Chapter Nineteen
"Ow! Owww! You're doing that on purpose, aren't you, you great lug!?" Starscream squealed, pulling away from Soundwave yet again.
The intelligence officer huffed slightly and shot what would have been a pleading look on anyone else over the Seeker's head to Megatron. His commander shrugged as if to say, "What do you want me to do about it?" and went back to eating the bread he'd gotten from Primus-knew-where at this hour of night. Soundwave frowned; if Megatron insisted on damaging his SIC, the least he could do was be the one to patch him up and deal with his whining afterward.
"Hold still," the TIC ordered yet again, grabbing Starscream's face in one hand and resuming his cleaning efforts with the damp rag he held in the other.
Quite a lot of blood had dried onto the Seeker's face in the time it had taken them to pilfer a smoldering log from Anoushka's fire, stoke up their own from it, fetch some water, and boil it. Megatron had dithered around and muttered about it being unnecessary, that Starscream was just fine, that regular water would work just as well, until Soundwave had given him a long lecture about germs and infections. And then they had gotten the fire going properly and could finally see how much the bruising and swelling had spread across Starscream's face in the time since the sunlight had properly disappeared. Megatron was silent after that.
Soundwave suspected that the cartilage in Starscream's nose was broken, and was wondering if it was worth it to take him to the clinic the next day. It looked like he would have trouble breathing if his nose swelled much more. It could have been worse, though; just a few weeks ago, it would have been much, much worse.
"You look a hell of a lot better like that, Screamer," Slipstream commented as she passed by them.
Soundwave prepared himself to stop the Seeker launching himself at his cousin, but Starscream just made a sound of annoyance and rolled his eyes. Slipstream was visibly taken aback by this lack of reaction.
"I mean," she continued, hands on hips, "I've been forgetting lately that you're just Megatron's bitch, but this look really shows it."
Starscream's jaw twitched slightly, but he still said nothing.
"That is to say—"
"Slipstream," Soundwave interrupted her. "Go tell the twins that I expect them to be in bed by now, please."
The femme hesitated just a moment before turning on her heel, hair whipping out in a curtain behind her, and retreating into the hut from whence the sounds of overly excited twins were emanating.
Soundwave watched Starscream more carefully as he dabbed the last bits of more stubborn blood from his face. As much as Starscream had complained about his rough treatment for the duration of the operation, it was nothing to his usual attitude. He hadn't tried to hit Soundwave in retaliation, for one thing, and neither had he screamed nor really raised his voice much at all. Either the talk he'd had with Megatron had been more effective than Soundwave had expected, or...
"What are you doing now?" Starscream demanded, jerking back from the hand that Soundwave had placed on his forehead.
"Your temperature is elevated," the intelligence officer informed him.
A few feet away, Megatron's head snapped around to face them.
"Of course it is!" Starscream griped at his fellow officers. "All that stress in that infernal heat... Anyone's temperature would go up!"
"Wasn't an elevated temperature a symptom of the illness that Skywarp is suffering from?" Megatron asked, ignoring his second.
"I'm feeling fine," the Seeker insisted. "Other than this nice trophy you gave me."
Megatron frowned at him. "You should rest," he said.
"No, really?" Starscream retorted, eyes widening in mock amazement before turning back to Soundwave. "Am I done yet?"
"Yes," his makeshift nurse replied. "Tomorrow, I think it would be wise to visit the doctors."
Starscream grumbled something under his breath as he climbed to his feet and disappeared back into the shack. When he had gone, Megatron shuffled a little closer to the former satellite.
"I thought you said the illness was transmitted through body fluids," he murmured.
"Influenza usually is," Soundwave replied. "It is possible that this is not, in fact, influenza."
Megatron groaned and rubbed his temples wearily. "At least he can't whine while he's busy throwing up."
Thundercracker had felt a wave of guilt when he'd heard the first blow—Megatron had been so much gentler with his brother lately that he'd thought it would be okay to leave him. He'd waited, poised to run out and create some kind of distraction if need be, listening for more blows, but none had come. His brother had wailed and shrieked for a good long while, and then it was just over. He hadn't even heard Megatron yelling at all. It was the strangest disciplining he'd ever witnessed.
Not that he was complaining. When the two of them came back into the hut, Starscream's face covered in blood and tears, they had seemed more relaxed around each other than Thundercracker had seen them in hundreds of millennia, and that could only be a good thing.
Thundercracker didn't need anything else to worry about with Skywarp being in the state that he was, and Starscream hated his older brother worrying about or fussing over him anyway. Still, he couldn't fully suppress the fraternal guilt he felt at not even thinking to find out how Starscream was doing with all of this.
Slipstream was arguing with the twins about getting into their mound of blankets when Starscream finally came back inside. The two boys were currently engaged in seeing who could run around the room the fastest, and one of them bowled straight into their Air Commander just as he crossed the threshold, sending the light-weight Seeker tumbling to the ground with a twin on top of him. The other twin tripped over the both of them a moment later.
"What the frag are you doing!?" Starscream shrieked, bringing his arms up to protect his injured face as both twins tried to disentangle themselves from him in the dark of the hut.
"Sorry, Screamer!" an amused voice called out from somewhere.
Thundercracker heaved himself up from his position at Skywarp's side to rescue his other brother.
"Alright, alright!" he called over the din, grabbing hold of a twin and tossing him to the side. Whichever of them it was, he giggled in delight as he flew several feet through the air and then came running straight back for more.
"No!" Thundercracker told him sternly, and he disappeared into the darkness with a huff. "Go to bed already, you two!"
"Like I've been saying this whole time!" Slipstream added.
Thundercracker rolled his eyes at the whines of protest that rose up before turning to help Starscream back to his feet. To his surprise, Starscream did not shove him away, but rather leaned into him slightly once he was standing again.
"Are you alright?" Thundercracker asked. "You feel warm."
"I'm just tired," Starscream replied, pushing away and heading to his sleeping area.
Thundercracker followed. "Let me feel you again, just to be sure."
"I'm fine!" his brother snapped at him as he sank into his and Megatron's pile of blankets and started arranging them around himself.
"Starscream?" the older Seeker tried, squatting down beside his huddled form.
There was no reply, but Thundercracker had not been Starscream's older brother for so long without learning patience.
"How do you deal with it?" Starscream asked suddenly.
"With what?" Thundercracker wanted to know.
"This," his brother clarified, and in the little bit of light inside the hut, Thundercracker saw his hand gesturing to the whole of him. "Being human."
Thundercracker hesitated a moment before deciding that, yes, he was serious and not just trying to change the subject. He wasn't sure that he could answer the question, though. He had been wondering the same thing for a while now—why did he find being human so much easier than some of the others? He didn't want to stay this way, that was for sure, but he didn't feel like his whole world was falling apart the way that Starscream apparently did.
"Well," the older Seeker began, trying to put his thoughts into some sort of logical order. "I guess I just keep reminding myself that it's not forever. Every time something new and horrible comes up, I just tell myself that I can stand anything for a few weeks or months or even a couple of years. We've already dealt with some pretty horrendous slag, after all."
Starscream gave a snort, followed by a quick, "ouch!"
"So, what if we can't turn back? What then?" he demanded.
Thundercracker paused a lot longer this time. He wasn't about to confide his deepest fears in Starscream of all people, but if there was any advice he could give that might help his little brother regulate a bit better, then that would be beneficial to everyone.
"I've started compiling lists in my head of things I could enjoy about being human," he said eventually.
"Like what?" Starscream snapped, and Thundercracker heard him shifting a bit, as though he were reeling back from him in disgust.
"Like being part of a species whose planet isn't totally slagged?" Thundercracker suggested, and for once, it seemed that Starscream had nothing to say to that. The other Seeker continued: "Having a chance to start over in a place where no one has a reason to hate us yet, not having to fight Autobots anymore, maybe having a relatively normal life..."
"You really hated being a Decepticon so much you'd rather be human?" Starscream asked.
"I wouldn't say that," Thundercracker shrugged. "I certainly wouldn't have chosen it if someone had offered it to me before, but... Now that it's happened, I think it could be a good thing. I mean, did you like how our lives were going before this?"
"I'm not too fond of how they're going now," his brother bit back.
"No, but we can do something about this. There are all kinds of opportunities to improve our situation as humans. When we were Cybertronians, there wasn't much we could have done other than winning the war. Did you really want to spend the rest of your life fighting for a victory we might never see?"
"Those are some seditious thoughts, Thundercracker." There was a note of warning in his voice.
"Look who's talking," Thundercracker snorted. "Anyway, the shortened lifespan is a bummer, and I sure miss flying, but the food's not bad, and—"
"The food is disgusting!" Starscream burst out. "How do you stand choking down that organic slag every day? It used to be alive for crying out loud!"
"Yeah, but it tastes good," Thundercracker shrugged.
"Eurgh! Just thinking about it makes my insides turn! All of you constantly stuffing your faces... And Megatron is the worst!"
Thundercracker opened his mouth to reply to that when Skywarp's miserably weak voice called out for him.
"I'll be back in just a sec," he sighed.
"Don't bother," Starscream grumbled. "Our darling baby brother needs you more than I do."
Thundercracker hesitated just a moment before shaking his head and moving back to Skywarp's side. Starscream would get plenty of attention without him; Skywarp would not. As proof, no sooner had Thundercracker reached his youngest brother's side than Megatron had returned and was curling himself around his other brother. The sound of their low voices drifted across the room as Thundercracker tried his best to soothe Skywarp back to sleep.
It was just late enough that the first fingers of dawn were shining across the graying sky when the twins woke yet again to the sound of Megatron's bellows. Rumble popped up as fast as he could to glance over Soundwave and Slipstream to the other side of the hut where he could just make out Megatron rising to his feet and apparently shaking something off of himself. Meanwhile, Starscream was trying to get to his feet while spewing vomit despite the hand clamped over his mouth. He slipped in the puddle of what he'd already ejected and landed on his butt with an amusing splat. The Seeker sat still for a moment, and then he let out an ear-splitting shriek, his hands held out from himself as if he was disgusted by them.
Both twins burst out laughing, fully expecting Soundwave to sit up and tell them to stop any second now, and not minding in the least when he didn't.
"Stop that racket!" Megatron snapped at both Starscream and the twins.
"I don't wanna be human anymore!" Starscream wailed as Megatron sank back to the ground beside him, clutching his head in his hands.
"Shut up already!" Slipstream whined, rolling over to cover her ears with her blankets.
Thundercracker was sitting up now, too, trying to assess what was going on.
"Soundwave?" Megatron called from the other side of the room. He was sitting hunched over with his head still held tight in his hands, and his voice sounded strangely weak and shaky. "Soundwave!" he repeated more urgently when his third didn't respond.
"Hey, Soundwave!" Rumble turned to his creator and shook his shoulder. Soundwave's response was to reach out and grab hold of the boy's arm in one large, sweaty hand.
"Soundwave?"
Rumble and Frenzy both leaned in now to examine their creator. His eyes were screwed shut tight almost as if he was in pain, and his breathing was quick and shallow.
"Slipstream?" Frenzy called, all amusement suddenly draining out of his face. "I think Soundwave is..."
He didn't finish because that was when Soundwave started vomiting.
Skywarp, Starscream, and Soundwave were all too sick to move. Megatron really was too sick to be up and about, too, but insisted on trying anyway. He was stumbling around with his eyes half shut and leaning on walls every couple of steps. So far, he had managed not to throw up, at least.
Perhaps it was the shock of seeing even Megatron and Soundwave affected by the illness, but even Slipstream had shut her mouth and gotten to work clearing out the soiled blankets and floor coverings. Thundercracker and the twins had gone to get water, which Thundercracker was now using to wash congealed vomit from his brother. The bony little Seeker was shivering even in the bright sunshine. Soundwave attempted to clean himself with shaking hands until Slipstream took the rag from him and swatted his hands away with a hissing sound when he tried to take it back.
They didn't have enough clean blankets left for everyone, so they grouped the three invalids together on what was left of their flooring materials and tried to spread the remaining blankets evenly over them. Thundercracker draped the last blanket over Megatron, who had propped himself in a sitting position by the door. His leader grunted in acknowledgment and pulled the blanket tight around himself.
Slipstream sidled up to her cousin as he was started collecting the water containers to be filled yet again.
"What now?" she asked in a low voice.
"I don't know," Thundercracker confessed, trying to ignore the aching in his own head.
Once, as a Cybertronian, Starscream had accidentally gotten a virus downloaded to his processor. It had left him sluggish and unfocused for several days, almost as if he'd been watching the world through a thick screen. Eventually, Thundercracker had dragged him to a medic, who removed the glitch in an instant, and he was off on his way as if nothing had happened.
Nothing of the experience had prepared him for the misery of a human illness.
Sometimes, he was so hot that he couldn't stand it, and he would kick his blankets off, whining for Thundercracker to bring him water. Then, all of a sudden, he would be cold—as cold as the coldest nights he'd suffered so far—and roll himself shivering up to his younger brother's side. At first, Skywarp would whimper or moan indistinct thoughts at him, but after a while, he just shivered back.
He would feel Thundercracker's hands on him, wiping hair away from his sweaty forehead or tucking the blankets around him more tightly, and his fingers would leave trails of fire or ice in their wake every time. The twins ran in and out of the hut every hour or so with deliveries of fresh water, and Megatron was always sitting up by the door, sometimes wrapped in a blanket of his own.
Starscream never really slept, but he wasn't really awake either. He would dream—horrible, confused dreams where he would fly through rough, stormy skies, only to remember that he was human now and fall down, down, down through the clouds. Or he would return to the shanty house to find that Prime had squashed the whole thing with his brothers inside.
After one especially terrifying dream, he woke shaking and crying and reached out for Thundercracker only to feel a much larger hand close around his.
"It's alright. I've got you," Megatron's voice murmured, and another hand trembled slightly as it stroked through Starscream's hair.
But perhaps it was just another dream, because the next thing Starscream knew, Thundercracker was back, pushing water at him. His brother's hand shook now, too, and some of the water sloshed down onto the blankets.
"You need to rest, TC. You're burning up," he heard Slipstream saying somewhere in the fog.
"I'm still better than any of them," Thundercracker's hoarse reply came.
Starscream wasn't very aware of anything happening on Skywarp's other side, but he vaguely noticed one of the twins being tucked in beside Soundwave at some point, the other one hovering anxiously over him.
The world seemed to be humming very far away, growing and shrinking in waves. The sounds around him would be an unbearable rush echoing around his head one moment, only to fade away into near-silence the next. He had no idea if he'd been lying there by Skywarp for hours or days. It seemed there had been at least one nighttime, but the memories were too out of focus to be sure.
Slipstream finally came to lie next to him at some point, and Starscream whined as the young woman's unnatural heat radiated through him.
"Don't. Please, don't, Star," she moaned back at him, and he complied because it was too much effort to complain.
There were snippets and flashes: Thundercracker peering down at him with fear in his eyes, more nightmares, the unbearable cold, the unbearable heat, Soundwave trying to reassure a sobbing twin, Megatron crawling across the floor to get them more water...
At some point, Starscream woke to a strange stillness. On one side, Skywarp's breathing was so slow and deep that it was almost as if he wasn't breathing at all. On the other side, Slipstream was lying half out of the blankets, her limbs in disarray and her hair strung across her sweat-slick neck like a noose. Beyond her profile, Starscream could see Megatron lying face down, halfway through the door of the shanty.
There was an oppressive quality to the air in the hut; it was thick and dusty and settled over them like an extra blanket. Starscream felt like it was impossible to pull enough of it into his lungs.
"TC?" he called, weakly. There was no reply, so he mustered the energy to call a bit louder. Still nothing.
After a few more minutes of deliberation, Starscream pushed himself up just enough to look around the whole shanty. His older brother was nowhere to be seen.
Across Skywarp, Soundwave was lying still as snow and twice as white with a twin pressed against him.
"Frenzy...?" Starscream tried, and the child opened one eye. "Where's TC?"
Frenzy just shook his head slightly and closed his eye again. He didn't respond when his Air Commander tried to get his attention again. Eventually, Starscream laid back down and tried to fall asleep again, but for some reason, he couldn't get the image of Megatron splayed helplessly in the doorway out of his head. He didn't like the idea of his commander—who was supposed to be the most mighty and indestructible of them all—lying there where any of the humans could see.
He pushed the blanket off and started wriggling his way out from between his brother and cousin. Neither made any sign that they were aware of him. Standing was out of the question, so he crawled, shivering the whole way, to Megatron's fallen form.
"Get up," he rasped when he got there, collapsing heavily on top of his leader for lack of a better way to get his attention.
Megatron groaned at him.
"Get up, you great clod," Starscream insisted, pinching at the warlord's arm. "You're embarrassing me."
"Heavy," Megatron mumbled back, shifting ever-so-slightly beneath him. Starscream got the hint and rolled off of him.
With an awful lot of grunting, Megatron got all the way inside and sat himself, propped against the wall, beside his second's limp form. Starscream shivered, and Megatron reached for the blanket he'd wrapped around himself earlier to drape over the smaller man.
"It'll be okay," he murmured, so quietly that Starscream wasn't sure which of them he was talking to. One of Megatron's hands found the Seeker's hair again, but this time he simply left it there rather than stroking. The sensation was oddly comforting. "Keep you safe... Keep you all safe..." he continued, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Starscream closed his eyes, too worn out even to sigh. Dreams in delirium made nice hopes.