Title: The One Who Which Binds Us (1/?)
Author: dreamerchaos
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are owned by Hasbro. I'm only playing with them.
Pairings: SkyfirexStarscreamxPerceptor.
Rating: R. Hints of slash. Slash pairing.
Summary: The scandal of the Starscream and Skyfire nearly crash-landing on a far-distant organic planet is a bitter pill to swallow. But to lose the third member of their trine on that very same planet…
Author's Note: This plot has been bugging me for at least six months, to be quite honest. So humor me and my wild ideas…
Time units:
Klik: 3 seconds
Breem: 1 hour
Orn: 1 day
Joor: A week
Cycle: 1 month
Stellar cycle: 1 year
Decacycle: 1 decade
Vorn: 83 years
Their return to Cybertron is a harried race to beat the red warnings as their fuel reserves expire, the neon-red calligraphy screaming across their optical screens, data forewarning that their fuel was nearing bone-dry.
Starscream is the first to hit the runway, slipping into bipedal mode after a hop-skip of a step. His equilibrium bearings tremble, and the Seeker stumbles, weakened from the lack of energon reserves threading his weary systems.
Many of the medics and security teams look upon the Seeker, aghast at his abysmal state. Paint worn down to gray patches, joints stiffened from so long within his alternate mode. His knees quake and clack together as he forces himself to remain on his pedes. Frame tarnished by exhaustion and the rigor of their exploration of the Sol system, and the disaster that had followed.
A nearby huddle of medics begin to approach the pathetic looking Seeker, when they suddenly halt. Pointing towards Cybertron's atmosphere in near unison.
Starscream needn't turn around, hearing the approach of the larger shuttle. Skyfire's engines whine from exertion, the egg-shell white paint of the shuttle reduced to sad streaks of cinder black and smoky gray. Mechs and femmes cringe at the long shriek of metal while the belly of Skyfire's shuttle form bounces down the tarmac, shearing the plating as he slides out of control down the runway.
Snarling, and with a agonizing rend of overexerted parts, Skyfire too transforms into bipedal mode, his momentum giving him an extra burst, throwing him forward into a half-run. His protoform sparking and bleeding energon from where his plating had been torn from his frame, the large shuttle storms towards the shorter Seeker.
"Sky…" Starscream begins, reaching towards his partner with a beseeching hand, "I'm sorry--"
Skyfire's voice rises in a wave of anger and grief, and he barrels into his partner. Hurling Starscream to the ground, pinning the Seeker down by his shoulders and thrusts his face near Starscream's with an agonized snarl.
"This was all your fault!!"
"It's amazing!" Perceptor's excited exclamation skipped across the shuttle and Seeker's comm. links, the microscope safely tucked within the large white shuttle's interior cabin while the two flight-mode mechs spear through the organic planet's stratosphere.
"Pfft!" Starscream dipped his wings as his underbelly began to cool once they broke through the atmosphere, the earlier drop and blast of intense heat delivered a minor thrill of pain and wash of flames. "A wet mudball with too much liquid hydrogen oxide. Dense foliage too thick to walk through. Avian creatures that get sucked up by my engines. Terribly beautiful, I must say."
"Now, now." Skyfire chuckles, "Try to be a bit more positive, Starscream. This entire planet is ripe for study. The native species will pay little attention to us."
"Indeed!" Perceptor piped in. "I am looking forward to gathering as many samples as possible!"
Skyfire groaned. "And who will be the one to carry the specimens back to Cybertron?" He asks. Perceptor grinning sheepishly, while gently patting the shuttle's interior console.
"Mmm." Starscream purrs, nudging closer to his fellow scientists. "Well, I for one will be more interested in 'studying' and 'gathering detail' with my two mates before recharge cycle. Especially with no prying optics from any busybody mechs or femmes sticking their olfactory sensors into our business."
"S-Starscream!" Perceptor stutters with embarrassment.
"You're bold today." Skyfire tilts towards the Seeker. Earning a gleeful laugh from their partner, Starscream diving, performing a corkscrew maneuver as he swoops down closer in the direction of the nearest land mass.
Skyfire chuckles, following at a more leisure decline in altitude through the air.
"Remind me to recharge with my sensory network online during the night cycle." Perceptor mutters from his interior, "Otherwise I will never have a chance to rest with fear of that amorous creature pouncing either of us and having his way with you or I."
The Science Committee Board members were not impressed with the disastrous results of their exploratory mission.
The loss of a young and promising scientist placed the two mechs further into their distaste.
"The Sol system has been noted for having an environment with unpredictable weather patterns. Your team was provided with state-of-the art equipment in hopes to prepare you for any turn of events. And yet, despite all of this technology and good sense, you ignored your trine members' warnings that the weather was deteriorating on that planet." A cool femme, her paint a alabaster white with blue trim, looked down at Starscream with a frigid glance of her gold optics, hands folded upon the round table, the Board members' seats high above the two podiums where Skyfire and Starscream stood down in the center of the ring of chairs and tables, surrounded by the members of the Science Committee Board.
Starscream dared a brief glance towards the shuttle standing to his right. His cheek still marred by the faint traces of white paint from the shuttle's knuckles.
Skyfire refuses to meet his gaze. Staring straight ahead at the smooth wall, tightly balled fists hanging at his sides.
Starscream wishes that Skyfire would speak to him just once. The silence slowly deteriorating the trust, the bond between them.
Like the severed bond of their trine mate.
Their surveys and sample collections were not even a quarter of the way done, and the three scientists had been on the planet for over three cycles.
Patience was frayed, and more than once a bout of temper caused tension, and it stretched and snapped. Usually the worst that happened was the hurling of barbed comments, glares, and pointedly ignoring one another until one mech or the other cooled down enough to begin behaving civilly.
Despite these minor inconveniences and butting heads, for the most part, the three mechs worked well together.
But during this particular orn, the sniping and periods of heavy silence weighed on them. Too many harsh words, and neither Skyfire nor Starscream were willing to back down or apologize. The two mechs feeling as if their argument was sound, and that the other mech was being too stubborn for his own good.
Even Perceptor, usually eager to stand near to one or both of his partners, hesitantly approached Starscream.
"Starscream…" Perceptor approached the taller Seeker, carrying a portable data pad, insisting that the Seeker look at the data once more, "The readings do not look promising."
Starscream barely glances at the readouts. "We're fine." He waves off the microscope's concern, using a thin stencil to tap in his observations and data into his own data pad, "The storm is well over two hundred and five miles from our current location. We will be done with this sector in less than a breem. We have plenty of time."
"Still," Skyfire, still in shuttle mode, speaks, "The sky does not look promising." His sensors tuned towards the west. Not liking the color of the horizon and the bomb bursts of lightning pocketing the festering clouds.
"Look!" Starscream snaps, glaring at the shuttle, "I'm the leader here, and my calculations say that the storm will veer off. We are staying! You two wanted to collect your precious samples, so hop to it! Meanwhile, I will be busy uploading and editing the data so that it will be ready for submission when we return to Cybertron."
He strode off with a short huff of annoyance, muttering over his data pad and stencil, looking over the tall cliff-side as he worked.
"He…is in a bit of a mood." Perceptor dared to speak after a pregnant moment, his data pad safely clutched to his microscope tray.
"Ignore him." Skyfire sighs, "Give him time to cool down, and he'll be back to normal."
Perceptor echoes the shuttle's venting of atmosphere, sighing softly, "You are right." He turns back to his labeling and cataloguing of samples, "It would be best of me to hurry so that everything is safely sealed and prepared for transport. We wouldn't want any of this getting tossed about in your cabin now would we?"
"I…made an error in judgment." Starscream gaze rakes across the metal tiled floor, dropping his attempts to try and catch Skyfire's optics.
The pale femme tsks. Another board member speaks.
"Skyfire? Do you have anything to add to this?" The tall mech inquires.
"……" Skyfire glances up towards the mech whom has spoken. Lips parting, but no words uttered.
The storm did turn towards their position. The mechs scrambling as it hits, caught right in the middle of the massive, heaving monster. Rain pelting their armor, little bullets stinging and ricocheting amongst the compact balls of hail pelting their faces.
"Get aboard right now!!" Skyfire bellows over the train-like whistle of the churning wind, the landscape seething with shredded limbs and foliage.
The wind whips around the microscope as he is forced to abandon the scant handful of scattered sample boxes he hasn't had time to load onto the shuttle, the storm practically on top of them and providing little time, precious few astroseconds for the microscope to run for the safety of his partner. Perceptor narrowly manages to stumble into his cabin, securing himself inside the safety of the shuttle. "I-I'm in!"
"Quickly!" Starscream is already in the air, circling low in wait for his trine mates to follow, "We need to head northeast towards the northern pole of this planet!"
"Anywhere but here would be better!" Skyfire shouts. He isn't about to start another argument with the mech, this time choosing to follow the white, red, and cobalt mech's lead. Skyfire's engines fire up, the shuttle gaining speed, ascending to join the Seeker.
Perceptor hangs on for dear spark, whimpering from the nausea deep within his fuel tank from the rough jolting ride, the roaring wind shaking Skyfire's large frame like a huge fist rattling a cup of marbles.
The microscope screamed when a flash of lightning seared the edge of Skyfire's wing, the shuttle shouting in alarm and pain as his plating is scorching black from the strike.
Starscream is cursing a slew of slurs and screeching taunts at the battering winds, diving towards them, loitering on the side of Skyfire's injured wing. "Can you still fly?"
"Y-Yes…" Skyfire groans.
"Follow me!" Starscream veers, leading them straight to the north.
Perceptor peers out through Skyfire's windows. Surveying the frigid landscape the shuttle and Seeker were passing over. "The liquid has frozen here and turned into a land mass." The scientist glances towards the churning sky, mourning how the clouds were just as dark and malevolent looking as before.
"We are no safer here then we were earlier!" Skyfire shouts over the buffeting wind, "Either the temperature will affect the maneuverability of our wings, or the frozen debris being tossed about by the wind will endanger our engines!"
"It will be suicide to land!" Starscream drops almost a thousand feet when a gust of wind hits the roof of his cockpit.
"At least we won't be at greater risk of getting fried by lightning!"
Before they can argue further, another howling bluster of wind smashing into both fliers.
Starscream pinwheels, shouting in alarm as he plummets.
Skyfire's massive frame tilts, spinning almost one hundred and eighty degrees.
The sudden yank and twist loosens the crates that had not had the time to be properly secured for flight.
Perceptor stumbles to corral the tumble of specimen samples, ignoring Skyfire's demands to return to the cockpit, "If I don't secure them, the crates will cause serious damage to you!" The scientist shoves one large crate back into position, struggling with the straps to re-secure the boxy frame.
"Watch out!!" Starscream's warning comes too late, another blast of wind smashing into the nose of the shuttle like an iron fist.
Skyfire's helm is shoved upward, tailfin dipping towards the Earth.
The other crates that Perceptor does not have time to secure slide across the floor, smashing into the doors. As the fourth box crashes into the others, the doors groan before splitting open, the cargo hold filled with the roar of open atmosphere, the metal doors barely hanging onto their hinges, flapping in the air.
"Perceptor!!" Skyfire shouts, desperately trying to level his belly, Starscream circling as close as he can manage, screaming for the microscope to hang on.
Perceptor clings onto the secured crate. Optics and face stinging from the biting wind.
Another crate, not secured, and tossed about the cargo bay like a kite, smashes into the wall of the cabin, and bounces straight into the microscope's helm and shoulder.
Perceptor's arms slacken from around the crate, a flicker of surprise flitting across his face, optics darkening from the jarring impact.
He clatters to the floor in a heap, the momentum of the hit and the open, tilted cabin at the mercy of the wind yanks the mech in the direction of the flared doors.
"NO!" Skyfire screams as Perceptor tumbles out of the cabin and into the air.
Spark sinking at the image of the red and teal mech tumbling head over pedes out of the cabin of Skyfire's shuttle form, Starscream dives for the microscope, hoping to intercept.
The winds shriek across his wings and cockpit, Starscream growling, cursing his Seeker frame to go faster. The microscope's frame plummeting, but seemingly hanging in freeze-frame just beyond his reach, no matter how the Seeker's engines screamed from exertion as he soared after his partner. Perceptor was just beyond his reach!
The ice covered ground rushes towards them, jagged toothy maw of ice and mountains stretching upward in a savory grin.
Starscream screams when Perceptor hits the water, barely a few feet from the thick landscape of ice.
The Seeker is forced to pull up lest he hit land and leave chunks of his underbelly down a gruesome runway across the ice.
Switching into alternate mode, his fumbles on the slick ice, tall arched pedes finding hardly any traction on the unforgiving landscape, "Perceptor!!"
Falling, crawling most of the way towards the edge of the land mass, Starscream peering over into the frigid, lapping black pool of churning water. Only the teasing flitting splash of color and bob of a glance of blue and white ice from within the dark depths.
He plunges a hand into the water, ignoring the sting of the cold temperature. He's endured worse than this, this frigid wasteland nothing like the cold arms of space! Sloshing and twisting his forearm forward all the way into the water, he stretches forward, desperately trying to find and latch on to the microscope. "Please! Show me, Perceptor. Show me a sign…" He gasps, slapping his hand against the water, "Give him back!!"
He hears Skyfire land behind him, jettisoning the cargo as he transforms, struggling to stand against the ever present wind as the storm continues to rage, but Starscream refuses to halt. Snarling and tearing away at the edge of the jagged rim, sensory network sending a pulse across their comm. link.
No response is made.
"Primus, no," Skyfire drops onto his knees, clutching his damaged wing, the flaps torn from the wind in addition to the earlier strike of lightning.
"Give him back…" Starscream smashes both fists onto the ice, slivers of crystal shards piercing the thin seams of his curled fingers.
A rumbling, keening wail, the shuttle dragging his hands down his face, curling up in agony, comm. link emitting pulses for the microscope to respond.
The scream of the churning wind is the only voice responds to the Seeker and shuttle's comm. summons.
"…I have nothing to say." Skyfire finally speaks.
The Board members are solemn, murmuring amongst themselves as the two young scientists away.
"It is fortunate that you both managed to return from your exploratory mission intact." The head of the committee, speaks after a low, heated discussion, "However, your negligence and folly cost the Academy, and Cybertron, the loss of a young, invaluable scientist."
The elder mech sighs with a tinge of regret. "Neither of you shall be expelled. However…You will both be placed on probation. Your research theses and funding for future exploratory missions are hear-by revoked. Indefinitely."
Neither of the two young mechs offers an argument to the verdict. They shrink in shame and grief, but say nothing. No words can speak for the loss of their trine mate, in addition to the loss of their reputation and future as scientists.
The head of the committee shakes his head with profound regret, "Return to your quarters. Your probation will begin once you have stepped onto the Academy." His disappoint laces his words as the two mechs depart from his sights, their stiff backs marking their grim acceptance of their fate as they make the long, silent journey to their quarters.
The whispers and rumors churn before the end of their third term.
But the damage has been done before the first mech slings barbed words towards either young scientist.
The distance between the Seeker and shuttle settles a deep abyss between them that neither can find the will to surpass.
Starscream tried, once, when both he and Skyfire began the quiet affair of removing Perceptor's affects from their quarters.
Opening his mouth to speak, the Seeker halts when the shuttle hisses with surprise, holding a small holograph image display in a large hand.
The beamed image shows the three mechs outside the Academy walls on their first day as students. Starscream grinning cockily, one arm looped around Perceptor's waist, the other curled around Perceptor's shoulders to stretch forward and wrap his fingers around Skyfire's wrist. In the middle of the two larger mechs, Perceptor smiles shyly, optics wide in surprise from the bright flash of the image capture, one hand curled against the Seeker's chassis, while the microscope's helm brushes the center of Skyfire's, just below the large mech's laser core. Skyfire smiling wide for the camera unit, the broad expanse of his arms reach making it easy for him to embrace both mech, a laugh captured on his face as he responds to something the Seeker has said.
Now, looking at the captured image, Skyfire's large shoulders quake, expression swallowed by a wash of sorrow, the picture frame blurring as lubricants swim across his optical glass. He says nothing, face twisted with regret as he shoves the image framed holograph imager into a small metal box for storage; the shuttle too sentimental to throw away Perceptor's belongs.
Whispers of rebellion and Decepticons are not too far behind. The chasm between them broadens further, Starscream lured by the warlord's words for a new Cybertron. The young Seeker still enraged that the Board refuses to send a search or recovery party to the planet in hopes of retrieving their trine mate. The committee also refusing to allow the mech to leave and scour the planet himself.
Starscream seals his fate when a student slanders him with a crude comment, instigating the mech's temper.
The screams of the students following the shriek of the weapon horrifies the entire Academy. Starscream sneering, revealing his new null rays, the blast fired just between the student's legs, the young mech trembling upon the floor, staring up at the Seeker in horror.
"The whole lot of you…all of you are rotten to the core." Starscream spits, staring at the throng of students and teachers in disgust. "Cybertron is rotting underneath this façade of a Golden Age. This revolution is a long time coming."
Revealing his loyalties, the Seeker leaves well before Security arrives to detain him.
Skyfire, finding out about the incident in the later breems, after his classes are finished, returns to his quarters, surprised by the Security officers waiting.
Not only is he stunned by Starscream's actions, but the officers also reveal that Starscream had broken into storage, taking the small box of mementos of their trine mate.
He doesn't have too much time to grieve for another mate lost, and the last effects of his other mate's possessions, before the War begins.
He isn't a warrior, not by any means, but at the same time he does not have the spark to leave a mech or femme to the mercy of a tyrant.
Cybertron is crumbling around them. Optimus Prime ordains that desperate actions must be taken.
The Ark is being made ready. Soon…he would have nothing else to remember his mates by. Cybertron at their backs, the few precious mementos stolen, Skyfire joins his fellow Autobots without one final look at his home planet.
Perhaps the stars and far distant planets would offer him a sense of cleansing.