nor were the dead. He pointed out, into the darkness.

"That's all I need."

"We can't let you fly…"

"Why though?" – he asked suddenly – "Are you, glorious, victorious Autobots so afraid of a single, broken flier in the sky?"

"No, it's not that…"

"You killed them all." – Skywarp turned to look into the blue optics. – "I'm the last fragging Seeker… Pit the last thing with wings on the planet. And you still insist to clip my wings too."

"We didn't want to…"

"But you still did." – Skywarp turned back towards the darkness whispering its siren-song to him – "They are waiting for me. They are calling for me."

"No…"

Skywarp felt rather than heard the Autobot move towards him and he acted without any further thinking. Vaulting over the railing was a sparkling's play and from then on gravity took over. He faintly heard the last shouted No! from behind as the grabbing servos missed his ankle but it was quickly forgotten as he was flying again, after so much time.

The darkness embraced him in its cold grip, easing the burning pain in his spark. His wing sensors exulted in telling him the speed and the air pressure around, the long freefall till the ground feeling like flying once more. But his thrusters remained cold, the codes locking them away from his control and Skywarp wasn't made to glide.

The fall felt like ages for him in the quiet darkness caressing his hot plating like gentle black silk. He felt the pull on his spark, the wound that throbbed for so long giving way to anticipation, a hope that everything would be all right now, that he would meet his ancestors, his mates and all the fliers gone before him… and leave this tired, dank world to the grounders to rule.

Suddenly his thrusters spluttered into life after so much time in enforced silence. Skywarp fleetingly thought that it must be Sideswipe, trying to save him by making him able to fly, letting him go from the clutches of the codes. For a nanoklik, he contemplated it too, climbing out of the fall and then … what? Go back to be their obedient little flier, forever alone, grounded and hurting?

The next nanoklik though, it took the decision out of his servos. The activated thrusters resulted only in a spectacular fireball consuming what the head-on collision with the ground left from the flightless Seeker. The darkness turned into a fiery inferno and Skywarp, with his last thought felt the warmth that seeped into his broken spark.

And then nothing.

Bear with me, it is NOT the end of the fic. Two more chapters to come.