Work Text:
The day was beautiful, the endless smog seeming to have cleared up a bit as a light breeze blew in from the rust sea while Starscream flew over the vast expanse of Cybertron’s towering skyscrapers and buildings, lights so bright that they played the part of a sun the people of Cybertron didn’t have.
The day would have been perfect if it weren’t for his trine deciding to ruin it with their incessant squabbling.
Starscream could vaguely make out the sounds of his trine mates arguing over what sounded like Skywarps latest prank on Thundercracker. The prank seemed to include a gallon of glue, glitter, and metal shavings. ( Skywarp, why did it include those??) He couldn’t care less about it though since Skywarp decided to use his processor for once and decided that Starscream’s ire was too much of a risk to devise a prank for.
The argument seemed to have moved on from raised voices to squawks of indignation with the sounds of crashing metal behind him. Starscream sighed irritably, not having to look behind him to see that his idiot trine has devolved into a physical fight if the sounds of scraping and the denting of metal are any indication.
Loud screeching like sharpened digits on a cyberboard could be heard alongside a cry of outrage as the fighting seems to pick up pace alongside the yelling. “You scratched my cockpit!” Skywarps shrill voice was easy to make out over the commotion. “Well, you got glue and glitter stuck in my armor seams! I’m still picking metal shavings out of my pedes from when you decided to make an impromptu game of ‘the floor is lava’!” Thundercrackers hysterical voice was a few pitches higher than it normally was. He seemed befuddled at the fact that Skywarp is complaining at all even though he had no right to after the prank he pulled on him.
“Will you two quit it! I can’t enjoy this flight with you two fighting like two turbofoxes over a scrap of energon!” Starscream’s voice raised at them, irritation crystal clear in his voice from where he flew ahead of them. The scraping metal thankfully stopped along with their loud voices, although he could faintly hear what sounded like threats being made in whispers.
“Sometimes I wonder why I picked you two to be a part of my trine.” Starscream grumbles to himself, wanting some peace and quiet from their shenanigans that seem to happen every single joor. If only they could keep quiet and stop fighting for one stellar cycle.
—-------------------------------------------------------------
The sound of thunder as it booms across the dark storm riddled sky snaps him out of his thoughts, his frame jolting as he finally registers the cold that has started to seep into his joints and delicate wiring from the heavy downpour of rain.
It took a moment for Starscream to remember why he was on the landing pad of the Nemesis before the bad case of memory flux took over. “Ah, I had wanted to go for a flight. The clear skies and breeze would’ve made for wonderful conditions of a scenic route. Such a shame that Cybertron never had a sun as beautiful as the one that this mudball of a planet revolves around.” Starscream idly comments, frigid cold seeping into his spark from the rain. He turned on his heel struts, making his way back into the Nemesis now that his plan for a scenic flight has been ruined.
Starscream moved down the halls of the Nemesis, no clear destination in mind as vehicon troopers stopped in their path to salute and greet him. He paid them no mind, his processor stuck on the memories that decided to replay despite him wanting them not to. The rain that used to litter his frame has all but dried up a few breems ago, yet the cold that seeped into his spark seems to stay. He notices that his servos are shaking despite his thermal regulator working perfectly, his internal temperature displaying normal numbers.
Memories flash in his processor, making him grit his denta harder as he deduces why his frame is out of sorts. “What else is there to grieve for? They’ve been gone for millennia, and I’ve already mourned for them long enough.” He whispers harshly to himself, hoping that the words can stop his frames constant shaking. The coldness in his spark pangs painfully from those words.
The half of his spark where two bonds used to thrum with constant feeling and emotion, warmth always infecting his frame at the thought of his trine now feels hollow, coldness inhabiting it now that there is nothing to fill in the emptiness left from his trine mates' deaths.
Starscream growls in frustration, coolant starting to gather in his optics as his traitorous processor keeps replaying memories of how things used to be, giving him a harsh reminder that he could never go back to that life. “I would give anything to have that life again, but we can’t all have what we want can we?” He questions bitterly, his optics dully noticing how he seems to have stopped walking, standing by himself outside of one of the many monitors overlooking the sky that the Nemesis constantly moves through.
He’ll always fly those skies alone now. Nobody to flank him, nobody to watch his blind spots, and nobody to chase away the cold in his frame that always follows him. Starscream wonders how excited his trine mates would’ve been at the prospect of flying through the open skies, the smog here nowhere near as bad back on Cybertron. He turns his helm away from the monitor moving back down the hallways of the Nemesis, not wanting to linger on what-could’ve-been.
Starscream just hopes that when he reunites with his trine in the All-Spark that they’ll still recognize him despite the monster he’s become.