Title: Winter

By: Ceris Malfoy

Summary: Skyfire's crash hadn't been nearly as accidental as they all thought.

Inspiration: Simply a result of trying to revive the muse for This Love, This Hate, which apparently has died a violently gruesome death. Anyway, I'm not an avid Skyfire/Starscream fan – truth be told, I have a hard time dealing with all the angsty-fluff most writers tend to put into the pairing (there are one or two exceptions). It has always irked me that in most stories, Skyfire's crash was ruled as accidental and that Starscream was "falsely" accused of his murder, which in turn led him down the path of becoming a Decepticon. While I do use that particular plot-point myself, peeps who read my stuff know that I personally think Starscream has always been more than a little off, mentally speaking. So, this story is my personal opinion of the matter - how I think it really went. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Continuity: G1

"Winter either bites with it's teeth or lashes with it's tail."

-Proverb

If any one mech had happened to ask (or demand) the true story behind Skyfire's crash after it became evident that the shuttle was never going to be a Decepticon, Starscream would have been delighted to tell every last one of them the absolute truth. Unfortunately, not a single mech, not even Megatron (who could usually spot a falsehood from Starscream with no problem), ever did (and didn't that annoy Starscream spectacularly well). Every last one of them was satisfied with both the lies that Starscream had told when it looked like Skyfire would recover and become an ally, and their own romanticized imaginings.

Starscream could practically see their processors at work, churning out chapter after chapter of an epic tale of love, loss, and bitterness that had left his spark fractured and his processor glitched. It disgusted him to know that even Megatron thought that there was nothing wrong with his hastily made-up version of events (as if he could feel anything but loathing for that pacifistic moron!); it disgusted him even more to know that the autobots, who generally considered him the spark-less spawn of Unicron, genuinely believed his lies as well.

Useless idiots, the lot of them.

In absolute truth, there had been no love, and little friendship, between them. They had been strange rivals and bitter companions; their involvement with each other shaped and honed by their similarities and how those same qualities pulled them further and further apart. Both of them had attended the Iacon Academy of the Sciences, majoring in Xenobiology with a minor in Space Navigation.

Skyfire had been personally invited to attend the Academy by the Science Council, and had been given a broad range of career options and degrees to choose from. His expenses, which included, but was not limited to his tuition, lab fees, application fees, rent, and the costs of various book-files, were paid in full. Also done by the Science Council.

Starscream, by contrast, had to lie, cheat, bribe, and murder his way into the examination room just so he could take the exam to gain entry into the Academy. In the end, even his score – the highest recorded score since the inception of that test, revealing a keen intellect and a processor speed that was off the charts – had only been enough to grant him a partial scholarship and his degrees chosen for him. He had merely been fortunate that his creators had recently had their own unfortunate accidents, allowing Starscream to collect on the substantial life insurances, both of which had been just enough to cover the rest of his expenses.

They were both easily the two most intelligent mechs attending the Academy. Skyfire was an avid reader with a deep fascination with the natural order of things, and an even deeper desire to uncover the many mysteries of the universe around him. Meticulous and patient as he was in both research and experimentation, Skyfire may not have been a certified genius or a walking encyclopedia, but what he did know he knew well enough to put even the teachers to shame. His thought process was linear and logical, going from A to B in an easily explained and understood process.

In direct contrast, Starscream was a very much not a logical being. He was a raging inferno of instinct, passion, and an insatiable curiosity that would not, could not be bound by something as linear as logic. He was undeniably brilliant, capable of conducting experiments in one subject, discussing the ramifications of so-and-so doing this-and-that with whichever gossip-monger deigned to speak to him that orn, and carefully plotting yet another experiment in a subject completely unrelated to the other two at the same time. However, because of the incredible speeds his processor ran at, his thought processes were rather unorthodox. Whereas Skyfire went directly from A to B, Starscream thoughts somehow multiplied A by Z, jumped to Q+9, dived to the square root of M, before finally getting to B – and all of this was done in half the time it took Skyfire to get to B.

Their largest similarity was also the breeding grounds for their largest complication. They were both the only sparked fliers attending the Academy at a time where most mechs were horribly prejudiced against the flight-capable build, commercial or otherwise. Skyfire, with his calm, patient, and ever-serene demeanor, his shy smile, his unhurried movements, and his kind blue optics, was generally accepted by the other students. Even the more prejudiced amongst them tolerated Skyfire, if only by ignoring his general presence. Starscream, on the other hand…. Well, if it hadn't of been for Skyfire personally interfering on more than one occasion, Starscream would more than likely have found himself on the wrong end of a beat-down. As it was, claiming Skyfire as shield and protector only bought him reprieve from the physical aspects of all the hatred.

After all, if they hated fliers in general, war-built fliers, such as seekers, were loathed. Starscream's own volatile nature, sharp wit, and acid gyro did nothing to help matters.

Starscream was in absolution a prideful creature, and he hated being beholden to any being but himself. That he was so dependent on Skyfire just to survive infuriated him to no end. That he was also constantly butting helms with Skyfire when it came to the position of first in their class only fed fuel to the fire. Even further compounding Starscream's anger was the knowledge that Skyfire viewed their rivalry with a general fondness, and often teased him on the subject. The stupid slagger thought that he was a friend!

Oh, but Skyfire's delusions of friendship didn't quite end there – the shuttle was seriously crushing on him. .Starscream's knee-jerk reaction to that bit of information was to almost leap across the room and rip Skyfire's spark out of his chassis while screaming inarticulate obscenities the whole time. Later, when he took the time to actually reason it all out, he'd been able to admit that to a logical mech examining the facts with the sort of pure, cold logic that science typically called for, Skyfire was not only a brave mech for trying to get involved with a viciously-tempered seeker, but he'd actually make a good match. After all, Skyfire's patient, calm nature would supposedly soothe his volatile one; they both were working towards the same career (even if he hadn't gotten a choice in the matter – and didn't that just frag him off to no end?); both enjoyed experimentation and invention; both were highly intelligent; and both were stubborn to a fault.

But, as previously mentioned, Starscream was not logical, driven as he was by raw emotion and pure instinct. He hated Skyfire with every last pulse of his spark; hated him the way he had never before hated another living mech, and there was not a cycle that went by where he did not contemplate Skyfire's death. Not that Starscream's feelings on the matter were in any way, shape, or form taken into consideration.

Skyfire, in his own quiet way, was just as tenacious as Starscream himself – an unmovable, stubborn obstacle that had settled itself firmly right in the path of the unstoppable force that was Starscream, calmly greeting the inevitable crash with an air of serene benevolence. It probably didn't help matters that Starscream hid the full force of his hatred; was forced to hide it, really, because he needed Skyfire on his side if he wanted to avoid becoming a permanent resident of the Academy's med-bay.

But that didn't mean he would always need Skyfire.

They both graduated with honors – Starscream barely managing to nudge Skyfire aside in order to graduate first in their class. When teased after the ceremony about his "competitive streak," Starscream barely managed to hold back the information that had his grades not been sabotaged, he'd have won that position by a landslide, and then some. He only held back this information because he knew that either a)Skyfire wouldn't believe it, and would use that annoying patronizing tone of his that left Starscream in a particularly murderous mood for the rest of the cycle (not that Skyfire ever noticed) to explain in short, simple terms just why it couldn't be so; or b) Skyfire would believe it, and start something that would end up with the Council removing the both of them from the equation by any means necessary. And while he didn't really care if Skyfire ended up "missing," he valued his own life too much to risk it.

They were both taken into the Space Exploration program, and at first, worked separately. Starscream was given crap assignments in dangerous and/or backwater systems that had no real purpose other than to bore him out of his processors or offline him.

But that really didn't mean a pit-spawned thing to Starscream. He had been free to fly as he willed, could study stolen data-pads and book-files to his leisure, and could act as judge and jury (and often executioner) to any being stupid enough to attempt to offline him. Best of all, he could experiment to his twisted spark's content with little-to-no interference from soft-sparked, morally-bound idiots who didn't have the imagination to theorize the effects of this combined with that, or, if they did, the ball-bearings to actually do it. His reports on the findings and the discoveries he made on these pointless missions were always of the sort that left even the most prejudiced Senator making inquiries on why the Science Council was wasting his obvious talents in those backwater systems.

Those inquiries made the Council nervous, because technically what they were doing could, depending on just how the Senate chose to portray the infraction, result in more than one member loosing their position, doing serious prison time, or death. Which is probably why Skyfire was abruptly pulled off his team and paired with Starscream.

Skyfire, with his stupid little crush that had apparently grown into an obsession in their separation. Skyfire, who couldn't wrap his processor around the fact that no meant no. Skyfire, who was slow and not nearly as agile a flier as he thought he was, which in turn kept Starscream from flying as freely as he willed. Skyfire, who obeyed authority and, despite his crush/obsession, would not hesitate to report Starscream for reading materials which had been made illegal for any mech to touch, let alone own. Skyfire, who did not believe in advancement at the price of another being's life, which pretty much killed any chance of further scientific advancements on Starscream's end.

The inquiries went away. Skyfire stayed.

Skyfire, who Starscream hated.

But it had been okay, really, because they were still being sent to various systems not good enough for their "betters," and in his solitary expeditions, he had come across one system with a planet that would be spectacularly useful. All he had had to do was bribe a down-on-his-luck mech to anonymously request a mission to that particular system, and he'd been all set.

He raced against the leading edge of the storm, listening to his partner's pleas for help. His spark surged ecstatically within his chassis at the desperation that coursed through Skyfire's voice.

The ice was a teasing caress on his wings – a promise of pain and a slow death should he falter for even a moment. Skyfire's voice was a ringing crescendo of fear and anxiety over their comm. link that was almost lost in the fierce roar of the storm around them. And before him laid the sky, clear and open, calling him to a freedom that was an existence without Skyfire.

Starscream smiled.

I first started writing this yesterday morning at work. It started with the 102-word drabble in italics just above this note, and grew from there. I wanted to add more, but forced myself to stop before I lost the point of this fic. I've been told that I could have simply posted the drabble, but I wanted the meal, not just the sample, you know?

This is only my second time writing this pairing, and hopefully I've managed to write my feelings on the matter clearly and concisely - that is to say, it's not a pairing I can understand given Starscream's nature. In every incarnation and continuity, Starscream remains fundamentally wrong - a walking textbook definition of a Bipolar Malignant Narcissist prone to psychotic fits. The only continuity where this is not true is in his Shattered Glass version, but even then, in his biography it is written that he has "episodes," and thus is also not exactly all-there mentally.

Mind you, there are some really good stories out on this site that almost make me understand it all, but they are few and far between.

I also tried to stay as true to Starscream's G1 characterization as possible while not making him into the whining bitch almost everyone else does. I think I succeeded. I think. You'll be the judge and jury on that one.

Drop me a review or a note and let me know what you think?