Until the Dream Ends
Chapter 10
It was a perfect autumn night over the desert in which lay Mount St Hilary and the crashed Autobot starship, the Ark. Blue velvet of the sky blemished only by the glinting jewels of the stars, crisp clear air brushing the grains of sand on the desert floor about in a light and playful breeze. Not a sound disturbed the serenity but the rustling of the wind over the various scarce flora, the occasional distant howl of a lone coyote and the quiet deliberations of a very, very confused robot.
So Starscream wanted to bond again? But not out of any positive feelings for his smaller mate, just out of a desire to be finally rid of the pains of an unwanted connection. Ohh, it was such an un-Autobot thing to suggest, but Perceptor could understand perfectly why the option was tantalising, even though it went against his very base programming to engage in this without love. If there was the possibility – just the slightest possibility that this empty shell that had engulfed his core since that terrible interrogation could be negated, surely it was worth -
He honestly didn't know what to do. On the one hand, to renew the bond would mean to accept it and even invite it, and, while Starscream was certainly rising in the scientist's favour, he was not exactly keen to be the partner of the sadistic jet. On the other hand, he already was the partner of the sadistic jet, in a way... and if it meant that he felt whole again, then wasn't anything worth it?
But what if it was just as bad as it had been the first time? That time, when he thought that he would die? When he hoped that he would die, that his spark would give out and fade away so he wouldn't have to feel the violation any longer? Starscream wasn't exactly renowned for his gentleness... and what if, what if strengthening the connection meant that he would more easily be able to read the seeker's emotions? All that anger, all that hate, he didn't want to be able to feel that, was there any way to block it out? What if Starscream could feel his emotions? Nothing would be private any more, his innermost thoughts, most personal feelings...
Perceptor gnawed uncertainly at his lower lip, staring down at his hands unseeingly as though they would suddenly enlighten him with the answer he was searching for. Next to him, Starscream had apparently lost interest in watching him, staring at the stars again, the expression on his dark face completely inscrutable. What could have possessed him to be so forward? Probably he was just looking out for himself... as always he did.
Perhaps he was really that keen to get rid of the non-consensual promise he had forced Perceptor to engage in. Was there a possibility that the perpetrator of such horrendous crimes suffered even more than the victim?
Oh, why couldn't someone just appear and tell him what to do!?
In his indecision, Perceptor laid down his elbow to steady himself against the trunk, shifting to a more comfortable position. In doing so, he accidentally laid his grey hand on top of Starscream's blue; the seeker flinched bodily and ripped his limb away with a threatening glare, hissing defensively.
"Don't touch me!"
"What on -" The scientist pulled his own hand back as though scalded. "How can you talk about bonding when you can't even stomach me touching you!?"
The air commander bared his teeth as he ran his fingers over the plating Perceptor had touched, as though checking for dents. His shoulders, right up to the tips of the red vents, were tense. A tremor shook his fuselage.
"I do not like to be touched unless I am the one instigating the contact." He said tersely, looking back at the scientist. "Bein' Megatron's scapegoat can have that effect." He bristled at the expression that crossed his companion's face. "Stop that! I don't need your pity!"
The Autobot's temper softened, and again he found himself wondering why Starscream would stand for such brutalisation. "Why follow him, then?"
"Isn't it obvious?" The jet spared his pacifist partner a sideways glance. "I want the power, it's mine by right! I just fight on the winning side."
"But the Autobots will -"
"Lose." Starscream interrupted, sneering contemptuously. "You will lose because you fight to protect, and we fight to destroy. You have so much more at stake than we do. You have more to lose. We, the strongest from Cybertron, hand-selected by Megatron, have nothing but our ambition. We win."
"You... you really believe that, don't you?"
"What's the point of fighting for something you don't believe in?" Snorted the jet, and Perceptor was both surprised and somewhat impressed at the strength of his conviction; he had previously always assumed Starscream to be weak of will as well as cowardly. How very wrong he had been. The air commander might be a coward, but he had displayed impressive inner belief in his own actions.
And that realisation pretty much made up Perceptor's mind. While he was shy and, in his own opinion, not at all brave, he knew that to live with regret was horrible. Would he regret dispelling the curse of non-consent on his own soul, or...
Silently, Perceptor slid from the log and lay on the dry, cracked ground, staring up at the clear sky, the moon glimmering off his azure optics and giving them new depth as he glanced questioningly up at the seeker still sat on the splintering wood. Hesitantly, the microscope pressed his fingers into his own chest and opened the panel to reveal the spherical golden-ochre chamber that protected his spark from the world.
... or would he regret not taking this opportunity and forever having that unrelenting emptiness nagging at his core?
It was time to take heed of the example that Starscream had set forth, that seemed to dictate the whole of the seeker's philosophy; that of seizing anything that might make a situation better, no matter of the consequences. No looking back, no regret...
It was all a matter of perspective, really... just think of it as an exciting new discovery... a scientific adventure...
"L-let's get this over with..." Stuttered the scientist, attempting a small, if extremely apprehensive grin and tilting his head as he looked up at his bondmate, who stared back down at him with glowing red eyes displaying nothing.
Then Starscream swept down over the scientist, carefully opening his own chest cavity as he went, his dark face showing only and ambiguous but remarkably settling expression that, somehow, chased away some of his companion's fear. When he spoke, his voice was but a soft murmur. "You're trembling."
A nervous laugh from the microscope. "O-of course, I'm, I'm absolutely t-terrified..."
"Don't be..."
"Th-that's easy for you to say...!"
"Shut up." It was not cruel.
The gap between them closed. Quite unlike the last time, Starscream was not trying to pin Perceptor with his body, instead supporting himself on his own arms and giving his partner room to move should he wish; this would only work if they both wanted it. Beneath him, Perceptor shivered in an unshakable fear, though restraining himself from grasping at Starscream's arms – because the jet had said he hated touch – instead fisting his grey hands in the dirt by his pelvic gimbal.
Before he shut off his azure optics, he noticed that the Decepticon's crimson had already dimmed to inky nothing. The deep grey lips hung slightly parted, gentle exhalations from the pharyngeal vents buffeting his own pale cheeks, and that was the last the Perceptor saw as he cut the connection to his visual sensors.
Their sparks merged again.
This time, there was no ripping through, there was nothing blocked off, no wall of ice and no pain. No creeping sickness, no rush of all-consuming cold... instead, a spread of warmth took ahold of the helpless scientist from his core and blossomed throughout his whole chassis. Suddenly it was as though a whole weight had fallen from crushing him; he felt alive and free.
Starscream was within him, yes, but, this time he was also within Starscream. He could feel, more clearly than ever, memories and sensations from within the seeker's cerebral processors, and, at the same time, he felt as though he would never be alone again. He imagined doing this with someone that he truly loved and shuddered; if there was this much improvement simply because he had said 'yes', how good could it possibly be if -
Mmm, no wonder bonded partners seemed so happy.
Freedom was suddenly a tangible feeling, tantalising and almost erotically arousing in how forbidden it seemed after his weeks of sheer inescapable slavery. Memories rushed before his vision, both recent and not, some of them happy and some of them less so, but none of them specifically private. Starscream was not venturing too deep, perhaps because of a lack of a wish to, or maybe it was a fear of repeating what had happened last time that stilled his hunger, and Perceptor returned the gesture, skimming barely the surface of the seeker's quick recall centres.
He saw Megatron raising a fist, he saw that same fist hurtling towards his vision, he saw white lights exploding, he saw his own face smiling nervously and muttering something inaudible in the fuzz of the bond, he saw Starscream's wingmates Skywarp and Thundercracker laughing together about something, he saw Optimus Prime straight in front of him, trying to get a clear shot -
"Ohhh!" Starscream jerked upwards suddenly, and Perceptor switched his optics back on to see the problem. The seeker above him was shivering, his optics smouldering sangria and his back arched a little, severing the connection between their sparks; the fingers of Perceptor's right hand had reached up, without the scientist even realising, to brush a single stroke down the jet's left wing.
"Um, I -" The scientist panicked; had he hurt the other mech? Those blemishes over the purple Decepticon insignia looked as though they might be scratch marks - "Sorry, I -"
A noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan escaped the air commander's glitched vocal processor as his eyes flared fiery vermillion. "Ohh, do that again!"
Azure optics widened and Perceptor sat upright, pushing Starscream gently upwards so that their bodies did not clash together as he moved. Despite the connection having been severed early, the desired result had been achieved and he could no longer feel the clamming emptiness on his core. Just the wonderful afterglow that left him fulfilled and happy.
"Your wing?" He questioned fuzzily, quietly confused; usually, Transformer kibble was not overly sensitive. His own microscope dials, on his forearms and on the light cannon on his shoulder, were barely even able to register touch when he was in his robot form. But, as he found when he ran a finger over the smooth grey metal of Starscream's wing and was reward by the jet quivering, the expanses of metal on the Decepticon's back seemed to be bundles of nerves. It was, to put it simply, quite fascinating. "Now why would that be...?"
"Mmm," Another twitch, "the... the platin' is lined with the usual touch sensors on each side, and – mmm..."
"Oh, I see!" That made more sense. Each panel of plating on a Transformer's body was lined with nerve endings in numbers directly proportionate to how sensitive the area in question was. While the wing panels did not necessarily have more of these circuits than other limbs, they were very thin – only just thick enough to consist of two sheets of plating and two systems of nerves, whereas other limbs usually had a base skeleton of metal and gears beneath.
Which meant, in essence, that the wings were twice as receptive as any other part of Starscream's body. Perceptor thought back to that fight outside the nuclear power plant, with the orders to fire at the seekers' wings... he wondered how painful they must be when hit dead on...
Deciding to indulge Starscream just a while longer, Perceptor let himself run his hands carefully over the wings, delighting in the barely-there noises that he coaxed forth from the vocaliser of his bondmate.
So, Starscream was very particular about how and where he was touched. He had shown that he could not abide having hands on him unless he had instigated the contact, except in the case of these tortuously soothing caresses over his hyper-sensitive wings. Kibble had a use at last, Perceptor thought to himself gleefully; he really did learn something new every day. Oh, he could easily have asked someone like Prowl or Bluestreak, whose door protrusions were probably just as sensitive, but discovering for oneself was so much more exhilirating...!
He was glad that he had not denied the jet's suggestion of their becoming willing mates. Yes, bondmates – mutual now, and so much better for it, even if they did still dislike each other... And did they? Come to think of it, he felt that he was beginning to regard abrasive, cruel Starscream as a – as, Primus forbid, a friend...
Finally he stopped his careful exploration of Starscream's wings and the seeker sat back against the fallen tree limply, his fuselage still quivering with aftershocks, staring up at the inky blackness of the star-studded sky, searching for Cybertron. Cybertron, the silent witness to their forbidden indulgences that night. As Perceptor moved to join him, the seeker let his head fall to rest his helm against his shoulder vent.
"That is... much better." He muttered approvingly, running a hand over the canopy on his chest.
As though triggered by that simple action, Perceptor felt a rush of contentment through his soul – it was hard to tell whether it was all his own or partially Starscream's - and he knew that life now would be much easier.
It was too clichéd to last, the scientist thought to himself as another cloud partially blotted out the moon, and, though he wished he would be wrong, he felt that something would ruin the mood very soon now, simply because this was too perfect to last.
He didn't expect that something to be his colleague Skyfire.
The huge white Cybertronian shuttle had come out of the Ark for a bask in the moonlight after yet another day of ferrying heavy loads back and forth, as was his lot in life as an Autobot. He was not adverse to it; he rather preferred it to being an active warrior, as he was loathe to kill or even injure anyone, even the Decepticons. He, like Perceptor, was a pacifist scientist dragged into a conflict he would rather have no part of, and, though he was but a taxi service, it was infinitely more preferable to being a killer.
The moon caught his pure plating, glinting off it and causing it to glow silver, lining the red of his engines with a soft blue-white highlight. His optics burned cerulean, twin polygons of light, as he strolled some small distance away from where Starscream and Perceptor were.
For a small while, he did not notice the two smaller robots sitting peacefully side by side, then he turned his head and could not miss them. Perceptor felt Starscream tense up next to him as the huge researcher locked his gaze with the Decepticon jet. Skyfire's face displayed many emotions in the next few instants: confusion, anger, sorrow... while Starscream's thin visage twisted in a spiteful snarl.
Skyfire turned from the gaze and transformed, disappearing into the darkness over the desert. Starscream continued to stare after him agitatedly, lips twitching apart to bare his teeth.
"Um...?" Perceptor asked, looking after his retreating comrade. Beside him, Starscream growled.
"Skyfire..."
"Well, yes, I can see that... what about him?"
Starscream spat in contempt. "We've got a history."
Ever perceptive, the Autobot recalled Starscream saying that he was once a scientist, once an explorer... And, as far as he knew, Skyfire had been frozen on Earth since before the Cybertronian civil war, and that meant -
"He was your research partner?"
The air commander's expression tautened. "Once."
"So what -?" There had to be something more, had they been more than just working partners, perhaps?
"Keh, he betrayed me and left me."
"But – but I thought that he crashed on Earth on an exploring mi-"
"You thought wrong and this conversation is over!" Abruptly, the Decepticon stood and stormed some distance away, preparing to divert energy through the turbines at his heels and take to the sky, though Perceptor was right by his side moments later. What felt suspiciously like a gun barrel pressed against the seeker's temple. "Wha -!?"
The scientist shrugged a little uncomfortably, his gun arm twitching a little, knocking the tip against the seeker's helmet. "Look, I'm sorry if I touched a nerve, but I can't let you go off on your own. You know that, and I'll have to shoot you if you try and fly away. That's what we agreed."
It was obvious that Starscream was not happy with this; he even brought his arms halfway up to Perceptor's middle before he remembered that his null ray cannons were gone. However, disarmed and defenceless, he decided to take the option of self-preservation, choking down his irritation and, for once, standing down.
"I want to go back in." He said dully, his tone listless.
Lowering his blaster at Starscream's acquiescence, Perceptor inclined his head toward the Ark entrance. "I concur, I should recharge."
"I hope you don't expect me to share a berth with you." The Decepticon snarked testily, turning and walking stiffly towards the crashed space cruiser.
"I'm not suicidal." Retorted the meek Autobot as they entered the Ark, irritated at the abrupt mood swings that his bondmate had – one minute open and relatively talkative, the next a rude and unpredictable mass of malevolence, sometimes with no apparent trigger. "I've sorted it out."
O
"Megatron! Megatron!" Three synchronised voices rang through the sunken starship, and the silver Decepticon leader turned from his studying statistics on a computer screen to focus his penetrating stare on his approaching surveillance specialists, who were rushing towards him with poorly subdued looks of triumph on their faces.
"What is it, Reflector?" He asked, never really sure which robot held the primary brain and always finding himself focussing on the centre of the inseparable trio, never able to remember the names of each separate bot and referring to all of them by their collective.
Reflector grinned in cruel anticipation, waving several scraps of paper at their leader excitedly. "Proof that Starscream is a traitor!"
"Hm?" The gun-transformer took the proffered photographs from the hands of the central Reflector component (was it Spyglass or Viewfinder that stood in the middle? Or did they swap around to confuse him? Perhaps he should blow them to scrap just for the fun of it), flicking through them contemplatively, a smirk creeping on to his regal face as he saw, printed there by his loyal team of spies, the image of his wayward air commander cuddling up with that Autobot scientist.
A harmonised cackle of glee rose from the three smaller mechs before him.
"Permission to melt that traitor for slag, Megatron?"
"Permission denied, Reflector." A grey hand rose to silence the rebellious protests. "Starscream is far from betraying me... yet." Slanted scarlet optics narrowed at the abject confusion on the trio of identical faces before him. "Oh, I have no doubt that he will, and when he next does you can shoot him all you like, but at the moment he is following my orders. In fact, I think that, for once, he is doing very well. Yeeeess, very well indeed."
The trio of reconnaissance specialists cringed in fear as their master laughed fanatically at the success of his own evil brilliance.
O
Perceptor's solution to the problem of guarding Starscream while he was recharging was simple enough, and yet quite effective; he had reconfigured the sliding door of his laboratory to, once locked, open only to his mental process pattern, meaning that he had to connect his cerebral board to the door lock whenever he wanted the door to open, but, if it would keep Starscream out of trouble, then it was worth it. It meant that he could settle into a peaceful stasis, rather than having to keep himself semi-conscious to be aware of any activity the Decepticon took.
The shy Autobot had also gone to the trouble of setting up an extra recharging berth so that Starscream would be able to sleep at the same time as him, and he had carefully configured the controls to match the air commander's programming. After explaining all of this to his prisoner, the scientist had settled into stasis very quickly; he had had a long and extremely draining day.
Starscream did not sleep.
Instead, he had much to think about, much to consider and much to decide, so, despite how his systems ached for stasis, he remained alert and wary.
For the glory of the Decepticons, he said...
The jet opened his chest and ran a careful finger over the extra component, the very same that Perceptor had questioned in his search for other communicative parts previous that same day. Little did the scientist know...
Actually, Perceptor wasn't stupid and Starscream was not a good actor; he would probably give himself away and the Autobot would probably figure it out sooner or later. While the seeker thought that he had convinced the microscope that the spare component was a pain-numbing device (he felt that he had thought up some rather good arguments to the persistent questions about it and why he was still afraid of Megatron, actually), but what with his dislike of touch... he was in severe danger of being discovered.
Oh, how he hated Megatron!
Are you lonely among the Decepticons, he asked me.
Yes, I suppose I am.
The Decepticon cause was important, but, as always, the top priority was indisputably Starscream himself. His happiness and fulfilment came before all else, including his faction. With a quiet noise of disgust, he closed his chest plating again and stared over at the sleeping Perceptor.
He could kill the scientist now, quite easily, and be done with all of this. Flee back to the Decepticons. Megatron would beat him for failing, and that would be that. But fear stilled his hand; he had heard, long ago, that to lose a bondmate was considered the most painful thing able to happen to any Transformer. That was the very reason he had sworn to never take a lover; after Skyfire's 'death', he had been too afraid of falling in love only to lose everything... he hated pain.
Ha, Megatron had screwed that oath up, hadn't he? He'd ended up being bonded anyway...
Not that he had any feelings for Perceptor, of course.
I am the only one I can trust, Skyfire taught me that.
Picturing Skyfire in his mind only succeeded in irritating the Decepticon air commander, who had felt such relief at uncovering his long-lost lover from the Arctic ice only to be betrayed and slighted by the Autobot-sympathiser. Then the traitor had had the gall to attack him, to fight him as though their togetherness had never existed! Skyfire had not been able to understand that life had moved on, that Starscream had changed, that time had continued to flow. Well, it didn't matter. It was Skyfire's loss, not Starscream's – the jet did not need anybody. He was the strongest, on his own.
Something within him twinged as he looked at Perceptor again. Perhaps he had been imagining it, but he had felt – or thought he had felt – the scientist's happiness rush through his spark, around the time that they had bonded. He wanted that back; it had been such a... a good feeling. He imagined that, if he ever acheived all his wants and ambitions, and was finally sated, that it would feel something like that same happiness...
Involving the microscope was certainly cruel, perhaps too cruel even for Starscream...
No, it was for the glory of the Decepticons. Perceptor would be an unfortunate casualty, but it hardly mattered. After all, Starscream told himself sternly, hurting Autobots made the war fun. Even Autobots who made him feel guilty for what he did...
Pff, when did he become so soft?
He seems to understand me, he treats me as a person instead of a tool, perhaps I should not...
Kh, shut up Starscream, you are not this weak. What should you care if some Autobot falls in love with you? Just another thing to laugh at when he realises. Useless Autobot emotions will only get in the way.
A rush of sadistic glee struck the air commander to hammer at his guilt-ridden reverie, and, echoing through his head, he thought he heard Megatron's inane laughter. He considered ripping the custom-made control from his body and crushing it upon the floor, as he had done for his communication apparatus, but he knew that Megatron would know the instant he did that and that the fierce retribution may even kill him.
Unable to keep his base functions operational with the lack of recharge, Starscream slipped into troubled stasis in the berth that Perceptor had rigged up for him, Megatron's triumphant laughter ringing in his audios.