Chapter 4: Which is Full of Memories
The transport dropped the two Seekers off at the back entrance to their family estate, towering high over the streets of Vos. Skywarp ran ahead to scurry through the door while Starscream paid the driver and sent him off. Once upon a time, they would have had their own private transports on call at all hours of the day, but he had gotten rid of all of the staff when he came home. He'd meant to hire new ones, but just hadn't gotten around to it, somehow.
Now, he bit back a groan as he stepped through the door and saw the daily energon delivery waiting for him just inside the entrance where he had put it that morning before rushing off to work. He would have to process it sometime that evening before going to bed. Or maybe they could get by on what they still had in the cooler. A quick look told him that they could if he skipped his evening fuel. With the way his internals were still flip-flopping every few minutes, he had no problem with that. It would make things easier if he just switched their deliveries over to pre-processed energon, but that too somehow just hadn't ever gotten done.
He looked around at the rest of the kitchen. There were stacks of empty energon crates in one corner of the room and used processor tubs were spilling out of the sink. Something sticky squeaked under his foot when he shut the cooler, but he was too tired to deal with it now. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been too tired to deal with it.
Before he left, he grabbed a bag of zinc chews out of the cupboard—for persuasion.
"Warp!" he called as he made his way into the back hall again. The sparkling had already retreated somewhere deep inside the house, and there was no reply.
Starscream heaved a sigh. He could feel his brother as a tight ball of resentment resting somewhere just behind his own spark. It was one of the trials of living with a sparkling, especially a sibling—they had no idea how to filter what they resonated over a bond, so close physical proximity meant sharing all of their irrational mood swings. He could close his own end of the bond, of course, but it was also useful in that it made it impossible for Skywarp to hide from him.
He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment until he got an impression of the smell of old datapads and books, thick plush carpeting still heavy with the scent of their father's cologne. The study.
As he passed into the entrance hall, there was a cacophony of skittering clicks on the main stairs, and a moment later, a bright orange Praxian tracker came bounding across the room toward him, several noble opallios struggling to keep up behind it on their stubby legs. The sound of general canine excitement echoed around the cavernous hall for several minutes as Starscream struggled to keep moving under the weight of their affection.
"Get down, Striker!" he snapped, shoving the tracker's pointed nose out of his face.
The dog sat obediently at his feet for a moment, until he walked on and it got up to trot after him. The opallios—Ruby and Pearl, his mother had called them—continued yipping around his heels until he clenched the bag of candy between his teeth and bent down to tuck one under each arm. They wriggled in his hold, trying to lick his face, as he climbed the stairs. He would need to get them fuel later, too.
The study was on the other end of the manor, its windows looking out on the lower sections of Vos sweeping out below them, rather than the glittering, gold and white spires of the city center visible from the front hall and the ballroom. The window was open when Starscream came in, its curtains rustling slightly in what little wind the holoscreen let through, and Skywarp was crouched in front of it with his chin resting on the sill. Striker went straight for him as soon as the door was open, and the sparkling made no acknowledgment of the dog as it began licking his hair up into spikes.
Starscream released the other two dogs so that they could join their fellow and took the zinc chews out of his mouth. For a moment, he just observed his brother. As frustrated as he was with him at the moment, he still had to fight the urge to pinch those pouty little cheeks.
"So," he began. "You're a hairdresser now, are you?"
Skywarp made no reply, but he did pick up Ruby and pull her into his lap, working his pudgy hands into her thick, curly fur.
The older Seeker sank down onto the carpet, leaning his back against one of the bookshelves with a heavy sigh. He opened the bag of zinc chews and shook it a bit. Skywarp stiffened and turned ever so slightly. So predictable.
"You want one of these?"
The sparkling was at his side in an instant, along with all three dogs, but he held the bag out of their reach before Skywarp could grab one of the chews. "How do you ask?"
Skywarp sat back on his heels, his face a study in emotional conflict for a moment, before he muttered, "C'n I have one, please?"
Starscream held the bag out to him again, and he quickly snatched out one of the brightly colored candies. Temporarily forgetting that he wasn't feeling well, Starscream grabbed one too and popped it in his mouth. He regretted it instantly and spat it back into his hand. Striker was more than happy to relieve him of it.
"What's this?" Skywarp asked suddenly, reaching up to pat the bandage on his brother's head.
"Don't touch it!" Starscream hissed, pulling back. "It's a cut."
"Can I see?" The sparkling's eyes were wide with excitement.
Starscream considered for a moment, and decided that anything that won him points with Skywarp had to be worth it; he needed this conversation to not devolve into shouting and petty insults again. He reached up and started peeling away the bandage, wincing as the adhesive caught on his skin and hair in places. Skywarp made a noise of awe as the whole grisly thing was laid bare.
"How did it happen?" he wanted to know.
"Someone threw something at me," his brother answered vaguely.
"What are the black things?"
"Stitches."
"What are they for?"
"They hold the skin together until it heals."
"Did it hurt?"
"Like slag."
Skywarp giggled. "You said a bad word, Star. Now you have to wash your mouth with solvent!"
Woops. "Adults are allowed to use those words," he said defensively.
"That's not fair. Can I have another chew?"
Starscream held the bag out, forgetting that he was supposed to make Skywarp say please first.
"So, why did you cut Brightsky's hair off?" he asked as the Seekerling popped another candy into his mouth.
"She said I could cut a little," Skywarp insisted, suddenly turning sullen again. "And then she said to make it all the same, but when I did she got mad and called the teacher. Honest!"
"Alright, I believe you," Starscream assured him. Well, at least his brother was learning early how fickle femmes could be. "But what about last week? Did the window in the art room ask you to break it just a little bit? And the week before—did Swirl ask you to punch him in the stomach?"
"You already punished me for those. You're not allowed to punish me again," Skywarp pointed out.
"I'm not... That's not the point!" Starscream snapped, and Skywarp recoiled from him slightly.
"Why do you always get angry?" he mumbled. "Daddy never gets angry."
"Yeah, well, I'm not Dad," his brother shot back, reflecting that his father must have softened quite a bit since he himself was a sparkling. "And I'm not angry, either. I'm just... frustrated."
"You sound angry."
"Look, Skywarp," Starscream sighed, setting the bag of candy aside. Ruby and Pearl fell on it instantly, and he had to stop to snatch it up again. It was alright for Striker, but the smaller dogs couldn't handle zinc. The last thing he needed was the two of them purging all over the manor that evening. "The thing is, the people at the academy don't care why you're doing this stuff, they just don't like it when you cause problems for them. If you keep breaking rules, you're gonna get kicked out—you won't be allowed to go to school anymore."
"Good. I don't like that place, and I don't like the other sparklings," Skywarp huffed, folding his chubby arms across his chest.
"Yeah? Well, if you don't go to the academy, then you'll do school here, and I'll be your teacher."
He'd meant it as something of a threat, but the look of horror on his little brother's face still hurt.
"Go... change out of your school clothes," he said, deciding that this conversation was over for now.
Skywarp got up to obey without complaint for once, and Ruby and Pearl went clicking out after him. Starscream stayed on the floor of the study, staring out the open window and absentmindedly stroking the larger dog pressed against his side.
Dogs were nice—loyal, obedient, affectionate. They would love you back just for an occasional pat and a regular fueling. Why couldn't sparklings be that easy?
"I saw your brother today."
Thundercracker looked up and frowned at the femme who had just perched on the corner of his desk.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Really, T.C.?" Slipstream scoffed, tossing her hair back. "I've told you before that you should get a desk calendar at least if you're not gonna use your internal one."
"I do have a desk calendar," he said, using his light pen to push her butt off of it. "What are you on about?"
"You said last week that you could hang out with me tonight!" his cousin pouted as she dropped back to the floor.
Thundercracker searched his memory banks and found that he did have a vague recollection of the exchange. There had been something about her wanting a new dress for some occasion coming up that weekend. He recalled a lot of wailing and sniffling, too, so she must have broken up with her most recent boyfriend, which explained how she'd convinced him to say yes to going out with her.
"I'm busy right now. Come back in an hour," he said, turning his gaze back to the stack of holofiles in front of him.
"We won't be able to finish before the shops close if we leave in an hour," Slipstream whined, worming her way into his lap now. He let her because he knew she would be quieter if he did, even though this meant he now had to reach around her awkwardly to get at the form he was filling out.
One of the other lieutenants in Thundercracker's unit walked past the open door then and called a greeting to Slipstream. She twisted around in her cousin's lap to address the newcomer—a mech that Thundercracker had some notion he might have seen her talking to a lot at parties—and he took advantage of her distraction to finish a few more forms.
"T.C.?"
"Hm?" He looked up to find them both watching him expectantly.
"Are you going to that thing at Sweetrock's this weekend?" the other lieutenant repeated. "We all got invites because I guess the captain's friendly with him. Though I guess you probably would've gotten one anyway."
"I hadn't really thought about it," Thundercracker confessed.
"Oh, he'll be there," Slipstream put in, throwing her arms possessively about his neck. "So will Starscream."
Thundercracker wondered if his brother was aware of this yet, and then remembered what Slipstream had said when she'd first burst into his office. Once his colleague had left, he turned to her, craning his neck back awkwardly to do so.
"Which of my brothers did you see today?" he asked.
"The not cute one."
Ah. "What's he up to?"
"He got attacked by a mob in Kaon today, and Aerial put him on leave. So, he's kinda pissy," she said matter-of-factly. "Which is why we're gonna take him to that party."
"Is he okay?" Thundercracker wanted to know.
"Oh, it wasn't bad. I was all worried because they said he passed out, but by the time I got there, he was sitting up and being a glitch just like normal."
"Mm," he grunted, and then he began pulling tentatively at Starscream's end of their bond just in case. There was a lot of emotion going on over there, but that was nothing new; that was just how he'd been ever since he got back. So, nothing he needed to strain his own limited emotional energy to worry about at the moment.
"Is the party what we're going shopping for tonight?" he asked, turning back to his cousin as he pushed his brother to the back of his mind once more. Her face lit up.
"So, you'll take me?" she squealed.
"Yes, yes, I'll take you," he sighed, setting his pen aside. "A promise is a promise."
She squealed even louder and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
"You're the best cousin!" she declared as she hopped back up to her feet. "If there were more mechs like you, I'd be bonded already."
"As if," he said, also getting up and stretching. "You're barely three million. No one's gonna bond with babies like us. Also, I'm mostly just sick of sitting at this desk."
"Keep telling yourself that," she sniffed, turning to lead the way out of the office.
Starscream woke abruptly in the middle of the night and lay stock still for several minutes, staring blankly at the darkness around him. He didn't remember going to bed, though he did vaguely remember giving Skywarp his evening fuel and coming back to his own room to take a shower. Since he was still in his stained and rumpled work shirt, he must have lain down on the bed and never bothered to get up again. Now, he lifted a hand to his aching head and groaned.
He'd been having a nightmare, but whether it was actually his or one that Skywarp had leaked through to him, he couldn't tell. Either way, as he fought to bring his sparkbeat back to normal, he also had to resist the urge to walk down the hall to his brother's room and check on him. All prior attempts he had made at showing real affection to Skywarp, regardless of the circumstances, had been met with little more than revulsion.
If he'd ever talked to anyone about such things, he would have called it disheartening. Physical affection was an important part of building family bonds for Seekers, and he couldn't help but worry that something was going wrong between himself and Skywarp. It hadn't been like this with Thundercracker. When his other brother was a sparkling, Starscream had often been woken in the middle of the night by a small body wriggling into his bed, which frequently ended with both of them in their parents' bed. It was a custom that had ended up carrying into adulthood, in fact, though sometimes in reverse.
Maelstrom sometimes complained about how often he woke to find his sons squeezed in between himself and his conjunx, but since his usual reaction was to roll over and throw an arm or leg over whichever one was closest to him, neither of them took him very seriously. If he didn't want them there, he shouldn't have gotten a bed big enough for all four of them, Starscream had told him. It was one thing he always missed about home when he was away on expeditions—sleeping together in a messy heap, a parent pressed to him on one side and T.C. on the other, their sparks all humming comfortably across their family bonds.
Sometimes he would still dream that they were there with him, his mother caressing the hair back from his forehead as his father's deep voice rumbled through the mattress. They would talk quietly about politics, or gossip about their friends, or reminisce on things that happened long before he was born, and he would sleep to the sound of their familiar voices. It made it that much worse to wake alone, knowing that the only family member left in the house would probably try to claw his eyes out if he got too close.
He wasn't sure which was worse: when he woke wishing he could swap his reality for the dreams, or when he woke desperate to escape them. All he could do in either case was roll over and pretend that he might fall asleep again, knowing that he wouldn't. Tonight, he gave up after only half an hour or so and finally hauled himself to the shower.
He shuddered as the hot solvent hit his chilled skin, and then turned eagerly into the spray, wishing he could rinse away the stress of the day with the dried energon and residue of Kaon. Kaon...
For several minutes, he stood watching the solvent swirl down the drain as he thought about everything he had learned about the industrial city-state today. Of course, everyone knew that life in Kaon was not as pleasant, but it was just a fact—not something to think about. The people who lived in Kaon had been protoformed to live there; it was their Primus-given function to toil day in and day out amidst the filth and the fumes. If they also happened to have unusually high suicide rates and a rampant drug trade among other issues, well, then maybe that was their function as well. If nothing else, it served to show others what they had to be grateful for in life, as his father had always explained it. But...
The image of the sparkling he'd met that day popped into his mind again—Knockdown, or Kick Off, or whatever his name had been. He wasn't protoformed for Kaon. He hadn't been protoformed at all, for that matter. And what about his mother? Had Primus intended for her to be taken advantage of and left to die bringing such a conundrum into the world?
He sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair as though he could remove the thoughts that way. Some of the solvent ran into his cut and he hissed as it started to sting. Outburst had said something to him about keeping the cut dry to avoid rust, but he couldn't see how he was supposed to wash his hair without getting it wet. He had already called for their family medic to come take a look at it tomorrow, anyway.
Eventually, he turned the spray off and wandered back out into his bedroom. He felt fresher, but the clenching in his stomach that he always got in the middle of the night was still there.
As he was on his way to flop naked and dripping wet back onto his bed, his foot hit something and he swore as he stumbled in the dark—unsurprising really, giving the state of his room. His flailing hand found his bedside table, and he crept along it until he felt the switch for the lamp. The light revealed his suitcase from his trip to Altihex, still lying open and half-unpacked in the middle of the floor. He sighed and reached into it. If he was awake, he might as well do something useful.
When he picked up the first shirt (one he had let sit there for so long because it was such a ghastly shade of green), something slid out of the folds of fabric and thumped back into the suitcase. He looked down curiously and saw the book of poems he'd bought to read on the transport. He'd completely forgotten about it.
The slim volume fit comfortably in his hand as he picked it up and flicked through its pages. Books were a waste of resources, he knew, but they were so much more satisfying to hold than a datapad.
He stopped as a snippet of one of the verses caught his eye:
All this, you say, will carve us as instruments
Fit to play the songs of life
To raise misery into a symphony
In harmony with light.
He snorted before flipping the page, remembering that he'd thought when he first read it that it sounded like the kind of sentimental turbobull scrap that T.C. had taken to spouting lately, though with much more flowery wording, of course. He couldn't help but feel it wasn't up to snuff with the other poems in the book, either; its metaphors were too obvious and it lacked a solid rhythm or rhyme. No, he preferred the rest, even the other outlier, entitled "The Wait," which was a gritty depiction of a gladiator on standby to enter the ring. The poet had used the weight of his sword as a metaphor for the lives he'd taken throughout his career. An obvious pun, perhaps, but well-executed, nonetheless.
Starscream flipped to the poem now, grateful for the distraction from his earlier thoughts. As he read through it, his mind drifted back to the gladiator he'd met earlier that day—Megatron. Regardless of his battle scars, Starscream couldn't imagine such an eloquent, well-read mech being the sort who would kill for sport. He decided that Megatron must be the sort of gladiator who avoided the death matches, like the hero Archaeus that his mother used to tell stories about—a noble warrior forced to fight for the sake of those he loved without taking any pleasure in it. It was a romantic notion that he decided would suit his handsome gladiator nicely.
He let himself smile at the thought before turning to the next poem, losing himself in the little tales of everyday life, each with a hidden, deeper meaning waiting to be discovered.
He'd always liked poetry; his mother often read it to him. She wouldn't have approved of this poet's style, he didn't think, but he did. Their words fell on his mind in drops and bursts of condensed images only to explode out in places with sections of passionate verse that put him in mind of the old epics, and as he read on, for once, he was okay with the fact that he wasn't going to get any more sleep that night.
Saturday afternoon found Thundercracker returning to his childhood home for the first time since... Well, he was certain he must have stopped by to visit at some point since Starscream came back, but he couldn't think when.
The first thing he noticed was that the hanging sterling trees in the front of the manor were in desperate need of a trim; they'd practically grown over the entire entrance. He and Slipstream had to make their way around to the back instead.
"What in the Pit have the cleaning 'bots been doing?" Slipstream demanded in disgust when they stepped through. The back entry was ripe with the scent of over-crystallized energon, and there was a fine collection of small footprints leading down the hall that Thundercracker knew his mother never would have allowed to marr her carpets for long, even in what was technically the servants' section of the house.
"I think," he said as he made his way inside, pausing briefly to frown at the debris in the kitchen, "that they may not have been here for a while."
"How gruesome," Slipstream remarked as she too peaked inside. "Well, at least they can't have destroyed too much of the house between just the two of them. Where are they?"
Her question was partly answered a moment later when the door at the end of the hall crashed open and Skywarp came rocketing through it, followed by Striker.
"T.C.!" the sparkling squealed in delight, launching himself at his brother. Thundercracker caught him and spun him around with equal delight, nearly tripping on the over-excited canid in the process.
"Missed you!" the older Seeker declared, pressing a sloppy kiss to his brother's cheek. "Ugh! But what are you covered in?"
Skywarp laughed as Thundercracker fervently wiped his mouth. "I was painting the ballroom and I saw you come in on the security," he replied.
"Does Starscream know?" Slipstream asked, her eyebrows shooting up as she finally saw the paint splatters that both of them had missed in the half light of the hall.
"He's still asleep," Skywarp whispered conspiratorially. "But he'll like it. He likes red."
"I see," Thundercracker said, exchanging a look with his cousin. "Er, why don't you show Slipstream your project, and I'll go wake up Starscream."
"No!" Skywarp yelped, wrapping himself suddenly around his brother like a limpet. "Don't wake him up yet! He'll make me stop!"
"I thought you said he was going to like it," Thundercracker wheezed, the sparkling's shoulder digging into his throat.
"Oh, don't you worry about it, Warp," Slipstream said, moving to unwrap his arms so that Thundercracker could get some fresh air. "I'm sure T.C. can keep him upstairs long enough that we can finish together."
Thundercracker sincerely hoped that she wasn't actually planning on painting his family's ballroom. It had been a rather tasteful ivory with gold accents as long as he could remember, and he'd prefer it stayed that way. But he would have to survey that damage later. For now, he pushed Skywarp off on Slipstream, assuring him that he would indeed keep Starscream out of the way for the next hour, at least, and made his way up the back stairs while the other two headed for the ballroom, Striker trotting along with them.
He was ever so slightly put out by that. Striker was technically his dog, after all, but that was what he got for never being home, he supposed.
There was no answer when he knocked on Starscream's door, even after he pounded on it so hard he half-expected it to cave in. With a sigh of exasperation, he reached over and wrenched the cover off the control panel. It took only a second or two to rearrange the wires inside so that the door unsealed and started to slide open. He pushed his way through before it had finished.
"Star! What the Pit were you thinking, locking yourself in here!? What if Skywarp—" He stopped short as he realized that the lump in the bed was not, in fact, his brother, but simply the covers, bunched up and shoved aside. There was a good amount of debris lying on the bed as well as thrown about the room—clothes, books, empty energon cubes, even what looked like jars and bags of samples from his expeditions.
"Star?" he called, turning about slowly in the middle of the space. There was no reply. He tried the bathroom, but that was also empty.
Thundercracker frowned, chewing his lip for a moment while he tried to decide whether to be angry or concerned. He tentatively prodded through their bond. There was no reply, which could mean that either his brother was ignoring him, or he really was asleep somewhere. A second, more intense prod got him a rush of garbled impressions, and he realized where Starscream was. He sighed again and headed out down the hallway.
The door to their parents' room was not locked, but he paused on the threshold as it slid open. This had been a place of refuge his entire life, but now every inch of the room was saturated with ghosts. The last time he was in here, his mother had been sitting there by the vanity, spraying herself in a cloud of her favorite perfume. He could still smell it, he realized, and almost expected her to come drifting out of the bathroom and ask him to fasten up the back of her dress.
He walked toward the bathroom now, ignoring the small lump under the covers of the bed as he did, and flicked on the light to illuminate the palatial space. It looked like nothing had been touched; they might have just walked out of it on their way to meet with friends. His father's razor was still sitting by the sink instead of in its ornamental stand, a few dark hairs clinging to the blades, and his mother's favorite lilac towel was lying in a heap on the floor by the tub. Thundercracker leaned against the doorway for a while, just taking it in, until a muffled snort from the room behind him pulled him back to reality.
Starscream was lying sprawled on his stomach in the middle of the bed, fast asleep. He somehow looked even smaller than he had the last time Thundercracker had seen him, but that could have just been because the bed was so large. What was definite was the shadow of stubble on his face, the dark circles under his eyes, and the positively grisly bruise around the cut on his forehead, which ought to have been under some sort of bandage.
Thundercracker made his way over to the bed and climbed into it, not bothering to take his shoes off. He settled down on top of the covers just beside his brother, who shifted slightly without waking. There was a certain reek about him, but not of high-grade, as Thundercracker had feared. It was just the general smell of a mech who hadn't showered in far too long. He noticed a book lying next to his hand as though it had slipped out when he fell asleep. It was a small book, slightly old, with nothing but the words "About Life" stamped across its cover. He picked it up and flipped through it, surprised to find it contained nothing but poems. It had been a while since he'd seen Starscream reading anything other than scientific texts.
After another minute or two, he reached over and laid a hand on his brother's back.
"Star?" he called softly, and then a bit louder when he got no reply. Starscream continued to sleep, so he gave him a good shake.
Starscream woke with a sharp gasp and a violent jerk. The blurry, confused look on his face as he pushed himself up onto his elbows would have made Thundercracker laugh under normal circumstances.
"Oh, it's you," Starscream mumbled after a moment of staring at him, and then flopped back down on the pillow as if planning to fall asleep again.
"What time did you go to sleep last night?" Thundercracker asked before he could.
"This morning. After I got Warp his breakfast," came the muffled reply.
"When did you start sleeping in here?"
There was a long pause this time, and Thundercracker reached over to shake him again, thinking he'd fallen asleep after all.
"Get off! A few days ago. What do you care?" Starscream snapped, shoving him away.
"I just don't want you to get Mom and Dad's room looking like yours."
His brother glared at him, the circles under his eyes and his wild hair making it more impressive than usual.
"I was just making a joke," Thundercracker sighed.
"It wasn't funny."
"What's this book?" the younger Seeker asked, looking for a change of subject.
"Just something I found," his brother mumbled, snatching it back. "Go play with Warp, or something. I'm sleeping."
"Slipstream's with him, and I think you've slept enough for one day," Thundercracker said, tugging the covers off. Starscream hissed, curling into a tight ball with his back to Thundercracker as the cold air assaulted him. He hadn't been wearing much beneath the covers.
"Why is Slipstream here?" he whined.
"We're going out tonight. You too. We already got a sitter for Warp."
There was a pause, and then Starscream turned to him, a look of utter horror stamped across his face. "You traitor," he hissed.
"Starscream—"
"No! I can't believe you would conspire against me with that... that... mother of scraplets!"
Thundercracker frowned, hoping that Starscream didn't use that kind of language around Skywarp. "Oh, come on! You love going to parties!"
"Well, I don't anymore! Get out! I don't wanna go! I don't feel good!" he rolled back over onto his face, trying to pull the blankets out of Thundercracker's grasp to recover himself. He gave this up quickly as an exercise in futility and just laid there, pouting at the lamp on their father's nightstand.
"It might be fun," Thundercracker wheedled. There was no answer. He reached over and ran a finger down one of the red and white strips of metal curling between his brother's shoulder blades and down his back—his wings. Starscream shivered, but didn't push him away, so he persisted, shifting so that he could dig his knuckles into the pliable metal and ease out the stiffness. He doubted Starscream had gone flying anytime in the last few days.
"You need a shower either way," he said after a while. "You smell like the locker room at the barracks."
"Fine," Starscream finally sighed. He sat up and Thundercracker started edging him out of the bed. "But I'm not going to that party."
