Chapter Text
“Has anyone seen the gas tanks? I gotta get this thing fired up!”
“Sorry! I had to go get more propane!”
Hound transformed and handed over the tanks, heavy with fresh fuel. Ironhide took them gratefully and plopped them on the ground beside his cobbled-together Autobot-sized barbecue grill. Part of it was made out of an old oil tank, freshly scrubbed, and the grill grates were filched off a couple broken down trucks at the junkyard.
“This is all we needed,” he announced, screwing on the feeder hoses. “Let ‘er rip!”
He threw open the valve and sparked the barbecue to life. When the substrate flared with firelight he whooped and bumped fists with Hound.
“You better go check on the salad table,” Ironhide said under his breath. “Hatchet might be doing Prowl in over the icebox arrangements.”
“Okay,” Hound snickered.
He left Ironhide to load up the grill and worked his way through the party.
Optimus was dunking on Jazz and Trailbreaker on the single hoop basketball court, and off to one side, safe from disturbance, Bluestreak was setting up the trap shooting engine.
“How’s it going, Blue?”
“Fine, just fine, I’ve almost got everything set up here for target shooting but you guys are gonna have to bring your own guns,” Bluestreak said. “I’m not sharing.”
“Are you going to be using your rifle?” Hound asked, watching Bluestreak carefully load up the clay targets.
“No, that would be unfair,” Bluestreak said. “I’ll borrow something from Prowl or Jazz or Smokescreen or the armory.”
“Alright, you’ve got a plan,” Hound said with an easy smile, patting his shoulder. “See you in a little while.”
He turned back to the party, nodded to Tracks and Raoul, and made his way over to the salad table.
Prowl was busy arguing with Ratchet about how to store the salads and desserts piling up on the table. He held one bowl with an aluminum shaving salad in one hand and a platter of ferrous iron curls in the other.
“These must be chilled,” he insisted, dropping the iron curl tray on the table and putting his hand on a long rectangular dish of gellied oil and energon. “It is traditionally served frozen, but we don’t have room for a freezer.”
“And we don’t have enough ice for it,” Ratchet said. “My Altihexian dip needs to be kept in a congealed state.”
“So does my oil loaf!”
“Mechs, mechs, you’re both pretty,” Hound laughed, sidling up beside them. He stole an iron chip out of a bowl and swiped off a bit of Prowl’s loaf. He tossed it in his mouth before either of them could stop him.
“Mm! Yum!” he giggled, prancing away from the table. “Whoa, whoa, stand down with the wrench, Ratch!”
He scurried away to the human side of the festivities. Sparkplug had fired up his own grill and was busy slathering a long piece of bovine flesh in sauce, and nearby Powerglide was helping Astoria rub in some sunscreen. She had on a rather fetching matching red bikini.
“Hey, Sparkplug,” Hound said, crouching down so he could get a better look. “What are you making?”
“My legendary slow-cooked baby back ribs,” he said proudly. “With my extra-legendary barbecue sauce.”
“That looks... great! Where’s Chip?”
Carly, in her fun light blue daisy duke shorts and daisy-print top, deposited a bowl of uncooked hotdogs on his table.
“He had an exam today,” she said. “Something about ‘culminating course for his degree,’ I think? He has been studying for weeks.”
She picked up the package the ribs came out of and examined it. “Aren’t those supposed to be pork? This reads beef rib.”
“Yes,” he admitted, slathering on even more sauce. “But these were on sale…”
She saw the confusion on Hound’s face and giggled.
“Sorry, Hound. Beef is from cattle, pork is from pigs.”
“...huh. Cool!”
Hound stood up and snuck over to the fun zone, where Skyfire was hard at work spreading out a long piece of plastic down the hill in front of the base. His targeting system spun up for a moment and calculated the distance. It nearly spanned four hundred meters down the hill and terminated in a hand dug hole, already lined with a tarp and filled with water. Skyfire dug it himself a few days ago; he took great care to create a hard edge and make it as waterproof as possible, using a rubber liner and then a series of blue tarps on top of it. There was a large pile of dirt behind it, ready to refill the hole after the party was over.
There was still silt remaining in the crevices of his hands, and Hound watched a bit of it flake onto the blue plastic sheet as he tacked it down to the hillside with the provided stakes in the kit.
“Hey, Skyfire!” He waved. “How’s it going?”
“Everything is in place,” he called back. “I have the organic liquid detergent, as requested… once this is staked down I can turn on the hose.”
“Oh good! Some of those commercial detergents are non biodegradable, and I don’t want our cookout being the source of any more pollution than necessary.”
Spike stood nearby, wearing a pair of obnoxious green swimming trunks, as well as arm floaties and a face full of sunscreen.
“Come on, Skyfire,” Spike whined. “I’m ready.”
Skyfire glanced up at Hound and then back at Spike.
“I’m almost done,” Skyfire assured him. “Go and see if Bumblebee managed to fix your toy yet.”
“It’s not a toy,” Spike said. “It’s a personal flotation device.”
“Well,” Skyfire said, looking back down at the tarp in his hands. “I’m almost done here. By the time you get back it will be ready.”
“Okay! Thanks, Skyfire!”
Spike ran off in search of Bumblebee and his innertube, leaving Hound and Skyfire alone.
“Are you gonna come shootin’ with us later?” Hound asked. “The humans call the targets clay pigeons but I’m reassured that they are not in fact real organic birds.”
“I don’t know,” Skyfire said. “Probably not.”
“It might be fun,” Hound pressed.
Skyfire frowned. “I shoot enough flying things during… work,” Skyfire finished lamely.
“Yeah,” Hound said. “I get that. Well, how about a homebrew?”
Skyfire looked up from his tarp and followed Hound’s line of sight up to Wheeljack, fresh out of the Ark with a basket of drinks. He had been busy for weeks making small batch beer for their get together and finally, they could have a taste. He was overrun as soon as he came outside, but managed to hide one for Optimus, who waited until the initial crowd had died down.
“Whoa, whoa, easy now,” Wheeljack said, handing out drink after drink. “I didn’t think you all would want one.”
“We haven’t had anything but ration fuel for months and now you tempt us with this? Come on,” Cliffjumper scoffed, cracking the top open on his breastplate. “Mm! This is great!”
By the time Wheeljack made it through the crowd to Skyfire and Hound, he was out. In the background, Optimus shamefully looked down at the cold beer bottle in his hand and drooped.
“Sorry, guys,” Wheeljack said, looking down into his crate. “I thought I made enough... the last group didn’t seal quite right but still it should have had at least a slim margin—
“It’s okay,” Skyfire said. “I’m still busy here, I don’t need one. I need to figure out the water source.”
“Skyfire—“
“It’s fine.”
He stood up and marched off towards the Ark. Wheeljack looked at Hound.
“He’s been a little cranky all day,” Hound said by way of explanation.
“He’s moody,” Wheeljack agreed. “But in his pedes, who wouldn’t be?”
…
Skyfire tried the hose bib on the side of the Ark and glanced back at the end of the hose, resting on the top of his tarp. No water.
That didn’t make any sense. Sparkplug had suggested that the well might have gone dry by this time in the summer, but Skyfire had checked and there was plenty of water available. The Autobots didn’t use the water for much aside from the occasional car wash (as Carly called it). He examined the hose connection with his fingertips and a strange nodule pressed up against them.
It took some doing to lean down and take a good look at the hose. There was a strange contraption attached to the bib, and then a thick black wire leading away from it, down the hill the opposite way into the treeline. He looked back at the hose, still saw no water coming out, and sighed.
He needed to investigate.
He crept down the hill, keeping track of the black wire as he went, and ducked into the trees.
He was lucky that this forest was old-growth (as Sparkplug put it), so the trees were big and tall and he didn’t have to hunch as much. That didn’t mean that his wings and shoulders fit; he still needed to slide sideways past some trees that looked to be far enough apart.
The black wire slithered through the underbrush, disappearing here and there beneath fallen detritus before reappearing in an open spot.
The wire terminated at a small generator, and Skyfire crouched down to get a better look. It was rudimentary, but it appeared to be an energon generator. There was something off—
“Look who it is.”
Skyfire didn’t need to look up to know who had stumbled upon him.
“Starscream,” he murmured, examining the generator. He lifted it gently on one edge to look at the machinery on the side. “What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Starscream puffed, strutting around to his front. “I’m stealing hydroelectric power from the Autobots.”
“Off our garden hose?” Skyfire questioned, quirking a brow ridge. “That’s hardly anything.”
“It is not!” Starscream blustered. “You waste a surprising amount of power off of that hose, I’ll have you know. But... I haven’t been able to harness it. I can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with it, but this generator isn’t making anything useful.”
“Hmm...” Skyfire set the generator on its side and opened the access panel to look over Starscream’s setup. The interior pieces looked appropriate, but there were a few loose bolts. There was a toppled toolbox off to the side, which he picked through. “I’m looking for the—”
“Spanner?”
Starscream bent next to him and offered the tool he was seeking.
“Yes,” Skyfire said, taking it from him. He tightened a bolt here, a nut there, and slowly sank onto his knees to look closer.
“Why didn’t you shoot me?”
“Hmm?”
“When you showed up. I’m a Decepticon. You’re an Autobot. You’re supposed to shoot me.”
“Why didn’t you shoot me?”
Starscream rested his hand on Skyfire’s shoulder.
He knew why. He painfully knew why. Starscream’s reasons were always so obvious.
“I don’t know,” Skyfire mumbled. No, that was wrong, he did know, he simply... didn’t want to.
“Fine,” Starscream said, withdrawing his hand. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Skyfire frowned. He wanted to tell him, wanted to say all that and more, but where would he begin? Would it be I love you? I miss you? You left me frozen in the ice and when I woke up you were there, but... different?
Starscream stalked over to a tree some distance away and leaned on it. Abruptly, he gave it a swift kick.
“You don’t need to rub in that you know more about generators than I do!”
“Huh?” Skyfire asked, looking up.
He had just begun checking the alternator, one of the more fiddly bits on an energon generator. Starscream had done a good job manufacturing all of the parts he used, and so far aside from a couple loose fasteners there wasn’t anything wrong.
“The generator looks great, Starscream—”
Starscream pushed him from behind. Skyfire gasped in surprise, but with his mass and center of gravity he didn’t fall. He wobbled before settling back on his haunches. That wasn’t good enough for Starscream.
“Hey, hey, whoa!’
Starscream grabbed his left wing and hauled him backwards, finally succeeding in dumping Skyfire on the ground.
“That’s it? You show up after all this time and it’s like we’re old friends?”
“Aren’t we old friends...?” Skyfire questioned weakly.
“Well, yes! No! I mean, yes, but...” Starscream’s wings pinched up high and tight.
“So much has happened?”
“Yes!”
Skyfire slowly sat upright, and thankfully Starscream didn’t move away. He stood there in between Skyfire’s feet, flustered, fans screaming, optics on the edge of sparking.
“I’m sorry,” Skyfire mumbled, looking up at Starscream. “I don’t know what to say. All of this... I’m all so new to it. When I... froze... we were labmates, partners, and now... I don’t know what to think! Have you even stopped to think?”
“When would I have time to do that?” Starscream said, wings trembling. “Between beatings? On patrol, looking for you?”
“How about right now?” Skyfire asked, pushing himself up onto his knees.
He finally closed the distance between them and put his hand on Starscream’s shoulder, then his arm. He was afraid of putting it anywhere else, lest Starscream be too uncomfortable.
What he didn’t expect was Starscream flooding into his arms, pressing up against his chest.
It felt so good. He had missed the slim feeling of Starscream in his arms, of briefly catching him before he spun away again like a comet, always seeking something else. There was a reason his group was called the Seekers.
“Why did you go with them?”
“Because I couldn’t go with Megatron,” Skyfire murmured. “You know that. Why don’t you come with me?”
“Because the others need me,” Starscream said. “And they won’t go. You already know that.”
Skyfire sighed.
“Then we’re at an impasse again,” he said. “Now what?”
Starscream looked up at him, gaze filtering over Skyfire’s optics and slowly down to his mouth. Hesitantly, he leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips, using the barest brush to convey his meaning.
“I guess we can keep working on the generator,” he said, and Skyfire sighed softly, contemplating Starscream’s mouth again before he looked past him at the generator.
“...I’ve got an idea.”
...
“Bumblebee, Skyfire’s been working on the slip ‘n’ slide for twenty minutes,” Spike stressed. He was starting to look a bit damp from sweat. “Where’d he go?”
“I’m not sure,” Bumblebee answered. “I managed to patch that hole in your floatie, though.”
“Great!” Carly cheered.
A soft rumble passed through the ground beneath them and Bumblebee looked around.
“Did you two feel that?”
“I felt something,” Carly agreed. “Skyfire?”
“Yeah, maybe so,” Bumblebee said. “I’m gonna go check it out. Stay here.”
As he snuck off towards the epicenter of the rumbles, Carly tugged on Spike’s arm.
“He took the flamingo.”
Spike snickered, watching Bumblebee sneak down the hill, oblivious to the pool floatie on his arm.
...
Where could Skyfire be? The transport jet was so big, he usually towered over everything he was next to, so it was strange that he couldn’t be spotted some distance away.
Through the trees, Bumblebee glimpsed a flash of white armor. There!
He straightened up and walked closer.
“Skyfire—whoa!”
Starscream was here! In fright, Bumblebee fell over backwards, scrambling for his laser gun.
“What are you doing, that's a Decepticon!” Bumblebee squeaked, clutching the flamingo-floatie close.
Skyfire glanced up at him and then looked back at the generator.
“This is what I’m talking about,” Starscream said, offering Skyfire a screwdriver. “If we struck out together then there wouldn’t be any of this nonsense to deal with.”
Starscream gestured at Bumblebee, staring pointedly down the barrel of his gun before he turned back to Skyfire with a little smile.
“...you are scaring him,” Skyfire pointed out.
“Oh, please. A little fear is good for you,” Starscream said, rolling his optics. “Isn’t that right, bug?”
“Huh? What?”
“Bumblebee, it’s okay,” Skyfire said, tinkering with the generator’s internals again. “Starscream isn’t going to hurt you any more than he’s going to hurt me.”
“But—”
“Put the gun down. It’s making me nervous.”
Bumblebee eyed the generator and then slowly lowered his weapon.
“What are you making? Or fixing? Are you fixing it?”
“I’m helping,” Skyfire said. “Apparently we waste a lot of hydroelectric power off of the Ark’s garden hose, and Starscream had an idea about capturing that power with this energon generator.”
He twisted one more screw into place and the whole unit began to hum and glow a faint pink through the ventilation slats.
“Ha-ha! Yes!” Starscream crowed. “That means the water is flowing! We have power!”
“Do you have something to put the energon in?” Skyfire questioned, and Starscream reached into subspace, pulling out a large silver keg.
“Did you think I would go out into the field without being totally prepared?” Starscream scoffed.
“Yes. I’ve had to bring duplicates of all kinds of things,” Skyfire said, taking the keg and affixing it to the generator. “And now... we flip this switch...”
He lifted the control panel cover on the top and flicked the right switch. The whole unit gave a shudder as it began to output fuel. The keg also jumped as the pressure within it jumped before it settled back against the mulch.
“...what kind of energon is this making?” Skyfire asked, studying the suspicious noises emitting from the keg. “That’s not a standard container.”
“My dear Skyfire, this device is making high-grade,” Starscream said, grinning. “Well, closer to mid-grade from the speed of the hydro-conductor but who’s counting?”
“I’m still wondering why you need mid-grade fuel,” Skyfire said. “Apart from taste...”
“Yeah, taste,” Bumblebee said, sitting up and leaning in. “It’s been so long since we’ve had anything but ration sludge...”
“Then perhaps we’ll have to sample it,” Starscream said, reaching back into his subspace and withdrawing an empty energon cube. “Here, there’s a dispensing spout on top.”
He handed one cube to Skyfire, who dutifully began filling it. Once it was about halfway, the keg was empty and barely spitting out any fuel.
“Here, let me try it,” Starscream said, beckoning. “I can’t let you drink sludge, if that’s what we’re making.”
Skyfire passed over the cube and watched Starscream sip off the top.
“Mmm...! Nope, not sludge,” Starscream decided, offering it back to him.
“H-Hey! Don’t I get a taste?” Bumblebee whined, and Starscream glared at him.
“No, you broke into our little meeting without an invitation. You taste it last.”
Skyfire looked down at the cube, swirling with a decidedly higher-grade fuel than he had become used to. Tentatively, he took a little sip.
Flavor—well, it wasn’t exactly flavor, it was texture, and tingle, and viscosity, the electrical receptors in his glossa were singing— exploded in his mouth.
“Starscream, this is excellent,” Skyfire gasped.
Before he could stop himself he took another deep drink. The ration sludge they had been subsisting off of made his delicate flight systems lag, so he would be sorely remiss if he didn’t tank up when he had the chance. He felt the heat grow in his chest as his fuel processing unit took in the fresh energon and sent a jolt of power through his frame.
Standing above him, Starscream smirked and put his hands on his hips.
“That’s what I thought might happen,” he said. “Sorry, bug, he drank the rest. You’ll have to wait until the keg fills up again.”
Bumblebee looked so sad; he had abandoned his gun in favor of hugging the flamingo.
“Really?” he whined. “I even missed Wheeljack’s homebrew! I couldn’t find the tire patch kit for the floatie...”
“Oh, if it will stop your whining,” Starscream groaned. “Fine, here.”
He took the cube back from Skyfire and flipped the spout again, gaining maybe two swallows of energon before the keg lugged again. He marched over to Bumblebee and held out the cube. Cautiously he took it, sniffed it, and then sampled it.
“Skyfire’s right,” Bumblebee said. “This is great!”
“What I don’t understand,” Starscream said, completely ignoring him, “is why it’s generating it so slowly.”
“Oh, I think I have the answer,” Skyfire said. “I only turned the hose on a little bit. I was trying to figure out why the water wasn’t coming out, so I didn’t turn it up. I thought it might have been leaking inside the wall.”
“Patently incorrect,” Starscream pointed out.
“Well, I know what was happening now,” Skyfire grunted, standing up. “How about this—why don’t we take this generator up the hill and you can come to our—what did Sparkplug call it, Bumblebee?”
“A cookout.”
“That’s right. You can come to our cookout.”
“As if anyone’s gonna let Starscream come anywhere close to the Ark without a pair of stasis-cuffs on,” Bumblebee huffed. “Come on.”
“It’ll be fine,” Skyfire said, tipping the tool box over onto the right side so he could pile all of the tools and spare parts back in. “Just watch.”
Once the toolbox was full, he stowed it in his subspace and picked up the generator and keg.
“Can you pick up the wire?” he asked Bumblebee. “I don’t want to trip on it.”
“Uh yeah, sure,” Bumblebee said. He finally put his gun away, back into subspace, and he bent to loop some of the wire around his arm as Skyfire moved in the direction of the Ark.
“What about me?”
“What about you?” Skyfire asked, looking back at Starscream. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Walking into the Autobot base camp with nothing but my good looks doesn’t sound like a great plan,” Starscream said.
“Hey, you aren’t alone,” Skyfire said, holding his hand out to him. “Come on, you’ll be okay.”
Starscream looked down at his hand and then up at him.
“Just try it,” he suggested. “If you don’t like it then you can go back. Deal?”
Starscream stared at his hand for several long moments more before he huffed and trotted over to him.
“Deal,” he muttered. “But if it’s lame, I’m leaving!”
...
“Well, it’s kinda slippery...” Spike said, staring down at the meager dribble coming out of the hose. The dish soap was creating a white frothy mess as it slid down the hill, not wet enough to dilute it into slipperiness.
“Maybe there was a problem with the water,” Carly said. “I—look, it’s Skyfire! And...”
The chatter around the yard died down as everyone noticed who Skyfire had tagging along.
“Look who I found hiding in the bushes!” Skyfire crowed. “Hey, there’s no need for guns. This is just a cookout, right?”
Every mechanical member at the party had a gun out. Even Ironhide, at the grill, had his weapon drawn. The only one without a weapon was Optimus.
“Absolutely,” Optimus said. “Autobots, stand down. If Starscream wants to join in our festivities, then he is more than welcome to do so.”
“Prime,” Prowl hissed.
“It’s fine,” Optimus said. “What else have you got there, Skyfire?”
He carefully set the generator and keg down on the ground near the hose, and Bumblebee deposited the coil of wire beside it before he scurried off back to Spike.
“It’s an energon generator,” Skyfire said. “Except it doesn’t make sludge... it makes mid-grade.”
A clamor passed through the crowd.
Mid-grade? Mid-grade?
“...can we try some?” Ironhide called weakly.
“I suppose that can be arranged,” Skyfire said. “But only if you treat Starscream like a guest and not an enemy.”
Ratchet was the first one to walk up and offer Starscream a plate.
“Come on in,” he said. “We’re just about ready to dish up.”
...
It was a smashing success. Once they turned the water on full-bore, the slip ‘n’ slide was in action and the generator was spitting out mid-grade nearly as fast.
“Wheeeeeeee!”
Suds foamed up on the sides of the slip ‘n’ slide now that the water was flowing, and Carly and Spike sped down the hill and fell into the pool.
“I think there’s plenty to go around now,” Skyfire said, feeling the weight of the keg. “Who’s got a cube?”
“I’ve got a beer bottle,” Hound said, offering it up.
Skyfire held it up to the spout and carefully filled the bottle, handing it back over. Hound snagged it and took a swig— “Oh wow!”
“Is it any good?” Skyfire asked hesitantly.
Starscream butted in before he could answer. “Of course it’s good, we made it. You tasted it! Don’t be all wishy-washy with them, they can decide for themselves.”
Hound stared down at them, took another drink, and then pounded the rest of the drink.
“This is the best, ever,” he said. “I haven’t had mid-grade... we haven’t had mid-grade, since... guys, you all need to try this!”
There was a flurry of action as bottles flooded towards Skyfire and the generator, and he felt a grin building on his face as he filled bottle after bottle.
In the background, Carly and Spike were screaming happily as they sped down the hill on run after run, and once they were exhausted and floating sleepily in the pool, Skyfire finished feeding the masses.
“I understand why this was so popular, but still,” Skyfire said, sitting on the ground next to the hose bib. “It’s something you made, so I thought they would be more hesitant than this.”
“Hesitant? If this was hesitation I don’t want to see enthusiasm,” Starscream scoffed, slowly sitting down next to him.
He had been hovering around on the edge of the crowd during the entire time they were serving the new fuel, but now that the others were busy picking Ironhide’s grill clean and watching Bluestreak and Prowl go back and forth racking up points, it was calm enough for him to land, if only for a moment.
“This is nice,” Skyfire said.
He wanted to look out at the crowd, at the shooting competition, but he couldn’t look away from Starscream. If he kept staring at Starscream then he would never want to stop, and he’d be easily persuaded away from the Ark, from the Autobots—
“Hush.”
“Hmm?”
“I can hear you thinking from over here. Your processor makes this soft humming noise when you’re chasing a tree of thought but I can’t devise what it is you would be obsessing over.”
Before he could stop himself, Skyfire blurted, “You.”
Starscream didn’t skip a beat.
“Yes, well,” he said, reaching out and putting his hand on Skyfire’s thigh. “I figured out that much.”
Starscream’s hand hadn’t been near anything on Skyfire’s frame in so long, but... now wasn’t the right time. Skyfire interrupted his sly path into his lap by putting his arm around Starscream’s shoulders. He tugged him into his side and held him close.
Now it was Starscream’s turn to heat up.
“I’ve missed this,” Skyfire murmured. “And not just our banter or friendly dogfights. I’ve missed you. No one—”
He glanced around to make sure that no one was within audio range.
“No one here thinks like you do,” he said, leaning in closer. “No one else feels like you. Your EM field against mine makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, we’ll escape this whole war alive.”
Starscream squirmed under such direct attention, but instead of pulling away he pressed his face into Skyfire’s chest.
“You know, I’m not going to try and convince you to stay,” Skyfire said, leaning back on one hand so he could watch the clay targets fly. “But... I want to.”
“Maybe I want you to,” Starscream muttered, voice muffled.
“You... do?”
“Yes!” Starscream yipped. “All you’ve done is asked, you haven’t, haven’t... tried. Why should I stay here? Why shouldn’t we escape and live out the rest of our functions somewhere remote, somewhere so far away even Megatron couldn’t find us?”
“Because you need other people just as much as I do,” Skyfire murmured. “And I don’t mean me. Thundercracker, Skywarp... I’m so proud of you for finding and trining them in the middle of this whole terrible situation. And I know that the Autobots live in the middle of nowhere here, but at least it’s safe , and no one practices violence as a form of discipline.”
“Skyfire—”
“And they let me practice science here,” Skyfire said, withdrawing his arm and sitting up straight. Starscream still remained pressed against his side, unwilling to pull away. “When was the last time you did anything scientific? Do you still have a chemistry set? A telescope?”
Starscream drew his long, shapely legs up and huddled against him.
“No,” he whimpered. “Of course not, there’s no room for science in military strategy, and when there is... I need to take care of them! Thundercracker, Skywarp—neither of them really want to be here, but there isn’t anywhere else to go.”
“Yes there is,” Skyfire pressed. “You can come here, seek refuge with us.”
“We can’t,” Starscream said, voice straining. “Anywhere we go, Megatron would find us. He would find us, and, and—”
“No!” Skyfire barked. “He can’t control you outside of that place. Even he doesn't have that much power.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“Yes, I do,” Skyfire said. “I was there. When I woke up, and joined the Decepticons... I was there. And what he does is wrong, and look: I’ve left, and nothing bad has happened to me.”
Starscream pulled away, optics sparking.
“That’s, that’s all well and good for you, but I’m not you!” Starscream shrieked. “I never have been and never will be.”
“I’m not saying you need to be me,” Skyfire said, pulling himself upright and seizing both of Starscream’s hands in his. “I’m saying that you’re you, and he’s choking the life out of what makes you you.”
Starscream clung to his hands, trembling, and then threw them away.
“No! I, I’m leaving.”
He kicked off the ground, thrusters screaming, and shot off into the sky. Skyfire watched him go, slowly drooping, and he sat back down on the floor.
“Everything okay?”
Optimus walked over and sat next to him, opposite the side Starscream occupied.
“Fine,” Skyfire said, looking away.
Optimus took a sip off his refilled beer bottle and held it out to Skyfire.
“Here. Did you have any?”
“I had the first sample,” Skyfire muttered. “Well, second. Starscream tried it before me.”
Optimus put the bottle in his hand and then put a hand on his shoulder.
“What happened?”
“He asked me to try and convince him to stay. So I did. It didn’t work.”
Optimus nodded slowly and rubbed his shoulder.
“Well, you never know,” he said. “Maybe something you said got through to him.”
“I hope so.”
...
Once night fell and the humans started setting off contraband fireworks, Skyfire settled on top of the Ark’s dormant thrusters to drink their mid-grade miserably.
“Is this spot taken?”
It was an unfamiliar voice that echoed from behind him this time. He turned and made eye contact with Thundercracker, poised on top of a thruster shell.
“No,” Skyfire said, patting the place next to him. “Sit down.”
“I think there might be more than just me joining,” Thundercracker said, strutting over and sliding down next to him. Skywarp sat down on his other side, sandwiching Skyfire in the middle.
“Really?” Skyfire asked. “You look fairly alone.”
“Oh please, you think these two go anywhere without me?”
Skyfire’s helm whipped up and he saw Starscream hovering above him, blocking the view of the fireworks.
“You came back?” he asked.
“Yes,” Starscream said. “Of course I did. And I brought some friends—is that okay?”
“Yes, yes of course,” Skyfire said. “Are... are you here to stay?”
“I think I may be,” Starscream said, setting down on Skyfire’s lap. He balanced there easily, weightlessly, while Skyfire processed this.
“...really?”
“Well, I hope so,” Starscream scoffed. “Once your glorious leader stops staring at the pretty lights and reads his personal messages.”
He turned around and plopped down in Skyfire’s lap, yelping when he began to slide. “Sky—!”
Skyfire wrapped his arms around him tight and hauled him up to sit close against his midsection.
“I’m not letting you go anywhere,” he said, pressing his cheek to Starscream’s helm. “Alright?”
“Alright,” Starscream said, pleased. “Do you have any more of that mid-grade leftover?”
“If Skywarp would please go get it,” Skyfire said, looking over at him. “It’s right below us. Wheeljack gave me some beer bottles to fill up.”
“You got it,” Skywarp said. He winked into unspace, returning moments later with a crate of bottles in his lap.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Starscream said, reaching over and snagging one. He cracked it open on Skyfire’s leg and took a long draught.
“Mm! It’s better cold.”
Skywarp passed a bottle behind Skyfire to Thundercracker before he opened one for the big white shuttle himself.
“Can we have this all the time?” Starscream asked, looking up at Skyfire, upside down.
“As long as we can go on some night flights to burn off the excess energy,” Skyfire said, smiling down at him.
“I think that can be arranged,” Starscream said, cuddling up against him. “Now?”
“Mm. After the show,” Skyfire said, shifting to cradle Starscream with one arm so he could hold his drink with the other. “Or perhaps... this show.”
He leaned down and pressed their lips together.
“Oh,” Starscream squeaked. “Yeah. I mean, yes please.”