(NOTE: I am currently porting some of my newer work to the "StoneIdol" aacount. Please bear with me as we undergo these necessary changes!)
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CHAPTER ONE
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You would think it validation enough, to be twice verified. There are those who have come to rule Cybertron with only half his acclaim. He's got both. The people have elected him. The Titan has spoken. He is a product of both democracy and prophecy.
One would think with all those sources, his power wouldn't be so Primus-damned hard to hold onto.
#
They've never said five words to each other four million years, and now Starscream has to talk to the Autobot leader every day.
They share terse conversations over the table. Starscream mocks him privately and publicly. He's the relic of a bygone age. He has no real purpose except to give the Camiens a distraction.
Optimus Prime hates him. The feeling is mutual. Sometimes Starscream toys with the idea of getting a City Speaker of his own. Get a Camien to bridge the gap between him and Prime. Get someone else to do the talking.
#
It was different for Megatron. He had that green spark in his chest, that load-bearing one-percenter. He never felt second best to anyone. Starscream is 100% Cold-Constructed knock-off. In the days of his creation him and a forged-bot like Optimus would not even have been permitted to speak.
Or more exactly, Starscream would not have been permitted to speak to him.
#
Sometimes those Autobot blue eyes will dart sideways. They'll slide up and down his frame, thieving the sight of him. Something despairing in that hot glance. Something sinful and starving. It's brief, but Starscream never misses it, and then they'll slide away, deeply ashamed, pretend to look somewhere else.
Starscream always feels slightly dirty after catching Optimus out. Doesn't know why.
#
In the days of his creation a forged bot could order a cold constructed one to service him sexually, and there was not much you could do about it.
Starscream had never permitted it. He'd fought every time. He'd done a hundred different cycles in prison before he ever saw the Senate.
It never meant much, his records. They expected criminality. That was how Cold-Constructeds were. Prone to violence.
#
He likes flirting with forged bots even as he despises them. There's an unspoken social injunction against a Forged mech feeling desire for a Cold Constructed one.
He likes it when the rusted elites look at him with open lust. He has weaponized his own beauty. He uses their desire against them. He will not return their feelings. It's what they don't understand.
#
Prime hinders Starscream's ambition at every opportunity. Every ambitious reach, and there's Megatron's old nemesis in the way, smug and secure in his leadership. Forged Autobot with the Matrix inside him.
Once Starscream grossly propositioned the Autobot leader for sex. It had been the tail-end of a drawn out argument. Some petty zoning policy turned into a moralistic diatribe, a deadlock. Optimus was furious with the delay. Starscream-more familiar with emotionally overwrought leaders who wanted to kill him-had merely been annoyed, and tired, and propped himself on the desk in front of Optimus to open his legs. Revealed his input valvae, both of them, the tight-constructed seals, that lubricant glisten.
"You want this, don't you, Prime? You want to put your forged device into this cold-constructed valvae? You want to punish me for daring to think I'm your equal?"
Optimus had remained silent behind his mask. Had not spoken for several seconds.
When he did, spoken as flat in affect as his Primal decrees. "I don't have time for this, Starscream."
A cold as liquid hydrogen, but not without conviction, and afterwards Prime's breath fell out of him as if he'd been hit.
#
The idea was as much born from an exasperated comment from Windblade's as it was Rattrap's mad suggestion. The citizens of both colonies were living in a state of confusion. On one hand they wanted a leader of their own choosing, but on the other hand, a living Prime!
But the result would mean Starscream having unfettered access to rule both Caminus and Cybertron.
He put it to Her, the Caminus Goddess, sly and seductive, the ultimate politician. The Keeper of the Flame swallowed it, bait and all.
"A sacred marriage?" she repeated. "Between one chosen by the people and one chosen by Primus? It could be the solution to all our problems. Yes. The idea is sound. I will officiate."
As in all great plans, Optimus was the last to know. And honestly, Starscream had only tabled it as part of his mental warfare against the corroded Autobot. He always knew Optimus would refuse.
It would make a good political strategy. Show his inner circle how uncommitted Optimus was.
#
He said yes.
#
Starscream had found out later Optimus had been struggling with his own concerns. He had never been fit to rule, really. More of a brute suited to war, not the Senate.
It was hard to drag him out of the library and in front of a crowd.
There had been some talk in Optimus' camp of an alliance to smooth this age of transition. But it was known how unyielding both parties were. One might accuse the other of capitulating.
They also agreed. A fake marriage could work just as well.
#
The pubic announcement was met with some disbelief.
No, scratch that. A lot of disbelief. Starscream gave a speech about uniting factions and planets, of casting off old ways, of a partnership forged in the fires of Cybertron's rebuilding. It was an inspiring speech, one of his best.
A manipulative political alliance, is what the news-criers called it.
Fake, was the word on the street.
Optimus, when he finally deigned to make an appearance, was evasive in front of the vid-captures.
Why him? Why him? Why do this, if at all?
"Because I love him," he said simply.
#
The ceremony was massive, an even bigger event than his coronation. Starscream stood upon the dais and looked out over the cheering crowds. His spark felt as light and complete as it had ever been.
Lord Starscream.
Ultimate Leader.
Even Megatron had not managed this feat.
Then Optimus joined him, and a shadow fell over his success. Strange you don't think of these things until right at the last moment.
#
"I want the lights out." Optimus said. "When we do it."
Do it? What the hell did Prime think they were? The last thing on his mind was fucking the Autobot. After three days of celebration and aphrodisiac lubes shoved in every port-flap and valve, after three days of simulated sexual scenes designed to coax the new-wedded couple into peak arousal, the only thing on Starscream's mind was finding the best Caminus whorehouse and getting fucked six-ways-to-Diode-day. His valve was puckered and sore from constant excitement without resolution.
"This a fake marriage," Starscream snapped, agitated, wanting to leave, quench his thirst, assuage the ache. "For politics. It's not like we're Conjunx. It's not real."
Even under the mask Optimus looked miserable. "It might not work out that way."
#
It's quite astonishing to be so famous that you're recognized everywhere and the most known person on two planets.
It's not so welcome when three days of premium grade sex-lubricant is making you walk in a knock-kneed shuffle and all you want is the kind of attention that can only be paid for, but you can't get a whore anywhere.
And it doesn't do much for a politician's likeability scores when your unsuccessful quest to have your brain module fucked the hell out of you is broadcast on every vid-screen from here to Kaon the following morning.
A newly married mech shouldn't be seen skulking out of a brothel, and yet here he was, three times life size, displayed over the Ark 1 square. Political commentators made bets on how badly it had damaged Starscream's career, if he would even survive the next election.
Social satirists said I told you so.
Within hours vulgar graffiti appeared on walls all over Iacon.
The political pundits were harsh.
What little else can we expect from Starscream. What did we expect? Honesty? He deceived Optimus Prime within hours of their wedding.
As usual Optimus, lying low and refusing to comment, came off shiny-clean. His reputation was, as always, immaculate.
"Shit Boss," said Rattrap after seeing a faction leader screaming from his pulpit. "All this makes you look pretty bad."
#
"Seems you can't make a single decent move without sabotaging yourself," Windblade said later, when Starscream crept towards the Titan-head, the only place he wasn't harangued by a crown of mechfluid-thirsty media.
She didn't seem so upset. Starscream suspected elation. Optimus could seek divorce now, and Starscream would be ruined.
"Where's Optimus?"
"Like you care?"
He did, actually. The fool was so image-conscious. If Starscream was going to crash and burn, he wasn't going to do it passively. He would damage-control the fallout.
#
The riots began in Tarn. The irony of it, as Tarn of the DJD would not have permitted such pseudo religious nonsense as a sacred marriage, and yet here were the citizens of his namesake threatening to burn down the local council-tower.
And then, in the evening Optimus Prime at last presented himself for the hungry mob. They vowed to bring him justice, to avenge his reputation against this traitor who had cuckolded him.
Starscream watched his enemy on a small vid-screen in his tower. He folded his arms and screwed up his face until the metal in his cheeks made squeaking noises.
"You don't have to watch this, Boss," Rattrap said. "You know he's only going to rubbish you and make himself look good."
Silence, Prime was saying, a harsher tone than Starscream had heard before. You will not speak ill of my Conjunx. This thing that Starscream has done? He did because I told him to.
#
Starscream listened in bewilderment as Prime defended him.
Optimus admitted to impotency, a lack of vigor upon being called to perform. 4 million years of fighting had reduced him in some areas. A dreadful embarrassment, but it was more important that Starscream's good name not be smirched. Had sent Starscream to a brothel despite Starscream's noble protests. It was wrong for a mech not to receive pleasure upon his wedding night.
It was, he said. An ultimate act of charity.
One canny commentator said, I see he's taught you to lie.
Prime waved him away. "I have told no untruth."
#
Now all eyes were on them.
#
Optimus hated the pit-fighting contests, but the citizens loved them, and it was the kind of place where two mechs trying to prove to a fragile world that they were genuinely in love with each other and not a pair of political manipulators from the bad old days might show up.
Starscream heard their murmurs of approbation as soon as he transformed at the entrance gate, having flown out from a meeting of ex-Decepticons wanting to declare fealty.
"You came alone," simpered one fight promoter.
"Lord Prime is busy," Starscream sniffed.
Moments later he arrived. Starscream didn't know what to do. Optimus took his hand as if he were holding a Sparkeater's leash, and they stood slightly apart, clumsy and not in love, neither of them good at pretending this.
There were whispers wherever they went. Starscream half wanted to let go and shout, "You're right. Its lies. All of it."
Are you happy? Someone asked.
The arm across his shoulders was stiff and tense.
"Yes," Optimus said.
#
Awkward hand-holding would not suffice for a relationship in the eyes of the public. In between matches Starscream stood up, made overtly bedroom eyes at a place in between Optimus' smokestack and his head, put on his best camera angle, and when he was certain their attention was held, pulled him into the private rooms, those places where lovers might consort.
Optimus stumbled along behind, clearly not wanting to display any kind of consent, but not wanting to have to make up yet another convoluted public statement.
Starscream knew these rooms. Lay back, aware his silhouette would be visible through the chain mail curtain.
Optimus sat uneasily nearby.
"For Primus sakes," Starscream hissed. "Move closer and put your hand on my leg."
"I don't really feel-"
"Just pretend, you fool."
A shuffle. Hand on his inner thigh, like a corpse had died there.
Starscream pushed his face forward. Ran his tongue over Prime's mask. "Come on then," Starscream said sulkily. "Put some effort into it. Pretend. You know we're being watched."
Optimus stopped. Pulled back slightly.
"If you knew that, why did you go out on our wedding night?"
"This is not the time-"
"I violated every moral code protecting you."
Starscream threw his forearm over his eyes. "Ugh, in case you didn't feel it in that do-gooder self of yours, I had every sex-unguent from here to the Mitteous Plateau shoved inside me over those days. If I didn't overload I was going to be gummed up for a month."
He removed his hand, glared at the bleak faceless individual he was trapped with. "And thanks to you, everything's stuck, inside there. I can't even pleasure myself."
"I gave you the option," Optimus said. "I wasn't going to make you suffer. All I wanted were the lights out."
Humorless laughter spluttered up inside him. "You? You were going to make me overload, you sexless junkyard heap?" His frustrations made him mean. Made him say nasty things. It was this corroded Autobot's fault his vaulted position was so tenuous. "Me? Who has experienced the pleasures of senators and whores? You're not even worth the consideration. Now stop acting so high and mighty and make believe you're Primus-rusting besotted with me so I can pretend you're worth a moment of my time."
He opened his legs, grinning and hating at the same time
Optimus pulled back. His eyes paled.
"What's wrong? Too good to touch a Cold Constructed mech?"
"No," Optimus said.
"Well stop mucking around then. Touch me."
Mutinously, Optimus raised his hands to his mouth. Spat mech-fluid onto his fingers. Then without warning Optimus pushed Starscream down onto the pillows and with two thick fingers penetrated him, one in each valve, slid deep into the last knuckle. Starscream yelped at the unexpected intrusion.
"What the hell-"
His body went into a spasm of paralysis. He had expected fumbling. Not this electric shock. Fingertips inside him, raking over the gummed surfaces, freeing the complicate assembly of wheels and pinions that made up his erotic centre. Manipulated the escapements, and Starscream gasped from the sensation, heard something coming out of his mouth that could have been a sob.
Three deep thrusts then, sending his counterweights spinning. As if from a million miles away someone swept open the chain mail curtain, ostensibly to talk to the newlyweds and congratulate them. Saw what they had to see. Starscream's legs akimbo. Optimus' fingers working enthusiastically in the valvae. Starscream shaking in the preludes to climax.
Take from that scene what you must.
He overloaded too quickly. Powerful shudders jolted through his mechanism. It was dreadfully unpleasant to be so manipulated into such a thing without the accoutrements of seduction. It was as if Optimus had just stuck his fingers in and flipped a switch inside him. He'd heard of whores who did it, to hurry a client along.
It was deeply, horribly impersonal, and when Optimus unceremoniously yanked his lubricant-wet fingers out out, Starscream's limbs gave way. He lay in a weak heap, his own lubricant puddling out of him.
Then Optimus rolled on top of him, and like Starscream had told him to, he pretended.
#
He learnt two things.
Optimus knew that thing the whores knew.
Secondly, if that was supposed to be the mimicry of interfacing, it was dreadful.
The fake-thrusts had no rhythm, no sense of entry or ecstasy. Their pelvises clashed with a relentless hammerstrike, as if he were the forge without the blade. No kiss or touch. No illusion of intimacy. Optimus stared at the opposite wall throughout the act, his mind clearly elsewhere. Small exhalations of effort. Trapped beneath that massive frame, Starscream could do little else but lie there, knowing they were being watched.
It went on and on. No sense of timing. No breath of arousal. There was nothing in this. Then Optimus faked the most implausible overload ever, as if he were clearing his throat or expressing a snort of irony, rolled off. Starscream's overload fluids stained him. He looked at the ceiling, where engravings of Autobot victories were writ in LED stars.
"Have you even had sex before?" Starscream hissed afterwards, frustrated, angry, close to tears. Everything had turned out wrong. He had expected to humiliate Optimus and tease him and make him beg. Or plead. Had expected the same spiteful little exchanges that made those loathed senators and officials debase themselves before Starscream.
Instead it was he who ended up humiliated.
"You haven't interfaced, have you? Nobody could purposefully be that bad."
"No." Optimus said frostily. "Never."
Stood up and left the alcove. And that was that.
#
(TO BE CONTINUED)