capeandcowllogs | back-stabbing shammer you took me by surprise you fooled me twice

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back-stabbing shammer you took me by surprise you fooled me twice

WHO: Skyfire (

backstab)
WHERE: Autobase
WHEN: backdated to just after Hellbus.
WARNINGS: Angst. And awkward robots.
SUMMARY: What happens when your old friend's ex BF was an alternate you, only a dbag, well, okay, you're a dbag too in fairness, but what if you're trying to escape that kind of image and what if you actually do feel a little bit like you like him but you can't show it because of said dbag and the whole mess is really screwed up and then he has an experience with a demonic hellmonster version of that old you and It's complicated.
FORMAT: I'm doing pretentious prose you can do what you like and see if I mind

Starscream had a bad day. It was full of phone calls and depressing coverage on the television about that bus that had exploded, and that imports were being blamed for it, and quite honestly the Decepticon no longer even knew if imports didn't deserve this bum rap, because they certainly didn't seem to be making his job any easier. And that was all that mattered to him.

He left only ten minutes late. He wasn't a superstitious mech, but something in him was ...telling him that he didn't need to stay too late today, that getting home was important. Perhaps it was Sentinel's odd behavior and accusation, or perhaps it was just a lucky guess, but he got home within another ten, thanks to his altmode, and headed up to the appropriate floor, letting himself in with his key.

"Skyfire?" And then, quieter, "Sentinel?" The quietest. "...Ironhide?"

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Thmp.

He hadn't wanted to move after getting home from that awful place.

Thmp.

Even the throbbing in his leg, the other less severe injuries could wait while he simply lay draped on the couch. Limp. Shaking.

Thmp.

It wasn't a nightmare. He'd had nightmares like it before, though. But this time the pain and the cold was real. At least Ironhide had been there to help him. Save him from possibly getting eviscerated in that first hour.

Thmp.

The sound of the blood dripping, staining the carpet doesn't even bother him now. It trickles down the toe of his shoe off the end of the couch, leaving a nice dark circle where it's been collecting.

The silence was wrong, he knew from experience whether a place was truly empty, and as he walked into the living room, he let his human flesh melt back into robot form, reassuringly--stopped.

Stared, and then took two elegant paces forward to lean over the couch.

"Skyfire??"

He didn't know from human injuries, he didn't know whether to move humans or not, but he knew what looked wrong based on his interactions with and observations of other organics. He reached down and slid his agile hands under in an attempt to lift the other up, remembering how ludicrously breakable human skeletons were.

"Skyfire, you need a medic. What happened?"

The voice is distant to him. He's awake but not entirely aware. It's only when Starscream touches him, that he jumps, suddenly alert and full of fighting instinct. A burst of energy, yes. But he's too weakened to really do much but struggle away from Starscream with a startled cry.

The shuttle looks him over. Up and down, wide eyes glowing that bright blue in the poor light. The panic and fear is written all over him.

No. No this is a different Starscream. Calm. Breathe. It's not ice or snow, you're at home. Bleeding.

"Nnhhghhhh..." Well, so much for forming words on the first try. His voice dies in his throat.

"Stars..." That's more like it.

The really dark, subprocessing part of his mind is urging him most strongly to flee, alone, in case this is one of Megatron's perverse traps--how did Skyfire get those injuries? No, if it were a trap, there'd be gloating. Whatever had happened here, had happened wholly independent of Starscream's relationship to Skyfire.

He hoped.

His optics flickered rapidly back and forth over the shuttle's body in the dark, recognizing dimly something like ...battle fatigue? But he was lea--bleeding, he needed help for that. Starscream dropped the floodgates on his personal emotion, maintaining poise. Somehow.

He strode across to the curtained window nearby and tore off a strip of jagged fabric, looking over his shoulderguard at Skyfire, every pinion tense and anticipatory, but he was in control. When he moved closer again, it was more slowly. He had to crimp off the fuel lines--stop the blood--whatever. It worked the same way, didn't it? Starscream got on his knees in front of the couch, hooking a claw into the shuttle's pantsleg to pull it up, get a look at the injury.

"Slowly, hmm? You don't have to be afraid of me. Let me help you."

It helps, in an odd way, fir the first time, that this Starscream doesn't look at all like his own. He's older. His frame, slender and a little bit alien and.

That's better.

"Starscream," It's really hard to keep the tremble from his voice, "I don't know. Why. I was on my way home and it- I was somewhere else. It was cold and..."

He sucks in a sharp breath as the seeker exposes his injury.

"He was there. Only it was this. This monster. It almost offlined me, but Ironhide was there and he helped."

His voice catches and he doesn't trust himself to continue, not after all of that just comes spilling out.

Well he was clearly in hysterics. That was fine, all Starscream needed to know was that it was somewhere else and it wasn't about to pounce from a darkened corner. Starscream started tying the cloth up above the injury and down over it, experimental pressure, not in a position of concern about doing more harm than good.

"Ironhide makes himself useful at last. Will miracles never cease." The faceplates wore a thin smile that did not reach his optics, and once he was satisfied he'd stemmed the bloodflow, he reached up and brushed hair back away from Skyfire's face, looking down into those glowing blue eyes. "I'm here now. Consider yourself adequately protected from... this monster of yours."

Although 'he' is certainly cause for concern, Starscream has ever dealt in tangibles. "Will you let me take you to the Clinic?"

There's that burning again. He knows that feeling. It means he's about to start leaking out his face and make a horrid fool of himself. His face twists in a valiant effort to stop it happening, but tin the end, to no avail.

"Yes. I just. What if it comes back- you..."

He doesn't know what he's saying anymore. It was a damn terrifying experience. It was like it knew exactly what he was afraid of. What dug at his spark in the worst ways.

And really, he doesn't care that Starscream is all metal and angles right now. He tips forward and presses his face into the warm, gray plating, unable to contain the pathetic sound that crawls up from his throat.

Starscream's vents kicked up a notch in surprise, and he made a little answering sound of perplexity deep in the back of his voicebox as Skyfire pressed up against him. He slowly gathered up the shuttle, a hand against the back of the currently organic's head, hopefully disguising the deeply uncertain expression on his face.

"Shhh sh sh shh."

As he assessed, his voice became a rich, self-assured purr, drawing confidence from a situation in which he was called upon to manifest competence in the face of someone who needed him to show ability, "I won't let that happen. Your enemies are my enemies... and my strength is yours."

Starscream took advantage of their proximity to carefully lift Skyfire in his arms, onto his lap, not yet getting up. Skyfire wasn't going to bleed out (at least, from what he could see), it was important not to rush this thing, if he were in shock, which he seemed to be. He needed predictability in his environment, for a little while.

"We'll leave when you're ready."

It's so strange, for once, to be the one being held. Moved around. Comforted. He's usually on the opposite side of this. It feels alien but it's certainly something to cling to. The familiar thrum of a spark near his ears does well to soothe. Listening to Starscream's systems. He rubs a hand over his bleary eyes and lets a shaky exhale leave him.

For how little he trusts, how strange this all is, this Starscream certainly has proved to be...

Different.

Maybe that's just wishful thinking. The demons from that place still biting at his heels in his head. The glow winks out when he closes his eyes and goes somewhat limp.

"I'm sorry."

No one else makes him feel like this--like he can be more than one pre-set personality to them, more than a pleaser, what he thinks they want to perceive him as; weak or competent, cringing or self assured, loyal or lacking. No one else makes him oscillate this way, between determination and desperation, save Megatron's attempts to forge him down into a permanent kneeling position while he struggled to rise, and he wasn't quite sure what it meant. Skyfire made him unsure of which schema to access, he made him confront both halves and try to integrate them.

His old friend, Jetfire, he had written off long ago--of the casualties of the choices he'd made, some were distinctly more painful. And he didn't get second chances, usually.

All he was sure of, right now, was twofold - one, that the people who mattered were very hazardous. And two - that he didn't care.

"What for? You're not going to offline." With more assurance, his grip looser, reminding himself, "You're not leaving."

He started to rise, slow, stepping around the couch with the not inconsiderably sized shuttle, and perched with delicacy on the couch arm as his fingers uncertainly traced up Skyfire's back. Rubbing between his shoulderblades, where his own turbine was nestled in robot form.

"You're just out of commission, temporarily."

Some of the tension trains from his body. He's always been very tactile. Always liked physical affection. He was built that way. To transport people. To be around them.

Naturally, the tears do come, but it's not the usual over-emotional drunken blubbering he's known to do that usually results in forty or so cakes and other various baked goods.

It just needs to come out. And he really hates being human sometimes. Sometimes he wishes he could just shed this skin. Shed this planet and frag off into deep space where there's nothing. Nobody to harm him. Just stars and the peaceful darkness and somewhere.

Somewhere there is Cybertron. Home.

"I'm just sorry. For. I don't know."

It's just kind of a phrase he defaults to sometimes.

He curls in on himself, which takes some doing because he's in a lot of pain.

"I'm so tired of this place."

He opens his mouth to promise a new apartment, a new base, on his City Hall salary, and then closes his mouth again, not sold on the notion that this is what Skyfire means, and the notion that the shuttle is awe-inspiringly more damaged than he had feared even initially.

That whatever was done to him--by another Starscream, by being organic, by being isolated from his people, from his home dimension, or otherwise--had left permanent furrows in his spark, had left him... diminished in some way that Starscream had no idea how to repair.

He rests the smooth underside of his chin carefully against the top of Skyfire's soft little human head, looking off for a moment, contemplating their reversed positions, examining the problem from all angles like a tenacious raven rapping at a puzzle box.

Sorry for, perhaps, the display of weakness? It mystifies him, the way Skyfire moves and reacts to things, to pain, to fear, to anger, to confrontation, but he wants to learn the steps to this dance if only to master it and move from follower to leader, and it compels him to investigate.

"...this is... surely a selfish view, but. If you hadn't been here, ah. When I arrived." He didn't particularly want to dwell, as his fingers absently stroked through Skyfire's hair--he'd been told, about that, but it wasn't currently registering as something he should do. It was just a thing.

"Never mind. Suffice it to say, I - I'm not, euh..." Not what? Not going to hurt him? That was an impossible promise, and he'd broken it enough times to know it was meaningless. "...I'll just. Take you, now. Hm?"

He started to rise again, glancing toward the front door. Perhaps the import clinic's workers would have wiser words for Skyfire. At the very least they'd have a supply of blood for him to replenish what he'd lost.

It's a lot of confusing half-conversation. Part of him, the ever-curious part, wants to ask him to continue. Say what he was going to say. But he's damned exhausted and his mind is still screaming fight or flight to some degree. At least the touch is soothing. His he slumps slightly with a shaky exhale.

"Alright..."

He was not a fan of human medicine, but what had to be done had to be done. The bright lights and noise and bustle was usually overwhelming on a good day. Scary at best. But despite having been hit right in his weak spot. Where his psyche is most fragile, he is by no means a coward.

Still.

Something about even the thought makes him panic. And he wants to be here.

"Starscream."

He's so not used to this.

"Please don't. Leave me alone. Please? If we go... please don't leave me."

At least he doesn't sound panicked anymore. Just exhausted.

"Hm." It's a soft sound, not an assent, not a denial, it's useful for that extra half second of yes-i'm-listening while he's inwardly calibrating, recalibrating, options on an ever shifting plane of focus. Wants and needs and must haves, and this from Skyfire, this quiet, tired-out--please don't leave me.

Must have. Can he give it?

Shuffling. Mitchell has weakness. Mitchell - despite his protests to the contrary - enjoys power. Begging will tide him over 24 hours, or possibly more. It's doable.

The tension in him ebbs back a little at this, rearranged choices and open doors and Skyfire in his arms like this, the ambiguity is still there between them, what they are, what they absolutely aren't, but there'll be time for all that mess later.

"I'll make arrangements for some time off work."

As he moves for the door, shifting his grip to open it and carry Skyfire down the hall to the exit, wondering if that concession is enough--as they step outside, he adds, "I'm not going to leave you."

If anything, the relief is visible in his face. Alright. So he'll let Starscream carry him to the hospital. As long as he's not alone. Odd how one side of the coin can be so awful and then this one...

Who is trying his very best to comfort. To help.

Skyfire closes his eyes, going a fair bit more limp than before.

Everything hurts, but he'll be fine as long as he's not alone anymore. Physical pain he can survive, he's done it before. Many times.

For now... he's safe.

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back-stabbing shammer you took me by surprise you fooled me twice

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