Nexus: Near the Sign: Encounters with Starscreams

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

Skywarp is trudging back through the Nexus, taking the scenic route just to accommodate some brooding time. Blackout was still unconscious when he dropped in to check her condition, and until that changes, he knows he can't be expected to do anything.

On the other hand, it will change soon, and he has enough food for thought to feed a race of psychovores for a couple of centuries at least. So he detours through a quieter patch of Nexus, and tries to think.

Comments

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

He growls at the presence. I want to know who you are. And why you're trying to take my shell!

[random_xtras]

Wordless denial. Not trying to take... only to hide.

Then she brushes against his spark and he sees the image of a slender Seeker form, frail and faint, and dominated by the gaping hole through her chest. Frightened red optics seem to stare into his, and then are shuttered as the tattered spark shudders and causes more static.

But she knows she's dead. That hole shouldn't be there.

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

What...? He jerks and shudders violently at the touch of another spark. You can't hide here! This is mine!

[random_xtras]

-Please.... I'm sorry-

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

What the slag are you hiding from? You're already dead!

[random_xtras]

He sees the world through her optics suddenly; huge and so empty that it hurts.

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

He's totally unaware of the way his body is shuddering. It can't hurt you now, idiot!

[random_xtras]

Being called names makes her fritz out again, and she inadvertently shows him just exactly how being on her own feels. And it....

Really really slagging hurts. And it feels so all alone that it seems like she could never touch anyone and that being anything other than empty and drifting was only a far away dream.

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

Dependant. No wonder this one stayed as a ghost, he thinks, scorning her emotions as he tries to get a grip on what's his and what isn't. I can't help you. Leave me alone!

[random_xtras]

And here's another memory. Nearly succeeding with a coup, only to be betrayed by her own brother... Skywarp. And then Megatron again and pain and horror as he roots through her processor and changes the very core of her being, destroying her and tearing her apart without giving her something else to be other than blindly loyal to him.

And Skywarp gets to feel the whole thing.

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

The memory and his own name catch him unprepared. Skywarp's frozen in mid-recoil as the memory plays through. His optics are wide and his wings quivering.

Not me! That's not me! some part of him is trying to insist, drowned out by that overpowering memory.

[random_xtras]

That same bond-brother's drunken mockery as he drags her down the hall to be repaired, the kicks he delivered to her helpless and broken shell.

And then her own blind, trapped animal fury as she came off the repair table and nearly offlined him. Skywarp can still barely face her on his feet. Nor can their sister, Thundercracker.

Broken and empty this spark may be, but still capable of that.

-Starscream,- she remembers suddenly, the pain lessening just the barest amounts before it flares up again as another memory starts.

[agent-skywarp.livejournal.com]

At that, a surge of resentment and irritation comes from his end. He isn't really able to process what he's getting - he feels dislike at the Skywarp-image, surprise and rejection at the name of Thundercracker...

But it's the last thought that makes him drag himself back from being overwhelmed and demand of the ghost-spark, What Starscream?