It certainly wasn't the first time that Starscream had been in a complicated situation, that was true, but he'd begun to discover that 'complicated' didn't really begin to describe what was going on. He was in Los Angeles, that was true, but not the Los Angeles that he was passingly familiar with. At least-- none of the other Decepticons were present, and Megatron hadn't swooped down like an avenging fury to finish killing him, so he had to assume that he was.. alone. And while Starscream was perfectly happy on his own most of the time, it was still somewhat disconcerting to think that he couldn't choose otherwise. There was no one to go to, and he was still injured.
Injured, but not entirely immovable. --He'd picked himself up, ignored the screams, and had transformed and blasted off to the outskirts of the city, where he had finally settled down to try to repair himself. It hadn't exactly been going well, though (he wasn't a medic, and it wasn't quite possible to fix his own optic), and the sudden blast of cold had surprised him so badly that he'd actually dropped the makeshift tool he'd been using.
That was a familiar wind. One he'd felt before, long ago, before the war. Before the Decepticons. In a time that he'd tried so hard to forget.
".. Snow?" he queried the air, lifting a hand and letting the swirling flakes coat his fingers. What was it doing snowing? Where was that wind coming from---and the light! His already-damaged optics couldn't even handle it, it was so bright, and he had to turn his face as it flashed.. brighter than a sun.
Something was happening. He felt-- odd. The familiar, steady stream of data that informed him of wind conditions, temperature, internal system operations and errors, that interpreted sensory input, was faltering, changing.
He was growing smaller, his armour melting away, being absorbed, wires becoming muscle and skin--- Starscream was left standing, in human garb reflecting his former colours, in human flesh. He barely even had time to be appropriately horrified, however, before he realised that there was someone else there. A human-- no, not a human at all, no matter the outside appearance.
His Spark ached too much for Starscream to mistake him for anyone else. Skyfire. It was Skyfire, after hundreds and hundreds of millions of years. .. Strange--suddenly, he couldn't speak past the tight feeling in his throat. His vision was blurring; he blinked, and moisture rolled down his human face.
Oh. So this was crying.
"Skyfire," he managed to choke out, and took a hesitant step forward, only to halt. It had been an eternity for Starscream, but.. for Skyfire, it had been just a few moments ago. How.. how could he ever explain? How could he ever tell him about Megatron and the Decepticons, or the war? Did it matter? None of them were here.
He found his feet moving again, quite of their own accord, steps shaky and uncoordinated (how did humans do it?). And finally, oh, finally he was before the other male, and his arms were around him, and the strange body didn't matter at all, because he could never, never think of Skyfire as anything but perfect. Perfect and alive, and with him again, as if the war and Megatron and Starscream's own brokenness had never happened at all.
"Skyfire, you're here," he was saying, and would no doubt be embarrassed later at how his voice cracked on a sob, but he couldn't find it within himself to care at that moment. "You're shaking-- it's cold, oh Primus, how is it possible? I thought you were gone, I couldn't find you!" He knew he probably sounded desperate and a little wild, but he just couldn't help himself.