((RP post)) Talking to yourself doesn't always mean you're crazy

[air_commander]

((follow-up from hereStarscream had gone to a party, only to meet himself. One of his other selves, that is. The conversation quickly turned to an extremely emotionally loaded subject, and thus the two Starscreams decided to have the rest of the talk without witnesses

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[attair_al_fada]

"Bye-bye, Red's Candid Cameras!" The security code shuts down the cameras and pick-ups in the area; only if Metroplex should consciously decide to check out the area will they come back on.

//Now, what did you do, and when? I heard the word 'execute'... and I'm thinking you did something colossally stupid that I only thought real hard about doing.//

[air_commander]

//Depends on what you thought about,// Starscream tentatively begins to answer. //If the 'stupid' thing was to hunt him down in a solitary place, then yes. I know it was a risk, given how strong he was, but then, I was always faster. As long as I could get the drop on him first... And I knew every weakness of his, every vulnerable spot - you no doubt know why and how.// At this, Starscream wavers, almost as if he wanted to fade out again, but remains.

//Do you really want the details? Do you want to know how my blade cut his throat?// Starscream looks away, out across the Oregon landscape, as if he didn't trust even his other self to see his face as he speaks. //I had to do it that way, do you understand? With my hands. I couldn't just shoot him from a distance. Not him.// Starscream is silent for a moment, watching the landscape with a gaze that's both wistful and angry, as if to blame it for what happened.

//You know what's the strangest part?// he finally adds, turning to face his other self again. //During the last moment...

[attair_al_fada]

His own thoughts are a jumble--too many things to say first and now, things he has to ask. Anguish, not for himself, but for.. himself. Starscream sees too well the tragedy the other Starscream has precipitated for himself--and has only halfway-grasped.

Starscream shudders, and rubs his throat with one pale blue hand as the other Starscream talks. Then he knew what one of the differences, perhaps the precipitating difference that led to all others had to be.

//I know. I know!// There's an intensity of passion and pain behind that cry. He steps in close, unable to resist the loneliness and pain that calls out to him, because it is his own. He steps in close, flexing one wing back to avoid getting entangled with the other's wing, slipping one arm around his counterpart's waist, laying his head on the other's cluster bomb launcher.

"Trust me," he whispers. "You are me, and I know you too well, flaws and folly and all."

// I think I do understand... but I've had the chance to get to know Sky all over again. Five million years followed

[air_commander]

Had it been someone else approaching him, Starscream might have balked at the touch. But this is him, the one he can hide nothing from because they indeed know the same pain, and he has been so lonely... Thus, Starscream finds himself accepting the other Starscream's touch without resistance as that Starscream offers solace and seeks to understand him the way he hasn't understood himself before.

//I... Things went back to normal once Megatron had calmed down. But that's not what you're asking, is it? You want to know what happened with Skyfire. I didn't see him often after that, other than - when I did it. Maybe he was avoiding me. He must've hated me. I would've killed him too, not to mention the Terran life he so held dear. Maybe he just stayed away in disgust after that. Maybe he stayed away because it was the only way for him to not go and repay me, and he...// Starscream stops, not yet daring to put in words the conclusion he just arrived at.

//Maybe that's why I did it, too - I was so sure he hated me, so why let myself keep

[air_commander]

((ctd. from above))

Starscream's normally-fast mind is racing, and yet it seems to take him ages to process what's going on. Skyfire (and that's how he thinks of him at the moment, emotions to strong to draw a rational distinction between this Skyfire and the one he'd, in his foolishness...) seems to want to - touch him? But how? How can he ever touch his Skyfire again, after all that had happened? After all he had done?

The disconnect between Starscream's thoughts and feelings and Skyfire's unerring gentleness is too great for Starscream to react other than by remaining rooted to the spot, trembling, looking at Skyfire like one starved and exhausted would look at a container of fresh fuel but, for all the world and for all his famed boldness, not daring to come closer.

[attair_al_fada]

Skyfire lays one hand feather-light on one of the other Starscream's air intakes. For a moment he just lets it rest there, letting that Starscream feel his living touch. He can feel the other trembling, again like some skittish wild creature, torn between need and fear.

"It's all right," he says. Skyfire's spark aches at the other's pain and confusion; he had hoped never to see Starscream in that kind of pain again. He resists, for the moment, a powerful urge to pull the other to him and hold him tightly. The other Starscream is still too fearful--Of what? Skyfire wonders--and just might bolt at that much.

His own Starscream leans into him, relaxed and smiling ever so slightly. This Starscream reaches out one pale blue hand to gently caress the other's shoulder--or rather, arm cannon.

[air_commander]

When Skyfire takes the initiative and touches him, Starscream shimmers again for a brief moment, ready to fade out - and then decides otherwise and remains in his solid form. There is no other movement at first, nothing but staying still (like Skyfire held still that dreadful moment, his mind screams) and getting used to that touch again, even though the loudest part of his mind tells him that he shouldn't, that getting used to it again, needing it again, would only make it hurt worse, that he should run far, far away.

The other Starscream, the one who seems so comfortable in Skyfire's arms (how can it be?) touches him, reassuring him with a gentleness he can't not trust despite it all because it's coming from his own other self, and Starscream stays, though his optics are wild like wind-blown fire.

[attair_al_fada]

Gently, so gently, Skyfire draws the other Starscream to him--or perhaps he pulls himself to the other. He can no longer resist his own primal drive to comfort the one in pain, to lend his strength to one he loves--whichever one. He holds him lightly, yet with a firmness that speaks of a refusal to turn away, no matter what.

"Now," he says, looking from one dusky face to the other, "is someone going to tell me just what is going on? You," he looks at his Starscream, "have asked me a lot of very disturbing hypothetical questions, and I've jumped to some obvious conclusions, but I also remember one of the prime rules of deep space exploration: 'Jumping to conclusions is a good way to jump to permanent deactivation